History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year 1807 to the year 1814, vol. 1Napier, William Francis Patrick
History
History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year 1807 to the year 1814, vol. 1
Napier, William Francis Patrick
Peninsular War, 1807-1814
The armies of the centre and right were not better conducted.
Castaños, having quitted Madrid on the 8th of October, arrived at
Tudela on the 17th, and on the 20th held a conference with Palafox
at Zaragoza. The aggregate of their forces did not much exceed
forty-five thousand men, of which from two to three thousand were
cavalry. Sixty pieces of artillery followed the divisions, and the
whole was posted in the following manner:
ARMY OF THE CENTRE, 27,000.
General Pignatelli, with ten thousand Castillian infantry, one
thousand five hundred cavalry, and fourteen guns, at Logroña.
General Grimarest, with the second division of Andalusia, five
thousand men, at Lodosa.
General La-Peña, with the fourth division, five thousand infantry,
at Calahorra.
The parc of artillery, and a division of infantry, four thousand,
at Centruenigo.
The remainder at Tudela and the neighbouring villages.
ARMY OF ARAGON, 18,000.
O’Neil, with seven thousand five hundred men, held Sos, Lumbar, and
Sanguessa.
Thirty miles in the rear, St. Marc occupied Exca, with five
thousand five hundred men.
Palafox, with five thousand men, remained in Zaragoza.
The Ebro rolled between these two corps. Taken as one army, their
front lines occupied two sides of an irregular triangle, of which
Tudela was the apex, and Sanguessa and Logroña the extremities of
the base. Those points being taken as the chord, the rivers Ebro
and Aragon meeting at Milagro, describe, in their double course, an
arc, the convex of which was opposed to the Spaniards. The streams
of the Ega, the Arga, and the Zidasco rivers, descending from the
Pyrenees in parallel courses, cut the chord of this arc at nearly
equal distances, and fall, the two first into the Ebro, and the
last into the Aragon. All the roads leading from Pampeluna to the
Ebro follow the course of those torrents.
Marshal Moncey’s right was at Estella on the Ega, his centre held
Falces and Tafalla on the Arga and the Zidasco, his left was in
front of Sanguessa on the Aragon. The bridges of Olite and Peralta
were secured by advanced parties, and Caparosa, where there was
another bridge, he occupied in force. In this situation he could
operate freely between the torrents, which intersected his line;
he commanded all the roads leading to the Ebro, and he could, from
Caparosa, at any moment, issue forth against the centre of the
Spanish armies. Now from Tudela to Sanguessa is fifty miles, from
Tudela to Logroña is sixty miles, but from Tudela to Caparosa is
only twelve miles of good road; wherefore, the extremities of the
Spanish line were above one hundred miles, or six days’ march from
each other, while a single day would have sufficed to unite the
French within two hours’ march of the centre.
[Sidenote: Sir John Moore’s Papers.]
[Sidenote: Colonel Graham’s Correspondence.]
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
[Sidenote: Col. Doyle’s Correspondence.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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