'Most unfortunately, the generals of their regular forces have proved both incompetent and unreliable; so that on numerous occasions during battles in which they took part with us, they failed to carry out the tasks allotted them by the Duke, with the result that we were deprived of what should have been complete victory. Last autumn the Cortes decreed that its generals should no longer act independently, but come under the Duke, as Generalissimo. So far, only the Spanish army in Galicia has given us full co-operation, but in this year's campaign, we are hoping that others will also prove of value.
'However, the fact remains that the Spanish regular and irregular forces have compelled the enemy to distribute his men in several armies, each of which is separated from the others by great ranges of mountains, so that none of them is readily able to come to another's assistance.
'The hatred displayed by the Spaniards and French for each other is almost unbelievable. Neither take any prisoners and butchers the wounded without mercy. When the French take a town, they massacre everyone they find in it and burn it to the ground. When the Spaniards capture a convoy or small body of troops, they torture them to death, often nailing them to doors and roasting or skinning them alive.
'Only on the east coast have the French succeeded in pacifying the country and this because, alone among the Marshals, Suchet decreed a policy of conciliation, spared the towns he took and even allowed their own Mayors to continue in authority. Yet his sixty thousand men are as severely harassed as are those in other parts of the country. Spanish forces constantly attack them. They are always defeated by Suchet’s troops, but fade away into the mountains, only to reappear after a week or so and again attack.
'Bonaparte's eldest brother, Joseph, whom he made King of Spain, theoretically commands all the French in the Peninsula, but I am told has little say in directing operations. He is said to be an honest, easy-going, good-natured fellow who takes his sovereignty seriously, and does his best to protect the interests of his Spanish subjects. But the row he has to hoe must be a hard one. He is, in fact, no more than a nouveau riche bourgeois, and the Spanish aristocracy who reluctantly form his Court are the most tradition-bound and stiff-necked in the world. Moreover, poor Joseph is no general, and the Marshals hold him in contempt. It is also our good fortune that the Marshals are intensely jealous of one another and, even when in a position to do so, frequently refuse to come to one another's aid.
'Massena was replaced by the young and energetic Marshal Marmont. For a while he gave our army considerable trouble, but his own conceit led to his downfall. Last July the Duke, with a force of some forty thousand men, had fallen back on Salamanca. Marmont was following him up with about the same number and, only two days’ march behind, King Joseph was coming to the Marshal's support with a further fifteen thousand men. But, rather than wait for the King and have to play Number Two to him, Marmont wanted all the credit for a victory, so impetuously attacked us. The Duke gave him a tremendous trouncing, he was severely wounded by a cannon-ball and, but for the ability of General Clausel, who took over, the whole of Marmont’s army would have been destroyed.’
‘It was from the time of this battle that the tide of war in the Peninsula really began to turn in our favour. King Joseph beat a retreat as quickly as he could to Valencia, and took refuge with the powerful army under Suchet. This opened the way for the Duke to capture Madrid and delivered both Leon and the Castiles from enemy occupation.
'As the only possible hope of regaining his capital the King had to call on Marshal Soult, who for three years had been holding down the south with another great army and reigning in Seville like an independent sovereign. His march toward Valencia raised the siege of Cadiz, freeing the Anglo-Spanish-Portuguese force that has held out there for so long, and gave the Cortes there undisputed power over the whole of southern Spain.
'Soult is one of the ablest of the Marshals, and his joining up with Suchet at Valencia gave King Joseph an army of ninety thousand men. In addition, the remains of the French army from Portugal had joined with other forces in the north, giving General Clausel another army of some forty thousand in the neighbourhood of Burgos. Against this one hundred and thirty thousand and many thousands more French troops garrisoning Spanish cities, the Duke could bring only sixty thousand; so, although by his operations he had liberated all Portugal and a good half of Spain, he wisely decided to give up Madrid, for while Suchet remained in Valencia Soult was advancing on the capital with one hundred thousand men. The retreat continued until mid-November, by which time the Duke had fallen back on Ciudad Rodrigo, and the French, constantly harassed by Spanish irregulars, were so exhausted that they could press on no further..
'However, this set-back was of no long duration. Shortly after Christmas they learned here of the appalling disaster that had befallen Bonaparte in Russia. It is now confirmed that he left behind him, to die in the snow, no fewer than half a million men. This is greatly to our benefit, as he has withdrawn from Spain twenty-five thousand of the most seasoned officers and men to reform his Imperial Guard, several able Generals and, last but not least, our most dangerous adversary, Marshal Soult.
'This still leaves some two hundred thousand French in Spain, but they have been much disheartened by losing so many of their veteran officers and N.C.O.s, while reinforcements during the winter have brought our army up to seventy-five thousand, the highest number the Duke has ever had at his disposal. Moreover, the greater part of the French army in eastern Spain is now entirely occupied in endeavouring to keep open their communications with France, which are seriously threatened by thousands of irregulars operating from the mountains of the Asturias and Navarre, under the Spanish General Mina. So we - now have opposed to us only King Joseph, with Marshal Jourdan as his adviser—an ageing General of the Republican wars. We are, therefore, in great heart regarding our prospects in the coming campaign.
'Reverting to myself. After five nights with the hospitable Stuarts, I was ordered to join a convoy and, with my man Briggs, took the coast road north. For many miles beyond the Lines of Torres Vedras the country is in a sad condition, since before retiring behind the lines the Duke secured the agreement of the Portuguese to lay bare the countryside, in order to deny the French sustenance and shelter. All livestock was removed, farms and barns emptied of their contents and left, roofless, the people of the towns were brought into Lisbon and the peasants took to the mountains. The abandoned land is now being brought under cultivation again, but many vineyards are still thigh-high in weeds and brambles, making one highly conscious of the loss and distress inflicted on the hapless poorer sort by the wars of the mighty.
'By way of Caldas, Alcobacca, Leiria and Pombal we reached the considerable town of Coimbra. From there we turned inland through the mountains, then by way of Guardaz and Pinzio crossed the frontier to Ciudad Rod-rigo. As the crow flies, the latter is no more than two hundred miles from Lisbon, but the winding road through the mountains adds half as much again to the distance to be covered.
'The scenery along the coast road was most picturesque, particularly as the many varieties of trees were beginning to show their young Spring green, and in the clear air of the mountains breath-taking panoramas opened up at every turn of the way. Before the war the tracks must have been impassable for transport other than by mule, but our engineers have done much to widen them and, in the worst places, lessen the gradient; so it took the convoy no more than a fortnight to reach its destination.