The Bravest of the Brave — or, with Peterborough in Spain

by G. A. Henty

  CHAPTER VII: BARCELONA

  The city of Barcelona, one of the most populous and important in Spain,is not naturally a place of great strength. It is situated on a plainclose to the sea, and its defenses, although extensive, were not veryformidable against a strong army provided with a siege train. To holdthem fully required a much larger force than was disposable for thedefense. The garrison was, however, fully equal in strength to the forceof Peterborough, and should have been able to defend the city againstan army vastly exceeding their own numbers. Ten bastions and some oldtowers protected the town toward the north and east; between the cityand the sea was a long rampart with an unfinished ditch and coveredway; while to the west, standing on a lofty elevation, the castle ofMontjuich overlooked and guarded the walls of the city.

  From the center of the sea face a mole projected into the water,guarding a small harbor. The country round the town was fertile andbeautiful, carefully cultivated and watered by streams flowing from theneighboring mountains. At the distance of about a league from the shorethe land rises into an amphitheater of hills thickly dotted with smalltowns, villages, and country seats.

  As soon as the allied fleet had anchored the garrison commenced acannonade from the mole and from a battery close to the sea upon someof the transports nearest to the shore; but their shot did not reach thevessels, and the fire soon ceased. The east wind, however, proved moretroublesome than the enemy's fire, and the ships rolled heavily from thesea which came in from the east.

  The Prince of Hesse Darmstadt with two frigates put into the harbor ofMataro for the purpose of obtaining intelligence. He found that in theneighboring town of Vich the people had risen for King Charles, andputting himself in communication with their leaders he advised them tomarch upon the coast and cooperate with the forces about to land. On hisway to rejoin the fleet the prince chased two Neapolitan galleys, whichmanaged to get safely into Barcelona.

  They had on board the Duke and Duchess of Popoli, M. d'Abary, a Frenchofficer of distinction, and forty other young gentlemen, partisans ofthe Duke d'Anjou, and destined for employment in different parts ofSpain. They were now, however, detained in the city by the governor toassist in its defense.

  The first glance into the state of affairs gave the Earl of Peterboroughsuch an unfavorable impression that he at once objected to the proposedattack.

  The governor, Don Francisco Velasco, was a brave and distinguishedofficer, the garrison equaled his own force in numbers, the town waswell supplied with provisions and stores, and, in order to add to thedifficulties of the besiegers, orders had been given to destroy all theforage in the surrounding country which could not be conveyed withinthe walls. Any Austrian sympathies the inhabitants might possess wereeffectually suppressed by the power and vigilance of the governor.The besieging army was far too small to attempt a blockade, while thechances of an assault upon an equal force behind well armed defensesseemed almost desperate.

  The engineers declared that the difficulties of a regular siege wereenormous, if not insurmountable, and that the only vulnerable pointwas covered by a bog, where the transport of cannon or the formationof works would be impossible. Above all, the principal hope of theexpedition had failed. The adherents of Charles had assured him that thewhole country would rise in his favor on the arrival of the fleet, andthat the town itself would probably open its gates to receive him. Thesepromises had, like all others he had received from his Spanish friends,proved delusive. Few of the peasantry appeared to receive them on thecoast, and these were unarmed and without officers.

  The earl's instructions, although generally quite indefinite, werestringent upon one point. He was on no account to make the slightestalteration in the plans of the expedition, or to take any decisive stepfor their accomplishment, without the advice of the council of war. Thiswould have been in any case embarrassing for a general; in the presentinstance it was calculated altogether to cripple him. There was butlittle harmony among the chief officers. The English military officerswere by no means on good terms with each other, while the naval officersregarded almost as an insult Lord Peterborough's being placed in commandof them. The English hated the German officers and despised the Dutch.Lord Peterborough himself disliked almost all his associates, andentertained a profound contempt for any one whose opinion might differfrom that which he at the moment might happen to hold.

  It was impossible that good could come from a council of war composedof such jarring elements as these. However, Lord Peterborough'sinstructions were positive, and on the 16th of August, 1705, he conveneda council of war on board the Britannia, consisting of nine generals anda brigadier, with two colonels on the staff. The king and the Princeof Hesse Darmstadt were present, but took no part in the deliberations.Singularly enough the council proved unanimous in their opinion thatBarcelona should not be attacked. The reasons for the decision weredrawn up and put on record. The council pointed out all the difficultieswhich existed, and declared the strength of the allied army to be onlynineteen battalions of foot and two cavalry regiments, of whom no morethan seven thousand men were fit for action, and only one hundred andtwenty dragoon horses had survived the voyage in serviceable condition.

  The decision of the council was most opposed to the hopes and wishes ofCharles and the Prince of Hesse Darmstadt, and they addressed lettersof strong remonstrance to Lord Peterborough, urging that to abandon theexpedition at this juncture would be alike fatal to the common cause anddiscreditable to the British arms.

  Meanwhile, however, the greater part of the troops had landed withoutopposition; but the sea broke with such force on the beach that muchdifficulty had been experienced in getting ashore. The landing place hadbeen well chosen by Lord Peterborough and Sir Cloudesley Shovel. Itwas about two miles east of the city, near a place called Badalona, andclose to the mouth of the little river Basoz. The transports weremoored in as close as possible, and the boats of the fleet carried threethousand men ashore each trip.

  In five hours fifteen battalions were landed without the loss of a man.A strong natural position about a mile from the city was chosen for theencampment; its left rested on the sea, its right was covered by severalabrupt hills and defiles through which the river Basoz flowed. The frontwas, however, much extended, but this mattered the less, as the peoplefrom the neighboring villages began to assemble when the landing tookplace, and welcomed the allies of King Charles with joy. A number ofthese were employed by Lord Peterborough in guarding the advanced postsand covering the numerous roads leading from the city toward the camp.

  On the 22d another council of war was held at the Dutch GeneralSchratenbach's quarters in the camp to consider two letters of theking, in which he again urged the allied generals to attack the city.He proposed that a battery of fifty guns should be erected to breachthe wall between two of the bastions, and that the whole strength of thearmy should be thrown upon an assault. He acknowledged the force of theseveral objections to the attack, but urged that in such a case vigorousaction was the safest. He dwelt upon the ruin that must fall upon suchof his subjects as had declared for him if abandoned to their fate, andconcluded by declaring that he at least would not desert them.

  The appeal failed to move any of the council with the exception ofPeterborough himself, and he alone voted, although in opposition to hisown judgment, in compliance with the king's plan. Notwithstanding theadverse decision of the council the horses and dragoons were landed onthe 24th.

  On the 25th, the 26th, and the 28th the council again assembled todeliberate upon an earnest request of the king that they should attemptthe siege for a period of eighteen days. The first decision was adverse,two only voting with Lord Peterborough for the siege. At the secondcouncil, his influence succeeded in obtaining a majority; but at thethird, they agreed to abandon the attempt, even the commander in chiefconcurring.

  The cause of this sudden reversal of their opinion was that none of theworkmen whom they had demanded from the leaders of the Catalan peasantryhad appeared, and they felt it impossi
ble to carry on the works anderect the siege batteries without such assistance. Neverthelessthe peasantry gave effectual aid in landing the artillery, tents,ammunition, and stores. On the 28th the king landed amid a greatconcourse of people, who received him with every demonstration ofenthusiasm, and he could with difficulty make his way through them tothe camp prepared for him near San Martino.

  The presence of the king on shore added to the difficulties of thesituation. He and his following of German courtiers complained bitterlyof the disinclination of the allies to undertake the siege, whilethe allies were incensed against those who reproached them for notundertaking impossibilities. Dissension spread between the alliesthemselves, and the Dutch general declared that he would disobey theorders of the commander in chief rather than vainly sacrifice his men.

  Peterborough was driven nearly out of his mind by the reproaches andrecrimination to which he was exposed, and the quarrels which took placearound him. He was most anxious to carry out his instructions, and asfar as possible to defer to the opinion of Charles, but he was alsobound by the decisions of the councils of war, which were exactlyopposite to the wishes of the king.

  The Prince of Hesse Darmstadt enraged him by insisting that fifteenhundred disorderly peasants whom he had raised were an army, and shouldbe paid as regular soldiers from the military chest, while they wouldsubmit to no discipline and refused to labor in the trenches, and anopen rupture took place, when the prince, in his vexation at the resultsof the councils of war, even went so far as to accuse the earl of havingused secret influence to thwart the enterprise.

  To add to the difficulties of the commander in chief the Englishtroops were loud in their complaints against him for having landedand committed them to this apparently hopeless enterprise; but theynevertheless clamored to be led against the town, that they might not besaid to have "come like fools and gone like cowards."

  Lord Peterborough confided his trouble and vexation freely to his youngsecretary. Jack was sincerely attached to his generous and eccentricchief, and the general was gratified by the young officer's readiness atall times and hours to come to him and write from his dictation thelong letters and dispatches which he sent home. He saw, too, that hewas thoroughly trustworthy, and could be relied upon to keep absolutesilence as to the confidences which he made him.

  In the midst of all these quarrels and disputes the siege was carriedon in a languid manner. A battery of fifty heavy guns, supplied by theships and manned by seamen, was placed upon a rising ground flankedby two deep ravines, and on several of the adjacent hills batteries oflight field guns had been raised. Three weeks were consumed in thesecomparatively unimportant operations, and no real advance toward thecapture of the place had been effected. Something like a blockade,however, had been established, for the Catalan peasants guardedvigilantly every approach to the town.

  The officers of the fleet were no less discontented than their brethrenon shore at the feeble conduct of the siege, and had they been consultedthey would have been in favor of a direct attack upon the city withscaling ladders, as if they had been about to board a hostile ship.But Peterborough and his officers were well aware that such an attackagainst a city defended by a superior force would be simple madness, andeven an attack by regular approaches, with the means and labor at theirdisposal, would have had no chance of success. But while all on shoreand in the fleet were chafing at the slowness and hopelessness of thesiege, Jack Stilwell was alone aware that the commander in chief did notshare in the general despair of any good arising from the operations.

  Lord Peterborough had little communication with the other generals; but,alone in his tent with Jack and an interpreter, he occupied himselffrom morning till night in examining peasants and spies as to everyparticular of the fortifications of the city, of the ground near to thewalls, and of the habits and proceedings of the garrison. At last heresolved upon an attempt which, in its daring and enterprise, is almostwithout parallel. Indeed its only hope of success lay in its boldness,for neither friend nor foe could anticipate that it would be attempted.It was no less than the surprise of the citadel of Montjuich.

  This formidable stronghold covered the weakest part of the defenses,that toward the southwest, and far exceeded in strength any other partof the lines. It had been most skillfully designed. The ditches weredeep, and the walls firm; the outworks skillfully planned; the batterieswell armed, and the inner defenses formidable in themselves. It was,in fact, by far the strongest point in the position of the besieged.Standing on a commanding height, it was abundantly capable of defenseeven against a regular siege, and its reduction was always regarded asa most formidable enterprise, to be undertaken at leisure after thecapture of the town. Its only weakness lay in the fact that surroundingit on every side were numerous ravines and hollows, which would affordconcealment to an assailant, and that trusting to the extraordinarystrength of their position the garrison of Montjuich might neglectproper precautions.

  One morning before daybreak the earl, accompanied only by Jack and anative guide, left the camp on foot, having laid aside their uniformsand put on the attire of peasants, so that the glitter of theiraccouterments might not attract the attention of the enemy's outposts.Making a long detour they approached the castle, and ascending one ofthe ravines gained a point where, themselves unseen, they could mark allparticulars of the fortifications. Having carried out his purpose theearl returned to camp with his companion without his absence having beenobserved. The observations which Peterborough had made confirmed thereports of the peasants, that the garrison kept but a negligent watch,and he at once resolved upon making the attempt; but to none of his mostintimate friends did he give the slightest hint of his intentions.

  To disguise his views he called councils of war both in the camp andfleet, wherein it was resolved, with his full consent, that the siege ofBarcelona should be abandoned, and that the army should be immediatelyre-embarked and conveyed to Italy. Accordingly the heavy artillery wasconveyed on board ship, the warlike stores collected, and the troopswarned to be ready for embarkation. A storm of reproaches was pouredupon the earl by Charles and his courtiers. The officers of the fleetprotested openly, declaring that an assault ought to be attempted, andthat it was too late in the season to attempt operations elsewhere.

  To Jack's surprise his commander, usually so hasty, irritable, andpassionate, bore with the greatest calmness and patience the reproachesand accusations to which he was exposed. No one dreamed that behindthese preparations for embarkation any plan of attack was hidden.

  On the 13th of September the army received orders to embark on themorrow, while within the town the garrison and the inhabitants, whowere, or pretended to be, well affected to the Bourbons held highrejoicing at the approaching departure.

  On the afternoon of that day a detachment of English and Dutch troopstwelve hundred strong was ordered to assemble in the allied camp for thepurpose, as was supposed, of covering the embarkation. Scaling laddersand everything necessary for an assault had already been privatelyprepared by the Catalan peasants under Peterborough's instructions.

  About six o'clock in the evening four hundred grenadiers of the partyassembled under the command of Hon. Colonel Southwell, and were orderedto march by the Serria road, as if en route to Taragona to meet thefleet and embark in that harbor. The remainder of the detachmentfollowed in support at some little distance. At nightfall the Prince ofHesse Darmstadt was surprised by Lord Peterborough's entrance into hisquarters. Since their rupture all intercourse had ceased between them.

  "I have determined," the earl said, "to make this night an attack uponthe enemy. You may now, if you please, be a judge of our behavior, andsee whether my officers and soldiers really deserve the bad characterwhich you of late have so readily imputed to them." He then explainedthat the troops were already on their march to Montjuich.

  The prince immediately ordered his horse, and the two gallant butimpulsive and singular men rode off, followed only by Jack Stillwell andthe prince's aide de camp. At te
n o'clock they overtook the troops, andPeterborough ordered a total change of route, he himself leading.

  The roads were winding, narrow, and difficult. For a great part of theway there was only room for the men to march in single file. The nightwas very dark, and the detachment many hours on the march, so thatdaylight was just breaking when they reached the foot of the hill onwhich the fort of Montjuich stood.

  The troops under Peterborough's command now perceived the object oftheir march, and imagined that they would be led to the attack beforethe day had fairly broke; but the general had well considered thesubject, and had determined to avoid the risk and confusion of a nightassault. He called his officers together and explained to them why hedid not mean to attack till broad daylight.

  His examination of the place had shown him that the ditches could becrossed, no palisades or barriers having been erected. He had noticed,too, that the inner works were not sufficiently high to enable theirguns properly to command the outer works should these be carried by anenemy. He had therefore determined to carry the outworks by assault,judging that if he captured them the inner works could not long resist.In case of a reverse, or to enable him to take advantage of success, hetold them that he had ordered Brigadier General Stanhope to march duringthe night with a thousand infantry and the handful of cavalry to aconvent lying halfway between the camp and the city, and there to holdhimself in reserve.

  Peterborough now silently and coolly completed his arrangements for theassault. He divided the body of troops into three parties; the first ofthese, two hundred and eighty strong, were to attack the bastion facingthe town, which was the strongest part of the defense. He himself andthe Prince of Hesse accompanied this party. A lieutenant and thirty menformed the advance, a captain and fifty more were the support, and theremaining two hundred men were to form in the rear.

  The orders were that they should push forward in spite of the enemy'sfire, leap into the ditch, drive the garrison before them, and ifpossible enter the works with them; but, if not, to obtain at leasta firm footing on the outer defenses. The second party, similar instrength and formation, under the command of the Hon. Colonel Southwell,were to attack an unfinished demibastion on the extreme western pointof the fort and furthermost from the town. The remainder of the littleforce, under a Dutch colonel, were to be held in reserve, and to assistwherever they might be most useful. They occupied a position somewhatin rear of and halfway between the two parties who were to make theassault.

  Soon after daylight Peterborough gave the order to advance, and in thehighest spirits, and in excellent order, the soldiers pushed up thehill toward the fort. Some irregular Spanish troops were the first toperceive them. These fired a hasty volley at the British troops as theyascended the crest and then retreated into the fort. Seizing their armsthe garrison rushed to the ramparts and manned them in time to receivethe assailants with a sharp fire. The grenadiers who formed the leadingparty did not hesitate for a moment, but leaped into the unfinishedditch, clambered up the outer rampart, and with pike and bayonetattacked the defenders.

  The captain's detachment speedily joined them. The defenders gave way,broke, and fled, and in wild confusion both parties rushed into thebastion. Peterborough and the prince with their two hundred men followedthem quickly and in perfect order, and were soon masters of the bastion.The earl at once set his men to work to throw up a breastwork to coverthem from the guns of the inner works; and as there was plenty ofmaterials collected just at this spot for the carrying out of someextensive repairs, they were able to put themselves under cover beforethe enemy opened fire upon them.

  The attention of the garrison was wholly occupied by this sudden andunexpected attack, and the Prince della Torrella, a Neapolitan officerin temporary command of the fort, ordered all his force to oppose theassailants. This was what Peterborough had expected. He at once sentorders to Colonel Southwell to commence his attack upon the now almostundefended west bastion. The order was promptly obeyed. At the firstrush the ditch was passed, the rampart gained, the outer walls scaled,and three guns taken without the loss of a man.

  The defenders hastened at once to meet this new danger. They opened aheavy fire upon the British, and sallying out, endeavored to retake theouter rampart with the bayonet. A desperate contest ensued; but thoughmany of the English officers and soldiers fell, they would not yielda foot of the position they had captured. Colonel Southwell, a man ofgreat personal strength and daring, was in the struggle three timessurrounded by the enemy; but each time he cut his way out in safety.

  The sally was at last repulsed, and the English intrenched theirposition and turned their captured guns against the fort. While both theassaulting columns were occupied in intrenching themselves there was alull in the battle. The besieged could not venture to advance againsteither, as they would have been exposed to the fire of the other, and tothe risk of a flank attack.

  Peterborough exerted himself to the utmost. He ordered up the thousandmen under General Stanhope and made prodigious exertions to get someguns and mortars into position upon the newly won ramparts.

  Great was the consternation and astonishment in Barcelona when a loudroar of musketry broke out round the citadel, and Velasco, the governor,was thunderstruck to find himself threatened in this vital point by anenemy whose departure he had, the evening before, been celebrating. Theassembly was sounded, and the church bells pealed out the alarm.

  The troops ran to their places of assembly, the fortifications round thetown were manned, and a body of four hundred mounted grenadiers underthe Marquis de Risbourg hurried off to the succor of Montjuich. The earlhad been sure that such a movement would be made. He could not spare menfrom his own scanty force to guard the roads between the city and thecastle, but he had posted a number of the armed Spanish peasants whowere in the pay of the army in a narrow gorge, where, with hardly anyrisk to themselves, they might easily have prevented the horsemen frompassing. The peasants, however, fired a hurried volley and then fled inall directions.

  Lord Peterborough learned a lesson here which he never forgot, namely,that these Spanish irregulars, useful as they might be in harassing anenemy or pursuing a beaten foe, were utterly untrustworthy in any planof combined action. The succor, therefore, reached Montjuich in safety;two hundred of the men dismounted and entered the fort; the remainder,leading their horses, returned to Barcelona.

  The Marquis de Risbourg had no sooner entered the fort and taken thecommand than he adopted a stratagem which nearly proved fatal to theEnglish hopes of success. He ordered his men to shout "Long live Charlesthe Third!" and threw open the gates of the fort as if to surrender. ThePrince of Hesse Darmstadt, who commanded at this point, was completelydeceived, and he ordered Colonel Allen to advance with two hundredand fifty men, while he himself followed with a company in reserve,believing that the Spanish garrison had declared for King Charles.

  The British advanced eagerly and in some disorder into the ditch, whena terrible fire of musketry was suddenly opened upon them from the frontand flank. In vain they tried to defend themselves; the brave prince wasstruck down by a mortal wound while endeavoring to encourage them,and was carried to the rear, and Allen and two hundred men were takenprisoners. The prince expired a few minutes later before there was timefor a doctor to examine his wound.

  Peterborough, who had come up just at the end of the struggle, remainedwith him till he died, and then hurried off to retrieve the fortune ofthe day, which, during these few minutes, had greatly changed. Velascohad dispatched three thousand men, as fast as they could be gottogether, to follow Risbourg's dragoons to the succor of the fort, andthese were already in sight. But this was not all. One of the strangepanics which occasionally attack even the best troops had seized theBritish in the bastion.

  Without any apparent cause, without a shot being fired at them from thefort, they fell into confusion. Their commander, Lord Charlemont, sharedthe panic, and gave orders for a retreat. The march soon became a rout,and the men fled in confusion from the positio
n which they had justbefore so bravely won.

  Captain Carleton, a staff officer, disengaged himself from the throngof fugitives and rode off to inform the earl, who was reconnoiteringthe approaching Spaniards, of what had taken place. Peterborough at onceturned his horse, and, followed by Carleton and Jack Stilwell, gallopedup the hill. He drew his sword and threw away the scabbard as he metthe troops, already halfway down the hill, and, dismounting, shouted tothem:

  "I am sure all brave men will follow me. Will you bear the infamy ofhaving deserted your post and forsaken your general?"

  The appeal was not in vain. Ashamed of their late panic the fugitiveshalted, faced about, and pressed after him up the hill, and, on reachingthe top, found that, strangely enough, the garrison had not discoveredthat the bastion had been abandoned, for in their retreat the Englishwere hidden from the sight of those in the inner works.

  The Marquis de Risbourg, instead of following up his advantage, had atonce left Montjuich at the side near the city, taking Colonel Allen andthe prisoners with him, and pushed on toward Barcelona. Halfway downhe met the reinforcement of three thousand men. The prisoners, on beingquestioned, informed the Spanish commander that Lord Peterborough andthe Prince of Hesse led the attack in person.

  Thereupon the officer commanding the reinforcements concluded that thewhole of the allied army was round the castle, and that he would berisking destruction if he pushed on. He therefore turned and marchedback to the city. Had he continued his way Peterborough's force musthave been destroyed, as Stanhope had not yet come up, and he had withhim only the little force with which he had marched out from camp, ofwhom more than a fourth were already captured or slain. Such are thecircumstances upon which the fate of battles and campaigns depend.