Forget War & Peace: here's a York author's account of another gripping encounter in the Napoleonic war

York historian Chris Summerville's searing account of the British retreat across Spain to Corunna during the Napoleonic wars - aptly entitled 'March of Death' - has been reissued in a new edition by Frontline.

It was a retreat that, in terms of the appalling suffering of the soldiers involved, foreshadowed Napoleon's own retreat from Moscow a few years later that featured in Tolstoy's novel.

In 1808, a small British force under the command of General Sir John Moore was sent to Spain to help the Spanish drive Napoleon's invading armies back into France.

But things didn't go well.

The Spanish allies pulled out, leaving the ill-equipped British to virtually go it alone in one of the harshest winters in memory.

Faced with overwhelming odds, and a French army determined to kill every British soldier, the small army was forced to beat a hasty retreat more than 200 miles across the bleak, unwelcoming countryside of northern Spain, climbing and stumbling across the snow and through the ice-bound Cantabrian Mountains to reach the relative safety of the port of Corunna.

Those who survived the ordeal left behind them vivid accounts of that awful march.

"There was nothing to sustain our famished bodies or (provide) shelter from the rain or snow," one anonymous survivor wrote. "We were either drenched with rain or crackling with ice. Fuel we could find none. The sick and the wounded that we had been still enabled to drag with us in wagons were now left to perish in the snow.

"The road was one line of bloody footmarks from the sore feet of the men; and on its sides lay the dead and dying."

The horrors of the retreat were only made worse because of the number of women who had accompanied the army: the wives or common-law wives of the soldiers, many of them pregnant or with young children.

General Charles Stewart, the commander of one of the small army's two cavalry brigades, described the women's suffering: "Some were taken in labour on the road; and in the open air, amidst showers of sleet and snow, gave birth to infants which, with their mothers, perished as soon as they had seen light."

On anonymous survivor of the march, known only as a 'soldier of the 71st', described a harrowing scene in which a young mother lay dead on a hillside, surrounded by a group of appalled onlookers: "In the centre lay a woman, young and lovely, though cold in death, and a child, apparently about six or seven years old, attempting to draw support from the breast..."

So dreadful was the march that, years later, General Stewart was moved to write: "The horrors of this retreat have been again and again described in terms calculated to freeze the blood... but I have no hesitation in saying that the most harrowing accounts which have yet been laid before the public fall short of the reality."

Remarkably, the remnants of the little British army made it to the port of Corunna - only to find, when they got there, that there were no ships waiting to rescue them.

They stood at bay - and, in an extraordinary turnaround, managed to defeat the French army which had pursued them so far.

Sadly, General Moore, the charismatic, liberal and universally popular commanding officer, died of wounds he sustained in the battle.

General Sir John Moore

The story, says Chris Summerville, is one of 'heroic failure': but the death of Moore had unforeseen consequences for the French.

It ultimately paved the way for Sir Arthur Wellesley to assume command of the British forces in the peninsula. Later made a peer of the realm, he eventually became, as Lord Wellington, Napoleon's nemesis.

But it is Sir John Moore who takes centre stage here. He has been overshadowed in history by both Wellington and Napoleon. But while Wellington was undoubtedly a fine soldier, he wasn't popular with his men, Chris says. "He was a Tory reactionary, and not very well liked." Moore, by contrast, was one of the finest soldiers of his age, and popular with his men to boot. "He was a liberal, and beloved by his men."

After leading his men for 200 miles through Spanish mountains during the cold of a bitter winter, harried and harassed by the pursuing French all the way, and then inspiring them to victory against those very French, Moore's luck eventually ran out. His shoulder was shattered by French roundshot during the battle of Corunna. He died on a mattress placed on the floor of a darkened room in his quarters at Corunna, with his lifelong friend Col Paul Sanderson holding his hand, and several of his officers and men clustered around him.

It is a scene that reminds you poignantly of the death of Nelson. There was no 'kiss me, Hardy'. Instead, Moore said to one of his aides de-camp, a Captain Stanhope: "Stanhope, remember me to your sister".

It was a tragedy which darkened a glorious victory snatched from defeat after a 'march of death' that has reverberated down the years.

For his thrilling account of the march Chris, who lives off Walmgate, was able to draw upon eyewitness accounts in letters and diaries - many of them left by rifleman who took part in the march. The Rifles, Chris says, were the 'most literate brigade in the British army'. His main source, however, was a book written by General Sir John Moore's own brother James. James didn't take part in the campaign himself, Chris admits. "But he spoke to people who were there."

The result is a vivid, riveting account that captures all the heroism, endurance, suffering and despair of that long ago campaign in the war against Napoleon. It's a shame Tolstoy never got round to writing the story. But this book will go a long way to restoring Sir John Moore to his rightful place in the list of British heroes.

• March of Death: Sir John Moore's Retreat to Corunna, 1808-1809 by Chris Summerville, is published by Frontline books, priced £19.99