♦Buonaparte stops at Astorga.♦
Buonaparte pursued in person no farther than Astorga: he left Marshal Ney with 18,000 men to keep that part of the country in subjection; and assigned to Marshal Soult, with 23,000, what he called the “glorious mission of destroying the English army, ... pursuing them to their point of embarkation, and driving them into the sea.” Marshal Soult’s was an easy task: he had only to follow the English just close enough to keep them at the pace at which they set out, and not come near enough to make them turn and stand at bay; fatigue would do his work more surely than the sword. From Astorga to Villa Franca del Bierzo is fifteen leagues, about sixty English miles; the road for the first four leagues is up the mountain, but through an open country. Having reached the summit of Foncebadon, you enter into some of the strongest passes in Europe. It would scarcely be possible for an invading army to force their way here, against a body of determined men. These passes continue between two and three leagues, nearly to the village of Torre; from thence, through Benvibre and Ponferrada, nothing can be finer than the country, and the circle of mountains which binds it in. But never, in the most melancholy ages of Spanish history, had a more miserable scene ♦1809.
January.♦ been represented, than was now to be witnessed here. The horses of the retreating army began to fail, and this, in great measure, for want of shoes and shoe-nails. There was no want of iron to hammer new ones: there are iron-works near Villa Franca, and enough might have been procured, had there been time allowed. As soon as these noble animals foundered, they were shot, lest the enemy should profit by them. The rain continued pouring, ... the baggage was to be dragged, and the soldiers were to wade through half-melted snows, ... the feet of the men as well as of the beasts began to fail, ... more waggons were left behind, ... more ammunition destroyed along the way; and when the troops reached Villa Franca, they were in such a state, that several experienced officers predicted, if this march against time were persevered in, a fourth of the army would be left in the ditches, before it was ♦Jan. 2.♦ accomplished. More magazines and carriages were here destroyed. Some of the men abandoning themselves now, as knowing that if they proceeded they must die of cold, hunger, and weariness; they got into the wine cellars, and, giving way to desperate excess, were found dead when the French entered the town. When the General marched with the reserve from Benvibre, he left a detachment to cover the town, while parties were sent to warn the stragglers of their danger, and drive them out of the houses, ... for the place was filled with them, near a thousand men of the preceding divisions having remained there, all abandoned to despair, and most of them to drunkenness. A few were prevailed upon to move on; the greater number were deaf to threats, and insensible to danger, till the rear-guard was compelled to march. A small detachment of cavalry still covered them, and did not quit the town till the enemy approached, and then the road was filled with stragglers, armed and unarmed, mules, carts, women, and children.... Four or five squadrons of French cavalry compelled the detachment in the rear to retire, and pursued them closely for several miles, till General Paget, with the reserve, repulsed the pursuers. As the French dragoons galloped through the long line of these wretched stragglers, they slashed them with their swords to the right and left, ... the men being so insensible with liquor that they neither attempted to resist nor get out of the road. Some of these men having found their way to the army, mangled as they were, were paraded through the ranks, to show their comrades the miserable consequence of drunkenness at such a time.
♦Skirmish at Cacabelos.♦
The Spaniards at Villa Franca would not believe that the French were advancing; through so strong a country, and in so severe a season, they thought it was impossible. Sir John Moore, however, well knew that he was pursued, and he was afraid of halting, lest the enemy should get in his rear, and intercept him at Lugo; an apprehension which could not have been entertained, had he been acquainted with the country. The troops, therefore, were hurried on: the artillery and head-quarters went foremost; General Baird’s column, and the cavalry, under Lord Paget, covered the rear. The advanced guard of the enemy, under General Colbert, were close at their heels: Merle’s division joined them on ♦Jan. 3.♦ the 3d, and on the afternoon of that day they ventured to attack the rear-guard at Cacabelos. They were repulsed by the dragoons and riflemen. General Colbert received a ball in his forehead, and fell; he was an officer of great promise, and of so fine a person, that Canova is said to have called him the modern Antinous. Having thus once more shown the enemy what they could do in battle, the rear of the army, reluctantly and almost broken-hearted, continued their retreat.
♦Retreat continued from Villa Franca.♦
From Villa Franca to Castro is one continued ascent up Monte del Cebrero for about fifteen miles, through one of the wildest, most delightful, and most defensible countries in the world. The road is a royal one, cut with great labour and expense in the side of the mountain, and following all its windings; ... for some part of the way it overhangs the river Valcarce, a rapid mountain stream, which falls into the Burbia near the town, and afterwards joins the Sil, to pass through the single outlet in the gorge of the Bierzo. Oaks, alders, poplars, hazels, and chestnuts grow in the bottom, and far up the side of the hills: the apple, pear, cherry, and mulberry are wild in this country; the wild olive, also, is found here; and here are the first vineyards which the traveller sees on his way from Coruña into the heart of Spain. The mountains are cultivated in some parts even to their summits, and trenches are cut along their sides, for the purpose of irrigating them. Even those writers whose journals were written during the horrors of such a flight noticed this scenery with admiration. It was now covered with snow: ... there was neither provision to sustain nature, nor shelter from the rain and snow, nor fuel for fire, to keep the vital heat from total extinction, nor place where the weary and foot-sore could rest for a single hour in safety. All that had hitherto been suffered was but the prelude to this consummate scene of horrors. It was still attempted to carry on some of the sick and wounded: the beasts which drew them failed at every step; and they were left in their waggons, to perish amid the snow. “I looked round,” says an officer, “when we had hardly gained the highest point of those slippery precipices, and saw the rear of the army winding along the narrow road.... I saw their way marked by the wretched people who lay on all sides expiring, from fatigue and the severity of the cold: ... their bodies reddened in spots the white surface of the ground.” The men were now desperate: excessive fatigue, and the feeling of the disgrace there was in thus flying before the enemy, excited in them a spirit which was almost mutinous: ... a few hours’ pause was what they desired, an opportunity of facing the French, the chance of an honourable and speedy death, the certainty of sweetening their sufferings by taking vengeance upon their pursuers. A Portugueze bullock-driver, who had faithfully served the English from the first day of their march, was seen on his knees amid the snow, with his hands clasped, dying in the attitude and act of prayer. He had at least the comfort of religion in his passing hour. The soldiers who threw themselves down to perish by the way-side gave utterance to far different feelings with their dying breath: shame and strong anger were their last sentiments; and their groans were mingled with imprecations upon the Spaniards, by whom they fancied themselves betrayed, and upon the generals, who chose rather to let them die like beasts than take their chance in the field of battle. That no horror might be wanting, women and children accompanied this wretched army: ... some were frozen to death in the baggage-waggons, which were broken down, or left upon the road for want of cattle; some died of fatigue and cold, while their infants were pulling at the exhausted breast: ... one woman was taken in labour upon the mountain; she lay down at the turning of an angle rather more sheltered than the rest of the way from the icy sleet which drifted along; ... there she was found dead, and two babes, which she had brought forth, struggling in the snow: ... a blanket was thrown over her, to cover her from sight, ... the only burial which could be afforded, ... and the infants were given in charge to a woman who came up in one of the bullock-carts, ... to take their chance for surviving through such a journey.
♦Treasure abandoned.♦
While the reserve were on this part of the road, they met between thirty and forty waggons filled with arms, ammunition, shoes, and clothing, from England, for Romana’s army. There was no means of carrying them back; ... such things as could be made use of were distributed to the soldiers as they passed, and the rest were destroyed. Indeed, the baggage which was with the army could not be carried on: nearly an hundred waggons, laden with shoes and clothes, were abandoned upon this ascent. The dollars, too, could no longer be dragged along: had the resolution of sacrificing them been determined upon in time, they might have been distributed among the men: in this manner, great part might have been saved from the enemy, and they who escaped would have had some little compensation for the hardships which they had undergone: ... they were now cast over the side of the precipice, in hopes that the snow might conceal them from the French: ... many men are supposed to have been lost, in consequence of having dropped behind, for the hope of recovering some of this money. Dreadful as this march appeared to those who beheld the wreck of the army strewing its line of road, it was perhaps still more so for them who performed it in a night stormy and dark, wading through sludge and snow, stumbling over the bodies of beasts and men, and hearing, whenever the wind abated, the groans of those whose sufferings were not yet terminated by death.
From the summit of this mountain to Lugo is nearly twelve leagues. There are several bridges upon the way, over glens and gills, which might have impeded the pursuit, had they been destroyed. One, in particular, between Nogales and Marillas, is the most remarkable work of art between Coruña and Madrid. This bridge, which is called Puente del Corzul, crosses a deep ravine: from its exceeding height, the narrowness of its lofty arches, and its form, which, as usual with the Spanish bridges, is straight, it might at a little distance be mistaken for an aqueduct. Several of those officers who knew the road relied much upon the strength of the ravine, and the impossibility that the French could bring their guns over, if the bridge were destroyed. Grievous as it was to think of destroying so grand a work, its destruction was attempted; but, as in most other instances, to no purpose; whether the pioneers performed their office too hastily, or because their implements had been abandoned upon the way.
♦The army collects at Lugo.♦