Note 240 — SECTION XIX: CHAPTER IV

I cannot understand Napier’s narrative of this little campaign, on pages 352-4 of his vol. ii. It runs as follows, and seems to have no relation to the facts detailed by Belmas, Toreno, Arteche, or any other historian. No mention is made of the four captures of Oviedo!

‘Mahy was organizing a second army at Lugo and in the Asturias. D’Arco [Arce] commanded 7,000 men, 3,000 of whom were posted at Cornellana under General Ponte.... Bonnet, from the Asturias, threatened Galicia by the Concija d’Ibas: having destroyed Ponte’s force at Potes de la Sierra [30 miles from Colombres, where the actual fight took place], he menaced Galicia by the pass of Nava de Suarna [a place which his vanguard did not approach by a matter of 40 miles].... But he did not pass Nava de Suarna, and General D’Arco rallied the Asturian fugitives at Louarca. It seems probable that while Bonnet drew the attention of the Galician army towards Lugo [he was never within 100 miles of that place], Junot thought to penetrate by Puebla Senabria. But finally Junot, drawing a reinforcement from Bonnet, invested Astorga with 10,000 infantry,’ &c. [No troops from Bonnet’s force ever appeared before Astorga.]

This last blunder is apparently borrowed from Victoires et Conquêtes, xx. 12, which states that General Bonnet detached Jeannin’s brigade, the 46th and 65th, to Astorga. But these regiments did not belong to Bonnet, but were, from the first to the last, parts of Junot’s own corps, and never entered the Asturias. Compare Napoleon, Correspondance, xx. 21, the muster rolls of Jan. 1, Feb. 15, and Belmas, iii. p. 46.