While the French Emperor was thus engaged in the civil affairs of Spain, and was hastening forward his armies for the complete subjugation of her provinces, Sir David Baird had landed at Corunna and formed a junction with Sir John Moore, and Hope's division had also arrived from the Escurial, so that the British army amounted to nearly thirty thousand men. Sir John Moore, as soon as he heard of the surrender of Madrid and the great accumulation of force in that quarter, boldly resolved to throw himself on the French line of communication and attack Soult, who at that time lay in fancied security with fifteen thousand men in the valley of the Carrion. He accordingly commenced his march on the 11th of December; but, prudently considering, that by some unexpected change in the position of the French armies he might become involved with forces greatly outnumbering his own, he combined with his forward movement the preparations for a retreat, and provided magazines for the latter purpose both on the route to Lisbon and to Galicia. The English troops proceeded with great alacrity toward the promised field of combat, and on their way encoun tered and defeated several detached parties of the enemy: while Soult, alarmed at the sudden and near approach of the British, concentrated his men along the banks of the Carrion in the neighborhood of Saldana, where General Moore proposed to attack him on the 23rd. The moment that the advance of the British army was known in Madrid, Napoleon recalled every division that was moving toward the south, and hurried them by forced marches to the support of Marshal Soult. On the 22nd of December, he had reached the pass of Guadarama with overwhelming numbers; on the 26th, his head-quarters were at Tordesillas, his cavalry at Valladolid, and Marshal Ney at Rio-Seco. Fully anticipating the entire destruction of the British army, the Emperor now wrote to Soult, "If the English remain another day in their position, they are undone. Should they attack you, retire a day's march to the rear: if they retreat, pursue them closely."

But Sir John Moore was as vigilant as his redoubtable antagonist. Finding, from the unexpected rapidity of Napoleon's advance, that he could not safely remain to combat with Soult, he suspended his march on the 23rd, and on the 24th commenced his retreat toward Galicia, to the infinite mortification of the British soldiers, who were in the highest spirits and eager for the contest. On the 26th, Baird's division crossed the Esla, while Moore, who remained with the rear-guard to protect the stores and baggage in their passage over the bridge of Castro Gonzalo, was threatened by a body of Ney's horsemen. Lord Paget, however, with two squadrons of cavalry, overthrew the French detachment, making a hundred prisoners, besides killing and wounding a large number. General Moore, by a timely retreat, reached Benavente before the enemy, and thus preserved his own communications entire. The army remained here for two days, reposing from its fatigues; but the discipline of the men in three days of retrograde movement had become seriously impaired. On the 28th, Moore continued his retreat, having first destroyed the bridge over the Esla, the repairing of which detained Bessieres until the 30th, when he crossed the river with nine thousand cavalry and followed in pursuit of the English columns. Soult at the same time passed the bridge of Mansilla, overspread the plains of Leon with his troops, and captured the town of that name, which contained a large quantity of military stores belonging to the Spanish government.

On the 1st of January, the corps of Soult and Ney, seventy thousand strong, were joined at Astorga by the Emperor, who, on the road from Benavente to that place, while riding at a full gallop with his advanced guard in pursuit of the English troops, was overtaken by a courier with dispatches. He instantly dismounted, ordered a bivouac fire to be lighted by the roadside, and, seating himself by it on the ground, was soon so lost in thought that he became insensible to the snow which fell in thick wreaths around him. He had ample subject for meditation: Austria had made hostile demonstrations against France and was preparing to take the field. He rode on slowly and pensively to Astorga, and remained there two days writing innumerable dispatches, and regulating at once the pursuit of the English army, the internal affairs of Spain, and the organization of the troops of the Rhenish Confederacy. On the 3rd of January, he returned to Valladolid and proceeded thence by Burgos and Bayonne to Paris, where he arrived on the 23rd.

The Emperor's withdrawal from Spain made no change in the vigor of the French pursuit. Soult, with his own corps, twenty-four thousand strong, pressed rapidly forward and constantly harassed the rear of the British army, while Ney, moving with still greater celerity, threatened its flank. Meanwhile, the British rear-guard, commanded by Sir John Moore in person, maintained its high character for resolution and discipline; but the remainder of the troops, disgusted and disheartened by a protracted retreat through a rough country and in midwinter, broke their ranks, refused to obey their officers, and became little better than a horde of stragglers more to be dreaded by friends than enemies. In this deplorable condition, they reached Lugo late in the evening of the 6th of January.

Here the British general halted, and in a proclamation issued the following day, severely rebuked the men for their insubordination, and announced his intention to give battle to the French. Instantly, and as if by enchantment, the disorder of the troops was at an end. The stragglers returned to their ranks, with their arms cleaned, their faces joyful and their confidence restored: before the morning of the 8th, nineteen thousand men stood in battle array, impatiently awaiting the attack of the enemy. But Soult declined the combat, though his army amounted to twenty-one thousand men, with fifty pieces of artillery in line. Nevertheless, Moore had gained the advantage of reorganizing his troops, and was in much better condition than before for continuing his retreat. During the night, he broke up from his position, and moved on toward Corunna, where he arrived on the 11th of January. As the troops successively reached the heights whence the sea became visible, all eyes turned anxiously toward the bay, in hopes that the vessels for their transportation might be awaiting them there; but the vast expanse was vacant, and a few coasters and fishing-boats, alone could be descried on the dreary main. There was now, therefore, no alternative but a battle: the sea was in front, the enemy in the rear, and a victory was indispensable to secure the means of embarkation. The troops accordingly made great efforts to strengthen the land-defences, which, though regular, were very weak; and the inhabitants of the town assisted in this laborious duty. On the 14th, the transports from Vigo hove in sight, and stood into the bay, when the embarkation of the sick and wounded was immediately commenced. The greater part of the artillery was next put on board; for, during all the confusion of the retreat, not one gun had been lost.

While these movements were in progress at the shore of the bay, the effective portion of the British army, still fourteen thousand strong, was drawn up with great care by Sir John Moore, on a range of heights, or rather, of knolls, which form a sort of amphitheatre around the village of Elvina, at the distance of rather more than a mile from Corunna. French, twenty thousand strong, were posted on a higher semi-circular ridge, distant about one mile from the English position.

The

From the inactivity of the French troops during the 14th and 15th, General Moore was led to believe that they had no serious intention of disquieting his retreat, and he made preparations for withdrawing his army into the town on the night of the 16th, in order to embark on board of the transports. About noon on that day, however, a general movement was seen along the French lines, and at two o'clock, their infantry in four massy columns descended to the attack. Notwithstanding their inferiority of numbers, the British soldiers stood to their arms with the most invincible resolution, yielding, at intervals, to the pressure of the French columns, but eventually repelling every assault, with great loss to the enemy. At the moment when they had forced back the French centre from Elvina, at the point of the bayonet, Sir John Moore was struck down by a cannon-shot, and Sir David Baird, also desperately wounded, was borne senseless from the field. The battle still raged, however, and the French were fast giving ground, when the sudden approach of night put an end to the strife, and saved them from destruction. General Hope, on whom the command of the British army devolved, conceiving that its safe embarkation was now of more consequence than following up the victory, withdrew into the town, and the troops were put on board the vessels without confusion or delay.

After Sir John Moore had received his death-wound, he remained for a time sitting on the ground and watching the progress of the British charge; when he saw that it was successful, and the victory secure, he reluctantly allowed himself to be conveyed to the rear. As the soldiers placed him on a blanket to carry him from the field, the hilt of his sword became entangled in the wound, and Captain Hardinge attempted to take it off; but the dying hero said, "It is well as it is: I would rather it should go from the field with me." The examination of the wound at his lodgings, shut out all hope of his recovery, but did not affect his serenity of mind. He continued to converse in a calm and cheerful voice until a few moments before his death, and when that event took place, he was wrapped in his military cloak and laid in a grave hastily dug on the ramparts of Corunna. A monument was soon after erected over his uncoffined remains by the generosity of Marshal Ney.

CHAPTER XXX.

FIRST CAMPAIGN OF 1809 IN GERMANY.

AUSTRIA had improved to the utmost the interval of peace that fol lowed the treaty of Presburg, and by an energetic policy, patiently and silently pursued, had raised her war establishment to a formidable condition. Napoleon was fully aware of her movements, and more than once remonstrated against them, on the ground that they were dangerous to the peace of Europe; and in reply, the cabinet of Vienna alleged that their measures were merely precautionary and defensive, while, at the same time, they were careful not to relax one moment in their efforts. Although Napoleon was not deceived as to Austria's intentions, yet, while occupied in the affairs of the Peninsula, her assumption of hostilities took him by surprise, and it became necessary for him to make extraordinary exertions in order to commence the campaign on a footing of equality with his antagonist: indeed, had Austria pressed her offensive operations with the same vigor as she manifested in preparing for them, she must have gained important victories before Napoleon could bring his best troops into the field; for the flower of the French army was in Spain, and the forces that he retained in Germany, though powerful in the aggregate, were as yet scattered in detached masses, from the Alps to the Baltic, offering an easy triumph to a concentrated and active foe. But it was not the fate or fortune of Austria to reap advantage from rapid military evolutions.

The plan of Napoleon, was at the outset strictly defensive, in order to gain time for assembling his scattered forces into effective masses; and as he deemed it unfitting that he should be at the head of his army before it was prepared for decisive blows, Berthier was dispatched, early in April, to assume the chief command.

On the 17th of March, Austria had mustered a hundred and forty thousand men on the two banks of the Danube, within eight days' march of Ratisbon on the same day, Davoust quitted his cantonments on the Oder and Lower Elbe, in the north part of Germany; Massena was yet on the Rhine, the Bavarians on the Iser, and Oudinot alone at Augsburg. The French corps could, therefore, have been easily cut off from each other, and beaten in detail, by a rapid advance of the Imperialists toward Manheim; but the execution of such a design required an alacrity and vigor practically unknown to the Austrians, who, by hesitating until the French troops were concentrated on the Danube, lost the great advantage of their central position in Bohemia. And when, at last, it was resolved to attack the enemy in Bavaria, the Aulic Council, instead of permitting the Archduke Charles to fall perpendicularly on the French corps scattered to the south, along the valley of the Danube, ordered him to counter-march the great body of his men, and open the campaign on the Inn: a gratuitous and egregious error, which forced his army to march thrice the necessary distance, and gave the enemy a proportionably increased time to collect their forces to resist him. This toilsome and useless march was, however, at length completed; the Austrian columns, after moving a hundred

miles back toward Vienna, and crossing the Danube, were arrayed on the right bank of the Inn, on the 10th of April; and the Archduke prepared to carry the war into the vast level plains which stretch from the southern banks of the Danube to the foot of the Alps.

The instructions of Napoleon to Berthier, were clear and precise: if the Austrians commenced their attack before the 15th of April, he was to concentrate his army on the Lech, around Donauwerth; if after that date, at Ratisbon, guarding the right bank of the Danube from that place to Passau. But on the 12th of April, by means of the telegraph which he had established in Central Germany, the Emperor was apprised at Paris of the Archduke's crossing the Inn. He immediately left the capital for the seat of war, where he arrived on the 17th of April; and in the meantime, the immense forces converging from the mountains of Galicia and the banks of the Oder to the valley of the Danube, had gradually reached the frontiers of Germany.

It was high time for him to take the command; for, great as were the faults of the Austrian movements, Berthier had nevertheless brought the French forces to the verge of destruction. Instead of concentrating them at Ratisbon or Donauwerth, he dispersed them, despite the remonstrances of Davoust and Massena, with the insane purpose of stopping at all points the advance of the Austrians; and nothing but the tardy march of the latter saved the French from serious disasters. The Archduke crossed the Inn on the 10th, at Braunau, and on the 16th, he had barely reached the Iser, a distance of only twenty leagues. On the same day, however, he attacked Landshut, and compelled General Deroy, who commanded the Bavarian garrison, to evacuate the town; and as the line of the Iser was thus abandoned, he crossed the river and moved by the great road of Nuremberg, toward the bridges of Ratisbon, Neustadt and Kellheim, in order to secure both banks of the Danube. Yet even then, when the Austrians were greatly superior to the enemy's forces on any one point, they marched at the rate of but three leagues a day. Nevertheless, the approach of a hundred and twenty thousand Austrians, even though moving at a snail's pace, threw Berthier into the greatest consternation. Contrary to the urgent entreaties of his generals, he compelled Davoust to strengthen himself at Ratisbon, and ordered Massena to defend the line of the Lech; at the same time he directed Lefebvre, Wrede and Oudinot, to place their several corps in three lines, one behind another, across Bavaria-a position so useless and absurd, that more than one of the mar shals ascribed his conduct to treachery, although that charge is certainly without foundation. The result of these joint movements was, that Davoust, with sixty thousand men, became gradually hemmed in at Ratisbon by the Archduke's army, a hundred and twenty thousand strong; and as the orders he received from Berthier compelled him to remain there, like a tiger at bay, no other fate seemed to await him than the disaster which, four years previously, befell Mack at Ulm.

Matters were in this critical state when Napoleon arrived at Donauwerth. Having fully informed himself of what had taken place, he dispatched the most pressing orders to Massena to hasten, at least with his advanced guard and cavalry, to Plaffenhofen, a considerable town between Augsburg and Neustadt. He also commanded Davoust to march in the direction of Neustadt and form a junction with Lefebvre. It may be presumed that these orders were promptly obeyed, although it was