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Spain first gave to the world the spectacle of a successful resistance to the oppression the Emperor Napoleon had made to weigh upon all nations. We understand by sad experience the astonishment and anger which seized upon our armies everywhere when they heard of the capitulation of Baylen.
The Spanish battalions barred the route of Baylen, which General Reding had occupied the previous day. Worn out by the heat, by thirst, by the march, our soldiers charged the enemy, and drove them back as far as the plain of Baylen. There lay extended before us the Spanish army, in front of the little town, in an amphitheatre of hills, covered with olive-trees.
On the 14th July, General Castanos appeared before Andujar, while the corps of Reding threatened Baylen; the imprudent movement of our troops had uncovered this last position. General Dupont was informed of this.
General Dupont laid down arms at Baylen in the province of Cordova, and this first reverse of the French arms excited the liveliest hope and enthusiasm among the Spaniards. Joseph Napoleon left Madrid, where Ferdinand VII. was proclaimed; and about the same time, Junot, not having troops enough to keep Portugal, consented, by the convention of Cintra, to evacuate it with all the honours of war.
General Dupont, commanding the southern army, found himself nearly surrounded at Baylen, and solicited an armistice, followed by a convention, under which, "above eighteen thousand French soldiers laid down their arms before a raw army incapable of resisting half that number, if the latter had been led by an able man". The convention, signed on July 20, stipulated for the transport of the French troops to France, but its stipulations were shamefully violated; some were massacred, others were sent to sicken in the hulks at Cadiz, and comparatively few lived to rejoin their colours.
Then turning to Dupont, "As for you, sir," he continued in the same tone, "your conduct towards the Emperor is not generous. I confess that he has treated you with severity, perhaps he may even have been unjust to you with respect to the affair of Baylen, but how long has it been the practice to avenge a personal wrong at the expense of one's country?"
They have complained of the convention of Portugal, but they executed it. To violate military treaties is to renounce all civilization; it is to place one's self on a level with the Bedouins of the desert. How dare you ask a capitulation, you who violated that of Baylen? I had a fleet at Cadiz, the ally of Spain, and you turned against it the mortars of the town under your command.
An attempt was made to turn the diligence, but failed, leaving it standing plump against a high bank of mud. We stood, meanwhile, shivering in the cold and wet, and the fair Andalusian shed abundance of tears. Fortunately, Baylen was close at hand, and, after some delay, two men came with lanterns and escorted us to the posada, or inn, where we arrived at midnight.
At Baylen, a town of Andalusia, which was besieged by the insurgents, the French suffered a serious defeat, an army of eighteen thousand men being forced to surrender as prisoners of war. This was the only important success of the Spanish, but they courageously resisted their foes, and at Saragossa gained an honor unsurpassed in the history of Spain.
It was to attract the attention of the French, draw them toward him, and then slowly retreat northward, thus leaving Andalusia free from interference, and giving the southern Spaniards time to organize once more and equip themselves for a second Baylen.
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