Napoleon's Wars_ An International History, 1803-1815 - Charles Esdaile [231]
Within a very few days, then, the basic principle had been resolved: Britain would support the Spanish revolt to the full extent of her abilities. But what this meant to the Portland administration was one thing, and what it meant to the Spaniards quite another. Much as Gustav IV had done, the Spaniards assumed that Britain’s resources were far greater than was actually the case. Troops were not at first seen as being that important - when he made his first landfall in Spain, indeed, Sir Arthur Wellesley was advised to sail on to Portugal and land his men there instead - but there was almost no limit to the arms, equipment and money that were asked for. To this was added a further complication in that Britain embarked on the Peninsular War with the sense that she was rushing to the rescue of ‘gallant little Spain’, whereas the Spaniards believed that it was rather Spain who was rescuing Britain. Needless to say, the general concord of the summer of 1808 did not survive for very long. As we have seen, the Spanish revolt was an extremely complex phenomenon which had little in common with the great popular crusade of Britain’s imagination: enthusiasm for the struggle was at best limited, and the provisional government that was formed at Aranjuez in September was an unwieldy affair that had difficulty imposing its authority. Conscription, then, did not go well while there were very few volunteers. At the same time, it proved very difficult even to get the Spanish armies to the front, let alone coordinate their activities or suppress the feuding that characterized the high command. Slow to get his army into Spain at all, let alone to the front line on the river Ebro, Moore was incensed by what he found, and concluded, along with many of his men, that the Spanish war was a mere sham - that both he and the British government had been deceived. A terrible affair, the retreat to La Coruña was therefore blamed on the Spaniards, while many stories spread of their supposed cruelty, ingratitude, cowardice and incompetence. Yet there is also the Spanish point of view to be considered here. Moore’s army was slow to arrive in Spain; the behaviour of many of the British troops was nearly as bad as that of the French soldiers they were supposed to be opposing; and the British had failed to make a stand even when they reached the shelter offered by the eminently defensible frontiers of Galicia.
The campaign of Sir John Moore set the tone for what proved to be a most acrimonious partnership. As the years of conflict continued, fresh recriminations kept surfacing with regard to the conduct of operations. The battle of Talavera saw the British complaining that the Spaniards had failed to supply them with adequate food, and the Spaniards complaining that Wellington had deliberately sabotaged their operations. The battle of Ocaña saw the Spaniards maintaining that defeat had come because the British commander had refused to support their offensive. After the first siege of Ciudad Rodrigo the captured Spanish governor accused Wellington of deliberately abandoning him to his fate when his forces were a mere day’s march away to the west. The battle of Barosa saw the British, this time commanded by Sir Thomas Graham, arguing that they had been betrayed by the Spaniards. The battle of Albuera saw complaints that the excessive Anglo-Portuguese casualties had been the product of the Spaniards’ inability to manoeuvre,