Battle of Corunna

The Battle of Corunna (or A Coruña, La Corunna, La Coruña or La Corogne), in Spain known as Battle of Elviña, took place on 16 January 1809, when a French corps under Marshal of the Empire Jean de Dieu Soult attacked a British army under Lieutenant-General Sir John Moore. The battle took place during the Peninsular War, which was part of the wider Napoleonic Wars. Doggedly pursued by the French under Soult, the British retreated across northern Spain while their rearguard fought off repeated French attacks. Both armies suffered from the harsh winter conditions. Much of the British army, excluding the elite Light Brigade under Robert Craufurd, suffered from a loss of order and discipline during the retreat. When the British eventually reached the port of Corunna on the northern coast of Galicia, a few days ahead of the French, they found their transport ships had not arrived. The fleet arrived after a couple of days and the British were embarking when the French forces attacked. Soult had fewer infantry, but superior cavalry and artillery; however, the local rough terrain was unfavorable for cavalry. The British had larger quantities of ammunition for muskets, as a result of which their fire would be much better sustained than that of the enemy. They also held an imposing defensive position based on the mountainous terrain that Iberia is rich in; this position was mostly hidden from Soult's view, thence he could only guess at the enemy's numbers. In the resulting back-and-forth action, the British held off the French until nightfall, when both armies disengaged. British forces resumed their embarkation overnight; the last transports left in the morning under French cannon fire. The port cities of Corunna and Ferrol, as well as northern Spain, were captured by the French. During the battle, Sir John Moore, the British commander, was mortally wounded, dying after learning that his men had successfully withstood the French attacks. Before being wounded, he managed to give important orders in time for strengthening the defensive line around the village of Elviña[es]. General Sir John Hope soon took over command from the wounded Moore and brought the battle to an end.

Background

The Corunna campaign started with the Battle of Cardedeu.

Prelude

In early October 1808, following the scandal in Britain over the Convention of Sintra and the recall of the generals Dalrymple, Burrard and Wellesley, Sir John Moore took command of the 30,000-man British force in Portugal. In addition, Sir David Baird in command of an expedition of reinforcements out of Falmouth consisting of 150 transports carrying between 12,000 and 13,000 men, convoyed by HMS Louie, HMS Amelia and HMS Champion, entered Corunna Harbour on 13 October. By November 1808 the British army, led by Moore, advanced into Spain with orders to assist the Spanish armies in their struggle against the invading forces of Napoleon. After the surrender of a French army corps at Bailén and the loss of Portugal, Napoleon was convinced of the peril he faced in Spain. Deeply disturbed by news of Sintra, the Emperor 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. The French, all but masters of Spain in June, stood with their backs to the Pyrenees, clutching at Navarre and Catalonia. They did not know if even these two footholds could be maintained in the face of a Spanish attack. By October French strength in Spain, including garrisons, was about 75,000 soldiers. They were facing 86,000 Spanish troops with Spain's 35,000 British allies en route. However, no attack came. The Spanish social fabric, shaken by the shock of rebellion, gave way to crippling social and political tensions; the patriots stood divided on every question and their nascent war effort suffered accordingly. With the fall of the monarchy, constitutional power devolved to local juntas. These institutions interfered with the army and the business of war, undermined the tentative central government taking shape in Madrid, and in some cases proved almost as dangerous to each other as to the French. The British Army in Portugal, meanwhile, was itself immobilized by logistical problems and bogged down in administrative disputes, and did not budge. Months of inaction had passed at the front, the revolution having "temporarily crippled Patriot Spain at the very moment when decisive action could have changed the whole course of the war". While the allies inched forward, a vast consolidation of bodies and bayonets from the far reaches of the French Empire brought 100,000 veterans of the Grande Armée into Spain, led in person by Napoleon and his Marshals. With his Armée d'Espagne of 278,670 men drawn up on the Ebro, facing a scant 80,000 raw, disorganized Spanish troops, the Emperor announced to 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. Starting in October 1808 Napoleon led the French on a brilliant offensive involving a massive double envelopment of the Spanish lines. The attack began in November and has been described as "an avalanche of fire and steel". For a time the British army was dangerously dispersed, with Baird's newly arrived contingent at Astorga to the north, Moore at Salamanca and Hope 70 miles (110 km) to the east near Madrid with all Moore's cavalry and artillery. The main army, under Moore, had advanced to Salamanca and were joined by Hope's detachment on 3 December when Moore received news that the Spanish forces had suffered several defeats. He considered that to avoid disaster he must give up and retreat back to Portugal. Moore, before retreating, received intelligence of Soult's 16,000-man corps' scattered and isolated position at Carrión and that the French were unaware of the British army's position. On 15 December, he seized this opportunity to advance on the French near Madrid, hoping that to defeat Soult and possibly divert Napoleon's forces. A junction with Baird on 20 December, advancing from Corunna, raised Moore's strength to 23,500 infantry, 2,400 cavalry and 60 guns and he opened his attack with a successful raid by Lieutenant-General Paget's cavalry on the French picquets at Sahagún on 21 December. However, Moore failed to follow up against a surprised Soult. Moore halted for two days and allowed Soult to concentrate his corps.

Prelude

Retreat to Corunna

Once Moore made his presence known Napoleon responded with customary swiftness and decisiveness. The Spanish were defeated and no longer an organized threat. His army was generally concentrated while the enemy was dispersed. With the initiative firmly in his grasp, Napoleon seized the chance to destroy Britain's only field army. When Moore realized he was in serious danger of being trapped he called off his advance and went into headlong retreat. This epic dash and chase would cover more than 250 miles (400 km), during which the British cavalry and the infantry of the Light Brigade were used to cover the movements of Moore's army after their retreat began on 25 December. This saw them engage the French in small rearguard clashes, including defeating a French cavalry force and capturing General Charles Lefebvre-Desnouettes at Benavente before entering the mountains of Galicia, and another at Cacabelos where General Colbert-Chabanais was killed by a British rifleman. The retreat of the British, closely followed by their French pursuers, took them through mountainous terrain in dreadful conditions of cold and snow and was marked by exhausting marches, privation, and suffering. Moore was joined at Astorga by General Romana leading the remnants of Blake's Spanish forces and Romana proposed they make a stand. However, with Napoleon closing in, Moore declined and continued his retreat north while Romana went west towards Portugal. On the march between Astorga and Betanzos the British army lost 3,000 men with 500 more left in hospitals at Astorga and Villafranca. Napoleon had attempted to speedily catch the British and force them to fight. He led the French army 200 miles (320 km) over 10 days by forced marches and in spite of winter blizzard conditions reached Astorga on 1 January with 80,000 men. Napoleon manoeuvred to cut Moore off from a retreat to Portugal. Moore had already planned that he would have to be ready to make a run for the coast. On 28 November Moore had ordered his Corunna contingent under Baird to embark from Vigo while the main British army was to fall back on Portugal but by 28 December he had decided to embark the whole army at Vigo. Abandoning Astorga on 30 December, he would manage to keep ahead of the pursuing French and avoid a major battle. Moore ordered Crawford and two brigades as well as the troop transport ships to the port of Vigo. Napoleon wrote to his brother Joseph on 31 December: 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. When it was clear that he could not bring Moore to battle, Napoleon left the pursuit of the British to Soult's corps with Michel Ney in support and took the bulk of the army, some 45,000 men, back to Madrid. Napoleon decided to leave Spain to attend to other pressing matters; the Austrians were about to declare war on France, and would soon invade Italy and Bavaria. On several occasions, the discipline of Moore's army broke down; British troops looted Benavente on 28 December and hundreds of drunken soldiers were abandoned on 2 January at Bembibre and were captured or killed by pursuing French dragoons. Paget attempted to hang three British soldiers for looting in a Spanish town but was forced to abandon the executions after pursuing French troops neared. The French cavalry General Colbert, was killed while in close pursuit across the bridge at the village of Cacabelos by a long-range rifle shot fired by Thomas Plunket of the 95th Rifles after driving off the British 15th Hussars. Losses were about the same for the two units. Moore made a stand before the old Roman town of Lugo on 6 January and offered battle but, initially, Soult's forces were too strung out. Over two days Soult concentrated his troops and tried to get Ney to send a division from Villa Franca del Bierzo but Ney sent few troops. By the 8th Soult was prepared for battle, but Moore, imagining Ney was outflanking him, slipped away that night, shooting 500 foundered horses and destroying artillery caissons and food stores. Now realizing he could not get to Vigo and fearing his army would disintegrate on the way, he ordered the transports to Betanzos Bay between Corunna and Ferrol and he headed for Corunna. Rain storms and confusion caused the British main body to partially lose order and break up with thousands straggling. Some 500 British were captured by the pursuing French dragoons, with hundreds more stragglers captured by Franceschi's cavalry on the 10th and several hundred more on the 11th. The loss of troops between Lugo and Betanzos was greater than all of that of the preceding retreat. Eventually, on 11 January, the British main body reached the port of Corunna in northwest Spain, where they had hoped to find the fleet to take them back to England. They found Betanzos Bay empty and only 26 transports and two warships at Corunna. The rest of the 245 ships had been delayed by contrary winds only arriving at Vigo on the 8th and would not depart for Corunna until the 13th. The French had also suffered severe fatigue and deprivation during their pursuit having to travel over ground already crossed by the British. The British rearguard had held off the pursuing French, allowing the rest of the British army to continue to withdraw, however the French cavalry had continually pressed them and prevented effective reconnaissance by the British cavalry. Soult's infantry had also had trouble keeping up and was badly strung out and most were well behind the cavalry which included the divisions of Armand Lebrun de La Houssaye, Jean Thomas Guillaume Lorge and Jean Baptiste Marie Franceschi-Delonne. Soult's three infantry divisions, commanded by Pierre Hugues Victoire Merle, Julien Augustin Joseph Mermet and Henri François Delaborde, and his artillery would arrive at Corunna piecemeal over the next few days.

Arrival of the armies before Corunna

The British army arrived in Corunna on 11 January and there were found only the ships of the line, a small number of transport and hospital ships to which the many wounded were embarked. There was also a large quantity of badly needed military stores: 5,000 new muskets were issued to the troops, a vast amount of cartridges for re-equipping, numerous Spanish artillery pieces and plenty of food, shoes and other supplies. The French army began to arrive the next day, building up strength as they arrived from the march. Soult's artillery arrived on 14 January. The long-awaited transport ships also arrived on the 14th and that evening the British evacuated their sick, some horses and most of the remaining field guns, cavalrymen and gunners. There was no intention by the British of garrisoning and holding on to Corunna as a future base with its extensive stores and certain support from the sea. The British then destroyed a portion of the enormous amount of military stores originally intended for the Spanish: nearly 12,000 barrels of powder, 300,000 cartridges in two magazines outside the town and 50 fortress guns and 20 mortars. The British embarked nearly all their cannon and artillerists and, as th

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