History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year 1807 to the year 1814, vol. 1

by William Francis Patrick Napier

CHAPTER VI.

OBSERVATIONS.

GENERAL VIEW OF THE CAMPAIGN.

Mr. Canning, in an official communication to the Spanish deputies in London, observed, that “the conduct of the campaign in Portugal was unsatisfactory, and inadequate to the brilliant successes with which it opened.” In the relation of that campaign it has been shown how little the activity and foresight of the cabinet contributed to those successes, and the following short analysis will prove that, with respect to the campaign in Spain, the proceedings of the ministers were marked by tardiness and incapacity.

Joseph abandoned Madrid the 3rd of August, and on the 11th of the same month the French troops from the most distant parts of Europe were in motion to remedy the disasters in the Peninsula.

The 1st of September a double conscription, furnishing one hundred and sixty thousand men, was called out to replace the troops withdrawn from Poland and Germany.

The 4th of September the emperor announced to the senate, that “he was resolved to push the affairs of the Peninsula with the greatest activity, and to destroy the armies which the English had disembarked in that country.”

The 11th, the advanced guard of the army coming from Germany reached Paris, and was there publicly harangued by the emperor.

The 8th of November he burst into Spain at the head of three hundred thousand men, and the 5th of December not a vestige of the Spanish armies remaining, he took possession of Madrid.

Now the Asturian deputies arrived in London the 6th of June.

The 20th of August (the battle of Vimiero being then unfought, and, consequently, the fate of the campaign in Portugal uncertain,) the English minister invited sir Hew Dalrymple to discuss three plans of operations in Spain, each founded upon data utterly false, and all objectionable in the detail. He also desired that sir Arthur Wellesley should go to the Asturias to ascertain what facilities that country offered for the disembarkation of an English army; and the whole number of troops disposable for the campaign (exclusive of those already in Portugal) he stated to be twenty thousand, of which one half was in England and the other in Sicily. He acknowledged that no information yet received had enabled the cabinet to decide as to the application of the forces at home, or the ulterior use to be made of those in Portugal, yet, with singular rashness, the whole of the southern provinces, containing the richest cities, finest harbours, and most numerous armies, were discarded from consideration, and sir Hew Dalrymple, who was well acquainted with that part of Spain, and in close and friendly correspondence with the chiefs, was directed to confine his attention to the northern provinces, of which he knew nothing.

The reduction of Junot’s army in Portugal, and the discomfiture of Joseph’s on the Ebro, were regarded as certain events. The observations of the minister were principally directed, not to the best mode of attacking, but to the choice of a line of march that would ensure the utter destruction or captivity of the whole French army; nay, elated with extravagant hopes and strangely despising Napoleon’s power, he instructed lord William Bentinck to urge the central junta to an invasion of France, as soon as the army on the Ebro should be annihilated.

Thus it appears that the English ministers were either profoundly ignorant of the real state of affairs, or that with a force scattered in England, Portugal, and Sicily, and not exceeding forty-five thousand men, they expected in one campaign, first to subdue twenty-six thousand French under Junot, and then destroying eighty thousand under Joseph, to turn the tide of war, and to invade France.

The battle of Vimiero took place, and sir Arthur Wellesley naturally declined a mission more suitable to a staff captain than a victorious commander; but before sir Hew’s answer, exposing the false calculations of the minister’s plans, could be received in England, a despatch, dated the 2d of September, announced the resolution of the government to employ an army in the northern provinces of Spain, and directed twenty thousand men to be held in readiness to unite with other forces to be sent from England; nevertheless, this project also was so immature, that no intimation was given how the junction was to be effected, whether by sea or land; nor had the ministers even ascertained that the Spaniards would permit English troops to enter Spain at all; for three weeks later, lord William Bentinck, writing from Madrid, says, “I had an interview with Florida Blanca: he expressed his surprise that there should be a doubt of the Spaniards wishing for the assistance of the English army.” Such also was the confusion at home, that lord Castlereagh repeatedly expressed his fears lest the embarkation of Junot’s troops should have “absorbed all the means of transport” in the Tagus, when a simple reference to the transport office in London would have satisfied him, that although the English army should also be embarked, there would still remain a surplus of twelve thousand tons.

When the popular cry arose against the convention of Cintra, the generals in chief were recalled in succession, as rapidly as they had been appointed; the despatches addressed to one generally fell into the hands of his successor; but the plans of the ministers becoming at last mature, on the 6th of October sir John Moore was finally appointed to lead the forces into Spain. At this period the head of the grand French army was already in the passes of the Pyrenees, and the hostile troops on the Ebro coming to blows. The Spaniards were weak and divided, and the English were forty marches from the scene of action; yet, said the minister to sir John Moore, “there will be full time to concert your plan of operations with the Spanish generals before the equipment of your army can be completed.” Was this the way to oppose Napoleon! Could such proceedings lead to ought but disaster! It has been said, that sir Hew Dalrymple’s negligence was the cause of this delay; that he should have had the troops in readiness: but that general could not prudently incur the expense of equipping for a march, an army that was likely to be embarked; he could not, in short, divine the plans of the ministers before they were formed; and it is evident that the error attaches entirely to the government.

The incapacity of the Spanish generals has been already sufficiently exposed by occasional observations in the narrative; their faults, glaring and fatal, call for no further remark; but the exact combinations, the energy and rapidity of the French emperor, merit the most careful examination; his operations were not, as they have been generally considered, a pompous display of power, to create an appearance of conquest that was unreal, not a mere violent irruption with a multitude of men, but a series of skilful and scientific movements, worthy of so great a general and politician. It is true that his force was immense, and that the Spaniards were but contemptible soldiers; but he never neglected the lessons of experience, nor deviated from the strictest rules of art. With astonishing activity, and when we consider the state of his political relations on the continent, we may add, with astonishing boldness, he first collected ample means to attain his object, then deceiving his enemies with regard to his numbers, position, and intentions, and choosing his time with admirable judgment, he broke through the weak part of their line, and seized Burgos, a central point, which enabled him to envelop and destroy the left wing of the Spaniards before their right could hear of his attack, the latter being itself turned by the same movement, and exposed to a like fate. This position also enabled him to menace the capital, to keep the English army in check, and to cover the formation of those magazines and stores which were necessary to render Burgos the base and pivot of further operations.

Napoleon’s forces were numerous enough to have attacked Castaños and Palafox, while Blake was being pursued by the first and fourth corps; but trusting nothing to chance, he waited for twelve days, until the position of the English army was ascertained, the strength of the northern provinces quite broken, and a secure place of arms established. Then leaving the second corps to cover his communications, and sending the fourth corps into the flat country, to coast, as it were, the heads of the English columns on his right, and to turn the passes of the Carpentino mountains, he caused the Spanish right wing to be destroyed, and himself approached the capital, at a moment when not a vestige of a national army was left, when he had good reason to think that the English were in full retreat, when the whole of his own corps were close at hand, and consequently when the greatest moral effect could be produced, and the greatest physical power concentrated at the same time to take advantage of it. Napoleon’s dispositions were indeed surprisingly skilful; for although marshal Lefebre’s precipitation at Zornoza, by prolonging Blake’s agony, lost six days of promise, it is certain that reverses in battle could neither have checked the emperor, nor helped the Spaniards.

For if Soult had been beaten at Gamonal, Napoleon was close at hand to support the second corps, and the sixth corps would have fallen upon the flank and rear of the Spaniards.

If the first corps had been defeated at Espinosa, the second and fourth corps, and the emperor’s troops, would have taken Blake in flank and rear.

If Lasnes had been defeated at Tudela, he could have fallen back on Pampeluna; the fifth and eighth corps were marching to support him, and the sixth corps would have taken the Spaniards in flank.

If the emperor had been repulsed at the Somosierra, the sixth corps would have turned that position by Guadalaxara, and the fourth corps by Guadarama.

If sir John Moore had retreated on Portugal, the fourth corps was nearer to Lisbon than he was.

If he had overthrown Soult, the fifth and eighth corps were ready to sustain that marshal, and Napoleon, with fifty thousand men, as we have seen, was prepared to cut the British line of retreat into Gallicia. In short, no possible event could have divided the emperor’s forces, and he constantly preserved a central position that enabled him to unite his masses in sufficient time to repair any momentary disaster. By a judicious mixture of force and policy also, he obliged Madrid to surrender in two days, and thus prevented the enthusiasm which would doubtless have arisen if the capital had been defended for any time, and the heart burnings if it had been stormed. The second sweep that he was preparing to make when sir John Moore’s march called off his attention from the south would undoubtedly have put him in possession of the remaining great cities of the Peninsula. Then the civil benefits promised in his decrees and speeches would have produced their full effect, and the result may be judged of by the fact that in 1811 and 12, Andalusia and Valencia were under the able administration of marshals Soult and Suchet, as tranquil and submissive as any department of France, and the former even raised numerous Spanish battalions, and employed them not only to preserve the public peace, but to chase and put down the guerillas of the neighbouring provinces.

Sir John Moore’s talents saved the Peninsula from this great danger, and here perhaps a military error of Napoleon’s may be detected. Forgetting that war is not a conjectural art, he took for granted that the English army was falling back to Portugal, and without ascertaining that it was so, acted upon the supposition. This apparent negligence, so unlike his usual circumspection, leads to the notion, that through Morla he might have become acquainted with the peculiar opinions and rash temper of Mr. Frere, and trusted that the treacherous arts of the Spaniard, in conjunction with the presumptuous disposition of the plenipotentiary, would so mislead the English general, as to induce him to carry his army to Madrid, and thus deliver it up entire and bound. It was an error; but Napoleon could be deceived or negligent only for a moment. With what vigour he recovered himself, and hastened to remedy his error! How instantaneously he relinquished his intentions against the south, turned his face away from the glittering prize, and bent his whole force against the only man among his adversaries that had discovered talent and decision! Let those who have seen the preparations necessary to enable a small army to act, even on a pre-conceived plan, say what uncontrollable energy that man possessed, who, suddenly interrupted in such great designs, could, in the course of a few hours, put fifty thousand men in movement on a totally new line of operations, and in the midst of winter execute a march of two hundred miles with a rapidity hardly to be equalled under the most favourable circumstances.

The indefatigable activity of the duke of Dalmatia greatly contributed to the success of the whole campaign, and it is a remarkable circumstance, that Soult and Napoleon, advancing from different bases, should have so combined their movements, that (after marching, the one above a hundred, and the other two hundred miles, through a hostile country) they effected their junction at a given point, and at a given hour, without failure; and it is no less remarkable that such a decided and well-conducted operation should have been baffled by a general at the head of an inexperienced army.

OBSERVATIONS ON SIR JOHN MOORE’S RETREAT.

When Sylla, after all his victories, styled himself a happy, rather than a great general, he discovered his profound knowledge of the military art. Experience had taught him that the urgent speed of one legion, the inactivity of another, the obstinacy, the ignorance, or the treachery of a subordinate officer, was sufficient to mar the best concerted plan, nay, that the intervention of a shower of rain, an unexpected ditch, or any apparently trivial accident, might determine the fate of a whole army. It taught him that the vicissitudes of war are so many, that disappointment will attend the wisest combinations; that a ruinous defeat, the work of chance, often closes the career of the boldest and most sagacious of generals; and that to judge of a commander’s conduct by the event alone, is equally unjust and unphilosophical, a refuge for vanity and ignorance.

These reflections seem to be peculiarly applicable to sir John Moore’s campaign, which has by sundry writers been so unfairly discussed. Many of the subsequent disasters of the French can now be distinctly traced to the operations of the British army. It can be demonstrated that the reputation of that excellent man was basely sacrificed at the period of his death, and that the virulent censures passed upon his conduct have been as inconsiderate as they were unmerited and cruel.

The nature of the commands held by sir John Moore in the years 1807-8-9, forced him into a series of embarrassments from which few men could have extricated themselves. After refusing the charge of the absurd expedition to Egypt in 1806, which ended, as he judged it must do, unfavourably, he succeeded to the command of the troops in Sicily, a situation which immediately involved him in unpleasant discussions with the queen of Naples and the British envoy: discussions to which the subsequent well-known enmity of the cabinet of that day may be traced. By his frank conduct, clear judgment, and firm spirit, he obtained an influence over the wretched court of Palermo that promised the happiest results. The queen’s repugnance to a reform was overcome, the ministers were awed, and the miserable intrigues of the day were for the time put down. The Sicilian army was reorganized, and a good military system was commenced under the advice of the British general. This promising state of affairs lasted but a short time; the Russian fleet put into the Tagus, the French threatened Portugal, and Sicily was no longer considered! Sir John Moore was ordered to quit that island, and to assemble a large force at Gibraltar for a specific service; but the troops to be gathered were dispersed in the Mediterranean from Egypt to the straits, and their junction could not be effected at all unless the English ambassador at Constantinople should succeed in bringing a negotiation then pending between the Turks and Russians to a happy issue. The special service in question had two objects, 1º. to aid sir Sydney Smith in carrying off the royal family Sir John Moore’s Journal, MSS. of Portugal to the Brazils; and 2º. to take possession of Madeira; but neither were made known to the general before his arrival at Gibraltar, which was not until after Junot had taken possession of Lisbon. Sir John Moore then (following his instructions) proceeded home, and thus our interests in Sicily were again abandoned to the vices and intrigues of the court of Palermo. On the passage he crossed general Spencer going with a force against Ceuta, and soon after he had reached England, he was despatched to Sweden, without any specific object, and with such vague instructions, that an immediate collision with the unfortunate Gustavus was the consequence. Having with much dexterity and judgment withdrawn himself and his army from the capricious violence of that monarch, sir John was superseded and sent to Portugal, with the third rank in an army which at that time no man had such good claims to command as himself[27].

The good fortune of England was never more conspicuous than at this period, when her armies and fleets were thus bandied about, and a blind chance governed the councils at home. For first a force collected from all parts of the Mediterranean was transported to the Baltic sea, at a time when an expedition composed of troops which had but a short time before come back from the Baltic were sailing from England to the Mediterranean. An army intended to conquer South America was happily assembled in Ireland at the moment when an unexpected event called for their services in Portugal, and a division destined to attack the Spaniards at Ceuta arrived at Gibraltar at the instant when the insurrection of Andalusia fortunately prevented them from making an attempt that would have materially aided Napoleon’s schemes against the Peninsula. Again, three days after sir John Moore had withdrawn his army from Sweden, orders arrived to employ it in carrying off the Spanish troops under Romana, an operation for which it was not required, and which would have retarded, if not entirely frustrated, the campaign in Portugal; nor was it the least part of that fortune, that in such long continued voyages in bad seasons, no disaster befell those huge fleets thus employed in bearing the strength of England from one extremity of Europe to the other.

After the convention of Cintra, sir John Moore was again placed at the head of an army; an appointment unexpected by him, for the frank and bold manner in which he expressed himself to the ministers on his return from Gottingen left him little to hope; but the personal good-will of the king, and other circumstances, procured him this command. Thus, in a few months after he had quitted Sweden, Moore, with an army not exceeding twenty-four thousand men, was in the heart of Spain, opposed to Napoleon, who having passed the Pyrenees at the head of three hundred and thirty thousand men, could readily bring two hundred thousand to bear on the British; a vast disproportion of numbers, and a sufficient answer to all the idle censures passed upon the retreat to Coruña.

The most plausible grounds of accusation against sir John Moore’s conduct rest on three alleged errors:

1st. That he divided his forces.

2dly. That he advanced against Soult.

3dly. That he made a precipitate and unnecessary retreat.

When a general, aware of the strength of his adversary, and of the resources to be placed at his own disposal, arranges a plan of campaign, he may be strictly judged by the rules of art; but if, as in the case of sir John Moore, he is suddenly appointed to conduct important operations without a plan being arranged, or the means given to arrange one, then it is evident that his capacity or incapacity must be judged of, by the energy he displays, the comprehensive view he takes of affairs, and the rapidity with which he accommodates his measures to events, that the original vice of his appointment will not permit him to control.

The first separation of the English army was the work of the ministers, who sent sir David Baird to Coruña. The after separation of the artillery was sir John Moore’s act; the reasons for which have been already stated; but it is worth while to examine what the effect of that measure was, and what it might have been; and here it may be observed, that, although a brigade of light six-pounders did accompany the troops to Almeida, the road was not practicable; for the guns were in some places let down the rocks by ropes, and in others, carried over the difficult places; a practicable affair with one brigade; but how could the great train of guns and ammunition waggons that accompanied sir John Hope have passed such places without a loss of time that would have proved more injurious to the operations than the separation of the artillery?

The advance of the army was guided by three contingent cases, any one of which arising would have immediately influenced the operations; 1º. Blake on the left, or Castaños and Palafox upon the right, might have beaten the French, and advanced to the Pyrenees. 2º. They might have maintained their position on the Ebro. 3º. The arrival of reinforcements from France might have forced the Spaniards to fall back upon the upper Douero, on one side, and to the mountains of Guadalaxara on the other. In the first case, there was no risk in marching by divisions towards Burgos, which was the point of concentration given by the British and Spanish ministers. In the second case, the army could safely unite at Valladolid; and in the third case, if the division of sir David Baird had reached Toro early in November (and this it was reasonable to expect, as that general arrived at Coruña the 13th of October), the retrograde movement of the Spanish armies would probably have drawn the English to the Guadarama, as a safe and central point between the retiring Spanish wings. Now the artillery marching from the Alemtejo by the roads of Talavera and Naval Carnero, to Burgos, would pass over one hundred and two Spanish leagues. To Aranda de Douero, eighty-nine leagues. To Valladolid, ninety-two leagues. While the columns that marched by Almeida and Salamanca would pass over one hundred and sixteen leagues to Burgos, and ninety-eight to Valladolid. Wherefore supposing the Spaniards successful, or even holding their own, the separation of the artillery was an advantage, and if the Spaniards were driven back, their natural line of retreat would have brought them towards Madrid, Blake by Aranda to the Somosierra, and Castaños and Palafox by Siguenza and Tarancon, to cover the capital, and to maintain an interior communication between the Somosierra and the Henares river. The British artillery would then have halted at Espinar, after a march of only eighty leagues, and Baird and Moore’s corps uniting at Salamanca early in November, might, by a flank march to Arevalo, have insured the concentration of the whole army.

click here for larger image.

Plate VIII

To Face Page 516

Thus, in the three anticipated cases, the separation of the artillery was prudent, and promised to be advantageous. There was indeed a fourth case, that which really happened. All the Spanish armies were dispersed in an instant!—utterly effaced! but sir John Moore could not have divined such a catastrophe, while his ears were ringing with the universal clamour about the numbers and enthusiasm of the patriots; and if he had foreseen even a part of such disasters, he would never have advanced from Portugal. With the plans of the Spanish government he was unacquainted; but he was officially informed that above one hundred and forty thousand Spanish soldiers were between him and a feeble dispirited enemy; and as the intercepted letter from the governor of Bayonne stated that reinforcements would only arrive between the 18th of October and the 18th of November, it was reasonable to suppose that the French would not commence offensive operations before the latter period, and that ample time would be afforded to concentrate the English troops under the protection of the Spanish armies. If sir John Moore could have suspected the delusion under which the British government acted, the incredible folly of the central junta and the Spanish generals, or the inaccuracy of the military agents, if he could have supposed that the Spanish armies were weak in numbers, weaker in spirit, and destitute of food and clothing; or that, while the Spanish authorities were pressing him to advance, they would wantonly detain sir David Baird’s troops seventeen days on board the transports; if he could have imagined all this, undoubtedly his arrangements ought and would have been different; his army would have been kept together, and the road through Coria, however difficult, would have been preferred to a divided march.

The dangerous and absurd position of the Spanish armies, and the remote situation of the British troops in October, may be explained by the annexed diagram. Lisbon being taken as a centre, and the distance A between Lisbon and Coruña being the radius, let a circle passing through Madrid be described. Let the tangential line C be drawn perpendicular to the radius A, meeting the secant B at Sanguessa.

The extreme right of the Spaniards was posted at Sanguessa. Castaños was at Calahorra, and Blake was near Durango, but the main body of the French was at Vittoria; and not only divided the Spaniards, but was actually twenty-five miles nearer to Burgos and Valladolid, (the points of concentration for Moore’s and Baird’s corps) than either Castaños or Blake, and seventy-five miles nearer than Palafox.

The 10th, the emperor struck the first blow, by beating Belvedere and seizing Burgos. Sir David Baird did not march from Coruña until the 12th, and did not bring up the whole of his troops to Astorga before the 4th of December; hence it is clear, that whatever road the artillery had taken, the British army could not have averted the ruin of the Spaniards. Let us suppose the troops assembled at Salamanca on the 13th of November. They must have advanced either to Valladolid or to Madrid. If to Valladolid, the emperor was at Burgos with the imperial guards, ten or twelve thousand cavalry, and a hundred pieces of artillery. The first corps was within a day’s march, the second and fourth corps within three marches, and the sixth corps within two marches. Above a hundred thousand French soldiers could, therefore, have been concentrated in three days; and it is to be observed that sir John Moore never had twenty-five thousand in the field.

It is said, he might have gone to Madrid: in that case the separation of the artillery was a decided advantage, and the separation of Baird’s corps (which was not the general’s arrangement) was the error. The army could not have marched from Salamanca to Madrid in less than seven days; on the 21st of November then, twenty-four thousand British soldiers could have been collected in the capital; but the fourth French corps, which reached Segovia the 1st of December, would have cut off their communication with Portugal, and the emperor with forty thousand men was at Aranda de Douero. Castaños was defeated on the 23d; the remnants of his army were only at Guadalaxara about the 1st of December, and the sixth corps was in full pursuit of them. The English general must then have done one of three things; advanced to the relief of Castaños’s retreating army, joined St. Juan at the Somosierra, or retreated across the Tagus. In the first case, the emperor would have forced the Somosierra, and uniting with the fourth corps, have placed sixty thousand men upon sir John Moore’s rear; in the second case, the sixth and fourth corps, turning both his flanks, would have effected a junction behind the Somosierra, and cut him off from Madrid, while Napoleon, with forty thousand men, assailed him in front. To retreat over the Tagus was to adopt the southern provinces for a new base of operations, and might have been useful if the Spaniards would have rallied round him with enthusiasm and courage; but would they have done so when the emperor was advancing with his enormous force? After-experience proves that they would not. The duke of Dalmatia, in 1810, with an army very inferior to that under Napoleon, reached the gates of Cadiz without a serious blow being struck to oppose him, and at this time the people of the south were reckless of the opportunity procured for them by sir John Moore’s march on Sahagun; but, it has been said, that twenty-four thousand British troops acting vigorously, could have checked the emperor, and raised the courage of the Spaniards. To such an observation I will oppose a fact. In 1815, Napoleon crossed the Sambre with one hundred and fifteen thousand men, and the two hundred and ten thousand regular troops in his front, among which were more than thirty thousand English, could with difficulty stop his progress after four days’ fighting, in three of which he was successful.

If sir John Moore, at a subsequent period, was willing to risk the danger of a movement on the capital, it was because he was misinformed of the French strength, and the Spaniards were represented to be numerous and confident; he was also unacquainted with the defeat at Tudela. His object was, by assisting Castaños, to arouse the spirit of the patriots: and nothing more strongly evinces his hardihood and prompt judgment, for, in his letter to Mr. Frere, he distinctly stated the danger to be incurred, and carefully separating the military from the political reasons, only proposed to venture the army if the envoy was satisfied that the Spanish government and people would answer to such an appeal, and that the British cabinet would be willing to incur the risk for such an object. If he did not follow up his own proposal, it was because he had discovered that the army of Castaños was, not simply defeated, but destroyed; because the Somosierra had been forced by a charge of cavalry, and because the passes of the Guadarama, on his line of march to Madrid, were seized by the enemy before his own army could be concentrated.

Why then did he not retreat into Portugal? Because Napoleon, having directed the mass of his forces against the capital, the British army was enabled to concentrate; because Madrid shut her gates; because Mr. Frere and the Spanish authorities deceived him by false information; because the solemn declaration of the junta of Toledo, that they would bury themselves under the ruins of that town rather than surrender, joined to the fact that Zaragoza was fighting heroically, seemed to guarantee the constancy and vigour of that patriotic spirit which was apparently once more excited; because the question was again become political, and it was necessary to satisfy the English people, that nothing was left undone to aid a cause which they had so much at heart; and, finally, because the peculiar position of the French army at the moment, afforded the means of creating a powerful diversion in favour of the southern provinces. These are the unanswerable reasons for the advance towards Sahagun. In the details of execution, that movement may be liable to some trifling objections; perhaps it would have been better to have carried the army on the 21st at once to Carrion and neglected Sahagun and Saldanha; but in its stratagetical and political character it was well conceived and well timed, hardy and successful.

The irritating interference that sir John Moore was called upon to repel, and the treachery and the folly, equal in its effects to treachery, that he was obliged to guard against, have been sufficiently dwelt upon already; but before discussing the retreat from Astorga, it may be of some military interest to show that the line of Portugal, although the natural one for the British army to retire upon, was not at this period necessarily either safe or useful, and that greater evils than those incurred by a retreat through Gallicia would probably have attended a retrograde march upon Lisbon.

The rugged frontier of Portugal lying between the Douero and the Tagus, is vulnerable in many points to an invading army of superior force. It may be penetrated between the Douero and Pinhel, and between Pinhel and Guarda, by roads leading into the valleys of the Zezere and the Mondego. Between the Sierra de Estrella and the Sierra de Gata, by the road from Alfayates to Sabugal and Penamacor, or that by Guarda and Coria. Again, it may be pierced between the Sierra de Gata and the Tagus by Idanha Velha, Castello Branco, and Sobreira Formosa; and from the Tagus to the Guadiana, a distance of about twenty leagues, the Alentejo presents an open country without any strong fortress, save Lalippe, which may be disregarded and passed without danger.

Sir John Moore commenced his forward movement from Salamanca on the 12th of December, and at that period, the fourth corps being at Talavera de la Reyna, was much nearer to Lisbon than the British army was, and the emperor was preparing to march on that capital with the sixth corps, the guards, and the reserve. He could, as the duke of Berwick did, penetrate by both sides of the Tagus, and what was to prevent him from reaching Lisbon before the British force, if the latter had retreated from Salamanca? he marched on a shorter line and a better road; he could supply his troops by requisitions, a system that, however fatal it may be in the end, is always advantageous at first. Sir John Moore must, from a scanty military chest, have purchased his supplies from a suspicious peasantry, rendered more distrustful by the retreat. In Lisbon, sir John Craddock commanded six thousand infantry and two hundred and fifty-eight cavalry; but the provisional government, who had only organized a few ill-composed battalions, were so inactive, that it was not until the 8th of December that a proclamation, calling on the people to arm, was issued. In the arsenal there were scarcely musquets and equipments for eight thousand men, and the new levies were only required to assemble when Portugal should be actually invaded. Sir Robert Wilson, indeed, having with great activity organized about two thousand of the Lusitanian legion, marched in the middle of December from Oporto; but this was all that could be opposed to an army more numerous, more favourably situated for invasion, and incomparably better commanded than that with which Massena invaded the country in 1810. Thus it may be affirmed, that if a retreat from Lisbon was advisable, before Napoleon took Madrid, it was not a safe operation after that event, and it is clear that sir John Moore neither lightly nor injudiciously adopted the line of Gallicia.

The arguments of those who deny the necessity of falling back, even behind the Esla, are scarcely worth notice; a simple reference to the numbers under the emperor, and the direction of his march, is sufficient to expose their futility; but the necessity of the continued, and as it has been unjustly called, the precipitate retreat to Coruña, may not be quite so obvious. The advance to Sahagun was intended to create a diversion, and give the Spaniards an opportunity of making head in the south; but although it succeeded in drawing away the enemy, the Spaniards did not make any head. The central junta displayed no energy or wisdom; a few slight demonstrations by the marquis of Palacios, on the side of the Sierra Morena, and by the duke of Infantado on the side of Cuenca, scarcely disturbed the first corps which remained in La Mancha; ten thousand men were sufficient to maintain Madrid in perfect tranquillity, and a part of the fourth corps even marched from Talavera by Placentia on Salamanca. By the letters of Mr. Stuart, and the reports of his own spies, sir John Moore was informed of all these disheartening circumstances; but the intelligence arrived slowly and at intervals, and he, hoping that the Spaniards would finally make an effort, announced his intention to hold the Gallicias; but Mr. Stuart’s correspondence deprived him of that hope; and the presence of the emperor, the great amount of his force, and the vehemence with which he pressed forward, confirmed the unhappy truth that nothing could be expected from the south.

Sir John Moore could not with twenty-three thousand men maintain himself against the whole French army, and until he reached Astorga his flanks were always exposed. From thence, however, he retreated in comparative security; but the natural strength of the country between that town and Coruña misled persons of shallow judgment, who have since inconsiderately advanced many vague accusations, such as that passes where a hundred men could stop an army were lightly abandoned; that the retreat was a flight, and the general’s judgment clouded by the danger of his situation. There might be some foundation for such observations if military commanders were like prize-fighters, bound to strike always at the front; but as long as armies are dependent for their subsistence and ammunition upon lines of communication, the safety of their flanks and rear must be considered as of consequence. Sir John Moore was perfectly aware that he could fight any number of men in some of the mountainous positions on the road to Coruña; but unless he could make a permanent defence, such battles would have been worse than useless, and a permanent defence was impossible, inasmuch as there were none but temporary magazines nearer than Coruña, and there were neither carriages of transport, nor money to procure them; a severe winter had just set in, and the province being poor, and the peasantry disinclined to aid the troops, few resources could be drawn from the country itself, neither was there a single position between Astorga and Coruña which could be maintained for more than a few days against a [Appendix, No. 13], sect. 2. superior force, for that of Rodrigatos could be turned by the old road leading to Villa Franca, Villa Franca itself by the valley of the Syl, and from thence the whole line to Coruña might be turned by the road of Orense, which also led directly to Vigo, and until he reached Nogales, sir J. Moore’s intention was to retire to Vigo. The French could have marched through the richest part of Gallicia to St. Jago and Coruña on the left, or from the Asturias, by the way of Mondonedo, on the right. If it be asked why they did not do so? the answer is prompt. The emperor having quitted the army, the jealousies and misunderstandings usual between generals of equal rank impeded the operations. A coolness subsisted between marshal Ney and the duke of Dalmatia, and without entering into the grounds of their difference it is plain that, in a military point of view, the judgment of the latter was the soundest. The former committed a great error by remaining at Villa Franca instead of pushing his corps, or a part of it, (as recommended by Soult) along the valley of Orense to St. Jago de Compostella. The British army would have been lost if the sixth corps had reached Coruña before it; and what would have been the chances in the battle if three additional French divisions had been engaged?

Granting, therefore, that the troops could have been nourished during the winter, Villa Franca, Nogales, Constantino, and Lugo, were not permanently defensible by an army whose base of operations was at Coruña. Hence it was that sir John Moore resolved to regain his ships with the view to renew the war in the south, and Hannibal himself could have done no more. Nor was the mode of executing the retreat at all unbecoming the character of an able officer.

Lord Bacon observes, that “honourable retreats are no ways inferior to brave charges, as having less of fortune, more of discipline, and as much of valour.” That is an honourable retreat in which the retiring general loses no trophies in fight, sustains every charge without being broken, and finally, after a severe action, re-embarks his army in the face of a superior enemy without being seriously molested. It would be honourable to effect this before a foe only formidable from numbers, but it is infinitely more creditable, when the commander, while struggling with bad weather and worse fortune, has to oppose veterans with inexperienced troops, and to contend against an antagonist of eminent ability, who scarcely suffers a single advantage to escape him during his long and vigorous pursuit. All this sir John Moore did, and finished his work by a death as firm and glorious as any that antiquity can boast of.

Put to lord Bacon’s test, in what shall the retreat to Coruña be found deficient? something in discipline perhaps, but that fault does not attach to the general. Those commanders who have been celebrated for making fine retreats were in most instances well acquainted with their armies; and Hannibal, speaking of the elder Scipio, derided him, although a brave and skilful man, for that, being unknown to his own soldiers, he should presume to oppose himself to a general who could call to each man under his command by name: thus inculcating, that, unless troops be trained in the peculiar method of a commander, the latter can scarcely achieve any thing great. Now sir John Moore had a young army suddenly placed under his guidance, and it was scarcely united, when the superior numbers of the enemy forced it to a retrograde movement under very harassing circumstances; he had not time, therefore, to establish a system of discipline, and it is in the leading events, not the minor details, that the just criterion of his merits is to be sought for.

Was the retreat uncalled for? Was it unnecessarily precipitate? Was any opportunity of crippling the enemy lost? Was any weakness to be discovered in the personal character of the general? These are the questions that sensible men will ask; the first has been already examined, the second is a matter of simple calculation. The rear guard quitted Astorga on the 1st of January; on the 3rd, it repulsed the enemy in a sharp skirmish at Calcabelos; the 6th it rejoined the main body at Lugo, having three times checked the pursuers during the march. It was unbroken, and lost no gun, suffered no misfortune; the whole army offered battle at Lugo for two successive days, it was not accepted, and the retreat recommencing, the troops reached Betanzos on the morning of the 10th, and Coruña on the 11th; thus in eleven days, three of which were days of rest, a small army passed over a hundred and fifty miles of good road. Now Napoleon, with fifty thousand men, left Madrid on the 22d of December, the 28th he was at Villapando, having performed a march, on bad roads, of a hundred and sixty-four miles in seven days. The retreat to Coruña was consequently not precipitate, unless it can be shown, that it was unnecessary to retreat at all beyond Villa Franca, neither can it be asserted, that any opportunity of crippling the enemy was lost. To fight a battle was the game of the French marshal, and if any censure will apply to his able campaign, it is that he delayed to attack at Lugo; victorious or beaten, the embarrassments of his adversary must have been increased; sir John Moore must have continued his retreat encumbered with the wounded, or the latter must have been abandoned without succour in the midst of winter.

At Coruña the absence of the fleet necessarily brought on a battle; that it was honourable to the British troops is clear from the fact that they embarked without loss after the action; and that it was absolutely necessary to embark notwithstanding the success, is as certain a proof how little advantage could have been derived from any battle fought farther inland, and how prudently sir John Moore acted in declining an action the moment he had rallied his army at Lugo, and restored that discipline which the previous movements had shaken; but, notwithstanding the clamour with which this campaign has been assailed, as if no army had ever yet suffered such misfortunes, it is certain that the nominal loss was small, the real loss smaller, and that it sinks into nothing when compared with the advantages gained. An [Appendix, No. 26.]
Ibid. army which, after marching in advance or retreat above five hundred miles before an enemy of immensely superior force, has only lost, including those killed in battle, four thousand men, or a sixth part of its numbers, cannot be said to have suffered severely, nor would the loss have been so great but for the intervention of the accidental occurrences mentioned in the narrative. Night marches are seldom happy; that from Lugo to Betanzos cost the army in stragglers more than double the number of men lost in all the preceding operations; nevertheless the reserve in that, as in all the other movements, suffered little; and it is a fact, that the light brigades detached by the Vigo road, which were not pursued, made no forced marches, slept under cover, and were well supplied, left, in proportion to their strength, as many men behind as any other part of the army; thus accumulating proof upon proof that inexperience was the primary and principal cause of the disorders which attended the retreat. Those disorders were sufficiently great, but many circumstances contributed to produce an appearance of suffering and disorganization which was not real. The intention of sir John Moore was, to have proceeded to Vigo, in order to restore order before he sailed for England: instead of which the fleet steered home directly from Coruña; a terrible storm scattered it; many ships were wrecked, and the remainder, driving up the channel, were glad to put into any port. The soldiers, thus thrown on shore, were spread from the Land’s End to Dover. Their haggard appearance, ragged clothing, and dirty accoutrements, things common enough in war, struck a people only used to the daintiness of parade, with surprise; the usual exaggerations of men just escaped from perils and distresses were increased by the uncertainty in which all were as to the fate of their comrades; a deadly fever, the result of anxiety, and of the sudden change from fatigue to the confinement of a ship, filled the hospitals at every port with officers and soldiers, and thus the miserable state of sir John Moore’s army became the topic of every letter, and a theme for every country newspaper along the coast. The nation, at that time unused to great operations, forgot that war is not a harmless game, and judging of the loss positively, instead of comparatively, was thus disposed to believe the calumnies of interested men, who were eager to cast a shade over one of the brightest characters that ever adorned the country. Those calumnies triumphed for a moment; but Moore’s last appeal to his country for justice will be successful. Posterity, revering and cherishing his name, will visit such of his odious calumniators as are not too contemptible to be remembered with a just and severe retribution; for thus it is that time freshens the beauty of virtue and withers the efforts of baseness; and if authority be sought for in a case where reason speaks so plainly, future historians will not fail to remark, that the man whose talents exacted the praises of Soult, of Wellington, and of Napoleon, could be no ordinary soldier.

“Sir John Moore,” says the first, “took every advantage that the country afforded to oppose an active [Appendix, No. 16.] and vigorous resistance, and he finished, by dying in a combat that must do credit to his memory.”

Vivian’s Conversations at Elba.

Napoleon more than once affirmed, that if he committed a few trifling errors they were to be attributed Voice from St. Helena to his peculiar situation, for that his talents and firmness alone had saved the English army from destruction.

“In sir John Moore’s campaign,” said the duke of Wellington, “I can see but one error; when he advanced to Sahagun he should have considered it as a movement of retreat, and sent officers to the rear to mark and prepare the halting-places for every brigade; but this opinion I have formed after long experience of war, and especially of the peculiarities of a Spanish war, which must have been seen to be understood; finally, it is an opinion formed after the event.”