George Borrow - The Bible in Spain. Volume 1 of 2

On the outbreak of hostilities in the north-west, the most capable commander on the side of the Carlists was the Basque, Tomás Zumalacarregui. Born at Ormastegui, in Guipuzcoa, in 1788, he had served in the Spanish army from 1808 to 1831 without finding any special favour or advancement from king or Cortes. Dismissed the service in 1831, he emerged from his retirement on the death of Ferdinand VII. in 1833, and, openly attaching himself to the Carlist fortunes, he took the field against the queen’s troops at the head of some eight hundred partisans. So great was his zeal and energy, and so popular was Zumalacarregui himself in his native Guipuzcoa, that in less than a year this little force had grown in his hands into an army of over thirty-five thousand men, superior not only in fighting qualities, but even in discipline, to any of the queen’s forces, fairly armed, and well supplied with food and clothing.

But in spite of his commanding qualities, which made him indispensable to the Carlist cause, the success of the blunt and robust soldier excited the jealousy, not only of his subordinate commanders, and of the priests and women who had so great an influence at the court of Don Carlos, but even of the Pretender himself.

The only general who may be compared with Zumalacarregui on the Carlist side was born at Tortosa, at the mouth of the Ebro, as late as December, 1806, and was thus nearly twenty years younger than the Basque commander.

Cabrera was destined for the priesthood, and actually received the tonsura in 1825, but in 1833 he quitted the convent of the Trinitarios at Tortosa and joined the Carlist army near the historic mountain fortress of Morella in November, 1833; and in less than twelve months he had been appointed a colonel in the Carlist army in Aragon.

On the side of the Constitutionalists there was no display of military talent, or even of capacity. Rodil, Amildez, Mina, Valdez, followed each other without advantage to the queen’s cause, and in spite of all the advantages incident to a regular government, with command of the capital and all the departments, little or no advantage was gained by the Constitutional forces for long after the first outbreak of hostilities. The war, however, was carried on by both Cristinos and Carlists with the utmost savagery.

The wholesale massacre of wounded and prisoners by both the Cristino and Carlist generals aroused the indignation of every civilized community, and especially in England, where an uneasy sense of responsibility for the atrocities which were committed was natural in view of the fact that the government had taken to some extent an official part in the war, and that English regiments were soon to be exposed to the cruelties against which the whole of Europe was protesting. The pressure of public opinion in England, indeed, was so strong that at length Lord Eliot was despatched to Spain to negotiate a convention between the belligerents which would ensure the ordinary laws of civilized warfare being obeyed. It was a difficult task. 14 14 See Duncan, The English in Spain , p. 26.

But by the exertions of Lord Eliot and Colonel Wylde of the Royal Artillery, who was serving as a kind of military attaché at the head-quarters of the queen’s forces, a convention, known as the “Eliot Convention,” was at length signed by Zumalacarregui at or near Logroño, on April 27 and 28, 1835.

The convention, as might have been supposed, was in practice regarded by neither party, and was evaded when not actually set at nought. It was said not to apply to any part of Spain but the Basque provinces, nor to any troops enlisted after its signature in April; but the massacre of prisoners was possibly not so systematically carried out after the agreement as it had been before. But, strangest of all, as soon as the news of the signature of this convention became known at Madrid, the utmost indignation was expressed, not only by the populace of Madrid, but in the Cortes. An attempt was made to kill Señor Martinez de la Rosa in the streets by an armed mob, and the ministry was compelled to resign. Count Toreno was then called to the supreme power on June 7, with Mendizabal as finance minister.

Meanwhile the military skill of Zumalacarregui in the Basque provinces, and of Cabrera in the east of Spain, had alone prolonged the struggle during 1834 and 1835; but the death of Zumalacarregui from a wound received in action near Bilbao in June, 1835, was a serious blow to the hopes of the Pretender, although there are good grounds for supposing that the bold general’s end was hastened by poison administered by his own partisans. 15 15 In the words of an ancient chronicler, “Tuvose por muy cierto, que le fueron dadas yerbas” (Zurita, Anales de Aragon , lib. xviii. cap. 7).

In the month of April of this same year, 1835, Lord Palmerston, who, after a brief retirement from office in 1834, was once more Foreign Secretary in London, had sanctioned the enlisting of an army of ten thousand men in England, which, under the command of Colonel, afterwards Sir de Lacy Evans, landed at San Sebastian in August to assist the government of the regency to put down the Carlists in the northwest. There was already a British Auxiliary Contingent attached to the Spanish army, and the British Naval Squadron, under Lord John Hay, assisted the Cristinos on the coast between Bilbao and Santander.

But neither the native nor the British supporters of the regent were at this time successful in the Basque provinces. Bilbao was for many months besieged, and was at length relieved only in the month of December, 1836, by the English forces co-operating with Espartero, who was created, for his share in the victory, Count of Luchana.

The ministry of Count Toreno had lasted only from June to September (1835), when Mendizabal assumed the chief direction of affairs; and it was just two months later (November, 1835) that George Borrow first set foot on the soil of the Peninsula.

Mendizabal continued to be Prime Minister until May, 1836, when he was succeeded by a coalition ministry of Isturitz, Galiano and the Duke of Rivas (see text, p. 181), under whose administration took place the military riots at Madrid (August 11, 12), which were most bravely repressed by General Quesada, the commandant of the city, as so graphically recorded by Borrow (pp. 202–205). Yet Quesada’s valour was of no avail. The decree of La Granja, of August 13 and 14, extorted from the fears of the queen regent by actual threats of military violence, was followed by the precipitate flight of Isturitz and Galiano to France, and of the Duke of Rivas to Gibraltar, and the assumption of power by Señor Calatrava, with Mendizabal as Minister of Finance. Quesada was murdered, as is said and sung on p. 206 of the text.

If the Cristino cause had made but little progress in 1836, there was even less encouragement to be found in the result of the military operations in the earlier part of 1837. General Evans was defeated at Hernani, near San Sebastian, in March, and although Lord John Hay with his English mariners took Irun, Don Carlos was allowed to march almost unopposed upon the capital. On September 12, he found himself within four leagues of Madrid, and had it not been for his own poltroonery and the jealousy and incompetence of those by whom he was surrounded, he might have ridden into the Puerta del Sol on the next day as King of Spain. But, dis aliter visum and all undefeated, he turned his back upon La Corte, and marched northwards with no apparent reason or policy, closely pressed by the new commander-in-chief of the Cristino forces, a man whose name is distinguished above that of any of his fellows in the contemporary history of his country.