Moore’s retreat was little short of three hundred miles; Wellington’s was nearly as long, and both were in the winter season. The first halted at Benevente, at Villa Franca, and at Lugo; the last halted at Duenas, at Cabeçon, Tordesillas, and Salamanca. The principal loss sustained by the one, was in the last marches between Lugo and Coruña; so also the principal loss sustained by the other, was in the last marches between the Tormes and the Agueda. Some of Moore’s generals murmured against his proceedings, some of Wellington’s generals, as we have seen, went further; the first were checked by a reprimand, the second were humbled by a sarcasm. Finally both generals reproached their armies with want of discipline, both attributed it to the negligence of the officers generally, and in both cases the justice of the reproaches was proved by the exceptions. The reserve and the foot-guards in Moore’s campaign, the light division and the foot-guards in Wellington’s, gave signal proof, that it was negligence of discipline, not hardships, though the latter were severe in both armies, that caused the losses. Not that I would be understood to say that those regiments only preserved order; it is certain that many others were eminently well conducted, but those were the troops named as exceptions at the time.
Such were the resemblances of these two retreats. The differences were, that Moore had only twenty-three thousand men in the first part of his retreat, and only nineteen thousand in the latter part, whereas Wellington had thirty-three thousand in the first part of his retreat, and sixty-eight thousand men in the latter part. Moore’s army were all of one nation and young soldiers, Wellington’s were of different nations but they were veterans. The first marched through mountains, where the weather was infinitely more inclement than in the plains, over which the second moved, and until he reached the Esla, Moore’s flank was quite exposed, whereas Wellington’s flank was covered by Hill’s army until he gained the Tormes. Wellington with veteran troops was opposed to Souham, to Soult, to the king, and to Jourdan, men not according in their views, and their whole army, when united, did not exceed the allies by more than twenty thousand men. Moore with young soldiers was at first opposed to four times, and latterly to three times his own numbers, for it is remarkable, that the French army assembled at Astorga was above eighty thousand, including ten thousand cavalry, which is nearly the same as the number assembled against Wellington on the Tormes; but Moore had little more than twenty thousand men to oppose to this overwhelming mass, and Wellington had nearly seventy thousand. The Partidas abounded at the time of Wellington’s retreat, they were unknown at the time of Moore’s retreat, and this general was confronted by Napoleon, who, despotic in command, was also unrivalled in skill, in genius, and in vigour. Wellington’s army was not pressed by the enemy, and he made short marches, yet he lost more stragglers than Moore, who was vigorously pressed, made long marches, and could only secure an embarkation by delivering a battle, in which he died most honourably. His character was immediately vilified. Wellington was relieved from his pursuers by the operation of famine, and had therefore no occasion to deliver a battle, but he also was vilified at the time, with equal injustice; and if he had then died it would have been with equal malice. His subsequent successes, his great name and power, have imposed silence upon his detractors, or converted censure into praise, for it is the nature of mankind, especially of the ignorant, to cling to fortune.
Moore attributed his difficulties to the apathy of the Spaniards; his friends charged them on the incapacity of the English government. Wellington attributed his ultimate failure to the defection of Ballesteros; his brother, in the House of Lords, charged it on the previous contracted policy of Perceval’s government, which had crippled the general’s means; and certainly Wellington’s reasoning, relative to Ballesteros, was not quite sound. That general, he said, might either have forced Soult to take the circuitous route of Valencia, Requeña, and Cuenca, or leave a strong corps in observation, and then Hill might have detached men to the north. He even calculated upon Ballesteros being able to stop both Soult and Souham, altogether; for as the latter’s operations were prescribed by the king, and dependent upon his proceedings, Wellington judged that he would have remained tranquil if Joseph had not advanced. This was the error. Souham’s despatches[Appendix, No. 8, A.] clearly shew, that the king’s instructions checked, instead of forwarding his movements; and that it was his intention to have delivered battle at the end of four days, without regard to the king’s orders; and such was his force, that Wellington admitted his own inability to keep the field. Ballesteros’ defection therefore cannot be pleaded in bar of all further investigation; but whatever failures there were, and however imposing the height to which the English general’s reputation has since attained, this campaign, including the sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajos, the forts of Salamanca, and of Burgos, the assault of Almaraz, and the battle of Salamanca, will probably be considered his finest illustration of the art of war. Waterloo may be called a more glorious exploit because of the great man who was there vanquished; Assye may be deemed a more wonderful action, one indeed to be compared with the victory which Lucullus gained over Tygranes, but Salamanca will always be referred to as the most skilful of Wellington’s battles.
BOOK XX.
CHAPTER I.
1812. While the armies were striving, the political affairs had become exceedingly complicated and unsteady. Their workings were little known or observed by the public, but the evils of bad government in England, Spain, and Portugal, the incongruous alliance of bigoted aristocracy with awakened democracy, and the inevitable growth of national jealousies as external danger seemed to recede, were becoming so powerful, that if relief had not been obtained from extraneous events, even the vigour of Wellington must have sunk under the pressure. The secret causes of disturbance shall now be laid bare, and it will then be seen that the catastrophe of Napoleon’s Russian campaign was absolutely necessary to the final success of the British arms in the Peninsula. I speak not of the physical power which, if his host had not withered on the snowy wastes of Muscovy, the emperor could have poured into Spain, but of those moral obstacles, which, springing up on every side, corrupted the very life-blood of the war.
If Russia owed her safety in some degree to the contest in the Peninsula, it is undoubted that the fate of the Peninsula was in return, decided on the plains of Russia; for had the French veterans who there perished, returned victorious, the war could have been maintained for years in Spain, with all its waste of treasures and of blood, to the absolute ruin of England, even though her army might have been victorious in every battle. Yet who shall say with certainty what termination any war will ever have? Who shall prophecy of an art always varying, and of such intricacy that its secrets seem beyond the reach of human intellect? What vast preparations, what astonishing combinations were involved in the plan, what vigour and ability displayed in the execution of Napoleon’s march to Moscow! And yet when the winter came, only four days sooner than he expected, the giant’s scheme seemed a thing for children to laugh at!
Nevertheless the political grandeur of that expedition will not be hereafter judged from the wild triumph of his enemies, nor its military merits from the declamation which has hitherto passed as the history of the wondrous, though unfortunate enterprise. It will not be the puerilities of Labaume, of Segur, and their imitators, nor even that splendid military and political essay of general Jomini, called the “Life of Napoleon,” which posterity will accept as the measure of a general, who carried four hundred thousand men across the Niemen, and a hundred and sixty thousand men to Moscow. And with such a military providence, with such a vigilance, so disposing his reserves, so guarding his flanks, so guiding his masses, that while constantly victorious in front, no post was lost in his rear, no convoy failed, no courier was stopped, not even a letter was missing: the communication with his capital was as regular and certain as if that immense march had been but a summer excursion of pleasure! However it failed, and its failure was the safety of the Peninsula.
In England the retreat from Burgos was viewed with the alarm and anger which always accompanies the disappointment of high-raised public expectation; the people had been taught to believe the French weak and dispirited, they saw them so strong and daring, that even victory could not enable the allies to make a permanent stand beyond the frontiers of Portugal. Hence arose murmurs, and a growing distrust as to the ultimate result, which would not have failed to overturn the war faction, if the retreat of the French from Moscow, the defection of Prussia, and the strange unlooked-for spectacle of Napoleon vanquished, had not come in happy time as a counterpoise.