The good fortune of England was never more conspicuous than at this period, when her armies and fleets were thus bandied about, and a blind chance governed the councils at home. For first a force collected from all parts of the Mediterranean was transported to the Baltic sea, at a time when an expedition composed of troops which had but a short time before come back from the Baltic were sailing from England to the Mediterranean. An army intended to conquer South America was happily assembled in Ireland at the moment when an unexpected event called for their services in Portugal, and a division destined to attack the Spaniards at Ceuta arrived at Gibraltar at the instant when the insurrection of Andalusia fortunately prevented them from making an attempt that would have materially aided Napoleon’s schemes against the Peninsula. Again, three days after sir John Moore had withdrawn his army from Sweden, orders arrived to employ it in carrying off the Spanish troops under Romana, an operation for which it was not required, and which would have retarded, if not entirely frustrated, the campaign in Portugal; nor was it the least part of that fortune, that in such long continued voyages in bad seasons, no disaster befell those huge fleets thus employed in bearing the strength of England from one extremity of Europe to the other.
After the convention of Cintra, sir John Moore was again placed at the head of an army; an appointment unexpected by him, for the frank and bold manner in which he expressed himself to the ministers on his return from Gottingen left him little to hope; but the personal good-will of the king, and other circumstances, procured him this command. Thus, in a few months after he had quitted Sweden, Moore, with an army not exceeding twenty-four thousand men, was in the heart of Spain, opposed to Napoleon, who having passed the Pyrenees at the head of three hundred and thirty thousand men, could readily bring two hundred thousand to bear on the British; a vast disproportion of numbers, and a sufficient answer to all the idle censures passed upon the retreat to Coruña.
The most plausible grounds of accusation against sir John Moore’s conduct rest on three alleged errors:
1st. That he divided his forces.
2dly. That he advanced against Soult.
3dly. That he made a precipitate and unnecessary retreat.
When a general, aware of the strength of his adversary, and of the resources to be placed at his own disposal, arranges a plan of campaign, he may be strictly judged by the rules of art; but if, as in the case of sir John Moore, he is suddenly appointed to conduct important operations without a plan being arranged, or the means given to arrange one, then it is evident that his capacity or incapacity must be judged of, by the energy he displays, the comprehensive view he takes of affairs, and the rapidity with which he accommodates his measures to events, that the original vice of his appointment will not permit him to control.
The first separation of the English army was the work of the ministers, who sent sir David Baird to Coruña. The after separation of the artillery was sir John Moore’s act; the reasons for which have been already stated; but it is worth while to examine what the effect of that measure was, and what it might have been; and here it may be observed, that, although a brigade of light six-pounders did accompany the troops to Almeida, the road was not practicable; for the guns were in some places let down the rocks by ropes, and in others, carried over the difficult places; a practicable affair with one brigade; but how could the great train of guns and ammunition waggons that accompanied sir John Hope have passed such places without a loss of time that would have proved more injurious to the operations than the separation of the artillery?
The advance of the army was guided by three contingent cases, any one of which arising would have immediately influenced the operations; 1º. Blake on the left, or Castaños and Palafox upon the right, might have beaten the French, and advanced to the Pyrenees. 2º. They might have maintained their position on the Ebro. 3º. The arrival of reinforcements from France might have forced the Spaniards to fall back upon the upper Douero, on one side, and to the mountains of Guadalaxara on the other. In the first case, there was no risk in marching by divisions towards Burgos, which was the point of concentration given by the British and Spanish ministers. In the second case, the army could safely unite at Valladolid; and in the third case, if the division of sir David Baird had reached Toro early in November (and this it was reasonable to expect, as that general arrived at Coruña the 13th of October), the retrograde movement of the Spanish armies would probably have drawn the English to the Guadarama, as a safe and central point between the retiring Spanish wings. Now the artillery marching from the Alemtejo by the roads of Talavera and Naval Carnero, to Burgos, would pass over one hundred and two Spanish leagues. To Aranda de Douero, eighty-nine leagues. To Valladolid, ninety-two leagues. While the columns that marched by Almeida and Salamanca would pass over one hundred and sixteen leagues to Burgos, and ninety-eight to Valladolid. Wherefore supposing the Spaniards successful, or even holding their own, the separation of the artillery was an advantage, and if the Spaniards were driven back, their natural line of retreat would have brought them towards Madrid, Blake by Aranda to the Somosierra, and Castaños and Palafox by Siguenza and Tarancon, to cover the capital, and to maintain an interior communication between the Somosierra and the Henares river. The British artillery would then have halted at Espinar, after a march of only eighty leagues, and Baird and Moore’s corps uniting at Salamanca early in November, might, by a flank march to Arevalo, have insured the concentration of the whole army.
