7. Tales of Secret Service (12)
The Great Escape of August 7th
An unfortunate chance intervened to prevent the complete success of the plot. A dispatch came from Joseph Bonaparte to the effect that there had been delay, as he understood, in the taking of the oath in his name by the Expeditionary Force. Therefore each corps was to parade at its headquarters on July 30th or July 31st, and go through the ceremony with proper military pomp. Now, the senior officers everywhere, by this time, were making their preparations for evasion, but the rank and file knew nothing definite about the plan, though some had their suspicions. La Romana sent word round that the ceremony had better be gone through—oaths sworn under duress are not morally binding. So most of the regiments formally took the oath in a more or less farcical way. In some cases the men substituted the word “Ferdinand” for the word “Joseph”, and the officers took no notice of this somewhat startling verbal alteration.
But the two regiments quartered in Zeeland—Guadalajara and Asturias—when paraded on July 31st, and told to swear to the name of King Joseph, burst into mutiny, drove off the officers who tried to keep them quiet, shot the aide-de-camp of the French General Fririon, who was presiding at the ceremony, and threatened to march on Copenhagen. Next day they were surrounded by Danish troops in great force, and compelled to lay down their arms. Ringleaders were executed, and the mass dispersed in small parties to prison camps. Incidentally, it may be remarked, these zealous but misguided loyalists were incorporated by force in a Spanish Legion which Napoleon used in the Russian War of 1812. It was destroyed at Krasnoi during the Moscow retreat, but a remnant who had been captured by the Russians were sent round by sea to Cadiz by the Czar.
The result of this mutiny at Roeskilde was to reveal to Bernadotte the true mentality of his Spanish contingent, and he announced to La Romana that he was about to visit the Danish isles on a mission of inquiry, bringing with him French and Dutch troops. There would be a new dislocation of the whole of the army of the Baltic. The arrival of the Marshal in a suspicious frame of mind, and with troops at his back, would have wrecked the whole plan. Hence a few days before the British Baltic Fleet was due to appear La Romana gave his signal for action.
On August 7th all the troops in Fünen concentrated at Nyborg. The Danes were taken by surprise, and no one resisted, save an obstinate naval officer commanding a brig in the harbour. A British frigate and five gunboats battered his vessel to pieces. Next day the detachment in Jutland carried out their part in the arrangement: the infantry regiment of Zamora and the cavalry regiments Rey and Infante seized the towns of Fredericia and Aarhus, got fishing-boats and other small craft, and ferried themselves across the Lesser Belt into Fünen; the regiment Algarve was less lucky—General Kindelan had fled from his quarters, when he saw what was going on, to the nearest French cantonment. A brigade of Dutch Hussars, which he brought up, intercepted Algarve outside Fredericia, and fell upon it. The officer who was leading the regiment—a Major Costa—blew out his brains when he saw that the game was up, and the rest surrendered.
The regiment in Langeland had disarmed the Danish garrison in that isolated isle without difficulty; and of the unfortunate mutineers in Zeeland a party of about 150 succeeded in breaking prison, seizing fishing-boats, and crossing to Fünen.
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