THE BATTLE OF CORUNNA

When Sir John Moore found that the transports were not ready on the twelfth, he had recognized that he might very probably have to fight a defensive action in order to cover his retreat, for two days would allow Soult to bring up his main-body. He refused to listen to the timid proposal of certain of his officers that he should negotiate for a quiet embarkation, in return for giving up Corunna and its fortifications unharmed[715]. This would have been indeed a tame line of conduct for a general and an army which had never been beaten in the field. Instead he sought for a good position in which to hold back the enemy till all his impedimenta were on shipboard. There were no less than three lines of heights on which the army might range itself to resist an enemy who had crossed the Mero. But the first two ranges, the Monte Loureiro just above the river, and the plateaux of Palavea and Pe?asquedo two miles further north, were too extensive to be held by an army of 15,000 men. Moore accordingly chose as his fighting-ground the Monte Moro, a shorter and lower ridge, only two miles outside the walls of Corunna. It is an excellent position, about 2,500 yards long, but has two defects: its western and lower end is commanded at long cannon-range by the heights of Pe?asquedo. Moreover, beyond this extreme point of the hill, there is open ground extending as far as the gates of Corunna, by which the whole position can be turned. Fully aware of this fact, Moore told off more than a third of his army to serve as a flank-guard on this wing, and to prevent the enemy from pushing in between the Monte Moro and the narrow neck of the peninsula on which Corunna stands.

Soult, even after he had passed the Mero and repaired the bridges, was very circumspect in his advances. He had too much[p. 584] respect for the fighting power of the English army to attack before he had rallied his whole force. When Delaborde’s division and a multitude of stragglers had joined him on the fifteenth, he at last moved forward and seized the heights of Palavea and Pe?asquedo, overlooking the British position. There was some slight skirmishing with the outposts which had been left on these positions, and when the French brought down two guns to the lower slopes by Palavea, and began to cannonade the opposite hill, Colonel McKenzie, of the 5th Regiment, made an attempt to drive them off, which failed with loss, and cost him his life.
Map of battle of Corunna

Enlarge  Battle of Corunna. January 16, 1809.

As the French pressed westward along these commanding heights, Moore saw that he might very possibly be attacked on the following day, and brought up his troops to their fighting-ground, though he was still not certain that Soult would risk a battle. The divisions of Hope and Baird were ranged along the upper slopes of the Monte Moro: the ten battalions of the former on the eastern half of the ridge, nearest the river, the eight battalions of the latter on its western half, more towards the inland. Each division had two brigades in the first line and a third in reserve. Counting from left to right, the brigades were those of Hill and Leith from Hope’s division, and Manningham and Bentinck from Baird’s. Behind the crest Catlin Crawfurd supported the two former, and Warde’s battalions of Guards the two latter. Down in the hollow behind the Monte Moro lay Paget’s division, close to the village of Eiris[716]. He was invisible to the French, but so placed that he could immediately move out to cover the right wing if the enemy attempted a turning movement. Lastly, Fraser’s division lay under cover in Corunna, ready to march forth to support Paget the moment that fighting should begin[717]. Six of the nine guns (small six-pounders), which Moore had left on shore, were distributed in pairs along the front of Monte Moro: the other three were with Paget’s reserve.

After surveying the British position from the Pe?asquedo heights, Soult had resolved to attempt the man?uvre which Moore had thought most probable—to assault the western end of the line, where the heights are least formidable, and at the same moment to turn the Monte Moro by a movement round its extreme right through the open ground. Nor had it escaped[p. 585] him that the ground occupied by Baird’s division was within cannon-shot of the opposite range. He ordered ten guns to be dragged up to the westernmost crest of the French position, and to be placed above the village of Elvina, facing Bentinck’s brigade. The rest of his artillery was distributed along the front of the Pe?asquedo and Palavea heights, in situations that were less favourable, because they were more remote from the British lines. The hills were steep, no road ran along their summit, and the guns had to be dragged by hand to the places which they were intended to occupy. It was only under cover of the night that those opposite Elvina were finally got to their destination.

Soult’s force was now considerably superior to that which was opposed to him, sufficiently so in his own estimation to compensate for the strength of the defensive positions which he would have to assail. He had three infantry divisions with thirty-nine battalions (Heudelet was still far to the rear), and twelve regiments of cavalry, with about forty guns[718]. The whole, even allowing for stragglers[p. 586] still trailing in the rear, and for men who had perished in the snows of the mountains, must have been over 20,000 strong. The cavalry had 4,500 sabres, and the infantry battalions must still have averaged over 500 men, for in November they had nearly all been up to 700 bayonets, and even the toilsome march in pursuit of Moore cannot have destroyed so much as a third of their numbers: only Merle’s division had done any fighting. It is absurd of some of the French narrators of the battle to pretend that Soult had only 13,000 infantry—a figure which would only give 330 bayonets to each battalion[719].

Soult’s plan was to contain the British left and centre with two of his divisions—those of Delaborde and Merle—while Mermet and the bulk of the cavalry should attack Moore’s right, seize the western end of Monte Moro, and push in between Baird’s flank and Corunna. If this movement succeeded, the British retreat would be compromised: Delaborde and Merle could then assail Hope and prevent him from going to the rear: if all went right, two-thirds of the British army must be surrounded and captured.

The movement of masses of infantry, and still more of cavalry and guns, along the rugged crest and slopes of the Pe?asquedo heights, was attended with so much difficulty, that noon was long passed before the whole army was in position. It was indeed so late in the day, that Sir John Moore had come to the conclusion that Soult did not intend to attack, and had ordered Paget’s division, who were to be the first troops to embark, to march down to the harbour[720]. The other corps were to retire at dusk, and go on shipboard under cover of the night.

But between 1.30 and 2 o’clock the French suddenly took the offensive: the battery opposite Elvina began to play upon Baird’s division, columns descending from each side of it commenced to pour down into the valley, and the eight cavalry regiments of Lahoussaye[p. 587] and Franceschi, pushing out from behind the Pe?asquedo heights, rode northward along the lower slopes of the hills of San Cristobal, with the obvious design of cutting in between the Monte Moro and Corunna.

Moore welcomed the approach of battle with joy: he had every confidence in his men and his position, and saw that a victory won ere his departure would silence the greater part of the inevitable criticism for timidity and want of enterprise, to which he would be exposed on his return to England. He rode up to the crest of his position, behind Baird’s division, took in the situation of affairs at a glance, and sent back orders to Paget to pay attention to the French turning movement, and to Fraser to come out from Corunna and contain any advance on the part of the enemy’s cavalry on the extreme right.

For some time the English left and centre were scarcely engaged, for Merle and Delaborde did no more than push tirailleurs out in front of their line, to bicker with the skirmishers of Hill, Leith, and Manningham. But Bentinck’s brigade was at once seriously assailed: not only were its lines swept by the balls of Soult’s main battery, but a heavy infantry attack was in progress. Gaulois and Jardon’s brigades of Mermet’s division were coming forward in great strength: they turned out of the village of Elvina the light company of the 50th, which had been detached to hold that advanced position, and then came up the slope of Monte Moro, with a dense crowd of tirailleurs covering the advance of eight battalion columns. Meanwhile the third brigade of Mermet’s division was hurrying past the flank of Bentinck’s line, in the lower ground, with the obvious intention of turning the British flank. Beyond them Lahoussaye’s dragoons were cautiously feeling their way forward, much incommoded by walls and broken ground.

All the stress of the first fighting fell on the three battalions of Bentinck, on the hill above Elvina. Moore was there in person to direct the fight: Baird, on whom the responsibility for this part of the ground would naturally have fallen, was wounded early in the day, by a cannon-ball which shattered his left arm[721], and was borne to the rear. When the French came near the top of the slope, driving in before them the British skirmishing line, the Commander-in-chief ordered the 42nd and 50th to charge down[p. 588] upon them. The 4th, the flank regiment of the whole line, could not follow them: it was threatened by the encircling movement of the French left, and Moore bade it throw back its right wing so as to form an angle en potence with the rest of the brigade, while still keeping up its fire. The man?uvre was executed with such precision as to win his outspoken approval—‘That is exactly how it should be done,’ he shouted to Colonel Wynch, and then rode off to attend to the 50th and 42nd, further to his left.

Here a very heavy combat was raging. Advancing to meet the French attack, these two battalions drove in the tirailleurs with the crushing fire of their two-deep line, and then became engaged with the supporting columns on the slopes above Elvina. For some time the battle stood still, but Moore told the regiments that they must advance to make their fire tell, and at last Colonel Sterling and Major Charles Napier led their men over the line of stone walls behind which they were standing, and pressed forward. The head of the French formation melted away before their volleys, and the enemy rolled back into Elvina. The 42nd halted just above the village, but Napier led the 50th in among the houses, and cleared out the defenders after a sharp fight. He even passed through with part of his men, and became engaged with the French supports on the further side of the place. Presently Mermet sent down his reserves and drove out the 50th, who suffered very heavily: Charles Napier was wounded and taken, and Stanhope the junior major was killed[722]. While the 50th was reforming, Moore brought up the divisional reserve, Warde’s two magnificent battalions of Guards, each of which, in consequence of their splendid discipline during the retreat, mustered over 800 bayonets. With these and the 42nd he held the slope above Elvina in face of a very hot fire, not only from the enemy’s infantry but from the battery on the opposite heights, which swept the ground with a lateral and almost an enfilading fire. It was while directing one of the Guards’ battalions to go forward and storm a large house on the flank of the village that Moore received a mortal wound. A cannon-ball struck him on the left shoulder, carrying it away with part of the collar-bone, and leaving the arm hanging only by the flesh and muscles above[p. 589] the armpit[723]. He was dashed from his horse, but immediately raised himself on his sound arm and bade his aide-de-camp Hardinge see that the 42nd should advance along with the Guards. Then he was borne to the rear, fully realizing that his wound was mortal: his consciousness never failed, in spite of the pain and the loss of blood, and he found strength to send a message to Hope to bid him take command of the army. When his bearers wished to unbuckle his sword, which was jarring his wounded arm and side, he refused to allow it, saying ‘in his usual tone and with a very distinct voice, “It is well as it is. I had rather that it should go out of the field with me.”’ He was borne back to Corunna in a blanket by six men of the Guards and 42nd. Frequently he made them turn him round to view the field of battle, and as he saw the French line of fire rolling back, he several times expressed his pleasure at dying in the moment of victory, when his much-tried army was at last faring as it deserved.

While Bentinck’s brigade and the Guards were thus engaged with Mermet’s right, a separate combat was going on more to the west, where Edward Paget and the Reserve division had marched out to resist the French turning movement. The instant that Moore’s first orders had been received, Paget had sent forward the 95th Rifles in extended order to cover the gap, half a mile in breadth, between the Monte Moro and the heights of San Cristobal. Soon afterwards he pushed up the 52nd into line with the riflemen. The other three battalions of the division moved out soon after. Paget had in front of him a brigade—five battalions—of Mermet’s division, which was trying to slip round the corner of Monte Moro in order to take Baird in the flank. He had also to guard against the charges of Lahoussaye’s cavalry more to his right, and those of Franceschi’s chasseurs still further south. Fortunately the ground was so much cut up with rough stone walls, dividing the fields of the villages of San Cristobal and Elvina, that Soult’s cavalry were unable to execute any general or vigorous advance. When the British swept across the low ground, Lahoussaye’s dragoons made two or three attempts to charge, but, forced to advance among walls and ravines, they never even compelled Paget’s battalions to form square, and were easily driven off by a rolling fire. The Reserve division steadily advanced, with the 95th and 52nd in its front, and the horsemen gave back. It was in vain[p. 590] that Lahoussaye dismounted the 27th Dragoons and ranged them as tirailleurs along the lower slopes of the heights of San Cristobal. The deadly fire of Paget’s infantry thinned their ranks, and forced them back. It would seem that the 95th, 28th, and 91st had mainly to do with Lahoussaye, while the 52nd and 20th became engaged with the infantry from the division of Mermet, which was bickering with the 4th Regiment below the Monte Moro, and striving to turn its flank. In both quarters the advance was completely successful, and Paget pushed forward, taking numerous prisoners from the enemy’s broken infantry. So far did he advance in his victorious onslaught that he approached from the flank the main French battery on the heights of Pe?asquedo, and thought that (if leave had been given him) he would have been able to capture it: for its infantry supports were broken, and the cavalry had gone off far to the right. But Hope sent no orders to his colleague, and the Reserve halted at dusk at the foot of the French position.

Franceschi’s horsemen meanwhile, on the extreme left of the French line, had at first pushed cautiously towards Corunna, till they saw Fraser’s division drawn up half a mile outside the gates, on the low ridge of Santa Margarita, covering the whole neck of the peninsula. This checked the cavalry, and presently, when Paget’s advance drove in Lahoussaye, Franceschi conformed to the retreat of his colleague, and drew back across the heights of San Cristobal till he had reached the left rear of Soult’s position, and halted in the upland valley somewhere near the village of Mesoiro.

We left Bentinck’s and Warde’s brigades engaged on the slopes above Elvina with Mermet’s right-hand column, at the moment of the fall of Sir John Moore. The second advance on Elvina had begun just as the British commander-in-chief fell: it was completely successful, and the village was for the second time captured. Mermet now sent down his last reserves, and Merle moved forward his left-hand brigade to attack the village on its eastern side. This led to a corresponding movement on the part of the British. Manningham’s brigade from the right-centre of the British line came down the slope, and fell upon Merle’s columns as they pressed in towards the village. This forced the French to halt, and to turn aside to defend themselves: there was a long and fierce strife, during the later hours of the afternoon, between Manningham’s two right-hand regiments (the 3/1st and 2/81st) and the 2nd Léger and 36th of the Line of Reynaud’s brigade. It was prolonged till the[p. 591] 2/81st had exhausted all its ammunition, and had suffered a loss of 150 men, when Hope sent down the 2/59th, the reserve regiment of Leith’s brigade, to relieve it. Soon afterwards the French retired, and the battle died away at dusk into mere distant bickering along the bottom of the valley, as a few skirmishers of the victorious brigade pursued the retreating columns to the foot of their position.

Further eastward Delaborde had done nothing more than make a feeble demonstration against Hope’s very strong position on the heights above the Mero river. He drove in Hill’s pickets, and afterwards, late in the afternoon, endeavoured to seize the village of Piedralonga[724], at the bottom of the valley which lay between the hostile lines. Foy, who was entrusted with this operation, took the voltigeur companies of his brigade, and drove out from the hamlet the outposts of the 14th Regiment. Thereupon Hill sent down Colonel Nicholls with three more companies of that corps, supported by two of the 92nd from Hope’s divisional reserve. They expelled the French, and broke the supports on which the voltigeurs tried to rally, taking a few prisoners including Foy’s brigade-major. Delaborde then sent down another battalion, which recovered the southern end of the village, while Nicholls held tightly to the rest of it. At dusk both parties ceased to push on, and the firing died away. The engagement at this end of the line was insignificant: Foy lost eighteen killed and fifty wounded from the 70th of the Line, and a few more from the 86th. Nicholls’s casualties were probably even smaller[725].

Soult had suffered such a decided reverse that he had no desire to prolong the battle, while Hope—who so unexpectedly found himself in command of the British army—showed no wish to make[p. 592] a counter-attack, and was quite contented to have vindicated his position. He claimed, in his dispatch, that at the end of the engagement the army was holding a more advanced line than at its commencement: and this was in part true, for Elvina was now occupied in force, and not merely by a picket, and Paget on the right had cleared the ground below the heights of San Cristobal, which Lahoussaye had been occupying during the action. Some of the French writers have claimed that Soult also had gained ground[726]: but the only fact that can be cited in favour of their contention is that Foy was holding on to the southern end of Piedralonga[727]. All the eye-witnesses on their side concede that at the end of the action the marshal’s army had fallen back to its original position[728].

English critics have occasionally suggested that the success won by Paget and Bentinck might have been pressed, and that if the division of Fraser had been brought up to their support, the French left might have been turned and crushed[729]. But considering that Soult had fourteen or fifteen intact battalions left, in the divisions of Merle and Delaborde[730], it would have been well in his power to fight a successful defensive action on his heights, throwing back his left wing, so as to keep it from being encircled. Hope was right to be contented with his success: even if he had won a victory he could have done no more than re-embark, for the army was not in a condition to plunge once more into the Galician highlands in pursuit of Soult, who would have been joined in a few days by Heudelet, and in a week by Ney.

The losses suffered by the two armies at the battle of Corunna[p. 593] are not easy to estimate. The British regiments, embarking on the day after the fight, did not send in any returns of their casualties till they reached England. Then, most unfortunately, a majority of the colonels lumped together the losses of the retreat and those of the battle. It is lucky, however, to find that among the regiments which sent in proper returns are nearly all those which fought the brunt of the action. The 50th and 42nd of Bentinck’s brigade were by far the most heavily tried, from the prolonged and desperate fighting in and ............