The Battle of Castalla, 13 April 1813.
Following the success of Wellington’s victory at Salamanca
and the temporary recovery of Madrid, the 1812 campaign in central Spain
petered out after the failure to capture the castle of Burgos, and was followed
by a difficult and costly retreat all the way back to the Portuguese border.
However, the severe French losses in Russia had caused the recall of
significant numbers of French troops from Spain during the spring, to face the
advancing Russian and Prussian troops in central Europe. Wellington therefore
saw great opportunities for the campaign of 1813, with the weakened French
forces compelled to remain on the defensive. To aid his great surge forward, he
looked to the British forces under the recently arrived Sir John Murray and the
Spanish 2nd Army to cause a major diversion in eastern Spain, thus preventing
Suchet from supporting the main French army’s efforts.
Sir John Murray is often viewed as a controversial choice
for this command, largely on the basis of the harsh judgement of William
Napier, the historian of the Peninsular War. He is highly critical regarding
Murray’s lack of initiative in cutting off the retreat of Marshal Soult’s army
from Oporto in 1809, when he commanded a brigade there. His leaving the
peninsula soon after this, however, was not actually related; he simply refused
to serve under William Carr Beresford, who had been created a Portuguese
Marshal but was still junior to him in the British army. Indeed, Wellington, a
harsh judge, who did not bear fools easily, commented on Murray’s wish to leave
the army with the words ‘he will be missed’; clearly Wellington cannot have
been unhappy with his performance.
During the winter of 1812 the British force still at
Alicante on the east coast had grown, with reinforcements arriving from Sicily
and Lisbon, and now amounted to 16,000 men, including Whittingham’s Spanish
division. The Spanish 2nd Army had also been reorganised and now numbered some
20,000 men in four divisions, one of which, under Roche, was attached to
Murray.
It is true that some of Murray’s troops were not of a
particularly high quality, many being Italians or French, Swiss and Polish
deserters. Indeed, in early February eighty-six men of the 2nd Italian Levy
deserted en masse, taking their officer with them as a prisoner. Another
serious difficulty was the procuring of draught animals to move stores and
supplies. The troops had arrived without horses and it proved very difficult
even to establish a supply train in eastern Spain, and this severely hampered
any movements. Food was supplied regularly from Sicily and Algeria, but the
troops needed to remain close to the coast to be able to access it, which
placed a severe restriction on their manoeuvrability.
Suchet’s army retained three divisions around Xativa and had
one brigade further forward at Alcoy; this Murray decided to encircle and
destroy, but the attempt failed. Murray then put forward the idea of landing
Roche’s division at Valencia, in the rear of the French army, and capturing it
from the sea. Messages from Bentinck in Sicily, however, stating that he might
be compelled to recall his Sicilian troops, ended any thoughts of such an
operation – probably a good thing for all concerned.
All this inertia played into French hands and Suchet decided
to strike whilst the allied divisions were still spread out and their actions
uncoordinated. He attacked in two columns, successfully separating Murray from
part of the Spanish army, which was forced to flee to the west, and driving
Murray’s force back towards Castalla. Realising the danger, Murray immediately
ordered his entire force to concentrate at Castalla, including Whittingham’s
and Roche’s Spanish troops. Murray’s own troops then took up a position lining
the crest of the hills to the south of the town of Biar, and centred around the
hill with the castle of Castalla perched on its summit. Suchet made heavy
weather of clearing the two battalions of British troops defending the Biar
Pass, who then retired leisurely to the main position when the pass was no
longer tenable. The delay meant that any attack by Suchet on the main allied
position would now have to wait until the following day.
On 13 April 1813, in an action not unlike that at Bussaco,
the French marched in solid columns up the slope of the hill, only to be met by
the allied reserves advancing to line the crest at the vital moment and
destroying the head of the French columns with a couple of devastating volleys,
before following up with a determined bayonet charge. Whittingham’s Spanish
also fought well and performed their part admirably; eventually Suchet realised
the futility of continuing the attacks and took his troops back beyond the Biar
Pass to avoid being trapped in front of it. Murray failed to move forward to
take advantage of his victory and was generally criticised by the officers of
his army for failing to do so.
Unaware of this action, Wellington penned a memorandum with
his orders for the army of the east coast. His main priority was the assembly
of a force of no fewer than 10,000 men, which was to be disembarked to besiege
Tarragona. Such a move, Wellington judged, would force Suchet to pull back from
Valencia and eventually, possibly, even from Catalonia entirely. Wellington
indicated that Suchet might intervene and force the abandonment of the siege of
Tarragona; in that case, Murray was to re-embark his troops and go to Valencia,
and aid the Spanish in driving what remained of Suchet’s forces northwards.
Wellington also warned Murray that on no account was he to allow any part of
his force to be destroyed; this was unfortunate, as it undoubtedly made a
naturally cautious general a very nervous one indeed.
Rear Admiral Hallowell had escorted the convoy of transports
initially used to land the army at Alicante, and his squadron of three ships of
the line and a few frigates still lay close at hand. Therefore, in line with
his instructions, by 31 May Murray embarked 18,000 troops with a large siege
battery and sailed for the Catalan coast.
On 2 June the fleet arrived off Cape Salou, 8 miles south of
Tarragona. Here they met with the Spanish General Copons, who agreed to station
a force of about 12,000 men of his 1st Army to the west of Tarragona in
support. Murray immediately detached a brigade of troops commanded by Colonel
Prevost under convoy to the Coll de Balaguer, where Fort San Felipe commanded
the coastal road from Tortosa to Tarragona. After four days of bombardment, the
fort surrendered when a lucky shot from two mortars sent ashore by HMS
Stromboli ignited a magazine, causing an explosion.
Meanwhile the main force disembarked on 3 June and the
investment of Tarragona was completed by that night. Having inspected the
fortifications, Murray, with his chief engineer and artillery officers, all
agreed that the only realistic line of attack was from the west. This was
exactly as the French had concluded previously and by 5 June two initial
batteries had been constructed. The French garrison numbered some 1,600 men
under the command of General Antoine Bertoletti, who already held little hope
of a successful outcome, with the western defences still not properly repaired
since the French siege. General Murray was, however, actually the more nervous.
He constantly fretted about a combined attack from Suchet in the south and
Decaen from the north, which could overwhelm him. He also overestimated the
strength of the city defences and the numbers of the defenders. He was severely
criticised by his own officers for the handling of the siege, and they
unanimously declared that an immediate assault on the southern defences would
certainly succeed, but Murray refused to countenance such an attempt. His
engineers also signally failed to drive the agenda, making contradictory
analyses which further drained Murray’s confidence in the proceedings. Indeed,
Murray wrote to Wellington that ‘I am much afraid we have undertaken more than
we are able to perform.’
Hallowell and his sailors ignored such pessimism and
energetically worked to land more siege guns and construct further batteries. By
10 June they had five batteries in operation and by the following morning there
was a suitable breach in the walls of Fort Royal. Clinton’s troops were ordered
to be prepared for an assault that very evening.
Murray then rode out to meet General Copons and heard from
him that French forces numbering some 10,000 men were marching south from
Barcelona, but that the Spanish forces had moved to intercept them. Returning
to the siege, Murray then heard that Suchet was still some 30-odd miles away,
on the other side of the Coll de Balaguer. Despite the fact that Suchet had no
way of immediately threatening the siege operations, this news seems to have
unnerved Murray to the point that he cancelled the planned assault and ordered
the army to re-embark completely by dark on 12 June. He was confronted by a
group of his senior officers, who argued that they should march to destroy the
French column approaching from the north before continuing with the siege. But
hearing on the 12th that this column was now only a few hours’ march from the
city, Murray issued a series of both contradictory and deeply embarrassing
orders effectively abandoning everything. In fact, the column had turned around
and returned northward on learning that Pellew had landed his marines in their
rear in the Bay of Rosas.
Hallowell refused to abandon all their stores so lightly and
he delayed sailing until 13 June in order to bring on board all the supplies
and horses, but eighteen cannon were spiked and abandoned in the batteries.
Murray had further decided that the force at the Coll de
Balaguer was also to be withdrawn and the Spanish forces were effectively
abandoned to escape as best they could. However, news that Suchet was actually
moving southwards because of reports of Spanish advances towards Valencia, and
that one French brigade had been left in an isolated position and might be cut
off, seems to have renewed Murray’s belief and he promptly ordered the army to
disembark again!
The intended attack came to nothing and the army simply sat
and waited for Murray to make any decision at all. Instead, he ordered a
council of war on 17 June, which agreed that the only realistic option now was
to re-embark, which was accomplished by the 19th. Bentinck had finally arrived
from Sicily on 18 June and promptly superseded Murray, but he agreed with the
decision to abandon the campaign, and ordered the fort at the Coll de Balaguer
to be blown up. The army sailed back to Alicante in ignominy.
Even the historian Fortescue, his harshest critic,
recognises that the position Murray found himself in may well have made
re-embarkation essential, but the unnecessary haste and confusion engendered
was unfounded, for there was certainly time to have recovered all the siege
artillery. It was not the decision that is most criticised, but the unseemly
rush and the embarrassing losses incurred because of it.
The final chapter of this shambolic and deeply embarrassing
campaign led to Sir John Murray having to face a court-martial in January 1815;
unbelievably, he was acquitted of all charges, but found guilty of an error of
judgement in abandoning his guns. It did not, however, negatively affect his
future career one jot!
