Historical background
The Cadiz journal appears to have been written in February/March 1810. The author says he had arrived in Cadiz from North Africa and we can therefore suppose that the Ceuta report comes from the weeks or months before this. So what was the context for the worry about Ceuta and why was Cadiz under siege?
The year 1810 falls right in the middle of the Peninsular War (1807-1814). The first half went France’s way with their armies spreading out across the peninsular but something of a stalemate then followed. This was broken in 1811 when the French withdrew troops to support their disastrous invasion of Russia allowing the Anglo-Portuguese-Spanish alliance to go on the offensive. Hanging in the background of the two documents is the impact of the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 which had given the British mastery of the seas.
France and Spain were not entirely happy allies, but they resolved to invade Portugal together in November 1807. Napoleon then withdrew his troops from Portugal but was slow to withdraw them from Spain continuing to occupy a large part of northern Spain. This soured relations. When the Spanish also withdrew their troops from Portugal, Napoleon responded by forcing the abdication of the Spanish king and installing his brother Joseph as king. Popular revolts broke out across the country: some supporting the French, some wanting a republic, some remaining loyal to the Spanish royal family. A general uprising in May 1808 led to the fragmentation of the government and the creation of a series of anti-French juntas around the country.
Over the next eighteen months, French armies advanced into each region, generally defeating the local Spanish armies but never quite having the ability to wipe them out as they melted into the hills and commenced guerilla activities, targeting the French supply lines.
The one battle the Spanish did win decisively was at Bailen where 17,000 of General Dupont’s raw troops were captured. This victory lived long in Spanish memories. Our author refers to its impact in his Cadiz journal and it may be that many of the French prisoners being held in hulks at Cadiz had been captured at Bailen in 1808.
Already allied with Portugal, Britain came to the aid of Spain and signed a treaty of support. An army arrived in Portugal August 1808 under the command of a Lt General Sir Arthur Wellesley, an experienced and successful soldier. He immediately turned on the French General, Soult, defeating him at Rolica on 17th August and again on 21st at Vimiero.
Then power-politics kicked in. There were concerns in Britain that Wellesley was too junior and Generals Dalrymple and Burrad were appointed over his head. Arriving on the battlefield, at the end of the day, they halted any pursuit and initiated negotiations which ended in the Convention of Sintra. The French agreed to evacuate Portugal but retained their troops and materiel which would be transported back to France by Britain.
This did not go down well at home and the three Generals were recalled to face an enquiry which absolved Wellesley and provided desk jobs for the other two generals.
A new front was opened in the north of Spain where General Sir John Moore’s army was threatening Soult’s lines of communication back to France. Freed of the irritating presence of an effective army in Portugal, Soult turned on Moore, pushing him back to Corunna from where the army was evacuated in January 1809, but without its popular general who had been killed in the final stages.
Soult then turned south and once again threatened Portugal. Here, he again ran into Wellesley who had returned to Portugal in April. He was routed and once again ejected from Portugal. Wellesley then initiated an advance towards Madrid. In July 1809, he fought the battle of Talavera which was a tactical victory. However, being heavily out-numbered, he retreated back to Portugal and retired by the strong defences at Torres Vedras outside Lisbon.1
In early 1810, the French once again invaded Andalusia, bottling up the national Junta in Cadiz. They then settled down for a siege which began on 5 February, 20 days before our author’s Cadiz journal starts. Our author describes the easy-going air of the population in the early days of this siege and describes the difficulty of attacking the city. It was hardly surprising: the city was naturally defended from the mainland and with control of the seas in the hands of the British fleet, the populace could be supported by supply ships and protected by offshore artillery.
A stalemate ensued as the Anglo-Portuguese army was not strong enough to take on the much larger free-ranging French armies in major battles.
The siege of Cadiz lasted until August 1812, after the decisive battle of Salamanca (July 1812), on the road to Madrid. Faced with the withdrawal of frontline troops to support the the Grande Armée‘s disastrous invasion of Russia, and an active and effective Anglo-Portuguese army, the French had no option but to withdrew troops from southern Spain to protect their supply lines. From then on, it was downhill to the end of the first part of Napoleon’s reign.
Our author mentions his concerns about the threat to Gibraltar. This is unsurprising given the presence of a large French army in Andalusia. But do we also detect a degree of pique in his tone when he mentions the need to garrison Ceuta to control the whole of the Straits of Gibraltar and thus avoid ships passing through the straits in the mist as had happened when Villeneuve had escaped Nelson’s fleet in 1805, in the prelude to Trafalgar?