Battle of Corunna

Background

In October 1808 Sir John Moore took command of the British army in Portugal and marched into Spain, while Sir David Baird's corps landed at Corunna. Napoleon's November offensive scattered the Spanish armies and took Madrid before Moore could do anything to help them. On 15 December Moore struck instead at Marshal Soult's isolated corps at Carrión, joining Baird on the 20th to make about 23,500 infantry, 2,400 cavalry and 60 guns. Paget's cavalry beat the French at Sahagún on the 21st, but Napoleon turned on Moore with overwhelming numbers, and from 25 December the British were in full retreat towards the Galician coast.

The retreat over the mountains in midwinter broke the army's discipline. Benavente was looted, hundreds of drunken stragglers were left at Bembibre, and rearguards fought at Benavente and Cacabelos. Moore offered battle at Lugo, but Soult would not attack, and the British slipped away on the night of 8 January. They reached Corunna on the 11th, only to find that the transports from Vigo had not yet rounded Cape Finisterre.

Paget's Reserve blew the bridge at El Burgo over the tidal Mero, which held the French until the 13th. Moore blew up some 4,000 barrels of powder in a magazine outside the town, refused a suggestion that he negotiate a quiet embarkation, and re-armed his infantry with new muskets and cartridges from the town's stores. The fleet arrived on the afternoon of the 14th. Sick, cavalry and all but nine guns went aboard, and more than 2,000 horses were killed. About 15,000 infantry stayed to cover the embarkation, rested and well fed after four days in Corunna. Soult, his ranks thinned by straggling, waited for Delaborde's division before attacking.

The armies

Moore's army was now almost entirely infantry: four divisions, about 15,000 men, with nine light 6-pounders. Hope's division (brigades of Hill, Leith and Catlin Craufurd) held the eastern part of the ridge; Baird's (Manningham, Bentinck and Warde's two battalions of Foot Guards, each over 800 strong) the western part. Paget's Reserve, with the 95th Rifles and 52nd Light Infantry, lay hidden near Eiris, and Fraser's division waited near the town. The men who remained were hardened survivors of the retreat, freshly armed. Oman calls them war-hardened veterans in very good trim.

Soult's II Corps had the infantry divisions of Merle, Mermet and Delaborde, 35 to 39 battalions, and the dragoon divisions of Lahoussaye and Lorge. Oman adds Franceschi's light cavalry and some Swiss battalions, but Fortescue, following Balagny, shows they were absent. Estimates of his strength run from about 16,000 to over 20,000. Fortescue reckons about 12,000 French infantry against 15,000 British. Soult's real advantages were cavalry, which was almost useless among the stone walls, and artillery. He had 20 to 40 guns, against nine, including a battery of ten or twelve heavy pieces dragged by hand onto the Peñasquedo heights opposite Elviña.

The battle was the familiar Peninsular contest of French columns behind clouds of tirailleurs, against British two-deep lines firing volleys and then charging, here fought out among gardens, lanes and dry-stone walls.

The battle

The ground. South of Corunna rise parallel ridges. Moore chose the nearest, Monte Mero (Oman's Monte Moro), about two miles from the town and a mile and a half long, with its left on the estuary. Nearly a mile south, the higher Palavea and Peñasquedo heights overlooked it. At its western end a low neck carried the walled village of Elviña. Beyond that, open ground in the Monelos valley led round the British right to the gates of Corunna, so Moore posted Paget and Fraser to guard it.

15 January. Soult pushed Merle and Mermet onto the Palavea and Peñasquedo heights. Colonel Mackenzie of the 5th Foot counter-attacked French guns near Piedralonga and was killed; each side lost about 100 men.

16 January, morning. The armies watched each other in bright sunshine while the French dragged their guns into place. It took until well past noon. Moore concluded Soult would not attack and ordered Paget's division down to the harbour to embark first.

About 2 pm: Elviña. At about 1.45 Moore remarked that, barring bungling, they would be away in a few hours. Minutes later Hope brought news of the French advance. Soult's plan was for Delaborde and Merle to pin the British left and centre while Mermet and the dragoons took Elviña and turned the right. The battery above Elviña opened on Baird's division. General Jardon's voltigeurs drove the pickets of the 4th and 50th out of the village, and Mermet's columns came up the slope at Bentinck's brigade. Baird was hit early by a cannonball that shattered his left arm. Moore had the 4th throw back its right wing en potence against the 47th Line ('That is exactly how it should be done'), then sent the 42nd and 50th forward. The Highlanders broke the 31st Léger; Major Charles Napier led the 50th through Elviña and beyond. Mermet's reserve counter-attacked, and Napier was wounded and taken.

Moore falls. Moore brought up Warde's Guards. While he was steadying the 42nd and directing the Guards, a roundshot from the Peñasquedo battery tore away his left shoulder. He kept watching from the ground until he was carried to Corunna in a blanket. Hope took command. The fight for Elviña went on until dusk. Oman has the British retaking the village; Fortescue thinks the French kept part of it, and that both sides drew back from it as night fell.

The right flank. Paget's Reserve hurried back. The 95th and 52nd, with the 28th in support, struck the flank of the 47th Line in the Monelos valley, while the 91st and 20th advanced along the slope. Lahoussaye's dragoons, hampered by the walls, charged twice without effect and dismounted a regiment to fight on foot. Paget pressed on towards the foot of the French battery before halting at dusk. Fraser's division, on the Santa Margarita ridge covering the neck of the peninsula, was not engaged.

Centre and left. Merle sent a brigade against the eastern side of Elviña. Manningham's brigade came down to meet it, and a two-hour firefight followed. The 2/81st, out of ammunition and with 150 casualties, was relieved by the 2/59th. Late in the afternoon Foy's voltigeurs took Piedralonga on the far left from the 14th Foot. Companies of the 14th and 92nd drove them out, and Foy recovered only the southern end.

Night. Firing slackened after 5 pm and stopped at about 6, both armies roughly where they had started. At 9 pm the British left the ridge, leaving pickets and watch-fires, and marched down to the boats.

Aftermath

British losses were about 700–900, by Hope's estimate. French losses are put at about 900 by Fortescue and 1,500 by Oman. Moore lived long enough to learn that the attack had been beaten off; Oman records him saying 'I hope my country will do me justice'. His staff buried him at dawn on the 17th on a bastion of the town's ramparts. Most of the army embarked that night and the next morning. French guns above the bay drove the transports to sea in confusion; four ran aground, but few men were lost. Beresford's rearguard sailed on the 18th, and the Spanish garrison then surrendered Corunna. Two transports were wrecked off Cornwall on the way home with about 270 men, most of them from the King's German Legion. Soult re-equipped his corps from the captured stores and invaded Portugal.

Soult's first dispatch admitted a check and asked for reinforcements; two days later he claimed the British had been forced to embark. He also ordered a monument raised where Moore fell. In Britain The Times called the campaign 'a shameful disaster', and Hibbert's verdict was severe. Oman held that the battle redeemed the army's honour. Fortescue thought it very honourable to both sides but 'absurd to say that either side gained a great victory'. Moore's reputation, battered at the time, was later rebuilt by Napier and others. Charles Wolfe's poem 'The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna', written in 1816 and published in 1817, became a schoolroom favourite.

Wargaming it

Corunna is a compact, one-afternoon battle of about 15,000 against 16,000–20,000 on a frontage of under two miles, ideal for a single table at one base or unit per battalion. Elviña alone, or the Paget–Lahoussaye fight in the Monelos valley, makes a good brigade- or company-level scenario.

The terrain is the battle: two parallel ridges, the gorse and rock of Monte Mero, the walled village of Elviña with its lanes and church, and the patchwork of dry-stone walls that made Soult's cavalry nearly useless. Dense enclosure rules matter more than cavalry charges. The French player has the guns, and a long-range battery that can rake Baird's line without reply should be a feature. The British have superior musketry and an ammunition advantage from their new muskets and cartridges.

The British objective is not to win but to hold until dark and then embark, so a turn limit and a victory condition based on keeping the road to the harbour open work well. The French must decide how much to commit: Soult attacked hard on his left and less and less towards his right. What-ifs include an all-out French attack on the whole line, Franceschi present on the open flank, or Paget and Fraser counter-attacking the French battery, which Blakeney and Graham thought possible and Oman thought would have failed. Losing Moore and Baird in the first hour can be modelled with command-disruption rules.

Maps and pictures

Paintings and prints

Paintings and prints of the battle, from the time and the century after, by year: free-to-use pictures from the battle's category on Wikimedia Commons. Each opens its file page there, with the full caption and source.