SECTION VIII: CHAPTER VI

THE BATTLE OF CORUNNA

When Sir John Moore found that the transports were not ready on the twelfth, he had recognized that he might very probably have to fight a defensive action in order to cover his retreat, for two days would allow Soult to bring up his main-body. He refused to listen to the timid proposal of certain of his officers that he should negotiate for a quiet embarkation, in return for giving up Corunna and its fortifications unharmed[715]. This would have been indeed a tame line of conduct for a general and an army which had never been beaten in the field. Instead he sought for a good position in which to hold back the enemy till all his impedimenta were on shipboard. There were no less than three lines of heights on which the army might range itself to resist an enemy who had crossed the Mero. But the first two ranges, the Monte Loureiro just above the river, and the plateaux of Palavea and Pe?asquedo two miles further north, were too extensive to be held by an army of 15,000 men. Moore accordingly chose as his fighting-ground the Monte Moro, a shorter and lower ridge, only two miles outside the walls of Corunna. It is an excellent position, about 2,500 yards long, but has two defects: its western and lower end is commanded at long cannon-range by the heights of Pe?asquedo. Moreover, beyond this extreme point of the hill, there is open ground extending as far as the gates of Corunna, by which the whole position can be turned. Fully aware of this fact, Moore told off more than a third of his army to serve as a flank-guard on this wing, and to prevent the enemy from pushing in between the Monte Moro and the narrow neck of the peninsula on which Corunna stands.

Soult, even after he had passed the Mero and repaired the bridges, was very circumspect in his advances. He had too much[p. 584] respect for the fighting power of the English army to attack before he had rallied his whole force. When Delaborde’s division and a multitude of stragglers had joined him on the fifteenth, he at last moved forward and seized the heights of Palavea and Pe?asquedo, overlooking the British position. There was some slight skirmishing with the outposts which had been left on these positions, and when the French brought down two guns to the lower slopes by Palavea, and began to cannonade the opposite hill, Colonel McKenzie, of the 5th Regiment, made an attempt to drive them off, which failed with loss, and cost him his life.
Map of battle of Corunna

Enlarge  Battle of Corunna. January 16, 1809.

As the French pressed westward along these commanding heights, Moore saw that he might very possibly be attacked on the following day, and brought up his troops to their fighting-ground, though he was still not certain that Soult would risk a battle. The divisions of Hope and Baird were ranged along the upper slopes of the Monte Moro: the ten battalions of the former on the eastern half of the ridge, nearest the river, the eight battalions of the latter on its western half, more towards the inland. Each division had two brigades in the first line and a third in reserve. Counting from left to right, the brigades were those of Hill and Leith from Hope’s division, and Manningham and Bentinck from Baird’s. Behind the crest Catlin Crawfurd supported the two former, and Warde’s battalions of Guards the two latter. Down in the hollow behind the Monte Moro lay Paget’s division, close to the village of Eiris[716]. He was invisible to the French, but so placed that he could immediately move out to cover the right wing if the enemy attempted a turning movement. Lastly, Fraser’s division lay under cover in Corunna, ready to march forth to support Paget the moment that fighting should begin[717]. Six of the nine guns (small six-pounders), which Moore had left on shore, were distributed in pairs along the front of Monte Moro: the other three were with Paget’s reserve.

After surveying the British position from the Pe?asquedo heights, Soult had resolved to attempt the man?uvre which Moore had thought most probable—to assault the western end of the line, where the heights are least formidable, and at the same moment to turn the Monte Moro by a movement round its extreme right through the open ground. Nor had it escaped[p. 585] him that the ground occupied by Baird’s division was within cannon-shot of the opposite range. He ordered ten guns to be dragged up to the westernmost crest of the French position, and to be placed above the village of Elvina, facing Bentinck’s brigade. The rest of his artillery was distributed along the front of the Pe?asquedo and Palavea heights, in situations that were less favourable, because they were more remote from the British lines. The hills were steep, no road ran along their summit, and the guns had to be dragged by hand to the places which they were intended to occupy. It was only under cover of the night that those opposite Elvina were finally got to their destination.

Soult’s force was now considerably superior to that which was opposed to him, sufficiently so in his own estimation to compensate for the strength of the defensive positions which he would have to assail. He had three infantry divisions with thirty-nine battalions (Heudelet was still far to the rear), and twelve regiments of cavalry, with about forty guns[718]. The whole, even allowing for stragglers[p. 586] still trailing in the rear, and for men who had perished in the snows of the mountains, must have been over 20,000 strong. The cavalry had 4,500 sabres, and the infantry battalions must still have averaged over 500 men, for in November they had nearly all been up to 700 bayonets, and even the toilsome march in pursuit of Moore cannot have destroyed so much as a third of their numbers: only Merle’s division had done any fighting. It is absurd of some of the French narrators of the battle to pretend that Soult had only 13,000 infantry—a figure which would only give 330 bayonets to each battalion[719].

Soult’s plan was to contain the British left and centre with two of his divisions—those of Delaborde and Merle—while Mermet and the bulk of the cavalry should attack Moore’s right, seize the western end of Monte Moro, and push in between Baird’s flank and Corunna. If this movement succeeded, the British retreat would be compromised: Delaborde and Merle could then assail Hope and prevent him from going to the rear: if all went right, two-thirds of the British army must be surrounded and captured.

The movement of masses of infantry, and still more of cavalry and guns, along the rugged crest and slopes of the Pe?asquedo heights, was attended with so much difficulty, that noon was long passed before the whole army was in position. It was indeed so late in the day, that Sir John Moore had come to the conclusion that Soult did not intend to attack, and had ordered Paget’s division, who were to be the first troops to embark, to march down to the harbour[720]. The other corps were to retire at dusk, and go on shipboard under cover of the night.

But between 1.30 and 2 o’clock the French suddenly took the offensive: the battery opposite Elvina began to play upon Baird’s division, columns descending from each side of it commenced to pour down into the valley, and the eight cavalry regiments of Lahoussaye[p. 587] and Franceschi, pushing out from behind the Pe?asquedo heights, rode northward along the lower slopes of the hills of San Cristobal, with the obvious design of cutting in between the Monte Moro and Corunna.

Moore welcomed the approach of battle with joy: he had every confidence in his men and his position, and saw that a victory won ere his departure would silence the greater part of the inevitable criticism for timidity and want of enterprise, to which he would be exposed on his return to England. He rode up to the crest of his position, behind Baird’s division, took in the situation of affairs at a glance, and sent back orders to Paget to pay attention to the French turning movement, and to Fraser to come out from Corunna and contain any advance on the part of the enemy’s cavalry on the extreme right.

For some time the English left and centre were scarcely engaged, for Merle and Delaborde did no more than push tirailleurs out in front of their line, to bicker with the skirmishers of Hill, Leith, and Manningham. But Bentinck’s brigade was at once seriously assailed: not only were its lines swept by the balls of Soult’s main battery, but a heavy infantry attack was in progress. Gaulois and Jardon’s brigades of Mermet’s division were coming forward in great strength: they turned out of the village of Elvina the light company of the 50th, which had been detached to hold that advanced position, and then came up the slope of Monte Moro, with a dense crowd of tirailleurs covering the advance of eight battalion columns. Meanwhile the third brigade of Mermet’s division was hurrying past the flank of Bentinck’s line, in the lower ground, with the obvious intention of turning the British flank. Beyond them Lahoussaye’s dragoons were cautiously feeling their way forward, much incommoded by walls and broken ground.

All the stress of the first fighting fell on the three battalions of Bentinck, on the hill above Elvina. Moore was there in person to direct the fight: Baird, on whom the responsibility for this part of the ground would naturally have fallen, was wounded early in the day, by a cannon-ball which shattered his left arm[721], and was borne to the rear. When the French came near the top of the slope, driving in before them the British skirmishing line, the Commander-in-chief ordered the 42nd and 50th to charge down[p. 588] upon them. The 4th, the flank regiment of the whole line, could not follow them: it was threatened by the encircling movement of the French left, and Moore bade it throw back its right wing so as to form an angle en potence with the rest of the brigade, while still keeping up its fire. The man?uvre was executed with such precision as to win his outspoken approval—‘That is exactly how it should be done,’ he shouted to Colonel Wynch, and then rode off to attend to the 50th and 42nd, further to his left.

Here a very heavy combat was raging. Advancing to meet the French attack, these two battalions drove in the tirailleurs with the crushing fire of their two-deep line, and then became engaged with the supporting columns on the slopes above Elvina. For some time the battle stood still, but Moore told the regiments that they must advance to make their fire tell, and at last Colonel Sterling and Major Charles Napier led their men over the line of stone walls behind which they were standing, and pressed forward. The head of the French formation melted away before their volleys, and the enemy rolled back into Elvina. The 42nd halted just above the village, but Napier led the 50th in among the houses, and cleared out the defenders after a sharp fight. He even passed through with part of his men, and became engaged with the French supports on the further side of the place. Presently Mermet sent down his reserves and drove out the 50th, who suffered very heavily: Charles Napier was wounded and taken, and Stanhope the junior major was killed[722]. While the 50th was reforming, Moore brought up the divisional reserve, Warde’s two magnificent battalions of Guards, each of which, in consequence of their splendid discipline during the retreat, mustered over 800 bayonets. With these and the 42nd he held the slope above Elvina in face of a very hot fire, not only from the enemy’s infantry but from the battery on the opposite heights, which swept the ground with a lateral and almost an enfilading fire. It was while directing one of the Guards’ battalions to go forward and storm a large house on the flank of the village that Moore received a mortal wound. A cannon-ball struck him on the left shoulder, carrying it away with part of the collar-bone, and leaving the arm hanging only by the flesh and muscles above[p. 589] the armpit[723]. He was dashed from his horse, but immediately raised himself on his sound arm and bade his aide-de-camp Hardinge see that the 42nd should advance along with the Guards. Then he was borne to the rear, fully realizing that his wound was mortal: his consciousness never failed, in spite of the pain and the loss of blood, and he found strength to send a message to Hope to bid him take command of the army. When his bearers wished to unbuckle his sword, which was jarring his wounded arm and side, he refused to allow it, saying ‘in his usual tone and with a very distinct voice, “It is well as it is. I had rather that it should go out of the field with me.”’ He was borne back to Corunna in a blanket by six men of the Guards and 42nd. Frequently he made them turn him round to view the field of battle, and as he saw the French line of fire rolling back, he several times expressed his pleasure at dying in the moment of victory, when his much-tried army was at last faring as it deserved.

While Bentinck’s brigade and the Guards were thus engaged with Mermet’s right, a separate combat was going on more to the west, where Edward Paget and the Reserve division had marched out to resist the French turning movement. The instant that Moore’s first orders had been received, Paget had sent forward the 95th Rifles in extended order to cover the gap, half a mile in breadth, between the Monte Moro and the heights of San Cristobal. Soon afterwards he pushed up the 52nd into line with the riflemen. The other three battalions of the division moved out soon after. Paget had in front of him a brigade—five battalions—of Mermet’s division, which was trying to slip round the corner of Monte Moro in order to take Baird in the flank. He had also to guard against the charges of Lahoussaye’s cavalry more to his right, and those of Franceschi’s chasseurs still further south. Fortunately the ground was so much cut up with rough stone walls, dividing the fields of the villages of San Cristobal and Elvina, that Soult’s cavalry were unable to execute any general or vigorous advance. When the British swept across the low ground, Lahoussaye’s dragoons made two or three attempts to charge, but, forced to advance among walls and ravines, they never even compelled Paget’s battalions to form square, and were easily driven off by a rolling fire. The Reserve division steadily advanced, with the 95th and 52nd in its front, and the horsemen gave back. It was in vain[p. 590] that Lahoussaye dismounted the 27th Dragoons and ranged them as tirailleurs along the lower slopes of the heights of San Cristobal. The deadly fire of Paget’s infantry thinned their ranks, and forced them back. It would seem that the 95th, 28th, and 91st had mainly to do with Lahoussaye, while the 52nd and 20th became engaged with the infantry from the division of Mermet, which was bickering with the 4th Regiment below the Monte Moro, and striving to turn its flank. In both quarters the advance was completely successful, and Paget pushed forward, taking numerous prisoners from the enemy’s broken infantry. So far did he advance in his victorious onslaught that he approached from the flank the main French battery on the heights of Pe?asquedo, and thought that (if leave had been given him) he would have been able to capture it: for its infantry supports were broken, and the cavalry had gone off far to the right. But Hope sent no orders to his colleague, and the Reserve halted at dusk at the foot of the French position.

Franceschi’s horsemen meanwhile, on the extreme left of the French line, had at first pushed cautiously towards Corunna, till they saw Fraser’s division drawn up half a mile outside the gates, on the low ridge of Santa Margarita, covering the whole neck of the peninsula. This checked the cavalry, and presently, when Paget’s advance drove in Lahoussaye, Franceschi conformed to the retreat of his colleague, and drew back across the heights of San Cristobal till he had reached the left rear of Soult’s position, and halted in the upland valley somewhere near the village of Mesoiro.

We left Bentinck’s and Warde’s brigades engaged on the slopes above Elvina with Mermet’s right-hand column, at the moment of the fall of Sir John Moore. The second advance on Elvina had begun just as the British commander-in-chief fell: it was completely successful, and the village was for the second time captured. Mermet now sent down his last reserves, and Merle moved forward his left-hand brigade to attack the village on its eastern side. This led to a corresponding movement on the part of the British. Manningham’s brigade from the right-centre of the British line came down the slope, and fell upon Merle’s columns as they pressed in towards the village. This forced the French to halt, and to turn aside to defend themselves: there was a long and fierce strife, during the later hours of the afternoon, between Manningham’s two right-hand regiments (the 3/1st and 2/81st) and the 2nd Léger and 36th of the Line of Reynaud’s brigade. It was prolonged till the[p. 591] 2/81st had exhausted all its ammunition, and had suffered a loss of 150 men, when Hope sent down the 2/59th, the reserve regiment of Leith’s brigade, to relieve it. Soon afterwards the French retired, and the battle died away at dusk into mere distant bickering along the bottom of the valley, as a few skirmishers of the victorious brigade pursued the retreating columns to the foot of their position.

Further eastward Delaborde had done nothing more than make a feeble demonstration against Hope’s very strong position on the heights above the Mero river. He drove in Hill’s pickets, and afterwards, late in the afternoon, endeavoured to seize the village of Piedralonga[724], at the bottom of the valley which lay between the hostile lines. Foy, who was entrusted with this operation, took the voltigeur companies of his brigade, and drove out from the hamlet the outposts of the 14th Regiment. Thereupon Hill sent down Colonel Nicholls with three more companies of that corps, supported by two of the 92nd from Hope’s divisional reserve. They expelled the French, and broke the supports on which the voltigeurs tried to rally, taking a few prisoners including Foy’s brigade-major. Delaborde then sent down another battalion, which recovered the southern end of the village, while Nicholls held tightly to the rest of it. At dusk both parties ceased to push on, and the firing died away. The engagement at this end of the line was insignificant: Foy lost eighteen killed and fifty wounded from the 70th of the Line, and a few more from the 86th. Nicholls’s casualties were probably even smaller[725].

Soult had suffered such a decided reverse that he had no desire to prolong the battle, while Hope—who so unexpectedly found himself in command of the British army—showed no wish to make[p. 592] a counter-attack, and was quite contented to have vindicated his position. He claimed, in his dispatch, that at the end of the engagement the army was holding a more advanced line than at its commencement: and this was in part true, for Elvina was now occupied in force, and not merely by a picket, and Paget on the right had cleared the ground below the heights of San Cristobal, which Lahoussaye had been occupying during the action. Some of the French writers have claimed that Soult also had gained ground[726]: but the only fact that can be cited in favour of their contention is that Foy was holding on to the southern end of Piedralonga[727]. All the eye-witnesses on their side concede that at the end of the action the marshal’s army had fallen back to its original position[728].

English critics have occasionally suggested that the success won by Paget and Bentinck might have been pressed, and that if the division of Fraser had been brought up to their support, the French left might have been turned and crushed[729]. But considering that Soult had fourteen or fifteen intact battalions left, in the divisions of Merle and Delaborde[730], it would have been well in his power to fight a successful defensive action on his heights, throwing back his left wing, so as to keep it from being encircled. Hope was right to be contented with his success: even if he had won a victory he could have done no more than re-embark, for the army was not in a condition to plunge once more into the Galician highlands in pursuit of Soult, who would have been joined in a few days by Heudelet, and in a week by Ney.

The losses suffered by the two armies at the battle of Corunna[p. 593] are not easy to estimate. The British regiments, embarking on the day after the fight, did not send in any returns of their casualties till they reached England. Then, most unfortunately, a majority of the colonels lumped together the losses of the retreat and those of the battle. It is lucky, however, to find that among the regiments which sent in proper returns are nearly all those which fought the brunt of the action. The 50th and 42nd of Bentinck’s brigade were by far the most heavily tried, from the prolonged and desperate fighting in and about Elvina. The former lost two officers killed and three wounded, with 180 rank and file: the Highland battalion thirty-nine rank and file killed and 111 (including six officers) wounded. The Guards’ brigade, on the other hand, which was brought up to support these regiments, suffered very little; the first battalion of the 1st Regiment had only five, the second only eight killed, with about forty wounded between them. In Manningham’s brigade the 81st, with its loss of three officers and twenty-seven men killed, and eleven officers and 112 men wounded, was by far the heaviest sufferer: the Royals may also have had a considerable casualty-list, but its figures are apparently not to be found, except confused with those of the whole retreat. Paget’s division in its flank march to ward off the French turning movement suffered surprisingly little: of its two leading regiments the 1/95th had but twelve killed and thirty-three wounded, the 1/52nd five killed and thirty-three wounded. The other three battalions, which formed the supports, must have had even fewer men disabled. Hope’s division, with the exception of the 14th and the 59th, was not seriously engaged: the few battalions which sent in their battle-losses, apart from those of the retreat, show figures such as six or ten for their casualties on January 16. Fraser’s whole division neither fired a shot nor lost a man. It is probable then that Hope, when in his dispatch he estimated the total loss of the British army at ‘something between 700 and 800,’ was overstating rather than understating the total.

Soult’s losses are even harder to discover than those of Moore’s army. His chronicler, Le Noble[731], says that they amounted to no more than 150 killed and 500 wounded. The ever inaccurate Thiers reduces this figure to 400 or less. On the other hand Naylies, a combatant in the battle, speaks of 800 casualties; and[p. 594] Marshal Jourdan, in his précis of the campaign, gives 1,000[732]. But all these figures must be far below the truth. Fantin des Odoards has preserved the exact loss of his own corps, the 31st Léger, one of the regiments of Mermet’s division, which fought in Elvina. It amounted to no less than 330 men[733]. The other four regiments of the division were not less deeply engaged, and it is probable that Mermet alone must have lost over 1,000 in killed and wounded. Two of his three brigadiers went down in the fight: Gaulois was shot dead, Lefebvre badly hurt. Of Merle’s division, one brigade was hotly engaged in the struggle with Manningham’s battalions, in which our 2/81st lost so heavily. The French cannot have suffered less, as they were the beaten party. Lahoussaye’s dragoons must also have sustained appreciable loss: that of Delaborde (as we have already seen) was limited to about eighteen killed and fifty wounded. Of unwounded prisoners the British took seven officers and 156 men. If we put the total of Soult’s casualties at 1,500, we probably shall not be far wrong. All the later experience of the war showed that, when French troops delivered in column an uphill attack on a British position and failed, they suffered twice or thrice the loss of the defenders: we need only mention Vimiero and Busaco. On this occasion there was the additional advantage that Moore’s army had new muskets and good ammunition, while those of Soult’s corps were much deteriorated. A loss of 1,500 men therefore seems a fair and rational estimate. The impression left by the battle on Soult’s mind was such that, in his first dispatch to the Emperor, he wrote that he could do no more against the English till he should have received large reinforcements[734]. But two days later, when Hope had evacuated Corunna, he changed his tone and let it be understood that he had gained ground during the battle, and had so far established an advantage that his position forced the English to embark. This allegation was wholly without foundation. Hope simply carried out the arrangements which Moore had made for sending off the army to England, and his resolve was dictated by the condition of his troops, who urgently needed reorganization and repose, and not by any fear of what the Marshal could do against him.

[p. 595]

Moore, borne back to his quarters in Corunna, survived long enough to realize that his army had completely beaten off Soult’s attack, and had secured for itself a safe departure. In spite of his dreadful wound he retained his consciousness to the last. Forgetful of his own pain, he made inquiries as to the fate of his especial friends and dependants, and found strength to dictate several messages, recommending for promotion officers who had distinguished themselves, and sending farewell greetings to his family. He repeatedly said that he was dying in the way he had always desired, on the night of a victorious battle. The only weight on his mind was the thought that public opinion at home might bear hardly upon him, in consequence of the horrors of the retreat. ‘I hope the people of England will be satisfied,’ he gasped; ‘I hope my country will do me justice.’ And then his memory wandered back to those whom he loved: he tried in vain to frame a message to his mother, but weakness and emotion overcame him, and a few minutes later he died, with the name of Pitt’s niece (Lady Hester Stanhope) on his lips. Moore had expressed a wish to be buried where he fell, and his staff carried out his desire as far as was possible, by laying him in a grave on the ramparts of Corunna. He was buried at early dawn on the seventeenth, on the central bastion that looks out towards the land-side and the battle-field. Hard by him lies General Anstruther, who had died of dysentery on the day before the fight. Soult, with a generosity that does him much credit, took care of Moore’s grave, and ordered a monument to be erected over the spot where he fell[735]. La Romana afterwards carried out the Marshal’s pious intentions.

Little remains to be said about the embarkation of the army. At nine o’clock on the night of the battle the troops were withdrawn from the Monte Moro position, leaving only pickets along its front. Many regiments were embarked that night, more on the morning of the seventeenth. By the evening of that day all were aboard save Beresford’s brigade of Fraser’s division, which remained to cover the embarkation of the rest.

Soult, when he found that the British had withdrawn, sent up some field-pieces to the heights above Fort San Diego, on the southern end of the bay. Their fire could reach the more outlying transports, and created some confusion, as the masters hastily[p. 596] weighed anchor and stood out to sea. Four vessels ran on shore, and three of them could not be got off: the troops on board were hastily transferred to other ships, with no appreciable loss: from the whole army only nine men of the Royal Wagon Train are returned as having been ‘drowned in Corunna harbour,’ no doubt from the sinking of the boat which was transhipping them. General Leith records, in his diary, that on the vessel which took him home there were fragments of no less than six regiments: we can hardly doubt that this must have been one of those which picked up the men from the stranded transports.

Beresford’s brigade embarked from a safe point behind the citadel on the eighteenth, leaving the town in charge of the small Spanish garrison under General Alcedo, which maintained the works till all the fleet were far out to sea, and then rather tamely surrendered. This was entirely the doing of their commander, a shifty old man, who almost immediately after took service with King Joseph[736].

The returning fleet had a tempestuous but rapid passage: urged on by a raging south-wester the vessels ran home in four or five days, and made almost every harbour between Falmouth and Dover. Many transports had a dangerous passage, but only two, the Dispatch and the Smallbridge, came to grief off the Cornish coast and were lost, the former with three officers and fifty-six men of the 7th Hussars, the latter with five officers and 209 men of the King’s German Legion[737]. So ended the famous ‘Retreat from Sahagun.’

Moore’s memory met, as he had feared, with many unjust aspersions when the results of his campaign were known in England. The aspect of the 26,000 ragged war-worn troops, who came ashore on the South Coast, was so miserable that those who saw them were shocked. The state of the mass of 3,000 invalids, racked with fever and dysentery, who were cast into the hospitals was eminently distressing. It is seldom that a nation sees its troops returning straight from the field, with the grime and sweat of battle and march fresh upon them. The impression made was[p. 597] a very unhappy one, and it was easy to blame the General. Public discontent was roused both against Moore and against the ministry, and some of the defenders of the latter took an ungenerous opportunity of shifting all the blame upon the man who could no longer vindicate himself. This provoked his numerous friends into asserting that his whole conduct of the campaign had been absolutely blameless, and that any misfortunes which occurred were simply and solely the fault of maladministration and unwise councils at home. Moore was the hero of the Whig party, and politics were dragged into the discussion of the campaign to a lamentable extent. Long years after his death the attitude of the critic or the historian, who dealt with the Corunna retreat, was invariably coloured by his Whig or Tory predilections.

The accepted view of the present generation is (though most men are entirely unacquainted with the fact) strongly coloured by the circumstance that William Napier, whose eloquent history has superseded all other narratives of the Peninsular War, was a violent enemy of the Tory ministry and a personal admirer of Moore. Ninety years and more have now passed since the great retreat, and we can look upon the campaign with impartial eyes. It is easy to point out mistakes made by the home government, such as the tardy dispatch of Baird’s cavalry, and the inadequate provision of money, both for the division which started from Lisbon and for that which started from Corunna. But these are not the most important causes of the misfortunes of the campaign. Nor can it be pleaded that the ministry did not support Moore loyally, or that they tied his hands by contradictory or over-explicit orders. A glance at Castlereagh’s dispatches is sufficient to show that he and his colleagues left everything that was possible to be settled by the General, and that they approved each of his determinations as it reached them without any cavilling or criticism[738].

Moore must take the main responsibility for all that happened. On the whole, the impression left after a study of his campaign is very favourable to him. His main conception when he marched from Salamanca—that of gaining time for the rallying of the Spanish armies, by directing a sudden raid upon the Emperor’s communications in Castile—was as sound as it was enterprising. The French critics who have charged him with rashness have never[p. 598] read his dispatches, nor realized the care with which he had thought out the retreat, which he knew would be inevitable when his movement became known at Madrid. He was never for a moment in any serious danger of being surrounded by the Emperor, because he was proceeding (as he himself wrote) ‘bridle in hand,’ and with a full knowledge that he must ‘have a run for it’ on the first receipt of news that Napoleon was upon the march. His plan of making a diversion was a complete success: he drew the Emperor, with the 70,000 men who would otherwise have marched on Lisbon, up into the north-west of the Peninsula, quite out of the main centre of operations. Napoleon himself halted at Astorga, but 45,000 men marched on after the British, and were engulfed in the mountains of Galicia, where they were useless for the main operations of the war. Spain, in short, gained three months of respite, because the main disposable field-army of her invaders had been drawn off into a corner by the unexpected march of the British on Sahagun. ‘As a diversion the movement has answered completely,’ wrote Moore to Castlereagh from Astorga[739], and with justice. That the subsequent retreat to Corunna was also advisable we must concede, though the arguments in favour of attempting a defence of Galicia were more weighty than has generally been allowed[740].

But when we turn to the weeks that preceded the advance from Salamanca, and that followed the departure from Astorga, it is only a very blind admirer of Moore who will contend that everything was arranged and ordered for the best. That the army, which began to arrive at Salamanca on November 13, did not make a forward move till December 12 is a fact which admits of explanation, but not of excuse. The main governing fact of its inactivity was not, as Moore was always urging, the disasters of the Spaniards, but the misdirection of the British cavalry and artillery on the roundabout route by Elvas, Talavera, and the Escurial. For this the British general was personally responsible: we have already shown that he had good reasons for distrusting the erroneous reports on the roads of Portugal which were sent in to him, and that he should not have believed them[741]. He ought to have marched on Almeida, with his troops distributed between the three available roads, and should have had a compact[p. 599] force of all arms concentrated at Salamanca by November 15. Even without Baird he could then have exercised some influence on the course of events. As it was, he condemned himself—by the unmilitary act of separating himself from his guns and his horsemen—to a month of futile waiting, while the fate of the campaign was being settled a hundred and fifty miles away.

The chance that Napoleon turned his whole army upon Madrid, and did not send a single corps in search of the British, gave Moore the grand opportunity for striking at the French communications, which he turned to such good account in the middle of December. But, though he so splendidly vindicated his reputation by this blow, we cannot forget the long hesitation at Salamanca by which it was preceded, nor the unhappy project for instant retreat on Portugal, which was so nearly put into execution. If it had been carried out, Moore’s name would have been relegated to a very low place in the list of British commanders, for he would undoubtedly have evacuated Lisbon, just as he had prepared to evacuate Corunna on the day before he was slain. We have his own words to that effect. On November 25 he put on paper his opinion as to the defence of Portugal. ‘Its frontier,’ he wrote, ‘is not defensible against a superior force. It is an open frontier, all equally rugged, but all equally to be penetrated. If the French succeed in Spain, it will be vain to attempt to resist them in Portugal. The British must in that event immediately take steps to evacuate the country[742].’ It is fortunate that Sir Arthur Wellesley was not of this opinion, or the course of the Peninsular War, and of the whole struggle between Bonaparte and Britain, might have been modified in a very unhappy fashion.

So much must be said of Moore’s earlier faults. Of his later ones, committed after his departure from Astorga, almost as much might be made. His long hesitation, as to whether he should march on Vigo or on Corunna, was inexcusable: at Astorga his mind should have been made up, and the Vigo road (a bad cross-route on which he had not a single magazine) should have been left out of consideration. By failing to make up his mind, and taking useless half-measures, Moore deprived himself of the services of Robert Crawfurd and 3,500 of the best soldiers of his army. But, as we have shown elsewhere, the hesitation was in its origin the result of the groundless hypothesis which Moore had formed—[p. 600]one knows not from what premises—that the French would not be able to pursue him beyond Villafranca.

Still more open to criticism is the headlong pace at which Moore conducted the last stages of the retreat. Napier has tried to represent that the marches were not unreasonable: ‘in eleven days,’ he wrote, ‘a small army passed over a hundred and fifty miles of good road[743].’ But we have to deduct three days of rest, leaving an average of about seventeen miles a day; and this for January marching, in a rugged snow-clad country, is no trifle. For though the road was ‘good,’ in the sense that it was well engineered, it was conducted over ridge after ridge of one of the most mountainous lands in Europe. The desperate uphill gradients between Astorga and Manzanal, and between Villafranca and Cerezal, cannot be measured in mere miles when their difficulty is being estimated. The marching should be calculated by hours, and not by miles. Moreover, Moore repeatedly gave his men night-marches, and even two night-marches on end. Half the horrors of the dreadful stage between Lugo and Betanzos came from the fact that the army started at midnight on January 8-9, only rested a few hours by day, and then marched again at seven on the evening of the ninth, and through the whole of the dark hours between the ninth and tenth. Flesh and blood cannot endure such a trial even in good weather, and these were nights of hurricane and downpour. Who can wonder that even well-disposed and willing men lagged behind, sank down, and died by hundreds under such stress?

All this hurry was unnecessary: whenever the rearguard turned to face the French, Soult was forced to wait for many hours before he could even begin an attempt to evict it. For his infantry was always many miles to the rear, and he could not effect anything with the horsemen of his advanced guard against Paget’s steady battalions—as Cacabellos sufficiently showed. Napier urges that any position that the British took up could be turned by side-roads: this is true, but the flanking movement would always take an inordinate time, and by the moment that the French had started upon it, the British rearguard could have got off in safety, after having delayed the enemy for the best part of a day. If, instead of offering resistance only at Cacabellos, Constantino, and Lugo, Moore had shown fight at three or four other places—e.g. at[p. 601] the narrow pass of Piedrafita, the passage of the Ladra, and the defile of Monte Falqueiro—he need not have hurried his main body beyond their strength, and left the road strewn with so many exhausted stragglers. French and English eye-witnesses alike repeatedly express their surprise that such positions were left undefended. While not disguising the fact that a great proportion of the British losses were due to mere want of discipline and sullen discontent on the part of the rank and file, we cannot fail to see that this was not the sole cause of the disasters of the retreat. The General drove his men beyond their strength, when he might, at the cost of a few rearguard skirmishes, have given them four or five days more in which to accomplish their retreat. Moore arrived at Corunna on January 11: it was January 16 before Soult had so far collected his army that he could venture to attack. At any other point, the result of offering battle would have been much the same. No excuse for Moore can be made on the ground of insufficient supplies: at Villafranca, Lugo, and Betanzos he destroyed enormous quantities of food, and often so imperfectly that the French succeeded in living for several days on what they could save from the flames.

In making these criticisms we are not in the least wishing to impugn Moore’s reputation as a capable officer and a good general. He was both, but his fault was an excessive sense of responsibility. He could never forget that he had in his charge, as was said, ‘not a British army, but the British army’—the one efficient force that the United Kingdom could put into the field. He was loth to risk it, though ultimately he did so in his admirably conceived march on Sahagun. He had also to think of his own career: among his numerous friends and admirers he had a reputation for military infallibility which he was loth to hazard. Acting under a strong sense of duty he did so, but all the while he was anxiously asking himself ‘What will they say at home?’ It was this self-consciousness that was Moore’s weak point. Fortunately he was a man of courage and honour, and at the critical moment recovered the confidence and decision which was sometimes wanting in the hours of doubt and waiting.

Few men have been better loved by those who knew them best. To have served in the regiments which Moore had trained at Shorncliffe in 1803-5, was to be his devoted friend and admirer for life and death. Handsome, courteous, just, and benevolent,[p. 602] unsparing to himself, considerate to his subordinates, he won all hearts. ‘He was a very king of men,’ wrote Charles Napier; and Charles’s more eloquent brother has left him a panegyric such as few generals have merited and fewer still obtained[744].