The first ‘catastrophic’ Dunkirk: why the British Army fled to the sea in a deadly 19th-century retreat

But Moore had the full picture and knew that even his tough little army could never hope to take on the masses of French troops storming towards him. Worse still, the dreaded Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was at their head, eager to destroy the hated British.

A relentless pursuit

For Napoleon, Spain was a backwater – a minor player in modern European politics. Yet it could not simply be ignored. Sharing a border with France made it an ideal staging post for British military expeditions aimed at bringing down his imperial rule, and so in the winter of 1808, Napoleon attempted to conquer Spain and eject the British army from the continent. Napoleon knew that making a terrible example of Moore’s force would further isolate his Spanish adversaries and bring their uncooperative junta government to heel.

Sir John Moore was a veteran of several hard-fought campaigns in the Caribbean and Ireland. He had a deep love for the British army. Indeed, it is Moore’s humanity that shines through much of his personal correspondence. Historian Arthur Bryant described him as a man who held true to the belief that “the British soldier could be made perfect by evoking all that is finest in man – physical, mental and spiritual.”

Now as commander of His Majesty’s forces in Spain, Moore had just taken an almighty risk. By marching towards Madrid, he had brought the Grand Armée down upon him. As he had said before ordering the advance: “I mean to proceed bridle in hand, for if the bubble bursts, and Madrid falls, we shall have a run for it.”

But on Christmas Eve 1808, the bubble had well and truly burst. Now the army that Moore loved so much would flee.

In Spain, an old saying goes: large armies starve, and small ones get beaten. Napoleon, for all his might, could not afford to dally with his Grand Armée – especially in winter. Marshalling his forces in Madrid, he was convinced that Moore and his men were falling back on Lisbon. To that end, he directed his Imperial Guard and most of his other forces west towards the Portuguese border. Only at the last minute did intelligence reach him that the British were north of the Spanish capital.

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Despite the failure of his normally excellent reconnaissance system, Bonaparte reacted with characteristic speed and ruthlessness, issuing new orders for the army to concentrate on Moore’s last reported position in a bid to overwhelm the comparatively puny British force.

Desperate measures

As the British fell back, they began to suffer. Their supplies had not reached them, and they began to starve. Worse still, the relentless pace of the retreat caused many men to fall behind with exhaustion – making them easy prey for French cavalry. A retreating army is rarely a happy one, and a soldier was overheard grumbling that Moore wanted to “march [us] to death first and to fight after.”

The army marched at a frantic pace to Astorga and reached it on 29 December. Moore expected to find 25,000 Spanish regulars there. Instead, he found 9,000 Spaniards looking “more the appearance of a large body of peasants, driven from their homes, famished, and in want of every thing, than a regular army”. Worse still, fever was raging in the Spanish ranks, and most of the soldiers were already half-starved, making them appear like “spectres issuing from a hospital.”

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Plans for defence were drawn up by the Spanish general in command, La Romana. Moore diplomatically looked them over, even though one British officer called them “wilder than the dreams of Don Quixote!” Over the next hours, all thoughts of making a joint stand at Astorga evaporated.

As at Dunkirk the following century, the British commanders realised they would have to cut and run to the sea, abandoning their allies to their fate

As at Dunkirk the following century, the British commanders realised they would have to cut and run to the sea, abandoning their allies to their fate. The army would make headlong for the Galician port of La Corunna, where the Royal Navy could evacuate them by sea.

All manner of equipment previously built up at Astorga had to be abandoned. This included food, weapons, and fresh shoes (despite a quarter of the men marching barefoot). The British army that left Astorga did so in extremely low spirits. In no mood to distinguish friend from foe, undisciplined bodies of redcoats began plundering the surrounding Spanish villages and before long, most of the battalions marched with an advanced guard of marauders bent on personal profit.

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On their route north west, at Bembibre, there was widespread looting. British soldiers broke into the houses of locals in search of food, warm clothes, and alcohol. General Paget, riding through the town with the French hot on his heels, described the place as resembling the aftermath of a battle, with prostrate redcoats passed out in the streets. Attempts were made to force these men on but with little effect. French dragoons arrived almost as soon as the British cavalry rear-guard had left and began slashing into the drunken men, many of whom were incapable of defending themselves.

New Year’s Day saw most of the disintegrating British army reach Villafranca, where 14 days’ worth of stores and 100 barrels of rum were stockpiled. With no wagons to carry the supplies, Moore ordered the whole lot burnt. But some battalions in the army refused to obey, the men instead choosing to destroy the liquor by imbibing it.

Disorder in the town became so great that Moore (a man who detested even flogging) called the conduct “infamous beyond belief” and ordered one soldier to be shot in the town square. However, this did little to help matters. Captain Gordon of the cavalry remembered, “parties of drunken soldiers were committing all kinds of enormities, several houses were in flames. The gutters were overflowing with rum… and a promiscuous rabble were drinking and filling bottles in the street.” By the time the British left, according to Blakeney of the 28^th, “the whole town seemed on fire.”

Elsewhere, events in the French empire diverted attention. Rumours of an anti-Bonapartist plot in Paris and the need to mobilise against Austria caused Napoleon to leave the pursuit of Moore to one of his most capable commanders – Marshal Soult. But the British did not yet have intelligence of this development that could mean salvation.

Plunkett’s shot

On 3 January, the oncoming French caught up with the rearguard at the bridge of Cacabelos. Half the 95th Rifles were placed forward of the bridge, while the remaining men held the British side of the river.

About one o’clock in the afternoon, the French cavalry vanguard appeared, led by the dashing young Brigadier Auguste François-Marie de Colbert-Chabanais. One of France’s rising military stars, Colbert was tipped for great things. Getting the drop on the British, his horsemen rode down two companies of the 95th, taking 40 prisoners and cutting others to pieces.

It was then that Colbert made a fatal mistake. Flushed with success, he ordered his men to gallop for the bridge, intending to charge the infantry on the other side.

It was then that Colbert made a fatal mistake

Tom Plunkett was an Irish soldier fighting in the ranks of the 95th. As such, he carried a Baker rifle – a weapon which was accurate to 200 yards, far beyond the range of the muskets most soldiers carried. Described as “bold, fit, [and] athletic” Plunkett was a superb soldier save for his one Achilles’ heel – drink. One sergeant commented that he was “a noted pickle”. Nevertheless, in a failed expedition to South America in 1807, Plunkett had used his rifle to deadly effect in a skirmish against the Spanish (who were at the time allied with France). Standing up and taking careful aim, Plunkett “literally shot down every Spaniard who ventured to show himself”.

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Now, at the Bridge of Cacabelos, Plunkett had just witnessed many of his comrades butchered. When he spotted the French general, he raced forward and threw himself down, placing the muzzle of his rifle across his legs and arching his head to aim. Colbert was still riding forward, attempting to marshal his men at the bridge. No doubt, he believed he was out of range of any British bullets.

Plunkett’s first shot hit Colbert in the chest, cartwheeling him off his mount. Colbert’s Trumpet Major bravely came up. In the meantime, Plunkett had reloaded at record speed. Just as the man knelt to render assistance to his commander, he too was hit. The general and his aide lay dead in the snow.

Various figures are given for the range of Plunkett’s sharpshooting. Estimates of 300-400 yards are not uncommon. Some popular literature even fixes it at an unbelievable 800 yards. But whatever the true range, Plunkett’s two shots were made against distant targets by a man whose hands must have been numb with cold, and all without the benefit of modern telescopic sights.

A "consummate scene of horrors"

For all Plunkett’s achievements, in the days that followed, the situation of the army went from bad to catastrophic. As the lines of grumbling redcoats ascended the long climb to the plains of Lugo, the sky ominously darkened. Then it began to snow.

One eyewitness called the 15-mile ascent up Monte del Cebrero a “consummate scene of horrors”. There was no shelter and wounded soldiers were left in carts to perish.

Everywhere were “wretched people who lay on all sides expiring, from fatigue and the severity of the cold... their bodies reddened in spots the white surface of the ground.”

The horses too were dying in huge numbers. Heavy rains caused many of the carcasses to swell and burst, leading one man on the retreat to complain that “the infected air hovers so rancorously about our heads, that it is almost impossible to pass in any direction without feeling violent convulsions of stomach”.

And still the retreat would continue at an even more frantic pace. On 5 January, Moore ordered the entire army to execute a 36-hour continuous forced march – news that put the fear of God into every man. As they slogged along, even soldiers who had kept their discipline to this point suffered. Steady old veterans on starvation rations could not keep up with the gruelling pace and began to straggle. Physician Adam Neale called these hours “this time of horrors”. Yet more sick and wounded men were simply left to freeze. One officer, with perfect British understatement, called it “that unpleasant march”.

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Under such strain, the army that reached Lugo was something of a mob. Moore felt it necessary to issue a proclamation, appealing “to the honour and feelings of the army.” Read out to those in the ranks who were still alive and had bothered to turn up for parade, the speech was described by one British officer as “formidable yet pathetic”.

It took another few days to make Corunna. When the exhausted British army staggered into the city on the night of the 11th, their horrific ordeal was far from over. From the hills overlooking the port, they quickly realised that the transports they all longed for were nowhere in sight. In front was the open water of the Atlantic and a 500-mile swim back to England. Behind was Soult.

Sick, emaciated, their clothes in rags, they cannot have been an encouraging sight

Corunna’s citizens were shocked at the appearance of the redcoats. Sick, emaciated, their clothes in rags, they cannot have been an encouraging sight. Some even made the sign of the cross as the wrecked men filed past.

In all, three weeks of hard marching had reduced Moore's army to a shadow of its former self. He realised he had too few men to hold all the ridges south of town, so was forced to choose an imperfect position with an exposed right flank overlooked by higher ground. Soult quickly occupied that higher ground and dragged cannons up there.

But then the British caught a break – Soult felt he was too weak to mount an attack. The two armies eyeballed each other until the Royal Navy transports finally came into view late on 14 January. But it would take time to embark the whole British expeditionary force.

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Moore now faced every commander’s worst nightmare – attempting a staged amphibious withdrawal in the face of a determined enemy. Soult, forced into action, pressed home an attack on the 15th, but it proved indecisive.

With part of his force already embarked, the remnants of Moore’s army faced the main French assault the following day.

On 16 January, the French threw a mass of soldiers against the British right flank, attempting to turn it and cut the rest of the army off from the ships. Moore ordered two battalions of Foot Guards into the melee. As the Guards advanced, the badly mauled Black Watch began to withdraw. Seeing this, Moore rode forward, personally rallying them. But on horseback in his bright scarlet full-dress uniform, he proved a highly conspicuous figure.

While leading the Scots forward, a French roundshot struck Moore in the shoulder, throwing him from his horse. Soldiers rushed to where he lay and were greeted with a grim sight. The ball had almost severed Moore’s left arm and torn his chest wide open, breaking his ribs and lacerating part of his lungs. Nevertheless, he was conscious and composed, appointing General Hope to command the army.

A final duty

Confused fighting followed on the ridges, with the British managing to hold on until the French assaults died away in the early evening. The remaining redcoats embarked the following day, but not before performing a final duty to Moore. As the last troops were leaving the town, Moore’s body – wrapped in a military coat and blanket – was solemnly lowered into a newly dug grave at the bastion of the citadel amid the roar of a French bombardment.

The army that arrived back in England was shattered. One soldier commented that their appearance was “squalid and miserable in the extreme. There was scarcely a man amongst them, who had not lost some of his appointments, and many, owing to the horrors of that celebrated retreat, were even without rifles. Their clothing too was in tatters, and in such an absolute state of filth as to swarm with vermin.”

One soldier, Green of the 95th, simply stated that “Such a lot of rag-a-muffins never landed at Portsmouth before”.

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The newspapers were quick to turn against the army, with the Times calling the whole campaign “a shameful disaster”. Returns for the sick certainly bore out this claim. The mortality rate for those who landed back in England was a terrifying 17 per cent, caused mostly by fever and the lingering effects of dysentery.

So what, if anything, did this deadly retreat achieve? It was Winston Churchill who said that wars are not won by evacuations. Yet if Moore had not made his initial move against the Grand Armée, Napoleon might have had the time and resources to crush the “Spanish Ulcer” before it became terminal for his empire. The cost was about 4,000 irreplaceable British soldiers, including Sir John Moore.

Wellington, perhaps Britain's greatest general and a man who never issued praise lightly said after the war that “we’d not have won, I think, without him.”

Matthew Doherty is a military historian, writer and teacher