(From an old Spanish print)
Before discussing this famous disaster we may quote the words of H. M. Stephens,[d] who, after calling Moore “the only English general who has gained lasting fame by the conduct of a retreat,” and referring to his death as showing “how a modern Bayard should die in battle—every thought for others, none for himself,” thus sums up his position in history:
“It may be possible, in the face of his heroic death, to exaggerate Moore’s actual military services, but his influence on the British army cannot be overrated. The true military spirit of discipline and of valour, both in officers and men, had become nearly extinct during the American war. Abercromby, who looked back to the traditions of Minden, was the first to attempt to revive it, and his work was carried on by Moore. The formation of the light regiments at Shorncliffe was the answer to the new French tactics, and it was left to Wellington to show the success of the experiment. Moore’s powers as a statesman are shown in his despatches written at Salamanca, and he had the truest gift of a great man—that of judging men. It may be noticed that, while Wellington perpetually grumbled at the bad qualities of his officers and formed no school, Moore’s name is associated with the career of all who made their mark. Among generals, Hope, Graham, Sir E. Paget, Hill, and Craufurd, all felt and submitted to his ascendency, and of younger officers it was ever the proud boast of the Napiers, Colborne, the Beckwiths, and Barnard that they were the pupils of Moore, not of Wellington. Nay more, he inspired an historian. The description of Moore’s retreat in Napier
i is perhaps the finest piece of military history in the English language, not only because the author was present, but because his heart was with the leader of that retreat; and, if Napier felt towards Wellington as the soldiers of the Tenth legion felt towards Cæsar,[114] he felt towards Moore the personal love and devotion of a cavalier towards Montrose.”
We can do no better than quote at some length Napier’s famous account from his work, which has been favourably compared with those of Thucydides, Xenophon, and Cæsar.[a]
Napier’s Story of Moore’s Retreat
[1808-1809 A.D.]
That Moore succoured Spain in her extremity, and, in her hour of weakness, intercepted the blow descending to crush her, no man of candour can deny. For what troops, what preparations, what courage, what capacity was there in the south to have resisted even for an instant the progress of a man like Napoleon, who, in ten days and in the depth of winter, crossing the snowy ridge of the Carpentinos, had traversed two hundred miles of hostile country, and transported fifty thousand men from Madrid to Astorga in a shorter time than a Spanish courier would have taken to travel the same distance? This stupendous march was rendered fruitless by the quickness of Moore; but Napoleon, though he failed to destroy the English army, resolved, nevertheless, to cast it forth from the peninsula. Being himself recalled to France by tidings that the Austrian storm was ready to burst, he fixed upon Soult to continue the pursuit. Including Laborde, Heudelet, and Loison’s division, nearly sixty thousand men and ninety-one guns were put on the track of the English army.
Soult, nowise inferior to any of his nation, if the emperor be excepted, followed Moore with vigour. Nineteen thousand British troops posted in strong ground might have offered battle to very superior numbers; yet where was the use of merely fighting an enemy who had three hundred thousand men in Spain? Nothing could be gained, but Moore might by a quick retreat reach his ships unmolested, and carry his army from that narrow corner to the southern provinces and renew the war under more favourable circumstances. But in the immense wine-vaults of Bembibre hundreds of men remained inebriated, the followers of the army crowded the houses, and many of Romana’s disbanded men were mixed with this heterogeneous mass of marauders, drunkards, muleteers, women, and children. Moore, leaving a small guard with them, proceeded to Calcabellos. At Calcabellos the reserve took up a position, Baird marched to Herrerias, and Moore went on to Villa Franca; but in that town also great excesses had been committed by the preceding divisions; the magazines were plundered, the bakers driven from the ovens, the wine-stores forced, the commissaries prevented making the regular distributions; the doors of the houses were broken, and a scandalous insubordination then showed a discreditable relaxation of discipline by the officers. Moore arrested this disorder, and caused one man taken in the act of plundering a magazine to be hanged in the market-place.
Under the most favourable circumstances, the tail of a retreating force exhibits terrible scenes of distress, and on the road near Nogales the followers of the army were dying fast from cold and hunger. The soldiers, barefooted, harassed, and weakened by their excesses at Bembibre and Villa Franca, were dropping to the rear by hundreds, while broken carts, dead animals, and the piteous spectacle of women and children, struggling or falling exhausted in the snow, completed a picture of war, which like Janus has a double face.