3. The Battle of Maida (11)
The Abandonment of Calabria
After Maida had been fought the campaign took a most strange aspect. I know of no other war in which, after a decisive victory, the victors and the vanquished turned their backs on each other and proceeded to place 150 miles between them. That Reynier should turn northward from Catanzaro and fight his way along the east-coast road towards his base at Naples was but natural. The peasantry were already up all over northern Calabria, and Stuart might be manoeuvring (for all Reynier knew) to go north by the west-coast road, and place himself between Catanzaro and Naples. He soon found that this was not the case, yet continued to fall back, harassed but not seriously harmed, by the “Masse”, as the insurgents called themselves. By the first days of August he was in the Basilicata at Cassano, where he was, as he found, in safety. But when we reflect that it took him nearly a month to get to Cassano, and that Stuart could have taken a road via Cosenza, which was fifty miles shorter than that of Reynier, we see that there was every chance for the British commander to cut him oñ.
Stuart had three choices before him on the day after Maida. There was the obvious and immediate plan of either following Reynier hot-foot to Catanzaro, or marching by Cosenza to cut him off from his retreat. If either alternative had been adopted, it would probably have resulted in the complete destruction of the French division. Secondly, a less obvious but a grander scheme presented itself. The whole object of divisions in Calabria should have been to draw off the French from the great task which they had in hand—Massena’s siege of Gaeta, which had been making such a splendid defence for six months and was detaining in front of it the largest section of the French army. What if Stuart and Sidney Smith, leaving Reynier to force his way as best he could through the insurgents, and treating him as a negligible quantity—which he was—had tried to do something for the relief of Gaeta?
I am here taking up Bunbury’s suggestion, which seems to me absolutely conclusive. If Sidney Smith had sailed with his squadron for Gaeta, announced the victory, and landed his marines, if he had used his energy to hearten up the long-deserted garrison of the Prince of Hesse-Philipsthal, if at the same time Stuart with his transports had arrived in front of Naples and presented himself before the city, after making a base in Capri, the isle in front of it, which was in British hands, it is practically certain that King Joseph, who had only 3,000 men with him, would either have abandoned Naples—which was seething with discontent and ready to rise—or have called on Masséna to help him. But Masséna could not have helped him (having only 12,000 or 15,000 men), save by raising the siege of Gaeta, which would have meant the abandonment of all northern Naples and general insurrection in the Abruzzi, Molise, and Campania. In either case the result would be splendid—either the capture of Naples, or the raising of the siege of Gaeta.
What Sidney Smith and Stuart found to do was something very different. The naval hero went off to make a dash at the insignificant Castle of Scilla on the Straits of Messina. He was beaten off with loss by the garrison of 250 men, the place being impregnable on the side of the sea. No news was sent to Gaeta. What Stuart did was to make up his mind, in his own words, “to begin a march southwards, preparatory to returning to Sicily”. He actually handed over the Calabrias to his brigand allies, and devoted himself during the next fortnight to a march back to the Straits, sweeping up on the way the garrisons that Reynier had left in southern Calabria. The half-battalion of Poles at Monteleone surrendered to him without firing a shot; so did the single company at Tropea. Reggio, where there were 600 men of the 23rd and 42nd in a weak medieval castle, gave in almost as easily. There only remained the inaccessible fastness of Scilla, which gave more trouble, as it lay on a rocky point connected with the land by a narrow isthmus. The governor held out until heavy guns had been hoisted with infinite trouble to a commanding point on the mainland, and then laid down his arms on July 23rd.
There were now no more French in southern Calabria, and the bag of prisoners had been swollen by 1,300 men. Even this was ultimately increased, for Stuart sent the 78th regiment by sea to pounce on Cotrone, on the east coast of central Calabria, where Reynier’s last outlying post, his central hospital guarded by 250 Poles, had been left isolated. The governor surrendered at once, and some 600 men, sick or hale, were sent to Messina. Of Reynier’s whole division, after this last disaster, there were left only 4,681 effective and 1,106 sick, out of 9,191 effective and 689 sick who had existed on July 1st. Four thousand one hundred and three men had disappeared, of whom 2,732 were prisoners, and the rest dead or deserters.
But what was the use of this, when the news arrived that Gaeta had surrendered on July 18th, a full fortnight after Maida, when its governor had been mortally wounded, and its garrison reduced to complete demoralization. Masséna’s army was set free; he marched to deliver King Joseph from the danger of insurrection in Naples city, and then detached 8,000 men to join Reynier and Verdier, whose position was thus made secure. There was an end to any general scheme for the reconquest of Naples, and the English abandoned Calabria to the enemy, who nevertheless took many months to subdue the fierce but ill-led bands of the mountaineers, even when they were unsupported by a single British soldier. It was not till the next year that the French had, after infinite trouble, got back to the position that Reynier had held in July 1806. Meanwhile the better part of the English army of Sicily had been sent out on the unhappy second Egyptian campaign, which proved such a fiasco under General Frazer.
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