According toTiteux the troops Dupont had at Bailen were mainly conscripts but, more to the point, they were short of food and out of water (Spain in July!) which was why Dupont and his senior officers considered they could not continue fighting - Moncey had just pulled his troops out of the area he was supposed to be occupying because of water shortage.

Napoleon seems to have had a habit of underestimating climate problems and also to have had a fixed mentality that failure was always due to weakness or incompetence. He also seems to have been underestimating the Spanish, one of the charges against Villoutreys the ADC, was that he had accepted a Spanish escort to take the copy of the capitulation back to Madrid, while those on the ground knew that he wouldn't have got very far without one. From Dupont's point of view it was question of capitulating - which should have led to all his troops getting safely back to France - or trying to cut his way out and getting the lot massacred, which wouldn't have done much for French prestige either. N seems to have been unable to see it that way, but Moncey and Bessieres should have known better.

I'm not sure that it as the absence of the Emperor that did for Dupont's motivation, more the impossible situation the French troops were finding themselves in; being commanded by Savary can't have helped!

regards,

Susan