History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year 1807 to the year 1814, vol. 1

by William Francis Patrick Napier

If sir John Moore, at a subsequent period, was willing to risk the danger of a movement on the capital, it was because he was misinformed of the French strength, and the Spaniards were represented to be numerous and confident; he was also unacquainted with the defeat at Tudela. His object was, by assisting Castaños, to arouse the spirit of the patriots: and nothing more strongly evinces his hardihood and prompt judgment, for, in his letter to Mr. Frere, he distinctly stated the danger to be incurred, and carefully separating the military from the political reasons, only proposed to venture the army if the envoy was satisfied that the Spanish government and people would answer to such an appeal, and that the British cabinet would be willing to incur the risk for such an object. If he did not follow up his own proposal, it was because he had discovered that the army of Castaños was, not simply defeated, but destroyed; because the Somosierra had been forced by a charge of cavalry, and because the passes of the Guadarama, on his line of march to Madrid, were seized by the enemy before his own army could be concentrated.

Why then did he not retreat into Portugal? Because Napoleon, having directed the mass of his forces against the capital, the British army was enabled to concentrate; because Madrid shut her gates; because Mr. Frere and the Spanish authorities deceived him by false information; because the solemn declaration of the junta of Toledo, that they would bury themselves under the ruins of that town rather than surrender, joined to the fact that Zaragoza was fighting heroically, seemed to guarantee the constancy and vigour of that patriotic spirit which was apparently once more excited; because the question was again become political, and it was necessary to satisfy the English people, that nothing was left undone to aid a cause which they had so much at heart; and, finally, because the peculiar position of the French army at the moment, afforded the means of creating a powerful diversion in favour of the southern provinces. These are the unanswerable reasons for the advance towards Sahagun. In the details of execution, that movement may be liable to some trifling objections; perhaps it would have been better to have carried the army on the 21st at once to Carrion and neglected Sahagun and Saldanha; but in its stratagetical and political character it was well conceived and well timed, hardy and successful.

The irritating interference that sir John Moore was called upon to repel, and the treachery and the folly, equal in its effects to treachery, that he was obliged to guard against, have been sufficiently dwelt upon already; but before discussing the retreat from Astorga, it may be of some military interest to show that the line of Portugal, although the natural one for the British army to retire upon, was not at this period necessarily either safe or useful, and that greater evils than those incurred by a retreat through Gallicia would probably have attended a retrograde march upon Lisbon.

The rugged frontier of Portugal lying between the Douero and the Tagus, is vulnerable in many points to an invading army of superior force. It may be penetrated between the Douero and Pinhel, and between Pinhel and Guarda, by roads leading into the valleys of the Zezere and the Mondego. Between the Sierra de Estrella and the Sierra de Gata, by the road from Alfayates to Sabugal and Penamacor, or that by Guarda and Coria. Again, it may be pierced between the Sierra de Gata and the Tagus by Idanha Velha, Castello Branco, and Sobreira Formosa; and from the Tagus to the Guadiana, a distance of about twenty leagues, the Alentejo presents an open country without any strong fortress, save Lalippe, which may be disregarded and passed without danger.

Sir John Moore commenced his forward movement from Salamanca on the 12th of December, and at that period, the fourth corps being at Talavera de la Reyna, was much nearer to Lisbon than the British army was, and the emperor was preparing to march on that capital with the sixth corps, the guards, and the reserve. He could, as the duke of Berwick did, penetrate by both sides of the Tagus, and what was to prevent him from reaching Lisbon before the British force, if the latter had retreated from Salamanca? he marched on a shorter line and a better road; he could supply his troops by requisitions, a system that, however fatal it may be in the end, is always advantageous at first. Sir John Moore must, from a scanty military chest, have purchased his supplies from a suspicious peasantry, rendered more distrustful by the retreat. In Lisbon, sir John Craddock commanded six thousand infantry and two hundred and fifty-eight cavalry; but the provisional government, who had only organized a few ill-composed battalions, were so inactive, that it was not until the 8th of December that a proclamation, calling on the people to arm, was issued. In the arsenal there were scarcely musquets and equipments for eight thousand men, and the new levies were only required to assemble when Portugal should be actually invaded. Sir Robert Wilson, indeed, having with great activity organized about two thousand of the Lusitanian legion, marched in the middle of December from Oporto; but this was all that could be opposed to an army more numerous, more favourably situated for invasion, and incomparably better commanded than that with which Massena invaded the country in 1810. Thus it may be affirmed, that if a retreat from Lisbon was advisable, before Napoleon took Madrid, it was not a safe operation after that event, and it is clear that sir John Moore neither lightly nor injudiciously adopted the line of Gallicia.

The arguments of those who deny the necessity of falling back, even behind the Esla, are scarcely worth notice; a simple reference to the numbers under the emperor, and the direction of his march, is sufficient to expose their futility; but the necessity of the continued, and as it has been unjustly called, the precipitate retreat to Coruña, may not be quite so obvious. The advance to Sahagun was intended to create a diversion, and give the Spaniards an opportunity of making head in the south; but although it succeeded in drawing away the enemy, the Spaniards did not make any head. The central junta displayed no energy or wisdom; a few slight demonstrations by the marquis of Palacios, on the side of the Sierra Morena, and by the duke of Infantado on the side of Cuenca, scarcely disturbed the first corps which remained in La Mancha; ten thousand men were sufficient to maintain Madrid in perfect tranquillity, and a part of the fourth corps even marched from Talavera by Placentia on Salamanca. By the letters of Mr. Stuart, and the reports of his own spies, sir John Moore was informed of all these disheartening circumstances; but the intelligence arrived slowly and at intervals, and he, hoping that the Spaniards would finally make an effort, announced his intention to hold the Gallicias; but Mr. Stuart’s correspondence deprived him of that hope; and the presence of the emperor, the great amount of his force, and the vehemence with which he pressed forward, confirmed the unhappy truth that nothing could be expected from the south.

Sir John Moore could not with twenty-three thousand men maintain himself against the whole French army, and until he reached Astorga his flanks were always exposed. From thence, however, he retreated in comparative security; but the natural strength of the country between that town and Coruña misled persons of shallow judgment, who have since inconsiderately advanced many vague accusations, such as that passes where a hundred men could stop an army were lightly abandoned; that the retreat was a flight, and the general’s judgment clouded by the danger of his situation. There might be some foundation for such observations if military commanders were like prize-fighters, bound to strike always at the front; but as long as armies are dependent for their subsistence and ammunition upon lines of communication, the safety of their flanks and rear must be considered as of consequence. Sir John Moore was perfectly aware that he could fight any number of men in some of the mountainous positions on the road to Coruña; but unless he could make a permanent defence, such battles would have been worse than useless, and a permanent defence was impossible, inasmuch as there were none but temporary magazines nearer than Coruña, and there were neither carriages of transport, nor money to procure them; a severe winter had just set in, and the province being poor, and the peasantry disinclined to aid the troops, few resources could be drawn from the country itself, neither was there a single position between Astorga and Coruña which could be maintained for more than a few days against a [Appendix, No. 13], sect. 2. superior force, for that of Rodrigatos could be turned by the old road leading to Villa Franca, Villa Franca itself by the valley of the Syl, and from thence the whole line to Coruña might be turned by the road of Orense, which also led directly to Vigo, and until he reached Nogales, sir J. Moore’s intention was to retire to Vigo. The French could have marched through the richest part of Gallicia to St. Jago and Coruña on the left, or from the Asturias, by the way of Mondonedo, on the right. If it be asked why they did not do so? the answer is prompt. The emperor having quitted the army, the jealousies and misunderstandings usual between generals of equal rank impeded the operations. A coolness subsisted between marshal Ney and the duke of Dalmatia, and without entering into the grounds of their difference it is plain that, in a military point of view, the judgment of the latter was the soundest. The former committed a great error by remaining at Villa Franca instead of pushing his corps, or a part of it, (as recommended by Soult) along the valley of Orense to St. Jago de Compostella. The British army would have been lost if the sixth corps had reached Coruña before it; and what would have been the chances in the battle if three additional French divisions had been engaged?

Granting, therefore, that the troops could have been nourished during the winter, Villa Franca, Nogales, Constantino, and Lugo, were not permanently defensible by an army whose base of operations was at Coruña. Hence it was that sir John Moore resolved to regain his ships with the view to renew the war in the south, and Hannibal himself could have done no more. Nor was the mode of executing the retreat at all unbecoming the character of an able officer.

Lord Bacon observes, that “honourable retreats are no ways inferior to brave charges, as having less of fortune, more of discipline, and as much of valour.” That is an honourable retreat in which the retiring general loses no trophies in fight, sustains every charge without being broken, and finally, after a severe action, re-embarks his army in the face of a superior enemy without being seriously molested. It would be honourable to effect this before a foe only formidable from numbers, but it is infinitely more creditable, when the commander, while struggling with bad weather and worse fortune, has to oppose veterans with inexperienced troops, and to contend against an antagonist of eminent ability, who scarcely suffers a single advantage to escape him during his long and vigorous pursuit. All this sir John Moore did, and finished his work by a death as firm and glorious as any that antiquity can boast of.