Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845

Eguia, finding that the robberies continued to as great an extent as before, and that the temporary governor of the Ferrol did not aid him efficaciously in detecting their perpetrators, removed him from his post and conferred it on Zumalacarregui, with whose character he was well acquainted. The latter in a very few days obtained a clue to the whole confederacy, and arrested C– and other rich accomplices. Various anonymous offers of large sums of money were now made to Zumalacarregui, and repeated threats of assassination held out to him; but he was neither to be bribed nor frightened, and the wealthy and influential confederates set every engine at work to bring about his dismissal and ruin. Being known as a Royalist, the events that occurred at La Granja in 1832 facilitated the designs of his enemies. At the same time Brigadier-General Chacon, then commanding the royal corps of marines at the Ferrol, and who has since been political chief of Madrid and one of the cabinet, was also manœuvring against Zumalacarregui, whose character, it appears, awed him considerably. Under a pretext that a Carlist pronunciamento was contemplated, Chacon shut himself up in the arsenal with his marines, and persisted in remaining there in spite of the assurances of safety given to him by the governor. At last, having had an interview at Santiago with the Captain-General Eguia, the latter succeeded in tranquillizing his fears, and the marines came out of their stronghold, looking very like a parcel of children whose nurse has threatened them with a bugbear. Notwithstanding the absurdity of Chacon's demonstration, it attracted the attention of the Christino party, then in power; and as at that period all the officers of rank known to entertain Royalist opinions were deprived, one after the other, of their commands, there was nothing surprising in the same measure being adopted with regard to Zumalacarregui, although nothing could be alleged against him, whether as a man of honour or in a military or political point of view. As soon as he left the Ferrol, the proceedings against the robbers became paralysed; those of them who had been taken were set at liberty, and resumed with impunity their course of crime.

In July 1833 Zumalacarregui took up his residence at Pampeluna, where, three months later, he learned the death of Ferdinand VII. and the declaration of General Santos Ladron in favour of Don Carlos. He would probably have immediately departed to join the insurgents, had not the authorities of Pampeluna had their eyes upon him. General Solá, then governor of that fortress, hearing that he had been negotiating the purchase of a horse, sent for him and enquired if such were really the case. Zumalacarregui replied that even if it were so, it need not surprise any body, for all his life he had been accustomed to keep a horse. "Nevertheless," returned Solá, "for the present your Señoria must be pleased to do without one." And this was the motive of the clandestine manner in which Zumalacarregui left Pampeluna.

It has been already shown that although, from earliest manhood, Zumalacarregui employed himself diligently in cultivating those qualities, and acquiring that knowledge, by the judicious application of which he afterwards gained such celebrity, his really public and important life extended over a period of little more than a year and a half. But within that short space how much was comprised! What hardship and exertion—what efforts both mental and bodily—what an amount of activity, excitement, peril, and success were accumulated in those few months of existence! From the peculiar circumstances under which Zumalacarregui's achievements occurred, an historian was very difficult to be found for them. Those who surrounded him were generally speaking men of action, less skilled in handling the pen than the sabre; and moreover, during the six years' struggle, in which most of those who survived its sanguinary contest took part to its close, the succession of events was so rapid, the changes were so constant, that the incidents of to-day might well cause those of yesterday to be imperfectly remembered. Even the newspaper emissaries who hovered about the scene of the contest, striving to collect intelligence, were foiled in so doing by the constant movements of the Carlist general, by the wild country and inclement season in which he carried on his operations. In the year 1836, a young Englishman, whom a love of adventure and zeal for the cause had induced to draw his sword in behalf of Charles V., published a narrative of twelve months' service with Zumalacarregui. There is much in his book to amuse and interest, and Captain Henningsen, as we have reason to know from other sources than the internal evidence of his writings, is a gallant and accomplished officer. His descriptions are graceful and agreeable, the sketches and anecdotes he gives are the very romance of civil warfare—not that, as we believe, he either did or had any occasion to embellish his account of a campaign which abounded in the picturesque and the dramatic. He was only with Zumalacarregui, however, during the latter half of his career, when the forces of the Carlists had already assumed a certain numerical importance, and their resources were on the increase. Of its earlier portion he could speak but from hearsay; and it was during that earlier period that Zumalacarregui had the greatest difficulties to contend with—difficulties in overcoming which he displayed extraordinary talent and perseverance. Besides this, we have always looked upon Captain Henningsen's book rather as a slight, though interesting and truthful, narrative of personal adventure, than as a record of Zumalacarregui's career; nor does he claim for it a higher character than the one we are disposed to concede to it. "I have merely," he says, "drawn a rough sketch with charcoal on a guard-house wall—neither memoir, travels, nor history—but which may have the merit of being a sketch from the life." This is a correct definition. But the character and exploits of Zumalacarregui were worthy of a chronicler who should treat the subject more seriously—and such a one has lately been found. A personal friend, who followed him from the first day that he took up arms for Don Carlos, a native of the province in which the war was chiefly carried on, fully acquainted with its state and the feelings of its inhabitants, as well as with the incalculable disadvantages under which Zumalacarregui laboured and the few advantages he enjoyed, has undertaken the task. Ten years after Zumalacarregui's death, the Carlist general, Don Juan Antonio Zaratiegui, has written, from the country of his exile, the memoirs of his former leader.

Although the arrival of Zumalacarregui was hailed with the most lively joy by the insurgents, and notwithstanding that he was senior in rank to any officer then with the Navarrese Carlists, there were still difficulties in the way of his taking the command. The whole force in Navarre consisted but of nine hundred men—peasants for the most part, many without arms, others with old and unserviceable ones; yet was the colonelcy of this ragged and badly equipped regiment an object of competition. Iturralde, who held it, refused to give it up, although—with the exception of Juan Echevarria, the priest of Los Arcos, who afterwards made his name infamous for his crimes and excesses—all the officers and influential persons there assembled were desirous he should resign it in favour of Zumalacarregui. Captain Henningsen relates that Iturralde sent two companies of infantry to arrest his rival, who, "reversing the game, sternly commanded them to arrest Iturralde, and was obeyed." Of this we see no mention in the book before us, where we are told, on the contrary, that Zumalacarregui, finding Iturralde obstinate in retaining the command, was mounting his horse with the intention of departing and offering his services to the Alavese Carlists, when he was prevented on so doing by the mass of officers and persons of distinction in the camp, who compelled him to return to his quarters, promising that they would find means of arranging matters satisfactorily. The captains formed up their companies, and marched them to the parade-ground. When all were assembled, Major Juan Sarasa, who was looked upon by the soldiers as second in command, drew his sword, and exclaimed in a loud voice, "Volunteers! In the name of King Charles the Fifth, Colonel Don Tomas Zumalacarregui is recognised as Commandant-General of Navarre!" It is certain that as Don Carlos was then far away from Navarre, and ignorant even of what was going on there, he could not make this nomination; but neither had he appointed Iturralde nor any of the other chiefs who commanded in the various provinces. Under such circumstances this was perhaps the most proper and solemn way of conferring the command, especially when the choice fell upon the officer of the highest rank there present. Before sheathing his sword, Sarasa ordered the guard of honour at Iturralde's quarters to be relieved, and that Iturralde himself should be kept under arrest until further orders from the new chief. All this having taken place without opposition or disturbance, Zumalacarregui made his appearance upon the parade, passed the troops in review, and then causing them to form a circle round him, he addressed them at some length.

From the first formation of a Carlist force in Navarre, the men had been in the habit of receiving two reals, about fivepence sterling, a-day. This rate of pay had been established by General Santos Ladron, and continued by Iturralde, with the view of attracting volunteers. The necessary funds had hitherto been supplied from certain moneys that had been found at the beginning of the war in the hands of various subordinate administrations. These funds, however, were now nearly exhausted, and Zumalacarregui's first announcement to the soldiery was, that he should reduce their pay one-half till times were better. Considering the circumstances under which he had assumed the command, this was a bold step. Most generals would have sought rather to conciliate their men by an increase than to risk exciting discontent by a reduction. Nevertheless, owing to Zumalacarregui's tone of mingled firmness and conciliation, this alteration was made without exciting a murmur.

Releasing Iturralde from his arrest Zumalacarregui appointed him second in command, whilst Sarasa cheerfully descended to the third place—thereby proving that in what he had done in favour of Zumalacarregui, the good of the cause he had espoused was his only motive. The command in chief, however, was merely ad interim. On the arrival of Colonel Eraso, who was then detained in France, it was to be given up to him. But when Eraso made his appearance, so convinced was he of Zumalacarregui's superiority of talent, that he insisted, in spite of the latter's urgent entreaties, in taking only the second post.

Upon assuming the command, Zumalacarregui at once determined on adopting a defensive system of warfare—the only one, indeed, that was practicable with his wretched resources and handful of men. Just at that time General Sarsfield was marching with a strong column to the scene of the insurrection; and at his approach the Castilian Carlists, under Melino and Cuevillas, fled and dispersed to their homes. Sarsfield moved on, and occupied Vittoria with little opposition. Soon afterwards Zumalacarregui, who had betaken himself to the banks of the Ebro in hopes of seizing some arms and horses, received an urgent summons to repair to Bilboa, then held by the Royalists, and which Sarsfield was advancing to attack. He hastened to obey the call, but only arrived at that extremity of Navarre nearest to Biscay, in time to meet the remnant of the Biscayan Carlists flying before the triumphant Christinos. The troops in the Basque provinces, which, the evening before, had amounted to five or six thousand men, were now reduced to as many hundreds. Their arms, ammunition, and artillery, the latter consisting of four guns, had been abandoned, and were in the power of the conquerors; and so complete was the dissolution of the Carlist forces, that a vast number of persons who were compromised by their conduct or opinions, seeing themselves without defence, crossed the frontier into France. Zumalacarregui, with three scanty, ill-armed battalions, which he had formed out of the handful of Navarrese peasants before alluded to, was now the only hope of the cause. The war was, to all appearance, at an end; and so it undoubtedly would have been but for Zumalacarregui's extraordinary qualities. When he left Pampeluna, the three Basque provinces and the greater part of the Rioja, or plains of the Ebro, were held by the Carlists. Merino had just issued a proclamation announcing himself to be at the head of twenty thousand Castilian volunteers. In all, there were nearly forty thousand men under arms for Don Carlos, and ready to support the Navarrese rising. Suddenly this brilliant perspective had disappeared like a scene in a play, and the twelve or fifteen hundred men, half-naked, without uniform, and badly armed, who were assembled in the valley of the Borunda, found themselves alone and unprotected in front of a formidable and well-provided foe. All was confusion and panic, when Zumalacarregui opposed his zeal and energy to the contagion of alarm that was rapidly spreading amongst his men. His precautions, his decided and inflexible character, gave life to a cause apparently at the last gasp. Encouraging some, rousing others from the lethargy into which they were sinking, he proceeded resolutely with the organization of his three battalions, introduced strict discipline and subordination, and procured five hundred muskets, and a supply of cartridges, from Biscay and Guipuzcoa. General Villareal, who had saved one battalion from the wreck of the Alavese troops, joined him; and the juntas and deputations of the various provinces named Zumalacarregui commander-in-chief of all the Carlist forces.

Meanwhile, Sarsfield's movements appearing too dilatory to the Christino government, he was replaced by General Valdes, and appointed Viceroy of Navarre. The arrival of winter, however, and a heavy fall of snow, in some degree paralyzed the operations of the Christinos, whilst this occasioned incredible sufferings to the Carlists. One battalion of the latter, in passing from Navarre to Guipuzcoa, across the mountains of Aralár, lost 460 men out of 620, of which it consisted. Numbed by cold, and worn out by fatigue, they remained to die upon the road, or dragged themselves for shelter to lonely hamlets and isolated farmhouses, where many of them were discovered and taken by Christino detachments sent to hunt them down. "Truly," says Zaratiegui, "it was a lamentable sight to behold these unfortunate men, who were unable to move hand or foot, thus persecuted. But even in this state of impotence and peril, not one of them chose to avail himself of the pardon which the Christino generals at that time freely offered to those who should renounce Don Carlos. Doubtless a great proof of how noble and constant was their first resolution."

In order not to inconvenience the inhabitants, Zumalacarregui was in the habit of distributing his troops over large districts, himself frequently remaining with only a handful of men about him. On one of these occasions an incident occurred which is related at considerable length by General Zaratiegui, who evidently attaches the greatest importance to his late chief's most trifling actions, and, in the course of his book, compares him to or sets him above various renowned heroes of ancient and modern times. The anecdote, however, is curious, as showing the constant state of vigilance and anxiety in which the Carlists were kept during these early days of their uprising.

"Zumalacarregui had taken up his quarters in the hamlet of Zabal, which consisted of only four houses; and, as the season was unfavourable for a bivouac, he had scattered the troops through various small villages in the neighbourhood. With himself there remained only a guard of fifteen or twenty men, and a few aides-de-camp. It was in the middle of December, when the nights are at the longest, and consequently the most favourable time of the year for an enemy to accomplish a surprise. The Carlist general lay awake in his bed, watching for the dawn, which seemed to him longer than usual in appearing; till at last his own restlessness and impatience made him fancy that the Christinos were coming to surprise him. A distant noise which he heard, and which resembled the trot of horses, confirmed the hallucination. He sprang from his bed, and, nearly naked as he was, descended the stairs, opened the door of the house, and tried to snatch away the musket of the sentinel posted there, in order to defend himself against the approaching enemy. The sentry, at once recognising him, kept him off with his hand, and said firmly—'General, leave me my arms; when needful, I shall know how to use them.' The man had only joined the Carlists three days before, and, excepting his musket, bore no mark or sign of his new profession, not even a cartouch-box; and, to complete the singularity of the scene, he was mounting guard bareheaded. The horses, of which Zumalacarregui, with extraordinary fineness of ear, had detected the approach at a very great distance, soon afterwards made their appearance. They were mounted by the men whose duty it was to go from one village to another during the night, collecting rations. Things returned to their previous state of tranquillity, and the sentinel was rewarded for his steadiness and presence of mind.

"This incident," concludes Zaratiegui, "recalls to my recollection an anecdote told by a Spanish author, of the great Captain Gonzalo de Cordova. When that hero was laying siege to a fortress on the island of Cephalonia, which was defended by the Turks, he was many times seen to get up in his sleep, and to cry out to his soldiers to come and repel the enemy; and it is also said, that owing to these alarms the Spaniards more than once escaped a surprise."

Without reference to a map, it would be difficult for our readers to appreciate a description of the extraordinary marches and countermarches by which Zunalacarregui avoided his enemy until such time as he was able to fight him. Sarsfield had no sooner established himself in his vice-royalty at Pampeluna, that he collected all the troops he had at his disposal, and began running after the Carlist chief. He displayed great activity, made forced and rapid marches, and on arriving one evening at the town of Puente la Reyna, found himself, by the result of a well-planned movement, within an hour and a half's march of Artajona, where Zumalacarregui had halted. Sarsfield made sure of coming to blows the next morning; but he had forgotten to take into consideration the insensibility to fatigue, and capacity of exertion, of the Navarrese mountaineers. In the middle of the night, Zumalacarregui turned out his men in dead silence, without sound of drum or trumpet, and began retracing his steps along the road which he had that day followed. The next morning, before Sarsfield arrived at Artajona, Zumalacarregui was at Dicastillo, a long day's march off, and precisely at the same distance from the Christino general at which he had been when the latter commenced his pursuit. Sarsfield found matter for reflection in this, and perceiving, doubtless, that a war in such a country as Navarre, and against such a man as Zumalacarregui, was likely to prove a shoal upon which more than one military reputation would be wrecked, he confided the direction of operations to Generals Lorenzo and Oraa, and returned to Pampeluna, whence he no more issued forth.

The first encounter between Zumalacarregui and the Christinos took place on the 29th of December, near the village of Asarta. The Carlist force consisted of seven small battalions or corps, together about 2500 men, knowing, for the most part, little or nothing of a soldier's duty. Many of the muskets were useless, and the ammunition so scarce, that ten cartridges formed the allowance with which these troops went, for the first time, under fire. In the combat that ensued, the Christinos suffered considerable loss; and although the Carlists, who had most of them expended their ammunition, finally retreated in haste and disorder, the mere fact of having sustained for some time the assault of an enemy so far superior to them in discipline and equipments, inspired these raw recruits with fresh courage and confidence. The resistance that had been made contrasted advantageously with the facility with which, at the first commencement of the war, far larger bodies of the insurgents had been put to flight. Several Christino officers came over to the Carlists after this trifling action, of which the moral effect was altogether highly favourable to the cause of Don Carlos.

Dividing his forces into three detachments, Zumalacarregui sent two of these to draw off the attention of Lorenzo and Oraa, whilst he himself suddenly appeared before the royal manufactory of shot and shell at Orbaiceta, near the French frontier. The garrison, consisting of two hundred men, capitulated, although it might very well have held out the place against an enemy without artillery, until the arrival of assistance, which would have been certain to come in two or three days. Here were found two hundred excellent muskets, a brass four-pounder, and more than 50,000 cartridges; besides an immense quantity of round-shot and other projectiles, which at that time were useless to the Carlists, as they had no artillery.

When, instead of the news which they had been expecting to receive, of the extermination of the royalist faction, the Pampelonese learned that Orbaiceta was captured; and that Lorenzo and Oraa had succeeded in nothing except in knocking up their horses and fagging their men; they sent to Valdes, the general-in-chief of the army of the North, who was then in Biscay, imploring him to come and make an end of the Carlists. Valdes hastened to Pampeluna, and on arriving there at once made a sortie with five or six thousand men. Zumalacarregui posted himself in a narrow pass, on the road along which the Christinos were advancing, and awaited their arrival. Having done this, he sent out a number of officers and soldiers, who were well acquainted with the country, to observe the movements of the Queen's troops, and give notice of their approach. The evening was drawing in, when a peasant came up in all haste, laden with a large stone of a thin flat form, nearly a foot and a half long. On reaching the presence of Zumalacarregui, he laid it down, and requested the general to read what was written on it. One of the scouts having no writing materials, and thinking the peasant incapable of bearing a verbal message correctly, had taken this novel means of conveying intelligence to his chief. In danger of being outflanked, Zumalacarregui was compelled to abandon his advantageous position. The following day a skirmish took place without result; and at last Valdes, finding that he only fatigued his men uselessly, by pursuing an adversary whom it was impossible to overtake, remained for some days inactive.

A week had elapsed, which Zumalacarregui had passed at Navascues, busied in organizing his troops, and making various important administrative arrangements, when the approach of Oraa compelled him to a change of place. On the evening of the 17th of February, the Christino general having put up his infantry in the hamlets of Zubiri and Urdaniz, and the detachments of cavalry that accompanied him, at a large venta or inn between those two places, Zumalacarregui resolved upon a nocturnal attack.

It was at midnight that, by the light of a dozen trees, which had been set on fire, and served for gigantic torches, the Carlist leader formed up five companies in a thick wood, and after communicating to them his project, directed them how to proceed. The post of honour was assigned to a student of the name of Amezqueta, who, by his feats of courage, subsequently rose from the rank of a simple volunteer to that of colonel, and died in consequence of wounds received in action. One company was sent to open a fire upon Zubiri, in which Oraa himself was lodged; another was to attack the venta, where the cavalry were quartered; and the remaining three were to penetrate into the streets and houses of Urdaniz, which were occupied by five or six hundred Christinos.

The night had at first been bright and moonlit, but was now cloudy and dark; and Zumalacarregui, in order to avoid the terrible consequences that might ensue if his soldiers mistook one another for the enemy, ordered them to put on their shirts over their other garments. It happened to be Carnival time, and the men, not at once understanding the reason of this order, took it as a sort of masquerade proceeding, and made themselves exceedingly merry about it. The result showed how necessary a precaution it was. After various difficulties, occasioned by the bad roads and extreme darkness, the three detachments reached their respective destinations at about half-past two in the morning, and the fire against Zubiri and Urdaniz commenced almost at the same moment. In the first-named place, the Christinos kept themselves shut up in the houses, from the windows of which they returned the fire, guided in their aim by the flashes of their assailants' muskets. The sole object of the Carlists was, to keep them employed, in order that they might not interfere with what was going on at the two other points of attack. The cavalry at the venta having neglected all precautions, and possessing no effective means of defence, soon fell into the power of the Carlists; but at Urdaniz, which was held by infantry, and against which the expedition was more particularly directed, a hard-contested fight took place. The first picket which the Carlists encountered was cut to pieces to a man; the fire of a second outpost spread the alarm; but, nevertheless, the attacking party penetrated into the ground-floor of most of the houses, and a desperate contest ensued upon the stairs. The horses in the stables were either carried off or killed; and nothing would have been easier than to have set fire to the houses, and so ensured the destruction of all the Christinos. From this latter sanguinary measure, which a Cabrera or a Valmaseda would probably not have hesitated to adopt, Zumalacarregui abstained. "It did not agree," says his biographer, "with the principles of equity and justice which he observed relatively to the villages and their inhabitants;" from which we are left to infer, that the burning alive of five hundred Christino soldiers, could it have been done without injuring houses or peasants, would have been rather an acceptable holocaust to the Carlist chief.