The Campaigns of Napoleon

by David G Chandler

  Somewhat belatedly Napoleon ordered his troops to adopt the correct procedure: a properly coordinated infantry and cavalry attack. Ruffin’s battalions continued their way up the hillside on each side of the road until at last the 96th Regiment secured control of the crest. A brisk exchange of musketry caused several Spanish battalions to waver. Sensing this opportunity, the Emperor once again ordered a cavalry charge up the road, this time by the two remaining squadrons of the Poles supported by the chasseurs-à-cheval of the Guard. On this occasion the timing was perfect. Harassed by the fire of the French infantry, the Spanish gunners were able to loose off only a single salvo before the cheering horsemen—Montbrun at their head—were among their cannon, sabering left and right. In a trice all the guns had been captured, and for only a slight loss. Very shortly what remained of San Juan’s little army was in headlong flight for Madrid.

  Even before the Poles made their successful second charge against the battery, the action of Somosierra was practically over. The victory was really a triumph for Ruffin’s infantry, the cavalry episode being little more than a “spectacular interlude.” Nevertheless, the Polish horsemen did succeed in breaking the nerve of the Spaniards still offering resistance, before proceeding to harry the fleeing foe as far as the town of Buitrago. Spanish casualties in terms of killed and wounded were comparatively light, some accounts put them at only a few hundred, but all cohesion had disappeared and there was no formed Spanish force left between Napoleon and Madrid. In the bulletin issued on December 2, Napoleon typically forgot to mention the first, abortive cavalry attack, but lay all the stress on the subsequent Polish success. “A charge made by the Polish Light Horse of the Guard led by General Montbrun decided the affair; this charge was brilliant, and the regiment concerned covered itself with glory and showed its worthiness of a place in the Imperial Guard…. Eight Polish Light Horsemen were killed in the midst of the guns, and sixteen more were wounded.”40 In fact the success had been far more dearly bought, as we have seen.

  Next day French cavalry patrols reached the suburbs of Madrid. The quaking Junta was making desperate efforts to render the city defensible, arming 20,000 citizens to supplement the 2,500 remaining regular troops and constructing huge though useless field defenses and battery positions to guard the gates. Throughout the 2nd and 3rd, defiant replies were returned to Napoleon’s reiterated demands for surrender, but when the French fired a devastating bombardment at the makeshift defenses on December 4 and followed this up with a successful assault against the weakly held Retiro Heights, which constituted the military key to the city, saner councils prevailed, and the city of Madrid surrendered to Napoleon while the Supreme Junta scuttled ingloriously away toward distant Badajoz. By midday the French were in undisputed possession of the Spanish capital. But the victorious troops entered silent and deserted streets; the citizens remained sullenly within their houses and hovels, and it was clear that the spirit of Spanish popular resistance was still far from broken. Nevertheless, King Joseph had been restored to his “rightful” capital, and Napoleon regarded the business of the Spanish Campaign as practically complete. It only remained to deal with Moore and his redcoats, to go through the formalities of occupying the South of Spain and to bring Portugal back within the Imperial fold. None of these tasks appeared very daunting to the victorious soldiers of the Army of Spain.

  The organization of the Army of Spain varied considerably from time to time. For a breakdown of French forces in Spain on November 1, 1808, see Appendix.

  It appears that Napoleon had been considering this change for some time. Bessières was aware of this and the knowledge that he was about to be replaced did nothing to improve his energy or determination.

  This incident is often attributed to the Polish lancers; in fact the Polish light cavalry were not equipped with lances until later in this campaign.

  60

  THE PURSUIT OF MOORE

  For two whole weeks, the majority of the French troops rested on their laurels in the vicinity of Madrid. There were two reasons for this sudden pause in operations. First, Napoleon was eager to plunge without delay into the task of reordering Spanish affairs, although by rights this mammoth undertaking should have been left to his brother Joseph. Day after day new reforms were promulgated; the many relics of medieval feudalism were swept away. The decrepit Inquisition, the merest shadow of its former self, was abolished. A sweeping reduction in the number of religious houses was announced, and small pensions were awarded to monks and nuns who agreed to break their vows and return to public life. The chaotic taxation system was overhauled. Most of these reforms were long overdue, as the most enlightened Spaniards freely admitted, but the method of their imposition at bayonet point by a foreign ruler was wholly unpalatable and inevitably offended Spanish pride and religious susceptibilities. What was more, Napoleon clearly believed that Joseph’s throne was “in commission” for the duration of his stay near Madrid; the so-called King of Spain and the Indies was not even permitted to enter his capital until the Emperor considered the right moment had come.

  The second reason for the lull in operations was that Napoleon required time to complete his military regroupment prior to launching the ultimate stage of the campaign. In the days following the occupation of Madrid more and more troops were drafted to the east of the city in preparation for the final drives against Lisbon and Seville, the last remaining centers of serious resistance in the Peninsula. Marshal Lefebvre was warned that he would command the former expedition and Marshal Victor the latter, but for the time being their formations camped in a broad semicircular position to the south and east of Madrid. The Emperor remained in the immediate vicinity of the capital with a total of 40,000 men. General Junot’s corps—newly arrived from France after repatriation from Portugal—was eventually stationed a short distance away to the north. Elsewhere, Marshal Mortier’s Vth Corps was on its way to reinforce the troops prosecuting the continuing siege of Saragossa, and General Gouvion St. Cyr was preparing to attack Barcelona and subjugate Catalonia with 30,000 men of the VIIth Corps. All these indications would seem to show that Napoleon never for one instant expected real trouble on his northwestern flank; he entrusted occupation of the disaffected and still untamed provinces of Leon and Old Castille to Marshal Soult alone. Even then, the Duke of Dalmatia was left with merely two divisions of infantry (15,000 bayonets) and one of cavalry (General Francheschi’s 2,000 light horse), and only a single division of Victor’s corps was placed within anything resembling supporting distance. No, the Emperor was confident that General Moore would be already in headlong retreat for Lisbon, and that consequently Soult was faced with no more daunting a task than the imposition of law and order and the rounding up of the shattered remnants of Blake’s former army, now commanded by General La Romana. For these internal security duties a force of 17,000 men appeared perfectly adequate. However, the Emperor was destined to receive a rude surprise; for in spite of all his calculations, the valley of the Douro and not that of the Tagus was to be the scene of the campaign’s dramatic culmination.

  How did it come about, therefore, that General Moore was able to launch a sudden attack in so unexpected a quarter and thus effectively (and, as it turned out, finally) disrupt Napoleon’s plans for the subjugation of the Peninsula in 1808? It will be recalled that we left Moore concentrating his army around Salamanca in late November, while General Baird and his column from Corunna was still far away at Astorga. As we have seen, had Moore selected the right roads for his advance from Lisbon, and above all kept his force united, he might well have reached Old Castille in time to participate in the events preceding the fall of Madrid. Under the circumstances, however, the British army arrived too late to intervene, although General Hope’s column was at one point as close to the Spanish capital as Escorial. Moreover, Sir John Moore’s 15,000 infantry remained halted at Salamanca from November 23 onward, awaiting their guns and cavalry, and might easily have moved closer to the Spanish capital which lay little over four
day’s march away. However, Sir John, mindful that his instructions enjoined the concentration of his and Baird’s forces prior to any move to cooperate directly with the Spanish forces, and by this time completely disillusioned concerning the validity of any Spanish undertakings, decided to hold his ground at Salamanca.

  This was how matters stood until November 28. This inaction on the part of the British provided Napoleon with excellent propaganda material. His intelligence service reported Hope’s presence near Escorial in the first days of December. “The conduct of the English is shameful” ran part of the lengthy proclamation issued on December 5. “Since the 20th November there have been 6,000 of them near Escorial; they have spent several days there. They announced that they were going to cross the Pyrenees and reach the Garonne—no less. Their soldiers are superb and well disciplined. They have inspired inconceivable confidence in the Spaniards. Some hoped that this division would march to Somosierra; others that they would come to defend the capital of so dear an ally. But they all misunderstand the English…. They have retreated…. they are only willing to spill blood for their own immediate and selfish ends. Expect nothing from their egotism!”41

  From the point of view of the almost hysterical Supreme Junta, it might indeed have appeared that Moore was unwilling to share in their fate. On November 28 news belatedly reached the British general of the battle of Tudela, and he at once issued orders for a general retreat toward Lisbon and the Tagus, turning a deaf ear to the reiterated but vague Spanish appeals for immediate aid. “I have determined to give this thing up and retire,”42 Moore wrote to Hope of the proposed advance to Valladolid. It seemed at the moment as if this was the only sensible course open to him. The Spanish armies appeared to be broken reeds, and no faith could be placed in their leaders’ promises. His own army was still disunited; to advance would be to court almost certain ruin. And Moore was fully aware of the fact that he was commanding England’s only field army.

  Then, fortunately for Moore’s reputation, a series of developments caused him to change his mind a few days later. The retreat had already been ordered and the first convoys of stores and sick were actually heading for Lisbon, when news arrived (December 5) that the people of Madrid were offering heroic and successful resistance to the French army. What was more, General La Romana wrote in from Léon to say that he had as many as 15,600 good troops under his command and was only waiting the word to resume the offensive. The combination of these two pieces of unexpected news, the ceaseless pleas and entreaties of the Spanish Government and of his own officers, and finally and probably decisively the arrival of Hope’s guns, caused Moore to undergo a change of heart. Under the new circumstances, it was plainly his duty to do all in his power to afford Britain’s crumbling ally some practical assistance. “Considerable hopes are entertained from the enthusiastic manner in which the people of Madrid resist the French,”43 wrote Moore to Castlereagh.

  This represented no rash emotional decision on Moore’s part, but a carefully calculated military risk. At first he planned to launch a sudden attack against the important road center of Valladolid, hoping thereby to create an unexpected threat to the French communications and thus induce Napoleon to call off his attack on Madrid while he turned to deal with the new menace. In other words, the British army, serving as a bullfighter’s red cloak, would deliberately lure the Gallic bull away from its prey. Of course Moore, with only 25,000 men at his disposal, would sooner or later have to retreat precipitately to avoid the Emperor’s wrath; as he wrote to Baird, “if the bubble bursts and Madrid falls, we shall have to run for it.”

  In fact, however, Moore’s plan was more dangerous than he knew, for it was based on two false assumptions. First, that Madrid was still holding out (when in fact the city had already passed into French hands 36 hours earlier); second, that Napoleon disposed of only 80,000 troops (whereas in reality over 250,000 French soldiers were by this time serving in the Peninsula). Fortunately Napoleon had no clear indication at this time of the British situation either and still believed that Moore was making for Lisbon.

  On December 11, 22,500 British infantry, 2,500 cavalry and 66 guns of Moore’s army headed northeast from Salamanca. That very day, however, the grave tidings of the fall of Madrid on the 4th reached British headquarters. Moore now had to make a new assessment; should he press on or retire? He settled for the bolder course. If it was now too late to save Madrid, he might still be in time to deflect Napoleon from southern Spain and Portugal by a bold demonstration of force followed by a rapid retreat to Corunna. Accordingly, the red-coated columns continued to move eastwards.

  Three days later, a stroke of good fortune strengthened Sir John’s pugnacity. A Spanish guerilla band intercepted a French courier carrying an important dispatch from Marshal Berthier to the Duke of Dalmatia, and this document was brought to Moore. The dispatch not only revealed the present location of many of the Army of Spain’s major formations—warning Moore for the first time that Napoleon’s strength was well in excess of 200,000 men—but also showed how isolated and exposed was Soult’s understrength corps. Furthermore, the British general was given a very fair idea of Napoleon’s overall intentions. Of even greater immediate importance, Berthier went on to order Soult specifically to leave his present station at Saldana forthwith and move against La Romana’s forces at Leon.

  General Sir John Moore, the “father of modern British infantry”

  After digesting the implications of this windfall, Moore came to realize that here was a chance for an even more effective blow against the French than he had yet dared to dream existed. If he could only march his troops northward to Sahagun fast enough, he might be able to fall on the flank of an unsuspecting Soult as he moved toward Léon. The defeat—even conceivably the complete destruction—of the IInd Corps would not only throw all the French communications with Bayonne into dire peril, it would also at one stroke lift the yoke of French rule from northwest Spain; at the very least, Napoleon would be in no position to ignore the danger, and this would certainly involve the abandonment or at least postponement of French designs against southern Spain or Portugal. The chance was too good to miss. On the 15th, therefore, the British columns changed their line of march from east to north and headed for Sahagun. The army was soon crossing the Douro at Zamora and Toro, and by the 20th Moore had reached Mayorga, where he at last joined up with Baird’s division.

  At Mayorga, a slight disappointment awaited Moore. He learned that Soult was still sitting tight at Saladana, and so there was small chance of catching the IInd Corps en flagrant délit. Nevertheless, next day (21st) the British cavalry surprised and routed the Ist Provisional Chasseurs and the 9th Dragoons in a sharp combat at Sahagun. This was the first real intimation that Soult received of what was afoot; his surprise was almost complete.

  However, the British general failed to follow up this initial advantage, and awarded his weary men two days’ rest at Sahagun. This pause in the British offensive afforded the Duke of Dalmatia with just sufficient time to concentrate all his formations and send off a messenger to Madrid. Then, on the 23rd Sir John Moore heard from La Romana that large bodies of French troops were reported passing through Escorial en route for the Guadarrama passes. The import of this news was plain: the British army had succeeded in stirring up the hornet’s nest with a vengeance, and Napoleon was coming north in person in an attempt to encircle and annihilate the impudent British force. Not a day was to be lost if Moore was to escape the trap; a general retreat was ordered for the 24th toward Astorga. The bubble had burst.

  Napoleon had learned of what was afoot several days before the revealing combat of Sahagun. Général de division Matthieu Dumas, carrying out a staff liaison role for Berthier in the vicinity of Burgos, realized what Moore was attempting to do before any of his superiors. “We were badly informed of the* rendezvous and the line of march of the British army,” he wrote in his memoirs, “for General Moore was careful to cover his tracks…. the object of his bold march appea
red to be an attack upon Marshal Soult’s corps, then a move on Burgos to sever our line of operations and at the same time excite and aid a revolt in Navarre, Aragon and the Basque Provinces, and to combine these moves with those of the land and sea forces which the allies were then assembling in Catalonia and along the lower reaches of the Ebro.”44 As Dumas well knew, the only troops within supporting distance of Soult’s endangered corps were the divisions of Victor’s command, presently within three days’ march of Burgos, but these formations were currently under the Emperor’s warning order for a march to Segovia. Dumas realized that Napoleon’s instructions for Victor’s divisions were now completely out of date owing to the new developments. But vainly did he try to persuade the commanding officers to turn about and make for the Burgos-Valladolid highway, the line that had to be held if Moore’s incursion was to be checked, for it took a bold man to ignore the Imperial “firman.” In the end, a despairing Dumas took the bit between his teeth and in the Emperor’s name ordered General Lorges of the reserve cavalry to head for the threatened area. It was a bold step for so junior a general to countermand Napoleon’s orders, but Dumas was aware of the true urgency of the moment, accurately guessing that his master was not yet fully in the picture. Once the first step had been taken and the responsibility safely laid on someone else’s shoulders, it proved easier to persuade the other commanders; several senior officers belatedly realized the wisdom of Dumas’ move, and soon Generals Fournier, Foy and Laborde were on their way toward Palencia. A rather apprehensive Dumas then lost no time in reporting his recent actions to Madrid.