LA ROMANA.
What Moore had expected and hoped for had come to pass. It was clear that Napoleon had learnt the British position at last, and was hastening from Madrid northward across the mountains with his whole army to crush the little force.
"We must cut and run for it," said Moore to his staff with a hard smile. "And by Jove we'll give them a race!"
When Moore suddenly, ten days before, altered his line of march from the Valladolid to the Toro road, Napoleon had not had time to learn of the affair at Rueda. He had made up his mind that the British were retreating on Lisbon, and had already despatched Lefebvre and Lasalle in pursuit by way of Badajos, preparing himself to back them up with an overwhelming army of 40,000 men and 150 guns. The news of Stewart's exploit at Rueda reached him on the 19th. It had the effect of an electric shock. Where before had been activity, there was now feverish energy. Couriers were sent on the instant to all parts of Spain, ordering all the scattered units of his immense force to converge on Valladolid, which he persisted in believing to be Moore's objective. Mere skeleton corps were left to hold in check the shattered Spanish armies. The rest followed Napoleon over the Guadarrama mountains, or pushed along the Burgos road to join hands with Soult.
On the 21st, the same day on which Moore marched for Sahagun, an immense French army, comprising the flower of Napoleon's troops, left Madrid. Marshal Ney, "le plus brave des braves", led the van, and he was lucky in bringing his troops across the Guadarrama in comparatively fine weather. But no sooner had he crossed than a terrific snow-storm burst over the mountains. When Napoleon himself arrived from Madrid he found the passes blocked with snow, guns, wagons, all kinds of impedimenta; and the advance, on which so much depended, to all appearance indefinitely delayed.
Map of Spain and Portugal to illustrate Moore's Campaign
But opposition, even on the part of the elements, only roused the emperor's indomitable energy. The gale was raging its fiercest, men and horses were being hurled over precipices by the force of the wind. The leading battalions had actually turned back and were making confusion worse confounded, when Napoleon appeared. Addressing the soldiers, he announced that he meant to overtake the British at all costs. He set thousands of men to clear the drifts, others to beat down the snow into a hard road, over which the artillery, harnessed with double teams, crawled painfully northward. He ordered the members of each infantry section to link arms and thus help each other along the perilous mountain way. He dismounted the cavalry, and used their horses to haul the guns. Then, gathering his staff about him, he bade them lock their arms, and himself led the way, walking arm in arm with Lannes and Duroc. Thus, in the teeth of wind, snow, and ice they pushed up the wild mountain steeps. Half-way up, the marshals and generals, who wore jack-boots, were too much exhausted to move another step. Nothing daunted, Napoleon had himself hoisted on a gun, and sat there astride. He called to his marshals to do the same; and thus, after four hours battling with the elements, the grotesque cavalcade reached the convent on the summit, where, with food and wine, the rigours of the march were forgotten.
It was in this spirit of fierce determination that the great emperor, sparing himself as little as his troops, strained every nerve to accomplish the end he had in view—the destruction of Moore's gallant little army. If La Romana's confidential agents had been napping, Moore might indeed have beaten Soult, but only to find himself enveloped by a force triple his own in numbers, commanded by the most brilliant soldier of the age. Fortunately, information had reached La Romana, and through him Moore, in time. At the moment when Napoleon arrived at Villacastin, only some three marches distant, Moore was countermanding the advance on Sahagun.
That moment marked the ebb of Napoleon's fortunes. Hitherto he had pursued his wonderful career with scarcely a check; but the decision of Moore on that December evening was the signal for the break-up of Napoleon's power; it was the step that saved Europe. It diverted the emperor from his immediate purpose of conquest, and engaged his huge armies in a fruitless and exhausting chase; it gave Spain time to bethink herself and rise as a nation. Her rising set an example to Europe, by which Austria and Prussia slowly profited, and which led Russia, three years later, to that spirited defiance which burnt Moscow and brought destruction upon the finest army in the world.