The Spanish Irregulars
On the 21st June 1813 Wellington’s 10th Hussars drunk champagne from the chamber-pot of King José-Napoleon, Brother of Bonaparte and the cat’s-paw regent to the Spanish throne. The Anglo-Portuguese Army had routed the French, plundered their baggage train and were duly celebrating the victor’s fruits from the Battle of Vitoria, one hopes they found time to disinfect the bed-pan.
The Battle at Vitoria in Basque Spain was one of the end-games to what was known to the British as The Peninsular War, to the French as the Guerre d’Espagne, the Portuguese as The French Invasions, but to the Spanish themselves as their War of Independence.
It was in Andalucía on the 19th July1808 that arguably the pivotal event occurred. At Bailén in the province of Jaén the Napoleonic land army suffered its first defeat. A French army of 23,000 under the command of General Dupont was out manoeuvred, out fought and subsequently surrendered to General Castaños’s Spanish forces. 17,635 prisoners were taken and José-Napoleon abandoned Madrid in favour of Vitoria. The Spanish had shown that the forces of Napoleon were not invincible.
Napoleon was so outraged that he personally led an army of 135,000 which swept across the peninsular, he staged victory marches throughout the provinces, but it was an illusion. Although he defeated the regular Spanish army at every occasion, he never destroyed it, and it was always waiting in the undergrowth ready to leap out and savage him. However the greatest threat to the French was not from the Spanish regulars but from the Guerrillas.
Men and women appalled at the excesses of the French troops took up arms. Bands of up to 2000 ranged throughout Spain. They attacked French supply columns, dispatch riders, stragglers and generally any convenient target. Napoleon referred to their activities as a Spanish Ulcer, but they were to have a profound effect on the outcome of the war in the Peninsular, the fate of Napoleon and therefore the destiny of Europe as a whole.
The importance of the Spanish resistance was not lost on the British; by the autumn of 1810 Wellesley had 25,000 British troops along with about the same number of Portuguese in the peninsular. The French however now numbered 350,000.
So why did Britain and the future Duke of Wellington Prevail?
Of the 350,000 French soldiers in the field, something in the order of 200,000 were required for escort duties. A dispatch rider sometimes needed up to a 2,000 man escort in order to have any likelihood of getting through. Convoys demanded huge escorts making them complex and cumbersome.
The Guerrillas passed captured despatches to the British; shadowed French columns information gathering and harassing the escort. They attacked supply conveys, usually from ambush, cause as much damage as possible and then disperse before reinforcements arrived. The Guerrilla would then reform, perhaps weeks later to cause more mayhem amongst the demoralised French.
The feelings of the French were summed up by Blaze an army pharmacist “the French army, spread in all provinces of the Peninsula, was surrounded by enemies yet had no army to fight. The guerrillas showed themselves everywhere, but one did not meet them anywhere; they were invisible enemies who dispersed or rallied at the call of their chiefs”
Who leads these bands of legalised Bandoleros?
Every province had its Guerrilla, from Asturias where Juan Diaz Porlier, El Marquesto operated to Andalucía and the Malagueño Vincente Moreno Romero. Juan Martin Diaz, El Empecinado was the most famous. Born near Burgos, El Empecinado was initially a farm worker, but by 1811 he commanded a Guerrilla of almost 3000 infantry and 1000 cavalry. El Empecinado was such a problem to the French that they sent entire columns to track him down, all to no avail however. The Obstinate One and his men were eventually incorporated in the regular Spanish army.
The excesses of the French troops in Spain, caused many men to throw in their lot with the Guerrilla bands, it was also the motivation which led to the brutal treatment of French prisoners. The frutos Francese was a common sight after an attack, with the hapless French hanging from trees.
Jeronimo Merino, El Cure who was so outraged at the wanton behaviour of the French troops in his village of Valloviado, that he raised a Guerrilla of 2500 men. His speciality was the castration of captured French officers, strange behaviour for a parish priest, but such was his contempt for the foul behaviour of his enemies.
Ambrosio Carmena, El Pellejero became active after the vicious rape of his wife. His group operated near Toledo and were renowned for their ferocity. He declined all honours and pensions at the end of the war; just content to return to his village and the tanner’s trade.
We can conjure up images of these men and women from the shadows of the past, we can see then in the low sierras waiting to ambush a convoy, or galloping across the plains pursued by sabre waving cavalry. Almost 200 years has passed since these patriots roamed the campo, unfettered by convention, righting wrongs, free-spirits laughing in the face of an Empire. The theme of every schoolboys playtime, the stuff Hollywood scripts are made of, but we forget that the realities were much harsher.
The references to the Guerrillas in British historical textbooks are few; the debt to the Spanish Irregulars has never been fully recognised. On the other hand would Spain have succeeded in evicting the French without the British and Portuguese?
There are no statues to Wellington in Madrid or Vitoria!
