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VACILLATION OF MOORE.

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November 19, and met the English envoy and the Spanish authorities; when, quickly making up his mind that Madrid would not hold out, he pushed his troops by way of Escorial, and November 27 and 28, crossed the Guadarama. With abundant horse to protect his advance, Hope ran no danger. On November 29 he saw traces of French cavalry parties in the Arevalo-Segovia country, and on December 5 he joined his chief. Moore was getting unsettled by the conditions; after considering a junction with Castaños in the centre of Spain, as the Junta desired, he began to deem it safer to retire to the coast to concentrate all his forces; and on learning November 28 of Castaños' defeat at Tudela, his presence in Spain appeared to him both unnecessary and dangerous. He wrote Baird that he should probably order him back on Corunna, purposing, when Hope came on, to move back to or beyond Ciudad Rodrigo; but when, December 1, he learned that Hope was across the mountains, he decided to hold on. It would seem that his decision to retire was needless, for concentrated he would have over thirty thousand men of English troops, which meant a decided factor on the theatre of war, at the head of which he need not fear to enter the arena. His lieutenants objected to the retreat, and on learning that he proposed to do so, the Spanish Junta sent him delegates assuring him that in Madrid he would find three Spanish armies and nearly fifty thousand men, not counting the new levies, and with his aid these could easily crush the French. If he would not come to Madrid, it was suggested that he should join La Romana in Leon.

Moore was still of a mind to retreat, but on receiving further assurances that there would be stout defense at Madrid, as there was to be at Saragossa, he remained in place. Baird, who had actually moved back to Villafranca, was ordered again to Astorga and thence to Benavente, and Moore was

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MOORE'S MANEUVRE.

preparing to move on Zamora and Toro, and cooperate with La Romana, when on December 10 he heard a rumor that Madrid had fallen. It was odd that in a friendly population this news should have been a week in reaching him ; but either the Spaniards were too proud to confess the fall of their capital, or they felt that the English had been too indecisive in helping them.

At one step Moore went over from vacillation to audacity. Now that a large part of the French forces would probably advance to Madrid, he made up his mind to move on Burgos, threaten Napoleon's line of communications, and thus withdraw his attention from Lisbon, on which he believed it to be fixed. This manœuvre, though a handsome strategic conception, was clearly a risk, and nearly compromised him, as we shall see; but his first objective was Valladolid, whither Baird could come forward, and from there he deemed both lines of retreat safe, one back the way he had come, and one on Corunna. La Romana had been anxious to join Baird at Astorga, and march with him on Zamora and Salamanca to join Moore, but the condition of his army forbade this, and he remained at Leon, facing Soult at Carrion.

On December 8 the emperor heard of Ney's arrival at Guadalajara with his cavalry, the infantry to arrive next day, and from Moncey that, unable to do much at Saragossa because Ney had carried off Desolles' division, he had retired to Alagon; whereupon, while criticising the intermixture of troops, the emperor ordered Mortier, whose 5th Corps had just entered Spain, to move to Saragossa, and to remain in observation on the roads to Barcelona and Madrid, while Moncey should conduct the siege. A heavy detachment occupied Calatayud, but practically the road to Madrid was closed by a frenzied uprising at Siguenza.

As a necessary first step, from the military standpoint, the

ABLE DISPOSITIONS.

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emperor threw out reconnoissances from Madrid towards every quarter, Bessières pushing the enemy towards Cuença and heading them off from Toledo, Victor near Ocaña and beyond to fend off insurgents from the southern provinces. The cavalry regiments having been shifted to make the divisions more homogeneous, La Houssaye rode to Escorial to ascertain whether the English were at Avila; and Lasalle and Milhaud moved on Talavera, December 11, from which direction Napoleon so positively expected the Anglo-Portuguese that he followed up this cavalry column by Sébastiani and Valence. Latour Maubourg reconnoitred out from Aranjuez towards Sierra Morena to Madridejos. Lasalle was at Arzobispo December 13, and

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Spanish Officer.

two days later the cavalry was pushed out to Almaraz and Avila, the enemy retiring. The bulk of the cavalry was thus upon the Tagus.

All the dispositions for pushing forward the cavalry and sustaining it with foot were prompt and able. Wherever Napoleon was present, matters moved. In Madrid the emperor kept the Guard, Lapisse and Marchand, and Mathieu of Ney's corps. He was making every proper preparation to fight the English, but where were they? He could only guess that they were at Lisbon, or that, if away, a threat would send them back thither; and the capture of some of Hope's stragglers, December 12, gave color to the probability of an English ad

VOL. III.

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A PERFECT STRATEGIC POSITION.

vance from Portugal. In ordering troops towards Talavera the emperor said: "It is in this direction the army will advance."

"You can

Convinced that Soult had nothing in his front, Napoleon ordered him to push forward and subdue the Leon country. The fact that on the same day Napoleon was arranging an operation on Lisbon, while Moore was preparing to march towards Burgos, shows how ill-informed he was : not have any English in front of you. . . . All leads us to think that they are in full march to the rear. Our vanguard is to-day at Talavera. . . . This movement will force the English to run towards Lisbon," he wrote Soult.

Napoleon had completed his strategic foothold in Spain. From Madrid, where stood his main force, he could advance via Talavera and down the Tagus on Lisbon, secure in two lines of communications through Madrid, one covered by Soult and running across the Guadarama via Aranda and Burgos on Bayonne, and one covered by Ney, south of this range, via Guadalajara and Calatayud through Catalonia on Perpignan. This was one of the most perfect strategical positions this great captain ever created, and not only deserves just admiration, but exhibits at its best his vast grasp of the military problems. It was only of the details he was growing impatient.

The emperor had never campaigned in a country where information was so sparse and unreliable as it was in the Peninsula; and he was far from thinking that the army under Moore was marching towards a point where it would be a menace to his communications with Bayonne, and where his lieutenants were not in force enough to hold head to it. That such a threat should be made, he had considered a negligible factor in the campaign.

By December 15 nearly all the troops ordered to Spain had come on, and were posted as follows: in Madrid, Ney with

THE TROOPS POSTED.

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Marchand and Mathieu, and Colbert's cavalry, Lapisse, Leval and the Guard; at Toledo, Victor with Villatte and Ruffin, and Beaumont's cavalry, who soon scouted out as far as Ciudad Real; at Madridejos, Aranjuez and Tarançon, Latour Maubourg; at Guadalajara, Desolles on the road to Madrid; at Talavera, Lefebvre with Valence, Sébastiani and Milhaud's and Maupetit's cavalry; out towards Almaraz, Lasalle. On the Carrion was Soult with Merle and Mermet, and Debelle's and Franceschi's cavalry at Sahagun and Valladolid; at Santander, Bonnet. At Alagon was Moncey with Morlot, Grandjean, Musnier and Walthier's cavalry, and at Tudela, marching on Saragossa, Mortier's corps. Between San Sebastian and Miranda, a new corps, made up of the relics of Junot's Portugal army, which had just reëntered Spain, was marching on Burgos to join the main force. Twenty thousand conscripts were in Bayonne. In Catalonia, St. Cyr took Rosas December 5, beat Reding and Vives December 15 and 16, and entered Barcelona December 17.

Napoleon unreasonably found fault with Moncey, who was doing all he could, telling him that "nothing is more ridiculous than to leave the best troops in Pampeluna, where simple troops suffice," and he was shortly replaced by Junot, to whom Mortier was to act as observation army. Delaborde took temporary command of the 8th Corps. But with thirty thousand regular soldiers in so well protected a city as Saragossa, Junot could do no better than Moncey.

On December 14 Lasalle had been thrown out beyond Naval Moral, and finding the Spaniards at Almaraz, and rumors that La Romana was marching down to the Tagus, he had retired to Arzobispo; but La Houssaye, reporting Avila quiet, showed the rumors to be absurd. Napoleon was convinced that the north of Spain needed nothing beyond an advance into Leon by Soult: and that his own ample force in

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