On the thirteenth Moore himself came up from Salamanca to Alaejos, where he overtook the infantry. Stewart’s cavalry meanwhile pushed on to Tordesillas and Medina del Campo, without coming across any traces of the French. At Tordesillas they found themselves in touch with Lord Paget’s horsemen on the other side of the Douro, who had also met with no opposition whatever. On the fifteenth the whole army would have converged on Valladolid, if Moore’s original intention had been carried out. But a fortunate accident intervened to prevent this march, which would have placed the British troops nearer to Madrid and to the Emperor than did the route which they finally adopted.
There was brought to Moore at Alaejos an intercepted dispatch from Berthier to Soult, containing the most valuable information. The officer bearing it had been sent off from Madrid without an escort, according to the Emperor’s usual habit—a habit that cost the lives of some scores of unfortunate aides-de-camp during the first year of the Peninsular War. It was only by experience that Napoleon and his marshals learnt that isolated officers travelling in this fashion were devoted in Spain to probable death and possible torture, as Marbot (after a personal experience of the kind) bitterly observed. The bearer of this particular dispatch had been murdered by peasants at the post-house of Valdestillos, near Segovia.
The document was full of invaluable facts and details. It informed Soult that with his existing force—the two infantry divisions of Merle and Mouton, and the four cavalry regiments of Franceschi’s division[626]—he was strong enough to march straight before him from Saldaña, and to overrun the whole kingdom of Leon. He was to seize the towns of Leon, Zamora, and Benavente, and to sweep the débris of the army of Galicia into its native mountains. He would find nothing else to oppose him; for the English, as all accounts agreed, were in full retreat on Lisbon. They had last been heard of at Salamanca and the Escurial. A knowledge of this plan was valuable to Moore, but still more so was what followed—a sketch of the position of the French army at the moment when the dispatch was written. The advanced guard of the ‘Grand Army’ (Lefebvre’s corps) was at Talavera, and would shortly be at Badajoz: Bessières was chasing Castaños beyond the Upper Tagus, on the road to Valencia. Mortier’s and Junot’s corps had reached Spain: the former had been ordered off to aid in the siege of Saragossa: the latter was on the march to Burgos, and its leading division had reached Vittoria. The chief omission was that Berthier did not mention the Imperial Guard or the corps of Ney, which were in or about Madrid when he wrote, and were probably destined to follow Lefebvre’s march on Badajoz and Lisbon. The dispatch ends with the curious note that ‘His Majesty is in the best of health. The city of Madrid is quite tranquil: the shops are open, theatrical amusements have been resumed, and you would never suppose that our first addresses to the place had been emphasized by 4,000 cannon-balls[627].’
Moore was thus placed in possession of the Emperor’s plan of campaign, and of the dislocation of the greater part of his army. Most important of all, he discovered that his own position and designs were wholly unsuspected. His mind was soon made up: Soult, as it seemed, with his 15,000 or 16,000 men at Saldaña and Carrion, was about to move forward into Leon. He would thus be placed at an enormous distance from the Emperor, and would have no solid supports save the leading division of Junot’s corps, which must now be drawing near to Burgos. If he advanced, the whole British army, aided by whatever troops La Romana could produce, might be hurled upon him. The results could not be doubtful, and a severe defeat inflicted on the 2nd Corps would shake the hold of the French on Northern Spain, and ruin all the Emperor’s plans. Moreover the region where Soult might be looked for, about Carrion, Sahagun, and Mayorga, was far more remote from Madrid than the Valladolid country, where Moore was originally intending to strike his blow, so that several days would be gained before the Emperor could interfere.
Accordingly, on December 15, the whole army suddenly changed its direction from eastward to northward. The left-hand column of the infantry crossed the Douro at Zamora, the right-hand column at Toro. The cavalry, screening the march of both, went northward from Tordesillas to the banks of the Sequillo, pushing its advanced parties right up to Valladolid, and driving back the dragoons of Franceschi, several of whose detachments they cut off, capturing a colonel and more than a hundred men. They intercepted the communications between Burgos and Madrid to such effect that Bonaparte believed that the whole British army was moving on Valladolid, and drew up his first plan of operations under that hypothesis[628].
Meanwhile four good marches [December 16-20] carried Moore’s infantry from Zamora and Toro by the route Villalpando—Valderas to Mayorga. The weather was bitterly cold, which in one way favoured the movement, for the frost hardened the country roads, which would otherwise have been mere sloughs of mud. A little snow fell from time to time, but not enough to incommode the troops. They marched well, kept their discipline, and left few sick or stragglers behind. This was the result of good spirits, for they had been told that they would meet the French before the week was out. At Mayorga the junction with Baird’s column was safely effected.
When the army had thus completed its concentration, Sir John Moore, for reasons which it is not quite easy to understand, rearranged all its units. He formed it into four divisions and two independent light brigades. The 1st Division was given to Sir David Baird, the 2nd to Sir John Hope, the 3rd to General Fraser, the 4th (or Reserve) to General E. Paget. The two light brigades were under Charles Alten and Robert Crawfurd (now as always to be carefully distinguished from Catlin Crawfurd, who commanded a brigade of Hope’s division). All the old arrangements of the army of Portugal were broken up: Baird was given three regiments which had come from Lisbon: on the other hand he had to make over four of his Corunna battalions to Hope and two to Fraser. Apparently the idea of the Commander-in-chief was to mix the corps who had already had experience of the French in Portugal with the comparatively raw troops who had landed in Galicia. Otherwise it is impossible to understand the gratuitous divorce of regiments which had been for some time accustomed to act together. The cavalry was formed as a division of two brigades under Lord Paget: the three hussar regiments from Corunna formed one, under General Slade; the two corps from Lisbon the other, under Charles Stewart, the brother of Lord Castlereagh. Of the whole army only the 82nd and Leith’s brigade were still missing: the former had not yet reached Benavente. The belated regiments of the latter were still on the further side of Astorga, and never took any part in the advance.
During this march Moore at last got full information as to the state of La Romana’s troops, and the aid that might be expected from them. The Marquis himself, writing to contradict a false report that he was retiring on Galicia, confessed that two-thirds of his 20,000 men wanted reclothing from head to foot, and that there was a terrible want of haversacks, cartridge-boxes, and shoes. He complained bitterly that the provinces (i.e. Asturias and Galicia) were slack and tardy in forwarding him supplies, and laid much of the blame on them[629]. But he would move forward the moment he could be assisted by Baird’s troops in pressing the French in his front. He reported that Soult had 10,000 infantry at Saldaña, Carrion, and Almanza, with cavalry out in advance at Sahagun: he dared not move across their front southward, for to do so would uncover the high-road through Leon to the Asturias. But the appearance of Baird on the Benavente—Palencia road should be the signal for him to advance against the French in conjunction with his allies[630].
Romana’s description of his army did not sound very promising. But a confidential report from an English officer who had visited his cantonments gave an even less favourable account of the Galicians. Colonel Symes had seen four of the seven divisions which formed the ‘Army of the Left.’ He wrote that the soldiers were ‘in general, stout young men, without order or discipline, but not at all turbulent or ferocious. Their clothing was motley, and some were half-naked. Their manœuvres were very confusedly performed, and the officers were comparatively inferior to the men. The equipment was miserable: of sixteen men of General Figueroa’s guard only six had bayonets. The springs and locks of the muskets often did not correspond. A portion of them—at least one-third—would not explode, and a French soldier could load and fire his piece with precision thrice, before a Spaniard could fire his twice.’ Of the three divisions which he saw reviewed at Leon, one (the 5th, the old troops from the Baltic) seemed superior to the rest, and was armed with good English firelocks: there was also a corps of light troops, 1,000 men in uniform, who might be called respectable[631].... Without undervaluing the spirit of patriotism of the Spaniards, which might in the end effect their deliverance, the writer of the report could only say that they were not, and for a very long time could not be, sufficiently improved in the art of war to be coadjutors in a general action with the British: if any reliance were placed on Spanish aid in the field, terrible disappointment must result: ‘we must stand or fall through our own means[632].’ Colonel Symes doubted whether La Romana would even dare to take his troops into the field at all—wherein he did the Marquis grave injustice: he had every intention of doing his best—though that best turned out to be merely the bringing to the front of the 7,000 or 8,000 men out of his 22,000, who were more or less armed and equipped, while the rest were left behind as wholly unserviceable.
With this document before him, Moore must have found a certain grim humour in the perusal of a letter from the Supreme Junta, which reached him at Toro on December 16, informing him that La Romana would join him with 14,000 ‘picked men,’ and that within a month 30,000 more Asturian and Galician levies should be at his disposal. This communication was brought to him by Francisco Xavier Caro, the brother of the Marquis, who was himself a member of the Junta. With him came Mr. Stuart, as an emissary from the British minister, bringing the last of those unhappy epistles which Frere had written before he knew that the plan of retreating on Portugal had been given up. We have already quoted one of its insulting phrases on page 524: the rest was in the same strain. Fortunately, it could be disregarded, as Moore was actually advancing on the enemy, with a definite promise of help from La Romana. Caro professed to be much delighted that the Junta’s hopes were at last obtaining fruition. Stuart expressed surprise and grief at the tone of Frere’s letters, and ‘seemed not much pleased at his mission[633].’ This was the last of the many troubles with the British and Spanish civil authorities which were destined to harass the Commander-in-chief. For the future it was only military cares that were to weigh upon his mind.