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THE GUERILLA SYSTEM IN SPAIN.

[A.D. camp sets himself to erect bakeries, and rarely, if ever, fails in a constant supply of soft well-baked bread. The German, both of the cavalry and infantry, is remarkably provident and careful, when he can get his rations, to secure a good meal to his horse and himself before he commences his march, and will be always seen to rise up betimes before he begins a march, in order to get a hot cup of coffee for himself, and to give a good feed to his horse before he sets off- a practice which well deserves being followed by every campaigner; for I have myself frequently observed the German hussar fresh and efficient when his lazy comrade was utterly exhausted, both in his body and his horse, before the march was far advanced.

In conclusion, it is only necessary to say one word upon the folly of imposing on the Commissariat in the field too many forms and returns. It is not always easy to procure vouchers and receipts, according to established forms, when you are in motion and in bivouac, and some very simple checks might be devised sufficient to provide against extravagance and waste. A French writer, however, says with truth: "Demander dans l'état de guerre et en campagne tout ce qui se demande dans l'état tranquille et commode de la paix, c'est de vouloir rien d'exacte et de vrai: demander seulement le possible, car il n'y est dans l'administration militaire que cette seule garantie; au lieu de nous fatiguer à surveiller la probité des agens et l'honneur des officiers, appliquons nous à la bien choisir."

42. RISE OF THE GUERILLA SYSTEM IN SPAIN.

As the Spanish armies were successively defeated and dispersed, the soldiers," their occupation gone," wandered about and readily flocked to the standard of any leader who offered them an opportunity of covering past disgrace, or of leading a life of greater license under the cloak of patriotism. The French, after their first successes, had been exposed to great insecurity of person and the most intolerable privations, and accordingly spread themselves over the country singly or in small bodies as well for subsistence as to keep the inhabitants in terror and subjection. Various acts of aggression and violence were the natural consequence of the independent action of men with arms in their hands over a defenceless people. These were angrily resisted, and blood often flowed until a deadly strife arose. Many of the peasants were obliged, in consequence, to flee to the mountains to escape retaliation from the French, until by degrees bands of desperate men collected together for defence, which gradually led to an extended and organised system of combination, under which the country people were enabled to protect their homesteads and their women from oppression, and soon to assume the offensive; all weak parties of the French, stragglers or isolated marauders, were frequently encountered and slain; convoys were cut off, magazines rifled, and the communications everywhere interrupted between the French head-quarters and their outposts. Hundreds of young men without any uniforms

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united themselves into regiments, under acknowledged leaders selected from amongst themselves, and these, having a perfect knowledge of the country, could assemble or disperse at pleasure, and at the shortest notice. From engaging in this petty warfare, they obtained the appellation of Guerillas, or little war-makers, being a diminutive of the Spanish word guerra, and distinguished them from regular soldiers.

He

The rugged mountains around Zaragoza became the first mother of a guerilla brood. Baget, Perena, Pedroza, and Theobaldo collected their migueletts, (as they are termed in Catalonia and Arragon, in the Sierra de Guarra, a lofty range containing the sources of the Cinca, from out of whose inaccessible valleys they sallied and harassed the French communications between Zaragoza and the frontier, maintaining, in the beginning a defence, and an intercourse with the Governor of Lerida, while it was yet in the hands of the Spanish regular troops. A leader, named Gayan, in the mountains of Montalvan, who occupied a convent on a high rock called Nuestra Señora del Aguilar, pushed his band down the valley of the Xiloca, on the right of the Ebro, and another, named Villa Campa, established himself near Catalayud, and interrupted the communications thence with Madrid. The younger Mina, called the Student, vexed all the country between Tudela and Pampeluna; and Renovalles, a Spanish General, took the command of the insurrection in the high Pyrenean valleys, where he intercepted and surprised many French detachments. established a principal post at a convent in an inaccessible position, called San Juan de la Pena, in which he placed a subordinate leader, named Saraza, who menaced all the country round Jaca. These Partidas, as they were sometimes called, at length roused the attention of General Suchet commanding the east of Spain, who commenced by dislodging Saraza in June, and afterwards, on the 19th, he effected the destruction of the entrenched camp of Gayan, who was pursued until his corps dispersed; but Saraza, rallying his men, descended upon the French on the 23rd of August, and put to the sword a detachment of 70 men, and Villa Campa, rallying Gayan's troops, formed a new entrenched camp at Tremendal; while Mina continued successfully to intercept all the communications with Pampeluna, so that General d'Agoult, the Governor, was at length suspected and even accused of being privy to his successes. Suchet, however, eventually captured Mina, but his uncle, named Espoz of Mina, immediately took the nephew's command, and soon became the most celebrated and conspicuous of the Partidas chiefs.

In a short time deserters from the French and even from the British armies joined the ranks of the Guerillas - vagabonds, attracted by the unbridled license which such service afforded, and alike indifferent to the call of patriotism and the rights of property. In fact, many of them became rather thieves than anything else, until these robber-bands could not suffer any other Partida to act in what he termed his own district. One of the first exploits

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of Espoz of Mina was to slay the commander of a neighbouring band of this character. Their exasperation against the French became habitually ferocious, and the life of any one, friend or enemy, was alike valueless in their estimation. The treatment which the soldiers experienced at their hands made them in retaliation equally violent; for the soldier naturally becomes cruel in protracted warfare, and the inhabitants of both sexes, young and old, became the victims of violence in return for the cruelties which had been practised on their comrades. In the end, the Supreme Junta, acting as a Regency, desirous of pushing the system to its utmost extent, established secret Guerilla Juntas in every province, enjoining on them the express duties of harassing the enemy in every possible way, sweeping the country of stores and provisions, and collecting them in secret places, under district inspectors and paymasters. Under this arrangement, Franquisette and Palarea appeared in La Mancha; El Principe, Saornil, and Juan Abril, near Segovia; the Empecinado kept the hills of Guadalaxara above Madrid; Longa and Campillo harassed Biscay; Arnon, Merino, and the Friar Sapia appeared about Burgos and Soria; Escaidron held the Asturias between Santander and Oviedo; and Porlier the mountains of Galicia; while Don Julian Sanchez hung upon the flanks and rear of the French armies which were manœuvring in the kingdom of Leon, and threatening to invade Portugal.

43. THIRD SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF GERONA - A FRENCH SQUADRON DESTROYED AT CETTE.

The results of Spanish efforts in the "tented field" had very generally proved disastrous, as already shown, yet the spirit of this wondrous people did not flag, and, as we have just explained, a new and original system had arisen for the national defence peculiar to the geographical conformation of the Peninsula, and suited to the enterprising character of the people of the land. But, | while entire armies disbanded at the very first shot, the inhabitants of cities and towns maintained them against the enemy with a resolution and chivalrous devotion rarely equalled, and never surpassed, in the records of ancient and modern warfare. The name of Gerona has nearly attained to the celebrity of that of Zaragoza. The story of its memorable siege would fill a volume, and the sufferings and endurance of its inhabitants are more akin to romance than to actual reality.* Gerona was more of a fortress than the capital of Arragon, and in its time had undergone many sieges. On this occasion, however, the defence was more due to the superstition of the people than to the art of the military engineer. The honour of the command of the town and principality was formally bestowed on the patron saint, Narciss, who was nominated Generalissimo of the forces by sea and land. A General's staff,

* Maxwell.

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sword, and belt, all richly ornamented, were deposited on the shrine of the saint in token of his high supreme office. Like the crusaders of old, the Geronians took the cross, and swore they would resist to the uttermost. The men enrolled themselves under the command of Alvarez, and the women, both maids and matrons, united themselves into an association, called that of Sta Barbara, to emulate their sisters at Zaragoza by performing all the duties which lay within their power.* In June 1808 the town had repelled a coup de main attempted against it by a French division under General Duhesme; and in the following July the Spanish garrison, assisted by two British frigates, under the command of Lord Cochrane, not only resisted a siege in form, but the French General had been obliged to leave behind him in the trenches his artillery and stores, and to march away, after considerable loss, to Barcelona. In the early part of this year St. Cyr had come down to the relief of that fortress in which Duhesme with his whole force was shut up by the Spanish armies under Vivas and Reding, while a knot of Somatenes or armed peasants infested the wooded hills on every side. But St. Cyr defeated the Spanish armies in an action near Iqualada on the 17th of February, and all regular war in Catalonia would have been ended, but that the fortresses of Tortosa, Tarragona, and Gerona still remained in possession of the Spaniards. It was about this time that Suchet arrived to take the command-in-chief of the French army in the east of Spain, with orders to undertake the third siege of Gerona. It was to be specially intrusted, by order of Napoleon, to General Verdier, who commenced operations before the place on the 1st of June. Notwithstanding the extreme vigilance and admirable arrangements of Admiral Lord Collingwood, commanding the British fleet in the Mediterranean, a valuable French convoy, under Admiral Cosmao, had succeeded in eluding the blockade and in throwing into Barcelona, on the 7th of May, a supply of stores and ammunition, which enabled the besieging force to commence their duties before Gerona with a prodigal supply of everything.

The garrison amounted to 3,400 men, and was commanded by a general of distinction and trust, Don Mariano Alvarez. Since the period of the former siege, the fortifications had been considerably strengthened, and, as the only existing means of approach for artillery passed through the town, the first requisite was to open a practicable path for it. A good spirit prevailed in the garrison, and, when the summons was sent in on the 6th of May, the heroic Governor issued an order of the day containing these words: "Whoever speaks of a capitulation or surrender shall be instantly put to death." The town stands at the confluence of the rivers Ter and Onega. at the foot of a gorge or deep declivity under a bluff precipice, on which are several detached forts, which constitute the real strength of the place. The valley of Galligan is the bed of a torrent coming down from the mountains, which flows under the old wall of the town, and at its source divides the mountain into two dominant hills: that of the Capuchins, * Southey. U

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town.

FRENCH FAIL IN AN ASSAULT.

[A.D. occupied by three forts, and that of Monjuich, on which was a closed work provided with bomb-proof casemates and reveté. The rocky nature of the ground on which these defences were placed rendered the formation of approaches a matter of great labour and difficulty, so that it was already the 13th of June before the fire opened, at one and the same time, upon Monjuich and the The event that was so long in coming was not unexpected by the inhabitants, who had taken every precaution in their power to prepare themselves against it. On the 17th the besieged made an unsuccessful sally, but on the 19th the French got possession of the tower of St. Louis. While Verdier carried forward the siege, St. Cyr occupied with his covering force the fertile country around Vich, but he now moved his head-quarters up to Caldas de Malavella, in order to prevent succours arriving to the besieged, and on the 21st his army assaulted the Spaniards at San Felice, and drove them out of it after an obstinate resistance. St. Cyr, however, disapproved of Verdier's manuer of conducting the siege, but the subordinate officer, strong in the favour of Napoleon, would not attend to the suggestions of his superior, and in the first days of July Verdier endeavoured to attempt to carry by assault a battery of 20 guns, which the besieged had opened in one of the bastions of Monjuich, but failed with the loss of 77 officers and 2,095 men killed and wounded. From this time forward, however, the siege was conducted with greater prudence and skill, many salutary precautions were taken, and the surer operations of sap and mine were resorted to. An anecdote is related of a Spanish drummer-boy in the garrison, who was placed to watch the mines and shells of the besiegers, and as he was doing so a shot carried off part of his thigh. On attempting to convey him to hospital the gallant little fellow resisted, saying, "I have still my arms left me to beat my drum, and to warn my friends of the approach of danger."

The mining operations and fire of the besiegers now continued to commit such ravages in the town that its buildings and defences became entirely ruined and all the guns silenced; nevertheless, on the 10th of August Alvarez made a sortie with 1,500 men and retook the tower of St. John, bringing away the wounded who had been left in it when it was taken, yet on the following night the fort was again abandoned to the besiegers, and the garrison withdrawn into the town. The French were now enabled to carry their trenches up to the very walls, which were at the mercy of their fire from the heights which had come into their possession, and the place suffered horribly, not only from the artillery, but also from the ravages of a fever, which was daily becoming more extended and more malignant, and from the want of provisions. On the 14th15th of August 800 Catalans, under Ramon Fora, got access into the town, but, though this accession of strength raised the spirits of the garrison, the relief brought by the reinforcement was insignificant. Yet no proposal of surrender was heard, and the determination of all ranks to resist the enemy remained unshaken by these calamities.