Cassell's History of England, Vol. 5 (of 8): From the Peninsular War to the Death of Sir Robert PeelAnonymous
History
Cassell's History of England, Vol. 5 (of 8): From the Peninsular War to the Death of Sir Robert Peel
Anonymous
Great Britain -- History
on his return to England was tried by court-martial, and gently
reprimanded, but nothing more.
Lord William Bentinck, after having retired to Alicante, once more
returned to Tarragona, and made himself master of that place.
Attempting further advantages in this country, he was compelled to fall
back on Tarragona with considerable loss. He then returned to Sicily,
and General Clinton took the command of the forces, and strengthened
the defences of the post. At the same time news arrived of the retreat
of Buonaparte from Russia and the rising of Germany, which compelled
Suchet to disarm his German regiments, and march them into France
under guard. He had also to send some of his best French troops to
recruit Buonaparte's decimated army, and the Italian ones to resist the
Austrians in Italy, who were once more in motion through the Alps. In
these circumstances the campaign in the south-east of Spain closed for
the year.
During the winter of 1812 and the spring of 1813 Buonaparte was making
the most energetic exertions to renew the campaign against Russia and
the German nations that were now uniting with the Czar. He called
out new conscriptions, and enforced them with the utmost rigour;
the militia were drafted extensively into the regular army, and the
sailors, whose service had been annihilated by the victorious seamen of
Great Britain, were modelled into regiments, and turned into soldiers.
He sent for part of his forces from Spain; and in the spring he was
enabled to present himself in Germany at the head of three hundred and
fifty thousand men. But this was a very different army from that which
he had led into and lost in Russia--an army of practised veterans,
familiar with victory through a hundred fights. It was necessarily but
ill-disciplined, and much more full of the sense of wrong in having
been dragged from home and its ties than of any thirst of glory. The
cavalry was especially defective, and had lost the commander who gave
it such spirit by his own example. Disgusted by the insolence and
sarcasms of Buonaparte, and believing that his career was about to end,
Murat quitted his command on the 16th of January, 1813, and hastened
to Naples, where he was not long in opening negotiations with Great
Britain and the other Powers for the acknowledgment of his kingdom
as one independent of France, and ranking with the other established
Powers of Europe. Nor was this the only alarming circumstance.
Bernadotte was at the head of an army of Swedes against him--Bernadotte
whom he had driven by the same insolent and unbearable domination
into the arms of his enemies, and whom he now denounced as a renegade
Frenchman who had renounced his country. The truth, however, was that
Bernadotte had been adopted by a new country, and was bound to defend
it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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