Aug- 2006
To see pictures of our 2007 trip please click below
This year, the Household Cavalry Motorcycle Club’s (HCMCC) annual tour revisited the Peninsula Campaign fought in Portugal, Spain and Southern France, previously visited some years back; however, this time the Club was to follow Moore’s retreat to Corunna and visit the Lines of Torres Vedras as well as the battlefields of Badajoz and Vitoria.
So on a cloudy Monday morning the Club loaded their motorcycles onto an Eddie Stobart truck, with a view to meeting up with it in a few days at Bilbao Airport. In addition the support truck set off that day on the long haul south. In the mean time 2 members of the club left on the Sunday before and rode like demons through the rain sodden French Countryside to make the Wednesday morning deadline at Bilbao International Airport. At the same time 2 other club members were making their way across the south of France on their own magical mystery tour to make the same deadline.
Once the Club had all arrived safely at Bilbao and the bikes had all been unloaded the Club split into its usual groups. With 16 members on the tour we split into four rides of four and set off for the first campsite south of Leon near Castrogonzalo in readiness for Thursday’s BS of Moore’s retreat to Corunna. That first day’s ride was truly spectacular and set the tone for some fantastic riding throughout Portugal and Spain. The plan didn’t survive second contact, let alone first; as on arriving at the campsite it was found that it had shut a week earlier.
The following morning the Club rode in column of route down the motorway to the start of the first BS, the Bridge at Castrogonzalo. Here beside the modern day Road Bridge stands the little known and less visited original bridge destroyed by Moore’s Rearguard at the start of the retreat to Corunna. From here the Club discussed the background to the retreat and went through the route in detail; including events at Benavente where the rearguard fought a highly successful action delaying Napoleon’s Advance Guard and setting the conditions for the remainder of the retreat; at Bembibre, where the wine vaults were seen as too much of a temptation for those seeking to ‘see in’ the New Year; and Cacabelos, where another successful rearguard action halted the French at a vital moment in the withdrawal. The Club then split up into separate rides and headed for Corunna. It was a long ride and for the first full day after a long ride from Bilbao the previous day and so it wasn’t much of a surprise to see the first ‘casualties’ of the trip starting to show. One of the club members immaculate Ducati 999S found it all too much and limped off to find a dealership to mend a damaged clutch, whilst one of the BMW bikes developed an oil leak. Out of a total of 12 bikes, only 7 managed to make the RV at El Burgo where, after a quick brief on Moore’s final rearguard action before the main battle the Club made its way to the final RV overlooking the main battlefield.
A hard to find panorama laid out by the Regimental Association of the Green Jackets gave a very detailed view of the battlefield as it once stood; unfortunately, the city of Corunna as it now stands completely obscures the land involved, although a healthy imagination ensures a fairly clear view of events. What was clear that the retreat had been characterised by extreme acts of ill discipline juxtaposed with supreme acts of bravery by the rearguard, the latter significantly contributing to the ultimate success of the retreat.
Sadly due to time constraints the Club was unable to fight their way through the Hispanic traffic into the centre of Corunna to visit Moore’s final resting place at the Jardin de San Carlos in the old town, but apparently it is well worth the effort
The remainder of the Club then moved onto just North of Lisbon to a campsite previously visited some years before, sadly in September the whole coastline is plunged into mist for the majority of the morning and late afternoon/evening, and as such any pretensions at sunbathing on a beach with ‘scantilyclads’ were just that. An extra day allocated as ‘rest’ was spent fighting the mist before the Club embarked on a tour of the Lines of Torres Vedras. A previous tour had failed to capitalise on this battle site and had not found many of the sites in question, so it was with much relief that the recce had managed to identify the key locations on the forward defensive line which enabled the Club to ride down this line and visit fortifications at Torres Vedras, Sobral, Arruda and Alhandra. The fort at Torres Vedras was in fairly good condition and had been opened as a site by the present Duke of Wellington, from there the Club rode the route following the forward line, ending up – in varying degrees of tardiness – at Alhandra where a spectacular view over the River Tagus from the old fort demonstrated the domination that these defences had over the advancing French troops; indeed, a recent Portuguese Military Engineering Study found little fault with the siting and construction of the sites selected by Wellington using toady’s military templates.The following day after camping in the grounds of a Nunnery, the Club visited the battle site of Badajoz. Coupled with Ciudad Rodrigo to the North, these two fortified towns dominated the main routes into Spain and as such had to be taken before any sustained advance from Portugal could take place. By far the bloodiest siege of the whole campaign, the battle for Badajoz took a great toll on the British and had a lasting effect on Wellington and his approach to sieges – it could be argued that he held back at Burgos because of his experiences at Badajoz. The Club gained access to the Fort San Cristobal which overlooked the main town from the North. Only the Castle remains now of what was once a very impressive and well defended town. The British lost over 4,500 men over the month long siege, over 3,700 of them in the storming alone, a high proportion being among officers and NCOs, losses which Wellington could ill afford. As with many battles during this era, a period of looting and drunken debauchery followed and at Badajoz, perhaps due to the scale of the slaughter, this ensued for two days in a way as yet unseen. Indeed there were occasions where officers and NCOs in attempting to calm the situation, were set upon by their very own soldiers and killed. As William Surtees (Quartermaster) put it ‘...scenes were witnessed in the streets as baffle description’. One light note emanating from the battle was that of a young officer by the name of Smith (later Sir Harry Smith, Governor of the Cape Colony), who rescued a young girl from the plunder, later married her and named Ladysmith (South Africa) in her honour. Of the two sites, Ciudad Rodrigo is by far the more interesting and picturesque; however Badajoz is definitely the more impressive site and gives a better impression of the hardships undergone by the forces at the time.
After an impressive ride over the hills to the North of Madrid, the Club camped south of Vitoria prior to the last leg of the Tour before entering France on the route home. Sadly the weather deteriorated and on the morning of the proposed tour of the Vitoria site the weather had closed in to the extent that visibility was so short as to make the tour of the site unfeasible and so the Club moved on over the Pyrenees and into France. On arrival in the land of snails and garlic, the standard of driving displayed by the local populace decreased markedly; during the previous week not one accident had been witnessed in either Spain or Portugal, and yet in France the Club witnessed two fatal accidents of some spectacle within the first day – one on a straight road! That said the Club was buoyed by an excellent ride over the Pyrenees and eager to get at the miles between there, Calais and ultimately home.
The poor weather experienced in France necessitated that even the most hardened IRON HORSE veterans took to motels for two nights to dry off kit and recuperate from the appalling conditions. Thankfully on passing Paris the sun decided to shine again, but not after the Club experienced three days of non-stop Gallic downpours.
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Thames Valley & Chiltern Air Ambulance
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