THE
SPANISH CAMPAIGN
OF
1808.
THE campaign in Portugal having been brought, rather suddenly, to a conclusion, by the Convention of Cintra, and Arthur Wellesley and Sir Hugh Dalrymple, having sailed for England, Sir John Moore was nominated to command the troops destined to enter Spain. The instructions sent to Sir John from Lord Castlereagh, then Minister for the War Department, were dated the 25th September 1808, and informed him, that his Majesty had determined on employing 30,000 infantry, and 5000 cavalry in the north of Spain, to co-operate with the Spanish forces in the expulsion of the French. That 10,000 men were to join him at Corunna from Falmouth, and that he had the option of sending forward his own troops from Lisbon, either by sea or land, as he might judge most expedient. But unfortunately for Sir John Moore, some difficulties occurred at the very outset. Being himself, in a great measure, unacquainted with the state of the country, he was induced to believe that the roads in Portugal were such, that it would be impossible to send forward his artillery by any route, excepting that through Elvas, Badajoz, and Madrid; in which opinion he was supported by some British officers, sent forward to report thereon. Hence, Sir John was induced to separate his guns and cavalry from the main body of his army, a measure which subsequently was by himself sincerely regretted and productive of much delay in commencing operations from the side of Salamanca. The Central Junta at Madrid, then constituting the provisional government, had also represented to him, that it would be extremely difficult to forward by the Corunna road, even the 10,000 men who were to land there under Sir David Baird, and join him wherever he should appoint. Sir John, therefore, determined on moving forward all his own troops by land; but the Spanish Commissary General having been consulted as to the means of victualling them on the great road by Elvas, stated, that the quantity of meat required was so enormous, that in three months all the oxen in that part of the country would be consumed. The north of Portugal contained abundance of cattle; but it was represented, and unfortunately believed, that the roads there were equally impassable for our artillery it therefore became necessary to divide the troops proceeding from Lisbon into four divisions. General Hope with the artillery, cavalry, and four regiments of infantry, was to proceed by the Madrid road, General Paget with two brigades, by Elvas and Alcantara; whilst the remainder were to go through Almeida; two brigades under General Beresford, by way of Coimbra, three under General Frazer, by Abrantes, crossing the Tagus there, and recrossing it at the pass of Villa Velha, a passage which, in former wars with Spain, had been considered the key to Lisbon. Salamanca was to be the place of reunion; and Generals Hope and Sir David Baird were to join either there, or at Valladolid.
Sir John Moore was so highly respected, both as an officer and a man, by the people of Great Britain, that his appointment was in the highest degree popular at home. He was a native of Glasgow, where he was born in 1760. From the 18th to the 23d year of his age, he had travelled on the Continent in the suite of the young Duke of Hamilton, then attended as tutor by Sir John's father, the celebrated Dr Moore, author of Zeluco: and having entered the army, he soon afterwards attained the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He had served in the West Indies, in Holland, and in Egypt; also in Corsica and Ireland. When in Corsica he had stormed the Convention Fort, and the outworks of Calvi, which was followed by the conquest of that island: and in Ireland he had gained the battle of Wexford, which proved the prelude to the suppression of the rebellion.
His talents had acquired him the notice and friendship of General Sir Charles Stuart, Sir Ralph Abercromby, the Marquis Cornwallis, and Mr Pitt; and that minister had even deigned to consult him on military affairs, and, on several important occasions, had yielded to his judgement. Sir John Moore was enthusiastically fond of his profession, and studied it thoroughly; but a somewhat gloomy cast of mind, conjoined with too much sensibility for his iron-hearted profession, accustomed him to look rather on the dark than the bright side of affairs. He had imbibed a high opinion of the French as a military people, and of the ability of their generals, and the great wisdom and skill of their Emperor: which impressions, joined to too much diffidence in his own great talents, and the unrivalled valour of British soldiers, at times depressed his energies and spirit of enterprise.
Before commencing his march from Lisbon, Sir John warned his troops, in general orders, that the Spaniards were a grave orderly people, extremely sober, generous, but easily offended. by any insult or disrespect. He exhorted them, therefore, to accommodate themselves to these manners, to meet with equal kindness the cordiality wherewith they would be received, and not shock, by their intemperance, a people worthy of their attachment, whose efforts they were come to support in the cause of liberty. His resolution to maintain order and discipline, indeed, was afterwards evinced by punishing a marauder upon the march with death, at Almeida on the frontiers. And the General took the opportunity of declaring his intention, to show no mercy to plunderers and marauders, or, in other words, to thieves and villains. Farther to gratify the Spaniards, our army, on entering Spain, were ordered to wear the red cockade in addition to the British.
The several divisions having moved off, Sir John Moore quitted Lisbon on the 27th October, and, passing through Abrantes and Villa Velha, with considerable expedition, he reached the village of Atalaya on the 5th of November. Here he received letters from Lord William Bentinck, dated from Madrid, acquainting him that the French reinforcements were already entering Biscay; that Castaņos was making some movements which might bring on an action; and that the Central Junta recommended him to concert his movements with that General. Here also, Sir John Moore discovered, to his great mortification, that contrary to all the information he had collected in Lisbon, the roads, although very bad, were practicable for artillery. It is true, the road had only been found out stage by stage, by British officers; but the perusal of the Duke of Berwick's Memoirs, and of General Dumourier's Memoir on Portugal, might have informed them better. Neither ought they to have forgotten that Junot had entered Portugal by the route of Alcantara and the pass of Rosmarinhal, and had brought forward his whole park of artillery, by dint of labour and perseverance, over a much worse line of road. Despatches were therefore (now it was too late) sent to meet General Hope at Truxillo, desiring he would not trust to mere reports, but send forward his own officers, to examine whether there might not be a nearer road without going round by Madrid. General Moore arrived at Almeida on the 8th November. It rained incessantly; the troops, however, had moved on, in spite of the bad weather, and behaved extremely well, with a few exceptions; but it was here that Sir John Moore found himself called upon to punish one of the marauders, and to issue that very severe general order, before alluded to.
On the 11th November, our advanced guard crossed a rivulet which divides Spain from Portugal, and marched forward to Ciudad Rodrigo. The governor came out to meet Sir John, two miles off: a salute was fired from the ramparts, and he was conducted to the principal house of the town, and hospitably entertained. Next morning he proceeded to San Martin del Rio, a village seven leagues distant, and was lodged at the house of the curate, who, in the course of conversation, told the General, that on the same day, in the preceding year, he had given accommodation to the execrable French General Loison, then on his march to Lisbon, and that Junot and the other French Generals, had slept there in succession. On the 13th November, Sir John Moore arrived with his advanced guard at Salamanca, where he halted, intending to assemble there all the troops which were coming from Portugal; but, before entering the town, he was destined to receive intelligence of the fate of what was called the Army of Estremadura. This Spanish corps, consisting of about 12,000 raw recruits, commanded by a very young man, the Count Belvidere, had advanced, quite unsupported, to Burgos, an open town, in the front of the French army, where they were attacked by a superior force, and completely routed. A few hours after Sir John reached Salamanca, he wrote a letter to Lord William Bentinck at Madrid, who was there acting minister for the British Court, acquainting him with his arrival.
On the second night after he had reached Salamanca, Sir John was awakened by an express, bringing him intelligence that the French cavalry had taken possession of the city of Valladolid, only twenty leagues distant, and between which and Salamanca is an open plain. At this tine, he had only three brigades of cavalry, and not a single piece of cannon. His first resolve was to tall back upon Ciudad Rodrigo, but he soon learnt that it was merely a foraging party which had quickly retired upon Palencia, and that none of the French infantry had advanced further than Burgos. He, therefore, sent letters to Generals Hope and Baird, ordering them to concentrate their divisions, and join him as speedily as possible. Each succeeding day now was fraught with intelligence of more disasters. Blake s army had been routed and dispersed in the mountains near Reynosa; and Napoleon, who had entered Spain, and put himself at the head of his troops, was in a situation either to have attacked Castanos on his left flank, or to march at once against the British and prevent the junction of the troops from Madrid and Astorga. Paralysed from the want of his cavalry and artillery - indignant, moreover, at discovering the weakness of the Spaniards, and disgusted at the folly and want of energy of the Spanish government, Sir John now began to despair of the success of their cause. Nor were the ideas of Sir David Baird very different from his own.
The expedition under Sir David's command, had reached Corunna on the 13th of October; but such were the senseless forms and negligence of the Spanish authorities, that his troops were detained on shipboard till an order for their landing could be obtained from the Central Junta at Madrid. Accustomed to command an Indian army, with all its train of sutlers and beasts of burden, Sir David now found himself marching through a rugged mountainous district, so uncivilized, that it is with difficulty a party of travellers can at any time obtain food, and which had but lately been quite drained by supplying its native troops, while the commissary department was not only ignorant of its duties, but hardly knew a word of Spanish. Forced, therefore, to divide his army into small divisions, which followed each other at long intervals, he did not arrive at Astorga till the 19th November. Having there learned the defeat of Blake s army, and fearing the same fate would soon attend that under Castanos, he consulted with his general officers, and informed Sir John Moore, that it was their opinion, that he ought not to advance into the plain till his whole force was assembled at Astorga, which could not be done until the 4th December. Sir John Moore's opinion of the desperate state of affairs being thus confirmed by the opinion of others, he entered in his private journal these words. "I see my situation as clearly as any one, that nothing can be worse; yet, I am determined to form the junction of the army, and try our fortune. We have no business here, as things are; but, being here, it would never do to abandon the Spaniards without a struggle."
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