Note 575 — SECTION VIII: CHAPTER II

Napier has a long note, in justification of Moore, to the effect that if the concentration point of the British army had been Burgos instead of Salamanca, Hope’s detour would have cost no waste of time, and would have been rather profitable than otherwise. But Moore distinctly looked upon the movement as a deplorable necessity, not as a proper strategical proceeding. ‘It is a great round,’ he wrote to Castlereagh on October 27, when announcing this modification of his original plan, ‘and will separate the corps, for a time, from the rest of the army: but there is no help for it.’ Moreover he stated, in this same letter, that he would not move forward an inch from Salamanca till Hope should have reached Espinar, on the northern side of the Guadarrama Pass. At a later date he announced that he should not advance till Hope had got even nearer to him, and made his way as far as Arevalo [letter of Nov. 24]. He was too good a general to dream of a concentration at Burgos, when once he had ascertained the relative positions of the Spanish and the French armies, for that place was within a couple of marches of the enemy’s outposts at Miranda and Logroño. There is, in short, no way of justifying Hope’s circular march, when once it is granted that the roads of Northern Portugal were not impracticable for artillery. Moore knew this perfectly well, as his letter to Hope, which we have quoted on p. 495 shows. No arguments are worth anything in his justification when he himself writes ‘if anything adverse happens, I have not necessity to plead.’ This is the language of an honest man, conscious that he has made a mistake, and prepared to take the responsibility. Napier’s apology for him (i. 345-7) is but ingenious and eloquent casuistry.