Soult hung close on the rear of the English; he came up with them in the mountains of Leon and continued to pursue them until they reached the port of Corunna. Here Moore perceived that it would be impossible to embark without a convention or battle and he chose the latter. The attack was made by the French on the 16th of January in heavy columns and with their usual vivacity; but it was sustained and repelled by the English and they were permitted to embark without further molestation. Sir John Moore fell in the action mortally wounded by a cannon shot. His body was wrapped in a military cloak, instead of the usual vestments of the tomb, and deposited in a grave hastily dug on the ramparts of the citadel of Corunna, while the guns of the enemy paid him funeral honors. The next morning the grenadiers of France, who had been struck with admiration at the chivalry of the English commander, gathered reverently around the new-made grave, and while the English fleet was yet visible on the bosom of the Mediterranean, they erected a monument over his body and placed thereon an appropriate inscription.
Napoleon, having been informed of the embarkation of the English army, instead of returning to Madrid to complete his Spanish conquest, proceeded at once towards Astorga where his fears with reference to Austria were heightened by news from Paris by courier. The storm that was gathering once more along the shores of the Danube was of more vital consequence to France than the kingdom of Joseph Bonaparte. On his arrival at Astorga he changed all his plans. "It was late at night when the Emperor and Lannes, escorted only by their staffs, and some hundred cavalry, entered Astorga," says General Marbot. "So tired and anxious for shelter and warmth was everyone that the place was scarcely searched. If the enemy had had warning of this, and returned on their tracks, they might perhaps have carried off the Emperor; fortunately they were in too great a hurry, and we did not find one of them in the town. Every minute fresh bodies of French troops were coming up and the safety of the Imperial headquarters was soon secured."
Proceeding to Valladolid with his Guard, which he wished to keep as near to events in Germany as himself, after placing Joseph on the throne at Madrid again, he soon afterwards hastened to Paris with all speed, riding on post horses on one occasion not less than eighty-five miles in five and one-half hours. He had traversed Spain with the rapidity of lightning, followed by his Guard, to the spot where new dangers and triumphs awaited him. He left behind a feeble king, equally as incapable of keeping as obtaining a conquest; and marshals who, no longer restrained by the presence of an inflexible chief, for the most part delivered themselves over to their own self-love or private jealousies.
In his "Memorial" written in exile at St. Helena, Napoleon said "that the war of Spain destroyed him, and that all the circumstances of his disasters connect themselves with this fatal knot." "In the crisis France was placed in," he said at another time, "in the struggle of new ideas in the great cause of the age against the rest of Europe, we could not leave Spain behind."
[X]
WAR WITH AUSTRIA, 1809.
Before Napoleon returned to Paris from Spain he learned that, yielding to England's instigations, Austria was about to take advantage of his being so far away, to cross its borders, invade Bavaria, carry the war to the banks of the Rhine, and then effect the liberation of Germany. The opportunity was an excellent one for attempting such an undertaking. The Emperor had been compelled to send the pick of his battalions to the other side of the Pyrenees, thus greatly reducing the number of French foes in Germany. The French minister of foreign affairs, Talleyrand, had during Napoleon's absence made every effort to conciliate the Emperor Francis, but the warlike preparations throughout the Austrian dominions proceeded with increasing vigor.
After the declaration of war by Austria on the 6th of April, couriers were at once dispatched with orders to the armies on the Rhine, and beyond the Alps, to concentrate themselves on the field. To the ambassadors at Paris the Emperor spoke most freely of the coming conquest. "They have forgotten the lessons of experience there," he said; "They want fresh ones; they shall have them, and this time they shall be terrible I promise you. I do not desire war; I have no interest in it, and all Europe is witness that my whole attention and all my efforts were directed towards the field of battle which England had selected, that is to say, Spain. Austria, which saved the English in 1805 when I was about to cross the straits of Calais, has saved them once more by stopping me when I was about to pursue them to Corunna. She shall pay dearly for this new diversion in their favor. Either she shall disarm instantly, or she shall have to sustain a war of destruction. If she disarms in such a manner as to leave no doubt on my mind as to her further intentions, I will myself sheathe my sword, for I have no wish to draw it except in Spain against the English; otherwise the conflict shall be immediate and decisive, and such that England shall for the future have no allies on the Continent."
The instant Napoleon ascertained that Bavaria was invaded by the Archduke Charles, he at once proceeded, without guards, without equipage, accompanied solely by the faithful Josephine, to Frankfort and thence to Strasbourg. Here he assumed command of the army on the 13th of April, and immediately formed the plan of his campaign. He found the two wings of his army, the one under Massena, the other under Davoust, at such a distance from the centre that, had the Austrians seized the opportunity, the consequences might have been fatal to the French.