Battle of Corunna

• 1. Introduction

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  The Battle of Corunna, known in Spain as the Battle of Elviña, cost the British army its commander in a single moment. Sir John Moore was hit by a cannonball that carried away his left shoulder and part of his collar-bone, leaving the arm hanging by the flesh and muscles above the armpit. He remained conscious and composed through the several hours of his dying. This happened on the 16th of January 1809, during the Peninsular War, which formed part of the wider Napoleonic Wars. Moore's opponent that day was Marshal Jean de Dieu Soult. How did a British army come to fight with the sea at its back in northern Spain? What had Napoleon done to put it there? And does a battle that ends with the army sailing away count as a victory or a defeat?

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• 2. A Stalled Alliance

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  In October 1808, Sir John Moore took command of a British force of 30,000 men in Portugal. The Convention of Sintra had caused a scandal at home, and the generals Dalrymple, Burrard and Wellesley had been recalled. Sir David Baird sailed from Falmouth with reinforcements aboard 150 transports, carrying between 12,000 and 13,000 men. HMS Louie, HMS Amelia and HMS Champion escorted them into Corunna Harbour on the 13th of October. By November 1808, Moore's army was advancing into Spain with orders to help the Spanish armies resist Napoleon's invasion.

  Napoleon was alarmed by the French army corps that had surrendered at Bailén and by the loss of Portugal. The news from Sintra disturbed him too. He remarked: "I see that everybody has lost their head since the infamous capitulation of Bailén. I realise that I must go there myself to get the machine working again."

  By October, the French in Spain, garrisons included, numbered about 75,000 soldiers, standing with their backs to the Pyrenees. They held Navarre and Catalonia and doubted they could keep even those. Against them stood 86,000 Spanish troops, with 35,000 British allies on the way. Yet no attack came.

  The Spanish rebellion had shaken society and left the patriots divided on every question. With the monarchy fallen, constitutional power passed to local juntas. These bodies interfered with the army and weakened the tentative central government taking shape in Madrid. Some of them proved almost as dangerous to each other as to the French. The British army in Portugal was stuck as well, held back by logistical problems and administrative disputes.

  Napoleon used the pause. A vast consolidation brought 100,000 veterans of the Grande Armée into Spain, led by the Emperor in person. His Armée d'Espagne of 278,670 men stood on the Ebro, facing a scant 80,000 raw and disorganized Spanish troops. He told the Spanish deputies: "I am here with the soldiers who conquered at Austerlitz, at Jena, at Eylau. Who can withstand them? Certainly not your wretched Spanish troops who do not know how to fight. I shall conquer Spain in two months and acquire the rights of a conqueror." His offensive, a massive double envelopment of the Spanish lines, opened in earnest in November. It has been described as "an avalanche of fire and steel".

  On the allied side, the British army was dangerously scattered. Baird's newly arrived contingent sat at Astorga, Moore was at Salamanca, and General Hope was 70 miles east near Madrid, holding all of Moore's cavalry and artillery.

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• 3. The Gamble and the Chase

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  On the 3rd of December, Hope's detachment rejoined Moore at Salamanca, and the same day brought news that Spanish forces had suffered several defeats. Moore concluded that he must retreat to Portugal to avoid disaster. Then he received intelligence that Soult's corps of 16,000 men sat scattered and isolated at Carrión, and that the French did not know where the British army was.

  On the 15th of December, Moore seized the chance and advanced, hoping to beat Soult and perhaps draw Napoleon's forces away. A junction with Baird on the 20th of December raised his strength to 23,500 infantry, 2,400 cavalry and 60 guns. The next day, Lieutenant-General Paget's cavalry raided the French picquets at Sahagún with success. Moore failed to follow up against a surprised Soult, however. He halted for two days, which allowed Soult to concentrate his corps.

  Napoleon answered with his customary swiftness and decisiveness. The Spanish were beaten and no longer an organized threat, and his own army was concentrated while the enemy was dispersed. Here was a chance to destroy Britain's only field army. Realizing he was in serious danger of being trapped, Moore called off his advance and ran. The retreat began on the 25th of December and covered more than 250 miles.

  The British cavalry and the infantry of the Light Brigade shielded the army, fighting small rearguard clashes. At Benavente they defeated a French cavalry force and captured General Charles Lefebvre-Desnouettes. At the bridge in the village of Cacabelos, General Colbert-Chabanais was killed in close pursuit by a long-range rifle shot fired by Thomas Plunket of the 95th Rifles. Plunket fired after the British 15th Hussars had driven off the French horsemen.

  Napoleon pushed his own men harder still. He led the French army 200 miles in 10 days by forced marches, through blizzards, and reached Astorga on the 1st of January with 80,000 men. On the 31st of December he had written to his brother Joseph: "My vanguard is near Astorga; the English are running away as fast as they can... they are abhorred by everybody; they have carried off everything, and then maltreated and beaten the inhabitants. There could not have been a better sedative for Spain than to send an English army."

  At Astorga, General Romana arrived with the remnants of Blake's Spanish forces and proposed a joint stand. Moore declined and kept going north, while Romana turned west toward Portugal. Moore had abandoned Astorga on the 30th of December, having decided by the 28th that the whole army should embark at Vigo. The march between Astorga and Betanzos cost the British 3,000 men, with another 500 left in hospitals at Astorga and Villafranca.

  When it was clear that Moore could not be forced to fight, Napoleon handed the chase to Soult, with Michel Ney in support. He took some 45,000 men back to Madrid, because the Austrians were about to declare war on France and would soon invade Italy and Bavaria.

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• 4. An Army Unravels

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  On the 28th of December, British troops looted Benavente, an early sign that Moore's discipline was cracking. On the 2nd of January at Bembibre, hundreds of drunken soldiers were left behind and were captured or killed by French dragoons. Paget tried to hang three British soldiers for looting in a Spanish town but dropped the plan when pursuing French troops came near.

  The elite Light Brigade under Robert Craufurd was the exception, and it kept its order while much of the rest of the army lost its own.

  At Lugo, an old Roman town, Moore stopped on the 6th of January and offered battle. Soult's forces were too strung out to accept at first. Over two days he gathered his troops and tried to get Ney to send a division from Villa Franca del Bierzo. Ney sent few men. By the 8th Soult was ready, but Moore imagined that Ney was outflanking him and slipped away that night. He shot 500 foundered horses and destroyed artillery caissons and food stores as he went.

  Moore now saw that he could not reach Vigo, and he feared the army would fall apart on the way. He ordered the transports to Betanzos Bay, between Corunna and Ferrol, and headed for Corunna.

  Rain storms and confusion broke up the British main body, and thousands straggled. French dragoons captured some 500 British soldiers. Franceschi's cavalry took hundreds more on the 10th, and several hundred more on the 11th. The loss of men between Lugo and Betanzos was greater than that of the entire retreat before it.

  The French suffered too, since they had to cross ground the British had already stripped, and they endured severe fatigue and deprivation. The British rearguard had held them off, yet the French cavalry pressed constantly and kept the British cavalry from scouting properly. Soult's infantry struggled to keep up and trailed well behind the horsemen. His three infantry divisions, under Merle, Mermet and Delaborde, would reach Corunna piecemeal over the following days, along with his artillery.

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• 5. Empty Harbour

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  On the 11th of January, the British main body reached Corunna in northwest Spain, hoping to find the fleet that would carry it home. Betanzos Bay was empty, and the port held only 26 transports and two warships. The other ships of a fleet of 245 had been held up by contrary winds. They reached Vigo on the 8th and would not leave for Corunna until the 13th.

  The town held something useful, though. It had a large quantity of badly needed military stores, and 5,000 new muskets were issued to the troops. There were cartridges to re-equip the army, numerous Spanish artillery pieces, and plenty of food and shoes. Hospital ships took on the many wounded.

  The French began to arrive the next day, building up as they came off the march. Soult's artillery reached the town on the 14th, the same day the long-awaited transports finally appeared. That evening the British put aboard their sick, some horses, most of the remaining field guns, and the cavalrymen and gunners. The British never meant to garrison Corunna as a future base, despite its stores and its certain support from the sea.

  So they destroyed part of the enormous stock that had been meant for the Spanish. The losses included nearly 12,000 barrels of powder, 300,000 cartridges in two magazines outside the town, 50 fortress guns and 20 mortars. The terrain was unsuitable for cavalry, so all the cavalry troopers were embarked, along with a few healthy horses.

  Moore now held the advantage in infantry, 15,000 to 12,000. His men were rearmed, rested and fed, in marked contrast to the oncoming French. Soult had fewer infantry but better cavalry and artillery, though the broken ground suited neither. The British also had more musket ammunition, so their fire could be sustained far longer. Their position was largely hidden from Soult, who could only guess at their numbers.

  Moore placed the bulk of his army on a ridge astride the road to Corunna, a mile and a half south of the harbour. A stronger position lay further south, but he judged he lacked the men to hold it and left only outposts there. The river Mero covered his left flank. The western, lower end of the ridge was more vulnerable, since guns on the higher rocky range opposite could sweep it. Open ground beyond it ran toward Corunna and might allow the whole position to be turned. Moore kept two divisions in reserve to the north and west to guard against that.

  On the 15th of January, French troops pushed the British outposts off the higher range at the Heights of Palavea and Peñasquedo. A British counterattack by the 5th Foot was beaten back with heavy loss. Soult placed 11 heavy guns on a rocky outcrop from which they could fire on the British right, and it was night before the men had dragged them into position.

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• 6. Fight for Elviña

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  At daybreak on the 16th of January, the French stood in position on the heights, and the two armies spent the morning watching each other across the valley. Moore intended to resume the embarkation that day if Soult did not attack. By afternoon he thought an attack unlikely and ordered the first divisions down to the port. Shortly afterward, at 2:00 pm, he learned that the French were coming.

  Soult planned to pin the strongly placed British left and centre while Mermet's infantry division struck the weaker right above the village of Elviña. His cavalry waited further west, near the open country leading to Corunna. If it worked, the French would seize the western end of the line and cut most of the army off from the town.

  Mermet's infantry advanced quickly, drove back the British picquets, took Elviña and attacked the heights beyond. The first column divided into two. The brigades of Gaulois and Jardon hit Baird's division in front and on the flank, while a third brigade pushed up the valley to turn the British right. Lahoussaye's dragoons moved with difficulty across the broken ground and walls.

  The fiercest fighting raged in and around Elviña, which changed hands several times. The British suffered badly from the heavy French guns on the heights opposite. Moore sent in the 50th Foot and the 42nd, the Black Watch, to stop the French infantry, while the 4th Foot held the right flank. He stayed in this sector to direct the fight. He ordered the 4th Foot to fire down on the flank of the second French column and called up Paget's reserve to meet it.

  The British advance carried beyond the village, but confusion let Mermet's reserves drive back through Elviña and chase the 50th and 42nd up the slope. Moore called up his divisional reserve, some 800 men from two battalions of the Guards. With the 42nd they halted the French. He had just rallied the 42nd and ordered the Guards forward when he fell mortally wounded.

  Baird was also seriously wounded, so for a time the British had no leader until General John Hope took command. The confusion hampered a counterattack in the crucial sector, but the fighting went on. A second British advance drove the French back through the village. Mermet then threw in his last reserves, with one of Merle's brigades attacking the east side of Elviña. Manningham's brigade countered, and a long fire-fight followed. The 3/1st and 2/81st faced the 2nd Légère and the 36th Ligne of Reynaud's brigade. The 81st was forced out and relieved by the 2/59th, and the fighting petered out late in the day.

  Further west, the French cavalry made a few charges but was impeded by the rough terrain. Lahoussaye dismounted some of his dragoons to fight as skirmishers, and the 95th Rifles, 28th Foot and 91st Foot of the British reserves drove them back. Franceschi's cavalry tried to flank the far British right and cut it off at the gates of Corunna. Fraser's division, drawn up on the Santa Margarita ridge covering the neck of the peninsula, stopped it. The 95th also captured 150 prisoners.

  Night ended the fight, and each side held much the same ground as before. The two armies disengaged "as if by mutual consent". A part of Elviña stayed in French hands and a part in British hands. The same split held at Pedralonga, where a small battle also took place that day. The French took the southern foothold and the British the northern sector.

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• 7. Cost and Spoils

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  Hope, now in command, chose to continue the embarkation rather than hold the ground or attack Soult. At around 9:00 pm on the 16th of January, the British began to withdraw silently, leaving strong picquets whose watch-fires burned all night. At daybreak on the 17th, the picquets pulled back behind the rearguard and boarded ship. By morning most of the army had embarked.

  When Soult saw the ridge empty, he set six guns on the heights above the southern end of the bay. By midday they could fire on the outlying ships. Some transports panicked, and four ran aground and were burned to keep them out of French hands. Fire from the warships then silenced the battery. On the 18th of January, the British rearguard embarked while the Spanish garrison under General Alcedo "faithfully" held the citadel until the fleet was well out to sea. Only then did it surrender.

  The army had paid in lives and horses. The British lost around 900 men dead or wounded in the battle, and the French lost around 1,000 killed, wounded or captured. Two of Mermet's three brigadiers fell, with Gaulois shot dead and Lefebvre badly hurt. The most notable casualty was Moore, who lived long enough to learn that his men had withstood the French attacks. Before he was wounded, he had managed to issue key orders in time to strengthen the defensive line around Elviña.

  The British could not embark most of their horses. Nearly 2,000 cavalry horses were slaughtered to keep them from the French, along with as many as 4,000 more horses of the artillery and train.

  Sickness added to the toll. On the morning of the battle, 4,035 British soldiers were listed as sick, and a few hundred were too ill to embark and were left behind. Two more transports were lost with about 300 troops, mostly from the King's German Legion. By the time the army returned to England four days later, some 6,000 were ill, and the sick returns at Portsmouth and Plymouth alone listed 5,000. Total British losses in the whole Corunna campaign, from October 1808 to January 1809, may have ranged from 4,500 to 9,000 men.

  The French collected the spoils. Corunna fell, and two Spanish regiments surrendered along with 500 horses. The haul included numerous cannon, 20,000 muskets, hundreds of thousands of cartridges and tons of gunpowder. A week later Soult took Ferrol, an even greater arsenal and a major Spanish naval base across the bay. It yielded eight ships of the line: three with 112 guns, two with 80, one with 74 and two with 64. Three frigates and numerous corvettes came with them, plus over 1,000 cannon and 20,000 new muskets from England. With more resolution, these two fortresses could have held out for many months.

  Ney and his corps, reinforced with two cavalry regiments, took on the occupation of Galicia. Soult refitted his corps, which had been marching and fighting since the 9th of November, from the captured stores. With half a million cartridges and 3,000 artillery rounds carried on mules, because the roads could not take wheeled transport, he set out for Portugal on the 1st of February with 19,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry and 58 guns.

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• 8. Victory or Disaster

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  The English historian Christopher Hibbert, in his authoritative account of the battle, was unsparing: "It was all very well to talk of the courage and endurance of the troops but of what use were these virtues alone when pitted against the genius of Napoleon? 35,000 men had crossed the Spanish frontier against him; 8,000 had not returned. We were unworthy of our great past." Some British contemporaries agreed. The Times wrote: "The fact must not be disguised... that we have suffered a shameful disaster."

  The historian Charles Oman took a different view. He argued that Soult's attack gave Moore and his men a chance to redeem their honour and reputation through a defensive victory, which saved the army at the cost of its general's life. The Count of Toreno, a contemporary of Moore and author of the classic Spanish history of the war, echoed him. John Fortescue was more guarded: "...it would be absurd to say that either side gained a great victory." He added that the British soldiers were satisfied with the outcome, which could not be said of the French.

  Charles Esdaile, in The Peninsular War: A New History, judged Moore's decision to retreat "probably sensible enough" in military terms, but in other respects a disaster. He stressed the immense damage done to Anglo-Spanish relations, noting that de la Romana openly accused Moore of betrayal and bad faith. He also pointed to the French occupation of the most heavily populated region in Spain. Chandler wrote that the British had been compelled to conduct a precipitate retreat and evacuate by sea.

  The politicians spun it. Fremont-Barnes reports that the Foreign Secretary, Canning, privately condemned Moore's failed campaign in increasingly strong terms. In public, he insisted that Moore's triumph at Corunna had left "fresh laurels blooming upon our brows".

  W. H. Fitchett, in How England Saved Europe, offered a more charitable reading. He saw it as a dramatic justification of Moore's strategy that he had drawn so formidable a hostile force into a hilly corner of Spain, halting its southward rush. Napier speculated along similar lines. He believed that the second sweep Napoleon was preparing would have put him in possession of the remaining great cities of the Peninsula, had Moore's march not called his attention away from the south.

  Back in England, the news of the battle and the army's safe evacuation brought a storm of criticism over Moore's handling of the campaign. Moore himself was buried wrapped in a military cloak in the ramparts of the town. The funeral is commemorated in a well-known poem by Charles Wolfe (1791-1823), "The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna". In Corunna, his adversary Marshal Soult took care of the grave and ordered a monument raised in Moore's memory.

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