Years of Victory 1802 - 1812 (52 page)

Yet, appalled as Ministers were by the Convention, they were far more appalled by its effect on the country. Announced in an Extraordinary Gazette on September 16th, it struck the public mind, excited beyond measure by Wellesley's dispatches and Spanish victories, with the force of a tornado. It was worse than Whitelocke's capitulation at-Buenos Ayres; "twice in a twelvemonth," wrote Francis Jackson, "have we had the game completely in our own hands and twice has it been wantonly thrown away." The generals, including Wellesley himself, became the most unpopular men in England; they were cartooned on gallows and hooted in the streets as cravens. After fifteen years of defeat and frustration the heroism of British fighting men had snatched victory from the French, and their commanders had thrown it away. Some went so far as to

¹
Granville, II,
321;
Cartwright,
368-9.
See also Jackson, II,
256-8;
Crabb Robinson, I,
272;
Wellesley
, I,
231.
Festing,
149.

²
Jackson, II,
261-2;
Berry Papers,
292;
Paget Brothers,
87;
Wilberforce, II,
147.

denounce the Convention—popularly though wrongly identified with the name of Cintra—as downright treachery; a wag declared that he would henceforth spell humiliation with a "hew." The Opposition naturally made the most of it, and all the simple souls who had seen in the Spanish rising the noblest expression of human virtue and freedom since the birth' of mankind cried out that the Spaniards had been betrayed. "Britannia sickens, Cintra, at thy name!" wrote Wordsworth, who was so angry that he not only composed a denunciatory pamphlet and a sonnet but tramped through the dales to address a public meeting.

CHAPTER
TEN

Corunna

"Whenever any political object is to be gained, the unfortunate military commander will be sacrificed, right or wrong."

George Napier'.

* Slowly and sadly we laid him down, From tlje field of his fame fresh and gory; We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone, But we left him alone with his glory."

Charles Wolfe.

The m
ost unexpected result of all this honest uproar was its effect on the fortunes of Sir John Moore. A few weeks earlier his career had seemed over, and only his stubborn submission to orders had prevented it from ending in resignation. At the end of August, 1808, he had landed in Portugal to serve—after a year of independent high command—as a subordinate under two officers without a tenth of his experience and ability. He felt embittered and heart-broken.
¹
Those in constitutional power were his declared-enemies and had parted from him, as he passed through England on his selfless life of service, with insults. Yet while he was kicking his heels near Lisbon, waiting for the French to embark and helplessly surveying the confusion into which Sir Hew Dalrymple was throwing the administration of the army, his political enemies—hoist with their own petard—were conferring on him the greatest command held by any British general since Marlborough. For on September 17th, terrified for their continued existence, Ministers recalled Dalrymple to face a Court of Enquiry. A week later, under pressure from the King, they appointed Moore to command the 40,000 British troops whom they were about to employ by the side of the Spaniards.

The decision to throw the whole weight of the national effort into Spain had been taken as a result of the Spanish victories. On August 10th, immediately after the news of Baylen, Castlereagh in a memorandum had urged the employment of 30,000 British troops

¹
See his letter of September
29th
to his friend, Colonel Graham, about Sir Arthur Wellesley. Lynedoch,
269.

in the north of Spain to enable the patriot armies of Asturias and Aragon to strike at the enemy's communications. With this object he at once began collecting transports, and by September 3rd— fol
lowing the first report of Vimie
ro—had completed preparations for sending 14,000 infantry, 4000 cavalry and 800 artillerymen under Lieut.-General Sir David Baird to Corunna. Three weeks later the Cabinet decided to add to them 20,000 of the 30,000 troops already landed in Portugal and to place the whole under the command of Sir John Moore.

The decision was based on a sound instinct: that a major test was imminent in Spain and that every available man would be needed. With hatred for his rule growing from Vistula to Ebro, Napoleon could not afford to admit defeat; since the evacuation of Madrid French funds had fallen from 94 to 70. He made no attempt to conceal the fact that he was preparing revenge. "The hideous leopard," he told his soldiers, "contaminates by its presence the peninsula of Spain and Portugal. Let us carry our victorious eagles to the Pillars of Hercules.
...
No Frenchman can enjoy a moment's repose so long as the sea is not free."

Yet British military preparations were founded on an illusion. Ministers, and to a still greater extent the public to whom they were responsible, supposed that Spain was a modern, homogeneous State whose strength could be measured by its size and historic prowess. After the first enthusiasm of the summer the rapidity of the French advance and the obvious lack of cohesion between the Spanish provinces had caused some doubts. But these had been banished by the great news of the autumn. Palafox's defence of Saragossa had stirred the imagination of England; the tale of the brave girl who, standing on her kinsfolks' heaped corpses and the ashes of her home, continued to train her gun on the invader was in every mouth. The patriotism and the courage of the Spaniards became for the mom
ent an article of British faith.

On the face of it there seemed reason for confidence in Spain. Within a few weeks the French had been expelled from every part of the peninsula save Navarre and Barcelona, where they were now closely blockaded. Madrid had been reoccupied by Castanos on August 23rd, Saragossa relieved of all danger
a week earlier. Joseph, scared by the spectre of Bayle
n, had abandoned Burgos and withdrawn as far as Vittoria without a fight. By the end of August a bare 60,000 French troops stood behind the Ebro in the extreme north-west corner of the peninsula they had hoped to conquer. 40,000 of their comrades remained behind as corpses or prisoners.

British belief that the French had m
et their match in the Spaniards
was more than shared by the latter. They did not merely suppose they could smash Napoleon: they knew it. "They have no idea," wrote
The Times
correspondent from Corunna, " that it is possible for them to be beaten; their rage is unbounded when the name of Bonaparte is mentioned, but their hatred of the French' is mixed with contempt."
¹
All the fierce hereditary pride of their race had been re-kindled. A spontaneous popular outburst had thrown off both the French invader and the corrupt Government that had obscured their national glories. Once more as in the days of Charles V. and Philip II. they were the greatest nation in the world. They took no thought for the morrow, but gave themselves up to unbridled rejoicing.

What this valiant and ancient people failed to see was that in overturning a corrupt Administration and scaring a few French generals they had not solved their real problem. They had merely exchanged, with Napoleon's help, a bad Government for no Government at all. Their grandees, poisoned by the same sterile pride and servile attendance on an idle Court that had ruined the aristocracy of France, were without backbone or political experience; for generations they had hardly been free to leave Madrid without the King's permission. Some of them, as a result of the former French alliance or because they feared anarchy, sympathised with the enemy or were suspected by the people of doing so. The lesser nobles, the provincial gentry and ecclesiastics, who, with the urban mobs, had taken the lead in raising the standard of independence, were mostly narrow provincials whose sympathies were bounded by their own mountain skyline. They were without the slightest capacity for administration or for co-operating with any one whose views differed from their own. They shared to the full the national contempt for compromise and the strong national sense of personal pride. Within a few weeks of the French retreat several of the provincial Juntas were almost at open war and were threatening to employ their respective armies not against the enemy but each other. All competed for British arms and money, demanding fantastic quantities of both and doing their utmost to prevent their neighbours from getting any. Only with the utmost difficulty, and under pressure from England, could they be got to join in setting up a Supreme Junta. Nor, thereafter, did they pay it the slightest respect.

To local jealousies* and vanity was added what a warm British admirer called the "apathy and confidence of the Spanish character." The corrupting gold and silver of South America and the consequent ease with which labour could be bought had had a fatal effect on the

¹
Crabb Robinson, I,
275.

Spanish possessing classes. Instead of creating real wealth themselves they used its illusory symbol—money—to hire foreign labour and fell into habits of idleness and improvidence. The Midas touch had brought yet another of earth's great empires to decay and ruin. In the towns, though quick to resent and avenge any personal affront with his cuchello, every Spaniard was ready to postpone public business to an indefinite to-morrow. The need for application, perseverance and discipline was universally ignored. It was imagined that victories were made by instinctive courage, armies by popular enthusiasm, strategic combinations by eloquence. Ragged hordes of armed peasants and students trailed about the countryside, undrilled and unsupplied, discussing with all the fervour of their race the grand operations which were to overthrow the greatest soldier of all time. There was no supreme command, for no provincial Junta would allow the army to be commanded by any general but its own. Yet in imagination and boastful talk—to which the whole nation seemed prone—this leaderless force, exaggerated in numbers and untrained for war, was not merely to drive the veterans of France from their strongholds in the north but, by a series of intricate converging operations over a three-hundred mile front, was to encircle and annihilate them. Afterwards it was to advance to Paris and dictate peace.

With such confidence in their prowess the Spaniards were in no mood to take advice from British generals. They did not need amateurs to teach them how to make war. They took the money, arms and ammunition they proffered, but for the rest ignored the foreign heretics who until so recently had been their enemies. So long as the British remained at a distance, a warm and truly Spanish eloquence was extended to them; the moment they set their clumsy and unhallowed feet on Spanish soil or tried to interfere with the Spaniard's imperious preference for his own way, they became objects of loathing and suspicion. Any discipline, save of its own choosing, was anathema to this stark and passionate people. Thus the released Spanish prisoners from England, who had been feasted, clothed and armed by their former captors, mutinied on the way home and carried off the British ships in which they were sailing.

It was in such circumstances that Moore at the end of the first week of October, 1808, received his mission. Leaving 10,000 troops to defend Portugal, he was to proceed with the remaining 20,000 to northern Spain, where he would be joined by another 17,000 under Sir David Baird. He was to support the Spanish armies in their attempt to encircle the French
and, in the event of a Supreme
Commander being appointed by the Junta, to place himself—with reservations—under his orders. He was to convey his troops into Spain by land or sea as he thought best. A correct and friendly personal letter from Castlereagh assured him of every assistance.

The army heard of the appointment with satisfaction. Even the chivalrous Sir Harry Burrard, who had been superseded, rejoiced; "happy I shall be," he wrote, "if in anything I can serve an officer whose whole soul is in the Service." A new spirit began to run through the dusty camp of Queluz; the men knew instinctively that the unaccountable inertia of the past six weeks was at an end. The new general appeared everywhere; inspecting regiments, reorganising magazines and stores, dismissing fraudulent contractors and talking to every one he encountered.
¹
Men suddenly began to work with a will.

Yet some of those to whom the Commander-in-Chief spoke noticed an underlying gravity in his expression. Ministers might write of going into Spain like going into Hyde Park, but Moore as
a
practical soldier knew the difficulties. He could not effect his junction with Baird by sea because, without previously establishing magazines in the barren Galician hills, it would be impossible to march so large an army through the passes to Castile in time to succour the Spaniards. And though Ministers talked about the impending envelopment of the French—" a sort of gibberish," Moore privately noted, "which men in office use and fancy themselves military men without knowing how far it is susceptible of being carried into practice"—he was painfully aware that the problem was not, as people in England supposed, whether he could reach the Ebro in" time to share the triumph of the Spanish armies but whether he could unite his own forces behind them before Napoleon launched his attack. His one chance of doing so in time—for he was convinced that Napoleon would strike before winter—was to march his men across the Portuguese highlands to Salamanca and join forces with Baird in the Castilian plain at Valladollid or Burgos. Yet it was this very route which less than
a
year before had put nine-tenths of Junot's army out of action.

For such a march—more than three hundred miles across mountains rising in places to 4000 feet—Moore had neither maps nor magazines. His commissariat and Staff were both raw, and, owing to the Treasury's failure to supply bullion, it was impossible to obtain enough carts and draught animals.
²
His men had therefore to