LV. 1808. 42. ment in alyses the vance of the plains of Leon would arrest every French army in the CHAP. Peninsula. No sooner was the advance of Sir John Moore known at Madrid, than it instantly paralysed the movements of the whole French armies in the south of This moveSpain. Napoleon immediately despatched orders in all stantly pardirections to suspend the expeditions into the different further adprovinces which were in preparation. Lefebvre's troops French to were arrested at Talavera; Victor's advanced guards were the south. recalled from la Mancha; the expedition against Valencia was abandoned; the preparations against Saragossa suspended; and fifty thousand men, under the Emperor in person, including the Imperial Guards, the whole of Ney's 1 Jom. ii. corps, and great part of the reserve, the flower of the 113. Tor.ii. army, were, at a few hours' notice, suddenly marched off. 461. by the road of the Escurial, in the direction of the Gua- 504, 507. darrama.1 187. Nap. Thiers, ix. march of with au wards the English. Dec. 23. On the evening of the 22d, they were at the foot of the 43. Guadarrama Pass; but a violent hurricane of wind and Rapid snow enveloped the higher parts of the mountains, where Napoleon the thermometer was at 10° below zero of Reaumur;* and overwhelmthe general in command of the advanced guard, after ing force totwelve hours of fruitless toil, reported that the passage was impracticable. The conqueror of the St Bernard, however, was not so easily to be arrested. Napoleon in person hastened to the advanced posts, and ordered the march to be continued without interruption, himself setting the example by pressing forward with the leading files on foot. The example animated the men to fresh exertions. Amidst storms of snow and sleet, which in the higher parts of the passage were truly frightful, the columns pressed on with ceaseless activity; and after two days of incessant labour the difficulties were surmounted, Dec. 25. and the whole were collected on the northern side of the mountains, in the valley of the Douro. Urging on his troops with indefatigable activity, and riding even at that inclement season with the advanced posts in person, the About 10° of Fahrenheit. LV. 1808. Dec. 26. CHAP. Emperor soon arrived at the scene of action; on the 26th, headquarters were at Tordesillas, Lahoussaye's dragoons at Valladolid, and Ney's corps at Rio-Seco. Fully anticipating the immediate destruction of the English army, from the immense force now brought to bear against them, Napoleon on the same day wrote to Soult, "the advanced posts of the cavalry are already at Benavente; if the English remain another day in their Tor. ii. 187, position, they are undone; should they attack you with i. 461, 462. all their forces, retire a day's march to the rear-the further they advance the better for us: if they retreat, pursue them closely." 174, 175. 189. Nap. Jom. ii. 113, 114. 44. retreat on Galicia. " 1 The march of Ney by Tordesillas and Rio-Seco towards The English Valderas and Benavente was so directed that he early the line of separated the British from their communication with Portugal; and if he could have reached the latter town before Sir John Moore, he would have cut him off from the line of retreat to Galicia also, and rendered the situation of the army all but desperate. This catastrophe, however, was prevented by the prudent foresight of the English commander, who, having received vague but alarming accounts of the march of a large French army from the south, suspended his advance on the 23d, and on the 24th commenced his retreat towards Galicia. Great was the mortification of the soldiers at this determination, for they were in the highest state of vigour and spirits, and an unbroken series of brilliant successes at the outposts had produced an unbounded confidence in their own prowess, likely, if not met by overwhelming odds, to have led to the most important and glorious results. Moore himself fell back behind the Esla to Benavente, on the Astorga road, by the bridge of Castro-Gonzalo: Baird, with his division, retired directly on Astorga, by the ferry of Valencia, higher up the same stream; while the bridge of Mansilla, still further up, was guarded by Romana. On the 26th, Baird's troops passed the Esla, at Valencia, on their Dec. 26. LV. 1808. retreat; while Moore, who was with the rearguard to CHAP. protect the passage of the stores and baggage over the bridge of Castro-Gonzalo, was overtaken by some of the chasseurs of the Imperial Guard; and the English cavalry, who were covering the retreat on the Mayorga road, were threatened by a large body of Ney's horsemen. Lord Paget, however, with two squadrons of the 10th, passing through Mayorga, charged and overthrew them, making a a hundred prisoners, besides numbers killed and wounded. Indeed, the superiority of the English horse had become so apparent that they set all odds at defiance, never hesitated to attack the enemy's cavalry, though threefold in number, and had already made five hundred prisoners, i. 188, 189. during the few days they had been engaged in active operations.1 1 Lond. i. 247, 253. Nap. i. 462, 464. Tor. Thiers, ix. 512, 513. 45. tion of light the enemy, of Lefebvre By this timely retreat, Sir John Moore reached Benavente before the enemy; and the hazardous operation of Gallant accrossing the Esla, then a roaring torrent swollen by melt- cavalry with ing snow, and over planks laid across the broken arches and capture of the bridge of Castro, in the dark, was successfully per- Desou formed by General Craufurd with the rearguard. The ettes. army remained two days at that place, reposing from its fatigues, under the shelter of its magnificent baronial castle, almost unequalled in Europe for extent and grandeur.* Discipline, however, had already become seriously relaxed during the retreat, though only of three days' son. * This splendid relic of feudal grandeur is thus described by an eloquent eyewitness, whose pictures, equally vivid in travels as in history, have given to prose all the colours of poetry. "The Castle of Benavente is one of the finest monuments of the age of chivalry; nothing in England approaches to it in magnificence. Berkeley, Raby, even Warwick, are poor fabrics in compariWith Gothic grandeur, it has the richness of Moorish decoration; open alcoves where Saracenic arches are supported by pillars of porphyry and granite; cloisters with fountains playing in their courts; jasper columns and tesselated floors; niches all over, and seats in the walls, over-arched in various forms, and enriched with every grotesque adornment of gold and silver, and colours which are hardly less gorgeous. It belonged to the Duke of Ossuna, and the splendour of old times was still continued there. The extent of this magnificent structure may be estimated from this single circumstance, that two regiments, besides artillery, were quartered within its walls: they proved the most destructive enemies that had ever entered them; the officers, who LV. 1808. CHAP. duration, from Sahagun; the spirit of the men had been surprisingly depressed by the thoughts of retiring before the enemy the officers had, in a great degree, lost their authority, and disorders equally fatal to the army and inhabitants had already commenced. But these evils were accumulating only in the front part of the column, which was suffering merely under the fatigues of the march and the severity of the weather; no decline of spirit or enterprise was perceptible in the rearguard, which was in presence of the enemy. Pickets of cavalry had been left to guard the fords of the Esla; and on the 29th a body of six hundred horsemen of the Imperial Guard crossed over, and began to drive in the rearguard, stationed in that quarter to repel their incursions. Instantly these gallant horsemen made ready to oppose them, and though only two hundred in number, repeatedly faced about, and by successive charges, first under Colonel Otway, and then under Sir Charles Stewart,* retarded the advance of the enemy till assistance was at hand. At length, the enemy having been drawn sufficiently far into the plain, the 10th, Dec. 29. felt and admired the beauties of this venerable pile, attempted in vain to save it from devastation. Everything combustible was seized; fires were lighted against the fine walls, and pictures of unknown value, the works, perhaps, of the greatest Spanish masters, were heaped together as fuel. Fortunately the archives of the family escaped."-SOUTHEY, i. 499. In the midst of this disgraceful scene of unbridled license and military devastation, there is one trait of heroic presence of mind, which in some degree redeems the character of the British soldier. Several thousand infantry slept in the long galleries of an immense convent built round a square; the horses of the cavalry and artillery, scarcely less numerous, were in the corridor below, so closely jammed together that no one could pass between them, and there was but one entrance. Two officers, returning at night from the bridge of Castro, being desirous of finding shelter for their men, entered the gate of this convent, and perceived with horror that a large window-shutter was on fire, and the flames were spreading to the rafters above, from whence a single spark falling on the straw under the horses would ignite the whole, and six thousand men and horses would inevitably perish. Without saying a word, one of them (Captain Lloyd of the 43d) made a sign to his companions to keep silence, and springing on the nearest horse, ran along the backs of the others till he reached the flaming shutter, which by great efforts he tore from its hinges and flung into the court-yard without giving any alarm; which, in such circumstances would have been hardly less destructive than the flames.-See Life of a Sergeant, p. 143; and NAPIER, i. 467. LV. 1 Lond. i. who were formed, concealed by some houses, suddenly CHAP. appeared, and advanced to the assistance of their brave comrades. At the joyful sight of the well-known plumes, 1808. the retiring horsemen wheeled about, a loud cheer was given, and the whole bore down at full speed upon the enemy. The Imperial Guard, the flower of the French 253, 256. army, wreathed with the trophies of Austerlitz, were in 468. Tor. i. Nap. i. 467, an instant broken and driven over the Esla, with the 189, 190. loss of a hundred and thirty killed, and seventy prisoners, 127. Thiers, among whom was their commander, General Lefebvre- 514. Desnouettes.1 Larry, iii. ix. 513, peror con Astorga. The destruction of the bridge of Castro-Gonzalo was 46. so thoroughly effected, that it delayed for two days the The Emadvance of the French, who could not cross the stream tinues the pursuit to at other points from its swollen state; but at length, the arches having been restored, Bessières crossed on the 30th with nine thousand horsemen, and reached Benavente, which had been evacuated by the English on the same day. At the same time the bridge of Mansilla, guarded by Romana's troops, was forced by a charge of cavalry, and Soult, passing over, overspread the plains of Leon with his light horse, and captured the town of the same name, with great stores belonging to the Spanish government. The whole army, consisting of the Guards, reserve, Soult's and Ney's corps, in all seventy thousand strong, including ten thousand horse, and a hundred pieces of cannon, were, on the 1st January, united by the Emperor at Astorga. Jan. 1, The union of so great a force, in that remote part of the Peninsula, was both the highest compliment that could be paid by that great general to the prowess of the English army, the clearest demonstration of the importance of the stroke threatened by its commander, and the strongest proof of the vigour and celerity with which, by long experience and admirable arrangements, the movements of the French troops could be effected. In ten days Napoleon had not only transported fifty thousand men from Madrid to Astorga, a distance of two hundred miles, but 1809. |