The army was now in full march, Baird was at Benevente, Hope at Villapando; the cavalry scoured the country on the side of Valladolid, and in several successful skirmishes took a number of prisoners. The French could be no longer ignorant of the march, and the English general brought forward his columns rapidly. On the 20th the whole of the forces were united; the cavalry at Melgar Abaxo, and the infantry at Mayorga, and as much concentrated as the necessity of obtaining cover in a country devoid of fuel, and deep with snow, would permit. The weather was exceedingly severe, and the marches long, but a more robust set of men never took the field: their discipline was admirable, and there were very few stragglers; the experience of one or two campaigns alone was wanting to make a perfect army.
The number was however small; nominally it was nearly thirty-five thousand, but four regiments were still in Portugal, and three more were left by sir David Baird at Lugo and Astorga. One thousand six hundred and eighty-seven men were detached, and four thousand and five were in hospital. The actual number [Appendix, No. 25.] present under arms on the 19th of December was only nineteen thousand and fifty-three infantry, two thousand two hundred and seventy-eight cavalry, and one thousand three hundred and fifty-eight gunners, forming a total of twenty-three thousand five hundred and eighty-three men, with sixty pieces of artillery: the whole being organized in three divisions, a reserve, and two light brigades of infantry, and one division of cavalry. Of the artillery four batteries were attached to the infantry, and two to the cavalry; one was kept in reserve.
Romana, who had been able to bring forward very few men, promised to march in two columns by Almanzer and Guarda, and sent some information of the enemy’s position; but sir John Moore depended little upon his intelligence, when he found him, even so late as the 19th of December (upon the faith of information from the junta), representing Madrid as still holding out; and when the advanced posts were already engaged at Sahagun, proposing an interview at Benevente to arrange the plan of operations.
On the French side, Soult’s corps was concentrating on the Carrion. After the rapid and brilliant S.
Journal of Operations. MS. success of this marshal at the opening of the campaign, his corps was ordered to remain on the defensive until the movements against Tudela and Madrid were completed; the despatches commanding him to recommence his offensive operations were, as we have seen, intercepted on the 12th, but on the 16th he became acquainted with the advance of the English army. At that period general Bonnet’s division occupied Barquera de San Vincente and Potes, on the Deba; and watched some thousand Asturians that Ballasteros had collected near Llanes. Merle’s and Mermet’s divisions were on the Carrion; Franceschi’s Ibid. dragoons at Valladolid; and general Debelle’s at Sahagun. The whole formed a total of sixteen or seventeen thousand infantry, and twelve hundred cavalry, present under arms, of which only eleven thousand infantry and twelve hundred cavalry could, without uncovering the important post of St. Andero, be opposed to the advance of the British. Soult, alarmed at this disparity of force, required general Mathieu Dumas, commandant at Burgos, to direct all the divisions and detachments passing through that town, (whatever might be their original destination) upon the Carrion; and this decisive conduct was approved of by the emperor. The 21st, Bonnet’s division remaining on the Deba, Mermet’s occupied the town of Carrion; Merle’s was at Saldaña; and Franceschi’s S.
Journal of Operations. MS. cavalry retired from Valladolid to Riberos de la Cuesca. Debelle’s continued at Sahagun, and thirteen hundred dragoons, under general Lorge, arrived at Palencia from Burgos.
Meanwhile, the fifteenth and tenth British hussars quitting Melgar Abaxo during the night, arrived close to Sahagun before daylight on the 21st; the tenth marched straight to the town, the fifteenth turned it by the right, and endeavoured to cut off the enemy, but meeting with a patrole, the alarm was given, and when lord Paget, with four hundred of the fifteenth, arrived at the rear of the village, he was opposed by a line of six hundred French dragoons. The tenth not being in sight, the fifteenth, after a few movements, charged, broke the enemy’s line, and pursued them for some distance. Fifteen to twenty killed, two lieutenant-colonels, and eleven other officers, with a hundred and fifty-four men prisoners, were the result of this affair, which lasted about twenty minutes. Debelle then retired to Santerbas.
The English infantry occupied Sahagun, and head-quarters were established there. Romana remained at Mancilla, and it was evident that no assistance could be expected from him; the truth was, that ashamed of exposing the weakness and misery of his troops, he kept away, for, after all his promises, he could not produce six thousand fighting men; his letters, however, were, as usual, extremely encouraging. The French force in Spain was exceedingly weak, Palafox had not been defeated at Tudela, Soult, including Sonnet’s division, had scarcely nine thousand men of all arms. It was an object to surround and destroy him before he could be succoured—and other follies of this nature.
The English troops having outmarched their supplies, halted the 22d and 23d. Soult, whose intention was to act on the defensive, hastened the march of the reinforcements from the side of Burgos, and being fearful for his communication with Placentia, abandoned Saldaña on the 23d, and concentrated his infantry S.
Journal of Operations. MS. at Carrion. Debelle’s cavalry again advanced to Villatilla and Villacuenda, Franceschi remained at Riberos, the dragoons of general Lorge occupied Paredes, and general Dumas pushed on the divisions of the eighth corps, of which, Laborde’s was already arrived at Palencia, and Loison’s and Heudelet’s followed at the distance of two days’ march; but these last were very weak.
Sir John Moore’s plan was to move during the night of the 23d, so as to arrive at Carrion by daylight on the 24th, to force the bridge, and afterwards ascending the river, fall upon the main body of the enemy, which his information led him to believe was still at Saldaña. This attack was however but a secondary object, his attention was constantly directed towards Madrid. He might beat the corps in his front, but the victory could be of little use beyond the honour of the day, for the eighth and third corps were too near to admit of farther success. The whole operation, was one of time, a political bait to tempt the emperor, whose march from Madrid must be the signal for a retreat that sooner or later was inevitable. To draw Napoleon from the south was the great object, but it behoved the man to be alert that interposed between the lion and his prey.
The 23d, Romana gave notice that the French were in motion on the side of Madrid. The night of the 23d the troops were in march towards Carrion, when Romana’s intelligence was confirmed by the general’s spies; all their reports agreed that the whole French army was in movement to crush the English. The fourth corps had been halted at Talavera, the third at Vittoria, the eighth was closing up to reinforce the second, and the emperor in person was marching towards the Guadarama; the principal objects of sir John Moore’s advance were thus attained. The siege of Zaragoza was delayed, the southern provinces were allowed to breathe, and it now remained for him to prove, by a timely retreat, that this offensive operation, although hazardous, was not the result of improvident rashness, nor weakness of mind, but the hardy enterprise of a great commander acting under peculiar circumstances: as a military measure, his judgment condemned it; as a political one, he thought it of doubtful advantage, because Spain was really passive, but he was willing to give the Spaniards an opportunity of making one more struggle for independence. That was done. If they could not, or would not profit of the occasion, if their hearts were faint or their hands feeble, the shame and the loss were their own; the British general had done enough, enough for honour, enough for utility, more than enough for prudence; but the madness of the times required it. His army was already on the verge of destruction, the enemy’s force was hourly increasing in his front; the first symptoms of a retreat would bring it headlong on; and in the meantime the emperor threatened the line of communications with Gallicia, and by the rapidity of his march left no time for consideration.
After the first burst, by which he swept the northern provinces, and planted his standards on the banks of the Tagus, that monarch had put all the resources of his subtle genius into activity, endeavouring to soften the public mind, and by engrafting benefits on the terror his victories had created, to gain over the people; but, at the same time, he was gathering in his extended wings, and preparing for a new flight, which would have carried him over the southern kingdoms of the Peninsula, and given him the rocks of Lisbon as a resting-place for his eagles.