Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
Amongst the many daring acts witnessed on the bloody day of Fuentes
d'Onore, that of the Spanish guerilla chief, Julian Sanchez, deserves
notice. At the head of his ragged and ill-disciplined band, he had the
temerity to charge a crack French regiment, and, as might be expected,
was sent back with a sore head. Whilst on the subject of guerillas, Mr
Grattan combats an opinion which he believes many persons in this
country entertain, "that the Spaniards and Portuguese did as much, if
not more, during the Peninsular contest, than the British." Here he is
certainly mistaken. Very few persons, out of the Peninsula, have any
such notion. The French know well enough by whom they were beaten. Loth
as they are to acknowledge a thrashing at the hands of their old
antagonists, they do not dream of attributing their defeats to the
"_brigands_," of whom they declare they would have had a very cheap
bargain, but for the intervention of the troublesome English. And
certainly, if the Spaniards and Portuguese had been left to themselves,
although, favoured by the mountainous configuration of the country, they
might long have kept up a desultory contest, they would never have
succeeded in expelling the invaders; for the simple reason that they
were wholly unable to meet them in the plain. Most true it is that,
during the war of independence, the people of the Peninsula gave
numerous examples of bravery and devotion, and still more of long
suffering and patient endurance for their country's sake. The irregular
mode of warfare adopted by the peasantry, the great activity and
constant skirmishings, stratagems, and ambuscades of Mina, the
Empecinado, Sanchez, and many other patriotic and valiant men, greatly
harassed and annoyed the French; and, by compelling them to employ large
bodies of troops in garrison and escort duty, prevented their opposing
an overwhelming force to the comparatively small army under Wellington.
But all that sort of thing, however useful and efficacious as a general
system, and as weakening the enemy, was very petty work when examined in
detail. The great victories, the mighty feats of war that figure in
history's page, were due to British discipline, pluck, and generalship.
And whatever merit remains with the Spaniards, is to be attributed to
their guerillas and irregular partisans. As to their regular troops,
after they had overthrown Dupont at Baylen, they seemed to think they
might doze upon their laurels, which were very soon wrenched from them.
Baylen was their grand triumph, and subsequently to it they did little
in the field. Behind stone walls they still fought well: Spaniards are
brave and tenacious in a fortress, and Saragossa is a proud name in
their annals. Nothing could be better than old General Herrasti's
valiant defence of Cuidad Rodrigo against Ney and his thirty thousand
Frenchmen. The garrison, six thousand strong, lost seven hundred men by
the first day's fire. Only when their guns were silenced, when the town
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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