The celebrated “Retreat to Corunna” commenced. Moore was to change his base from Lisbon to Corunna, and began by falling back on Castro Gonzalo (at Benevente) and Baird was retiring on Valencia (towns on the river Esla) to unite with him at Astorga; and at both Mayorga and Castro Gonzalo skirmishes occurred with the French cavalry which were highly creditable to the British. Napoleon pursued as rapidly as the state of the weather, with deep snow, would permit; but, recalled to France on the 1st January 1809, he left to Soult the task of “driving the leopard into the sea.” While in supreme command, the emperor had infused his own boundless energy into the army, and had marched a force of fifty thousand men over snowclad passes and in bitter weather some two hundred miles in ten days! Many brilliant skirmishes were carried out by the English cavalry at Mayorga, Benevente (where General Lefebvre Desnouettes was taken prisoner), and at Constantine, and notoriously that by the 10th Hussars at Calcabellos; and an attempt was made to induce the enemy to attack at Lugo, but it only resulted in a skirmish and not a battle, and the dismal retreat was continued by Betanzos on Corunna. By this time the army was completely demoralised. Repeated orders had been issued, but seem to have been of little effect. At Bembribee, for example, the men broke into the wine vaults, and drunkenness reigned; shops were broken into and plundered there and elsewhere. The sufferings were extreme. Soldiers, women, and children lay down in the snow by the line of march to die. It being winter, fords were deep, and men had to cross them, and march in their wet clothes under storms of rain, wind, and sleet. Guns had to be abandoned, and, like the military chest on one occasion, thrown over precipices to avoid capture; and horses were shot, as there was no food for them. The “stars in their courses” fought against Moore. Even the precautions taken at Lugo to carry out a night march failed, for the wind blew down the bundles of straw that had been placed to mark the roads, and bridges that should have been destroyed were left standing. Little wonder then that the troops hailed the sight of the sea at Corunna with cheers, though it was three days after their arrival under the walls of the little fortress before the transports dropped anchor in the harbour. But the retreat was over, and the army stood at bay. With all their unquestionable indiscipline and insubordination on the march, those who were left had not lost the fighting spirit. It was either victory, or capitulation, or a most disastrous embarkation; and the army played for the first and won. Soult had twenty thousand men flushed with the feeling of success to engage the remnants of Moore’s army, barely fifteen thousand strong.