CORUNNA
When Sir John Moore, on January 10th, 1809, reached the summit of the
last hill that overlooked the city and harbour of Corunna, he beheld a
roadstead destitute of shipping. "I have often heard it said that I was
unlucky," he remarked to his aide-de-camp, George Napier, as they
climbed the land side of this eminence; "if the ships are not in the
harbour, I shall believe in my evil fortune." There were no ships in
sight, and the heart of the gallant soldier must have known a pang such
as can come to few men in life. Yet fate, though seemingly so cruel at
this moment, was, as she often is, kind and merciful even when striking
hardest. Had the winds blown that would have permitted the fleet to move
from Vigo to Corunna, the whole English army would have embarked on
January 11th and 12th before Soult had concentrated his pursuing
columns; there would have been no battle of Corunna, and the memory of
Moore would not have been a deathless pride to his countrymen. When the
ships hove in sight on the evening of the 14th the French divisions were
lining the heights in front of the British position; and on the morning
of January 16th the British army, now reduced to fifteen thousand men,
drew up in line of battle on the crest of the sloping ridge which
covered Corunna to the south. The sick and wounded had been already
embarked, the magazines blown up, the cavalry and artillery horses
killed, and nothing remained but to strike with the infantry a last blow
for honour. Three weeks earlier, when the first retrograde movement from
Sahagun to Benevente had become imperative, Moore issued an order to his
army which contained words of very significant import. The disorder of
the troops had already commenced, and the officers, some of them of high
rank but completely ignorant of the real state of affairs, had begun
those murmurs and criticisms to which more than to any other cause the
disasters of the retreat were to be traced. After telling his soldiers
that they must obey and not expect him to tell them the reason of the
orders he gave them, the General went on: "When it is proper to fight a
battle he will do it, and he will choose the time and place he thinks
most fit; in the meantime, he begs the officers and soldiers of the army
to attend diligently, to discharge their parts, and to leave to him and
to the general officers the decision of measures which belong to them
alone." Now the time and place had come. Nothing but Moore's knowledge
of the situation had saved his army from falling at Benevente into the
grasp of the giant who had seemingly annihilated time, space, and
mountains in order to crush him; but matters were now different.
Napoleon was already in Paris, and not more than twenty thousand tired
Frenchmen stood over yonder on the parallel heights beyond Elvina, with
scant supply of food and ammunition; while he was here at Corunna, with
well-stocked magazines, his soldiers recruited by a three days' rest,
new muskets in their hands replacing the battered and broken weapons of
the retreat, and the _morale_ and discipline of his army restored by the
magic touch of battle.
The forenoon of the 16th passed without any hostile movement. Both
armies faced each other on the opposing ridges--so near, indeed, that
the unassisted eye could trace the slightest stir on either side across
the intervening valley. Such things are not possible now. The zone of
fight has been pushed back by modern weapons to distance that has taken
from war all the pomp and pageantry that used to attend rival armies
drawn up for battle. The narrow valley that lay between the armies was
dotted with villages set amid vineyards. Three of these villages were
held by the English pickets, and the right village of the three, Elvina,
marked the front of that part of the British line where it curved back
towards Corunna, forming a kind of salient to the more extended French
line of battle which overlapped our right flank. At this critical point
in the English position stood the brigade to which Napier's regiment,
the Fiftieth, belonged, the Fourth and the Forty-Second being the other
battalions completing this brigade. Opposite, on the French side,
Mermet's division was drawn up; but more formidable still were the
muzzles of eleven guns--eight and twelve-pounders--which from a
commanding height, and only six hundred yards from the village of
Elvina, threatened to obliquely rake the English line.
As the morning wore on without hostile movement on the part of the
French, Moore, believing that his enemy did not intend to accept the
battle he had offered since the preceding day, made preparations to
embark his army during the coming night. His reserve, being nearest the
roadstead, was to leave the shore as soon as dusk set in, and one by one
the brigades opposite the French were to fall back under cover of
darkness to the town, and there enter the boats which were to carry them
to the ships. These arrangements having been made, the General mounted
his charger in Corunna about one o'clock P.M. to visit his army and give
the necessary directions for the movement to the shore. He moved slowly
out with a heavy heart. Fate seemed steadily set against him. The enemy
in front would not attack, and beyond the sea--there, where these
vessels were so soon to carry him and his army--he knew but too well
that there was another enemy waiting to write him down and vote him
down, and to heap sneer and censure upon his actions. All at once there
came the sound of a heavy cannon. Another and another shot rolled round
the echoing hills. The fine face flushed with the light of hope, spurs
were driven deep into the charger's flanks, and, galloping at full speed
along the rocky causeway, Moore was soon upon the field--the battle of
Corunna had begun.
The right wing of the English army, standing in line on the ridge above
the village of Elvina, was exposed to the full force of the eleven-gun
battery, whose cannonade had thus opened the battle. Napier's regiment,
the Fiftieth, stood just over Elvina, his pickets occupying that
village. As each shot gave the enemy a better distance for the
succeeding ones, the range was soon found, and the round shot, falling
with accuracy upon the line, tore gaps through it and ploughed the
surface of the surrounding ground. For a time the men stood silent and
motionless under this trying ordeal, but as increasing accuracy caused
more frequent casualties in the ranks, a murmur arose from the soldiers,
and the cry of "Where is the General?" was audible along the line. Of
all the work of war, that of standing steady doing nothing under fire
tries the nerves most sorely, and as at this moment in the opening scene
at Corunna the forward movement of the French columns became visible, it
was no wonder that anxiety for the presence of the chief in whom they so
implicitly believed should find vent in words. They had not long to wait
the answer to their question. We have seen how the first sound of cannon
had roused Moore from his transient gloom, and made him spur forward
along the road from Corunna. The picture of his arrival at the scene of
action has been given us by Charles Napier, and there are few more
striking bits of battle-painting. Napier is standing in front of his
line, his pickets are falling back from Elvina before the advancing
French skirmishers; behind the enemy's light troops Mermet's heavy
column of infantry is coming on rapidly to the attack, their shouts of
_En avant!_ rising above the crack of musketry or the boom of the
battery whose shot is tearing fast through the line.
Suddenly (says Napier) I heard the gallop of horses, and turning
saw Moore. He came at speed, and pulled up so sharp and close to me
that he seemed to have alighted from the air, man and horse looking
at the approaching foe with an intenseness that seemed to
concentrate all feeling in their eyes. The sudden stop of the
animal, a cream-coloured one with black tail and mane, had cast the
latter streaming forward, its ears were pushed out like horns,
while its eyes flashed fire, and it snorted loudly with expanded
nostrils, expressing terror, astonishment, and muscular exertion.
My first thought was, it will be away like the wind; but then I
looked at the rider and the horse was forgotten. Thrown on its
haunches, the animal came sliding and dashing the dirt up with its
forefeet, thus bending the General forward almost to its neck; but
his head was thrown back, and his look more keenly piercing than I
ever before saw it. He glanced to the right and left, and then
fixed his eyes intently on the enemy's advancing column, at the
same time grasping the reins with both hands, and pressing the
horse firmly with his knees; his body seemed thus to deal with the
animal, while his mind was intent on the enemy, and his aspect was
one of searching intentness beyond the power of words to describe.
For awhile he looked, and then galloped to the left without
uttering a word.
Shortly after, Moore came back to the Fiftieth again. The fight had
thickened, Elvina had been carried by the French column, and the enemy's
light troops had begun to ascend the foot of the British position.
Napier asks if he may send his grenadier company down the slope? Moore
thinks they may fire upon our own pickets; but Napier tells him that the
pickets have already fallen back. "Then send out your grenadiers,"
replies the General, and away he gallops again to another part of the
field. Once more he comes back to where Napier is standing. The round
shot are falling thickly about, the enemy's attack is now fully
developed, and it is evident he means to try his best at this salient of
the position to turn the English right and cut the army from its base;
but he has not infantry for such a movement. A large proportion of his
total force is cavalry, and they are of little use in the enclosures and
high fenced lanes that cover the ground. While Moore stands talking this
third time to Napier a round shot from the French battery strikes full
between the two men. Moore's horse wheels on his haunches, but the
rider forces him to front again, while he asks Napier if he has been
hit. "No, sir." Then comes a second shot plump into the right of the
Forty-Second, which is next in line to the left. A Highland grenadier
has had his leg torn off, and in the agony of the wound he cries out. A
wave of agitation begins to pass through the men nearest the sufferer;
the gap in the ranks is slower to fill up than when men had fallen who
were silent. Moore rides to the spot. "This is nothing, my lads," he
says; "keep your ranks; take the man to the rear." Then addressing the
wounded man, he says: "My good fellow, don't cry out so, we must bear
these things quietly." Then he rode to another part of the field; but
soon returning again to the ridge above Elvina, he directed the
Forty-Second to descend the slope and attack that place. A fierce
struggle ensued amid the enclosures and houses of the village. Napier,
seeing the Forty-Second pass his flank, ordered his regiment to advance
in line upon the village. He made this movement entirely upon his own
responsibility; for except when Moore was present the initiative of
command appeared to be wholly wanting among the English generals at
Corunna. Passing the Forty-Second, Napier carried his regiment through
Elvina, until at the side of the village nearest to the enemy his
advance was checked by an overwhelming fire. So deadly was the storm of
cannon and musketry at this point that both the colours went down almost
together, as the ensigns who carried them were shot. Napier's sword-belt
was shot off, and the Fiftieth being the advanced regiment in the battle
found itself encircled on three sides by a sheet of fire. Looking to his
front, Napier saw the heavy battery now close above him. The idea at
once occurred to him to assault it; and gathering by great personal
exertions about thirty of his men and three or four officers together,
he led them straight upon the battery. But his efforts were useless. The
companies had become broken and disordered in carrying the village: the
Forty-Second had not continued its advance to Elvina; and no supporting
corps was sent to strengthen and secure the success which the Fiftieth
had achieved. This forlorn hope leading straight upon the battery went
down between a fire which smote them almost as much from their friends
in rear as from their enemies in front, and by the time the foot of the
steep ascent was gained, Charles Napier found himself almost alone
before the enemy. The reason why this bold onslaught upon the battery,
which was the key of the French position, was thus allowed to run out
into a useless sacrifice of life was easily explained later on, although
at the moment Napier, knowing nothing of what was happening in his rear,
angrily cursed at the supposed hesitation of his men to follow him. To
explain the unfortunate result of this attack we must go back to the
original position on the ridge. Scarcely had Napier led the Fiftieth
upon Elvina than Moore rode up again to the point where he had before
stood, and casting his eye upon the tide of battle flowing below him
took in at once the situation. Riding forward in the wake of the
Fiftieth, he cheered on that regiment to the attack. "Well done,
Fiftieth; well done, _my_ majors," he cried; for Napier's promotion to
field-rank had been due to his influence, and Stanhope the other major
was endeared to him by stronger ties. Charles Stanhope was the brother
of the woman to whom Moore a few hours later was to send his last
message. When thirty years later men criticised with idle censure the
life of Lady Hester Stanhope, they forgot how much she had suffered
before they had been born. Austerlitz had broken the heart of her
illustrious uncle; her lover and her brother slept on the battle-field
of Corunna.
The advance of the Fiftieth and Forty-Second from the ridge had left a
gap in that part of the line of battle. Turning to one of his staff,
Moore directed him to ride back to the reserve and bring up a battalion
of Guards to fill the vacant place; then noticing that some companies of
the Forty-Second had got into confusion and were falling back, he called
out to that regiment to "remember Egypt," and reminded "his brave
Highlanders" that they had "still their bayonets left." It was at this
moment that a round shot from the battery on the height struck him. The
hurtle and crash of the ball made the cream-coloured charger plunge into
the air, and the rider fell backward to the ground, but so firm had been
his seat that those who were looking on did not believe the shot had
struck, so quietly did he seem to fall. This impression was further
strengthened when they saw the tall figure half rise from the ground,
while his look sought the enemy's ranks with the same calm and intent
expression which his face had before worn. But though no sound or sign
of suffering seemed to come between the General's mental consciousness
and the battle before him, all the worst hurt that shot can do to poor
humanity had been done. The left shoulder had been shattered, the arm
hung by a shred, and the flesh and muscles of breast and side had been
terribly lacerated. When those who were near became aware of the
dreadful nature of the wound they tried to disengage the sword from the
mangled side. Who can ever forget the dying man's words as he noticed
the kindly attempt: "Let it be. I had rather it should leave the field
with me." Then he is placed in a blanket and carried to the rear by some
Highlanders of the Forty-Second. By this time a couple of surgeons have
come up; but he knows the wound is past human cure, and he tells them to
go to the soldiers to whom they can still be of use. As they carry him
farther back from the fight he makes the bearers often pause and turn
him round again to the front, so that he may see for a little longer how
nobly his soldiers hold their ground. When they bring him to his
quarters his French servant François is overcome with tears at the
sight, but Moore says quietly to him, "My friend, this is nothing." And
so the day closes, and darkness brings news that the attack of the enemy
has failed, and that the ridge from Elvina to the sea is still held by
the British. Then, with the honour of his soldiers safe, he turns to his
friends. He forgets no one; the interests of aides-de-camp and of the
members of his staff are remembered; he sends messages to many
friends--one in particular to Lady Hester Stanhope--and once only his
voice fails; it is when he mentions the name of his mother. Then, as the
shades of rapidly-approaching death gathered closer, it seemed that the
images of the cowardly men at home, who, he felt, were certain
Lightly to speak of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him,
arose before his fading vision, for with a great effort he appealed
from those "posthumous calumniators" to "the people," suddenly
exclaiming, "I hope the people of England will be satisfied. I hope my
country will do me justice." That dying hope has been realised. Few
names stand in purer lustre than that of Sir John Moore. Fortunately
immortality is not always measured by success. The chiefs and people of
England, who know so little of real war themselves, are perhaps the
hardest censors upon military misfortune. Moore's memory was vehemently
assailed by the Ministers and Government officials of the day, who tried
to screen their own flagrant shortcomings by calumniating the name of
the heroic soldier who was no longer there to answer them, and all the
paid scribblers and talkers of the time were busy at their truculent
work. But justice came at last, earlier and more conspicuously from the
enemies who had fought against Moore than from the nation for whose
honour and in whose service he had died. Soult and Ney raised a monument
to his memory at Corunna almost at the time when Southey, finding out
what the world had long known, viz. that although the King might make
him a laureate, nature had not made him a poet, began to attempt to
write history and to criticise military genius. But a greater soldier
than Soult or Ney had still earlier placed the military fame of Moore
beyond the reach of little minds. When Napoleon heard of Moore's march
from Salamanca to Sahagun, in December, 1808, he exclaimed, "I shall
advance against Sir John Moore in person. He is now the only general fit
to contend with me." "Where shall we find such a king?" asks William
Napier in a letter written from the battle-fields of Portugal two years
after Corunna. Fifteen years later the first volume of the _Peninsular
War_ appeared, and if the spirits of the illustrious dead can read the
books that record their actions on earth, that of Moore might well
exclaim, "Where has king found such a chronicler?"
We must go back to Charles Napier, fighting fiercely in the enclosures
between Elvina and the great battery, and raging because the supports
which might have turned his withered effort into success were denied
him. We have seen the reason of this denial. The fall of Moore paralysed
the thinking power of those who succeeded to the command. Instead of
supporting the attack of the Fiftieth, orders were sent to recall that
regiment, and Napier and the few men who were still with him were left
alone in the extreme front. This withdrawal from Elvina allowed the
French light troops to surround Napier's party. Finding himself thus
enclosed in a net, he gathered the few survivors around him and made a
dash to cut his way through to the English line, but it was too late. He
was surrounded and made prisoner. Both sides would appear to have
exhausted their ammunition at this point, and the fight was now entirely
of cold steel. It is so full of graphic detail, and gives so many
glimpses of national characteristics under stress of battle, that it had
best be told in Napier's own words.
I said to the four soldiers [Irish privates of the Fiftieth and
Forty-Second] "Follow me and we will cut through them." Then with a
shout I rushed forward. The Frenchmen had halted, but now ran on to
us, and just as my spring was made the wounded leg failed, and I
felt a stab in the back; it gave me no pain, but felt cold, and
threw me on my face. Turning to rise, I saw the man who had stabbed
me making a second thrust. Whereupon, letting go my sabre, I caught
his bayonet by the socket, turned the thrust, and raising myself by
the exertion, grasped his firelock with both hands, thus in mortal
struggle regaining my feet. His companions had now come up, and I
heard the dying cries of the four men with me, who were all
instantly bayoneted. We had been attacked from behind by men not
before seen, as we stood with our backs to a doorway, out of which
must have rushed several men, for we were all stabbed in an
instant, before the two parties coming up the road reached us. They
did so, however, just as my struggle with the man who had wounded
me was begun. That was a contest for life, and being the strongest
I forced him between myself and his comrades, who appeared to be
the men whose lives I had saved when they pretended to be dead on
our advance through the village. They struck me with their muskets,
clubbed and bruised me much, whereupon, seeing no help near, and
being overpowered by numbers and in great pain from my wounded leg,
I called out _Je me rend_, remembering the expression correctly
from an old story of a fat officer whose name being James called
out _Jemmy round_. Finding they had no disposition to spare me, I
kept hold of the musket, vigorously defending myself with the body
of the little Italian who had first wounded me; but I soon grew
faint, or rather tired. At that moment a tall dark man came up,
seized the end of the musket with his left hand, whirled his
brass-hilted sabre round, and struck me a powerful blow on the
head, which was bare, for my cocked hat had fallen off. Expecting
the blow would finish me, I had stooped my head in hopes it might
fall on my back, or at least on the thickest part of the head, and
not on the left temple. So far I succeeded, for it fell exactly on
the top, cutting me to the bone but not through it. Fire sparkled
from my eyes. I fell on my knees, blinded but not quite losing my
senses, and holding still on to the musket. Recovering in a moment
I saw a florid, handsome young French drummer holding the arm of
the dark Italian, who was in the act of repeating the blow. Quarter
was then given; but they tore my pantaloons in tearing my watch
and purse from my pocket and a little locket of hair which hung
round my neck. But while this went on two of them were wounded, and
the drummer, Guibert, ordered the dark man who had sabred me to
take me to the rear. When we began to move, I resting on him
because hardly able to walk, I saw him look back over his shoulder
to see if Guibert was gone; and so did I, for his rascally face
made me suspect him. Guibert's back was towards us; he was walking
off, and the Italian again drew his sword, which he had before
sheathed. I called out to the drummer, "This rascal is going to
kill me; brave Frenchmen don't kill prisoners." Guibert ran back,
swore furiously at the Italian, shoved him away, almost down, and
putting his arms round my waist supported me himself. Thus this
generous Frenchman saved me twice, for the Italian was bent upon
slaying.
Thus was Napier taken prisoner. From this narrative we get many
side-lights upon many subjects. Firstly, the composite character of
Napoleon's army in Spain, and the fact that the Frank fights with the
chivalry of the true soldier; it is the Italian who is all for murder.
Secondly, we find all through this narrative of Napier's that our own
soldiers were almost wholly Irish. This Fiftieth Regiment which he
commands is called the West Kent, but its soldiers are almost to a man
Irish.[2] The Forty-Second man who appears on the scene, although
nominally a Highlander, is in reality an Irishman. Now, as we proceed
further in the narrative, we come to one of the most singular pictures
of a Celtic soldier ever put upon paper.
We had not proceeded far up the lane (continues Napier), when we
met a soldier of the Fiftieth walking at a rapid pace. He
instantly halted, recovered his arms, and cocked his piece, looking
fiercely at us to make out how it was. My recollection is that he
levelled at Guibert, and that I threw up his musket, calling out,
"For God's sake, don't fire. I am a prisoner, badly wounded, and
can't help you; surrender."--"For why would I surrender?" he cried
aloud, with the deepest of Irish brogues. "Because there are at
least twenty men upon you."--"Well, if I must surrender--there,"
said he, dashing down his firelock across their legs and making
them jump, "there's my firelock for yez." Then coming close up he
threw his arm round me, and giving Guibert a push that sent him and
one or two more reeling against a wall, he shouted out, "Stand
back, ye bloody spalpeens, I'll carry him myself; bad luck to the
whole of yez." My expectation was to see them fall upon him, but
John Hennessey was a strong and fierce man, and he now looked
bigger than he was, for he stood upon higher ground. Apparently
they thought him an awkward fellow to deal with. He seemed willing
to go with me, and they let him have his own way.
They are soon delivered over to a responsible officer. Napier is kindly
treated by all the officers he meets; but the exigencies of war call
them away, and he remains for two nights and a day exposed to cold and
misery on the hill where the English magazine had been exploded a couple
of days before the action. On the second day after the battle he is
brought into Corunna and made comfortable in Marshal Soult's quarters.
Hennessey had disappeared. It was only long months afterwards that
Napier knew what had become of this extraordinary soldier; and his
ultimate fate and that of the generous drummer Guibert deserve to be
recorded.
On the night following the battle Hennessey disappeared. Before going he
had unbuckled Napier's silver spurs, whispering at the same time that it
was a measure of safety, as "the spalpeens" would be likely to murder
the owner for the sake of the metal. Next morning he was marched off to
the Pyrenees, but at Pampeluna he got away from his captors and made
back across the whole breadth of the Peninsula for Oporto. On the road
he sold one of the spurs, which he had managed to conceal all that weary
way by hiding them under his arm. When Soult took Oporto three months
after Corunna, Hennessey was again taken prisoner; but when the English
crossed the Douro he again escaped by rushing at the sentry upon the
prison and killing him with his own musket. When the first British
battalion entered Oporto he joined them, marched with them to Talavera,
and fought in that battle, where a cannon-ball carried off his cap.
Hearing that George Napier was with the army, Hennessey found him out
and told him the whole story of his brother's capture, and produced the
remaining spur, which he still held on to. Then he returned to England
to rejoin the Fiftieth--the regiment was at Hastings at the time.
Garrison life did not suit Corporal Hennessey--as he had now become--so,
remembering that he had a wife and child in Cork, he obtained a furlough
to visit them, and walking across England, appeared in his native town
in due time. Napier had meanwhile set out again for the Peninsula. On
reaching Cork Hennessey heard this, and at once exclaiming, "Is it gone
back and the regiment not with him? Thin, be my sowl, I'll niver stop
behind, but it's off I'll be too!" he started back without waiting to
see wife or child. On his first arrival in England from the Peninsula he
walked to York, where Miss Napier was then living. Charles Napier had
charged him on the night of Corunna to give the spurs to her if he
succeeded in escaping. Hennessey never forgot the injunction; and at
York, more than a year after the battle, he delivered the remaining spur
to Miss Napier. They had been originally her gift to her brother when he
obtained the rank of major before going to Spain in 1808.
Hennessey went back to the Peninsula and began again the old life of
reckless daring, mixed with insubordination, drunkenness, and robbery.
At last, in one of the battles of the Pyrenees, a cannon-ball carried
off his head--a relief alike to his friends and foes, for the former
were ever in fear that death at the hands of the provost-marshal would
be his fate. The end of the brave Guibert is not less sad. Napoleon,
upon hearing of his humane and gallant conduct, bestowed the Cross of
the Legion upon him. Some man with better interest disputed the
drummer's right to the distinction, and obtained the cherished
decoration for himself. Guibert, enraged at his well-earned honour being
robbed from him, forgot his higher honour, tried to desert, was taken
and shot. What strange episodes of individual heroism dashed with human
nature's weakest traits does war hold in its vast tragedy! What extremes
of pathos and absurdity jostle each other daily along the road of
conflict! In the fight at Elvina Napier's bosom friend and comrade,
Charles Stanhope, was shot dead while leading on his men to support his
senior officer then under the French guns. The two men thus fighting so
valiantly had each a brother on Moore's staff--George Napier and Edward
Stanhope. Both these aides-de-camp long searched for their brothers amid
the dead and wounded. Stanhope's body alone was found, for Napier's
capture was not known for months after the battle, and he was reckoned
among the missing dead. The body of Stanhope was brought back to the
bivouac and buried there. His surviving brother was passionately
attached to him, and when the moment came to fill in the hastily-made
grave he leant over it to take a last look at the dead man's face. At
that moment a ball from the enemy struck him, but the thick folds of his
cloak, which was worn rolled across his chest, stopped the bullet, and
prevented Death from joining together in the same grave the brothers he
had shortly before separated.
The army of Corunna reached England in a terrible condition. The men had
embarked on the night of the 16th in great confusion, portions of
regiments and corps getting on board any vessel they could reach in the
darkness, without regard to order or number. No account of killed or
wounded was ever obtained; but the total loss from the time the army
quitted Portugal in October, 1808, until it arrived in England in the
end of January, 1809, was not short of twelve thousand men and five
thousand horses, and all its material had also been lost. A wild and
impossible enterprise, pushed on against the advice of all trained and
capable military opinion by the ignorance of the English Cabinet and its
representative Mr. Frere. These people spoke of the genius of Napoleon
and his generals as a gigantic bubble which had only to be pricked to
vanish. The defeat of a brave but indifferent leader like the Duke of
Abrantes at Vimieiro, where all the odds of numbers and surroundings
were against him, made them believe that they had only to throw another
army into the Peninsula and that it would at once combine with the
Spaniards and march to Paris. They mistook Junot, in fact, for that
extraordinary combination of Jupiter and Mars whom men called Napoleon
Bonaparte, and Moore and his gallant troops paid the penalty of the
mistake. Nor did the misfortunes of the soldiers end with the campaign.
For months after their arrival in England the hospitals were filled with
the fever-stricken victims; and many a soldier who had escaped the
horrors of the retreat and the battle of Corunna laid his bones in the
military graveyards of the south of England. But the authors of the
misfortune did not suffer. Secure in a majority returned by a flagrant
system of corruption, they laughed at the Opposition; and society,
finding a great military scandal soon to divert it, quickly forgot all
about the suffering, the misfortunes, and the glory of the campaign of
Corunna.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] "The Fiftieth Regiment, although called the West Kent, was chiefly
formed of Irishmen."--Napier's _Military Law_.