SECTION VIII: CHAPTER II

MOORE AT SALAMANCA

It will be remembered that on October 6, 1808, the command of the British forces in Portugal had passed into the hands of Sir John Moore, to the entire satisfaction of Wellesley and the other officers who had served under those slow and cautious generals Sir Hew Dalrymple and Sir Harry Burrard. The moment that the news of Vimiero was received, and long before the details of the Convention of Cintra could come to hand, the Government had determined to send on the victorious British army into Spain, and to assist it with heavy reinforcements from home. Dalrymple was even informed that he might cross the frontier at once, if he chose, without waiting for any detailed instructions from the War Office[548]. Wellesley, as we have seen, thought that his chief should have done so without delay, and observed that if he had charge of affairs the army would be at Madrid by October 1[549].

Yet when Moore took over the command, he found that little or nothing had been done to carry out this design. The delay was partly occasioned by the tardy evacuation of Portugal by Junot’s troops: the last of them, as we have seen[550], did not leave the Tagus till the month of October had begun. But it was still more due to the leisurely and feeble management of Dalrymple, who would not march without detailed and definite orders from home. He might well have begun to move his brigades eastward[p. 487] long before the last small detachments of the French had disappeared. But when on October 6 Dalrymple’s successor looked around him, he found that the whole army was still concentrated in the neighbourhood of Lisbon, save Hope’s two brigades, and these had been sent forward to the frontier not so much for the purpose of entering Spain, as for that of bringing moral force to bear on General Galluzzo, and compelling him to abandon his ridiculous siege of Elvas. Two things had been especially neglected by Dalrymple—the exploration of the roads that lead from Portugal into Spain, and the pressing on of the formation of a proper divisional and regimental transport for the army. It is strange to find that he had remembered the existence of both of these needs: his dispatches speak of his intention to send officers both towards Badajoz and into Beira, and he asserts that ‘the army is in high order and fit to move when required[551].’ Yet his successor had to state that as a matter of fact no body of information about the routes and resources of Portugal and Spain had been collected, and that the scheme for moving and feeding the army had not been drawn up. ‘When I shall pass the frontier of Portugal,’ wrote Moore to Castlereagh, ‘it is impossible for me at this instant to say: it depends on a knowledge of the country which I am still without, and on commissariat arrangements yet unmade[552].’ We may grant that Dalrymple had been somewhat handicapped by the fact that his army had been landed, in the old haphazard British fashion, without any proper military train. We may also concede that no one could have foreseen that the Portuguese and Spanish governments would be unable to supply any useful information concerning the main roads and the resources of their own countries. But the whole month of September had been at the disposal of the late commander-in-chief, and he, with his quartermaster-general, Murray, must take the blame of having failed to accomplish in it all that might have been done. Within a fortnight after the Convention of Cintra had been signed, British officers ought to have explored every road to the frontier, and to have reported on their facilities. Yet on October 6 Moore could not find any one who could tell him whether the roads Lisbon—Sabugal—Almeida, and Lisbon—Abrantes—Castello Branco were or were not practicable for artillery! And this was in spite of the[p. 488] fact that a British detachment had actually marched from Lisbon to Almeida, in order to receive the surrender of the garrison of that fortress. The fact would seem to be that Dalrymple had placed his confidence in the native governments of the Peninsula. He vainly imagined that the Portuguese engineers could supply him with accurate details concerning the roads and resources of Beira and the Alemtejo. He sent a very capable officer—Lord William Bentinck—to Madrid, and entered into communication with the Spanish government. From them he hoped that he might get some account of the plan of campaign in which his army was to join, a list of the routes which it would be convenient for him to use, and details as to the way in which he could collect and carry provisions. As a matter of fact he could only obtain a quantity of vague and generally useless suggestions, some of which argued an astonishing ignorance of military affairs in those who made them. If there had been a Spanish commander-in-chief, Dalrymple might have extracted from him his views about the campaign that must shortly begin. But the Junta had steadfastly refused to unite the charge of their many armies in the hands of a single general: they told Lord William that he might make inquiries from Casta?os: but the Andalusian general could only speak for himself. It was not he, but a council of war, that would settle the plan of operations: he could only give Bentinck the conclusions that had been arrived at after the abortive meeting of generals that had taken place on September 5. In answer to a string of questions administered to him by Dalrymple’s emissary, as to the routes that the British army had better follow, and the methods of supply that it had better adopt, he could only reply that he was at present without good maps, and could not give the necessary information in detail. He could only refer Bentinck to the newly formed Commissariat Board (Junta de Víveres), which ought to be able to designate the best routes with reference to the feeding of the army and the establishment of magazines[553]. Of course this board turned out to know even less than Casta?os himself. Nothing whatever was done for the British army, with the exception that a certain Colonel Lopez was sent to its head quarters to act as the representative of the Junta de Víveres. It does not seem that he was able to do anything for the expeditionary[p. 489] force that they could not have done for themselves. In this way the whole time that Dalrymple had at his disposal had been wasted in the long correspondence with Madrid, and not a soldier had passed the frontier when Moore took up the command.

Meanwhile, it ought at least to have been possible to make preparations in Portugal, even if nothing could be done in Spain. But the question of transport and commissariat was a very difficult one. The British army had struggled from Mondego Bay to Lisbon with the aid of the small ox-wagons of the country-side, requisitioned and dismissed from village to village. But clearly a long campaign in Spain could not be managed on these lines. A permanent provision of draught and pack animals was required, and natives must be hired to drive them. The few regular enlisted men of the Royal Wagon Train who had reached Portugal were only enough to take care of the more important military stores. Moreover their wagons turned out to be much too heavy for the roads of the Peninsula, and had to be gradually replaced by country carts[554]. The great mass of the regimental baggage and the food had always to be transported on mules, or vehicles bought or hired from the peasantry. The Portuguese did not care to contract to take their animals over the frontier, and it was most difficult to collect transport of any kind, even with the aid of the local authorities. When once Moore’s dreadful retreat began, his drivers and muleteers deserted their wagons and beasts, and fled home, resolved that if they must lose their property they would not lose their lives also[555].

In later years Wellington gradually succeeded in collecting a large and invaluable army of Spanish and Portuguese employés, who—in their own fashion—were as good campaigners as his soldiery, and served him with exemplary fidelity even when their pay was many months in arrear. But in 1808 this body of trained camp-followers did not exist, and Moore had the greatest difficulty in scraping together the transport that took him forward to Salamanca. As to commissariat arrangements, he found that even though he[p. 490] divided his army into several small columns, and utilized as many separate routes as possible, it was not easy for the troops to live. The commissariat officers, sent on to collect magazines at the various halting-places, were so inexperienced and so uniformly ignorant of the Portuguese tongue, that even where they were energetic they had the greatest difficulty in catering for the army. Wellesley, as we have already seen[@repeated 556 note], had been complaining bitterly of their inefficiency during the short Vimiero campaign. Moore, more gracious in his phrases, wrote that ‘we have a Commissariat extremely zealous, but quite new and inexperienced in the important duties which it falls to their lot to perform.’ This was but one of the many penalties which England had to pay for her long abstention from continental warfare on a large scale. It is easy to blame the ministry, the permanent officials in London, or the executive officials on the spot[556]. But in reality mere want of knowledge of the needs of a great land-war accounts for most of the mistakes that were committed. To lavish angry criticism on individuals, as did the Opposition papers in England at the time, was almost as unjust as it was useless. The art of war, in this as in its other branches, had to be learnt; it was not possible to pick it up by intuition. Nothing can be more interesting than to look through the long series of orders and directions drawn up by the quartermaster-general’s department between 1809 and 1813, in which the gradual evolution of order out of chaos by dint of practical experience can be traced. But in October, 1808, the process was yet in its infancy.

It was with the greatest difficulty, therefore, that Moore got his army under weigh. He found it, as he wrote to Castlereagh, ‘without equipment of any kind, either for the carriage of the light baggage of regiments, artillery stores, commissariat stores, or any other appendage of an army, and without a magazine formed on any of the routes by which we are to march[557].’ Within ten days, however, the whole force was on the move. The heavy impedimenta were placed in store in Lisbon: it was a thousand pities that the troops did not leave behind their women and children, whose presence with the regiments was destined to cause so many harrowing scenes during the forced marches of the ensuing winter. They were offered a passage to England, but the greater part[p. 491] refused it, and the colonels (from mistaken kindness) generally allowed them to march with their corps.

The direction in which the army was to move had been settled in a general way by the dispatches sent from Castlereagh to Dalrymple in September[558]. It was to be held together in a single mass and sent forward to the Ebro, there to be put in line with Blake and Casta?os. An attempt on the part of the Junta to distract part of it to Catalonia had been firmly and very wisely rejected. The French were still on the defensive when the plan was drawn out, and Burgos had been named as the point at which the British troops might aim. It was very close to the enemy, but in September neither English nor Spanish statesmen were taking into consideration the probability of the advent of the Emperor, and his immediate assumption of the offensive. They were rather dreaming of an advance towards the Pyrenees by the allied armies. If the large reinforcements which were promised to Moore were destined to land at Corunna, rather than at Gihon or Santander, it was merely because these latter ports were known to be small and destitute of resources, not because they were considered to be dangerously near to the French. La Romana’s division, it will be remembered, was actually put ashore at Santander: it is quite possible that Sir David Baird’s troops might have been sent to the same destination, but for the fortunate fact that it was believed that it would be impossible to supply him with transport from the bare and rugged region of the Monta?a. Corunna was selected as the landing-place for all the regiments that were to join Moore, partly on account of its safe and spacious port, partly because it was believed that food and draught animals could be collected with comparative ease from Galicia.

More than 12,000 men, including three regiments of cavalry (the arm in which the force in Portugal was most deficient) and a brigade of the Guards, had been drawn from the home garrisons. The charge of this fine division had been given to Sir David Baird[559], an officer with a great Indian reputation, but comparatively un[p. 492]practised in European warfare. They were embarked at Harwich, Portsmouth, Ramsgate, and Cork at various dates during September and October, and on the thirteenth of the latter month the main body of the force reached Corunna. By some stupid mismanagement at home the cavalry, the most important part of the expedition, were shipped off the last, and did not arrive till three weeks[560] after the rest of the troops had reached Spain.

By October 18 Moore reported that the greater part of his troops were already in motion, and as Baird’s infantry had reached Corunna on the thirteenth, it might have been expected that the junction of their forces would have taken place in time to enable them to play a part in the defensive campaign against Napoleon which ended in the fall of Madrid on December 4. If the troops had marched promptly, and by the best and shortest routes, they might have easily concentrated at Salamanca by the middle of November: Napier suggests the thirteenth[561] as a probable day, and considering the distances the date seems a very reasonable one. At that moment Gamonal and Espinosa had only just been fought and lost: Tudela was yet ten days in the future: sixteen days were to elapse before the Somosierra was forced. It is clear that the British army, which at Salamanca would have been only seven marches (150 miles) from Madrid, and four marches (eighty miles) from Valladolid, might have intervened in the struggle: whether its intervention might not have ended in disaster, considering the enormous forces of the French[562], is another matter. But the British Government intended that Moore and Baird should take part in the campaign: the Junta had been told to expect their help: and for the consolidation of the alliance between the two nations it was desirable that the help should be given in the most prompt and effective fashion.

There is no possibility of asserting that this was done. Moore and Baird did not join till December 20: no British soldier fired a single shot at a Frenchman before December 12[563]. The whole[p. 493] army was so much out of the campaign that Bonaparte never could learn what had become of it, and formed the most erroneous hypotheses concerning its position and intentions. We may frankly say that not one of his movements, down to the fall of Madrid, was in the least influenced by the fact that there was a British force in Spain.

That this circumstance was most unfortunate from the political point of view it would be childish to deny. It gave discontented Spaniards the opportunity of asserting that they had been deserted and betrayed by their allies[564]. It afforded Bonaparte the chance, which he did not fail to take, of enlarging upon the invariable selfishness and timidity of the British[565]. It furnished the critics of the ministry in London with a text for declamations against the imbecility of its arrangements. It is true that after the fall of Madrid Moore was enabled, by the new situation of affairs, to make that demonstration against the French lines of communication in Castile which wrecked Napoleon’s original plan of campaign, and saved Lisbon and Seville. But this tardy though effective intervention in the struggle was a mere afterthought. Moore’s original plan had been to make a tame retreat on Lisbon, when he discovered that he was too late to save Madrid. It was a mere chance that an intercepted dispatch and an unfounded rumour caused him to throw up the idea of retiring into Portugal, and to strike at the Emperor’s flank and rear by his famous march on Sahagun. Without this piece of good fortune he would never have repaired the mischief caused by the lateness of his original arrival on the scene. How that late arrival came to pass it is now our duty to investigate.

As far as Moore’s own army was concerned, the loss of time may be ascribed to a single cause—a mistake made in the choice of the roads by which the advance into Spain was conducted. It was the original intention of the British general to march on Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo by three parallel routes, those by Coimbra and Celorico, by Abrantes, Castello Branco, and Guarda, and by Elvas, Alcantara, and Coria[566]. He was compelled to utilize[p. 494] the last-named road, which was rather circuitous and notoriously bad, by the fact that Dalrymple had left Hope’s two brigades at Elvas, and that any advance from that place into the kingdom of Leon could only be directed across the bridge of Alcantara. If Moore had stuck to this original resolve, and used none but these three roads, his army might have been concentrated at Salamanca on or about November 13. This could have been done with ease if all the reserve artillery and heavy baggage had taken the Coimbra—Celorico road, the easiest of the three, and nothing but an irreducible minimum had been allowed to follow the columns which went by the other routes. It would have been necessary also to move the troops in masses of not less than a brigade, and to keep them well closed up.

Moore had the best intentions: he cut down the baggage to what he considered the smallest practicable bulk, and started off the leading regiments on the Coimbra route as easily as October 11, two days after he had taken over the command[567]. ‘I am sufficiently aware,’ he wrote, ‘of the importance of even the name of a British army in Spain, and I am hurrying as much as possible[568].’ Then followed an irreparable mistake: it was all-important to find out which of the roads was most suitable for artillery and heavy baggage. Moore consulted the available officers of the old Portuguese army, and received from them the almost incredibly erroneous information that neither the Coimbra—Celorico—Almeida road nor the Abrantes—Guarda—Almeida road was practicable for artillery. It would seem that he also sought information from the officers whom Dalrymple had sent out into the province of Beira, and that their answers tallied with those of the Portuguese[569], for he wrote to Castlereagh that ‘every information agreed that neither of them was fit for artillery or could be recommended for cavalry.’ General Anstruther, then in command at Almeida, must take a considerable share in the blame that has to be distributed to those who failed to give the Commander-in-chief accurate information,[p. 495] for he more than any one else had been given the chance of trying these roads. But whatever may be the proportion in which the censure must be distributed, a certain amount must be reserved for Moore himself. He ought on first principles to have refused to believe the strange news that was brought to him. It might have occurred to him to ask how heavy guns of position had found their way to the ramparts of Almeida, the second fortress of Portugal, if there was no practicable road leading to it. A few minutes spent in consulting any book dealing with Portuguese history would have shown that in the great wars of the Spanish Succession, and again in that of 1762[570], forces of all arms had moved freely up and down the Spanish frontier, in the direction of Celorico, Guarda, Sabugal, and Castello Branco. Even a glance at Dumouriez’s Account of the Kingdom of Portugal, the one modern military book on the subject then available, would have enabled Moore to correct the ignorant reports of the natives. Strangest of all, there seems to have been no one to tell him that, only four months before, Loison, in his campaign against the insurgents of Beira, had taken guns first from Lisbon to Almeida, then from Almeida to Pezo-de-Ragoa and Vizeu, and finally from Almeida to Abrantes[571]. It is simply astounding that no one seems to have remembered this simple fact. In short, it was not easily pardonable in any competent general that he should accept as possible the statement that there was no road for artillery connecting the capital of Portugal and the main stronghold of its north-eastern frontier. Moore did so, and in a fortnight was bitterly regretting his credulity. ‘If anything adverse happens,’ he wrote to his subordinate Hope, ‘I have not necessity to plead: the road we are now travelling [Abrantes—Villa Velha—Guarda] is practicable for artillery: the brigade under Wilmot has already reached Guarda, and as far as I have already seen the road presents few obstacles, and those easily surmounted. This knowledge was only acquired by our own officers: when the brigade was at Castello Branco, it was still not certain that it could proceed[572].[p. 496]’ What made the case worse was that another of the three roads, the one by Coimbra and Celorico, was far easier than that by Guarda. Both Wellesley and Masséna took enormous trains of artillery and baggage over it in 1810, without any particular difficulty[573].

Misled by the erroneous reports as to the impracticability of the Portuguese roads, Moore took the unhappy step of sending six of the seven batteries of his corps, his only two cavalry regiments, and four battalions of infantry to act as escort[574], by the circuitous high-road from Elvas to Madrid. In order to reach Salamanca they were to advance almost to the gates of the Spanish capital, only turning off at Talavera, in order to take the route by the Escurial, Espinar, and Arevalo. To show the result of this lamentable divagation, it is only necessary to remark that from Lisbon to Salamanca via Coimbra is about 250 miles: from Lisbon to Salamanca via Elvas, Talavera, and Arevalo is about 380 miles: i.e. it was certain that the column containing all Moore’s cavalry and nearly all his guns would be at least seven or eight days late at the rendezvous, in a crisis when every moment was of vital importance. As a matter of fact the head of the main column reached Salamanca on November 13: the cavalry and guns turned up on December 4. It would not be fair, however, to say that the absence of Hope’s column delayed the advance of the whole army for so much as three weeks. It was only the leading regiments from Lisbon that appeared on November 13. However carefully the march of the rest had been arranged, the rear could not have come in till several days later: indeed the last brigade did not appear till the twenty-third: this delay, however, was owing to bad arrangements and preventable accidents. But it cannot be denied that the twelve days Nov. 23-Dec. 4 were completely sacrificed by the non-arrival of the cavalry and guns, without which Moore very wisely refused to move forward. If the army had been concentrated—Baird could easily have arrived from Corunna ere this—it would have been able to advance on November 23, and the campaign would undoubtedly have been modified[p. 497] in its character, for the Emperor would have learnt of the arrival of Moore upon the scene some days before he crossed the Somosierra and started on his march for Madrid. There can be no doubt that he would have changed his plans on receiving such news, for the sight of a British army within striking distance would have caused him to turn aside at once with a large part of his army. Very probably he might have directed Lefebvre, Victor, and the Imperial Guard—all the disposable forces under his hand—against Moore, and have left Madrid alone for the present as a mere secondary object. It is impossible to deny that disaster to the British arms might have followed: on the other hand Moore was a cautious general, as his operations in December showed. He would probably have retired at once to the mountains, and left the Emperor a fruitless stern-chase, such as that which actually took place a month later. But whether he would have fallen back on the route to Portugal, or on the route to Galicia, it is impossible to say: everything would have depended on the exact development of Napoleon’s advance, but the first-named alternative is the more probable[575].

[p. 498]

The erroneous direction given to Moore’s cavalry and guns, however, was not the only reason for the late appearance of the British army upon the theatre of war. Almost as much delay was caused by a piece of egregious folly and procrastination, for which the Spaniards were wholly responsible. When Sir David Baird and the bulk of his great convoy arrived in the harbour of Corunna on October 13, he was astonished to find that the Junta of Galicia raised serious objections to allowing him to land. Their real reason for so doing was that they wished the British troops to disembark further east, at Gihon or Santander. They did not realize the military danger of throwing them ashore in places so close to the French army, nor did it affect them in the least when they were told that the equipment of Baird’s force in those barren regions would be almost impossible. All that they cared for was to preserve Galicia from the strain of having to make provisions for the feeding and transport of a second army, when all its resources had been sorely tried in supplying (and supplying most indifferently) the troops of Blake. They did not, however, make mention of their real objections to Baird’s disembarkation in their correspondence with him, but assumed an attitude of very suspicious humility, stating that they considered their functions to have come to an end now that the Central Junta had met, and that they thought it beyond their competence to give consent to the landing of such a large body of men without explicit directions from Aranjuez. Baird could not offer to land by force, in face of this opposition. He did not, however, move off to Santander (as the Galicians had hoped), but insisted that an officer should be promptly dispatched to the Supreme Junta. This was done, but the delay in receiving an answer was so great that thirteen days were wasted: the Galician officer bearing the consent of the central government travelled (so Moore complained) with the greatest deliberation, as if he were carrying an unimportant message in full time of peace[576]. The first regiments, therefore, only landed on October 26, and it was not till November 4 that all the infantry were ashore. Thus they were certain to be late at the rendezvous in the plains of Leon. Nor was this all: the Supreme Junta had suggested that, in order to facilitate the feeding of the division, Baird should send it forward not in large masses but in bodies of 2,000 men, with a considerable interval between them.[p. 499] The advice was taken, and in consequence the troops were soon spread out over the whole length of road between Corunna and Astorga. The greatest difficulty was found in equipping them for the march: Galicia, always a poor country, had been almost stripped of mules and carts to supply Blake. It was absolutely impossible to procure a sufficient train for the transport of Baird’s food and baggage. He was only able to gather enough beasts to carry his lighter impedimenta from stage to stage, by the offer of exorbitant rates of hire. He vainly hoped to complete his equipment when he should have reached the plains. Part of his difficulties was caused by lack of money: the Government at home had not realized that only hard cash would circulate in Spain: dollars in abundance were to come out in the Tigre frigate in a few weeks: meanwhile it was expected that the Spaniards would gladly accept British Government bills. But so little was paper liked in the Peninsula that only ￡5,000 or ￡6,000 in dollars could be raised at Corunna[577]: without further resources it would have been impossible to begin to push the army forward. The feat was only accomplished by borrowing 92,000 dollars from the Galician Junta. For this act, carefully ignored by Napier, they deserve a proper recognition: it shows a much better spirit than might have been expected after their foolish behaviour about the disembarkation. Shortly after, Baird succeeded in getting ￡40,000 from Mr. Frere, the new minister to Madrid, who chanced to arrive at Corunna with ￡410,000 in cash destined for the Spanish government. Finally on November 9 the expected ship came in with the 500,000 dollars that had been originally intended to be divided between Corunna and Lisbon, and Baird had as much money as he could possibly require, even when mules and draught-oxen had risen to famine prices in Galicia[578]. If he still found it hard to move, it was because this poor and desolate province was really drained dry of resources[579].

[p. 500]

But what between the Junta’s folly in hindering the landing of the troops, and the unfortunate lack of money in the second half of October, all-important time was lost. Baird ought to have been near Salamanca by November 13: as a matter of fact he had only reached Astorga with three brigades of infantry and some artillery, but without a single mounted man to cover his march, on November 22. There he received, to his infinite dismay, the news that Blake had been routed at Espinosa on November 11, and Belvedere at Gamonal on November 10. There was now no Spanish army between him and the French: the latter might be advancing, for all he knew, upon Leon. He heard of Soult being at Reynosa, and Lefebvre at Carrion: if they continued their advance westward, they would catch him, with the 9,000 infantry of the Corunna column, marching across their front on the way to Salamanca. Appalled at the prospect, he halted at Astorga, and, after sending news of his situation to Moore, began to prepare to retreat on Corunna, if the marshals should continue their movement in his direction. This, as we have already seen, they did not: Napoleon had no knowledge of the position of the British troops, and instead of ordering the dukes of Dalmatia and Dantzig to push westward, moved them both in a southerly direction. Soult came down to Sahagun and Carrion: Lefebvre, on being relieved by the 2nd Corps, moved on Madrid by way of Segovia. Thus Baird, left entirely unmolested, was in the end able to join Moore.

It is time to turn to the movements of that general. After sending off Sir John Hope on his unhappy circular march by Badajoz and the Escurial, he set out from Lisbon on October 26. He took with him the whole force in Portugal, save a single division which was left behind to protect Lisbon, Elvas, and Almeida while a new native army was being reorganized. This detachment was to be commanded by Sir John Cradock, who was just due from England: it comprised four battalions of the German Legion, a battalion each of the 9th, 27th, 29th, 31st, 40th, 45th, and 97th Foot, the wrecks of the 20th Light Dragoons, and six batteries of artillery—about 9,000 men in all. The rest,[p. 501] twenty-five battalions of infantry, two cavalry regiments and seven batteries, marched for Spain. Two brigades under Beresford took the good road by Coimbra and Celorico to Almeida: three under Fraser went by Abrantes and Guarda, taking with them the single battery which Moore had retained with his main body, in order to try whether the roads of Eastern Portugal were as bad as his advisers had reported. Two brigades under General Paget, starting from Elvas, not from Lisbon, separated themselves from Hope and marched on Ciudad Rodrigo by Alcantara and Coria. The general himself followed in the track of Fraser, whom he overtook and passed in the neighbourhood of Castello Branco[580].

The march was a most unpleasant one, for the autumn rains surprised the troops in their passage through the mountains. Moreover some of the regiments were badly fed, as Sataro, the Portuguese contractor who had undertaken to supply them with meat, went bankrupt at this moment and failed to fulfil his obligations. Nevertheless the advance was carried out with complete success: the men were in good heart, marched well, and generally maintained their[581] discipline. On November 13 the leading[p. 502] regiments began to file into Salamanca, whither the Commander-in-chief had already preceded them. The concentration would have been a little more rapid but for a strange mistake of General Anstruther, commanding at Almeida, who detained some of the troops for a few days, contrary to the orders which had been sent him. But by the twenty-third the three columns had all joined at Salamanca[582], where Moore now had 15,000 infantry and the solitary battery that had marched with Fraser’s division. The guns had met with some tiresome obstacles, but had surmounted them with no great difficulty, and Moore now saw (as we have already shown) that he might have brought the whole of his artillery with him, if only he had been given correct information as to the state of the roads.

On November 23, then, the British commander-in-chief lay at Salamanca, with six infantry brigades and one battery. Baird lay at Astorga, with four brigades and three batteries: a few of his battalions were still on the march from Galicia. Hope, with Moore’s cavalry and guns, was near the Escurial. Lord Paget with Baird’s equally belated cavalry, which had left Corunna on the fifteenth, was between Lugo and Astorga. The situation was deplorable, for it was clear that the army would require ten days more to concentrate and get into full fighting order, and it was by no means certain that those ten days would be granted to it. Such were the unhappy results of the false direction given to Hope’s column, and of the enforced delay of Baird at Corunna, owing to the folly of the Galician Junta.

It may easily be guessed that Moore’s state of mind at this moment was most unenviable. He had received, much at the same time as did Baird, the news of Gamonal and Espinosa. He was aware that no screen of Spanish troops now lay between him and the enemy. He had heard of the arrival of Milhaud’s dragoons at Valladolid, and of Lefebvre’s corps at Carrion, and he expected every moment to hear that they were marching forward against himself. Yet he could not possibly advance without cavalry or guns, and if attacked he must fly at once towards Portugal, for it would be mad to attempt to fight in the plains with no force at his disposition save a mass of foot-soldiery. If the French moved forward from Valladolid to Zamora on the one side, or to Avila on the other, he would inevitably be cut off from Baird and Hope.[p. 503] There was no serious danger that any one of the three columns might be caught by the enemy, if they halted at once, for each had a clear and safe line of retreat, on Lisbon, Corunna, and Talavera respectively. But if they continued their movement of concentration the case was otherwise. To any one unacquainted with Bonaparte’s actual design of throwing all his forces on Madrid by the Somosierra road, it looked not only possible, but probable, that the enemy would advance westward as well as southward from his present positions, and if he did so the game was up. The British army, utterly unable to concentrate, must fly in three separate directions. Moore and Hope might ultimately unite in front of Lisbon: Baird might be shipped round from Corunna to the same point. But this movement would take many weeks, and its moral effect would be deplorable. What would be thought of the general who marched forward till he was within eighty miles of the French, and then ordered a precipitate retreat, without even succeeding in concentrating his army or firing a single shot? The thought filled Moore’s heart with bitterness: must he, with all his ability and with his well-earned reputation, swell the list of the failures, and be reckoned with the Duke of York, Dalrymple, and Hutchinson among the generals who were too late—who had their chance of fame, and lost it by being an hour, or a week, or a month behind the decisive moment? But on one point he was clear: he must run no unnecessary risk with the forces committed to him: they were, as was once remarked, not a British field-army, but the only British field-army. Supposing they were destroyed, no such second host existed: it would take years to make another. There were still many regiments on home service, but those which now lay at Salamanca and Astorga were the pick of the whole, the corps chosen for foreign service because they were the fittest for it.

The question, then, which Moore had to put to himself was whether he should persist in attempting to complete the concentration of his army, and in case of success take an active part in the campaign, or whether he should simply order each fraction of the British forces to retreat at once towards some safe base. The way in which the question should be answered depended mainly on two points—what would be the movements of the French during the next few days, and what Spanish troops existed to co-operate with the British army, in case it were determined to commence active operations. For clearly the 30,000 men of Moore and Baird could[p. 504] not hope to struggle unaided against the whole French army in Spain.

To explain Moore’s action, it is necessary to remember that he started with a strong prejudice against trusting the British army to the mercy of Spanish co-operation. He had been receiving very gloomy reports both from Mr. Stuart, the temporary representative of the British Government at Aranjuez, and from Lord William Bentinck, the military agent whom Dalrymple had sent to Madrid. The latter was one of the few British officers who (like Wellesley) foresaw from the first a catastrophe whenever the French reinforcements should cross the Ebro[583]. Moreover the character of Moore’s correspondence with the Central Junta, before and during his advance, had conspired with the reports of Stuart and Bentinck to give him a very unfavourable idea of the energy and administrative capacity of our allies. He had been vexed that the Junta refused to put him in direct communication with the Spanish generals[584]. He complained that he got from them tardy, unfrequent, and inaccurate news of the enemy’s movements. He was disgusted that Lopez, the officer sent to aid him in moving his troops, turned out to know even less about the roads of the Spanish frontier than he did himself. But above all he professed that he was terrified by the apathy which he found both among the officials and the people of the kingdom of Leon and Old Castile. He had been politely received by the authorities both at Ciudad Rodrigo and at Salamanca, but he complained that he got little but empty compliments from them.

There was some truth in this allegation, though certain facts can be quoted against it[585], even from Moore’s own correspondence.[p. 505] Leon and Old Castile had, as we have already had occasion to remark, been far less energetic than other parts of the Peninsula in raising new troops and coming forward with contributions to the national exchequer. They had done no more than furnish the 10,000 men of Cuesta’s disorderly ‘Army of Castile,’ a contingent utterly out of proportion with their population and resources. Nor did they seem to realize the scandal of their own sloth and procrastination. Moore had expected to see every town full of new levies undergoing drill before marching to the Ebro, to discover magazines accumulated in important places like Ciudad Rodrigo and Salamanca, to find the military and civil officials working busily for the armies at the front. Instead he found an unaccountable apathy. Even after the reports of Espinosa and Gamonal had come to hand, the people and the authorities alike seemed to be living in a sort of fools’ paradise, disbelieving the gloomy news that arrived, or at least refusing to recognize that the war was now at their own doors. Moore feared that this came from want of patriotism or of courage.

As a matter of fact, the people’s hearts were sound enough[586], but they had still got ‘Baylen on the brain’: they simply failed to[p. 506] recognize the full horror of the situation. That their armies were not merely beaten but dispersed, that the way to Madrid was open to Bonaparte, escaped them. This attitude of mind enraged Moore. ‘In these provinces,’ he wrote, ‘no armed force whatever exists, either for immediate protection or to reinforce the armies. The French cavalry from Burgos, in small detachments, are overrunning the province of Leon, and raising contributions to which the inhabitants submit without the least resistance: the enthusiasm of which we heard so much nowhere appears. Whatever good-will there is (and among the lower orders I believe there is a good deal) is taken no advantage of. I am at this moment in no communication with any of their generals. I am ignorant of their plans, or those of their government[587].’ And again, he adds in despair, ‘I hope a better spirit exists in the southern provinces: here no one stirs—and yet they are well inclined[588].’ While Leon and Old Castile were in this state of apathy, it was maddening to Moore to receive constant appeals from the Supreme Junta, begging that the British army might move forward at once. Their dispatches were accompanied by representations, which Moore knew to be inaccurate, concerning the numbers and enthusiasm of the Spanish armies still in the field, and by misrepresentations of the force of the French. They were also backed by urgent letters from Mr. Frere, the new ambassador at Madrid, urging him to give help at all costs.

These appeals were intolerable to a man who dared not advance because his army (partly by his own fault, partly owing to circumstances that had not been under his control) was not concentrated. From the point of view of policy, Moore knew that it was all-important that he should take the field: but, from the point of view of strategy, he saw that an advance with the 15,000 men that he had at Salamanca might very probably lead to instant and complete disaster. He refused to move, but all the time he knew that his refusal was having the worst effect, and would certainly be represented by his critics as the result of timidity and selfishness. It was this consciousness that caused him to fill his dispatches with the bitterest comments on the Spanish government and people. He had been induced to advance to Salamanca, he said, by false pretences. He had been told that there was a large army in front of him, ready to cover his concentration. He had been informed[p. 507] that the whole country-side was full of enthusiasm, that he might look for ready help from every official, that when once he had crossed the frontier transport and food would be readily provided for him. Instead, he found nothing but apathy and disasters. ‘Had the real strength and composition of the Spanish armies been known, and the defenceless state of the country, I conceive that Cadiz, not Corunna, would have been chosen for the disembarkation of the troops from England: and Seville or Cordova, not Salamanca, would have been selected as the proper place for the assembling of this army[589].’ Thus he wrote to Castlereagh: to Frere, in reponse to constant invitations to strike a blow of some sort in behalf of Spain, he replied in more vigorous terms[590]. ‘Madrid is threatened; the French have destroyed one army (Blake’s), have passed the Ebro, and are advancing in superior numbers against another (Casta?os’), which from its composition promises no resistance, but must retire or be overwhelmed. No other armed force exists in this country: I perceive no enthusiasm or determined spirit among the people. This is a state of affairs quite different from that conceived by the British Government, when they determined to send troops to the assistance of Spain. It was not expected that these were to cope alone with the whole force of France: as auxiliaries they were to aid a people who were believed to be enthusiastic, determined, and prepared for resistance. It becomes therefore a question whether the British army should remain to be attacked in its turn, or should retire from a country where the contest, from whatever circumstances, is become unequal.’

All that Moore wrote was true: yet, granting the accuracy of every premise, his conclusion that he ought to retire to Portugal was not necessarily correct. The British Government had undoubtedly over-estimated the power and resources of Spain: the Supreme Junta had shown no capacity for organization or command: most of the Spanish generals had committed gross military blunders. But none of these facts were enough to justify Moore in washing his hands of the whole business, and marching out of Spain without firing a shot. He had not been sent to help the patriots only if they were powerful and victorious, to desert them if they proved weak and unlucky. If these had been the orders[p. 508] issued to him by Castlereagh, all Bonaparte’s taunts about the selfishness and timidity of the British Government would have been justified. It was true that on his arrival at Salamanca he found the aspect of the war very different from what he had expected at the moment of his quitting Lisbon. Instead of aiding the victorious Spanish armies to press up to the Pyrenees, he would have to cover their retreat and gain time for the reorganization of the scattered remnants of their first line of defence. To reject this task because the Supreme Junta had been incapable, or Blake and Palafox rash and unskilful, would have been unworthy of a man of Moore’s talents and courage.

Yet in a moment of irritation at the mismanagement that he saw before him, and of anger at the continual importunities that he was receiving from the Central Junta and from Mr. Frere, Moore nearly committed this fault. The last piece of news which broke down his resolution and drove him to order a retreat was the account of the battle of Tudela. If he had been forced to wait for the notification of this disaster through Spanish official sources, he might have remained ignorant of it for many days. But Charles Vaughan, the secretary of Mr. Stuart, had been in the camp of Palafox, and had ridden straight from Tudela to Madrid, and from Madrid to Salamanca—476 miles in six days[591]. He brought the intelligence of Casta?os’ defeat to the English commander-in-chief on the night of November 28. Moore lost not a moment in dictating orders of retreat to the whole army. In the few hours that elapsed before midnight he gave his own troops directions to[p. 509] prepare to retire on Portugal, sent Hope a dispatch bidding him turn off on to cross-roads and move by Pe?aranda on Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, and wrote to Baird that he must return to Corunna, re-embark his army, and bring it round by sea to Lisbon.

The spirit in which Moore acted is shown by the wording of his letter to Hope:—‘I have determined to give the thing up, and to retire. It was my wish to have run great risks to fulfil what I conceive to be the wishes of the people of England, and to give every aid to the Spanish cause. But they have shown themselves equal to do so little for themselves, that it would only be sacrificing this army, without doing any good to Spain, to oppose it to such numbers as must now be brought against us. A junction with Baird is out of the question, and with you, perhaps, problematical.... This is a cruel determination for me to make—I mean to retreat: but I hope you will think the circumstances such as demand it[592].’

To Moore, weighed down by the burden of responsibility, and worried by the constant pressure of the Spaniards at Madrid, ‘who expected every one to fly but themselves,’ this resolve to retreat seemed reasonable, and even inevitable. But it was clearly wrong: when he gave the order he was overwrought by irritation and despondency. He was sent to aid the Spaniards, and till he was sure that he could do absolutely nothing in their behalf, it was his duty not to abandon them. The British army was intended to be used freely in their cause, not to be laid up—like the talent in the napkin—lest anything might happen to it. Its mere presence at Salamanca was valuable as an encouragement to the Spaniards, and a check on the free movement of the French. Above all, it was not yet proved that the concentration with Baird and Hope was impossible: indeed, the events of the last few days were rendering it more and more likely that the junction might, after all, take place. The French cavalry which had appeared at Valladolid had gone off southward, without any attempt to move in the direction of Salamanca. Soult and Lefebvre were also moving in a direction which would not bring them anywhere near the British army. Hope had crossed the Guadarrama unhindered, and was now near Villacastin, only seventy miles from Moore’s head quarters. Under these circumstances it was most impolitic[p. 510] to order an instant retreat. What would have been thought of Moore if this movement had been carried out, and if after the British columns had reached Corunna and Almeida the news had come that no French infantry had ever been nearer than fifty miles to them, that their concentration had been perfectly feasible, and that Napoleon had possessed no knowledge of their whereabouts? All these facts chanced to be true—as we have seen. The Emperor’s advance on Madrid was made without any reference to the British army, by roads that took him very far from Salamanca: he was marching past Moore’s front in serene unconsciousness of his proximity. If, at the same moment, the British had been hurrying back to Portugal, pursued only by phantoms hatched in their general’s imagination, it is easy to guess what military critics would have said, and what historians would have written. Moore would have been pronounced a selfish and timid officer, who in a moment of pique and despondency deliberately abandoned his unhappy allies.

Fortunately for his own reputation and for that of England, his original intentions of the night of November 28 were not fully carried out. Only Baird’s column actually commenced its retrograde movement. That general received Moore’s letter from Vaughan on the thirtieth, and immediately began to retire on Galicia. Leaving his cavalry and his light brigade at Astorga, to cover his retreat, he fell back with the rest of his division to Villafranca, fifty miles on the road towards Corunna. Here (as we shall see) he received on December 6 a complete new set of orders, countermanding his retreat and bidding him return to the plains of Leon.

Hope also had heard from Moore on the thirtieth, had been informed that the army was to retire on Portugal, and was told to make forced marches by Pe?aranda and Ciudad Rodrigo to join his chief—unless indeed he were forced to go back by the way that he had come, owing to the appearance of French troops in his path. Fortunately no such danger occurred: Hope arranged his two cavalry regiments as a screen in front of his right, in the direction of Arevalo and Madrigal. He hurried his infantry and guns by Fontiveros and Pe?aranda, along the road that had been pointed out to him. The cavalry obtained news that patrols of French dragoons coming from the north had pushed as far as Olmedo and La Nava—some sixteen or eighteen miles from their outposts—but did not actually see a single hostile vedette. This[p. 511] was lucky, as, if Napoleon had heard of a British force hovering on the flank of his advancing columns, he would certainly have turned against it the troops that were covering the right flank of his advance on Madrid—Lefebvre’s corps and the dragoons of Milhaud. But, as it chanced, Hope was entirely unmolested: he moved, as was right, with his troops closed up and ready for a fight: on the night of the thirtieth his infantry actually slept in square without piling arms: during the ensuing thirty-six hours they marched forty-seven miles before they were allowed to encamp at Pe?aranda. There they were practically in safety: slackening the pace for the exhausted infantry and for the over-driven oxen of the convoy, Hope drew in to Alba de Tormes, where he was only fifteen miles from Salamanca[593]. Here he received orders not to push for Ciudad Rodrigo, but to turn northward and join the main body of the army, which was still—as it turned out—in its old positions. Thus on December 3 Moore could at last dispose of his long-lost cavalry and guns, and possessed an army of 20,000 men complete in all arms. This very much changed the aspect of affairs for him, and removed one of his main justifications for the projected retreat on Portugal. Hope also brought information as to the movements of the French which was of the highest importance. He reported that their columns were all trending southward, none of them to the west of Segovia. He had also heard of the infantry of the 4th Corps, and could report that it had marched by Valladolid and Olmedo on Segovia, evidently with the intention of driving Heredia’s Estremaduran troops out of the last-named city, and of opening the Guadarrama Pass[594]. There was no sign whatever of any movement of the[p. 512] French in this quarter towards Salamanca. Thus the Emperor’s plan for a concentration of his whole army on Madrid became clear to Moore’s discerning eyes.