A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 3, Sep. 1809-Dec. 1810 : $b Ocaña, Cadiz, Bussaco, Torres VedrasOman, Charles
History
A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 3, Sep. 1809-Dec. 1810 : $b Ocaña, Cadiz, Bussaco, Torres Vedras
Oman, Charles
Peninsular War, 1807-1814
[240] I cannot understand Napier’s narrative of this little
campaign, on pages 352-4 of his vol. ii. It runs as follows,
and seems to have no relation to the facts detailed by Belmas,
Toreno, Arteche, or any other historian. No mention is made of
the four captures of Oviedo!
‘Mahy was organizing a second army at Lugo and in the Asturias.
D’Arco [Arce] commanded 7,000 men, 3,000 of whom were posted at
Cornellana under General Ponte.... Bonnet, from the Asturias,
threatened Galicia by the Concija d’Ibas: having destroyed
Ponte’s force at Potes de la Sierra [30 miles from Colombres,
where the actual fight took place], he menaced Galicia by the
pass of Nava de Suarna [a place which his vanguard did not
approach by a matter of 40 miles].... But he did not pass Nava
de Suarna, and General D’Arco rallied the Asturian fugitives at
Louarca. It seems probable that while Bonnet drew the attention
of the Galician army towards Lugo [he was never within 100 miles
of that place], Junot thought to penetrate by Puebla Senabria.
But finally Junot, drawing a reinforcement from Bonnet, invested
Astorga with 10,000 infantry,’ &c. [No troops from Bonnet’s force
ever appeared before Astorga.]
This last blunder is apparently borrowed from _Victoires et
Conquêtes_, xx. 12, which states that General Bonnet detached
Jeannin’s brigade, the 46th and 65th, to Astorga. But these regiments
did not belong to Bonnet, but were, from the first to the last,
parts of Junot’s own corps, and never entered the Asturias. Compare
Napoleon, _Correspondance_, xx. 21, the muster rolls of Jan. 1, Feb.
15, and Belmas, iii. p. 46.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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