A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 6, September 1, 1812-August 5, 1813

by Charles Oman

CHAPTER I

THE SIEGE OF ST. SEBASTIAN. FIRST PERIOD

Having pushed his whole front line up to the French border, from Giron at Irun, hard by the ocean, to Byng, far inland on the watershed of the historic Pass of Roncesvalles, Wellington turned his attention to the siege of St. Sebastian, on which he intended to press hard and rapidly, while Pampeluna was to be left for the present to the slower process of blockade and starvation. He had no intention of pushing forward into France till the result of the negotiations in Germany should be known. He was kept informed of the doings at Dresden from time to time, but occasionally bad weather in the Bay of Biscay delayed the courier from Downing Street, and there was an interval of many days, during which the absence of political information began to cause him anxiety. On the whole, as he was informed, it was probable that the war would be renewed; but the intentions of Austria were still suspect, and the danger of a separate peace in the North never ceased to disturb him until hostilities actually recommenced in the middle of August. On July 10th he had still many weeks to wait, before the news arrived that Metternich had broken with Napoleon—after a certain famous and stormy interview—and that Austria had come into the Grand Alliance. Meanwhile he intended to make his defensive position on the Pyrenean frontier sure, by the capture of the fortresses. It is curious to note that Napoleon understood and approved from the military point of view of this policy. On Aug. 5 he wrote to his minister Maret from Dresden, ‘it is certain that Lord Wellington had a very sensible scheme: he wished to take St. Sebastian and Pampeluna before the French Army could be reorganized. He supposed that it had suffered more heavily than was actually the case, and thought that more than a month would be required to refurnish it with artillery[772].’ This was a guess that came very near the truth, though the Emperor could not know that the cause of the British general’s delay was mainly political and not military.

It was fortunate for Wellington that the astounding triumph of Vittoria had put him in a position to dictate his own policy to the Ministry at home. For Lord Bathurst and Lord Liverpool had been sending him suggestions which filled him with grave apprehensions. Before the news of Vittoria reached London, the War Minister had ‘thrown out for consideration’ two most inept projects. If the French in Spain had been driven beyond the Ebro, would it not be possible to ‘contain’ them for the future by Spanish and Portuguese armies, and to bring round Wellington himself and the bulk of his British troops to Germany, leaving only a small nucleus to serve as a backbone for the native levies of the Peninsula? The appearance of Wellington with 40,000 of his veterans on the Elbe would probably induce the Allies to appoint him Generalissimo against Napoleon, and if Great Britain had the chief command in Germany she could dictate the policy of the Coalition. But supposing that the war was not resumed in Central Europe, and that a general peace was negotiated, would it be possible or expedient to allow the Emperor to retain the boundary of the Ebro for the French Empire, on condition that he yielded to the demands of the Allies in other parts of the Continent? Or would Wellington guarantee that in the event of a Peace from which Great Britain stood out, he would be able to maintain himself in Spain and Portugal, as in 1810 and 1811, even though Napoleon had no other enemies left, and could send what reinforcements he pleased across the Pyrenees?[773]

Even after the great event of June 21st had become known in London, we find the Prime Minister repeating some of Lord Bathurst’s most absurd suggestions. He wrote in a tentative and deferential style, to set forth the hypothesis that it might be possible to so fortify the Spanish frontier that it might be held by a small British force aided by Spanish levies, ‘applying the principle upon which the Lines before Lisbon were formed to the passes of the Pyrenees’; and he inquired whether the warlike Navarrese and Biscayans could not defend this new Torres Vedras, if backed by a small force—20,000 or at most 30,000—veteran Anglo-Portuguese troops[774]. If this could be done Lord Liverpool obviously hoped great things from the effect of the appearance of Wellington, with his new prestige and the bulk of his victorious battalions, in Central Europe.

The recipient of these ill-advised suggestions would have nothing to do with them. When on July 12th he got Bathurst’s dispatch of June 23rd, he replied that, being the servant of the State, he must obey any orders given him by the Prince Regent and the Ministry, but that he saw no profit in going to Germany, which he did not know, and where he was not known, whereas in Spain he had a unique advantage in ‘the confidence that everybody feels that what I do is right’. ‘Nobody could enjoy that same advantage here—while I should be no better than another in Germany. If any British army should be left in the Peninsula, therefore, it is best that I should remain with it.’ As to making any general peace which left the French the line of the Ebro as a frontier, that problem had been settled by the battle of Vittoria. ‘I recommend you not to give up an inch of Spanish territory; I think I can hold the Pyrenees as easily as I can Portugal.’ It would really be better to have Joseph Bonaparte as King of Spain (considering how ready all Bonapartes are to break away from their brother), than to have Ferdinand back with the Ebro as his frontier. ‘In the latter case Spain would inevitably belong to the French[775].’

As to the ridiculous idea of fortifying the Pyrenean passes in the style of the Lines of Torres Vedras, Wellington speaks with no uncertain sound. ‘I do not think we could successfully apply to the frontier of Spain the system on which we fortified the country between Lisbon and the sea. That line was a short one, and the communications easiest and shortest on our side. The Pyrenees are a very long line; there are not fewer than seventy passes through these mountains, and the better communications, so far as I have been able to learn, are on the side of the enemy. We may facilitate defence by fortifying some of the passes: but we can never make in the Pyrenees what we made between the Tagus and the sea[776].’

It looks as if Lord Liverpool, in serene ignorance of local geography, imagined the Pyrenees to be a simple line of precipices, pierced by a limited number of passes, which could be sealed up with walls, in the style in which Alexander the Great in the mediaeval romance dealt with the ‘Caucasian Gates’. For we cannot suppose that even the most unmilitary of politicians could have conceived it possible to build something like the Great Wall of China for several hundred miles, along the whole frontier from Fuenterrabia to Figueras. Yet this is what his proposal, if taken literally, would have meant; and Wellington, to show its absurdity, gave the total number of passes available for mules or pedestrians between the Bay of Biscay and the Mediterranean. Those by which guns or wheeled transport could pass were (of course) no more than five or six—but there would be no finality in sealing up these few: for the enemy could turn the flanks of any of them with infantry scrambling up accessible slopes—as Soult indeed did during the battles of the Pyrenees, only a month after Lord Liverpool had made his egregious suggestion—or as Napoleon had done at the Somosierra in the winter of 1808.

Lastly, as to the Prime Minister’s proposal to hand over the defence of the Pyrenees to Spanish armies backed by a mere 20,000 Anglo-Portuguese, Wellington replied that the Spanish Government had shown itself most consistently unable to feed, pay, and clothe its armies, or to provide the transport which would make them mobile. In June 1813 there were 160,000 men on the Spanish muster rolls, but only a third of that number at the front and actively engaged with the French, even when all troops in the Pyrenees, Aragon, and Catalonia were reckoned up. To trust the defence of the frontier to a government which could not move or feed more than a third of its own troops, would be to invite disaster. The best way to help the Spaniards was not to ask for more men, but to improve their finances, so that they should be able to employ a greater proportion of their already existing troops. As things stood at present, it would be insane to request them to take over the main burden of the war. ‘It is my opinion that you ought not to have less than 60,000 British troops in the field, let the Spaniards have what numbers they may[777].’

Wellington had by this time established himself in such a commanding position that the ministers had to accept his decision—however much they would have liked to move him round to Germany, and to press for his appointment to the unenviable position which Prince Schwarzenberg occupied during the second campaign of 1813. The best proof of the wisdom of his determination to remain in the Peninsula was that the French, far from adopting a defensive policy, resumed the offensive under Soult within a few weeks. It would be an unprofitable, as also a dismal, task to consider what would have happened during the battles of the Pyrenees had Soult been opposed, not by Wellington and his old army, but by a Spanish host under O’Donnell or Freire, backed by two or three Anglo-Portuguese divisions.

Controversy with Lord Bathurst on general principles was only one of Wellington’s distractions during the middle weeks of July: he was at the same time carrying on an acrimonious correspondence with the Spanish Minister of War, concerning the removal of Castaños and Giron from their posts, and enduring many controversial letters from Sir John Murray regarding the Tarragona fiasco. Murray had realized the disgust which his wretched policy had roused, alike in the army and in the British public, and was endeavouring to justify himself to his commander-in-chief by long argumentative epistles. Wellington refused to commit himself to any judgement, and agreed with the ministers at home that a court martial would be required[778]. He suggested to the authorities at the Horse Guards that Murray should be charged firstly with making no proper arrangements to raise the siege of Tarragona or to bring off his guns, secondly with having disobeyed the clause of his instructions which bade him return at once to Alicante if he failed in Catalonia, and thirdly with having betrayed General Copons, by bringing him down to the coast and then absconding without giving any proper warning of his departure[779]. After mature reflection, however, he advised that the third charge should be dropped, not because it was unjustified, but because there would be great inconvenience in bringing Copons or his representatives to bear witness at a British court martial, when they were wanted in Catalonia.

But all this correspondence, and much more on less important subjects, did not prevent Wellington from paying his promised visit to General Graham, to inspect in person the allied positions on the lower Bidassoa, and to supervise the arrangements for the siege of St. Sebastian, which indeed required supervision, for already it was evident that things were not going so well as might have been hoped in this direction (July 12).

The first impression made on the observer by the fortress of St. Sebastian is that it is an extremely small place. This is true—though it is also true that its effect is somewhat dwarfed by its immense surroundings—the limitless expanse of the Ocean on one side, and the high and fantastic peaks of the Jaizquibel, the Peña de la Haya, and the Four Crowns, which have just been passed by the traveller coming from the side of Bayonne. The fortress consists of a lofty sandstone rock, as steep as Edinburgh Castle and 400 ft. high, beaten on three sides by the sea, and united to the land by a low sandy isthmus about 900 yards long. There was an old castle called La Mota, on the summit of the rock, which is named Monte Urgull, with three modern batteries on its southern or landward face[780], which is very steep and only accessible at two points by winding roads. But these were not the main defences of the place, which lay lower down. The town of St. Sebastian was built on the lower ground below the rock, extending from sea to sea and occupying about a third of the isthmus, the rest of which was broken sandy ground about 400 yards broad. At the southern neck of the isthmus was a hill crowned by the large monastery of San Bartolomé, which the French held as an outwork at the beginning of the siege. The space between this hill and the wall of the town, now thickly packed with the hotels and avenues of a fashionable seaside resort, was in 1813 waste ground dotted with a few isolated houses and gardens, which the governor was busily engaged in levelling when the blockading force arrived. At two points there was a sufficient accumulation of buildings to form a small suburb. One group was at the head of the bridge across the river Urumea, which joined the peninsula to the eastern mainland; this was named Santa Catalina, from a chapel of that saint which lay in it. The other, called (for a similar reason) San Martin, was immediately at the foot of the hill of San Bartolomé. The bridge had been blown up by the French when the Spaniards first appeared, and the suburbs set on fire, but their roofless and partly fallen houses still gave a good deal of cover.

The land-front of St. Sebastian was very formidable; it was only 400 yards broad and was composed of a very high curtain from which projected one large bastion in the centre and two demi-bastions overhanging the water on each flank, that of San Juan, above the estuary of the Urumea, that of Santiago on the western side nearest the harbour. In front of the bastions was a very broad hornwork, having outside it the usual counterscarp, covered-way, and glacis. Specialists, wise after the event, criticized the whole land-front: they found its trace defective, considered that the scarp of the hornwork ought to have been more than 23 feet high, and pointed out that in the rear line the two demi-bastions did not well protect the flanks, since they were not themselves covered by the hornwork, and had no ditch or glacis, because the salt water came up to their foot at high tide[781].

But as the land-front was never attacked, these objections were of comparatively little importance. The weak side of St. Sebastian was really its eastern water-front. The western water-front on the open bay was inaccessible; but on the opposite side, where the town wall ran along the estuary of the river Urumea, the conditions were peculiar. The Urumea is a tidal river—at high water it washes right up to the foot of the walls, but at low tide it recedes into a narrow channel and leaves exposed an expanse of rock and sand, ranging in breadth from 50 to 150 yards, all along the water-wall for a length of some 400 yards—half the east side of the town. The rampart here was a plain curtain, not very high and only 8 feet thick: of course it could have no ditch or other outer fittings, since the salt water reached right up to it for half the day. Its only salients, from which flank fire could be used, were one small bastion (St. Elmo) and two ancient round towers called Los Hornos and Amezqueta, which projected slightly from the straight curtain.

At high tide this water-front was unapproachable—at low tide it was weak and accessible, for the Urumea was fordable in many places, and shrank into a channel only 50 yards broad, meandering through a waste of shingle, rocks, and mud. On its eastern bank were rolling sandhills of some height, which commanded the isthmus and the southern half of the town, from a distance of no more than 700 or 800 yards. To the right of the sandhills, called Los Chofres, was a steep hill, the Monte Olia, facing the castle of St. Sebastian across the broader part of the estuary, and by no means out of gunshot of it, since not more than 1,000 or 1,100 yards of water lies between them.

Since it had been rebuilt as a fortress of the Vauban-Cohorn style in the last years of the seventeenth century, St. Sebastian had only once been besieged: for during the Revolutionary War of 1792-5 it surrendered without any resistance to the Jacobin armies, while in 1808 Napoleon had seized it by treachery and not by force. The one formal attack made on it was by the Duke of Berwick in 1719, when the armies of the Regent Orleans crossed the Bidassoa, in the short war provoked by the ambitions of Elizabeth Farnese and Cardinal Alberoni. Berwick had established his siege-batteries not on the isthmus, to batter the land-front, but on the Chofres sandhills, from whence he pounded the eastern sea-front to pieces. Several breaches having been made in it, and trenches on the isthmus having been pushed as far as the glacis of the hornwork, the governor very tamely surrendered, without waiting for an assault[782]. Unwarned by this revelation of the weakness of the defences along the Urumea, the engineers of Philip V made no improvements in them when they were reconstructed after the war, and the fortress was in 1813 little different from what it had been in 1719.

The easy success of Marshal Berwick turned out a very unhappy thing for the British army; for the history of the last siege being well remembered, Major Charles Smith, the senior engineer with Graham’s column, reported that Berwick’s plan was the right one[783], when the first survey of the place was made. And when the head-quarters staff came up, his superior officer, Sir Richard Fletcher, agreed with him, as did Colonel Dickson commanding the artillery. They all forgot that to make a breach with ease is not necessarily the same thing as to capture a fortress, and that the eighteenth-century slackness of the governor, who capitulated when his walls were once breached, gave no indication of what might be done by a very resourceful and resolute French officer, who had in his mind Napoleon’s edict of 1811 that every commandant who hauled down his flag before standing at least one assault should be sent before a court martial. Nor is there any doubt that Wellington himself must take his share of the responsibility, as he went round the place on July 12th and had a good look at it, in company with Charles Smith and Dickson, from Monte Olia and the Chofres sandhills. Dickson summed up the results of their discussion as follows:—‘The project is to effect a breach in the uncovered sea-wall forming an angle on the left of the land-front, between two towers [Los Hornos and Amezqueta], being the same spot the Duke of Berwick breached in 1719, when he took St. Sebastian. The convent of San Bartolomé, which the French have fortified and occupied in force, is absolutely necessary to take first, in order to be able to advance on the isthmus in support of our breaching operations from the Chofres. The plan of attack was the proposition of Major Smith[784].’

This, of course, was not the regular and orthodox way to attack such a fortress—as it involved the making of breaches only accessible at low tide, in a part of the wall to which no trenches could draw near, since its lower courses were six feet under water for half the hours of the day. There would have to be a long advance from the nearest dry ground on which approaches could be dug, across the tidal waste, in order to reach the spot selected for breaching. And this would undoubtedly be a very bloody business for the exposed storming troops. The advantages to be gained were rapid action and a quick end, without the necessity which an orthodox scheme would have involved of sapping up to the hornwork, storming it, and then tackling the lofty bastion behind it. The British engineer who wrote the history of the siege considered that ‘the operations against San Sebastian afford a most impressive lesson on the advantage of due attention to science and rule in the attack of fortified places: the effort then made to overcome and trample on such restrictions caused an easy and certain operation of eighteen or twenty days to extend over sixty days, and to cost the besiegers 3,500 men killed, wounded, or taken, bearing strong testimony to the truth of the maxim laid down by Marshal Vauban, that hurry in sieges does not lead to an early success, often delays it, and always makes it very bloody[785].’

St. Sebastian had been abandoned to its own resources on June 28, when, after the departure of Foy’s troops from Oyarzun, the Spaniards had closed in on the place, and established a blockade. The force employed was four battalions of Biscayan volunteers under Mendizabal, the remains of the bands which Foy had beaten in May, and which had taken part on June 26 along with the British 1st Division in the combat of Tolosa[786]. They were very irregular troops, and their indiscipline and incompetence shocked General Graham when he came to visit their lines on July 6th[787]. They had no notion of guarding themselves, and had suffered severely, first from an attempt to storm San Bartolomé on June 28th, and later from a French sortie on July 3, when Rey sent out two columns of 700 men from the Convent, which surprised their camp, took many prisoners, and drove them back for nearly two miles. Graham recommended that they should be replaced at once by solid troops, and at Wellington’s suggestion told off the British 5th Division and the unattached Portuguese brigade of Bradford for the siege[788]. Mendizabal’s men were sent off to join in the blockade of Santoña[789]. On July 7th the siege-troops arrived; the independent brigade established itself on the Chofres, the 5th Division—still under Oswald as at Vittoria—took post on the heights of Ayete, facing the hill and convent of San Bartolomé. From this moment the serious operations may be considered to have begun. A blockade of the seaside had been established, in a rather intermittent fashion, four days earlier, when Sir George Collier appeared in the bay with a frigate, the Surveillante, a corvette, and two brigs, all the force that he could collect for the moment in response to Wellington’s appeals to the Admiralty. The amount was wholly inadequate, even when supplemented by some local fishing craft and pinnaces, which were manned by the battalion of marines from Giron’s Galician army. All through the siege French trincadores and luggers from Bayonne and St. Jean de Luz ran the blockade at night, bringing in food, munitions, and reinforcements. For Rey having asked for more gunners, he was sent several detachments of them, who all arrived in safety, while he got rid of many of his wounded by the returning vessels. Wellington was full of justifiable wrath at the miserable help given him—his objurgations brought from Lord Melville an unsatisfactory reply, to the effect that the operations in the Baltic and the American War absorbed many of the British light craft which would have been available in earlier years, and that the Admiralty had not been warned in the spring that any large fighting force would be wanted on the Biscay coast in July. ‘Neither from you, nor from any other person at your suggestion, did we ever receive the slightest intimation that more was expected than the protection of your convoys, till the actual arrival of Sir Thomas Graham on the coast after the battle of Vittoria.’ Melville then proceeded to write lengthy observations on the dangerous nature of the coast of Northern Spain, ‘where ships cannot anchor without extreme risk, and are exposed to almost certain destruction in a gale, when from its direction they can neither haul off shore nor run for shelter into a port. If you will ensure the ships a continuance of east winds, they could remain with you, but not otherwise. All the small craft in the British navy could not prevent the occasional entry of small boats by night into San Sebastian’s, though it may be rendered more difficult and uncertain.’ Melville then proceeded to tax Wellington with grave professional irregularity, for having written to Sir George Collier, and other naval officers, letters taxing the Admiralty with neglect and incompetence. ‘Appeals to subordinate officers against their superiors are not customary in any branch of the service, and must be injurious to the public interest[790].’

It was not so much the arguments used by Melville as his offensive tone which Wellington resented. The victor of Salamanca was naturally irritated at finding himself treated de haut en bas by a personage of such complete insignificance, who had not even the equivocal reputation of his father (the devisor of so many unlucky expeditions, the impeached minister of 1806) to lend weight to his lectures. He replied in a very short letter that he was not desirous of getting into discussions, that his demands for more naval assistance had begun in the winter of 1812-13, and that after reading over again his letters to naval officers he could see nothing to find fault with—save that he had once sent to Sir George Collier an extract of a dispatch to Lord Bathurst, instead of a separate communication on the same topic addressed to Collier personally—a trifling subject on which to start a controversy[791]. Meanwhile he considered, as a dozen letters show, that he was being poorly served by the Admiralty, and ‘formed private opinions on the subject—which private opinions may not perhaps deserve much attention,’ as he sardonically observed.

One thing, however, the Admiralty had contrived to carry out according to Wellington’s request—the stores and battering train, which he had accumulated at Corunna in the spring, had come round to the Biscay coast as soon as could have been expected; they had been sent to Santander, as he directed, and arrived in that harbour on the very day (June 29) on which Major Frazer, sent off four days after Vittoria, came from Head-Quarters to inquire for them[792]. The orders were to land them at Deba in Guipuzcoa, fifteen miles west of St. Sebastian; but just as the disembarkation was commencing (July 3), a change of destination was made—everything was to be put ashore at Passages, a much more convenient place, only a couple of miles from the blockaded fortress. This is a most astonishing little harbour, the safest port on the coast, for it is absolutely land-locked; its entrance is so narrow that the circular basin looks like a lake without an issue, till the eye has with some difficulty discovered its exit. It pays for its security, however, by being hard to enter in time of storm, when very careful navigation is required. But a besieging army has seldom been granted a base so near to its field of operations—it was only two and a half miles from the water’s edge at Passages to the Chofres sandhills, where the chief batteries were to be constructed, though four miles to the head of the isthmus where the left attack was to be made. And the fording of the Urumea, whose bridge the French had burned, was sometimes dangerous—more than one gun was lost in the quicksands[793].

By the time that Wellington had worked out the scheme of assault with Charles Smith, the guns were already arriving, not only the battering train from Corunna, which had begun to come ashore on July 7, but the heavy artillery reserve of the army, which had traversed all the weary miles of road from Ciudad Rodrigo. The total of pieces available was twenty-eight from the convoy, six from the heavy battery of the army reserve, and six lent by Sir George Collier from the main deck of his ship, the Surveillante—or forty in all[794]—a very different train from the miserable four guns which had battered Burgos in the preceding autumn.

Before any regular siege work could begin, it was obviously necessary to clear the French out of the monastery of San Bartolomé, on its hill at the neck of the isthmus: till this should be taken, it was impossible to get forward on the shore from which the assault was to be delivered. Under-estimating the strength of the post Graham and the engineers, contrary to the advice of Major Hartmann of the K.G.L., the senior artillery officer present before Dickson’s arrival[795], had tried to reduce it on July 7th by the fire of a Portuguese field battery belonging to the artillery reserve; but the walls proved too solid for 8-pounders to damage, and some firing with red hot shot failed to set fire to the roof. It was clear that it would be necessary to wait for the heavy guns to come up. Meanwhile the French continued to strengthen San Bartolomé, throwing up an earthwork in its cemetery and loopholing and barricading the ruined houses near it, as well as those in the burnt-out suburb of San Martin, which lay at its foot. They also commenced a redoubt on the isthmus, half-way between the outlying convent and the hornwork in front of the city wall.

While the siege train was being got ashore, the engineers made ready the emplacements for the guns—they started with throwing up two batteries on the Ayete heights to play on the convent of San Bartolomé[796], three on the Chofres sandhills[797] to act against the sea-wall where the main breach was to be formed, and one on the lofty Monte Olia, for long-distance fire against all the fortifications, including those of the rock of Monte Urgull[798]. But on the 14th, when the battering began, the only guns used were those on the left attack opposite the convent, as it was considered unwise to molest the city fortifications before there was any way of getting near them: approach was impossible as long as the isthmus was all in the enemy’s hands.

Two days’ battering (July 14-15) brought down the roof and part of the walls of San Bartolomé, and damaged the subsidiary works around it severely. But General Rey was determined to hold on to his outer defences as long as possible: the best part of two battalions was told off to hold the ruins and the suburb of San Martin behind them. On the afternoon of the 15th General Oswald, judging from the dilapidation of the buildings that they were untenable, sent in the 8th Caçadores from his Portuguese brigade to storm them; but the French had dug themselves well in, a furious fire broke out against the assailants, and the attack was turned back with the loss of 65 men[799]. It was obvious that more battering was required to evict the gallant garrison, so the fire was resumed on the 16th, with the aid of a field battery playing across the Urumea to enfilade the defences, and to pound the ruined houses of San Martin, where the French reserves were sheltering.

The fire was very effective: the inner woodwork of the monastery blazed up, its porch was levelled to the ground, great gaps appeared in the walls, and the earthwork in the cemetery was much damaged. At 10 a.m. on the 17th a second storm was tried, with forces much larger than those used at the first—not one battalion, but the equivalent of three: Oswald drew upon Bradford’s independent brigade from across the Urumea for 700 Portuguese volunteers. Two columns were launched against the French position, each consisting of a screen of Caçadores, a support of Portuguese Line troops, and a reserve of British companies from the first brigade of the 5th Division[800]. The right column aimed at the cemetery earthwork and the fortified houses—the left at the main buildings of the convent, which were still smouldering from the fire. Both achieved their purpose without any very serious loss, and the garrison was driven down hill into the suburb of San Martin, pursued by the stormers. Here the French reserves intervened, and for a moment the attack was turned back; but the companies of the 1/9th which formed the British supports re-established the fight, and the enemy retired in disorder towards the town. Unfortunately the victors pursued recklessly, and came under the fire of the French guns in the hornwork and the bastion behind it, whence many unnecessary casualties. For it had never been intended that the troops should advance on to the isthmus, where of course they could do nothing against an intact front of fortifications. The total losses of the assailants were 207 killed and wounded—the 1/9th which had headed the rush on to the bare ground suffering most, with 70 casualties. The French had 40 killed and 200 wounded.

It was now possible to commence the subsidiary attack on the side of the isthmus, as the French held nothing outside the walls save the recently constructed redoubt in front of the hornwork[801]. Two batteries were thrown up on the San Bartolomé hill, and on the 18th the guns with which the convent had been breached were moved down into them[802]. The main object of these batteries was to enfilade the stretch of sea-wall, on which the greater weight of metal on the Chofres downs was to play from the front. Two additional batteries were thrown up, more to the right, which, while aiding the enfilading fire, were also intended to shell the land-front, and keep down the fire from the bastion and hornwork[803]. Finally, the Chofres attack was strengthened with two more batteries[804]. On the night of the 19th sixteen guns in all were in place on the isthmus front, or left attack, twenty-three on the right attack to the east of the Urumea, including six on the summit of the lofty Monte Olia, on the extreme flank[805]. Meanwhile the approaches, by which the troops would have to move out to assault the breaches when made, were not nearly so far forward as could have been desired: little more had been done than to push a zig-zag down the slope of San Bartolomé into the ruins of San Martin—further advance was made difficult by the fact that the French were still holding the forward position of the redoubt in the centre of the isthmus. It was only on the night between the 19th and 20th that they evacuated this post[806]. Moreover the fire of the defence was as yet intact, since the British heavy batteries had not begun their work: hence the sap-head was a decidedly unhealthy place.

At 8 a.m. on the morning of July 20 nine of the eleven siege batteries opened—all but the two new ones on San Bartolomé, where the work was a little belated. The effect of the first day’s work was fairly satisfactory—the parapet of the sea-wall began to crumble, the enemy’s guns en barbette on the land-front were partly silenced, and the high trajectory fire from the lofty Monte Olia battery searched the streets, the back of the bastion, and the interior of the hornwork. The enemy concentrated all his attention on the largest British battery upon the Chofres dunes, the eleven guns which were farthest forward (No. 3) and were doing much damage to the sea-wall. The counter-fire here was severe—one gun was split by a ball striking its muzzle, others had wheels broken, three had to stop firing because their embrasures, badly built with sand, fell in and could not be kept clear[807]. By evening only six of the eleven guns were still at work.

An afternoon of wind and showers, which had made accurate aim difficult, was followed on the night of the 20th-21st by a torrential rain, which much impeded the special work which had been set aside for the dark hours. Seven hundred men from Spry’s Portuguese brigades had been told off to open a parallel right across the isthmus, starting from the lodgment already established in the ruined houses of San Martin. ‘In the perfect deluge the working parties sneaked away by degrees into houses and holes and corners. After numerous difficulties and exertions only about 150 could be collected and set to work at 11 p.m. The party was not discovered, and the soil being light soon got under cover.... But the parallel finished was for only about one-third of the extent required[808].’

On the next morning Sir Thomas Graham sent out a parlementaire to summon the governor to surrender—rather prematurely as it would seem, for no real breach had yet been formed, nor had the fire of the defence been subdued. General Rey having made the answer that might be expected from a resolute officer[809], the battering recommenced, and was continued on the 21st-22nd-23rd-24th July. It was quite effective: on the 23rd fifty yards of the curtain, between the towers of Los Hornos and Amezqueta, fell outward on to the strand that was exposed at low water—appearing to present a practicable breach. But partly to make things sure, and partly because the trenches on the isthmus were still remote from the point which it was intended to reach, the battering was continued for two days longer. Not only was more of the wall thrown down near the tower of Los Hornos, but at Graham’s desire a second and minor breach was made, some distance farther north in the sea-wall than the first[810]. The temptation to make it was that Spanish refugees brought intelligence that the ramparts here were very thin—which proved to be the case, as one day’s battering brought down a broad patch of stones. On the other hand the specialists are said to have warned Graham that the second breach would be rather useless, because the space of shore below it exposed at low tide was very narrow—under 50 feet wide—and could only be reached by skirting along for 300 yards below the walls and past the foot of the first breach. However, the creation of a second point of attack would certainly distract part of the attention of the garrison from the real place of danger, and if the small breach could be carried, the flank of the defenders of the great breach would be effectually turned.

It was a thousand pities that the formation of the first breach on July 23rd was not followed by an immediate attempt to storm, as the enemy was given two whole days to perfect his inner defences. But an assault was impossible till the approaches should have got close to the walls, and owing to the initial delays they were not ready till two days later. On the night of the 22nd-23rd the parallel reaching right across the isthmus was begun and half completed, with the French ‘Cask Redoubt’ at its left extremity. Digging close to this spot, the working parties found a large drain or channel 4 feet high and 3 feet wide, which belonged to the aqueduct which supplied the town with water. It was empty, as the Spaniards had cut it off at its source when they first blockaded the town. Lieutenant Reid of the Engineers volunteered to explore it, and crawling 230 yards forward, found that he was under the west corner of the counterscarp of the hornwork, where the French had cut off the channel and blocked it with a door. This discovery suggested to the engineers that the channel might be used as a mine; if its farther end were filled with powder, and then built up with sandbags, the explosion might bring down the counterscarp and fill the ditch, so that the hornwork might be stormed across the débris. Unfortunately there was complete uncertainty as to whether the plan would work: quite conceivably it might result in the door being blown open, and the force of the powder might be spent in sending a local blast along the ditch, without much damaging the superincumbent earth. However, the experiment was tried; layers of sandbags were placed against the door, then thirty barrels of powder were inserted, standing on end but not tamped in, for foul air greatly troubled the miners, so that there was much empty space above and between the barrels. The near end was then built up with more sandbags and a train laid to the mouth of the channel in the trenches[811].

During the day of the 23rd and the following night the parallel was completed, and good communications made from it to the base, the hill of San Bartolomé. The greater part of the enemy’s visible guns were silenced, and the enfilading fire from the two last-erected batteries on the isthmus set ablaze the quarter of the town immediately behind the two breaches. This last achievement turned out to be anything but an advantage.

For arrangements for the assault having been made for daybreak on the 24th, and the storming party and supports having been brought down to the trenches after midnight, to wait till half low-tide, it was found that the whole of the streets adjacent to the great breach were blazing so fiercely that it was thought that any entry into the town would be impossible. Graham therefore countermanded the storm—this was probably necessary; but Rey thereby gained another day for perfecting his internal defences.

These were most elaborate and excellent, surpassing by far even the very competent arrangements made by Philippon at Badajoz. The peculiar part of them was that Rey had to depend almost entirely on engineering work—his artillery having been completely crushed during the preliminary battering. Such guns as he contrived to use on this day were either very remote—on the rock and its slopes—or else pieces that had been withdrawn and kept under cover till the critical moment should arrive. The British artillery officers, whose telescopes were always busy, discovered some of them, but informed Graham that they undertook to crush them when they should be brought out, provided that light and atmospheric conditions were satisfactory[812].

But the main defence which Rey had prepared depended on fortification, not on artillery fire. His chief advantage was that at both breaches the stones had fallen outward, and the back of the ramparts was intact. All along the sea-wall there was a drop of 15 to 20 feet from the rampart-walk into the street behind: this still existed, as the core of the wall was still standing, though the facing had given way. To descend from the lip of the breach into the town, therefore, was more than a feasible leap: it could not be done without ladders. Rey had demolished some houses which had been built with their back to the ramparts, and had cut away all stairs leading up to them. He had blocked with stone barricades all streets opening towards the breaches, and had loopholed all buildings commanding a view of them. When the fire in the quarter that had been ablaze on the 24th died down, he reoccupied the ruined houses, making shelters in the débris. He had cut off the rampart-walk on each side of the breaches by building a succession of stone traverses across it, so that troops who had mounted to the top could not push out sideways. As it was clear that the storming columns would have to advance for 300 yards parallel with the eastern faussebraye of the hornwork, and close to it, because of the water on their right, he told off a large number of picked marksmen to line this flank, and ranged live shells along it, which could be rolled down on to the strand while the enemy were passing.

The preparation for a storm on the 24th, and its countermand because of the conflagration, had been noted by the governor, who understood the cause of the delay. Obviously the attack would come on the following morning, so the reserved guns were got into position after midnight—two in the casemates of the high curtain, two others in the ditch below it, one in the eastern face of the hornwork, two in the south front of the bastion of St. Elmo: into the towers of Los Hornos and Amezqueta, on each side of the main breach, three pieces were hoisted not without difficulty, since the towers, though still standing, were in bad order. Even in the distant and lofty Mirador battery, on top of the rock, some guns were trained on the point of danger[813]. Having made all possible preparations Rey waited for the assault, which came just as he had expected.

The exact share of responsibility for the details of the storm of July 25th, which fell respectively on the engineers who had settled the scheme of attack, on Graham who designated the hour, on Oswald who arranged the order of the troops, and on the artillery officers who had undertaken to keep down the enemy’s fire, is not easy to determine. All apparently have to take their portion; but that of Charles Smith, who devised, and Sir Richard Fletcher, who approved, the choice of the sea-wall for the breach-spot would seem to be the heaviest, and that of the gunners the least.

The troops were to sally out from the eastern end of the long parallel across the isthmus, when there should be a sufficient breadth of strand exposed for them to rush straight for the breaches, passing between the hornwork on their left and the receding tidal water on their right. Unfortunately the hour of low tide and the hour of daybreak were not conveniently correlated: the ideal combination would have been that the four hours during which there was good access across the exposed flats should have been from 5.30 a.m. till 9.30 a.m.: daybreak falling at about 5.20 a.m. But as it chanced the extreme of low tide that day was at 6 a.m., and the practicable hours were from 4 a.m. onward. In order to lose none of the limited time available, Graham determined that the rush should be made at 5 o’clock sharp, before it was full daylight; and this choice had one unlucky effect. The engineers settled that the signal for assault should be the blowing up of the mine in the aqueduct[814]; but they had so little confidence in its effect, that the only arrangements made to utilize it were that supposing it should do much damage and blow down scarp and counterscarp (which was hardly expected), the Portuguese companies which held the extreme left of the parallel should make a rush at the west flank of the hornwork, and enter over the débris. This was a very half-hearted scheme. For the real assault General Oswald seems to have made a very faulty disposition of his troops. The opening made in the parallel was so narrow that not more than two or three men could issue abreast. The troops, therefore, had to start in a sort of narrow file or procession, and took an unconscionable time in trickling out from the trench. The head of the column was composed of the right wing of the 3/1st (Royal Scots); then came a ladder party from all three regiments of Hay’s brigade; then the left wing of the Royal Scots: all these were to strike for the main breach. Next were the 1/38th, who were directed to pass between the leading troops and the water’s edge, and to make for the lesser breach, along the ever-narrowing strip of exposed beach. Last came the 1/9th, the third battalion of the brigade, with orders to support wherever it could make itself most useful. Some picked shots from the 8th Caçadores of Spry’s brigade were placed along the front of the parallel, and in a ditch which had been scraped during the night a few yards in advance of it, with orders to try to keep down the enemy’s musketry from the eastern flank of the hornwork.

At 5 o’clock, or perhaps a little earlier[815], the mine was fired, and did much more damage than was expected, blowing down the counterscarp of the western flank of the hornwork, injuring the scarp, and filling the ditch with earth. The Portuguese troops in the opposite trench made an assault, according to their orders, swept over the covered way and into the ditch, and tried to enter the work. They failed with loss, because no proper preparations had been made to utilize the opportunity[816], which indeed had hardly been taken into consideration. They might have got in, for the French garrison flinched at first, terrified by the explosion.

On the side of the main attack the Royal Scots led out of the parallel immediately that the explosion was heard, and pushed forward in almost complete darkness on to the strand. It was found to consist in many places of hard rock overgrown with slippery seaweed, and interspersed with deep pools. The men stumbled over, and into, many traps which might have been avoided by daylight, and all order was lost. But for the first few minutes there was little fire bearing on them, and the platoons at the head of the column reached the main breach. The conducting engineer, Lieutenant Harry Jones, and Major Fraser, commanding the wing of the Royal Scots, had actually got to the lip of the breach, with the leading men of the storming party, before the enemy really opened. That the crowning of the breach was not followed by a rush into the town was due to Rey’s precautions—there was a sudden drop of twenty feet between the top of the wall and the street below, and no means to descend, as all stairs and ramps had been cut away. There were some ladders with the column, but not at its head—they were being carried in the rear of the right wing of the Royal Scots. As the leading company came to a halt the French began to shoot hard from behind traverses on the rampart-walk, barricades, and loopholed houses, and the guns in the two flanking towers played on the breach with grape. The head of the column began to wither away; Fraser and Jones were both wounded—the former mortally—and so was every man who had reached the summit. The survivors on the breach threw themselves down among the stones and began to return the enemy’s fire—the first impetus being lost, and any chance of success with it.

But it was only about the equivalent of a company which had advanced so far; the rear of the right wing of the Royal Scots were still passing along the flank of the hornwork, in a straggling file, when the enemy’s fire began to be serious. It came most fiercely from an entrenchment which Rey had thrown up across the main ditch between the hornwork and the high front of the demi-bastion behind it. It seems, from the narrative of an officer who took a prominent part in the storm—Colin Campbell of the 1/9th, who was with the ladder party—that many of the Royal Scots, arriving in the darkness at this opening into the main ditch, mistook it for a passage by which they might force their way into the place, or even for the great breach itself. At any rate they turned in toward it, and on meeting with strenuous resistance began to fire upon the enemy. The men following gathered in upon the first comers, and a crowd accumulated at this point, which checked the ladder party and the left wing of the Royal Scots as they came up. Hardly any one pressed on to join the head of the column on the slope of the breach. Meanwhile the tail of the column was blocked, as it tried to press on past the hornwork. The French, standing above, rolled down the shells which had been laid ready upon the British below, and kept up a vigorous discharge of musketry. With great exertions individual company officers succeeded in collecting parties of their own men, and leading them out of the crowd, so as to pass on to the great breach. But the attack there had already come to nothing: the stones all up the slope were strewn with dead and wounded—a few survivors were keeping up an ineffectual return fire upon the well-concealed enemy. Three or perhaps four attempts to mount again were made by small parties of the rear companies of the Royal Scots, but there were never more than 80 or 90 men acting together, and the officers and leading men were always shot down on the crest. At last the senior captain surviving, seeing the impossibility of getting forward, ordered the stormers to retire, which they did—only half an hour or less after the assault commenced—though the time had seemed much longer, as was natural, to those involved in the bloody business. The larger body of men engaged farther back, opposite the main ditch and under the demi-bastion of St. Juan, gave way also when the head of the column fell back among them: they had themselves suffered heavily, and of course had made no progress. Just as the whole body rolled back along the beach they came into collision with the front of the 1/38th, who had only just finished filing out of the parallel, so slow was the process of emerging from its narrow exit. Their commanding officer, Colonel Greville, had halted them for a short time to let their rear close up, and to prevent them from dribbling forward in a thin string of small parties, as the Royal Scots had done. Just as they came parallel with the north end of the hornwork the broken mass of men from the front ran in upon them; all order was lost at once, and after some vain attempts to get forward the 38th fell back along with the rest over the slippery shore[817]. The disordered crowd suffered heavily from the French grape and musketry—they were a mark impossible to miss, and strewed the rocks and pools with dead. The 1/9th, who were just beginning to file out of the parallel, were of course ordered back at once—‘but had lost almost as many heads as they showed[818].’

So quickly was the whole affair over that the artillerymen, standing by their guns on the opposite side of the Urumea, ready to co-operate as soon as dawn should come, believed at first that there had been a feint or a false attack. It was only when the growing light showed them the breach strewn from lip to foot with red coats, and the strand below thickly dotted with them also, that they realized that the assault had been made and had failed[819], without their being given the chance to intervene as they had promised.

The loss had, of course, been very heavy—out of 571 casualties of all ranks[820] more than 330 belonged to the unfortunate Royal Scots, whose right wing companies were almost exterminated. Six officers and 118 men, almost all wounded, fell into the hands of the enemy. It should be remembered to the credit of the garrison that, the moment that the storm was over, they collected from the foot of the breach and the neighbouring strand many officers and men who would otherwise have been drowned by the returning tide[821]. When it was seen that this was the task of the French who were seen busy on the beach, a flag of truce was hoisted, and all firing ceased for an hour. The prisoners, one of whom, the engineer Harry Jones, has left an interesting account of his experiences during the next six weeks[822], were very well treated. The extremely moderate loss of the garrison was 18 killed and 49 wounded—all by musketry fire, since by the abominable misarrangement of the assault the British artillery had no chance of acting.

Two comments by eye-witnesses on this woeful business are worth giving. Colin Campbell wrote:

‘One main cause of failure was the narrow front and consequent length and thinness of the column in which we advanced. This necessarily became more loosened and disjointed by the difficult nature of the ground it had to pass over in the dark. It reached the breach in driblets and never in such body or number as to give the mind of the soldier anything like confidence in success. If some means had been devised of starting the Royals in one big honest lump, which might have been contrived without much difficulty or danger, so that they could have started in some dense form, with the 38th well packed up in a front of fours in readiness to start immediately behind after them, the stoppage at the demi-bastion would never have occurred, and some 200 men at least of the Royals would have reached the breach in a compact body. Such a number would have forced bodily through all opposition. Even under all the disadvantages of bad arrangements, I firmly believe that if we had moved forward by daylight, when an officer could have seen, and been seen by, his men, when the example of the former would have animated the exertions of the latter, the Royals would have gone over the breach on July 25th[823].’

Campbell’s blame, therefore, would fall mainly on Oswald, who, though he had protested against the points chosen for attack, had actually arranged the troops, and failed to remember that men should go ‘over the top’ on a broad front, and on Graham, who fixed the ‘Zero’ point half an hour before dawn. Gomm, of the 1/9th, also a most distinguished and capable officer, goes for other game—the officers of the scientific services:

‘I am afraid our success at Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, owing to the almost miraculous efforts of the troops, has stopped the progress of science among our engineers, and perhaps done more; for it seems to have inspired them with a contempt for so much of it as they had attained before. Our soldiers have on all occasions stood fire so well that our artillery have become as summary in their processes as our engineers. Provided that they have made a hole in the wall, by which we can claw up, they care not about destroying defences. In fact, we have been called upon hitherto to ensure the success of our sieges by the sacrifice of lives. Our Chief Engineers and Commandants of Artillery remind me of Burke’s “Revolutionary Philosophers” and their “dispositions which make them indifferent to the cause of humanity; they think no more of men than of mice in an air pump”. We came before the place well equipped with all the means necessary for attacking it en règle, and I saw no reason for attacking it otherwise. I may dwell longer than I ought to do on this subject. But it is, at least, pardonable in us, who are most nearly concerned, to become tedious in passing our censure upon the methods of those whom we cannot but consider as the authors of our calamity; which, as it was foreseen by others, and might have been by them, could have been avoided.’

The narrative of the assault seems to show that both Campbell and Gomm had reason for their complaints, though they chose different points to criticize. But of the various errors made, undoubtedly the most fatal of all was attempting to storm breaches that could only be approached by a long defile along the flank of the hornwork, which was intact and well garrisoned. And for this the engineers have to take the responsibility. Camp rumour very cruelly put the blame on the troops[824], alleging that there had been a panic: this was a monstrous injustice. Everything that mismanagement could accomplish had been done to discourage them; but it was not poor spirit, but physical incapacity to finish a task impossible under the conditions set, that caused them to retire.

Wellington had, on the 24th, received disquieting news about movements on the French front, and was very anxious to hear of the fall of St. Sebastian before he might be committed to another campaign in the field. He stopped at his head-quarters at Lesaca on the morning of the 25th, lest more definite and threatening information might come to hand. During the hours of dawn he was standing about in Lesaca churchyard listening to the guns, and speculating on the cause of their cessation at 6 o’clock, when the armistice to recover the wounded was made. At 11 came a messenger, Colonel de Burgh, to say that the assault had failed with loss. This was a severe and rather unexpected blow; Wellington had counted on success as probable[825]. Taking the chance of more news coming in from the Pyrenees during his absence, he rode over in haste to St. Sebastian and inspected the scene of the disaster. He declared that the siege must continue, that the Hornwork and the demi-bastion of San Juan must be battered to pieces, and that the engineers had better draw up an alternative scheme for an attack en règle on the land front. More guns and ammunition were expected from England; the latter was much needed, for the reserve was low after the rapid firing on the 22nd-24th. There would probably be some delay before a second storm could be tried[826].

While riding back to Lesaca after his flying visit to the trenches, Wellington was met on the road by messengers of evil. The threats of the preceding day had turned into imminent dangers. Heavy firing had been heard since noon from the side of the Bastan, seeming to show that Hill’s divisions at the Pass of Maya were being attacked. And just as he reached his head-quarters a messenger came up from Cole, at the extreme southern end of the line, to say that he had been assailed in the Pass of Roncesvalles by the enemy in overwhelming strength, and had been fighting hard since dawn—results were still uncertain[827].

Without further information it was, of course, impossible to take more than preliminary measures for parrying the French thrust. Wellington speculated on the situation: one of its meanings might be that the enemy was demonstrating at Roncesvalles and Maya, in order to cover a thrust on the side of the Bidassoa, with the object of raising the siege of St. Sebastian. He wrote at once to Graham that he must expect to be attacked in force, telling him to ship his siege-guns at Passages[828], to leave a minimum of troops to continue the blockade, and to concentrate for the defence of the line of the Bidassoa. It is clear that Wellington was thinking of the scandal caused by the loss of Murray’s guns at Tarragona, and was determined that his own siege train should be afloat betimes. After the guns were safe other stores were put on shipboard.

So ended the first siege of St. Sebastian—a depressing failure not creditable to any one engaged in it. As if the tale of disaster was not complete, a disgraceful incident happened on the night of the 26th-27th. Rey had noted the disarmament of the batteries proceeding all day, and the departure of troops; he resolved to try a sortie at night, to see if the besiegers were all absconding. Before dawn five companies emerging from the Hornwork swept along the parallel, guarded at the moment by detachments of Spry’s Portuguese brigade. Such a bad watch was kept that they were completely surprised, three officers and 198 men were captured: the remainder of the trench-guard fled back to the suburb of San Martin. When the reserves came up and made for the parallel, it was found that the French had retired with their prisoners, after doing some inconsiderable damage to the works[829].

SECTION XXXVIII: CHAPTER II

SOULT TAKES THE OFFENSIVE IN NAVARRE

The Duke of Dalmatia had arrived at Bayonne on the afternoon of July 11th: on the morning of the following day he had taken over from the hands of King Joseph the command of the armies of Spain, after a short and formal interview, at which each said little and thought much. When the King had departed to his enforced retirement, the Marshal called together the senior officers of all the four armies, and informed them that by the Emperor’s orders he had to carry out a general reorganization, which would affect the positions of many of them. There would for the future be one Army of Spain—the separate staffs would disappear: so would many divisional commands, administrative offices, and departmental posts. He had been entrusted by the Emperor with full authority to carry out the changes on his own responsibility.

This was a great moment for Soult: he had at last achieved his ambition, and received that full power over all the armies of Spain which he had coveted since 1808, and had never attained, either while the Emperor pretended to direct in person the war in the Peninsula, or while King Joseph held the nominal post of commander-in-chief. It is true that the long-desired position came to him in consequence of a terrible disaster to the imperial arms, but there were compensating advantages even in this: the disaster, as he conceived, had been due to his old enemies—at any rate it could be ascribed to them with all plausibility. And he was thus provided with an admirable opportunity to repay old grudges, of which he took full advantage in the famous proclamation issued to the army before the commencement of his new campaign: it is a series of elaborate insults to his predecessors, as a short quotation may show.

‘Soldiers! with well-equipped fortresses in front and in rear, a capable general possessing the confidence of his troops could by the choice of good positions have faced and defeated the motley levies opposed to you. Unhappily at the critical moment timid and downhearted counsels prevailed. The fortresses were abandoned or blown up: a hasty and disorderly retreat gave confidence to the enemy; and a veteran army, weak in numbers (it is true) but great in everything that constitutes military character, that army which had fought, bled, and conquered in every province of Spain, saw with indignation its laurels blighted, and was forced to abandon its conquests, the trophies of many sanguinary days of battle. When at last the cries of an indignant army stopped the dishonourable flight, and its chief, touched by a feeling of shame, and yielding to the general desire, gave battle in front of Vittoria, who can doubt that a general worthy of his troops could have won the success merited by their generous enthusiasm, and their splendid sense of honour? Did he make the arrangements and direct the movements which should have assured to one part of his army the help and support of the rest?... Soldiers! I sympathize with your disappointment, your grievances, your indignation. I know that the blame for the present situation must be imputed to others. It is your task to repair the disaster[830].’

This may have been good ‘propaganda’ for the army—it served to soothe their wounded pride by throwing all blame on their late commanders. But there can be no doubt that it was inspired not so much by this very comprehensible motive as by long-cherished malice and hatred for the unfortunate Joseph and Jourdan. This was quite in keeping with Soult’s character. He was a most distinguished soldier, but a most unamiable man; and his memory was as long as his spite was strong.

We have already had much to write on this cold calculating son of a provincial lawyer—one of the few ‘best military brains,’ as his master called him, but also, as King Joseph truly observed, ‘untrustworthy, perverse, dangerous[831].’ He served the Emperor well as long as their interests coincided, but he was quite ready for any other profitable service. Some thirteen months later, as the war minister of Louis XVIII, he showed himself a zealous persecutor of Bonapartists[832]. Soult was the most monstrous of egotists; at this moment his ambition served his master well: no general save William III ever won so much credit from a series of defeats as did Soult in 1813-14 from the operations that began with the disaster of Sorauren and ended with the loss of Toulouse. But on the receipt of the news of the abdication at Fontainebleau he became a zealous Royalist: eighteen months later he was, as the minister of the Bourbons, issuing flamboyant proclamations against ‘the usurper and adventurer, Napoleon Bonaparte[833].’ Yet in the Hundred Days he was to be found as the ‘usurper’s’ Chief of the Staff on the field of Waterloo! Proscribed for a short time on account of this unhappy error in calculation, he was so far back in favour with the ‘powers that were’ as to receive a gift of 200,000 francs from Louis XVIII in 1820, and the grand cordon of St. Louis from Charles X in 1825, on the occasion of his coronation at Reims.

But as long as Napoleon I was emperor, Nicholas Soult was his most valuable lieutenant: their interests coincided, and it is certain that none of the other marshals would have played such a creditable losing game on the Pyrenees and the plains of Southern France against such an adversary as Wellington.

The Army of Spain received the news of his advent with mixed feelings. There was a considerable faction among his own old generals of Andalusia, who welcomed back one who had been an indulgent spectator of their peculations—of which he himself had set the example. For Soult’s acquisitiveness was portentous—he was ready to snatch at everything from a shadowy Portuguese crown in Oporto to inferior Murillos in the convents of Seville. The train of his personal plunder had excited anger, envy, or derision, according to the temper of the observer, as it defiled through Madrid, when he quitted Spain five months back. He had left behind him many adherents, who followed him for the same motive for which he himself followed Napoleon. They rejoiced at his return, believing, not in error, that his patronage would be exercised in favour of old comrades of the Army of the South, rather than for the benefit of strangers. Others held that he was to be welcomed because any leadership would be better than that of King Joseph, and because his undoubted military talents would be exercised in the best style when he was working for his own credit, and not for that of any one else. Like the Emperor, they had a great belief in his brains. It was difficult to feel much personal enthusiasm for a chief so self-centred, so cold and hard in his dealings with subordinates, so ready to shift blame on to other men’s shoulders, so greedy in getting and so mean in spending. But at any rate he would not be weak like Jourdan, or rash like Marmont, or simply incapable like Dorsenne or Caffarelli. A general who served as his senior aide-de-camp for eight uncomfortable years, and left his staff with glee, sums him up in the following cruel phrases:

‘In war he loved vigorous enterprises, and when once committed to a scheme stuck to it with obstinacy and force. If I say that he loved vigorous enterprises I must add that he loved them provided that they did not involve too much personal danger, for he was far from possessing the brilliant courage of Ney or Lannes. It might even be said that he was the very reverse of rash—that he was a little too careful of himself. This failing grew upon him after his great fortune had come to him—and indeed it was not uncommon to meet officers who showed no care of their lives when they were mere colonels or brigadiers, but who in later years took cover behind their marshal’s bâton. But this caution visible on the battlefield did not follow him to the tent, under whose roof he conceived and ordered, often in the presence of the enemy, movements of great audacity—whose execution he handed over to officers of known courage and resolution[834].’ Another contemporary makes remarks to much the same effect, ‘Proud of the reputation which he had usurped, he was full of assurance on the day before a battle: he recovered that same assurance the day after a defeat. But in action he seemed unable to issue good orders, to choose good positions, or to move his troops freely. It seemed as if any scheme which he had once conceived and written down at his desk was an immutable decree from heaven, which he had not the power to vary by subsequent changes[835].’

This is much what Wellington meant when he observed in familiar conversation that Soult was not equal to Masséna. ‘He did not quite understand a field of battle: he knew very well how to bring his troops on to the field, but not so well how to use them when he had brought them up[836].’

But on July 12th Soult, with his great opportunity before him, was in his audacious mood, and it was in all sincerity that he had written to the Emperor before he assumed his command, that he would concentrate the army, and retake the offensive within a very few days, and that he trusted to be able to stop the movements of Wellington. This was no small promise considering the state in which the army was handed over to him, and it is a marvellous proof of his driving power that he actually succeeded in launching a most dangerous attack on Wellington’s line by the thirteenth day after his arrival at Bayonne.

The detailed orders for the reorganization of the army were published on July 15th. Soult had started with a general idea of the lines on which they were to be carried out, and had just received a more definite scheme from the Emperor, sent off from Dresden on July 5th in pursuit of him. Napoleon ordered that not only were the armies of the North, South, Centre, and Portugal to be abolished—their names were now absurd anachronisms—but, despite of the great number of troops available, no army corps were to be created. Evidently he had come to the conclusion that not only army-commanders, but even army-corps-commanders might be strong enough to impair the complete control which he wished to give over to Soult. He directed that the infantry should be divided into as many divisions of two brigades and 6,000 men each as the available total of bayonets could complete. The Marshal was authorized to work them as he pleased, in groups of two, three, or four divisions. To command these groups (which were really army-corps in all but name) he might appoint three officers with the title of lieutenant-general, who would have the divisional generals under their orders. There were to be no special staffs for the groups, whose composition the Marshal might alter from time to time: the lieutenant-generals were only to be allowed a chief staff-officer and their own personal aides-de-camp, and their pay was to be no more than 40,000 francs per annum. Clearly there was to be no recrudescence of the enormous staffs and liberal perquisites and allowances of the old corps-commanders.

Artillery might still be short, despite of the large number of guns sent up to the front from Toulouse and Bordeaux. But the Emperor directed that each infantry division ought to have two field batteries, each cavalry division one horse artillery battery, and that Soult ought to create an army-reserve of two horse artillery batteries and several batteries of guns of position. There was to be one general commanding artillery and one general commanding engineers for the whole army, and (what was quite as important) one commissary general only, in whose hands all responsibilities for food and transport were to be centralized.

In a general way, but not in all details, Soult carried out these orders. The gross total of the troops under his command would appear to have been 117,789 of all ranks. But this included the garrisons of St. Sebastian, Pampeluna, and Santoña, 8,200 men in all: also 5,595 half-trained conscripts of the Bayonne Reserve, 16,184 sick and detached, and over 4,500 men of the non-combatant services—ouvriers militaires, transport train, ambulance train, &c. Deducting these, he had available 84,311 fighting men, of whom 72,664 were infantry, 7,147 cavalry, and about 4,000 artillery, sappers and miners, gendarmerie[837], &c. This total does not include Paris’ troops from Saragossa, who were lying at Jaca, and had not yet joined the Army of Spain, being still credited to Suchet’s Army of Aragon and Valencia.

Soult created out of these elements nine fighting divisions of infantry, two of cavalry, and a strong but miscellaneous Reserve Corps, which had the equivalent of five brigades. The plan which he adopted for the reorganization was to select nine of the old infantry divisions (of which there had been 14-1/2) and to keep them as the bases of the new units, drafting into them the battalions of the other five[838]. Those abolished were the two divisions (Abbé’s and Vandermaesen’s) of the Army of the North, Sarrut’s division of the Army of Portugal, Leval’s of the Army of the South, and Darmagnac’s of the Army of the Centre. Sarrut had been killed at Vittoria, Leval had gone to Germany; but provision was made for the other three generals whose divisions were ‘scrapped’: Abbé took over Villatte’s old division of the Army of the South, while Villatte went to command the general reserve. Vandermaesen was given the division of the Army of Portugal lately under Barbot, who relapsed into the status of a brigadier. Darmagnac went with the two French regiments of his old division to join the surviving unit of the Army of the Centre, Cassagne’s division, and took command of it—Cassagne, its former chief, disappearing. Lastly, Daricau having been severely wounded at Vittoria, his division was given to Maransin, whose independent brigade was absorbed. Thus, of the old divisions, only those of Foy, Conroux, Maucune, Taupin, Lamartinière, remained under their original leaders: the other four surviving divisions got new chiefs, whose names are familiar to us, but who had hitherto been connected with quite different troops.

Napoleon’s ideal of the ‘standard’ division of 6,000 men was not accurately realized, owing to the fact that some corps had suffered heavily and others hardly at all during the recent campaign. Putting six regiments into each division, Soult found that he had created units varying in size from Abbé’s with 8,030 men to Vandermaesen’s, with only 4,181. For there was no uniformity of size among the regiments, which varied from 1,900 bayonets in three battalions[839] down to 430 in one[840]. Abbé’s, Lamartinière’s, Conroux’s, and Darmagnac’s divisions had 7,000 men each, or more; Foy’s, Taupin’s, and Maransin’s just about 6,000; Vandermaesen’s and Maucune’s not much over 4,000 each. It was still impossible to carry out Napoleon’s orders to give each division two batteries of field artillery, only one apiece could be provided; but, this moderate provision having been made, there remained over for the general artillery reserve two batteries of horse and two of field artillery. The army had in all 140 guns horsed—72 with the infantry divisions, 32 with Villatte’s reserve, 12 with the cavalry divisions, 24 as general army reserve. There were also three mountain batteries—two- or three-pounders carried on muleback.

For his chief of the staff Soult chose Gazan, who had long served with him in the same capacity in Andalusia. The late generals-in-chief of the Armies of Portugal, the North and the Centre—Reille, Clausel, and Drouet D’Erlon, naturally took the three lieutenant-generalcies: Soult gave each of them three divisions in charge, but being prohibited from calling these groups ‘army corps’, he styled them the ‘lieutenancies’ of the Right, Left, and Centre. These terms soon became anomalous—for by the chances of manœuvre the ‘Centre’—D’Erlon’s group—during the campaign of the Pyrenees fought on the right, the ‘left’ (Clausel) in the Centre, and the ‘right’ (Reille) on the left wing. The absurd nomenclature of the groups sometimes makes a French dispatch hard to understand: it would have been much simpler to call the three groups army-corps, but this designation was under taboo by the Emperor’s special command.

Clausel took the left lieutenancy, because he and his troops, which he had brought back from his long march in Aragon, were actually on the left on June 15th: he had under him the two divisions, those of Vandermaesen and Taupin, which practically represented the bulk of his former column, with Conroux’s division which had remained at St. Jean-Pied-du-Port when the rest of the Army of the South went to the Bidassoa. The total of bayonets was 17,218—this was the weakest of the ‘lieutenancies’ because the individual regiments recently returned from Aragon were low in numbers from three months of mountain warfare against Mina.

D’Erlon had the Centre, with the divisions of Abbé and Maransin, both consisting of old Andalusian regiments, and of Darmagnac, who represented the French part of the Army of the Centre. His corps were strong—just under 21,000 bayonets[841].

Reille, late chief of the Army of Portugal, had the remaining three divisions, Foy, Maucune, and Lamartinière, all of them coming from his own old command, and under officers who had long served in that army. Their total strength was 17,235—many of the regiments were low in numbers from the recent fighting in Biscay.

Each of the three ‘lieutenancies’ had a light cavalry regiment attached to it—we should have called them corps-cavalry had the name been permitted. They were weak—only 808 sabres between the three—but sufficient for scouting purposes.

Adding the two cavalry divisions of Pierre Soult (the Marshal’s very undistinguished but much cherished brother) and Treillard, the Army of Spain had 7,147 sabres, including the remnants of the foreign cavalry—Nassau Chasseurs, Spanish light horse, and Royal Guards, who were something under 1,000 all told.

The very large body of troops under Villatte which Soult had left outside his nine marching divisions, and his three ‘lieutenancies’, consisted of a great number of battalions of the recently abolished armies, which were left as a surplus, when the new formations had been brought up to the six-regiment standard. They included of French troops one odd battalion of the Army of Portugal, eleven of the Army of the North, and six of the old Bayonne Reserve. The eighteen battalions were mostly rather weak, and mustered only a little over 9,000 bayonets between them.

In addition Villatte’s reserve included all the foreign troops—Neuenstein’s Rheinbund Germans, who had served so long in the Army of the Centre, St. Pol’s Italian brigade, the King’s Foot-Guards—a solid body of 2,000 infantry, all Frenchmen, though in Spanish uniform—and the forlorn remnant of the Afrancesados—three dwindling regiments under Casapalacios, which had shrunk from 2,000 to 1,100 bayonets during the last month.

Adding a battalion of foot-gendarmes from the evacuated Biscay garrisons, and another of local National guards, Villatte had over 17,000 infantry—a force as big as Reille’s or Clausel’s lieutenancies. There was some weak stuff among them[842], but the greater part were experienced troops in nowise inferior to the units of the marching divisions. It is hard to see why Soult did not make up a tenth division out of the best of them: this would still have left Villatte 12,000 men, and would have been very useful in the fighting army. But apparently, as will be seen during the narrative of the campaign of July-August, he intended to use the Reserve in an active fashion, and was foiled by the caution or timidity of Villatte, who discharged the orders given him in a very half-hearted way. This mass of troops was really quite capable of being used as a fighting unit—it had its four batteries of field artillery, the foreign cavalry were allotted to it, and a proportion of sappers and engineers. Even after leaving a detachment—say the Afrancesados and one or two of the weakest French battalions—to aid the conscripts to garrison Bayonne, it could have taken the field with 15,000 men of all arms[843].

To assume the offensive with a recently beaten army is dangerous. Many of the regiments which Soult had to use had only a month before recrossed the Pyrenees in a state of complete disorder: they had been entirely out of hand, and had been guilty of outrages among the French peasantry which recalled their worst doings in Spain. The greater number of the senior officers had applied for service in the Army of Germany the moment that they had crossed the frontier: it was refused to nearly all of them. The junior officers would have made similar applications, if they had thought that it would be of any use. Every one of every rank was cursing King Joseph, luck, the weather, the supply services, the War Ministry at Paris, and his own immediate hierarchical superior: a sentiment d’ineptie générale prevailed[844]. A great deal of this demoralization was mere nervous exhaustion, resulting from long marches and semi-starvation extending over many weeks. After a fortnight of comparative rest and more or less regular rations it commenced to subside. The whole army consisted of veteran troops proud of their regimental honour and their past victories: they soon persuaded themselves that they had never been given a fair chance in the recent campaign—Soult’s clever and malicious proclamation exactly hit off their state of mind. It was easy to lay all the blame on bad generalship, and to plead that a good half of the troops had not fought at Vittoria: in full force and under a competent leader they would have made mincemeat of the ‘motley levies’ of Wellington. When the whole host was reassembled, after Clausel’s arrival, every one could see that the numerical loss in the late disaster had been very moderate: there were more French troops assembled on the Bidassoa than any member of any of the armies had ever seen concentrated before. Shame and anger replaced dejection in their minds: even the marauders and deserters came back to the Eagles by thousands. Soult wrote to the Minister of War that the disquieting state of indiscipline which he had discovered on his arrival was subsiding, that marauding had ceased with the distribution of regular rations, and that the morale of the army was satisfactory.

The weakest part of the reorganization was, of course, the transport. The army had lost all its wheeled vehicles and many of its animals in the disaster of Vittoria: they had not been replaced in any adequate fashion during the four short weeks that followed. By extraordinary efforts the Commissariat had found food for every one, so long as the main body of the army was encamped between Bayonne and the Bidassoa. But it would be impossible to start it properly equipped for a long mountain campaign far from its base. Soult took the desperate risk of starting on July 23 with only four days’ rations in hand with the marching columns: all that would be wanted later was to come up by successive convoys sent out from the neighbourhood of Bayonne. And it was little better with munitions for infantry and artillery alike. The campaign became a time-problem: unless a decisive success were achieved within the first four or five days, there was grave danger of the army being brought to a stop. It would be helpless if it should have used up all its cartridges in several days of continuous and severe, but indecisive, fighting: or if bad weather should prevent the regular appearance of convoys from the rear. This Soult knew, but thought that his arrangements were calculated to secure that quick and decisive victory which would justify all taking of risks.

The plan of campaign which the Marshal chose was one of the three alternative schemes which the unlucky Jourdan had formulated during his last days at the front[845]. It will be remembered that they were (1) to endeavour to raise the siege of St. Sebastian by massing every available man on the Bidassoa, and striking at Giron and Graham—who was wrongly supposed to have only one British division with him. After driving back Graham as far as Tolosa on the high road, it would be possible to turn southward and relieve Pampeluna: Clausel’s corps, meanwhile, should demonstrate in Navarre, to distract Wellington from sending his reserves from the south to the main point of danger. Both Jourdan on July 5 and Soult on July 23rd believed, the former correctly, the latter wrongly, that there were three British divisions engaged in the blockade of Pampeluna.

(2) To leave a corps of observation on the Bidassoa to contain Graham, while the rest of the army struck at Pampeluna by the route of Roncesvalles. This would have the advantage of raising the siege of that place at once, though the relief of St. Sebastian would be deferred. But, Jourdan added, it had three disadvantages—the road was bad and might conceivably prove impracticable for artillery: the bulk of the British divisions would probably be found concentrated for a fight to cover the blockade: and Navarre was a country in which no army could scrape together food enough to live upon.

(3) To leave a corps of observation on the Bidassoa, and convey the rest of the army into Aragon, by the pass of Jaca, to join Suchet and operate with overwhelming forces on the Ebro against Wellington’s flank and rear. This, the operation which Jourdan regarded as the best of the three, had since become impossible, because Paris had abandoned Saragossa, and Suchet had taken his army to Catalonia: on July 17 he was at Tarragona.

Soult’s plan was in essence Jourdan’s second alternative; but he complicated it by dividing the army which was to strike at Pampeluna into two columns. Two-thirds of the whole (Reille and Clausel) was to march by the Roncesvalles passes; D’Erlon with the remainder was to force the pass of Maya and to converge on Pampeluna by the Bastan and the Col de Velate. Jourdan’s memorandum contained a special caution against the dissemination of columns, ‘je pense que toute opération de plusieurs corps isolés ne réussira pas.’ How frequently in military history two columns starting from distant bases have failed to meet on the appointed day is known to every student. It is seldom that a complete success is secured—as at Königgrätz. Much more frequently the enemy against whom the concentration was planned has beaten one corps before the other—delayed by one of the uncountable chances of war—has come upon the scene. And this was to be the case with Soult before Pampeluna.

The advantages of Soult’s scheme were very comprehensible. The greatest was that, owing to the existence of a first-class road from Bayonne to St. Jean-Pied-du-Port, he could concentrate the main body of his army upon his extreme left wing long before Wellington could make the corresponding counter-move. In the early days of the operation he could calculate on having an immense superiority of force on the Roncesvalles front. It was more doubtful what would happen on the third or fourth day, if Wellington divined his enemy’s plan at the first moment, and ordered a general concentration before Pampeluna, as Jourdan had taken for granted that he would. But Soult considered that he had found means to make such a concentration impossible, by sending D’Erlon and his 20,000 men to pierce the allied left-centre at Maya, and to sweep down the Bastan. If D’Erlon broke in on the first day, and got possession of the positions that dominate the road-system of the Bastan—Elizondo and the Col de Velate—the northern divisions of Wellington’s army would only be able to join the southern divisions in front of Pampeluna by immense détours to the west—by Santesteban and the Pass of Donna Maria, or even by Tolosa and Yrurzun. In all human probability they would arrive too late.

The British commander, as we shall see, did not divine Soult’s whole purpose at the first moment, and therefore his general concentration was ordered a day later than it might have been. And the officers who were in charge of his extreme right at Roncesvalles gave way quicker than he had intended. The campaign became a most interesting time problem, which was settled in favour of Wellington in the end, by the fact that his first-arriving northern reserves got to the positions in front of Pampeluna a day before Soult’s secondary column under D’Erlon came into touch with the French main body. The subordinate officers on both sides made some extraordinary mistakes, which compromised the plans of their superiors: the worst of them were in the line of slow and irregular transmission of news, which in a mountain country, where all side communications were difficult, and no general view of the situation could be taken by the commander’s own eye, sometimes led to ruinous miscalculations at head-quarters. It cannot be said that one side suffered more than the other from this negligence of subordinates.

To proceed to the details. Soult’s left wing at St. Jean-Pied-du-Port was ready to start, Conroux and Clausel’s old divisions having been cantoned in the neighbourhood of that fortress ever since they arrived in France; they were only one long march from their objective, the gap of Roncesvalles. At the other end of the line, D’Erlon’s three divisions were also within one long march of the Pass of Maya—they already lay with their vanguard at Urdax and their last rear brigade at Espelette. The difficulty lay with the third ‘lieutenancy’; Reille’s three divisions of the old Army of Portugal on July 20th were on the lower Bidassoa, holding the front opposite Graham and Giron; they had to be got to St. Jean-Pied-du-Port, to join Clausel and co-operate in the main attack[846]. To draw them out of their existing positions without arousing too much attention at Wellington’s head-quarters was comparatively easy. On the night of the 19th-20th four brigades of Villatte’s reserve replaced Reille’s troops at the outposts. On the following day the three fighting divisions concentrated at St. Jean de Luz and started to march eastward, with orders to cross the Nive at Cambo, and to get into the great chaussée by Urcaray and Hellette, which leads to St. Jean-Pied-du-Port. Drawing up a far too optimistic time-chart, Soult had hoped that they would all be in the neighbourhood of St. Jean-Pied-du-Port by the morning of the 22nd. As the distance was not less than 50 miles, this would have been very hard work in any case, for a long column marching with a large train of artillery, as Reille was bringing up beside his own pieces three batteries for Clausel, who had arrived gunless from Aragon. But the main cause of delay was quite different: though the Bayonne-St. Jean-Pied-du-Port chaussée was excellent, the local cross-road from St. Jean de Luz by St. Pée to the bridge of Cambo was not, and torrential rains on the 20th made it into a quagmire[847]. The troops got on very slowly, and at night the bridge at Cambo was carried away by a spate, leaving the bulk of Lamartinière’s division on the wrong side of the water. It was repaired; but the general result was that the head of Reille’s column only neared its destination late at night on the 22nd, while the rear division and the guns did not get up till the 24th. The Marshal had been waiting for them since the morning of the 21st, and had hoped to start operations on the 23rd. He had been joined by his two cavalry divisions, brought up from their cantonments between the Nive and the Adour on that day, so that Reille’s delays put the movement of all the other corps a day late.

On the 24th Soult was able to commence moving up both Clausel’s and Reille’s columns toward the Roncesvalles gap, so that they should be able to attack it on the 25th at an early hour. D’Erlon, being already in position in front of Maya, was only waiting for the signal to march. Villatte had been given orders which left a good deal to his private judgement, to the effect that he must simulate an offensive attitude on the Bidassoa front, but make no real attack till he knew that D’Erlon had got well forward in the Bastan and that Graham’s flank was threatened. He might then push the latter with confidence, as the allied troops on the coast would have to give way, and to raise the siege of St. Sebastian, if their centre in the Bastan had been broken and driven westward.

It is interesting to find in a dispatch which Soult sent to Paris on the 23rd his estimate of the position of Wellington’s line of defence. He starts fairly well—Graham with the 1st Division is on the heights beyond the Bidassoa: Oswald with the 5th Division and a Spanish (it should be a Portuguese) corps besieges St. Sebastian. The 7th Division under Lord Dalhousie holds the front Vera-Echalar. Then comes a curious blunder—the 6th Division under General Hay is on the (French) left of the 7th Division. Really it was in reserve at Santesteban, and under Pack; Clinton, who had only taken over command after long sick leave on June 22nd, having again fallen ill. General Hill, with the 2nd Division under W. Stewart, and Hamilton’s Portuguese (Silveira had superseded Hamilton many months back) is in the Bastan, and holds ‘with camps and batteries’ the passes of Maya and Ispegui. We are assured that the 3rd and 4th Divisions and a Spanish corps are besieging Pampeluna. ‘There seems to be another division (probably the 8th Division) under a General Bird in position at Altobiscar, above Roncesvalles. There is an English (Portuguese) brigade under General Campbell in the Alduides. The Spaniards of the Army of Galicia guard the Bidassoa from Vera to the sea.’

It will be noted that this reconstruction of Wellington’s line makes the covering force in front of Pampeluna too weak, for it is believed to consist of ‘Bird’s’ division (a mistake for Byng’s brigade?) and the force of Campbell in the Val de Alduides only. Really the Conde de Abispal’s Andalusians had relieved the 3rd and 4th Divisions on July 16-17, and they were free, and disposable as a reserve to the troops on the Roncesvalles front—Picton being at Olague in the valley of the Lanz, Cole at Viscarret on the Pampeluna-Roncesvalles road: Pack and the 6th Division at Santesteban were only a little farther away. Moreover, Morillo’s Spaniards were up in line with Byng. The Light Division makes no appearance in Soult’s table, unless he means the 8th Division under ‘General Bird’ to represent it.

There is therefore a grave miscalculation when Soult ends by informing Clarke that, after examining the whole Allied line, he has come to the conclusion that the right wing is the weak point, and the one that should be attacked, by a flank movement which he will continue till he has turned its rear. If Wellington’s plans had worked out well, there would have happened what Jourdan had foreseen, viz. so vigorous a resistance in the passes by the British outlying troops, that Soult would only have arrived in front of Pampeluna to find the main bulk of Wellington’s army offering him battle in front of the besieged city. But, as we shall see, Cole and Picton received Wellington’s orders just too late to allow them to carry out the policy which he dictated.

Such were Soult’s views of Wellington’s situation. It remains to be seen what Wellington made of Soult’s intentions. He was from the first conscious that the Marshal’s appearance might mean a prompt resumption of the offensive by the enemy[848]. And the movements of the French were reported to him with very fair accuracy and dispatch. As early as the 22nd he was aware that the enemy was weakening his front on the Bidassoa, and that troops were accumulating at St. Jean-Pied-du-Port[849]. On the 24th he knew that the force moved in that direction must be the larger half of the French army. But his judgement on the meaning of this movement was entirely coloured by the fact that he had breached St. Sebastian, and that he believed, like Graham, that it would be stormed successfully on the 24th or 25th. He also knew that Soult was being informed, day by day, of the state of the fortress. On the other hand, he was aware that Pampeluna was quite safe—it had food enough to last for several weeks at least, and he was not pressing it hard, as he was pressing St. Sebastian. From this he deduced the conclusion that Soult could not in honour suffer St. Sebastian to be taken almost under his eyes, as it would be unless he intervened. Therefore the moving of troops—even large numbers of troops—towards St. Jean-Pied-du-Port, must be a feint, because the Marshal’s obvious duty was to save St. Sebastian—while Pampeluna was in no danger. He read the French manœuvres as an attempt to distract his attention from the Bidassoa. And his idea that a desperate attempt would be made to relieve St. Sebastian seemed to be borne out by the fact that Villatte was making flying bridges at Urogne, and that French boats were running in to the mouth of the Bidassoa from St. Jean de Luz. Still, if reports were correct, the enemy was likely to make a very serious demonstration on the Roncesvalles front. Wellington therefore wrote to Cole on the 23rd that he was not to allow himself to be pushed in too easily towards Pampeluna. ‘You should support Major-General Byng in the defence of the passes as effectually as you can, without committing his troops and the 4th Division against a force so superior that the advantage of the ground would not compensate it. You will be good enough to make arrangements further back also, for stopping the enemy’s progress toward Pampeluna, in the event of your being compelled to give up the passes which General Byng now occupies.... A sure communication should exist with General Sir Thomas Picton, and Sir Thomas should be apprised of any movement of troops, either upon the Roncesvalles road, or upon that of Eugui and the Alduides, in order that he may make such arrangements as circumstances may dictate for giving support, should such an event occur.... It is desirable that you should transmit a daily report for the present to Head Quarters[850].’

This was followed up by even more stringent orders on the following day. George Murray wrote to Cole, ‘Lord Wellington has desired that I should express still more strongly how essential he considers it that the passes in front of Roncesvalles should be maintained to the utmost. And I am to direct you to be so good as to make every necessary arrangement for repelling effectually any direct attack that the enemy may make in that quarter.... Lord Wellington attaches very little importance to any wider turning movement which the enemy might make upon our right. The difficulties and delays of any wider movement are considerable obstacles, and would retard him sufficiently to give time to make other arrangements to stop his progress[851].’

It would be most inaccurate to say that Wellington was surprised by Soult’s offensive at the southern end of his line, as these orders sufficiently demonstrate. At the same time he remained till late on the night of the 25th firmly convinced that the French move in Navarre was a feint or subsidiary operation, and that the real attack would be on the Bidassoa. On the 24th, knowing of the accumulation of hostile troops before Roncesvalles, he wrote to Graham that undoubtedly the enemy is very strong on that side, ‘but only because he entertains serious designs to draw away our attention from the side of Irun, and then to attempt to pass the river[852].’ And on the same morning he wrote to Giron that ‘the enemy’s main force has moved towards St. Jean-Pied-du-Port; but his two pontoon bridges remain at Urogne. It would seem that he intends to distract our attention to the other side, and then to make a try at the river. But as (at 11 a.m.) I no longer hear the guns at St. Sebastian, I am hoping that its business has been settled[853].’ It will be remembered that the projected storm on the 24th had been postponed because of the conflagration, so that the cessation of the firing had not the happy meaning that Wellington attributed to it.

On the morning of the 25th, when the unsuccessful attempt on St. Sebastian was actually made, Wellington was up at early dawn, listening once more to the guns, as he strode up and down in the churchyard of Lesaca. Again they stopped, after two hours of furious fire, just as on the preceding day; and again Wellington hoped that ‘the business had been settled’—that the French scheme (as he conceived it) had been foiled, because there was now no garrison at St. Sebastian left for Soult to relieve. But ere noon there arrived a dejected messenger to report that there had been this time no postponed assault, but a serious attack defeated with very heavy loss. This unhappy fact upset all Wellington’s calculations: if the failure had been very disastrous, it would result that St. Sebastian must be reckoned as in no immediate danger; and Soult’s heavy demonstration in front of Roncesvalles might prove to be no feint, but a real attempt to relieve Pampeluna. Yet Wellington still doubted this interpretation of the enemy’s move: ‘one can hardly believe that with 30,000 men he proposes to force himself through the passes of the mountains. The remainder of his force, one must think, must come into operation on some other point, either to-morrow or the day after[854].’ In fact he still opined that there would be an assault on the Bidassoa—not understanding that the enemy’s surplus, or the greater part of it—D’Erlon’s column of 21,000 men—was striking at the Maya Pass, and was in possession of it at the moment when he wrote this dispatch to Graham.

Meanwhile the great thing was to discover exactly what was the condition of affairs at St. Sebastian, and Wellington rode over the hills in haste to visit Graham, before any notice of the attacks of the French at Maya and at Roncesvalles had come to hand. He spent a long afternoon opposite the fortress, with the results that have been explained in the preceding chapter. It was only on his ride back to Lesaca in the dark that he met the first messenger of evil. His Chief of the Staff, George Murray, had sent out an officer to tell him that furious firing had been audible from the side of the Maya passes all through the afternoon. But no explanatory dispatch had been received either from W. Stewart in command at Maya itself, or from Hill, in charge of the whole defence of the Bastan. This was astonishing, as there was a properly established line of communication along the Bastan to head-quarters; rumours had come to hand that the enemy was stopped, but no official report. On reaching Lesaca an hour later, Wellington found an officer sent by Cole from Roncesvalles awaiting him, who brought the news that the French were attacking on that front in overpowering numbers. But up to midday, when the messenger had started, no breach had been made in the British line[855].

Late at night news did finally come from the Maya front. Stewart sent a verbal message that he had lost the pass, and though he had regained it for a moment by the aid of a brigade of the 7th Division, Hill had ordered him to fall back. This was confirmed by a letter from Hill, which said that Stewart had been driven out of the pass, but that they were going to try to hold on in a position at Elizondo, ten miles farther down the Bastan. It was owing to absolutely criminal negligence on the part of his subordinates that Wellington learned the details of a fight that had begun at about 11 a.m., only twenty miles away, at no earlier an hour than 10 p.m. But late as it was, he had now at last the information which enabled him to guess at Soult’s general design, and to give orders for dealing with it.

SECTION XXXVIII: CHAPTER III

RONCESVALLES AND MAYA

Soult, though a day later than he had intended, was ready for his great stroke at the passes by dawn on July 25th. The main blow was to be delivered on the Roncesvalles front, where he had the 34,000 infantry of Reille and Clausel assembled, not to speak of the two cavalry divisions, which would only become useful when he should reach the plain of Pampeluna. So much was D’Erlon’s attack on the Maya passes the secondary part of the scheme, that we find Soult informing that general that his advance would probably be facilitated by the arrival in the enemy’s camp of the news that Roncesvalles had been forced: this would compel Hill to fall back down the Bastan, and he should be pursued as briskly as possible.

The Roncesvalles business was therefore the more important part of the programme for July 25th. The Marshal had chosen for the routes of Clausel and Reille two roads, which climb up from St. Jean-Pied-du-Port and the valley of the Nive to the bleak plateau above the historic abbey, where the relics of Roland were still shown. Between them lies a broad and deep valley, the Val Carlos, with the mountain stream called the Nive d’Arneguy running down its middle. The eastern road climbs the slopes to the (French) left of the valley: it was practicable for artillery and vehicles, and sappers had been working for the last few days to improve some of its more tiresome curves. This road, after passing the Venta d’Orisson, the last inhabited spot on the north slope, and the ruined fort of Château Pignon, comes to the crest under a hill called Leiçaratheca, immediately in front of the higher position called Altobiscar, where the watershed lies. It then passes for a mile along this watershed known as the ridge of Ibaneta, and descends by curves to the abbey on the Spanish side. The other road, no more than a mountain track in 1813, and quite impracticable for guns or transport, climbs uphill on the western slopes of the Val Carlos, only three or four miles from the better route as the crow flies, but always separated from it by the broad and deep intervening combe. After passing the village of Arneguy, it gets up on to the narrow crest of the mountain, the Airola, which separates the Val Carlos from the Val Haira, the next valley westward. Along this ridge it winds for five or six miles, till the crest joins the main watershed of the Pyrenees at a small plateau called the Linduz, about two miles or so west of the point on the Ibaneta ridge where the other road comes in. A practicable track along the watershed joins them. Since 1813 the whole of the road-geography of this stretch of the Pyrenees has been changed, by the construction of a metalled chaussée from Arneguy up the Val Carlos, which did not exist in 1813: it goes along the slopes, not along the actual crest, like the mere track which Reille’s men had to follow on July 25th, and is now a better route than the old high road by Venta d’Orisson and Château Pignon. From the Linduz there is a steep path going straight down into Spain, without joining the Roncesvalles road: it is called the Puerto de Mendichuri, and leads to Espinal. The little plateau has yet another exit; along the crests to its west comes in a very bad track from the valley of the Alduides, named the path of Atalosti. It is because it lay at such a ganglion of joining ridges, that the Linduz was marked by a ruined earthwork—a relic of the war of 1793-4.

To understand the general lie of the fighting ground, it must be remembered that from the Linduz to Altobiscar is about three miles of saddle-back ridge, lowest in the middle, where the chaussée crosses the sky-line at 3,600 feet above sea-level, while the highest point of the Linduz is about 4,200, and that of Altobiscar about 4,900 feet up. The descent into France is much steeper than that into Spain—Burguete and Espinal are only 700 feet below the summit of the pass, Arneguy and the village of Val Carlos on the French side 3,000 feet below it. This is the reason that caused Soult to send his right column along the lofty path on the Airola ridge, from which they could approach the Linduz on a level, instead of bidding them climb up direct from the deep-sunk bottom of the Val Carlos trough.

It should be added that the scenery of the three miles of the Roncesvalles front is not precipitous or Alpine. There are some outcrops of rock in certain places—e. g. along the front of the Leiçaratheca hill, but the prevailing aspect is rather like that of Scottish highland scenery on a large scale. The slopes are mostly short slippery grass, not unclimbable for a good walker, though difficult for the soldier of 1813 carrying the 70 lb. of his fighting kit and heavy knapsack. The lower skirts of the hills are covered in many parts with woods of pine and beech and stunted undergrowth of oak: in some places these stretch up right to the summits—the Linduz has thick foliage on its eastern flank, and the ridge leading to it from the Airola spur has trees on both sides of the narrow track which winds along its crest, so that troops ascending it are only intermittently visible. Much of the Ibaneta position—the central saddle between the Linduz and Altobiscar—is covered with bush. But from the highest summits there are long and clear views over the woods and the grass-slopes alike—views much more commanding, it may be noted, toward the French than toward the Spanish side. So striking is the general effect that, even on the morning of battle, it fixed itself on the minds of several of the combatants as a memory not to be forgotten[856]: fighting has seldom taken place with such a broad and majestic horizon.

Soult knew that his attack would be expected on the high road—Clausel’s troops had been visible to Byng’s outposts for some time, and on the night of the 24th there had been a slight skirmish of picquets between the Leiçaratheca and Château-Pignon. But he was under the impression that he would take the enemy entirely by surprise in his second attack, that directed against the Linduz by the obscure and difficult path along the crest of the Airola mountain, which since the war of 1793-4 had only been used by shepherds and smugglers. And on to this narrow path he pushed the full half of his infantry—the whole of Reille’s three divisions. It is probable that we must write down the whole of this movement as a mistake: the track was so bad that it could only be used by daylight—at night it would have been impossible to discover the way, among steep slopes and thickets. There were so many ups and downs, and the grass slopes on each side were so slippery, that nothing could be done in the dark. The actual result was that the whole 17,000 bayonets of Reille advanced with a front of two men, or even in Indian file, forming a sort of procession many miles long. The head battalion was fighting hard on the Linduz before the tail battalion had begun to stir from Arneguy. Reille had made over his batteries and his regiment of corps-cavalry to Clausel, receiving in return eight mountain guns carried by mules, and a train of pack-beasts laden with infantry ammunition. It is obvious that a movement of this sort could only succeed if the enemy was surprised, since the column had no thrusting-power; it was all length without breadth, and one brigade ready at the Linduz might hold up the entire three divisions, which would have no space to deploy so as to make their numbers felt. This, as we shall see, is precisely what happened: the Linduz was found in British occupation, and Reille was blocked for the whole day in front of a very inferior force.

On the Château Pignon-Altobiscar road Soult had sent forward the whole of Clausel’s force, the three divisions one behind the other, in the order Vandermaesen-Taupin-Conroux. Behind the last infantry division was the cavalry, and then all the guns and transport. Everything on wheels belonging to Reille had been put in at the tail of Clausel’s impedimenta. This made a column of interminable length. The conditions were better for an advance on this front than on the western track, since the road was broad and the slopes on each side of it fairly practicable: but there were formidable positions to be carried before the watershed could be reached.

Byng and Morillo had been for three weeks at the Roncesvalles passes, but it was only eight days since they had been put under the command of Cole, who had come up with the 4th Division from his long stay in front of Pampeluna. And it was only on the 22nd that Wellington had sent to Cole the warning that the French main body was moving toward St. Jean-Pied-du-Port, and that he might expect to be attacked. On the 23rd Cole received the stringent orders which have been quoted on an earlier page, but the still stronger message of the 24th seems only to have reached him after the fighting had begun.

While Byng and Morillo were in charge they had evidently counted on being attacked along the high-road, and possibly also in the depths of the Val Carlos. But no serious attempt had been made to cover the highland path that comes out on the Linduz, much farther west. It was only watched by a picquet—one company of Morillo’s men encamped in the ruined redoubt of 1793 on the Linduz. The other points of access were carefully blocked: Byng had a strong first line of defence on the Leiçaratheca hill, whose rocky upper face gave good cover for skirmishers. It was held by the three light companies of his brigade, the attached company of the 5/60th and one battalion[857] and three light companies from Morillo’s right-hand brigade. Two miles behind was the real fighting position, occupied by the Buffs and the ‘1st Provisional’ (2/31st and 2/66th), with two of Morillo’s battalions[858]. Byng’s third battalion, the 1/57th, was detached far downhill to the left, on the lower slopes of the Altobiscar, watching the Val Carlos. The third Spanish battalion of Morillo’s right-hand brigade, Leon, was detached in a similar fashion to the right, to the foot of the Altobiscar heights, to guard a by-path, which crosses the main chain of the mountains and comes down into the upper valley of the Irati river at the foundry of Orbaiceta.

The remaining battalions of Morillo’s left-hand brigade[859] were down in the Val Carlos, on ground south of the village of the same name, in a position blocking the upper and higher end of that deep-sunk depression. They covered the flank of the Altobiscar heights, and were not far from the 1/57th. Their line of retreat, if they should be pushed, was up a very steep path, which comes into the chaussée on the Ibaneta ridge[860]. It was this brigade which supplied the picquet on the Linduz, the only precaution taken to cover the extreme left of the Allies’ fighting ground. The whole force on the front originally consisted of 2,000 bayonets of Byng’s brigade and 3,800 in Morillo’s six battalions.

When Cole took over from Byng the general responsibility for the safety of the eastern passes, he brought up his head-quarters to Viscarret in the valley of the Erro, but placed his first British brigade, that of Ross, at Espinal, in the valley of the Urrobi, on the high road to Roncesvalles, only five miles from the abbey and the ‘Puerto’, and three from the pass of Mendichuri leading up to the Linduz. He was thus in a position to reinforce the passes at two or three hours’ notice with one brigade, and with his whole 6,000 bayonets in half a day’s march. On the night of the 24th, having received both Wellington’s first letter of warning and Byng’s report that his picquets had been attacked, Cole resolved to bring up his reserves nearer to the front. By the most fortunate of inspirations he directed Ross’s brigade to march before dawn—at 2 a.m.—and to occupy the head of the Mendichuri pass and the Linduz.

Ross, obeying orders all the more readily because he had just received Spanish information that the Linduz was going to be attacked next day[861], moved off in the dark, and mounted the Mendichuri, much incommoded on the way by sharp turns where trees had been blown down in a recent storm, and cumbered the path. He had the 20th with him: the 7th was following: the 23rd was left behind at Espinal, to start by daylight and bring on the baggage. Though the distance to the Linduz was only three miles, it took in the darkness more than four hours to reach the summit[862]. There everything was found quiet at dawn—the Spanish picquet in the old redoubt indeed was so sleepy that Ross and his staff rode into them without having been challenged[863]. Dawn had now come; though nothing suspicious had been observed, the general sent out the Brunswick-Oels company attached to the brigade to reconnoitre along the spur in front, while the 20th piled arms and lay down on the summit, to eat and get some rest after the night march. In the far distance to the north-west the tents of Campbell’s Portuguese, encamped on the farther side of the Alduides valley were perfectly visible. But shortly after 6 o’clock distant musketry began to be heard from the other flank—the direction of the Leiçaratheca—where the busy day’s work was just beginning. It was some time, however, before Ross’s brigade came in for their share of it.

Soult’s attack, as we have seen, was delivered by two columns each of 17,000 men, and each striking by one narrow road at a vital point of the enemy’s defences. There was practically no dispersion of forces on subsidiary enterprises, for the two demonstrations which he made on his flanks on the morning of the 25th were trifling affairs. To distract the attention of Campbell’s brigade in the Alduides, he directed all the National Guards of the Val de Baigorry and the other western valleys to assemble on the mountain called Hausa, opposite the Portuguese camp, to light many fires there, as if they marked the bivouacs of a large force, and to show themselves at many points. Little good came of this to the National Guards, for Campbell, an active officer, marched at them without delay, and drove them in helpless rout down the valley. But Soult (unlike the unfortunate local levy) profited perceptibly from the move, for the noise of firing drew down to the Alduides the two British generals responsible for the Bastan—Hill and W. Stewart. And while they were absent, off their own ground, their troops at Maya were attacked, and suffered many things for want of a commander.

A second similar demonstration was made in the valley east of Roncesvalles. Here the local National Guards, backed by a battalion of the 59th under Colonel Loverdo, crossed the main chain of the mountains and attacked Morillo’s right flank-guard—the regiment of Leon—at the foundry of Orbaiceta in the Irati valley. The Spaniards defended themselves stoutly, and held their ground all day. But the noise of this skirmishing far to their right rear was decidedly trying to the nerves of Byng and Morillo, who for some time could not be certain that their flank had not been turned by a respectable force. However, nothing came of this skirmish, since it grew evident by the afternoon that the enemy was weak and unable to press forward. It is barely worth putting on record that one battalion detached from the tail of Conroux’s division, went up the trough of the Val Carlos, and watched Morillo’s left-hand brigade without attempting to close with it.

Having dismissed these feints, concerning which no more need be said, we may proceed to the real fighting. At about 6 a.m. Vandermaesen’s division, at the head of Clausel’s long column, neared the hill of Leiçaratheca, where the seven British and Spanish light companies were ensconced in the rocky slope commanding the high road. The position had obviously to be stormed by frontal attack if there was reason to hurry, for it could only be turned by very long flanking movements over the steep slopes on each side of the road. General Barbot, commanding the leading brigade, deployed the 1st Line and 25th Léger, and attacked with a swarm of tirailleurs the whole front of the hill. The attack failed completely, the defenders being under good cover and perfectly steady. The French, when their first rush had been stopped, threw themselves down among the stones and gorse, and kept up a useless fire upon their almost invisible adversaries. Clausel, after three hours of this profitless bickering, sent in high rage a message to Barbot, that he would have him cashiered, unless he pulled his men together and delivered a serious attack[864]. Meanwhile the French battalions were coming up one after another from the rear, and accumulating behind the single brigade that was engaged. Barbot called back his disordered troops, re-formed them in column, put in a fresh battalion, and made a second and a third attack on the hill: all naturally failed—the troops being tired and discouraged. But the matter was finally settled by the divisional general, Vandermaesen, leading off his three rear battalions[865] across the steep hillside to the east, and turning the Leiçaratheca by a long détour. At the same time Clausel began to shell the position with six guns brought up from the rear. When Byng saw his outlying force in danger of being cut off, he ordered it to retire to his main body on the Altobiscar. This it did in good time, and when Clausel again advanced against the Leiçaratheca frontally, with the 50th-Line, while the flanking column drew in on the right flank, he received only a few shots from lingering skirmishers, and occupied the position with the loss of 9 men killed only.

So long had the turning movement taken, that by the time that the French had got back into order again, and could advance towards Byng’s real fighting ground, it was past 3 o’clock in the afternoon. The Altobiscar position was even more formidable than that on the Leiçaratheca; Clausel looked at it, felt it, and did not like it: it was impossible to turn save by a vast détour: this, he says in his dispatch, he was preparing to do, by sending his rear division (Conroux) to circumvent the whole crest of Altobiscar and the still higher summit to the east of the road, a march of many miles. But at 5 o’clock a dense mountain fog rose, the enemies became invisible to each other, and all movement became impossible. Byng was left unattacked upon his chosen position—though not destined to stop there. The losses on both sides had been absurdly small, considering that 17,000 French had faced 6,000 British and Spaniards for eleven hours. But really only Vandermaesen’s division on one side and the Allied light companies on the other had been engaged. Clausel says that he had but 160 killed and wounded—among the last General Vandermaesen himself[866]. Byng and Morillo had 120 casualties—the former remarks that this was an extraordinarily low figure considering that the French had shelled the Leiçaratheca for some time—but the cover was good[867]. There were more Spaniards hurt than British: their conduct had been exemplary. Morillo himself had been there, exposing himself with his usual reckless courage.

At the other end of the line the fighting was much more serious. It will be remembered that at 6 o’clock Ross was on the Linduz, with his leading battalion, and a second close behind: the third had only recently started the climb up from Espinal by the Mendichuri. He sent out his light companies to observe the northern slope of the plateau which he had occupied, that of Brunswick-Oels being directed along the wooded spur or crest which forms the western wall of the depression of the Val Carlos. Meanwhile the troops listened to the commencement of the long roll of musketry, which told how Clausel was attacking Byng on the other side of that valley. Three or four hours passed; General Cole rode by on his way to visit the Roncesvalles front, told Ross to keep a good look-out, and informed him that Anson’s and Stubbs’s brigade were coming up via Burguete, the former to reinforce the Spaniards at the foundry of Orbaiceta, the latter to the Ibaneta to support Byng. Somewhere about 11 o’clock, according to our best eye-witness, the outlying picquet of the Brunswick company detected dust rolling above the beech copses which masked the crest-path in front of them, and a little later caught intermittent glimpses of troops passing between the trees. It was doubted whether they were French, or some of Morillo’s troops retiring from Val Carlos. But about noon, Ross, having been warned to look for trouble, told the Brunswickers to advance and verify the character of the approaching strangers, while he himself called up the left wing of the 20th regiment and followed in support: the rest of the brigade were directed to stand to their arms on the Linduz. The German light company went forward some half a mile on a very up-and-down track, till they got quite close to the oncoming troops, who appeared to be in no particular order, a straggling crowd advancing along the crest, which is here only thirty yards broad, with trees and bushes on both flanks. When there was no more than eighty yards between the parties the French dressed their front, so as to cover the whole breadth of the ridge, and began to fire. They were the two compagnies d’élite of the 6th Léger, the leading battalion of Foy’s division, at the head of Reille’s column; close behind them the rest of their battalion was pushing up, as quickly as was possible with men moving on such a narrow track. The sixty Brunswickers, finding themselves in front of such a superior force, fell back, firing, on their supports, pursued by the enemy. General Ross, wanting to gain time for his brigade on the Linduz to deploy, ordered the leading company of the 20th—No. 8, Captain Tovey’s—to charge with the bayonet and throw the French back. There followed one of the rarest things in the Peninsular War, a real hand-to-hand fight with the white weapon. The French skirmishers in front gave way into the bushes, clearing the front of the company behind them. Then the two parties, each advancing up one side of a small declivity, met face to face at the top, with only ten yards between them when they came in sight of each other. ‘The French instinctively stepped back a pace,’ says the Brunswick officer who has left us the best account of this clash, ‘several of them made a half turn, as if about to give way; but their officers, some with appeals, some with threats, and some with curses, kept them to their work. They stood firm, and their bayonets came down to the charge: so did those of Tovey’s company. For a few seconds the two sides surveyed each other at a distance of two paces: then one French company officer sprang forward into the middle of the British, and began cutting right and left. He was at once bayoneted, and then the two sides began to fence cautiously with each other, keeping their line and not breaking forward into the enemy’s ranks; it was more like bayonet drill than a charge. I do not think that more than a dozen men fell on either side. After a minute the English captain saw that the French supports were closing in—he shouted ‘right about face’, and his men trotted back. When our front was clear of them, our five (four)[868] companies opened fire by platoons, and as the distance was only 100 yards we saw heaps of the French fall at each volley[869].’ Tovey’s company lost 11 killed and 14 wounded out of about 75 present in this extraordinary adventure, which had given the three rear companies and the Brunswickers time to form up across the crest and in the bushes on each side of it. It is astonishing that a man of the 8th Company got away—clearly the enemy had been too much astonished to pursue as he might have done[870].

The fight on the path that leads to the Linduz now became a very confused and constricted business, with many casualties on both sides, since French and English were firing at each other along a sort of avenue and could hardly miss. Foy’s second battalion, the 1/69th, had now reinforced his first, and finally the left wing of the 20th, badly thinned, gave way and fell back in some disorder to the point where the crest-path debouches on to the Linduz plateau. Here all was ready for defence—the right wing of the 20th, with the regimental colours flying, was waiting ready for the enemy, with the 1/7th in immediate support and the 1/23rd in reserve. When the narrow-fronted French column tried to burst out of the defile, officers in front, drums beating the pas de charge, a long-reserved volley smote it, and all the leading files went down. There was a pause before the third of Foy’s battalions, the 2/69th, got to the front and tried a similar attack, which failed with even greater loss. For the whole of the rest of the afternoon spasmodic fighting went on at the Linduz. ‘The enemy was visible,’ writes one of Ross’s brigade, ‘several thousands strong, on the higher part of the spur; every half-hour or so he sent another company down to relieve his skirmishers. He always came up in detail and slowly, for there was a tiresome defile to cross, over a deep cutting in the crest[871], where only one man abreast could pass. We could always let the head of the attack debouch, and then attack it and throw it back upon its supports[872].’ No attempt was made to turn the Linduz by its eastern side, among the steep slopes and thickets at the head of Val Carlos: all attacks came straight along the spur. Reille attributes this in his dispatch to the dreadful delays at the rear of his long column, owing to the narrowness of the path. He acknowledges that an attempt should have been made to push on to the Ibaneta, but it was 3.30 before Maucune’s first battalion began to arrive to Foy’s assistance, and 5 before the rear of his division was up. ‘By this hour it was too late to think of turning movements’—even if the fog which stopped Clausel had not swept down on the Linduz also. As a matter of fact only Foy’s four front regiments—five battalions—were put into the fight[873]. Similarly on the British side the fight was sustained only by the 20th, relieved, after its cartridges were all spent, by the 7th and the 23rd.

Reille does not omit to mention that after the first hour of fight was over, Cole had begun to show reserves on the Linduz which would have made any attack by Foy’s division, unsupported, quite hopeless. It will be remembered that the commander of the 4th Division had started Anson’s brigade for Orbaiceta, and Stubbs’s brigade for the Ibaneta ridge, when first the attack on Byng was reported, and he had gone to the Altobiscar himself to watch the progress of affairs on that side. While he was there Foy’s attack on the Linduz developed: Cole at once rode to the left, to see how Ross was faring, and in consequence sent downhill to bid Anson abandon his long march to the extreme right, and to turn up the Roncesvalles pass, as Stubbs did also. The British brigade took post on Ross’s right; the Portuguese brigade on the Ibaneta, watching the steep path from the Val Carlos. Up this there presently came the 1/57th and the Spanish battalions which had been near them. Thus Cole showed a continuous line from the Altobiscar to the Linduz, held by 11,000 men placed in a most formidable position not more than three miles long. Nor was this all—General Campbell in the Alduides, after scattering the National Guards who had tried to delude him in the early morning, had heard the firing at Roncesvalles, and (though he had no orders) thought it his duty to march with his five Portuguese battalions toward the sound of battle. Taking the highland track along the upper end of the Alduides, he appeared on Ross’s left at 4 o’clock in the afternoon by the so-called path of Atalosti. He was in a position to outflank any attempts that Reille might make to turn Ross’s position on the western side.

When the fog fell Soult was in a very unpleasant situation. Having chosen to attack his enemy with narrow-fronted columns of immense depth, over two constricted routes, he had been brought to a complete check. Clausel had driven in Byng’s outpost, but was stuck in front of the Altobiscar: Reille had failed to move Ross at all, and was blocked in front of the Linduz. The losses had been negligible, it is true—not much over 500 in all if the Marshal is to be believed. But those of the Allies were still smaller, and the confidence of the men had been raised by the way in which they had easily blocked for some ten hours, and with small loss, an army whose vast strength they could estimate by the interminable file of distant troops crawling up the roads in the rear[874]. If the men, however, were cheerful, their commander was not. Cole estimated the French at 30,000 men and more, and quite correctly: he had himself only 11,000 in line, with 2,000 more of Campbell’s Portuguese in touch on his left. Picton’s 3rd Division, which lay at Olague on the morn of the 25th, had no doubt started to close up; but it was a long day’s march away, and could not be at Altobiscar or on the Linduz till the 26th. Anything might be happening in the fog which lay deep on the mountains all night. Cole determined ‘that he could not hope to maintain the passes against the very great superiority of the force opposed to him—amounting to from 30,000 to 35,000 men[875]’, and that he must retire by night under cover of the mist. Even if his views had been less pessimistic, he would yet have been compelled to retreat by the action of Byng, who had fought heroically all the day, but was obsessed by fears as the fog settled down. He had come to the conclusion that, as the enemy had possession of the path along the eastern hills to Orbaiceta, and had superabundant numbers, he would be using the night to send a large force in that direction, where only the Spanish regiment of Leon was on guard. They could not be stopped, and when down in the valley of the Irati would be able to take Roncesvalles from the rear, and to throw the whole defending force on to the necessity of retiring by the Mendichuri and Atalosti routes, on which retreat would be slow and dangerous. Byng therefore sent a message to Cole that he must needs retire, and was already beginning to draw off his troops, under cover of his light companies, when he received Cole’s orders to the same effect. The moral responsibility for the retreat lay equally on both—the technical responsibility on Cole alone, as the superior officer: he might, of course, have ordered Byng back to his old position, which the French had left quite unmolested.

Was Cole’s pessimism justified? Wellington thought not: he wrote to Lord Liverpool ten days later, ‘Sir Lowry Cole, whose retreat occasioned the retreat of the whole, retired, not because he could not hold his position, but because his right flank was turned. It is a great disadvantage when the officer commanding in chief is absent. For this reason there is nothing that I dislike so much as these extended operations, which I cannot direct myself[876].’ And he was no doubt thinking of Cole, no less than of Picton, when he wrote that ‘all the beatings we have given the French have not given our generals confidence in themselves and in the exertions of their troops. They are really heroes when I am on the spot to direct them, but when I am obliged to quit them they are children.’ Cole was an officer of the first merit in handling troops, as he was to show at Sorauren two days later; and that he was not destitute of initiative had been sufficiently proved by the advance of the 4th Division at Albuera, where he was practically acting without orders[877]. But there seems no doubt that the scale of the operations in the Pyrenees made him nervous: he was responsible on the 25th July not for a division but for a small army, and he was well aware of the enemy’s superiority in numbers. His conduct was the more surprising because he had received before 10 o’clock Wellington’s stringent dispatch of the night of the 24th, telling him to ‘maintain the passes in front of Roncesvalles to the utmost,’ and to disregard any wide turning movements to the east on Soult’s part. These orders reached him at the Leiçaratheca, just as he was witnessing Byng’s successful repulse of Barbot’s brigade. Possibly the excitement of the moment prevented him from thoroughly appreciating their full meaning, and for the rest of the day he was busy enough, riding from front to front on the passes. As he wrote in his first short account of his doings, ‘having had no sleep for two nights, and having been on horseback from 4 a.m. till 11 at night, I am somewhat fagged[878].’ It is, of course, quite unfair to criticize a responsible officer in the light of subsequent events; but as a matter of fact Cole was in no danger—the fog endured all that night and far into the morning of the 26th. The enemy at Orbaiceta was negligible—one battalion and a few National Guards: Soult sent no more troops on that wretched road. And if he had done so, after the fog cleared on the 26th, they would have taken the best part of a day to get into action. It seems certain that Cole could have held the passes for another day without any great risk; and if he had done so, Soult’s whole plan of campaign would have been wrecked. But, of course, the fog might have lifted at midnight: Soult might have sent two divisions by a night march to Orbaiceta, and a retreat by bad tracks like the Atalosti would have been slow, and also eccentric, since it did not cover the Pampeluna road, but would have taken Cole to Eugui and the Col de Velate. Nevertheless, looking at the words of Wellington’s dispatch of the 24th, it seems that Cole disobeyed orders: he did not hold the passes to the utmost, and he did not disregard turning movements to the far east.

Both the Linduz and Altobiscar were evacuated in the early hours of the night of July 25th-6th: the French did not discover the move till morning, and by dawn the whole of Cole’s force was far on its way down the Pampeluna road entirely unmolested, though very weary.

To understand the general situation on the morning of July 26th, we must now turn back, to note what had been happening in the Bastan during the long hours of Byng’s and Ross’s fight in the southern passes. The supplementary part of Soult’s plan had been to force the Maya defile, and thus to break in the left-centre of Wellington’s line of defence, at the same moment that his main body turned its extreme right flank, by forcing its way through the Roncesvalles gap. D’Erlon’s three divisions, for whom this task had been set aside, had no long détour to execute, like those of Reille: they were already concentrated in front of their objective; their leading section was at Urdax, only a few miles from the summit of the Maya ridge; their most remote reserves at Espelette, in the valley of the Nive, were within one day’s march of the British positions.

The orders issued by Soult to D’Erlon on July 23rd ran as follows: ‘Comte D’Erlon will make his dispositions on the 24th to attack the enemy at dawn on the 25th, to make himself master of the Puerto of Maya, and to pursue the enemy when he shall begin his retreat.... It is to be presumed that the hostile forces in the Bastan, in the Alduides, and in the passes of Ispegui and Maya will draw back the moment that they hear of [Clausel’s and Reille’s] movement, or else that they will begin to manœuvre, so as to leave their present positions ungarrisoned. Comte D’Erlon will seize the moment to attack them briskly, and to seize the Maya pass. From thence he will march by Ariscun on Elizondo, and then on the Col de Velate, or possibly by Berderis on the pass of Urtiaga, according to the route which the enemy may take in his retreat. He should remember that he must try to unite as soon as possible with the main body in the direction here indicated, and to get into communication with General Reille. Whatever may happen, he must send strong detachments to pursue any hostile columns that may try to get off to their left [westward], to discover their routes, worry them, and pick up prisoners.’

These are very curious orders, as all their directions depend on the idea that Roncesvalles will be forced with ease, and that on hearing of its being lost all the Allied troops in the centre of Wellington’s line will retire in haste. Soult committed himself to this hypothesis in the words ‘it is to be presumed that the enemy will defend the position of Altobiscar feebly, because he will see that he is being outflanked by Reille’s divisions on the Linduz, and threatened at the same time, on his right flank by the detachment and the National Guards who are demonstrating in the direction of Orbaiceta.’ But what if Roncesvalles were held for twelve hours against Clausel, if Reille were completely blocked all day on the Linduz, and if the demonstration on Orbaiceta proved ineffective? In this case the British troops on the Maya front will not hear of disasters in the south, they will not retreat, but stand to fight; and D’Erlon, far from having a walk over the pass, as a commencement to a rapid pursuit of a flying enemy, will have a hard day’s work before him.

This is what was to happen. D’Erlon, instead of running against an enemy who was about to retreat, and pushing him forward with ease, met with troops determined to hold their position, and found himself let in for one of the bloodiest battles on a small scale that were fought during the whole war. That he was finally successful, though at a heavy cost, was due to the mistakes made by the British generals in front of him.

The disposition of the troops which formed Wellington’s centre was as follows. Hill was in charge of the whole sector, from the Maya Pass to the head of the Alduides valley. His force consisted of the 2nd Division (minus Byng’s brigade, detached to Roncesvalles nearly a month back), and of Silveira’s Portuguese division. William Stewart held the left, with the three available 2nd Division brigades—Cameron’s, Pringle’s, and Ashworth’s Portuguese. The two British brigades were in or about the Maya Pass, Ashworth was holding the Ispegui Pass, seven miles to the east, with one battalion in the defile, and the others in support on the road from Errazu. Silveira’s two brigades continued the line southward, Da Costa’s watching the Col de Berderis and other minor passes south of the Ispegui, while A. Campbell’s was in the Alduides, on the slopes above the village of that name. Silveira himself was with Da Costa. Campbell, as we have already seen, was in close touch with the Roncesvalles force, and ultimately joined it.

On the other flank the 2nd Division at Maya had as its nearest neighbour the 7th Division, which was holding the ‘Puerto’ of Echalar. Behind lay the Light Division by Vera, and the 6th Division, now under Pack, since Clinton’s health had again broken down, in reserve at Santesteban.

Now on the early morning of the 25th the first troops stirring were Soult’s National Guard detachments on the Alduides front, which (as we have already seen) attracted the notice of Campbell’s Portuguese, and suffered for their temerity. Their activity, most unfortunately, drew the attention of Sir Rowland Hill in this direction. He rode out from his head-quarters at Elizondo to visit Campbell, when the demonstration was reported to him. And he was actually in the Alduides, at the extreme southern end of his sector, when the French attacked in force the Maya passes, at its extreme northern end. This was a pardonable mishap, since he was on his own business. But it led to his being absent from the real point of danger. Quite unpardonable, however, was the fact that William Stewart, commanding the 2nd Division, abandoned his own troops and went out to join Hill in the same direction[879], toward the front of Silveira’s brigades, attracted by the news of fighting at early dawn. He would seem to have left no note of his probable whereabouts at Maya, so that he was sought in vain for many hours, when his troops were attacked. In his absence the command of his division fell to General Pringle, who had arrived from England only two days before, to take over the brigade of which Colonel O’Callaghan of the 39th had been in temporary charge since the opening of the campaign. Pringle knew neither the troops nor the ground, and being only a brigadier had no authority to make new dispositions, when his commanding officer was still technically present, though invisible for the moment.

The whole responsibility for what happened on the morning of the 25th, therefore, fell on Stewart. And he must also be given the discredit of the very inadequate arrangements that had been made for the defence of the pass. The French at Urdax were only four miles from the crest, and it was known that they were in strength close behind—their large camps about Ainhoue, where Abbé’s division was cantoned, were perfectly visible from the heights[880], and obviously crammed with men. Considering that he was in close touch with the enemy, Stewart’s precautions were ludicrously incomplete. The Maya position consists of a broad open grassy saddle, between the high mountains to east and west—the Alcorrunz peak on the left and the Aretesque peak on the right. The saddle at its lowest point is about 2,000 ft. above sea-level—the flanking heights run up to a thousand feet more. The high road from Urdax and Zagaramurdi climbs the saddle in its middle, runs westward along its summit for a mile, and then descends by a broad curve towards Elizondo on the Spanish side. There is another lesser track which leads up on to the saddle, from Espelette; it gets on to the level of the Col at its extreme eastern end, under the Aretesque height; thence, after running along the crest for a mile, it meets the high road, crosses it, and continues along the slopes of the Alcorrunz peak, and ultimately falls into the by-road from Santesteban to Zagaramurdi. This path, useful for lateral communications east and west, is still known as the Chemin des Anglais, from the work which was spent upon it by Wellington’s army later in the year, when the necessity for good tracks along the front was better understood than it seems to have been in July. In contemporary records it is generally called the Gorospil path.

The west end of the saddle was not inadequately guarded by Cameron’s brigade, which was encamped by battalions on each side of the main chaussée close behind the crest, with four Portuguese guns, of Da Cunha’s battery, mounted on a commanding knoll whence they could sweep the road. But the east end of the position, under the hill of Aretesque, where the minor road comes in, was almost entirely neglected. There was only a picquet of 80 men placed to cover it, on the spot where the Chemin des Anglais gets to the crest of the position. Pringle’s brigade, which supplied this picquet, was two and a half miles to the rear, in the low ground about the village of Maya—an hour’s march away, for the ascent to the picquet was a climb uphill by a bad path. The only support immediately available for the outpost was the four light companies of the brigade[881], which were encamped on the back-slope of the ridge, about half-way between the hill of Aretesque and the main body of the brigade.

There was much dead ground in front of the Maya position, where it might be approached by ravines and combes whose bottom could not be fathomed by the eye. And in particular the view north-eastward, towards Espelette, was completely blocked by a high round hill half a mile beyond the outer sentries of the Aretesque picquet. With the French only four miles away at Urdax, and seven at Espelette, it is clear that prudence would have dictated constant reconnaissance of all the dead ground. Stewart had made no such arrangements—all that we hear is that the round hill beyond the Aretesque picquet was occasionally visited by Portuguese vedettes. Apparently none had gone out on the morning of the 25th.

D’Erlon would appear to have been well acquainted with the general disposition of the British line, as he launched his main attack against the under-manned eastern flank of the position, and did not tackle the strongly held ground on the high road, at its western end, until he was well established on the crest. Darmagnac’s division, from Espelette, led the main column, Abbé’s division from Ainhoue fell into its rear and followed: both took the Chemin des Anglais track, which was blocked from the view of the British picquets by the round hill already mentioned. Maransin’s division at Urdax, on the high road, was ordered to mass itself, but to keep under cover, and show no signs of movement till the main body had reached and occupied the eastern end of the saddle. It was then to assail Cameron’s brigade, advancing up the high road.

Though the morning was bright and clear, no certain signs of a French attack were seen till 10 o’clock, so carefully did the enemy utilize the ‘dead ground’ in front of him. Suspicious movements indeed were observed by the outpost of the 71st on the high road, who noted small bodies of men crossing the sky-line in front of Urdax[882]. And the picquet of the 34th on the Aretesque hill reported to Pringle’s brigade-head-quarters that it had seen a small body of cavalry and a larger force of infantry turn the corner of a distant road beyond Ainhoue and disappear again[883]. On both points the enemy had only been visible for a few minutes. Pringle sent up a staff-officer[884] to the Aretesque picquet, who made nothing of the troops that had been detected on that side, but as a measure of precaution ordered up the four light companies of the brigade to join the picquet on the crest. Thus there chanced to be 400 men instead of 80, when D’Erlon discovered himself an hour later. But the five companies were as powerless a guard against the sudden attack of 7,000 men as the one company would have been.

At 10.30 D’Erlon had reached the point, not much over half a mile from the most advanced British sentry, where the head of his column would be forced to come out into the open and show itself. His dispositions aimed at a sudden surprise—and effected it. He collected the eight light companies of Darmagnac’s division, ordered them to take off and stack their knapsacks, and launched them as a swarm of tirailleurs at the position of the British on the Aretesque knoll (or the Gorospil knoll, as Darmagnac calls it in his report). The 16th Léger followed them in column, keeping to the track, while the skirmishers spread out in a semicircle to envelop the knoll. The remainder of the division came on as quickly as it could in support.

The French attacked at a pace that surprised their enemies; the light companies—they were commanded by Bradbey of the 28th—were desperately engaged within ten minutes of the firing of the first shot. Their flanks being turned, they clubbed together on the higher slopes of the knoll, and around some rocky outcrops on its summit, and held their own for three-quarters of an hour, repulsing several attacks of the voltigeurs and the 16th Léger with great loss, and suffering heavily themselves. Meanwhile the attention of the defenders of the pass being thus distracted, the succeeding battalions of Darmagnac’s division hurried up unmolested one after another on to the saddle, and began to deploy. Their general threw the 8th Line across the rear of the knoll, blocking the path which led down to the village of Maya and the camps of Pringle’s brigade, and drew out in succession the 28th, 51st, and 54th on the plateau to their right.

Before any succour could arrive[885] the five unlucky companies on the Gorospil knoll were crushed by the concentric attack—six unwounded officers and 140 men were taken prisoners among the rocks at the summit—the other 260 were nearly all killed or wounded. Soon after they had succumbed, tardy reinforcements began to arrive—Pringle had started off his three battalions from the valley to climb the path up to the crest—they arrived at intervals, for their camps were at varying distances from the point of danger, and each acted for itself. The Brigadier himself, finding that he was in general command, appears to have ridden up the high road and joined Cameron’s brigade at the Maya end of the saddle. From thence he began to send off detachments of that brigade, to co-operate from the flank with the uphill frontal attack which his own battalions were about to make from the valley.

He found Cameron’s brigade under arms, in good order, and unmolested. The Portuguese guns had begun to fire, but not at any enemy, for Maransin was holding back, according to his orders. The shots were signals to give notice to the 7th Division, Ashworth, and other outlying neighbours, that serious fighting had opened in the passes. They do not seem to have commenced till 11 o’clock or even later, for Wellington had ridden off from Lesaca towards St. Sebastian before the cannonade began; and we know that when he started about 11 a.m. no gunfire from the east had been reported. Cameron had already sent off the 50th, the right-hand corps of his brigade, to push along the watershed of the col, and stop the French from any further progress toward the high road. This left only the 71st and 92nd under the Rock of Maya, on the culminating point of the position, awaiting the approach of Maransin, which obviously would not be long delayed.

The second episode of the fight consisted in a series of desperate but ill-connected attempts by four British battalions—the 28th, 34th, 39th, 50th—to push Darmagnac’s eight battalions off the foothold on the east end of the col, where they were now firmly established. Abbé’s division was not yet on the ground, but was already visible filing up the track which Darmagnac’s had already traversed. The three British battalions from the valley arrived in succession, and attacked frontally the mass of French on the crest above them. The 34th came up first and alone. ‘It was death to go on against such a host, but it was the order, and we went on to destruction, marching up a narrow path with men pumped out and breathless. We had no chance. The colonel, always a good mark, being mounted and foremost, was first knocked over, very badly wounded. Seven more officers were wounded. We persevered, pushed on, made a footing, and kept our ground[886].’ But the French held the crest above, and the 34th was brought to a complete standstill. The 39th then climbed up the slope, more to the west, and made a similar unsuccessful push to reach the sky-line. Meanwhile the 50th, coming from the other side along the crest, attacked the French right, and drove in the leading battalion on to the mass, but could get no farther forward, and finally fell back. The last episode of this struggle was a third isolated attack—Pringle had told Cameron to detach the right wing of the 92nd from the Maya position, and to send it on in support of the 50th. Just as the latter recoiled, this strong half-battalion—nearly 400 muskets—came on to the ground on the crest, and at the same moment the 28th, the last of Pringle’s battalions to arrive from the valley, climbed the slope and came up diagonally on the right of the 92nd companies. Pringle himself aligned the two corps and led them against the solid mass of French. This advance ended in a most desperate fire-duel at a range of 120 yards, in which the French had the more casualties, but the British line was in the end shot to pieces. Observers from the 28th and 34th speak in the most moving terms of the extraordinary steadiness of the 92nd. ‘They stood there like a stone wall, overmatched by twenty to one, until half their blue bonnets lay beside those brave highland soldiers. When they retired their dead bodies lay as a barrier to the advancing foe. O but they did fight well that day! I can see the line now of their dead and wounded stretched upon the heather, as the living kept closing up to the centre[887].’ It was only when sixty per cent. of these stubborn soldiers had fallen that the senior of the two surviving officers with the wing ordered the remnant to fall back on the 50th, who had re-formed in their rear. The 28th, who had been engaged (oddly enough!) with the French 28th, across a dip on the south side of the crest, were cut off from the 92nd, and retreated downhill by the way they had come, towards the village of Maya. So did the 34th, which had been rallied some way down the slope, below the point where they had made their unsuccessful attack, and had been taking long shots uphill against the French flank. So also did the 39th, or the greater part of it[888]. The progress of these spent troops downhill was hastened by D’Erlon’s detaching two battalions to push them away. They lapsed out of the battle, and retreated towards Maya village, leaving Cameron’s brigade alone to maintain the struggle upon the crest—three battalions against three divisions, for Abbé’s men were now deploying behind Darmagnac’s, and Maransin’s long-deferred attack was just beginning to develop.

After the wasted remnant of the right wing of the 92nd had recoiled, the French began to advance along the Chemin des Anglais, pushing the beaten troops before them, but were soon brought to a stand for a few minutes once more. For Cameron had detached the right wing of the 71st from the Maya position to follow up the right wing of the 92nd—the system of dribbling in small reinforcements was practised all day—leaving only the two left wings of those regiments to hold the pass against Maransin, who was still an impending danger only. The newly arrived half-battalion, drawn up across the path, delivered a very telling salvo against the front immediately opposed to them—the enemy was now in a mixed mass with no trace of formation, acting like a dense swarm of tirailleurs—and brought it to a stop for a moment. But the French, holding back in the centre, spread out on the wings, and began to envelop both flanks of the 71st companies, who had to retire perforce—losing heavily, though not as the 92nd had suffered half an hour before.[889]

There was now no chance whatever of checking D’Erlon, since the only British troops not yet engaged, the left wings of the 71st and 92nd, were at last feeling the commencement of Maransin’s attack, and there were no reinforcements yet visible. Just at this moment, it was perhaps 2 p.m.[890], the long-lost William Stewart at last appeared upon the scene and assumed command. The noise of the guns had reached him in the distant Alduides, and drawn him back to his own business, which he found in a most deplorable condition. A glance round the field showed him that he must give up any hope of holding the Maya pass, and that his only chance was to fight a detaining battle across the high road, in the hope of receiving help from the 7th Division, to whom Pringle had already sent urgent demands for succour.

He accordingly issued orders for the two intact half-battalions on the crest to fall back, and take up a new position below it; while the weary troops from the old front took shelter and re-formed behind them. Darmagnac’s regiments were as much fought out as their opponents, and did not press. Maransin, who had brought up his troops in two columns, one on the road, the other up a ravine to his right, on seeing the way left open to him, did not hurry on, but began to deploy his battalions in succession as they filed up to the saddle of the col. Hence there was a distinct break in the action—half an hour or even more. No disaster was suffered by Cameron’s brigade—the only unfortunate incident of the moment of recoil being that the four Portuguese guns were lost. Two had been man-handled with much toil up a rocky slope, from which it was impossible to get them down in a hurry. After firing a round or two of case at the enemy’s approaching skirmishers, their gunners pushed them over into a ravine and made off[891]. The other two were taken while on the move. Wellington attributed the loss of these four guns, which he much resented (for his army never lost another field gun in action during the whole war), to Stewart, who had, on his arrival, countermanded an order of Pringle’s which had directed an earlier retreat for them.

The fourth episode of the combat of Maya, though it included much bloody and obstinate fighting, was not such a desperate business as the long scrambling fight along the Chemin des Anglais. D’Erlon halted Darmagnac’s troops, who naturally had to re-form, for they were in complete disorder, and had suffered most severely. He now used Maransin’s division as his striking force, and when he had got it all deployed attacked Stewart’s new position. Abbé’s division was brought up to act in support. It was probably well past 3 o’clock when the new fighting began: the delay had enabled Stewart to rearrange a fighting line—the left wings of the 71st and 92nd were drawn up on each side of the chaussée, flanked on their left by a company of the latter regiment on a precipitous knoll, where Cameron had placed them before the action began. This company was afterwards reinforced by another from the 82nd, when that regiment came up[892]. About three hundred yards behind, the right wing of the 71st and the 50th, now rallied, made a second line. When Maransin developed his attack, the front line delivered its fire, and fell back in an orderly fashion behind the supports, where it re-formed across the road. The second line repeated this manœuvre. The half-mile of ground given up in these alternate retreats included the camping lines of the 71st and 92nd, where the rows of tents not only broke the enemy’s formation, but tempted individuals aside for loot. ‘They were plundering on all hands, cutting down the tents, strewing about the officers’ linen, and tearing open their portmanteaux, many of which contained a company’s month’s pay, while we were obliged to stand at a distance, and view the work of destruction[893].’

The afternoon was drawing on—it was 4.30 or later before Maransin’s line re-formed and again advanced: Stewart’s front line again retired, but when the enemy followed it he was surprised to be met by a counter-attack. Stewart had just received his first reinforcements—a weak battalion of the 82nd, the nearest troops of the 7th Division, which had long been watching the fight from afar on the Alcorrunz peak, and had just received their divisional general’s permission to come in. These new-comers, joining the reserve line, met the leading French battalions with a brisk offensive, which drove them in on their supports. But numbers prevailed, and the fight began once more to roll downhill. At this moment affairs looked black—Stewart had just been wounded in the leg, but still retained the command—he was a splendid fighting man if a careless and tiresome subordinate. Thinking the position hopeless, and a final retreat necessary, he sent messages to the outlying companies of the 82nd and 92nd on the knoll to the left, who were now quite cut off from the rest of the force, to save themselves by striking across the hills. They had been isolated for two hours, had used up all their cartridges, and were defending themselves by the primitive method of pelting the enemy below with whinstones, which lay thick on the hillside[894].

But before the messenger, who had to take a vast détour, could reach this desperate little party, the last episode of the combat of Maya had begun. It was a sufficiently surprising end to the day. At about 6 o’clock there arrived, marching hard along the mountain road which continues the Chemin des Anglais westward, two battalions under General Barnes from the 2nd Brigade of the 7th Division[895], which Lord Dalhousie had sent from Echalar on getting the appeal for help. These two units—the 1/6th and Brunswick-Oels—were only 1,500 bayonets, and had done nine miles at a hot pace. But they were fresh troops, and led by a very thunderbolt of war—Barnes was the brigadier who a few days later made what Wellington declared to be the most gallant charge that he had seen, a charge that drew notes of admiration from the most reticent of pens[896]. They came in diagonally from an unexpected side road, unseen by the enemy till the moment of contact, and crashed in upon the leading French battalion with such an impetus that it was trampled down—losing 15 officers in a minute. The whole of the rest of the British troops present cheered, and advanced in the wake of Barnes’s men—even the poor wreck of the right wing of the 92nd, headed by its one surviving piper. A counter-attack on troops who have already done much, and are taken by surprise in what seems the moment of success, is often astoundingly effective—as the war of 1914-18 has showed. In this case the result was surprising: Maransin’s leading brigade fell back in disorder on his supports, the latter gave way also, and the whole mass retired uphill, as far as the camping-ground of Cameron’s regiments at the head of the pass. D’Erlon, wrongly believing that the whole 7th Division had arrived en masse, threw a brigade of Abbé’s division across the crest of the col, behind which the beaten troops took shelter. He expected to end the day with a defensive action, and even recalled a brigade of Darmagnac’s troops, who had been sent down towards the village of Maya, in pursuit of Pringle’s brigade, and who had just got engaged near it with Ashworth’s Portuguese, then retiring by order from the pass of Ispegui.

But Stewart would have been mad to press on with six battalions—three of them mere remnants—against eighteen, and halted on the summit, content to have blocked the pass, though the enemy had possession of it, and of ground in front of it on which he stood deployed. The firing continued for a time, and then died down as the dusk came on. By 8 o’clock all was over—if D’Erlon had frankly put in Abbé’s strong division of ten battalions, it is clear that he might yet have turned the fortune of the day. But he did not: hypnotized by the idea that he had the whole of the 2nd and 7th Divisions in front of him, instead of a mere fragment of each. The battle was well over when General Hill arrived from the Alduides, bringing with him unlucky news—he had intercepted and read, at Elizondo, Cole’s dispatch to Head-quarters saying that he had been attacked at Roncesvalles by 35,000 men, and that he was giving up the pass. Wherefore Hill resolved that he also must retire, and ordered the weary troops of Stewart and Barnes to retreat after midnight to Elizondo and cross the upper Bidassoa. It is scarcely credible that the men who had fought for ten hours under such conditions on such rough ground, retained strength to move another furlong—but the order was obeyed, though many badly wounded men had to be abandoned, and though the chaussée was strewn for miles by dead-beat stragglers, who dropped out and slept till daylight. They were not disturbed—for D’Erlon made no move till the sun was well up—he had won the pass and was expecting to have to fight again at dawn, for the right to emerge from it.

The losses in a fight so honourable to the British battalions, if so discreditable to British generalship, had been immense in Cameron’s brigade, heavy in Pringle’s, appreciable among Barnes’s men, who only struck in at the eleventh hour. The first-named had lost 800 men out of 1,900 present, of whom 343 belonged to the gallant and unlucky 1/92nd. Pringle’s three battalions had 530 casualties out of 2,000 present, including 140 unwounded prisoners taken on the Gorospil knoll from its light companies. Barnes and the 7th Division troops had won a glorious success with a loss of only 140 men. The total list gives just under 1,500 casualties out of 6,000 men engaged—of whom 349 were prisoners (200 of them wounded). These are very different figures from the 3,500 total at which D’Erlon stated Stewart’s loss—but sufficiently distressing. The enemy had suffered still more, but from infinitely greater numbers—their commander reported 1,400 casualties in Darmagnac’s division out of 7,000 present, 600 in Maransin’s. Abbé was barely engaged at the eleventh hour: one of his brigadiers (Rignoux) was hit and only four other officers, with perhaps 100 men. The total reported is therefore about 2,100—no very formidable proportion out of 20,000 men present. But some battalions had been badly cut up—the 103rd of Maransin’s division, which bore the first fury of Barnes’s attack, had 15 officers killed and wounded out of 20 present; and the 28th of Darmagnac’s division lost a similar number in sustaining the attack of the right wing of the 1/92nd and the British 28th. But this was a two-battalion regiment with 40 officers present. Nevertheless, D’Erlon’s report to Soult sings victory in very modest terms—he has captured the enemy’s position and holds it at the end of the day—the affair had been one of the most desperate that he has ever seen—the enemy’s loss has been far greater than his own—but there is no blowing of trumpets.

SECTION XXXVIII: CHAPTER IV

SORAUREN. JULY 26-28

The first day’s fighting in the Pyrenean passes could not be called satisfactory either to Wellington or to Soult. The former had lost both the defiles in which he had intended to make his first stand, and had lost them in a very tiresome fashion—he thought that Maya might have been held at least for twenty-four hours, if there had been a divisional general on the spot to direct the defence: while Roncesvalles had not been forced, but abandoned by Cole, who could certainly have made a longer resistance, if only the orders sent to him had been obeyed. It was, above all things, necessary to gain time for the concentration of the army, and a precious day had been lost—and need not have been lost.

But Soult can have been no better pleased: time, to him also, meant everything; and the orders which he had issued to his lieutenants had presupposed an easy triumph by surprise in the early morning, with a forward march in the afternoon. Instead of this he had won by nightfall a bare foothold on the summit of each pass, after much fighting of an unsatisfactory sort. He, too, had lost a day; and it was only on the morrow that he discovered that both at Maya and at Roncesvalles the enemy had slipped away in the dark, leaving to him the power to debouch from the defiles.

Nevertheless, the Marshal sent on the morning of the 26th a very flamboyant message of victory to his master the Emperor, who then lay at Mayence. Both Maya and Roncesvalles had been forced, D’Erlon had captured five guns and many hundreds of prisoners at the former pass: he himself hoped to be at Pampeluna, and to have raised its siege, by the 27th. These news were sent on from Bayonne by semaphore to Paris and the Rhine, and reached Napoleon on August 1st. At the same time, and by the same rapid method of transmission, arrived General Rey’s report of his successful repulse of the assault of July 25th. It is worth while to turn away from solid history for a moment, in order to see how the Imperial editor of the Moniteur utilized this useful material for propaganda. He first wrote to Clarke the Minister of War: ‘We can now give the public some account of affairs in Spain. The Vittoria business and the King must not be mentioned. The first note which you must put in the Moniteur should run as follows—“His Majesty has named the Duke of Dalmatia as his lieutenant-general commanding his armies in Spain. The Marshal took up the command on July 12, and made immediate dispositions for marching against the besiegers of Pampeluna and St. Sebastian.” After that put in General Rey’s first letter about the events of the 25th-27th. You had better make some small additions to the number of prisoners and of guns captured, not for French consumption but to influence European opinion. As I am printing General Rey’s dispatch in the Frankfort Journal, and have made some changes of this sort in it, I send you a corrected copy so that it may appear in the Moniteur in identical terms.’

The Emperor’s second letter to his Foreign Minister, the Duke of Bassano, sent from Dresden three days later, is even more amusing. ‘You had better circulate the news that in consequence of Marshal Soult’s victory over the English on July 25, the siege of St. Sebastian has been raised, and 30 siege-guns and 200 waggons taken. The blockade of Pampeluna was raised on the 27th: General Hill, who was in command at that siege, could not carry off his wounded, and was obliged to burn part of his baggage. Twelve siege-guns (24-pounders) were captured there. Send this to Prague, Leipzig, and Frankfort[897].’

This ‘intelligent anticipation of the future,’ for utilization in the armistice-negotiations going on with Austria, could not have been bettered. Unfortunately there arrived next day another semaphore message from Soult of the night of the 26th-27th. The Emperor has to warn Caulaincourt that yesterday’s propaganda will not stand criticism. ‘I have just got another “telegraphic dispatch” sent on by the Empress from Mayence, giving another communication from Soult, written 24 hours after the last, in which he said he would be at Pampeluna on the 27th. The enemy lost many men and seven guns. But nothing decisive seems to have happened. I am impatient for more news, in order to be able to understand in detail Soult’s dispositions, and to form from them a general idea of the situation[898].’

Alas for human ingenuity! Soult’s next dispatch, of July 29, was not to be of the sort that craved for publicity in the Moniteur, even with the most judicious editing.

But to return from Dresden to Biscay, and from the head-quarters of the Emperor to those of the ‘Sepoy General’ whom he had at last begun to recognize as capable of ‘des projets très sensés.’

If only Wellington had been at his head-quarters at Lesaca at 11 o’clock on the morning of July 25th, and if William Stewart had been on the spot at Maya, and had sent early news of D’Erlon’s attack, many things might have happened differently. Wellington would have had a long afternoon before him to concert operations, and would have possessed information to guide him in drawing up his scheme. Unfortunately he was absent—as we have seen—and only received at 6 o’clock a second-hand report from Lord Dalhousie at Echalar, to the effect that fighting was going on at Maya, with the unfortunate addition that D’Erlon had been repulsed—a most inaccurate summary of what had happened. Later on in the evening, not before 10 p.m., came Cole’s first dispatch from Roncesvalles, to say that he and Byng were heavily engaged at 1 o’clock with a large French force, and were holding their own. On these scanty data Wellington felt that no conclusions could be drawn—he wrote to Graham that there must be a great mass of French troops not yet discovered, which would come into action on some other point on the 26th, and that his policy would depend on where that force appeared—he could only account for 30,000 of Soult’s men so far. He did not commit himself to any definite guess as to the undiscovered part of the Marshal’s plan, but from his other correspondence it is clear that he suspected an attempt to relieve St. Sebastian by an attack on the lower Bidassoa—a very possible solution of the problem, but not the correct one[899].

Awaiting further developments, Wellington issued no more orders on the night of the 25th, save one to the Conde de Abispal, directing him to send one of his two infantry divisions from in front of Pampeluna to join Picton and Cole, and to keep the fortress blockaded by the other. The force thus taken away would be replaced by Carlos de España’s division, which was marching up from Burgos, and due to arrive on the 26th. In this dispatch Wellington asked the Conde to direct Mina to send up his infantry from Saragossa, and told him that he was intending to order to the front the British heavy cavalry brigades, now cantoned along the Ebro. No other movements were settled that night; but Wellington was aware that during his absence his Quartermaster-General, George Murray, had directed Lord Dalhousie to have the 7th Division massed at Echalar, prepared to move at an hour’s notice, and Charles Alten at Vera to have the Light Division got into a similar readiness. Either would be able to march off at dawn.

Somewhere late in the night[900] Wellington received more news, which made the situation clearer but more unsatisfactory. The true story of the Maya fighting came in from two sources: Hill sent a dispatch dated from Elizondo at some hour after 6 p.m., to say that on getting back from the Alduides he had found Stewart unable to hold the Pass, and had bidden him to retire. Stewart, who was wounded and unable to write, sent a verbal message, which came in about the same time, reporting that Hill had directed him to fall back on Elizondo and Berueta. The officers who brought this information stated that the French were in great force, and that the 2nd Division had been much cut up. No more reports arrived from Cole, so that the result of the Roncesvalles fighting remained unknown.

After what must have been a very short and disturbed night’s rest, Wellington was in the saddle by 4 a.m. on the 26th, and preparing to ride up the Bastan to visit Hill, and to ascertain the exact measure of the mishap at Maya. Before departing from Lesaca he gave his first definite orders in view of the events of the previous day[901]. Maya being lost, the 7th Division must fall back from Echalar to Sumbilla, on the road to Santesteban: the Light Division must retire from Vera to the west bank of the Bidassoa, and be ready to march either towards Yanzi or towards Santesteban, as might be necessary. Longa’s Cantabrians were to block the hill road from the Bidassoa to Oyarzun. Graham was told to hurry on the embarkation of the siege-train from St. Sebastian. Hill was to hold on as long as he could to the position at Irurita, in order to keep touch with the 6th Division, which was directed to feel towards him, and to be ready to join him if necessary. It was to push two of its three brigades to Legasa, on the road from Santesteban along the upper Bidassoa, which would bring them within eight miles of Hill’s proposed line of defence at Irurita. The third brigade of the 6th Division was to stand fast at Santesteban, where it would be in touch with Dalhousie, when the latter should have reached Sumbilla.

All these orders, as is obvious, are concerned only with the measures necessary to stop D’Erlon’s advance. None of them have any reference to the action of the other French force at Roncesvalles. Till news should come up from Cole and Picton, it was impossible to realize what was going on at that front, or whether the enemy was making his main attack in that direction. There might be still (as Wellington had guessed three days back) a violent demonstration towards Pampeluna, intended to distract a real attempt to relieve St. Sebastian.

And this state of ignorance with regard to the southern theatre of operations was destined to last till late in the afternoon. Either Cole and Picton themselves, or the officers to whom they entrusted their dispatches, were sadly lacking in a sense of the value of the prompt delivery of news. Wellington rode along the Bidassoa for many a mile, till he came on Hill still holding the position of Irurita, and entirely unmolested by the French. There were now in line the sadly reduced remnant of the British brigades which had fought at Maya, and da Costa’s and Ashworth’s Portuguese, with the three 7th-Division battalions which had saved Stewart from disaster. The total made up about 9,000 bayonets. Hill estimated[902] D’Erlon’s force at 14,000 men—a miscalculation, for even after the losses at Maya there were still 18,000 French in line. The immediate result of the error, however, was beneficial rather than otherwise, for Wellington considered that Hill was in no particular danger, and let him stand, while he himself rode southward towards the lofty Col de Velate, to seek for intelligence from the Pampeluna front in person, since his lieutenants had vouchsafed him none. He reached Almandoz, near the crest of the Pass, in the afternoon, and resolved to establish his head-quarters there for the night, as it was conveniently central between the two halves of his army.

Soon after his arrival Wellington, being much vexed at receiving no news whatever from the south, resolved to send the 6th Division toward Pampeluna by the Col de Velate as a matter of precaution—they were to march to Olague in the valley of the Lanz. The 7th Division was to close in, to take up the ground where the 6th had been placed, and cover Hill’s left flank[903]. That haste in these movements was not considered a primary necessity, is shown by the fact that Pack and Dalhousie were told that they need not march till the morning of the 27th. For the enemy’s surprising quiescence at the head of the Maya pass had reassured Wellington as to any danger on this side. If D’Erlon, indeed, possessed no more than 14,000 men, Hill with the aid of the 7th Division could easily take care of him. And the Light Division might still be left near Lesaca, as a reserve for Graham in case any new mass of French troops should take the offensive on the Bidassoa.

D’Erlon’s conduct on the morning of the 26th was explicable to himself, though inexplicable to his enemy. He had been engaged in a most bitter fight, in which he had lost 2,000 men and more. Two British divisions, so he wrote to Soult, were in front of him—the 2nd and the 7th. For he had taken Barnes’s brigade for the whole of Dalhousie’s unit—the effect of its desperate charge almost justified him in the hypothesis. These troops had been forced to a strategic retreat, but by no means put out of action. They must have been joined, ere now, by the Portuguese column which Darmagnac had sighted on its approach to Ariscun. But there were also troops on his right, of whom he must beware: he knew that Vera and Echalar had been held in strength, and Graham might send reinforcements in that direction, and assemble a heavy force on his flank. Hence he resolved to discover how matters lay by reconnaissances, before committing himself to the march down into the Bastan and then up the Col de Velate which his orders prescribed.

‘In my position on the pass of Maya,’ he wrote, ‘I had on my right all the forces which the enemy had in line as far as St. Sebastian. I had to be prudent, in order not to expose myself to a check in the Bastan, in which the enemy was holding the strongest position. I therefore determined to leave Abbé and Maransin in the pass, with orders to send out reconnaissances towards Santesteban, Echalar, and Mount Atchiola. They would profit by the halt to distribute the half-ration of food which had just come up from Ainhoue. I sent Darmagnac down the road to Ariscun, with orders to push a vanguard to Elizondo, and to explore towards the passes of Ispegui and Berderis, to see if there were any hostile force still on my left.’

An advance of six miles to Elizondo, and that by a mere advanced guard, was all the movement that D’Erlon made this day. It was not till the afternoon that he learnt, by Abbé’s reconnaissances, that there were still allied troops on his right—apparently the Light Division opposite Vera, and the 7th at Sumbilla—while Darmagnac reported that the eastern passes were clear, but that Hill was lying across the road beyond Elizondo in great strength. In the evening D’Erlon heard that Soult had forced the pass of Roncesvalles, and was about to advance: this success, he deduced, would make the enemy in front of him give way, in fear that his positions might be taken from behind. So he thought himself justified in ordering a general advance for the morning of the 27th—though Maransin was still to remain for a day at Maya, lest any allied force might move up from the west against the pass. Thus it came that for the whole of July 26th Hill was unmolested, and Soult’s plan for a rapid concentration round Pampeluna became almost impossible to carry out. A whole day had been wasted by D’Erlon, though he was not without his extenuating circumstances.

Wellington meanwhile received at Almandoz, probably at about 8 p.m., the long-expected news from the South. They were, as we know, most unsatisfactory: Cole reported from Linzoain, on the Roncesvalles-Pampeluna road, that he had been driven out of the pass by an army of 35,000 men or more, that he had not yet been joined by the 3rd Division, and was still retreating towards Zubiri, where he understood that Picton would meet him and take over the command. His view of the situation was shown by a remark that if he had not been superseded, and had been compelled to retreat past Pampeluna, he supposed that the road towards Vittoria would have been the right one to take[904]. This most exasperating dispatch only reached Wellington that night by mere chance. The officer bearing it was going to Lesaca, having no knowledge that Army Head-Quarters had left that place: at Lanz he happened to meet the cavalry brigadier Long, whose squadrons were keeping up the line of communication between the two halves of the Army. Hearing from the aide-de-camp of the sort of news that the letter contained, Long opened it and made a copy of it, which he sent to Sir Rowland Hill, before permitting the bearer to go on. Hill received the transcript at Berueta at 6 p.m., and very wisely forwarded it to Wellington at Almandoz. The original was carried on by Cole’s messenger to Santesteban, and did not reach Wellington that night.

Thanks to Long’s and Hill’s intelligent action, the Commander-in-Chief could grasp the whole unpleasant situation at 8 p.m. on the 26th. He sent orders to Picton at once, telling him that the enemy must at all costs be detained: that considering the force at his disposal, he ought to be able to check Soult for some time in front of Zubiri: that he would be joined at once by one of O’Donnell’s divisions from the Pampeluna blockading force, and shortly by reinforcements coming from the Bastan (the 6th Division). Wellington himself was intending to ride over to the right wing by the next afternoon. Till he should arrive, Picton must send reports every few hours[905]. Unfortunately, Cole and Picton had got things into an even worse state than could have been expected. Just as Wellington was drafting these orders for an obstinate rearguard action, they were at 8.30 p.m. preparing to evacuate the Zubiri position, and setting out on a night march for Pampeluna[906].

To explain this move we must go back to the state of affairs at Roncesvalles on the very foggy morning of July 26th. Cole, Byng, and Morillo had abandoned, as we have already seen[907], their position on Altobiscar and the Linduz under cover of the night, and had all fallen into the Pampeluna road, Ross’s brigade descending from the heights by the Mendichuri pass, the other three brigades and Morillo moving by the chaussée past the Abbey and Burguete. Anson’s brigade formed the rearguard, not having been engaged on the previous day. Morillo’s outlying battalion at the Foundry of Orbaiceta safely joined in by a hill path. Campbell’s Portuguese retired by the way that they had come, along the Path of Atalosti, but instead of returning to the Alduides followed a mule track to Eugui in the upper valley of the Arga.

Cole’s long column, after completing its night march, took a much-needed rest for many hours along the high road near Viscarret. It saw nothing of the French till the early afternoon, when an exploring party of chasseurs ran into the rearguard of Anson’s brigade.

What had Soult been doing between early dawn, when his outposts ascertained that there was no enemy in front of them, and three o’clock in the afternoon, when his cavalry rediscovered Cole? To our surprise we find that he had been attempting to repeat his error of the preceding day—that of sending a whole army corps along a rugged mule track, similar to the one on which Reille’s column had been blocked by Ross’s brigade. His original order on the 25th had been that Reille, after seizing the Linduz, should turn along the ‘crest of the mountains’, occupy the Atalosti defile, and push ever westward till he could threaten the Col de Velate, the main line of communication between the two sections of Wellington’s army. One would have supposed that the events of the 25th on the Linduz, where one British brigade had checked for a whole day Reille’s column of 17,000 men in Indian file, would have taught him the impracticability of such plans. But (as Soult’s malevolent critic, quoted already above, observed) when the Marshal had once got his plan drawn up on paper it was like the laws of the Medes and Persians, and must not be altered[908].

While Clausel was directed to use the chaussée and pursue Cole along the Pampeluna road past Roncesvalles, Burguete, and Espinal, Reille was once more ordered[909] ‘to follow the crest of the mountains to the right, and to try to take in the rear the hostile corps which has been holding the pass of Maya against Count D’Erlon.’ The itinerary seems insane: there was a mule track and no more, and Soult proposed to engage upon it a column of 17,000 men, with a front of one file and a depth of at least six miles, allowing for the battalion- and brigade-intervals. The crest was not a flat plateau, but an interminable series of ups and downs, often steep and stony, occasionally wooded. Campbell’s brigade had traversed part of it on the 25th, but to move a brigade on a fine day is a different thing from moving an army corps in a fog.

Reille obeyed orders, though the fog was lying as densely upon the mountains as on the preceding night. Apparently Soult had supposed that it would lift at dawn—but it did not till midday. Lamartinière’s division was left to guard the Linduz and the debouch of the Atalosti path: Foy’s, followed by Maucune’s, tried to keep to the crest, with the most absurd results. It was supposed to be guided by French-Basque peasants (smugglers, no doubt) who were reputed to know the ground. After going no more than a mile or two in the fog, the guides, at a confusion of tracks in the middle of a wood, came to a standstill, and talked volubly to Foy in unintelligible Basque. Whether they had lost their way, or were giving advice, the General could not quite discover. In despair he allowed the leading battalion to take the most obvious track. They had got completely off the Atalosti path, and after two miles of downhill marching found themselves on the chaussée not far from Espinal, with the rear of Clausel’s corps defiling past them[910]. It would still have been possible to stop the column, for only one brigade had reached the foot of the mountain, and Maucune and Lamartinière were still on the crest. But Reille took upon himself the responsibility of overriding his commander’s impracticable directions, and ordered Foy to go on, and the rest to follow, and to fall in to the rear of Clausel’s impedimenta. ‘Il est fort dangereux dans les hautes montagnes de s’engager sans guides et en brouillard,’ as he very truly observed. Justifying himself in a letter of that night to Soult, he wrote that if it were absolutely necessary to get on the crest-path again, it could be done by turning up the Arga valley at Zubiri, and following it to Eugui, from which there were tracks both to the Col de Velate and to Irurita.[911]

Thus ended Soult’s impracticable scheme for seizing the Col de Velate by marching three divisions along a precipitous mule track. Even if there had been no fog, it is hard to believe that anything could have come of it, as Campbell’s Portuguese would have been found at Eugui well on in the day, and after Reille’s column would have been much fatigued. Any show of resistance, even by one brigade, would have checked Foy, and compelled Reille to deploy—an interminable affair, as the fight on the Linduz upon the preceding afternoon had sufficiently demonstrated. But to try this manœuvre in a dense fog was insane, and Reille was quite right to throw it up.

The whole interest, therefore, of the French operation on July 26th turns on the doing of Clausel’s column. It advanced very cautiously down the slopes to the Abbey of Roncesvalles, discovering no trace of the enemy save a few abandoned wounded. Having reached the upland valley of Burguete, Clausel sent out cavalry patrols, and found, after much searching in the fog, that Cole had gone off with his whole force towards Espinal. His rearguard was discovered bivouacking along the road beyond that village. When it sighted the French it retired towards Viscarret. Clausel then ordered his infantry to pursue, but they were far to the rear and it was only about 3 p.m. when Taupin’s division came into touch with the light companies of Anson’s brigade, just as they were falling back on the whole 4th Division, drawn up in a favourable position on heights behind the Erro river, near the village of Linzoain. The day had at last become clear and fine. The 31st Léger, leading the French column, exchanged a lively fusillade with the light companies, while a squadron of chasseurs tried a charge on their flank. But both were driven off, and Clausel halted when he saw Cole waiting for him in order of battle. It was not till he had brought up and deployed two divisions that he ventured to press the Allied front, and nothing serious happened till after 4 o’clock.

Meanwhile Picton had come up from the rear, and joined Cole at Linzoain: the head of his troops had reached Zubiri only three miles behind. The arrival of the truculent general, looking even more eccentric than usual, for he was wearing a tall round civilian hat above a blue undress frock-coat, and was using a furled umbrella by way of riding whip, was taken by the 4th-Division soldiers as a sign of battle[912]. ‘Here comes old Tommy: now, boys, make up your minds for a fight’ passed down the ranks[913]. But, oddly enough, this was about the only day in Sir Thomas’s military career when he did not take a fair risk. He certainly came up in a bellicose mood, for he ordered Ross’s brigade to be ready to move forward when the 3rd Division should have come up to support it. But after riding to the front, and holding a long talk with Cole, he agreed with the latter that it would be dangerous to fight on ground which could be turned on both flanks, with an enemy who was known to have 35,000 men in hand. Only part of the French were up—Reille’s divisions after their stroll in the fog were far to the rear behind Clausel—so it would be possible to hold on till night, and slip away in the dark. Picton wrote to Wellington to report his decision, and does not seem in his dispatch to have realized in the least that he was contravening the whole spirit of his commander’s instructions of July 23rd with reference to the ‘stopping of the enemy’s progress towards Pampeluna in the event of the passes being given up[914].’ He merely stated that he had received these instructions too late to make it possible for him to reach Roncesvalles, or to join Cole before the latter had evacuated his positions[915]. As there was no favourable ground between the Erro river and the immediate vicinity of Pampeluna, on which a smaller force could make an effectual stand against a much larger one, he had determined to retire at once, and proposed to ‘take up a position at as short a distance as practicable from Pampeluna’—by which he meant the heights of San Cristobal, only two or three miles out from that fortress. He was thus intending to give up without further fighting ten miles of most difficult hilly country, where the enemy could be checked for a time at every successive ridge—though, no doubt, all the positions could be turned one after the other by long flank détours. But the net result was that Picton gave Soult a clear road on the 27th, and allowed him to arrive in front of Pampeluna on that day, whereas the least show of resistance between Zubiri and the debouch into the plains at Huarte, would have forced the French to deploy and waste time, and they could not have reached the open country till the 28th. This is sufficiently proved by the extreme difficulty which Soult found in conducting his march, even when he was not opposed.

So determined was Picton not to fight on the Erro river, or on the Arga, that he did not bring up his own division from Zubiri, but let it stand, only three miles behind the line on which Cole kept up a mild detaining action during the late afternoon hours of the 26th. Soult attacked with great caution, and more by way of flank movements than by frontal pressure. By evening Cole had drawn back one mile, and had 168 casualties, all but four of them in Anson’s brigade[916]. Those of the French can hardly have been more numerous: they seem all to have been in Taupin’s division[917].

On the afternoon of the 26th Picton had nearly 19,000 men at his disposition[918], Soult had somewhat less, since Reille’s column was so far to the rear that it could not get up before dark. There was no wonder, therefore, that the enemy made no resolute attack; and it can only be said that the Marshal was acting very wisely, for the French force on the ground was not sufficient to move the opposing body, until Reille should have come up; and Cole and Picton had resolved not to give way before dark. But when the fires of the French, shining for many miles on each side of the road, showed that they had settled down for the night, Cole drew off his division, and retired on Zubiri, where he passed through Picton’s troops, who were to take over the rearguard duty, as they were fresh and well rested. Campbell’s Portuguese dropped into the line of march from Eugui, by orders issued to them that afternoon, and by 11 p.m. the whole corps was in march for Pampeluna. Its departure had passed wholly unnoticed by the enemy. Meanwhile, Wellington’s aide-de-camp, riding through the night from Almandoz, with orders to Picton to maintain the ground which he was abandoning, can only have met the column when it was drawing near its destination.

It was quite early in the morning, though the sun was well up, when the head of the retreating column reached the village of Zabaldica, where the valley of the Arga begins to open out into the plain of Pampeluna, between the last flanking heights which constrict it. In front was the very ill-chosen position which Picton intended to hold, along a line of hills which are quite separate from the main block of the mountains, and stretch isolated in the lowland for some five miles north-west and south-east. These are the hill of Huarte on the right, parted from the mountains by the valley of the Egues river; the hill of San Miguel in the centre, on the other side of the high road and of the Arga river, and on the left the very long ridge of San Cristobal, separated from San Miguel by the Ulzama river, which flows all along its front.

Now these hills are strong posts in themselves, each with a good glacis of slope in its front; the gaps between them are stopped by the large villages of Villaba and Huarte, both susceptible of obstinate defence; and the two flanking hills are covered in front by river-beds—though fordable ones. But they are far too close to Pampeluna, which is but one single mile from San Cristobal: the guns of the fortress actually commanded at a range of only 1,200 yards, the sole road of communication along the rear of the position. Cassan’s garrison of 3,000 men was not large enough to furnish men for any large sortie—though he made a vigorous sally against O’Donnell’s blockading division on the 27th, and destroyed some of its trenches[919]. But no army should fight with a hostile fortress less than two miles in its rear, and commanding its line of retreat: it is surprising that such an old soldier as Picton chose this ground—presumably he was seduced by the fine position for both infantry and guns which it shows looking towards the enemy’s road of arrival.

Apparently Cole had a better eye for ground than Picton, for as they were riding together between Zabaldica and Huarte, he pointed out to his senior the advantage that would be gained by throwing forward the left wing of the army to a position much more remote from Pampeluna, the hill of Oricain or Sorauren, which faces the San Cristobal ridge from the other side of the Ulzama river[920]. This height is the last roll of the mountains, but almost separated from their main massif: it is only joined to the next summit by a high col at its right centre. For the rest of its length it is separated from its neighbour-height by a well-marked ravine. Its flanks are guarded by the beds of the Arga to the right and the Ulzama to the left. It is well under two miles long, about 1,000 feet high, and except at the Col has a very formidable front of steep slopes, covered with gorse and scattered bushes. The whole formed a strong and self-contained position, whose weak point was that it was rather too much in advance of the Huarte-San Miguel heights, which trend away southward, so that when the army was drawn out its right was much ‘refused,’ and its left very much thrown forward. It was also inconvenient that the access to the crest from the rear was bad, a steep climb by sheep-tracks from Oricain or Arre, up which all food or munitions would have to be brought. From the north there was a slightly better path to the summit from Sorauren, leading up to the small pilgrimage chapel of San Salvador on the left end of the crest. But this would be of more use to the assailants than to the defenders of the heights. Between the Col and the river Arga, and close above the village of Zabaldica, there was a spur or under-feature of the main position, which formed a sort of outwork or flank protection to it. At the moment when the retreating army was passing on towards Huarte, this spur was being held by two Spanish battalions, part of the division which O’Donnell, by Wellington’s orders, had detached to reinforce Picton. It was perhaps the sight of this small force in a very good position which suggested to Cole that the right policy was to prolong his line in continuation of it, across the Col and as far as the chapel above Sorauren.

Having allowed Cole to take up his new advanced position, Picton drew out the 3rd Division on the hill to the right of Huarte, with its flank eastwards covered by four brigades of cavalry, which had come up by Wellington’s orders from their cantonments on the Ebro[921]. Morillo’s Spaniards continued the line westward along the Cerro de San Miguel, as far as Villaba: from thence the San Cristobal ridge was occupied by the greater part of the division which O’Donnell had drawn from the blockading lines—all, in fact, save the two battalions in advance on the hill by Zabaldica. Later in the day two battalions more were added from the besieging force, for Carlos de España’s division from Castile had arrived, and relieved part of the troops which had hitherto been observing Pampeluna. Byng’s brigade was told off to support the 4th Division, and took post on the rear of the summit of the Oricain hill, half a mile behind Cole. The actual fighting line on the left was composed of Anson’s brigade on the Col, next to the Spaniards on the lower spur, of Campbell’s Portuguese upon the central stretch of the heights (except one battalion which was sent to support the Spaniards below)[922], and of Ross’s brigade holding the left. Stubbs’s Portuguese were in rear of Campbell’s, except the 7th Caçadores, which was detached to the front and held the ground about the chapel of San Salvador. The divisional battery (Sympher’s of the K.G.L.) was placed far down the right side of the hill, below and behind Byng’s brigade, in a position from which it could sweep the high road from Zabaldica to Arleta. Cole’s tactical dispositions were in the complete Wellingtonian style, with the light companies and caçadores thrown out some way down the slope, far in advance of the main force, whose battalions were drawn back well behind the sky-line, so as to be invisible till the last moment to enemies storming the hill. Soult followed up the retreating Allies at such a slow pace that the whole of Picton’s troops were settling into their ground before the enemy came in sight[923].

The slow advance of the French was due to the accumulation of such a large force in a narrow valley provided with only one road. The Marshal made an attempt to relieve the congestion, by ordering that the chaussée should be left to Clausel and to the cavalry and impedimenta in his rear, while Reille’s divisions should move on the east bank of the Arga by local paths between the villages. The excellent intention of securing room for both columns to move freely had no good result. Clausel arrived in front of Zabaldica by 9 a.m.[924] But Reille was nowhere in sight. His report fully explains his absence: he had obeyed orders by turning up into the hills a mile and a half beyond the village of Erro. ‘This direction rendered the march of the three divisions extremely slow and difficult. They found no road, and had to tramp through brushwood, climb steep slopes, or to follow tracks obliterated by recent rain. At last Count Reille took the decision to abandon the high ground. The 1st Division (Foy) dropped down to the village of Alzuza on the extreme left. The 7th Division (Maucune) re-descended into the valley of the Arga, a little above Iroz, where it bivouacked. The 9th Division (Lamartinière) also came down into the valley opposite Larrasoana, and kept along the high road to Iroz,’ where it fell in with the rear of Clausel’s column late in the day. The only result of Soult’s precaution had been to put Reille out of the game on the 27th, just as on the 26th.

For the whole of the morning hours, therefore, Soult had only Clausel’s corps at his disposition, a fact which accounts for the unenterprising character of his action. But that the 27th was a very slack day on the French side was not Clausel’s fault. On arriving at Zabaldica, and discovering that the heights of Oricain were held in strength, he did not wait for the Marshal’s orders, but began to form a line of battle parallel to Cole’s front, along the mountain opposite. Halting Conroux’s division on the high road in face of the hill held by the Spaniards, he pushed Taupin’s and Vandermaesen’s divisions up the slopes, with cavalry detachments feeling the way in front of them, till they had lined the whole ridge, and their right was overlooking Sorauren and the valley of the Ulzama. He then sent down to ask the Marshal’s leave to attack, saying that he could see from the summit behind his line large baggage trains moving away along the Vittoria road in the plain of Pampeluna, and bodies of troops in motion northward[925]—the enemy was about to raise the siege, and was only offering a rearguard action in order to cover the retreat of his impedimenta. If pressed he would give way at once[926].

Soult did not believe this, and very rightly; but being pressed by repeated messages he mounted up to the heights behind Clausel’s front at 11 a.m.: if he had chanced to notice it, he was just in time to see a solitary horseman ride up the north-western slope of the hill of Oricain, and to hear the whole of the Allied troops aligned opposite him burst out into a storm of tempestuous cheering. Wellington had come upon the ground. Soult heard the noise, but (as his dispatches show) did not guess its precise cause. He thought that reinforcements had just come up for Cole.

The story of Wellington’s eventful ride from Almandoz to Sorauren is a very interesting one. Much irritated at receiving no further news from Picton, he had mounted at sunrise and ridden over the Col de Velate, taking with him only George Murray, his Quartermaster-General, his Military Secretary Fitzroy Somerset, and three or four other officers: the bulk of the head-quarters staff was to follow at leisure. On arriving at Lanz, the first village on the south side of the pass, they heard rumours of Picton’s continued retreat, though they do not seem to have met the aide-de-camp whom he had sent off on the preceding night to report it. This news was so unexpected and vexatious that Wellington halted for a moment, to send back orders to Hill to the effect that it was conceivable that affairs might go badly on the Pampeluna front. If so, the whole right or southern wing of the army might have to swing back to the line Yrurzun-Tolosa, and Hill would have to direct his own two divisions, and also Dalhousie, and Pack, with all the artillery and baggage, to fall back westward on Lizaso and Lecumberri, instead of coming over the Col de Velate towards Pampeluna. The Light Division, too, might have to leave the neighbourhood of the Bastan, and to retire to Zubieta on the Oyarzun-Lecumberri road, in order to keep up the touch between the main army and Graham’s force in front of St. Sebastian. The latter general, however, was not to move, unless matters went very badly indeed, as the blockade of St. Sebastian must be kept up till the last possible minute. But previous orders were to stand, unless and until the Commander-in-Chief should send new ones: in particular Pack and the 6th Division were expected at Olague, and the batteries of Silveira’s division and the Light Division might come on to Lanz, as there was an artillery road from Olague by which they might be turned off eastward if it became necessary[927].

On getting five miles farther down the road, Wellington halted for another moment at Olague, to leave word that the 6th Division[928], when it arrived, was to hold that place till further notice, and especially to look out for a possible movement of the French across the hills from Eugui, which must be blocked at all costs. Pack must turn all wheeled transport, batteries, convoys, &c., arriving from the Col de Velate off the high road to Pampeluna, and send them westward by the side road Olague-Lizaso, at which last-named village everything must wait for further orders. The closest and most frequent communication must be kept up with Hill’s corps, which would be wanting to use this same road. Finally, Pack, after resting his division and giving it its noonday meal, must be ready to march again at a moment’s notice in the afternoon[929].

Three miles farther down the road, at Ostiz, Wellington found waiting for him General Long, with some of the squadrons of his Light Dragoons, who were dispersed all along the lines of communication, keeping touch with all divisions. Long gave the alarming information that Picton had abandoned the Linzoain and Zubiri positions during the previous night, and was now in the immediate neighbourhood of Pampeluna, where he was intending to fight on the San Cristobal heights. The French were known to be in pursuit, and a collision might occur at any moment—indeed might have occurred already, but no firing had yet been heard.

Ostiz is only four miles from Sorauren and six from Villaba; there was probably time to reach the fighting ground before an action might commence. Wellington directed his Quartermaster-General to stop behind, and make preparations for turning all troops off the Lanz valley road on to the Lizaso road, if he should receive further orders in the next hour—everything depended on what was going on six miles away. He then went off at racing speed down the chaussée, gradually dropping behind him all his staff except Fitzroy Somerset—their horses could not keep up with his thoroughbred. Turning the corner half a mile from Sorauren, he suddenly came on the whole panorama of battle. Cole’s line was visible on the right-hand heights stretching away from the Chapel of San Salvador to the Col above Zabaldica. On the opposite mountain Taupin’s and Vandermaesen’s divisions were moving along the crest towards Sorauren and the Ulzama valley: cavalry vedettes were pushing ahead of them all over the slopes, looking for paths or British outposts. They were only a mile away at most. There was just time, and no more, to join Cole and take over the direction of affairs. Wellington put on full speed till he reached Sorauren bridge, and then (with his usual cool-blooded calculation of risks and moments) dismounted, and wrote a short order to Murray in pencil, using the cap-stone of the bridge end as his table. While he was writing the thirteen hurried lines, he was much distracted by well-intentioned peasants, who flocked around him with shouts that the French were coming down into the other end of the village. But the dispatch reads clearly enough. Murray is informed that the high road is blocked by the presence of the French at Sorauren; all troops, therefore, must turn off on to the side-road Olague-Lizaso, both Pack and the artillery, and also Hill’s corps. The latter must march at once from the Bastan, and get across the Col de Velate by nightfall if it could, leaving a rearguard to hold the pass against any possible pursuit by D’Erlon. The 7th Division near Santesteban should also come across by the Puerto de Arraiz to Lizaso. Orders for the further movements of all troops would be sent to Lizaso as soon as possible[930].

Fitzroy Somerset dashed out of the village at its northern end with the completed dispatch, just as the French chasseurs came exploring into its other end. He was not seen, or at least not pursued, and Murray received the orders, which made Lizaso the concentration point of all the central divisions of the army in half an hour, and set to work to amplify them and to forward them to their destinations. As Wellington very truly observed, several hours were gained by sending back Somerset by the straight road, and in particular the 6th Division was able to reach Lizaso by dark, and to get a good rest for the march of the next day to the battlefield[931].

Meanwhile, Wellington, now all alone, rode up the steep track which rises from Sorauren to the pilgrimage-chapel on the height above, and was presently among the skirmishing line of O’Toole’s Caçadores, who were holding that corner of the front. His familiar but unobtrusive silhouette—the short frock-coat, small plumeless cocked hat fitting down tight over the great Roman nose, and wiry thoroughbred—was at once recognized—the Portuguese set up the cry of ‘Douro,’ with which they were wont to greet him—recalling the first victory in which English and Portuguese co-operated, and also his first title of nobility: the noise swelled into the hoarse cheers of the British soldier as it passed up the line towards the Col. The 4th Division, which had been grumbling bitterly since it had been on the retreat, suddenly felt the atmosphere change. ‘I never can forget the joy which beamed in every countenance when his Lordship’s presence became known. It diffused a feeling of confidence throughout all ranks. No more dispiriting murmurs on the awkwardness of our situation: now we began to talk of driving the French over the frontier as a matter of course[932].’ Wellington halted in front of Ross’s brigade, and for a long time studied the French movements through a telescope. He easily made out Soult himself, who was conferring with Clausel and other staff-officers in a conspicuous group. Napier says that he observed that the Marshal would have heard the cheering, and would try to make out what it was about, before taking any serious step: ‘that will give time for the 6th Division to arrive, and I shall beat him.’ There is no corroboration for this story, though it may be true: Napier was in England on July 28th, and speaks only from hearsay. But an eye-witness present on the spot says that General Ross, as his chief continued to focus the French staff, ventured the remark that ‘this time Soult certainly meditates an attack,’ to which Wellington, with the glass still to his eye, replied, ‘It is just probable that I shall attack him[933]. And this thought seems to be corroborated by a remark which Wellington made six days after to Judge Larpent, to the effect that he should and could have done more on the 27th[934]. The French army was but half arrived—only Clausel’s three divisions were up, and Reille was at 11 a.m. still miles away. The enemy was tempting Providence by marching across the Allied front, just as Marmont had done at Salamanca a year before.

Whether Soult was stopped from an early attack, by guessing that the cheers on Cole’s front implied the arrival of Wellington, seems more than doubtful. There is, of course, no trace of such an idea in the French dispatches—naturally it would not have been mentioned. But the one personal narrative which we have from a member of the group of Soult’s staff-officers whom Wellington was eyeing, is to the effect that Clausel was at the moment trying to persuade the Marshal to attack at once, though only half his force was up, that Soult utterly refused to do so, spread out his maps, and finally took his lunch and a nap after it. ‘Clausel meanwhile leaning against an oak was literally beating his forehead with rage, muttering “Who could go to sleep at such a moment”[935].’

What is certain is that Soult’s dispatch to Paris says that he had discovered that Wellington had arrived in the afternoon, which would seem to show that he did not know by personal observation that he had come up at 11 a.m. He says, also, that at the moment of his own arrival the Allies had 30,000 men in line, including all the blockading troops from Pampeluna, which rendered it necessary to make a thorough examination of their position, and to get up all the divisions[936]. To discover the exact ground on which the enemy intended to fight, it proved necessary to make demonstrations or partial attacks.

Two of these were executed: the spur held by the two Spanish battalions, above Zabaldica, was so close in to the French position, that it was thought worth while to make an attempt to occupy it. A regiment of Conroux’s division was sent up from the village to storm it, but was handsomely repulsed, when near the top of the slope, by a charge in line of these corps (Principe and Pravia of O’Donnell’s Andalusian Reserve). Clausel’s report says that his men ‘took the hill but could not keep it,’ but many British eye-witnesses on the slope above say that the summit was never reached. Clausel estimates the loss of his regiment at 100 men, Soult gives the more liberal estimate of 200. The repulse showed plainly enough that the whole hill of Oricain was to form part of the Allies’ position, and that they intended to fight for every inch of it.

Late in the afternoon Soult directed Foy, who had now reached Alzuza on the extreme French left, to demonstrate against the heights of Huarte, so as to discover the end of the British line, and the strength in which it was held. Foy sent forward two regiments in column down the slope toward the Egues river, while showing the rest of his troops on the hill behind. When the French got within cannon shot, Picton brought up the whole 3rd Division to the crest, and R. Hill’s and Ponsonby’s heavy cavalry showed themselves in front of the village of Gorraiz, covering his flank. The divisional battery fired a few rounds at the columns, which at once swerved and retired in haste. Foy could report that the Huarte heights were held in strength, and by all arms.

This was the last incident of the day—shortly afterwards a heavy thunderstorm swept down from the Pyrenees, darkened the twilight, and drenched both armies. The same thing had happened on the eve of Salamanca—and was to happen again on the eve of Waterloo.

Far more important than the trifling skirmishes of the afternoon were the arrangements for the morrow—orders and dispatches, which the rival commanders were evolving during the evening hours. Soult felt himself still blocked in the valley of the Arga and wanted to deploy—was it possible to get his long column of guns and cavalry out of the defile—and if so, how? Was there a possibility of extending to the left beyond Foy’s present position, or to the right beyond Sorauren, the limit of Clausel’s occupation? Or must the Oricain heights be captured at all costs before the army could get into a proper order of battle? Could any immediate help be expected from D’Erlon, whose tiresome letter of the 26th had come to hand, showing that he was no farther forward than Elizondo on that night? He was not doing his best to occupy the enemy in his front, and there was a danger that Hill might arrive at Sorauren long before the corps that had been set the task of occupying his attention.

There would appear to have been something like a council of war at the French head-quarters in the evening, in which Clausel, Reille, Gazan, the Chief of the Staff, and probably other officers took part. Clausel wished to extend the line northward up the valley of the Ulzama, and to turn the flank of the whole Oricain position. The objection to this was that the transport and guns could not follow over the mule-tracks which must be used; they were blocked in the Arga valley as long as the Allies held the heights commanding the main road. Moreover, reports had come in that British troops were descending on to Sorauren by the Lanz valley road, who would take in flank any attempt of Clausel to turn the Oricain position. (This seems to refer to the arrival of the 6th Division at Olague, but Long’s cavalry was also visible up the chaussée.) And an extension of the French right to the heights westward would make the whole line of battle very long and weak: how could Reille’s three divisions take over the whole ground from Sorauren to Alzuza? After much discussion Soult decided in favour of a concentric attack on the whole Oricain position by five of his six divisions, while only Foy should remain out on the left, observing and containing the British force on the Huarte hills. Clausel’s three divisions should attack Cole’s line from Sorauren to the Col, two of Reille’s divisions should co-operate, by assailing the Col and the Spaniards’ Hill south of it. Some guns should be got to the front if possible, and Foy should be lent some cavalry, who must climb over the hills to cover his flank. Details would have to be settled on the morrow, also the transference of troops, who could not move in the dark over steep and unknown ground. Yet there was an uneasy feeling that too much time had been lost already—Soult notes a rumour that Wellington had announced the approach of four more British divisions. Even the arrival of D’Erlon could not compensate for this, and it did not look as if D’Erlon was likely to appear early on the 28th.

Wellington moved the troops who were on the ground very little that evening—only relieving the Portuguese battalion which was in reserve on the hill above Zabaldica by a British regiment of Anson’s brigade—the 40th Foot—and sending two of O’Donnell’s battalions to Ollocarizqueta, to watch the mountain road west of Sorauren, by which it was conceivable that Clausel might try to turn the hill of Oricain. He had got news that French troops had been seen beyond Sorauren, and did not want to have them prying too close behind this flank, or observing the paths by which he intended to bring up his reserves on that side.

For his main attention that afternoon was devoted to drawing up the orders for the divisions coming from the Bastan, which he had promised to send to Murray, in the note that Fitzroy Somerset bore from the bridge of Sorauren. At 4 o’clock he sent off the all-important dispatch[937]. It will be remembered that his last orders provided for the successive arrival at Lizaso of the 6th and 7th Divisions, of the whole corps of Hill, and of the artillery, and divisional baggage trains of all the troops.

Pack was to start from Lizaso at dawn, and to move as rapidly as possible along the country road by Marcalain to Ollocarizqueta, which goes along the back of the hills that form the right bank of the valley of the Ulzama. At the last-named village (which he would find held by two Spanish battalions) he would be only five miles from Cole’s flank, and in a position to strengthen or cover it. A supplementary note[938] warned Pack that if any French were found anywhere on the way he must not let himself be turned off; even if it came to leaving the road and taking to mountain tracks, the 6th Division must arrive at its destination. The artillery and the reserve of infantry ammunition were to follow Pack, unless serious opposition were offered to him, in which case they must return to Lizaso, and from thence turn on to Yrurzun.

Dalhousie and Hill had already had orders to march on Lizaso, the one by the Puerto de Arraiz, the other by the Velate. Both had a long march, but Wellington hoped that they might reach Lizaso during the night of the 27th-28th. If the men were not over-fatigued, all three divisions should follow Pack to Ollocarizqueta, after being given a suitable time of rest. All impedimenta likely to hinder rapid marching, and the wounded from the Maya fight, were to be directed from Lizaso to Yrurzun. Murray had already, acting on the orders of the Sorauren Bridge dispatch of 11 a.m., sent the route for Lizaso to Hill and Dalhousie, adding some precautions of his own, to the effect that they should leave small rearguards at the passes, to detain D’Erlon if he should come up. Moreover, he had spread out the 1st Hussars of the K.G.L. along the roads, to keep up touch between all the divisions on the move, and also between Lizaso and the Light Division, now at Zubieta. The only addition made by Wellington’s new orders was the all-important one that everything of the fighting sort that came to Lizaso was to march for the main army, but all baggage for Yrurzun.

Of the arrangements thus made, that for Pack worked perfectly—he was at Ollocarizqueta with the 6th Division before 10 a.m. on the morning of the 28th. But Hill and Dalhousie were detained in the passes by the storm of the evening of the 27th, and only reached Lizaso so late on the 28th that they were of no use in the fighting of that day. As Wellington observed to Larpent[939], they could both have got into the battle of Sorauren if they had been given a longer march on the 26th, but ignorance of Cole’s and Picton’s retreat had prevented him from starting them early enough. However, the 6th Division alone sufficed to settle the matter.

The morning of the 28th was fine and bright—the storm of the preceding night seemed to have cleared the clouds from the hills, and the eye could range freely over a very wide landscape. Not only was the battle front of each army visible to the other, but from the high crest on or behind each position, a good deal could be made out of what was going on in the rear. This was more the case with the French line than with the British: Wellington’s usual plan of keeping his main force behind the sky-line had great efficacy on such lofty ground as that of the heights of Oricain.

Soult spent the long hours of the July morning in moving his troops to the positions which had been selected on the previous night. Conroux’s division, abandoning Zabaldica, marched over the hills in the rear of Clausel’s other divisions, and occupied Sorauren village—relieving there some of Taupin’s battalions, which shifted a little to their left. To replace Conroux at Zabaldica Lamartinière came up from Iroz, and deployed one brigade (Gauthier’s) in front of the Spaniards’ Hill, while the other (Menne’s) remained in reserve beside the Arga, with two regiments across the high road and the third on the slopes east of the river. Maucune’s division, starting up the slopes from the rear of Iroz, took post on the heights immediately opposite the Col, with its right touching the left of Vandermaesen. Two regiments were in front line exactly in face of the Col, a third somewhat farther to the left, keeping touch with Lamartinière’s brigade near Zabaldica. The other brigade (Montfort’s) was placed in reserve farther up the mountain[940]. Pierre Soult’s light cavalry regiments disentangled themselves from the long cavalry and artillery column in the rear, and picked their way up the heights southward till they reached Foy’s position, from which they extended themselves to the left, till they reached as far as the village of Elcano. Four howitzers were chosen out of the batteries in the rear, and brought forward to the front of Zabaldica, a position in which it was hoped that their high-trajectory fire might reach effectively the Allies on the Col and the Spanish Hill. These were the only French cannon used that day, except some mule-guns employed by Clausel on the side of Sorauren.

The greater part of these movements were perfectly visible to Wellington, though some of them were intermittently screened from sight when the marching columns dipped into dead ground, or were passing through thickets. They took up so many hours that he wrote to Graham at 10.30 that it looked as if Soult was not inclined to attack. Meanwhile, the only British force on the move was the 6th Division, which had been marching since daylight, and arrived about 10 a.m. at Ollocarizqueta. On getting news of its presence, Wellington ordered it to move by a country road which comes across a crack in the hills west of the Ulzama not far from the village of Oricain, and after reaching that river to keep its Portuguese brigade on the western bank, its two British brigades on the eastern, and so to advance till it should arrive facing Sorauren, prolonging Cole’s left in the lower ground, and covering him from any attempt to turn his flank. About noon Pack’s leading troops began to appear—these were Madden’s Portuguese on the left of the division, working along the hillside west of the Ulzama.

Now the ‘zero’ hour for the general attack on the whole Allied front had been fixed by Soult for 1 o’clock, but long before that hour Clausel was informed by an exploring officer, whom he had sent to the hills on the other side of the Ulzama, beyond his right, that a heavy British column was visible coming from the direction of Marcalain, obviously to join the British left[941]. Now the French general had been thinking of turning Cole’s flank on this side, and had actually got troops some little way up the Ulzama valley beyond Sorauren. But hearing of Pack’s approach and of his strength, he determined that he must now turn his attention to fending off this move against his own flank, and that the effort would absorb no small portion of his troops. Conroux’s division had been originally intended for the attack of the north-west corner of the Oricain heights, to the right (French) of the chapel, while Taupin was to make the chapel itself his objective; Vandermaesen was to strike at the centre of Cole’s position, and Maucune to attack the Col. But Clausel determined that, in order to make the general frontal attack feasible, he must at once stop the forward march of Pack, and keep him at a distance, while the other divisions made their great stroke. Accordingly he called in his right wing detachments, and having concentrated Conroux’s strong division (7,000 bayonets) he ordered it, at 12.30, to deploy across the valley of the Ulzama below Sorauren and advance in two lines of brigades against the approaching British column. This movement—probably a necessary one—brought on the first clash of battle, half an hour before the appointed time for the general movement. Clausel at the same moment sent word to the other divisions to attack at once; but they were not quite ready, the fixed hour not having yet been reached.

But Conroux pushed up the valley farther than was prudent, for when he was some half a mile beyond Sorauren, he found himself encompassed on three sides—Madden’s Portuguese pushing forward along the hill on the other side of the river, turned in on his right flank, some of Ross’s skirmishers on the slopes west of the chapel of San Salvador came down and began to fire upon his left flank, while the main body of the 6th Division—Stirling’s brigade deployed in front line, Lambert’s supporting in column—met him face to face in the low ground. The concentric fire was too heavy to be stood, and Conroux had to give back, fighting fiercely, till he had the support of the village of Sorauren at his back: there the battle stood still, for Pack had orders to cover Cole’s flank, not to attack the enemy’s[942].

Meanwhile, the general frontal attack was being delivered by the other French divisions, starting from the right, as each got forward on receiving Clausel’s orders to anticipate the fixed hour and advance at once. Hence the assault was made in échelon of brigades from the right, Taupin’s two brigades being a little ahead of Vandermaesen’s, and Vandermaesen’s perceptibly earlier on the hill than the brigade of Maucune which attacked at the Col. The separate assault by Lamartinière on the Spaniards’ Hill is definitely stated by that general to have been made at 12 o’clock—earlier, apparently, than the others—but he is contradicted by Reille, in command on this front, who says that it started vers une heure. This is much more likely to be correct.

The assault on the hill of Oricain bears a remarkable likeness to the battle of Bussaco, both being attacks by a series of brigade columns on a steep hill, with every disadvantage except numbers to the assailant. Cole’s position was singularly like that of Picton in the battle of 1810, the main differences being that the hillside was not quite so steep or quite so high, and was strewn with clumps of brushwood in its lower slopes, while the Bussaco ground only shows heather and a little gorse. At the Portuguese fight the defenders of the hill had some help from artillery—at the Navarrese fight none. On the other hand, Cole had a shorter line to defend, and more men to hold it. Reynier attacked with 13,000 infantry—Clausel with 20,000—including in each case unengaged reserve brigades. Picton held the slopes of San Antonio de Cantaro with 6,800 men—Cole had about 11,000 at Oricain—the proportional difference therefore between the attacking and the defending force was much the same[943]. By an odd chance no less than four French regiments climbed both these deadly hills (17th Léger, 31st Léger, 47th and 70th Line); but the only officer who has left us his narrative of both fights does not chance to have compared them, though he was a competent observer and a fluent writer[944]. None of Cole’s regiments, on the other hand, had been engaged at Bussaco, though eight of them were present on that field in unattacked sectors of Wellington’s line.

The direction of the attack of the six French brigades which mounted the hill of Oricain was such that in their first advance Taupin’s right brigade (Lecamus) attacked Ross; his left brigade (Béchaud) came in where Ross’s and Campbell’s lines met: both Vandermaesen’s were opposed to Campbell’s centre and right; Maucune’s front brigade tackled Anson at the Col, and Gauthier of Lamartinière’s division assailed the 40th and the Spaniards on the slopes above Zabaldica. The six brigades made 15,000 bayonets in all—the rear brigades of Maucune and Lamartinière not being counted, for they never closed. Conroux was paired off against Pack in the low ground, fighting against numbers not much inferior to his own.

Lecamus’s brigade, starting from a short distance south of Sorauren, made for the north-west corner of the heights,—its four battalion columns screened by their eight compagnies d’élite in a dense swarm[945], much thicker than the usual French skirmishing line. This column, the first up the hill, pushed before it the light companies of the British 20th and 23rd, and the 7th Portuguese Caçadores, and won its way nearly to the crest, when it was charged by Ross with the whole Fusilier Brigade and thrown violently down hill. It was not pursued far, and ultimately rallied, but was for some time out of action. The Fusiliers had hardly resumed their former position and re-formed, when the second French column came up the hill a little way to the left of the last attack, aiming at the Chapel of San Salvador. This was the five battalions of Béchaud’s brigade, which had in front of it the line of the 10th Caçadores, supported by Ross’s right-hand battalion and the left battalion of Campbell’s Portuguese. This column actually reached the summit, driving the Caçadores before it, and established itself by the chapel, but was finally thrown down by a flank attack of Ross’s left-hand battalions, while it was heavily engaged with the 7th Fusiliers and Campbell’s 10th Line in front. It rallied only a short way down the hill, as there was no pursuit.

This fight was still in progress when Vandermaesen’s two brigades came up the hill, each in a single column preceded by a heavy screen of tirailleurs. They came into collision with Campbell’s centre and left, drove in his Caçadores[946] and light companies, and forced their way right to the summit, after a very sharp exchange of fire. Cole was obliged to send up Stubbs’s Portuguese to strengthen the line, which held for some time, but finally gave way on its left, where the 10th Line broke, thus exposing the flank of Ross’s 7th Fusiliers, its next neighbours along the crest. At the same time Béchaud’s brigade, now rallied, came up the hill for a second attack on Ross, whose line, or at least the right-hand part of it, lost ground and fell back in some disorder. At the same moment the French column beyond Vandermaesen—Maucune’s front brigade—was attacking the Col. ‘At that instant,’ wrote Clausel to Soult, ‘I had, despite all the difficulties of the enterprise, some hope of success[947].’

The combat seems to have stood still for a perceptible time—the French troops had established themselves on a long strip of the crest, and were slowly pushing back Campbell’s left and Ross’s right, which had suffered severely and were in bad order. But the enemy was also in great confusion—the columns and the skirmishing line had dissolved into irregular crowds. The men were absolutely exhausted by the steep climb which they had just made; and the blasting volleys which they had received before reaching the crest had laid low a very large proportion of the officers, who had led with reckless courage. There was no impetus left in their advance, which was slow and irregular.

The decision of the fight seems to have started on the very highest point of the hill, where Maucune’s front brigade was attacking Anson. Here the French never won the crest, and were thrown back with extreme violence and terrible loss. The laconic report of the division merely says that ‘the advance was a complete failure: the troops were repulsed at every point, and returned to their original position with the loss of 600 to 700 men and a colonel[948].’ The whole strength of the three attacking battalions had been only 2,200 men, and all the casualties coming in ten minutes, the column was too hard hit to rally. Nor did Maucune choose to send in his rear brigade, which was the only intact reserve on the French heights. After watching this complete failure of the central assault from behind Anson’s line, and noting the demoralization of the enemy, Wellington took the very bold step of ordering two of Anson’s three battalions[949], the 3/27th and 1/48th, to descend from their own ground, and fall on the flank of Vandermaesen’s division, which was advancing slowly and in disorder, pushing back Campbell’s and Stubbs’s Portuguese. He left only the 2nd Provisional (2nd and 2/53rd) to hold the high point from which Maucune had just been repulsed. At the same time Byng’s brigade, hitherto kept in reserve a quarter of a mile back, on the centre of the hill, was ordered to advance and support Ross.

The diagonal downhill charge of the 3/27th and 1/48th was swift and irresistible, when falling on the flank of a disordered mass. A French observer on the opposite mountain noted and admired it. ‘The enemy’s reinforcements, which he launched against our divisions, charged at a running pace, but with such order and unity that looking on from a distance one might have thought it was cavalry galloping. Hardly had they repulsed the troops on their right, when they ran in on the centre, and after the centre on to the left.... Our men came back four times to the assault, but what could three divisions do against an army perfectly settled down into its position, which had only to receive the shock of troops already half discomfited by exhaustion and by the obstacles of an inaccessible hillside[950].’ Wellington merely says, ‘I ordered the 27th and 48th to charge first that body of the enemy which had first established itself on the heights (Vandermaesen) and next those on the left (Béchaud): both attacks succeeded, and the enemy was driven down with immense loss.’

Byng’s brigade was in time to give assistance in the last part of the attack, but was only slightly engaged; its three battalions had no more than 70 casualties among them[951], while the 27th and 48th counted no less than 389—a sufficient proof of the sort of resistance which they respectively met.

With the general repulse of the French brigades which had established themselves on the crest, the crisis of the battle was over. But sporadic fighting continued for an hour more, owing to the gallant obstinacy of the French officers, who at several points of the line rallied their battalions and brought them up the hill again for partial and obviously futile attacks. As Wellington had forbidden all pursuit, the enemy had full power to reassemble half-way down the hill and to try his luck again. But since the men were tired out, and quite understood that if a general assault by six brigades had failed, isolated pushes by individual regiments were hopeless, there was no conviction in these later attacks. About four o’clock Soult sent orders that they must cease, and that all troops must return to their original positions.

It remains to speak of three side-shows of the battle, one of which was of great interest and some importance. It will be remembered that when the great advance took place about 1 a.m., Gauthier’s brigade at Zabaldica was told to storm the spur opposite, now held by the British 40th and the Spanish battalions Pravia and Principe. There was some artillery preparation here, the howitzers beside the village having been directed to open a high-trajectory fire on the hill. It had, however, no effect, and the infantry were put in ere long. As to what happened British and French accounts show a satisfactory agreement. Gauthier first sent up the 120th, a strong three-battalion unit, keeping the 122nd (two battalions) in reserve. The attack was frontal, and in one column—possibly the presence of Sympher’s battery to the right rear, sweeping all the slopes above the Arga river, prohibited any flank extension to turn the position.

Reille, who directed this attack in person from Zabaldica, says that the regiment went up the hill with a very strong screen of skirmishers (no doubt all the six compagnies d’élite) but in great disorder, the pace having been pressed too much up a very steep ascent, so that the whole arrived at the crest in a mass. The enemy, who had been waiting behind the sky-line, suddenly appeared at the critical moment, and opened such a heavy and effective fire that the 120th crumpled up and rolled down hill. The Allies, contented with the result of their salvo, did not pursue, but stepped back behind the crest. Gauthier rallied the defeated regiment half-way down the slope, and brought up the 122nd to assist: he then repeated the assault over the same ground, and with better success, for the 120th reached the crest, and broke up a Portuguese regiment (it was really two Spanish battalions), and came to a deadly musketry contest with the English regiment posted on the highest ground. There was a fusillade almost muzzle to muzzle, but the French regiment finally gave way ‘whether from the disadvantage of the position or from over-fatigue after twice climbing such steep slopes’. The 122nd, coming up just too late, then delivered a similar attack, and suffered a similar repulse. Both regiments were then rallied half-way down the slope, and kept up from thence a scattering fire, until Soult’s orders came to withdraw all the line, in consequence of the defeat of Clausel’s divisions. This exactly tallies with the narratives of the British officers of the 40th, who also speak of three attacks, the first easily foiled-a mere rush of skirmishers—the second very serious, and rendered almost fatal by the incomprehensible panic of the Spaniards, who, after behaving very well both on the previous day and during the first attack, suddenly broke and fled—‘all attempts to rally them being ineffectual’—over the whole face of the hill behind. The rout was only stopped by a desperate charge against the front of the leading French battalion, which was successful contrary to every expectation and probability. For the 40th, who had suffered considerable loss in the combat of Linzoain two days before, had only 10 officers and 400 men in line, and were attacking a column of nearly 2,000 men. This column had been cast down hill, and the men of the 40th had barely been re-formed—they showed a great wish to pursue and came back reluctantly—when the third French attack, that of the 122nd, was delivered with resolution and steadiness but without success. Even then the fight was not over, for after an interval the enemy came up the hill again, in disorder but with drums beating and eagles carried to the front, the officers making incredible efforts to push the men forward. They did not, however, get to the crest, but, after rolling up to within twenty-five yards of it, stood still under the heavy musketry fire, and then fell back, completely ‘fought out[952].’

Reille’s report declares that Gauthier’s brigade only lost ‘50 killed and several hundred wounded’—say 350 in all—in this combat. The British 40th had 129 casualties—the Spanish battalions on their flanks 192. If a brigade of five battalions and 3,300 bayonets allowed itself to be stopped by a single battalion in the last phases of the combat, after suffering a loss of only one man in nine, there must have been something wrong with it, beside bad guidance. One would suspect that Reille is understating casualties in the most reckless fashion.

While this fight was going on by the banks of the Arga, there was another in progress on the other flank of the hill of Oricain, on the banks of the Ulzama. The 6th Division had been intermittently engaged with Conroux’s troops during the whole time of the French assaults on the heights. When it was seen that Clausel’s men were ‘fought out’ and falling back, Pack made an effort to utilize the moment of the French débâcle by capturing Sorauren. He brought up his divisional guns (Brandreth’s battery) to a position close to the village, and sent forward the light companies of the two British brigades to press in upon its south side, while Madden’s Portuguese, on the other bank of the river, tried to get into it from the rear on the north side. The attack failed, indeed was never pushed home, Sorauren being too strongly held. The guns had to be drawn back, many horses and some gunners having been shot down. Pack himself was severely wounded in the head, and Madden’s brigade lost 300 men. Wellington sent down from the hill to order the attack to cease, for even if Sorauren had been taken, the rest of his front-line troops were in no condition to improve the advantage[953].

While this was going on upon the extreme left, an almost bloodless demonstration was in progress on the extreme right, where Foy, as on the previous day, had been ordered to keep Picton employed. He showed his infantry in front of Alzuza, and pushed forward the considerable body of light cavalry which had been lent him to his left flank by Elcano, till their skirmishers had got into collision with those of the British Hussar Brigade, along the river Egues. There was much tiraillade but few casualties on either side; the 10th Hussars were driven across the river, but were replaced by the 18th, who kept the French in check for the rest of the day. Pierre Soult showed no intention of closing, and Stapleton Cotton had been warned by Wellington that his four brigades were intended for flank-protection not for taking the offensive. The afternoon, therefore, passed away in noisy but almost harmless bickering between lines of vedettes. Foy in his report expressed himself contented with having kept a larger force than his own occupied all day.

Thus ended this second Bussaco, a repetition in its main lines of the first, and a justification of the central theory of Wellington’s tactical system. Once more the line, in a well-chosen position, and with proper precautions taken, had proved itself able to defeat the column. The French made a most gallant attempt to storm a position held by much inferior numbers, but extremely strong. They were beaten partly—as all the critics insisted—by the fact that men who have just scaled a hill of 1,000 feet are inevitably exhausted at the moment when they reach its crest, but much more by the superiority of fire of the line over the column when matters came to the musketry duel. The French generals had learnt one thing at least from previous experience—they tried to sheathe and screen the column by exceptionally heavy skirmishing lines, but even so they could not achieve their purpose. The only risk in Wellington’s game was that the enemy’s numbers might be too overwhelming—if, for example, the 6th Division had not been up in time on July 28th, and Clausel had been able to put in Conroux’s division (7,000 extra bayonets) along with the rest, operating against Ross’s extreme flank, it is not certain that the heights of Oricain could have been held. But Wellington only offered battle, as he did, because he was relying on the arrival of the 6th Division. If he had known on the night of the 27th that it could not possibly come up in time, he would probably have accepted the unsatisfactory alternative policy of which he speaks in several dispatches, that of raising the siege of Pampeluna and falling back on Yrurzun. ‘I hope we should in any case have beaten the French at last, but it must have been further back certainly, and probably on the Tolosa road[954].’

Soult is said to have felt from the 26th onward—his original project of a surprise followed by a very rapid advance having failed—‘une véritable conviction de non-réussite[955].’ We could well understand this if he really believed—as he wrote to Clarke on the evening after the battle—that Wellington had 50,000 men already in line. But this was an ex post facto statement, intended to explain his defeat to the Minister; and we may be justified in thinking that if he had really estimated the hostile army at any such a figure, he would never have attacked. His long delay in bringing on the action may be explained by the fact that Reille’s divisions were not on the field before evening on the 27th, and that on the 28th it took many hours to rearrange the troops on a terrain destitute of any roads, rather than by a fear of a defeat by superior numbers. It might have been supposed on the 27th that he was waiting for the possible arrival of D’Erlon, but on the morning of the 28th he had heard overnight from his lieutenant, and knew that he could not reach the battle-front on that day. In his self-exculpatory dispatch to Clarke, Soult complains that D’Erlon told him that he was blocked by British divisions at Irurita, ‘but I have no doubt that these are the same troops which fell upon General Clausel’s flank this afternoon[956].’ In this he was wrong—D’Erlon was speaking of Hill’s and Dalhousie’s divisions, while it was Pack (whom D’Erlon had never seen) that rendered a French success at Sorauren impossible.

The loss of the Allied Army was 2,652—of whom 1,358 were British, 1,102 Portuguese, and 192 Spaniards. The heaviest casualties fell on the 3/27th in Anson’s brigade, who first repulsed Maucune, and then swept away Vandermaesen, and the 1/7th in Ross’s brigade, the regiment whose flank was exposed by the breaking of the 10th Portuguese—which corps also, as was natural, was very hard hit. But all the front-line battalions, both British and Portuguese, had considerable losses. Soult (as at Albuera) made a most mendacious understatement of his casualties, putting them at 1,800 only. As Clausel alone had reported about 2,000, Maucune about 700, and Lamartinière at least 350, it is certain that the Marshal’s total loss was over 3,000—how much over it is impossible to say, since the only accessible regimental casualty-lists include all men killed, wounded, or missing between July 25th and August 2nd. But the chances are that 4,000 would have been nearer the mark than 3,000[957].

SECTION XXXVIII: CHAPTER V

SOULT’S RETREAT, JULY 30-31.
THE SECOND BATTLE OF SORAUREN

While the battle of July 28th was being fought, the outlying divisions of both Soult’s and Wellington’s armies were at last beginning to draw in towards the main bodies.

Hill, as we have already seen, had received the orders written by Wellington on Sorauren bridge at 11 a.m. by the afternoon of the same day, and had started off at once with his whole force—the three 2nd Division brigades, Silveira’s one brigade, and Barnes’s three battalions of the 7th Division. His directions were to endeavour to cross the Puerto de Velate that night, so as to sleep at Lanz, the first village on the south side of the pass. He was to leave a detachment at the head of the defile, to check D’Erlon’s probable movement of pursuit. The supplementary order, issued at 4 p.m. from the heights of Oricain, directed Hill to march from the place where his corps should encamp on the night of the 27th (Lanz as was hoped) to Lizaso, abandoning the high road for the side road Olague-Lizaso, since the former was known to be cut by the French at Sorauren. If the men were not over-fatigued when they reached Lizaso, Hill must try to bring them on farther, to Ollocarizqueta on the flank of the Sorauren position, where the 6th Division would have preceded them.

Similarly Dalhousie with the 7th Division (minus the three battalions with Hill) was to march that same evening from Santesteban over the Puerto de Arraiz on to Lizaso, to sleep there and to march on Ollocarizqueta, like Hill, on the morning of the 28th, if the state of the troops allowed it. All the baggage, sick, stores, and other impedimenta from the Bastan were also directed on Lizaso, but they were to go through it westward and turn off to Yrurzun, not to follow the fighting force to Ollocarizqueta.

None of these directions worked out as was desired, the main hindering cause being the fearful thunderstorm already recorded, which raged during the twilight hours of the evening of the 27th. Hill had started from Irurita, as directed, keeping as a rearguard Ashworth’s Portuguese, who were intended to hold the Puerto de Velate when the rest of the column should have crossed it. He was nearing the watershed, in the roughest part of the road, where it has many precipitous slopes on the left hand, when the storm came down, completely blotting out the evening light with a deluge of rain, and almost sweeping men off their feet. One of Barnes’s officers describes the scene as follows: ‘So entangled were we among carts, horses, vicious kicking mules, baggage, and broken-down artillery, which lined the road, that we could not extricate ourselves. Some lighted sticks and candles only added to the confusion, for we were not able to see one yard beyond the lights, owing to the thick haze, which seemed to render darkness still more dark. In this bewildered state many who could not stand were obliged from fatigue to sit down in the mire: to attempt going on was impossible, except by climbing over the different vehicles that blocked the road. In this miserable plight, I seated myself against a tree, when weariness caused me, even amidst this bustle, mud, and riot, to fall fast asleep[958].’ All sorts of disasters happened: one of Tulloh’s 9-pounders went over the precipice with the shaft animals drawn down with it, when the side of the roadway crumbled in[959]. Ross’s battery lost another gun in a similar way, owing to the sudden breaking of a wheel, and many carts and mules blundered over the edge. The only thing that could be done was to stick to the track, sit down, and wait for daylight, which was fortunately early in July.

When it came, the drenched and miserable column picked itself up from the mire, and straggled down the defile of the Velate, passing Lanz and turning off at Olague towards Lizaso, as ordered. Troops and baggage were coming in all day to this small and overcrowded mountain village, in very sorry plight. It was of course quite impossible for them to move a mile farther on the 28th, and Hill had to write to Wellington that he could only hope to move his four brigades on the early morning of the 29th.[960]

Lord Dalhousie had fared, as it seems, a little better in crossing the Puerto de Arraiz; he had a less distance to cover, but the dispatch from Sorauren bridge only reached him at 7 p.m. when the rain was beginning. With laudable perseverance he kept marching all night, and reached Lizaso at 12 noon on the 28th, with all his men, except a battalion of Caçadores left behind to watch the pass. The condition of the division was so far better than that of Hill’s column, that Dalhousie wrote to Wellington that he could march again in the late afternoon, after six hours’ rest, and would be at or near Ollocarizqueta by dawn on the 29th[961], though two successive night marches would have made the men very weary. This the division accomplished, much to its credit, and reached the appointed destination complete, for Hill had returned to it the three battalions which had saved the day at Maya on the 25th.

Lizaso on the afternoon of July 28th was a dismal sight, crammed with the drenched and worn-out men of seven brigades, who had just finished a terrible night march, with large parties of the Maya wounded, much baggage and transport with terrified muleteers in charge, and a horde of the peasants of the Bastan, who had loaded their more precious possessions on ox-wagons, and started off to escape the French. It took hours to sort out the impedimenta and start them on the Yrurzun road. There was a general feeling of disaster in the air, mainly owing to physical exhaustion, which even the report of the victory of Sorauren arriving in the evening could not exorcise. Rumours were afloat that Wellington was about to retire again, despite of the successes of the afternoon. However, the day being fine, the men were able to cook and to dry themselves, and the 7th Division duly set out for another night march.

It was fortunate that the retiring columns were not troubled by any pursuit either on the 27th or the 28th. The storm which had so maltreated Hill’s column seems to have kept the French from discovering its departure. Darmagnac had moved forward on the 27th from Elizondo to ground facing Hill’s position at Irurita, but had not attempted to attack it, D’Erlon having decided that it was ‘très forte par elle-même, et inattaquable, étant gardée par autant de troupes.’ So badly was touch kept owing to the rainy evening, that Hill got away unobserved, and it was only on the following morning that Darmagnac reported that he had disappeared. This news at last inspired D’Erlon with a desire to push forward, and on the morning of the 28th Abbé took over the vanguard, passed Almandoz, and crossed the Velate, with Darmagnac following in his rear, while Maransin—kept back so long at Maya—came down in the wake of the other divisions to Elizondo. The head of Abbé’s division passed the Puerto de Velate, pushing before it Ashworth’s Portuguese, who had been left as a detaining force. Abbé reported that the pass was full of wrecked baggage, and that he had seen guns shattered at the foot of precipices. D’Erlon says that 400 British stragglers were gleaned by the way—no doubt Maya wounded and footsore men. On the night of the 28th Abbé and Darmagnac bivouacked at and about Lanz, Maransin somewhere by Irurita. He left behind one battalion at Elizondo[962], to pick up and escort the convoy of food expected from Urdax and Ainhoue.

The light cavalry[963] who accompanied Abbé duly reported that Hill had not followed the great road farther than Olague, but had turned off along the valley of the upper Ulzama to Lizaso; his fires were noted at evening all along the edge of the woods near that village. One patrol of chasseurs, pushing down the main road to Ostiz, sighted a similar exploring party of Ismert’s dragoons coming from Sorauren, but could not get in touch with them, as the dragoons took them for enemies and decamped. However, the two bodies of French cavalry met again and recognized each other at dawn on the 29th, so that free communication between the two parts of Soult’s army was now established.

D’Erlon has been blamed by every critic for his slow advance between the 26th and the 29th. He was quite aware that it was slow, and frankly stated in his reports that he did not attack Hill because he could not have turned him out of the position of Irurita, not having a sufficient superiority of numbers to cancel Hill’s advantage of position. This is quite an arguable thesis—D’Erlon had, deducting Maya losses, some 18,000 men: Hill counting in Dalhousie who had been placed on his flank by Wellington for the purpose of helping him if he were pressed, had (also deducting Maya losses) four British and three Portuguese brigades, with a strength of about 14,000. If Cameron’s and Pringle’s regiments had been terribly cut up at Maya, Darmagnac’s and Maransin’s had suffered a perceptibly larger loss, though one distributed over more units. D’Erlon was under the impression that Hill had three divisions with him, having received false information to that effect. If this had been true, an assault on the position of Irurita would have been very reckless policy. It was not true—only two divisions and one extra Portuguese brigade being in line. Yet still the event of the combat of Beunza, only three days later, when D’Erlon’s three divisions attacked Hill’s own four brigades—no other allied troops being present—and were held in check for the better part of a day, suggests that D’Erlon may have had good justification for not taking the offensive on the 26th or 27th, while the 7th Division was at Hill’s disposition. The most odd part of his tactics seems to have been the way in which he kept Maransin back at Maya and Elizondo so long: this was apparently the result of fear that Graham might have something to say in the contest—an unjustifiable fear as we know now, but D’Erlon cannot have been so certain as we are! The one criticism on the French general’s conduct which does seem to admit of no adequate reply, is that in his original orders from Soult, which laid down the scheme of the whole campaign, he was certainly directed to get into touch with the main army as soon as possible, though he was also directed to seize the pass of Maya and to pursue Hill by Elizondo and the Puerto de Velate. If he drew the conclusion on the 26th that he could not hope to dislodge Hill from the Irurita position, it was probably his duty to march eastward by the Col de Berderis or the Col d’Ispegui and join the main body by the Alduides. It is more than doubtful whether, considering the character of the country and the tracks, he could have arrived in time for the battle of Sorauren on the 28th. And if Hill had seen him disappear eastward, he could have marched to join Wellington by a shorter and much better road, and could certainly have been in touch with his chief before D’Erlon was in touch with Soult. Nevertheless, it cannot be said that the French general obeyed the order which told him that ‘il ne perdra pas de vue qu’il doit chercher à se réunir le plutôt possible au reste de l’armée[964].’ And orders ought to be obeyed—however difficult they may appear.

At dawn on the 29th, therefore, Soult’s troops were in their position of the preceding day, and D’Erlon’s leading division was at Lanz, requiring only a short march to join the main body. But Wellington was in a better position, since he had already been joined by the 6th Division, and would be joined in a few hours by the 7th Division, which, marching all night, had reached Ollocarizqueta. Hill, with his four original brigades, was at Lizaso, as near to Wellington as D’Erlon was to Soult. The only other troops which could have been drawn in, if Wellington had so originally intended, were the brigades of the Light Division, for which (as we shall see) he made another disposition. But omitting this unit, and supposing that the other troops on both sides simply marched in to join their main bodies on the 29th, it was clear that by night Wellington would have a numerical equality with his adversary, and this would make any further attempts to relieve Pampeluna impossible on the part of Soult.

This was the Marshal’s conviction, and he even overrated the odds set against him, if (as he said in his dispatch to Clarke) he estimated his adversary’s force on the evening of the 28th at 50,000 men, and thought that several other divisions would join him ere long. In face of such conditions, what was to be the next move? Obviously a cautious general would have decided that his bolt had been shot, and that he had failed. He had a safe retreat before him to Roncesvalles, by a road which would take all his cavalry and guns; and D’Erlon had an equally secure retreat either by Elizondo and Maya on a good road, or by the Alduides, if absolute security were preferred to convenience in marching. The country was such that strong rearguards could have held off any pursuit. And this may have been the Marshal’s first intention, for in his letter to Clarke, written on the evening after the battle, before he had any knowledge of D’Erlon’s approach, he said that he was sending back his artillery and dragoons on Roncesvalles, since it was impossible to use them in Navarre, and that he was dispatching them to the Bidassoa ‘where he could make better use of them in new operations, which he was about to undertake’. He was intending to remain a short time in his present position with the infantry, to see what the enemy would do. No news had been received of D’Erlon since the 27th, when he was still at Elizondo, declaring that he could not move because he was blocked by a large hostile force—‘the same force, as I believe, which fell on Clausel’s flank to-day.’ Further comment the Marshal evidently judged superfluous[965]. The column of guns and baggage actually marched off on the night of the 28th-29th.

But early on the morning of the 29th D’Erlon’s cavalry was met, and the news arrived that he was at Lanz, and marching on Ostiz, where he would arrive at midday, and would be only five miles from Sorauren. This seems to have changed the Marshal’s outlook on the situation, and by the afternoon he had sketched out a wholly different plan of campaign, and one of the utmost hazard. As the critic quoted a few pages back observed, he recovered his confidence when once he was twenty-four hours away from a defeat, and his strategical conceptions were sometimes risky in the extreme[966].

The new plan involved a complete change of direction. Hitherto Soult had been aiming at Pampeluna, and D’Erlon was, so to speak, his rearguard. Now he avowed another objective—the cutting of the road between Pampeluna and Tolosa, with the purpose of throwing himself between Wellington and Graham and forcing the latter to raise the siege of St. Sebastian[967]. He had now, as he explained, attracted to the extreme south nearly the whole of the Anglo-Portuguese divisions: there was practically a gap between Wellington, with the troops about to join him, and the comparatively small force left on the Bidassoa. He would turn the British left, by using D’Erlon’s corps as his vanguard and cutting in north of Lizaso, making for Hernani or Tolosa, whichever might prove the more easy goal. He hoped that Villatte and the reserves on the Bidassoa might already be at Hernani, for D’Erlon had passed on to him an untrustworthy report that an offensive had begun in that direction, as his original orders had directed. The manœuvre would be so unexpected that he ought to gain a full day on Wellington—D’Erlon was within striking distance of Hill, and should be able to thrust him out of the way, before the accumulation of British troops about Sorauren, Villaba, and Huerta could come up. There was obviously one difficult point in the plan: D’Erlon could get at Hill easily enough. But was it certain that the rest of the troops, now in such very close touch with Wellington’s main body—separated from it on one front of two miles by no more than a narrow ravine—would be able to disentangle themselves without risk, and to follow D’Erlon up the valley of the Ulzama? When armies are so near that either can bring on a general action by advancing half a mile, it is not easy for one of them to withdraw, without exposing at least its rearguard or covering troops to the danger of annihilation.

Soult took this risk, whether underrating Wellington’s initiative, or overrating the manœuvring power of his own officers and men. It was a gross tactical error, and he was to pay dearly for it on the 30th. In fact, having obliged his enemy with a second Bussaco on the 28th, he presented him with the opportunity of a second Salamanca two days after. For in its essence the widespread battle of the 30th, which extended over ten miles from D’Erlon’s attack on Hill near Lizaso to Wellington’s counter-attack on Reille near Sorauren, was, like Salamanca, the sudden descent of an army in position upon an enemy who has unwisely committed himself to a march right across its front.

Soult made the most elaborate plans for his manœuvre—D’Erlon was to move from Ostiz and Lanz against Hill: he was lent the whole of Treillard’s dragoons, to give him plenty of cavalry for reconnaissance purposes; Clausel was to march Taupin’s and Vandermaesen’s troops behind Conroux, who was to hold Sorauren village till they had passed him. Conroux would then be relieved by Maucune’s division from the high ground opposite the Col, and when it had taken over Sorauren from him, would follow the rest of Clausel’s troops up the high road. Maucune’s vacant position would be handed over to Foy and Lamartinière. The former was to evacuate Alzuza and the left bank of the Arga, where he was not needed, as the column of guns and baggage, with its escort of cavalry, had got far enough away on the road to Zubiri and Roncesvalles to be out of danger. He was then to go up on to the heights where Maucune had been posted during the recent battle, as was also Lamartinière. The latter was to leave one battalion, along with the corps-cavalry (13th Chasseurs) of Reille’s wing, on the high road north of Zabaldica, as an extra precaution to guard against any attempt by the enemy to raid the retreating column of impedimenta[968].

Finally, some orders impossible to execute were dictated—viz. that all these movements were to be carried out in the night, and that both Clausel and Reille were to be careful that the British should get no idea that any change in the position of the army was taking place; one general is told that ‘il opérera son mouvement de manière à ce que l’ennemi ne puisse aucunement l’apercevoir,’ the other that ‘il disposera ses troupes à manière que l’ennemi ne puisse soupçonner qu’il y a de changement ni de diminution.’ Reille was to hold the line Sorauren-Zabaldica for the whole day of the 30th, and then to follow Clausel with absolute secrecy and silence. Now, unfortunately, one cannot move 35,000 men on pathless hillsides and among woods and ravines in the dark, without many units losing their way, and much noise being made. And when one is in touch with a watchful enemy at a distance of half a mile only, one cannot prevent him from seeing and hearing that changes are going on. The orders were impracticable.

Such were Soult’s plans for the 30th. Wellington’s counter-plans do not, on the 29th, show any signs of an assumption of the offensive as yet, though it was certainly in his mind. They are entirely precautionary, all of them being intended to guard against the next possible move of the opponent. The troops which had suffered severely in the battle were drawn back into second line, Byng’s and Stubbs’s brigades taking over the ground held by Ross and Campbell. The 6th Division—now under Pakenham, Pack having been severely wounded on the previous day—occupied the heights north-west of Sorauren, continuing the line held on the 28th to the left. Both Cole and Pakenham were told to get their guns up, if possible. And when Lord Dalhousie came up from Lizaso after his night march, his division also was placed to prolong the allied left—two brigades to the left-rear of the 6th Division, hidden behind a high ridge, the third several miles westward over a hill which commanded the by-road Ostiz-Marcalain—a possible route for a French turning movement[969].

Originally Wellington had supposed that Hill would reach Lizaso earlier than Dalhousie, and had intended that the 2nd Division should come down towards Marcalain and Pampeluna, while the 7th remained at Lizaso to protect the junction of roads. But the storm, which smote Hill worse than it smote Dalhousie, had settled matters otherwise. It was the latter, not the former, who turned up to join hands with the main army. Accepting the change, Wellington directed Hill to select a good fighting position by Lizaso, in which he should place the two English brigades of the 2nd Division and Ashworth, while Da Costa’s Portuguese were to move to Marcalain[970], close to the rear brigade which the 7th Division had left in the neighbourhood. Thus something like a covering line was provided for any move which D’Erlon might make against the British left. Wellington was feeling very jealous that day of attempts to turn this flank, and took one more precaution which (as matters were to turn out) he was much to regret on the 31st. Orders were sent to Charles Alten to move the Light Division from Zubieta towards the high road that goes from Tolosa to Yrurzun via Lecumberri. In ignorance of the division’s exact position, the dispatch directed Alten to come down so far as might seem best—Yrurzun being named as the farthest point which should be taken into consideration[971]. This caused Alten to move, by a very toilsome night march, from Zubieta, where he would have been very useful later on, to Lecumberri, where (as it chanced) he was not needed. But this was a hazard of war—it was impossible to guess on the 29th the unlikely place where Soult’s army was about to be on the 31st. Another move of troops to the Yrurzun road was that Fane’s cavalry brigade, newly arrived from the side of Aragon, was directed to Berrioplano, behind Pampeluna on the Vittoria road, with orders to get into touch with Lizaso, Yrurzun, and Lecumberri.

Obviously all these arrangements were defensive, and contemplated three possible moves on the part of the enemy—(1) a renewal of the battle of the 28th at and north of Sorauren, with which the 6th and 7th Divisions could deal; (2) an attempt to turn the allied flank on the short circuit Ostiz-Marcalain; (3) a similar attempt by a larger circuit via Lizaso, which would enable the enemy to get on to the roads Lizaso-Yrurzun, and Lizaso-Lecumberri, and so cut the communication between Wellington and Graham. The third was the correct reading of Soult’s intentions. To foil it Hill was in position at Lizaso, with the power to call in first Da Costa, then the 7th Division, and much later the Light Division, whose whereabouts was uncertain, and whose arrival must obviously come very late. But if the enemy should attack Hill with anything more than the body of troops which had been seen at Ostiz and Lanz (D’Erlon’s corps), Wellington intended to fall upon their main corps, so soon as it began to show signs of detaching reinforcements to join the turning or enveloping column.

Soult’s manœuvre had duly begun on the night of the 28th-29th by the retreat of the artillery, the wounded, the train and heavy baggage towards Roncesvalles, under the escort of the dragoon regiments of Pierre Soult’s division, whose chasseur regiments, however, remained with Reille as ‘corps cavalry’. On the news of this move going round, a general impression prevailed that the whole army was about to retire by the road on which it had come up. This seemed all the more likely because the last of the rations brought from St. Jean-Pied-du-Port had been distributed on the battle-morning, and the troops had been told on the 29th to make raids for food on all the mountain villages on their flanks and rear. They had found little save wine—which was more a snare than a help. The perspicacious Foy noted in his diary his impression that Soult’s new move was not made with any real hope of relieving St. Sebastian or cutting the Allies’ communication, it was in essence a retreat; but, to save his face, the Marshal was trying to give it the appearance of a strategic manœuvre[972]. This was a very legitimate deduction—it certainly seemed unlikely that an army short of food, and almost equally short of munitions, could be asked to conduct a long campaign in a region where it was notorious that it could not hope to live by requisitions, and would find communication with its base almost impossible. It was true that convoys were coming up behind D’Erlon—one was due at Elizondo—but roads were bad and appointments hard to keep. There were orders sent to Bayonne on the 28th for the start of another—but how many days would it take before the army got the benefit?—a week at least. Men and officers marched off on the new adventure grumbling and with stomachs ill-filled.

The result of Soult’s orders was to produce two separate actions on the 30th—one between D’Erlon and Hill behind Lizaso, in which the French gained a tactical advantage of no great importance, the other on the heights along the Ulzama between Wellington’s main body and Clausel and Reille, in which the French rear divisions were so routed and dispersed that Soult had to throw up all his ambitious plans, and rush home for safety as fast as was possible.

The more important action, generally called the Second Battle of Sorauren, may be dealt with first.

At midnight Clausel’s two divisions on the heights, separated from Cole’s position by the great ravine, moved off, leaving their fires burning. By dawn they had safely arrived on the high road between Sorauren and Ostiz, and were ready to move on towards D’Erlon when the third division—Conroux’s—should have been relieved at Sorauren village by Maucune. But this had not yet been accomplished, even by five in the morning: for Maucune’s troops having woods and pathless slopes to cross, in great part lost their way, and were straggling in small bands over the hills during the night. They had only two miles to go in many cases, yet when the light came some of them were still far from their destination and in quite unexpected places. Conroux had disentangled one brigade from Sorauren, while the other was still holding the outposts, and Maucune was just beginning to file some of his men behind the barricades and defences, when the whole of the village received a salvo of shells, which brought death and confusion everywhere. During the night Pakenham and Cole, obeying Wellington’s orders, had succeeded in getting some guns up to the crest of the heights—the 6th Division had hauled six guns up the hill on its left: they were now mounted in front of Madden’s Portuguese, only 500 yards from their mark[973]. Of the 4th Division battery[974] two guns and a howitzer had been dragged with immense toil to the neighbourhood of the chapel of San Salvador, overlooking Sorauren, the other three guns to a point farther east, opposite the front from which Vandermaesen had attacked on the 28th.

This was apparently the commencement of the action, but it soon started on several other points. Foy had evacuated Alzuza at midnight, but having rough country-paths in a steep hillside as his only guides in the darkness, had not succeeded in massing his division at Iroz till 5 a.m. He then mounted the heights in his immediate front, pushing before him (as he says) fractions of Maucune’s division which had lost their way. His long column had got as far as the Col and the ground west of it, when—full daylight now prevailing—he began to be shelled by guns from the opposite heights—obviously the other half of Sympher’s battery[975].

Meanwhile Lamartinière’s division (minus the one battalion of the 122nd left to watch the Roncesvalles road) had moved very little in the night, having only drawn itself up from Zabaldica to the heights immediately to the left of the Col, where it lay in two lines of brigades, the front one facing the Spaniards’ Hill, the rear one a few hundred yards back. Foy, coming from Iroz, had marched past Lamartinière’s rear, covered by him till he got west of the Col. This division was not shelled, as Conroux, Maucune, and Foy had all been, but noted with disquiet that British troops were streaming up from Huarte on the Roncesvalles road, with the obvious intention of turning its left, and getting possession of the main route to France.

Wellington, as it chanced, was in the most perfect condition to take advantage of the mistake which Soult had made in planning to withdraw his troops by a march right across the front of the allied army in position. The night-movements of the French had been heard, and under the idea that they might portend a new attack, all the divisions had been put under arms an hour before dawn. The guns, too, were in position, only waiting for their mark to become visible—it had been intended to shell the French out of Sorauren in any case that morning. Wellington had risen early as usual, and was on the look-out place on the Oricain heights which he used as his post on the 28th and 29th. When the panorama on the opposite mountain became visible to him, he had only to send orders for a general frontal attack, for which the troops were perfectly placed.

Accordingly, the 6th Division attacked Sorauren village at once, while the troops on the Oricain heights descended, a little later, in two lines—the front one formed of Byng’s brigade, Stubbs’s Portuguese, and the 40th and Provisional Battalion of Anson’s—while Ross’s brigade and Anson’s two other battalions (the troops which had taken the worst knocks on the 28th) formed the reserve line. Preceded by their skirmishers, Byng’s battalions made for Sorauren, Cole’s marched straight for Foy’s troops on the opposite hills[976]. Farther to the right Picton had discovered already that there was no longer any French force opposite him, and had got his division assembled for an advance along the Roncesvalles road. He would seem to have been inclined to go a little farther than Wellington thought prudent, as there was a dispatch sent to him at 8 a.m. bidding him to advance no farther, until it was certain that all was clear on the left, though he might push forward light troops on the heights east of the Arga river. He did not therefore get into touch with Lamartinière on the mountain above Zabaldica for some time after Foy and Maucune had been attacked.

Meanwhile it was not only to the old fighting-ground of the 28th that the attack was confined. Wellington ordered Lord Dalhousie to emerge from the shelter of the hills beyond the left of the 6th Division, and to assail the troops below him in the Ulzama valley—that is Taupin’s and Vandermaesen’s divisions, halted by Clausel some way short of Ostiz, when the sound of firing began near Sorauren.

The French units which were in the greatest danger were the three divisions of Conroux, Maucune, and Foy, all suddenly caught under the artillery fire of an enemy whom they had not believed to possess any guns in line. Troops marching in column are very helpless when saluted in this fashion. Foy writes ‘we had not been intending to fight, and suddenly we found ourselves massed under the fire of the enemy’s cannon. We were forced to go up the mountain side to get out of range; we should have to retreat, and we already saw that we should be turned on both flanks by the two valleys on our left and right.... General Reille only sent part of my division up on to the high crests after its masses had been well played upon by an enemy whose artillery fire is most accurate[977].’ Now Foy could, after all, get out of range by going up hill—but Maucune and Conroux were in and about a village which it was their duty to hold, since they had to cover the retreat of Foy and Lamartinière across their rear. If Sorauren were lost, Reille’s two left divisions would be driven away from the main army—perhaps even cut off. Yet it was a hard business to hold a village under a close-range artillery fire from commanding ground, which enfiladed it on both sides, when the enemy’s infantry intervened. Pakenham sent Madden’s Portuguese round the village on the north—where they drove in one regiment[978] which Conroux had thrown out as a flank guard on the west bank of the Ulzama, and then proceeded to push round the rear of the place. At the same time the left wing of the troops which had descended from the chapel of San Salvador (Byng’s brigade) began to envelop Sorauren on the eastern flank. And frontally it was attacked by the light companies of Lambert’s brigade of the 6th Division.

Conroux’s first brigade (Rey’s) had succeeded in getting away to the north of the village before it was completely surrounded, and, after bickerings with Madden’s Portuguese and other 6th Division troops, finally straggled across the hills to Ostiz. His other brigade, however, and all Maucune’s division were very nearly exterminated. They made an obstinate defence of Sorauren for nearly two hours, till the place was entirely encompassed: Maucune says that he cleared a way for the more compromised units by a charge which retook part of the village, and then led the whole mass up the hill. The bulk of them scraped through, but were intercepted by 4th Division troops in the hollow hillside above. One whole battalion was forced to surrender, and great part of two others; there were 1,700 unwounded prisoners taken, of whom 1,100 belonged to Maucune and 600 to Conroux’s rear brigade[979].

Maucune’s division was practically destroyed: having reported 600 casualties on the 28th, he reported 1,800 more on the 30th, and as his total strength was only 4,186, it is clear that only 1,700 men got away. The general and the survivors rallied in to Foy on the heights above, along with the wrecks of Conroux’s second brigade, which lost 1,000 men: the first brigade, though less hard hit, seems to have had 500 or 600 casualties, and many stragglers. Altogether both divisions were no longer a real fighting force during the rest of the campaign.

Meanwhile, there had been a distinct and separate combat going on farther up the Ulzama valley. When the fighting in and about Sorauren began, Clausel had halted Vandermaesen’s and Taupin’s division at a defile near the village of Olabe, knowing that if he continued on his way towards Ostiz and Olague Reille’s wing would be completely cut off from him. Having seen suspicious movements in the hills on his left, he sent up two battalions from Vandermaesen’s division to hold the heights immediately beyond the river and cover his flank. The precaution was wise but insufficient: somewhere about 8.30 a.m. the British 7th Division, having received its orders to join in the general attack, came up from its concealed position in the rear, and fell upon the covering troops, who were driven off their steep position by Inglis’s brigade, and thrown down on to the main body of Clausel’s troops in the valley. There was close and bloody fighting in the bottom, ‘a small level covered with small bushes of underwood,’ but after a time the French gave way. Vandermaesen’s men soon got locked in a stationary fight with Inglis’s battalions, but the two other 7th Division brigades (Le Cor and Barnes) which had not descended to the river and the road, were plying Taupin’s column with a steady fire from the slope of the opposite bank, which made standing still impossible[980]. Having to choose between attacking or retreating, Clausel opted for the easier alternative, and drew off. In his report to Soult he gives as his reason the fact that Sorauren had now been lost, that Reille’s troops were streaming over the hills in disorder, and that it was no use waiting any longer to cover their retreat, which was not going to be by the road, but broadcast across the mountains. Accordingly he disengaged himself as best he could, and retreated up the chaussée followed by the 7th Division, which naturally took some time to get into order. Inglis’s brigade followed by the road, presently supported by Byng’s troops, who came up from the side of Sorauren at noon: the other two brigades kept to the slopes on the west of the river, turning each position which Clausel took up[981]. By one o’clock he was back to Etulain, by dusk at Olague, where he was joined by Conroux and the 3,000 men who represented the wreck of his division. Vandermaesen had been much mauled—and had left behind 300 prisoners, while many stragglers from his division, and more from both of the brigades of Conroux, were loose in the hills. It is doubtful whether Clausel had more than 8,000 men out of his original 17,000 in hand that evening. The survivors were not fit for further fighting[982].

Meanwhile, Reille was undergoing equally unpleasant experiences. He had stopped behind to conduct the retreat of Foy’s and Lamartinière’s divisions, when the unexpected cannonade, followed by the advance of the British infantry, showed that he was not to get away without hard fighting. When Pakenham attacked Sorauren, and Cole a little later crossed the ravine to assail Foy’s position, Reille tried for some time to maintain himself on the heights, but soon saw that it was impossible. He sent Maucune permission to evacuate Sorauren—of which the latter could not avail himself, for he was pressed on all sides and no longer a free agent. And having thus endeavoured to divest himself of responsibility for the fate of his right division, he gave orders for the retreat of the two others not by any regular route, but straight across country, up hill and down dale. The reason for haste was not only that Cole was now pressing hard upon Foy’s new position, but that Picton was visible marching hard for Zabaldica, with the obvious intention of turning Lamartinière’s flank. There was an ominous want of any frontal attack on this division—it was clear that Picton intended to encircle it, while Foy on the other flank was being driven in by Cole, and there was a chance of the whole wing being surrounded. Accordingly, at about 10 o’clock by Lamartinière’s reckoning, he began to give way in échelon of brigades, much hindered after a time by Picton’s light troops, who had now swerved up into the hills after him, and pestered each battalion when it turned to retreat[983]. Foy reports that his rear brigade and part of his colleague’s division were at one moment nearly cut off, and that he ran some danger of being taken prisoner. It evidently became a helter-skelter business to get away, and the French can have made no serious resistance, as Picton’s three brigades that day had only just 110 casualties between them[984]. The retreat was made more disorderly by the arrival of a drove of some 4,000 fugitives of Conroux’s and Maucune’s divisions, accompanied by the latter general himself, who had escaped over the hills from Sorauren, and ran in for shelter on Foy’s rear.

At about one o’clock Reille’s divisions, having outdistanced their pursuers by their rapidity, halted in considerable disarray in a valley by the village of Esain[985], where Reille tried to restore order, and to settle a practicable itinerary, with the object of rejoining Clausel. For reasons which he does not specify, he marched himself by a road down the valley, which would lead him to Olague, but told Foy to take a parallel track farther up the slope which should take him to Lanz, higher in the same valley. The partition was obviously made in a very haphazard fashion, for while the bulk of Lamartinière’s division, and the poor remnant of Maucune’s which preserved any order, accompanied the corps-commander, Foy found that he was being followed by two stray battalions of Gauthier’s brigade of Lamartinière, and by a great mass of stragglers, largely Conroux’s men, but partly also Maucune’s and Lamartinière’s.

Reille got to Olague at dusk and joined Clausel, but brought with him a mere wreck of his corps, probably not 6,000 men. For Foy never appeared—and never was to appear again during the campaign. He explained, not in the most satisfactory way, that part of his track lay through woods, where the sense of direction is lost, that he was worried by the reappearance of British light troops, who had to be driven off repeatedly, and that the stragglers smothered his marching columns and led them astray. Anyhow, he found himself at dusk at Iragui in the upper valley of the Arga, instead of at Lanz in the upper valley of the Ulzama—having marched ten miles instead of the five that would have taken him from Esain to Lanz. Picton’s light troops were still in touch with him, and he resolved that it was hopeless to try to struggle over mountains in the dark. Dropping into the pass that leads from Zubiri to the Alduides (the Puerto de Urtiaga), he marched for some hours more, bivouacked, and next morning descended into French territory[986]. He sent off the stragglers to St. Jean-Pied-de-Port—they sacked all the mountain villages on their way[987]—and took his own division at leisure down the Val de Baigorry to Cambo—having lost only 550 men out of his 6,000 in the whole campaign. Some critics whispered that, seeing disaster behind him, il a su trop bien tirer son épingle du jeu, and had saved his division, regardless of what might happen to colleagues—just as on the eve of Vittoria he had refused to join Jourdan, and had managed a safe retreat for himself. That it was not absolutely impossible to get away to the Bastan was shown by the fact that the two stray battalions of Lamartinière’s division which had followed Foy in error, branched off from him at Iragui and got to Almandoz, Elizondo, and the pass of Maya. Another lost party—the battalion and cavalry regiment which Lamartinière had left to cover the Roncesvalles road[988]—turned off at Zubiri and followed Foy’s route by the Alduides and Baigorry. Reille’s ‘main body’ was a poor remnant by the night of the 30th, after all these deductions had come to pass.

It must not be supposed that the operations of Pakenham, Dalhousie, Cole, and Picton during the morning of the 30th were left to the personal initiative of these officers. Wellington’s orders for the first move had been made on the spur of the moment, as the position of the French became visible at dawn. But after the capture of Sorauren, probably between 9 and 10 a.m., he issued a definite programme for the remainder of the day’s operations.

Picton was to pursue the enemy who had gone off north-eastward (Lamartinière) toward the Roncesvalles road. He was given two squadrons of hussars, and told to take his divisional battery with him.

Cole was to act on the massif between the Arga and the Ulzama, keeping touch with Picton on one flank and Pakenham on the other: if the enemy in his front (Foy and the wrecks of Maucune) made a strong stand, he was not to lose men by violent frontal attacks, but to wait for the effect of Picton’s turning movement, ‘which will alarm the enemy for his flank.’

Up the main road Ostiz-Olague there were to march Byng’s brigade, the 6th Division, and O’Donnell’s troops from the San Cristobal position (some six battalions). The 6th Division was to take its divisional battery with it.

Dalhousie should operate on the east bank of the Ulzama, keeping touch with Byng and Pakenham—he would be in a position to turn all positions which the French (Taupin and Vandermaesen) might take up, if they tried to hold back the main column on the high road. Like Cole, he was not to attempt anything costly or hazardous.

Finally, and here later news caused a complete alteration of the programme, Hill was to ‘point a movement’ from Lizaso on Olague and Lanz, if the situation of the enemy made it possible. Attacked himself by the superior numbers of D’Erlon’s corps, Hill was (of course) unable to do anything of the kind. Wellington seems to have suspected that he might be too weak for his task, and in the general rearrangement of the army sent him not only Campbell’s Portuguese brigade (which properly belonged to the division of Silveira, who was in person with Hill but only with one brigade, Da Costa’s), but also the Spanish battalions which O’Donnell had detached to Ollocarizqueta on the 27th[989], and finally Morillo’s division. These 7,000 men were started from their positions before noon, but did not arrive in time to help Hill[990]. A separate supplementary order went off to Charles Alten to tell him that the Light Division would not be wanted at Lecumberri, and should return to Zubieta.

The whole of this series of orders is purely offensive in character, and, as is easily seen, presupposes first, that a large section of the French army is retiring on the Roncesvalles road, but secondly that the main body is about to go back by Lanz, the Col de Velate, Elizondo, and Maya. Hence the heaviness of the column directed on the chaussée: if Wellington had dreamed that Soult was intending to send nothing back by the Roncesvalles road, and had started a vigorous attack on Hill that morning, the orders given would have been different.

Meanwhile, during the hours which saw the destruction of Clausel’s and Reille’s divisions, Soult himself was urging on D’Erlon’s corps to overwhelm Hill, and hoping for the early arrival of Clausel’s to lend assistance. Reille he had left behind as a containing force, and did not expect to see for another twenty-four hours. Soult informs us that he left Zabaldica and the left wing so early that he had no reason to expect the trouble which was about to break out behind him. He noticed Maucune’s division beginning to file into Sorauren, and passed Clausel in march on Ostiz, before the British guns opened, i.e. before 6 o’clock in the morning. But they must have been sounding up the valley before he reached D’Erlon on the heights by Etulain: he resolved to pay no attention to the ominous noise, being entirely absorbed in the operation which he had in hand.

D’Erlon was already in movement, by the valley of the Ulzama, and had just been joined by the cavalry, which had come up from the Arga valley by cross roads in the rear[991]. It was, of course, no use to him in the sort of engagement on which he was launched. The Marshal instructed him to push on and hurry matters, as there were reports from deserters that three hostile divisions were on their way to reinforce the British force at Lizaso. Accordingly D’Erlon, having discovered his enemy’s position with some little difficulty, for it lay all along the edge of woods, delivered his attack as soon as his troops were up. Hill, on news of the French advance reaching him, had evacuated Lizaso, which lies in a hole, and had drawn up his four brigades along a wooded ridge half a mile to the south, with the village of Gorron in front of his left wing, and that of Arostegui behind his right wing. The Portuguese brigade of Ashworth formed his centre: on the right was one regiment of Da Costa’s brigade which had been called up from the Marcalain road, on the left the other and the remains of Cameron’s brigade, which had suffered so heavily at Maya: Fitzgerald of the 5/60th was in command, the brigadier having been wounded on the 25th. Pringle’s brigade (under O’Callaghan that day, for Pringle was acting as division-commander vice William Stewart wounded at Maya) was in reserve—apparently distributed by battalions along the rear of the line. The edge of the woods was lined with a heavy skirmishing line of light companies, and the Caçador battalion of Ashworth’s brigade. Altogether there were under 9,000 men in line.

D’Erlon determined to demonstrate against Hill’s front with Darmagnac’s division, who were to hold the Portuguese closely engaged, but not to attack seriously. Meanwhile Abbé was to assail the Allied left, and also to turn it by climbing the high hills beyond its extreme flank, in the direction of the village of Beunza. He had ample force to do this, having the strongest division in Soult’s army—8,000 bayonets—and the only one which had not yet been seriously engaged during the campaign. Maransin followed Abbé in support. The arrangements being scientific, and the force put in action more than double Hill’s, success seemed certain.

It was secured; but not so easily as D’Erlon had hoped. Darmagnac, so Soult says, engaged himself much more deeply than had been intended. Finding only Portuguese in his front, he made a fierce attempt to break through, and was handsomely repulsed. Meanwhile Abbé, groping among the wooded slopes to find the flank of Fitzgerald’s brigade, missed it at first, and attacking the 50th and 92nd frontally, saw his leading battalions thrown back. But he put in more, farther out to the right, and though the British brigade threw back its flank en potence, and tried to hold on, it was completely turned, and would have been cut off, but for a fierce charge by the 34th, who came up from the reserve and held the enemy in check long enough for the rest to retire—with the loss of only 36 prisoners (two of them officers). The retreat of the left wing compelled the Portuguese in the centre to give back also—they had to make their way across a valley and stream closely pursued, but behaved most steadily, and lost less than might have been expected—though some 130 were cut off and captured. The right wing pivoted, in its withdrawal, on an isolated hill held by Da Costa’s 2nd Line, which was gallantly maintained to the end of the day. The centre and left lost more than a mile of ground, but were in good enough order to take up a new position, selected by Hill on a height in front of the village of Yguaras, where they repulsed with loss a final attack made by one of Darmagnac’s regiments which pursued too fiercely[992]. D’Erlon was re-forming his troops, much scattered in the woods, when at 4 p.m. there arrived from Marcalain the head of Campbell’s Portuguese brigade, followed by Morillo’s and O’Donnell’s Spaniards. Their approach was observed, and no further attacks were made by the French. D’Erlon winds up his account of the day by observing, quite correctly, that he had driven Hill out of his position, inflicted much loss on him, and got possession of the road to Yrurzun. So he had—the Allies had lost 156 British and about 900 Portuguese, of whom 170 were prisoners. The French casualties must have been about 800 in all, if we may make a rough calculation from the fact that they lost 39 officers—10 in Abbé’s division, 29 in Darmagnac’s[993].

But it is not to win results such as these that 18,000 men attack 8,000, and fight them for seven hours[994]. And what was the use of such a tactical success, when meanwhile Soult’s main body had been beaten and scattered to the winds, so that Reille and Clausel were bringing up 14,000 demoralized soldiers, instead of 30,000 confident ones, to join the victorious D’Erlon?

This unpleasant fact stared Soult in the face, when he rode back to Olague to receive the reports of his two lieutenants. It was useless to think of further attempts on the Tolosa road, or molestation of Graham. D’Erlon’s three divisions were now his only intact force, capable of engaging in an action with confidence: the rest were not only reduced to a wreck in number, but were ‘spent troops’ from the point of view of morale. The only thing to be done was to retreat as fast as possible, using the one solid body of combatants to cover the retreat of the rest. All that Soult afterwards wrote to Paris about his movements of July 31 being the logical continuation of his design of July 30—‘de me rapprocher de la frontière pour y prendre des subsistances, avec l’espoir de joindre la réserve du Général Villatte[995],’ was of course mere insincerity. He changed his whole plan, and fled in haste, merely because he was forced to do so.

One strange resolve, however, he made on the evening of July 30. The safest and shortest way home was by the Puerto de Velate, Elizondo, and Maya; and Clausel’s and Reille’s troops at Olague and Lanz were well placed for taking this route. This was not the case with D’Erlon’s men at Lizaso and the newly won villages in front of it. Instead of bidding the routed corps hurry straight on, and bringing D’Erlon down to cover them, the Marshal directed Reille and Clausel to leave the great road, to cut across by Olague to Lizaso, and to get behind D’Erlon, who would hold on till they were past his rear. All would then take the route of the Puerto de Arraiz and go by Santesteban. This was a much more dangerous line of retreat; so much so that the choice excites surprise. Soult told Clarke that his reason for taking the risk was that D’Erlon had got so far west that there was no time to move him back to the Velate road—which seems an unconvincing argument. For Clausel and Reille had to transfer themselves to the Puerto de Arraiz road, which would take just as much time; and D’Erlon could not retreat till they had cleared his rear. The real explanation would seem to be that Soult thought that the British column on the Velate road, being victorious, would start sooner and pursue more vigorously than Hill’s troops, who had just been defeated. If Reille and Clausel were pressed without delay, their divisions would go to pieces: D’Erlon, on the other hand, could be relied upon to stand his ground as long as was needful. If this was Soult’s idea, his prescience was justified.

SECTION XXXVIII: CHAPTER VI

SOULT’S RETREAT, JULY 31-AUG. 3

When Soult’s orders of the evening of July 29th had been issued, there was no longer any pretence kept up that the Army was executing a voluntary strategical movement, planmässig as the German of 1918 would have expressed the idea, and not absconding under pressure of the enemy.

At 1 o’clock midnight Clausel’s and Reille’s harassed troops at Olague and Lanz went off as fast as their tired legs would carry them, and leaving countless stragglers behind. D’Erlon could not retire till the morning, when he sent off Darmagnac and Maransin to follow the rest of the army, retaining Abbé’s division as his rearguard, which held the heights north of Lizaso for some time after their comrades had gone.

Wellington’s orders issued at nightfall[996] were such as suited Soult fairly well, for the British general had not foreseen that which was unlikely, and he had been deceived to some extent by the reports which had come in. The deductions which he drew from what he had ascertained were that a large body of the enemy had retreated eastward, and would fall into the Roncesvalles road, but that the main force would follow the Velate-Elizondo chaussée. That Soult would lead all that survived to him of his army over the Puerto de Arraiz passes, to Santesteban, had not struck him as a likely contingency. Hence his detailed orders overnight were inappropriate to the facts which appeared next morning. He directed Picton to pursue whatever was before him on the Roncesvalles road—thinking that Foy and Lamartinière would escape in that direction; but lest they should have gone off by Eugui and the Col de Urtiaga he directed Pakenham to take the 6th Division from Olague, when it should have reached that place, across the hills to Eugui, from whence he could join Picton if necessary. Campbell’s Portuguese were to turn off in the same direction and make for Eugui and the Alduides. Unfortunately, Picton was thus set to pursue nothing, while Pakenham was twelve hours behind Foy, and never likely to catch him.

The main pursuit was to be urged on the chaussée leading by Olague and Lanz to Elizondo, whither it was supposed that Soult would have taken the bulk of his army. From Ostiz and the neighbourhood Byng and Cole were to march in this direction, conducted by Wellington himself, while from the other side Hill was to lead thither his own four brigades, and the Spanish reinforcements which had reached him at the end of the combat of Beunza.

Only Dalhousie and the 7th Division were directed to take the route of the Puerto de Arraiz, and this not with the object of pursuing the main French army, but rather as a flanking movement to favour the operation allotted to Hill. And Dalhousie, unfortunately, was not well placed for the march allotted to him, since he was near Ostiz, and had to get to his destination by a cross march via Lizaso.

A separate note for Charles Alten, written at the same time as the rest of the orders, but not sent out till the following morning, directed the Light Division to march back to Zubieta where it would be able to communicate with the column that went by the Puerto de Arraiz, i.e. that of Dalhousie[997], and be well placed for flank operations against the retreating enemy.

The net result of all this was to send over half the available troops—Picton, Pakenham, Campbell, Byng, and Cole—on roads where no enemy would be found. And Hill’s force would have suffered the same fate, if it had not been in such close touch with D’Erlon that it could not help following, when it enemy’s route became evident. Unfortunately—as Soult had perhaps calculated—Hill had troops whose ranks had been terrible thinned, and who were tired out by an unsuccessful action fought on the preceding afternoon.

The day’s work was unsatisfactory. Picton, of course, found out at Zubiri that everything that had been on the Roncesvalles road—the small detachment already spoken of[998], and a mass of stragglers—had turned up toward Eugui and the Alduides on the preceding night. And Cole discovered that Foy had passed the Puerto de Urtiaga a whole march ahead of him. Wellington, with the column on the great chaussée, pressed rapidly across the Velate and reached Irurita, with the exasperating result that he discovered that only 500 to 2,000 French had passed that way[999]. On the other hand, he had news from the west that an immense mass of the enemy had gone by the Puerto de Arraiz, with Hill and Dalhousie after them. There were doubts whether the pursuing force was not dangerously small—at any rate, it would have to be cautious. And it was tiresome that the position of the Light Division was still unknown—it might (or might not) have a chance of falling on the flank of Soult’s long column, either at Santesteban or at Sumbilla. Wellington’s own troops had marched far and fast from Ostiz to Irurita, but there was in the evening enough energy left in Byng’s brigade for a short push farther. News came in that a great convoy of food from St. Jean de Luz had just reached Elizondo, where it had halted under the protection of the regiment which D’Erlon had left there on the 27th. By a forced march in the evening Byng’s flank companies surprised and captured the whole—a good supply of bread, biscuit, and brandy—the escort making off without resistance. The brigadier had the heads of the brandy casks stove in, before the weary troops could get at them, ‘it was a sight to see the disappointed soldiers lying down on their faces and lapping up the liquor with their hands[1000].’

All this, of course, was unimportant. The real interest of the doings of July 31st lay on the road from Lizaso to the Puerto de Arraiz. Hill, as was natural, was late in discovering that the whole of the French army had passed across his front, since Abbé’s division still lay at eight in the morning in battle-order blocking his way. But having got the news of the decisive success won by his chief on the preceding day, Hill had to attack the hitherto victorious enemy in front of him, knowing that the general situation was such that they could not possibly stand. His advance was not made till 10 a.m.—a sufficient proof of the difficulty of resuming the offensive with tired and beaten troops. When once, however, it began, the 2nd Division showed that if its numbers were wasted, its fighting power was still strong. And the delay in its attack allowed of the arrival of the 7th Division, who were able to co-operate in a way that would have been impossible if the fighting had started at daybreak.

On the other hand, the hours between dawn and 10 a.m., during which his retreat was unmolested, were invaluable to Soult, whose army was jammed in the passes in a most dangerous fashion. He had taken the lead himself, with the two cavalry divisions and the baggage, ordering Reille, whose troops were the most demoralized of all, to follow, with Clausel in his rear—D’Erlon stopping behind as rearguard to hold back the enemy. Now cavalry moves slowly in an uphill climb on a narrow road; while worn-out mules and pack-horses go much slower still, and are always breaking down and obstructing the route. The result was a complete block in the defiles: when Reille heard firing commencing in the rear, he grew so anxious that he ordered his infantry to push on anyhow, and thrust their way through the baggage by force[1001]. This naturally made matters still worse. Clausel found a better plan: the Puerto de Arraiz gives its name to what is really not a single path, but three parallel ones of various merit, all crossing the same dip in the main crest of the Pyrenees within a short distance of each other. They come together again on the north side of the watershed near the village of Donna Maria, whence some writers call the whole group ‘the Donna Maria passes.’ Clausel, leaving the best and most obvious track to the others, crossed by the most eastern of the three, the Puerto de Arraiz proper, while the cavalry, Reille, and D’Erlon took the western route which is locally known as the Puerto de Eradi, and comes down more directly on to Santesteban.

When Hill’s attack began to develop from Lizaso, D’Erlon ordered Abbé’s division to give ground, before it was too closely pressed, but halted it for a stand again, on heights by the Venta de Urroz, six miles farther north, at the foot of the passes. Darmagnac and Maransin were visible higher up the crest, where they were waiting till the road should be clear in front of them. It was now nearly two o’clock, and Dalhousie’s division was nearing the front, and was visible closing towards Hill’s right. Undoubtedly the proper game was to await its arrival, and use it to turn Abbé’s flank. But Hill directed his leading troops to prevent the enemy from withdrawing, and the vanguard was this day in charge of the reckless William Stewart, who despite his Maya wound had come back to his troops, and appeared with his damaged leg strapped to his saddle in a roll of cushions. He ordered Fitzgerald’s brigade to attack at once frontally: this was really wicked; the three battalions had lost nearly half their numbers at Maya, and 150 men more at Beunza on the preceding afternoon. They were a mere wreck—under 1,000 bayonets: the position opposite them was a steep wooded hill, held by the most intact division of the whole French army, over 7,000 strong. The attack was delivered with great courage, but was hopeless from the first, and repelled with loss[1002]. Stewart then repeated it, throwing in Pringle’s brigade as it came up from the rear, to support Fitzgerald’s, and turning on two guns, which had been brought up with much difficulty, to shell the woods beside the road. A second attack was thus delivered with equal want of success. But Dalhousie’s troops having now come up on the right[1003], a third push was successful, and Abbé went back, and retired behind Darmagnac, who now took over the rearguard. The hours gained in this combat had sufficed to clear the road, and on the further advance of the British, D’Erlon’s corps gave back rapidly but in good order, and was in full retreat down the northern watershed when a dense fog came on, and caused Hill to halt his troops. Stewart’s first wholly unnecessary frontal attack had resulted in the loss of the acting-brigadier, Fitzgerald, wounded and a prisoner[1004], and of nearly 200 casualties among his three weak battalions—91 in the 92nd Highlanders alone, who having put 750 men in line at Maya on the 25th came out of action on the 31st with only 250 surviving. The 7th Division had 117 casualties distributed between six English and Portuguese units—and the total loss in the combat was 387, including a score of prisoners. That Stewart himself was again wounded and sent to the rear, after only twelve hours at the front, was a testimonial to his courage, but a very fortunate event for the 2nd Division. The French cannot have lost much over 200 men[1005].

Having thus cleared the passes, Hill thought it was his duty to carry out Wellington’s original orders of the preceding night[1006], by closing in towards the main body on the Maya chaussée; he did so by taking a hill track called the Puerto de Sangre, which runs from Arraiz to Almandoz. Of course this was a grave mistake, as troops were wanted rather on the Santesteban than on the Elizondo road. Hill must not be too much blamed, as Wellington might have sent him new orders to keep to the direction of the enemy’s retreat, and did not. The danger involved in this move was that only the 7th Division was left to pursue Soult’s main body, and the force in the upper Bastan was unnecessarily increased. The responsibility rests with Wellington, who, even after reaching Irurita in the afternoon and finding practically no traces of enemy in the Bastan, could not believe that the French had gone off en masse by the passes to Santesteban. He would make no sweeping changes in his plan till he got full information. ‘I shall make the troops dine, and see what is to be done in the evening’ was his message to Murray[1007]. The evening brought Hill’s news, and by dawn Wellington was much more clear about the situation—‘as far as I can judge the enemy have six divisions between Doña Maria and St. Estevan. There are three divisions certainly about Eugui and Roncesvalles[1008].’ The distribution of the French was even still misjudged—there were troops representing eight divisions, not six, in the Central Bastan valley. And only one division, Foy’s, had passed eastward; though so many lost detachments and bands of stragglers had followed it, that an impression of much larger numbers had been produced.

Despite of Wellington’s misconceptions, Soult’s position at Santesteban that evening was most uncomfortable. His cavalry scouts had brought him news that there was a heavy British column on his right flank, at Elizondo in the Upper Bastan (Cole and Byng). His rearguard had been fiercely attacked by another column (Dalhousie and Hill). There were large possibilities of the arrival of other foes from the north and west, if Graham had not been kept employed by Villatte. And it was growing most obvious that the story which D’Erlon had reported, to the effect that the Reserve Division had crossed the Bidassoa, and was advancing, could not be true. For cavalry patrols pushing down the river towards Vera could not find any signs of friendly troops, and had been fired on by Spanish outposts—Longa’s men. When Soult next wrote to Paris he spoke out with much bitterness on the criminal torpidity of Villatte, who might at least, without risking anything, have occupied Vera and the gorge of the Bidassoa, and have tried to get into touch with the army in the field. It must be remembered that down to the 30th all Soult’s communications with his bases at Bayonne and St. Jean-Pied-du-Port had been either by Maya or by Roncesvalles. He had thrown up the latter line when he marched north; the former was now closed to him by the reported arrival of a large hostile force at Elizondo. The only way home was by the road down the Bidassoa by Sumbilla to Echalar; and now it turned out that there was no certainty that this road might not have been blocked by detachments from Graham’s army. The situation was anything but hopeful, and a complete disaster was by no means outside the bounds of possibility. One thing was certain—the army must get out of the Santesteban cul-de-sac as soon as possible, and by the only road that was not known to be intercepted. But prompt flight was rendered difficult by the presence at head-quarters of two divisions of quite useless cavalry, a convoy of many thousands of wounded, and the baggage of eight divisions.

At evening on the 31st the Marshal had been so much disturbed by the news of the presence of the British at Elizondo, from whence they could descend on Santesteban by following the road along the Bidassoa, that he had thrown out the whole of Reille’s surviving infantry (perhaps 6,000 men) to cover the road by the river against any attack. But the enemy did not move that night—Wellington was resting his men and waiting for news. Dalhousie had halted on the heights by the Puerto de Arraiz when the fog came down at 5 p.m., and did not follow D’Erlon down to the valley.

Hence Soult had the power to arrange for a flitting before dawn, on the only possible route—a gorge twelve miles long where the road follows the rocky bed of the Bidassoa in all its curves, with the water on its left and steep wooded hills on its right. The line of march was headed by one infantry battalion of Reille’s corps to clear the way[1009], then came Treillard’s dragoons[1010], six regiments, taking up an intolerable length of road, then the remains of Lamartinière’s division[1011], then the wounded followed by the baggage train, then the handful of men that represented the wrecked division of Maucune, then (apparently) Pierre Soult’s cavalry[1012]. D’Erlon’s corps was to follow—in the order Abbé, Maransin, Darmagnac, followed by another mass of baggage. Clausel’s wing was directed to bring up the rear, with the task of holding back any pursuit either from the direction of Elizondo or that of the Donna Maria passes. It was certain that there was danger from both sides—so the start was made early—at 2.30, long ere dawn. Reille was directed to lead the column along the river as far as the bifurcation of the routes to Vera and to Echalar, where he was to take the latter, and turn off from the Bidassoa: for the last stage into France was to be made over the Puerto de Echalar and not over the more westerly Puerto de Vera. Apparently D’Erlon was ordered to branch off at Sumbilla with his infantry alone, and to take a separate mountain-track to Echalar, which few maps mark. This is, at any rate, Soult’s statement; but as D’Erlon makes no mention of such directions, and did not actually go that way (though Clausel did), the order matters little to the historian.

The unpleasant possibilities of the situation of the French on the night of July 31st-August 1st seem to have been more clearly discerned by Soult than by Wellington—as was natural, since the Marshal knew much better the exact state of his own army. There was a positive danger that it might be enveloped from all sides on the following day. But Wellington does not seem to have contemplated so great an operation, though he had a clear notion that the enemy might be much incommoded and harassed if all went well. He had hopes that something might be done by means of the Light Division—whose position was still, most unluckily, a matter of doubt. He had written on the preceding afternoon to Charles Alten to say that if he had got back to Zubieta, he ought to be told that a large body of the enemy was marching by the Donna Maria passes: ‘it is very desirable that you should endeavour to head them at St. Estevan. If you should find that you cannot head them there, you might at Sumbilla, or you might cut in upon their column of march: they are in the greatest disorder. The head of our troops is here at Irurita, and others are following the enemy by Doña Maria. Communicate this to Sir Thomas Graham, via Goizueta[1013].’ It is quite clear that there is no idea of encirclement in this order, but only one of molestation. And it is equally obvious that Wellington had no idea of using any of Graham’s forces to block the gorge of the Bidassoa. His message to that general on the 31st is, ‘we are going to act immediately against a column which is retiring by the Doña Maria road. We have plenty of troops in the proper direction, and if we can overtake the column, I hope its rear will suffer considerably[1014].’ Graham is asked for no help; and, what is more curious, Wellington in his last preceding letter had told him that he attached no importance to keeping possession of Vera, at the actual gorge of the Bidassoa. ‘I have a letter from General Giron, expressing apprehensions of the consequences to his position of losing Vera. The fact is, that Vera is no object to anybody. The heights are important for the communication with Lesaca by the valley of the Bidassoa, and the heights on the other side open the débouché into France. But the loss of both would not affect the position of Irun, if the passages through the rocky heights on the right of Irun are well guarded, for which Longa is allotted: and that is what it is most important to take care of.’[1015] This, it is true, was written on the 30th, before Wellington had ascertained that any French force was to retire by Santesteban. But it coincides completely with Graham’s contemporary letter to his commander, expressing exactly the same opinion. ‘General Giron seems anxious, on hearing of Soult’s being repulsed, to undertake an offensive operation against the Puerto de Vera, which I could not encourage, being persuaded that his troops would not succeed, against so strong a post, and that his failure would be very prejudicial.’

In fact it is clear that Graham and Wellington both discouraged the idea of sending a considerable force to the gorge of the Bidassoa, which a day later would have proved of incalculable importance. A single division placed on the cross-roads to Vera and Echalar by the bridge of Yanzi would have cut Soult’s only line of retreat. His infantry, no doubt, or great part of it, could have escaped over the mountains, but the whole of his cavalry and train, and no doubt many infantry also, must have been captured. To make matters easy for the enemy, Soult had placed at the head of his interminable column useless dragoons, and the smallest and most demoralized of his corps of infantry. Neither Reille’s wasted divisions nor Treillard’s cavalry could have cut their way through 5,000 steady troops at the mouth of the defile. And D’Erlon could not have got up—the road in front of him for miles being blocked with baggage and helpless horsemen, and his rear harassed by vigorous pursuit.

Unfortunately, however, when Longa complained that he was too weak on the heights opposite Vera, and reported that the French were turning back, and that his post at the bridge of Yanzi would be attacked, no more was done to strengthen him than the moving of one brigade of Barcena’s division to the heights by Lesaca, from which a single battalion was sent down to the Yanzi position. Yet this solitary unit had no small effect on the events of August 1, caused a panic among the enemy, and delayed Soult’s march for hours. What would have happened if Graham and Giron had sent down a solid force (e.g. one British and one or two Spanish brigades) it is impossible to say with accuracy, but the results must have been tremendous.

There can be no doubt that the legend according to which Wellington schemed for the complete encirclement of Soult’s army on the 1st of August, though early and well supported, is inaccurate. The form which it takes in Napier[1016], Larpent, and Stanhope’s Conversations with the Duke of Wellington, is that on the evening of the 31st arrangements were being made for a concentric attack on Soult, but that they were foiled, under Wellington’s own eyes, by a party of marauding British soldiers, who strayed near the French camp, and were taken prisoners. Their appearance from the Elizondo side betrayed, it is alleged, to Soult that he was outflanked, and caused him to march in the night instead of at dawn—by which time he would have been surrounded. Unfortunately for the legend, we have Soult’s own contemporary dispatch of August 2 to prove that the news of the presence of the British at Elizondo was brought him by a cavalry patrol, which reached the village just as it and the convoy in it were captured by Byng’s brigade. They got away, but could not tell him whether the convoy-escort had, or had not, escaped. Moreover, much earlier in the day, Reille had warned the Marshal that the British were coming up in force on the Velate-Elizondo road—so the whole story falls through.

Wellington’s limited ambitions of August 1 are made clear by his dispatch written at 6 in the morning, which says that he is sending the 4th Division on to Santesteban ‘with the intention of aiding Dalhousie’s advance, and to endeavour to cut some of them off.’ It is true that he adds, ‘I sent in triplicate to the Light Division at Zubieta yesterday, to desire that General Alten should move toward St. Estevan, and at all events get hold of Sumbilla if he could. But I have heard nothing of him[1017].’ He was therefore not relying on certain help from the Light Division, or from Graham or from Longa, though advices of the situation were sent to all three. Of the troops under his own hand he only sent the 4th Division to join the hunt. Cole was directed to push the French on the north bank of the Bidassoa, while Dalhousie was pressing them on the south bank. Byng was told to remain stationary, till Hill’s column should come up from Almandoz, ‘when I shall know better how things are situated on all sides, and how far Sir Rowland has advanced.’

The 4th Division, starting early despite of its long march on the preceding day, was attacking the French rear by seven o’clock in the morning—7th Division diaries would seem to show that Dalhousie was much later in closing. We have, oddly enough, no good account of the fight that ensued from any British source[1018]; but Clausel’s narrative enables us to understand pretty well what happened. At dawn Vandermaesen’s division had been left as rearguard on the hill facing Santesteban on the north side of the Bidassoa, with Taupin’s in support, while Conroux’s was trying to make its way towards Sumbilla, but found the path blocked by D’Erlon’s baggage in front. Wherefore Clausel directed his brigadiers to give up any idea of keeping to the road, and to march along the slopes above it, so long as was possible. When the British appeared, they attacked with long lines of skirmishers, keeping to the hillside and attempting to turn Vandermaesen’s flank on the high ground. The French, therefore, also extended themselves uphill, but reached the crest only after the enemy had just crowned it. ‘On this ground, where no regular deployment could take place, the side which had got to the top first had every advantage.’ Vandermaesen’s battalions evidently broke up, as we are told that they got into trouble, ‘continuing a retrograde movement high up the mountain among horrid precipices,’ and were only rallied on two of Taupin’s regiments above the gorge of the defile between Santesteban and Sumbilla, where Clausel had to halt perforce, because there was a complete block in front of him—Darmagnac’s division of D’Erlon’s corps was halted there from absolute inability to proceed, owing to trouble in front. The French narrative then describes an hour of incoherent fighting on the slopes above Sumbilla, in which Darmagnac’s troops on the road below were also engaged. It ended with the retreat of all Clausel’s three divisions across the hills, each taking its own way by foot-tracks up a different spur of the Atchiola range, and arriving in succession in the upland valley of Echalar by separate routes. The British did not follow, but stuck to Darmagnac and the baggage-train down in the road, whom they continued to press and persecute. All this reads like a serious fight and a deliberate retreat—but the critical historian must remark that to all appearances Clausel is glozing over a complete débandade and a disorderly flight across the mountains—for that there was no real resistance is shown by the casualty list of the pursuing British. The 4th Division brigades, English and Portuguese, lost that day precisely three men killed and three officers and 42 men wounded among their twelve battalions—i. e. there can have been no attempt at a stand at any time in the morning—and from the first moment, when Vandermaesen’s flank was turned, the enemy must have continued to make off over inaccessible ground as hard as he could go. If he had tried to hold the pursuers back, the 4th Division would have shown more than 48 killed and wounded. The 7th Division had no casualties at all, so evidently did not get to the front in time to do more than pick up stragglers and baggage. The same impression of mere flight is produced by the French lists of officers killed and hurt—six in Vandermaesen’s division, one in Conroux’s, none in Taupin’s—this should, on the usual proportion between the ranks, represent perhaps 150 or 160 as the total loss of Clausel’s corps[1019]. Obviously then, we are facing the record of a flight not of a fight; and the conduct of these same divisions on the following morning, when attacked by Barnes’s brigade—of which, more in its proper place—sufficiently explains the happenings of August 1st.

So much for the chronicle of the rearguard. That of the vanguard is much more interesting. Reille, as has been before mentioned, was in charge of the advance, which consisted of one battalion of the 120th Regiment, followed by Treillard’s dragoon division, the baggage of the corps, and the main convoy of wounded; the rest of the infantry was separated by a couple of miles of impedimenta from the leading battalion. There was no trouble, though progress was very slow, until, late in the morning, the head of the column arrived near the bridge of Yanzi, where a by-path, leading down from that village and from Lesaca, crosses the Bidassoa. The bridge of Yanzi was, as has been mentioned above—the extreme right point of the long observation line which Longa’s Spaniards had been holding since July 25th. The village above it, on the west bank, a mile uphill, was occupied by a battalion of Barcena’s division of the Galician Army, lent to Longa on the preceding day—the 2nd Regiment of Asturias[1020]. But there were two companies of Longa’s own on outlying picket at the bridge, which had been barricaded but not broken. The road from Santesteban bifurcates a short distance up-stream from the bridge, the left-hand branch following the bank of the Bidassoa to Vera, the right-hand one diverging inland and uphill to Echalar. The route of the French was not across the bridge, since they were not going to Lesaca or Yanzi, nor past it, since they were not going to Vera; they had to turn off eastward at the cross-roads, almost opposite the bridge but a little south of it, and to follow the minor road which leads up to Echalar along the south bank of the Sari stream, on which that village stands. When Reille’s battalion at the head of the marching column came to the cross roads, it was fired upon by the Spanish post at the bridge. This created some confusion: the critic can only ask with wonder why Reille, who had six cavalry regiments under his orders, had not sent out vedettes along the roads far ahead, and become aware long before of the obstruction in his front: evidently, however, he had not. After the first shots were fired, there was a general stoppage all down the column. The battalion at its head could see that the Spaniards were very few, and prepared to dislodge them. Meanwhile the dragoons had halted and many of them, at places where the river was level with the road, walked their horses into the stream, to let them drink. Suddenly there came a violent explosion of musketry from the front—the bridge was being attacked and forced. But to those far down the road, who could not see the bridge, it sounded as if the enemy was assailing and driving in the solitary battalion on which the safety of the whole army depended for the moment. A great part of the dragoons shouted ‘right about turn,’ and galloped backward up the pass without having received any order[1021], till they plunged into General Reille and his staff, moving at the head of Lamartinière’s division, and nearly rode them down. The column of infantry blocking the road stopped the further progress of the foremost fugitives, who got jammed in a mass by the impetus of squadrons pressing behind them. Reille could not make out the cause of the panic, but filed the 2nd Léger out of the road and sent them past the dragoons by a footpath on the slope, by which they got to the bridge. It was found that the Spaniards had been driven from it, and forced to retire up the west bank of the river, the way to Echalar being clear. Thereupon the battalion of the 120th, followed by the 2nd Léger, turned up the road, and after them the leading regiments of dragoons. The officers in charge at the front forgot that their enemies might return, and left no one to guard the bridge. Hence, when Reille came up in person a little later, he was vexed to find that the Spaniards had reappeared on the rocky farther bank of the river half a mile above the bridge, and were firing across the ravine at the passing cavalry, causing much confusion and some loss. Unable to cross the river, which had precipitous banks at this point, he ordered that the next infantry which arrived—the 2nd battalion of the 120th—should deploy on the slopes above the road, and keep down the enemy’s fire by continuous volleys. He also directed another battalion to cross the bridge, and work up-stream till they should come on the flank of the Spaniards, and then to drive them away. This was done, and the rest of the dragoons, Lamartinière’s infantry, and the head of the column of baggage filed past the cross-roads and went on towards Echalar—with Reille himself in their company. He had left a battalion at the Yanzi bridge, with orders to hold the pass, but had little expectation of seeing it molested again, taking the enemy for a mere party of guerrilleros.

But worse was now to come. The Spanish companies which had been driven off were now reinforced by the main body of the regiment of Asturias, which, coming down from Yanzi village, made a vigorous attack on the bridge, swept back the French battalion which was holding it[1022], and began firing into the baggage train which was passing the cross roads at that moment. The bulk of it turned back in confusion, and rushed up the defile, soon causing a complete block among the convoy of wounded and the division of Maucune, which was the next combatant unit in the line of march. The Spaniards held the bridge for more than two hours, during which complete anarchy prevailed on the road as far as Sumbilla, where D’Erlon’s rearguard, the division of Darmagnac, was now engaged in skirmishing with the British 4th Division. The real difficulty was that owing to the bad arrangement of the order of march, it took an inordinate time to bring fresh troops from the rear up to the head of the column; while Reille, now safely arrived at Echalar and busy in arranging his troops in position there, does not seem to have thought for a moment of what might be going on behind him[1023]. Maucune’s division (a mere wreck) came up at last, thrusting the baggage and wounded aside: its general confesses that ‘it fought feebly with the Spaniards at the bridge—its loss was not more than 30 men. The division was so weak, its men so short of cartridges, that it was necessary to wait for one of Count D’Erlon’s divisions to come up, before the road could be cleared[1024].’ He does not add—but his corps-commander[1025] gives us the fact—that ‘the 7th Division ended by quitting the road and throwing itself into the mountains in order to avoid the enemy’s fire,’ i. e. it went over the hills in disorder, and arrived at Echalar as a mob rather than a formed body. Abbé’s troops, at the head of D’Erlon’s column, at last got up, after a desperate scramble through the mass of baggage, wounded, and (apparently) cavalry also, for some of Pierre Soult’s regiments seem to have been marching after Maucune. ‘Jammed between the river, whose right bank is very steep, and the mountain, whose slopes are wooded and impracticable, the soldiers shoved the train aside, upsetting much into the river, and turning the disorder of the movement to profit by pillaging all that they could lay their hands upon[1026].’ At last Abbé got four or five battalions disentangled[1027] and formed them to attack the bridge, which was carried by the 64th Regiment after a struggle which did the Asturians much credit—the French units engaged showed a loss of 9 officers, probably therefore of some 200 men[1028]. Leaving a couple of battalions to guard the bridge and the knoll beyond it, Abbé hurried the rest of his division towards Echalar, the baggage following as it could, mixed with the troops that were coming up from the rear. Thus the greater part of D’Erlon’s corps got through; but there was still one more episode to come in this day of alarms and excursions. Darmagnac’s division, at the rear of all, had reached the cross-roads, and had relieved Abbé’s battalions at the bridge by a covering force of its own, when a new and furious fire of musketry suddenly broke out from the slopes above, and a swarm of green-coated skirmishers rushed down the heights, carried the knoll and the bridge below it, and opened fire on the passing troops—Darmagnac’s rear brigade—and the mass of baggage which was mixed with it. This marked the arrival—when it was too late—of the much tried British Light Division, whose unfortunate adventures of the last three days it is necessary to explain.

It will be remembered that Wellington had sent orders to Charles Alten, on the 29th July, that he should move from Zubieta to such a point on the Tolosa-Yrurzun road as might seem best—possibly Lecumberri. This dispatch travelled fast, and Alten marched that same night to Saldias—a short stage but fatiguing, as marches in the dark are prone to be. Next day—the 30th—the Light Division made an extremely long and exhausting march by vile mountain roads to Lecumberri, hearing all day incessant cannonading and musketry fire to their left—this was the noise of the second battle of Sorauren and the combat of Beunza. Unfortunately Alten was in touch neither with Hill nor with Head-Quarters, and though he reached Lecumberri at dark on the 30th, got no news of what had happened till late on the afternoon of the 31st, when one of Wellington’s aides-de-camp rode in, ‘more dead than alive from excessive fatigue[1029],’ bearing the order issued late on the 30th for the return of the division to Zubieta. He brought the news of Soult’s defeat—but Wellington and every one else had supposed that the French would go back by the Puerto de Velate, and Alten’s orders were merely to get into communication with the 7th Division, sent on the side-operation by the Puerto de Arraiz, which was at the time of the issue of the order thought comparatively subsidiary[1030]. The Light Division marched that evening to Leyza—eight or nine miles on a mountain road—not a bad achievement for the dark hours, but critics (wise after the event) whispered that Alten might have got to Saldias, eight miles farther, if he had chosen to push the men. It, at any rate, made a mighty difference to the fate of the campaign that Wellington’s next orders, those issued from Almandoz at noon on the 31st, found the Light Division not near Zubieta but at Leyza, when they were handed in during the small hours before dawn on the 1st.

This dispatch, as will be remembered, told Alten that Soult had retired by the Puerto de Arraiz and Santesteban, and was obviously going home through the gorge of the Bidassoa, by Vera and Echalar. He was directed to ‘head off’ the enemy at Santesteban, if that were possible, if not at Sumbilla seven miles farther north—or at least to ‘cut in upon their column of march’ somewhere[1031]. All this would have been quite possible, if Wellington had not on the 29th sent the Light Division on the unlucky southward march from Zubieta to Lecumberri. This misdirection was at the root of all subsequent misadventure. We may add that it would still have been possible, if the dispatch sent off in the early morning of the 31st to bid the division come back to Zubieta, had contained any indication that the enemy was retiring by Santesteban, or that haste was necessary. But it had only directed Alten to ‘put his division in movement for Zubieta,’ but to keep up his touch with Lecumberri, and told him that Dalhousie would be marching by the passes of Donna Maria[1032]. The Almandoz note, which contained the really important general information and detailed orders, wandered about for many hours in the sabretache of an aide-de-camp who could not know where Alten was, and found him after many hours of groping in the night at Leyza, and not at Zubieta. From the latter place, only six miles from Santesteban, the operation directed by Wellington would have been possible to execute in good time—from Leyza (on the other side of a difficult pass, and many miles farther away) it was not. This simple fact settled the fate of the Light Division on August 1.

Alten put his men under arms at dawn on that morning, and marched, as ordered, for Santesteban via Zubieta; having passed the latter place and got to Elgorriaga, four miles farther on, he received the news that the enemy had left Santesteban early, and could not be headed off there. Wellington’s alternative scheme dictated an attempt to break into Soult’s line of march at Sumbilla, so the Light Division was put in motion by the very bad country road over the mountain of Santa Cruz from Elgorriaga to Aranaz and Yanzi. The men had already gone a full day’s journey, and were much fatigued. They had (it will be remembered) executed a night march from Lecumberri to Leyza only twelve hours back. The Santa Cruz path was heart-breaking—officers had to dismount and walk up to spare their horses: the men went bent double under their knapsacks: the day was one of blazing August sunshine: the track was over big stones embedded in deep shale—one sufferer compared his progress to striding from one stepping-stone to another[1033].

On reaching the crest of the Santa Cruz mountain, opposite Sumbilla, at four in the afternoon, the Light Division at last came in sight of the enemy—a dense and disorderly column hurrying along the road from Sumbilla northward, pressed by the 4th Division, the bickering fire of whose skirmishers could be seen round the tail of the rearguard. They were separated from the observer’s point of view by the canon of the Bidassoa, here very deep and precipitous—the Santa Cruz mountain is over 3,000 feet high. It would have taken much time to scramble down the steep path to Sumbilla, and the enemy was already past that village. Alten, therefore, resolved to push for the bridge of Yanzi, seven miles farther on, with the hope of cutting off at least the rearguard of the French.

But this seven miles was too much for men already in the last stages of fatigue from over-marching and want of food. ‘When the cry was set up “the enemy,” the worn soldiers raised their bent heads covered with dust and sweat: we had nearly reached the summit of the tremendous mountain, but nature was quite exhausted. Many men had lagged behind, having accomplished thirty miles over rocky roads interspersed with loose stones. Many fell heavily on the naked rock, frothing at the mouth, black in the face, and struggling in their last agonies. Others, unable to drag one leg after the other, leaned on the muzzles of their firelocks, muttering in disconsolate accents that “they had never fallen out before”[1034].’

This was a heart-breaking sight for the divisional commander, who could see both the opportunity still offered him, and the impossibility of taking full advantage of it. After a short halt the troops, or such of them as could still keep up, were started off again to shuffle down the shaly track on the north side of the mountain. At the foot of it, by a brook near the village of Aranaz, the 2nd Brigade was told to halt and fall out—it was a trifle more exhausted than the 1st Brigade, because it had endured more of the dust, and more of the delay from casual stoppages and accidents, which always happens in the rear of a long column. Alten carried the survivors—the 1st and 3rd battalions Rifle Brigade, 1/43rd, and 1st Caçadores—as far as Yanzi, and then turned them down the road to the Bidassoa, which is screened by woods. The French were taken wholly by surprise: the Rifle battalions carried the knoll above the bridge, and the bridge itself, without much difficulty. The 43rd and Caçadores spread themselves out on the slope to their right and opened fire on the hurrying mass below them.

‘At twilight,’ wrote a captain of the 43rd whose narrative was quoted by Napier, but is well worth quoting again, ‘we overlooked the enemy within a stone’s throw, and from the summit of a precipice: the river separated us: but the French were wedged in a narrow road, with rocks enclosing them on one side and the river on the other. Such confusion took place among them as is impossible to describe. The wounded were thrown down in the rush and trampled upon: the cavalry drew their swords and endeavoured to charge up the pass to Echalar[1035], the only opening on their right flank. But the infantry beat them back, and several of them, horse and man, were precipitated into the river. Others fired up vertically at us, while the wounded called out for quarter, and pointed to the numerous soldiers borne on the shoulders of their comrades on stretchers composed of the branches of trees, to which were looped great-coats clotted with gore, or blood-stained sheets taken from houses to carry their wounded—on whom we did not fire[1036].’

The officer commanding in the French rear finally got out a battalion behind a stone wall, whose fire somewhat covered the defiling mass. All the bolder spirits ran the gauntlet through the zone of fire and escaped up the road to Echalar[1037]. The weak, the wounded, and the worn-out surrendered to the leading troops of the 4th Division, who now closed in on them. About 1,000 prisoners were made, largely soldiers of the train and other non-combatants, but including stragglers from nearly every division in Soult’s army. There was no pursuit—the Light Division troops could not have stirred a step: the 4th Division were almost as weary after a long day’s hunt. The casualties of both had been absurdly small—3 officers and 45 men in Cole’s regiments, 1 officer and 15 men in Alten’s. The Spanish battalion engaged in the afternoon must, of course, have lost on a very different scale during its highly creditable operations; but its casualties have, unluckily, not been recorded. The French may have had 500 killed and wounded, and 1,000 prisoners—but this was the least part of their loss—the really important thing was that thousands of men were scattered in the hills, and did not rally to their eagles for many days. That night Soult’s army was not only a demoralized, but a much depleted force.

Wellington was, not unnaturally, dissatisfied with the day’s work. ‘Many events,’ he wrote to Graham, ‘turned out for us unfortunately on the 1st instant, each of which ought to have been in our favour: we should have done the enemy a great deal more mischief than we did during his passage down this valley[1038].’ For one of these things, Alten’s late arrival, he was himself mainly responsible[1039]: for the others—Longa’s and Barcena’s strange failure to detach more troops to help the regiment of Asturias at Yanzi[1040], and Dalhousie’s late arrival with the 7th Division—which never got into action or lost a man—he was not.

It must be confessed, however, that Wellington’s intentions on August 1st are a little difficult to follow. One would have supposed that he would have devoted his main attention to a direct attempt to smash up Soult’s main body—but he never allotted more than the 4th, 7th, and Light Divisions to that task—while he had obviously another idea in his head, dealing with a larger scheme for the destruction of the enemy. At 9.30, when he had occupied Santesteban, he sent orders to Byng, then at Elizondo, to bid him to march at once on the Pass of Maya, and to throw an advanced party into Urdax, on the French side of the defile. At the same time Hill, at Irurita, is desired to follow Byng, occupy Elizondo, and—if his troops can bear the strain—advance even to the Pass of Maya. Should this prove possible, Byng, when relieved by Hill, should descend into France as far as Ainhoue on the Nivelle. The 2nd Division, and the Portuguese division attached to it, would follow him next morning. Hopes are expressed in the dispatch that Pakenham and the 6th Division—last heard of at Eugui on the 31st—would be in a position to combine their operations with those of Hill[1041].

This descent into the valley of the Nivelle from the Maya pass must surely have been imagined with the idea of encircling the whole French army at Echalar, for Ainhoue was well in Soult’s rear, and troops placed there could cut him off from the direct road to Bayonne. On the same evening Wellington was dictating a dispatch to Graham telling him that he hoped to be at Maya next morning, and beyond the frontier: Graham was therefore to prepare to cross the Bidassoa and attack Villatte with his and Giron’s full force, including cavalry and guns, leaving St. Sebastian blockaded by the necessary minimum detachment[1042]. Meanwhile Alten, Dalhousie, and Cole were to mass in front of the enemy’s position at Echalar. The only possible meaning that can be drawn from these orders, when read together, is that Wellington had now developed the complete encircling scheme for Soult’s destruction, which he had not thought out on July 31.

But the scheme was never put into execution. On August 2 Byng was halted at Maya, Graham received no order to pass the Bidassoa, and all that was done was to execute an attack on Echalar—attended with complete success, it is true, but only resulting in pushing Soult back towards the Nivelle, where there was no intercepting force waiting to waylay him. Somewhere between 8 p.m. on the 1st and dawn on the 2nd Wellington, for reasons which he did not avow to his staff or his most trusted lieutenants, gave up the greater game, which had in it immense possibilities: for Soult had no longer an army that could fight—as events at Echalar were to prove a few hours later. Minor causes for this great piece of self-restraint can be cited. One was that Hill and Pakenham turned out not to be within easy supporting distance of Byng, so that the dash into Soult’s rear could not be executed with a sufficient force. If this operation were not carried out, Graham’s became useless. Certainly a reflection on the extremely depleted condition of the 2nd Division, which had suffered such heavy losses at Maya, Beunza, and the Venta de Urroz, helped to deter Wellington from using this exhausted force for his main stroke. Writing to Graham two days later, he mentioned its condition as a cause of delay, along with a general dearth of musket ammunition and shoes. But the main reason, as we shall see later, lay rather in the higher spheres of European politics, and the explanation was reserved for the Minister of War in London alone. Next morning no general attack was delivered: Wellington did not go to Maya, but merely joined the 4th and Light Divisions on the Bidassoa. The great scheme was stillborn, and never took shape.

Soult had gathered the wrecks of his army on the range of mountains behind Echalar, where the Spanish-French boundary line runs. The cavalry had been at once packed off to the rear. The infantry took up a position. Clausel’s three divisions were in the centre—Vandermaesen holding the village with a company, and with his main body—certainly not 2,000 men that day—across the road on the slope above. Conroux’s division was on Vandermaesen’s right: Taupin’s, in reserve to both the others, on the crest where the frontier runs. Reille’s corps—still more depleted than Clausel’s, continued the line westward—Lamartinière’s division next to Conroux’s, as far as the Peak of Ivantelly: Maucune’s—the most dilapidated unit in a dilapidated army—holding the ground beyond the Ivantelly, with a flank-guard out on its right watching the road from Vera to Sarre. D’Erlon’s divisions—still by far the most intact units of the whole command, were on Clausel’s left, prolonging the line eastward and holding a commanding position on the mountain side as far as the Peaks of Salaberry and Atchuria. It is doubtful whether the Marshal had 25,000 men in line that day in his eight divisions—not because the remainder were all casualties or prisoners, but because the long retreat, with its incessant scrambling over mountain sides, had led to the defection of many voluntary and still more involuntary stragglers. The former were scattered over the country for miles on every side, seeking for food and for ‘a day off’—the latter had dropped behind from sheer exhaustion: there had been no regular distribution of rations since July 29th, and the first convoy of relief had been captured by Byng at Elizondo on the 31st.

Wellington had only 12,000 men available in front of a very formidable position—hills 1,500 or 1,800 feet high, with the peaks which formed the flank protection rising to 2,100 or 2,300. Under ordinary circumstances an attack would have been insane. Moreover, his troops were almost as way-worn as those of Soult: the Light and 4th Divisions had received no rations since the 30th, and the latter had lost a good third of its strength in the very heavy fighting in which it had taken the chief part between the 25th and the 30th. But their spirits were high, they had the strongest confidence in their power to win, and they were convinced that the enemy was ‘on the run’—in which idea they were perfectly right.

The plan of attack was that the 4th and 7th Divisions should assail the enemy’s centre, on each side of the village of Echalar, while the Light Division turned his western flank. This involved long preliminary marching for Alten’s men, despite of their awful fatigues of the preceding day. They had to trudge from the bridge of Yanzi and Aranaz to Vera, where they turned uphill on to the heights of Santa Barbara, a series of successive slopes by which they ascended towards the Peak of Ivantelly and Reille’s flank. Just as they began to deploy they got the first regular meal that they had seen for two days: ‘The soldiers were so weak that they could hardly stand; however, our excellent commissary had managed to overtake us, and hastily served out half a pound of biscuit to each individual, which the men devoured in the act of priming and loading just as they moved off to the attack[1043].’ The morning was dull and misty—a great contrast to the blazing sunshine of the preceding day, and it was hard to get any complete view of the position—clouds were drifting along the hills and obscuring parts of the landscape for many minutes at a time. This chance put Wellington himself in serious danger for a moment—pushing forward farther than he knew, with a half-company of the 43rd to cover him, he got among the French outposts, and was only saved by the vigilance of his escort from being cut off—he galloped back under a shower of balls—any one of which might have caused a serious complication in the British command—it is impossible to guess what Beresford would have made of the end of the campaign of 1813.

While the Light Division was developing the flank attack, the front attack was already being delivered—somewhat sooner than Wellington expected or intended. The plan had been for the 4th Division to operate against the French right—the 7th against their centre and left centre. Cole, however, was delayed in getting forward by the immense block of French débris along the narrow defile from Sumbilla to the bridge of Yanzi. ‘For two miles there were scattered along the road papers, old rugs, blankets, pack-saddles, old bridles and girths, private letters, hundreds of empty and broken boxes, quantities of entrenching tools, French clothes, dead mules, dead soldiers, dead peasants, farriers’ tools, boots and linen, the boxes of M. le Général Baron de St. Pol[1044] and other officers, the field hospital of the 2nd Division (Darmagnac’s), and all sorts of things worth picking up—which caused stoppage and confusion[1045].’

Now the 7th Division did not follow the spoil-strewn river road, but cut across from Sumbilla towards Echalar, over the same hill-tracks which Clausel’s divisions had taken on the preceding afternoon, when they escaped from the pursuit of Cole’s skirmishers. Hence it chanced that they arrived in front of Echalar on a route where the enemy was keeping no good watch, long before the 4th Division came up from the bridge of Yanzi and the Vera cross-roads. The mists on the hills had kept them screened—as Clausel complains in his report. Lord Dalhousie now carried out a most dangerous manœuvre—a frontal attack on an enemy in position by a series of brigades arriving at long intervals—without any co-operation having been sought or obtained from the troops known to be on his left. ‘Bravery and success,’ as a Light-Division neighbour observed, ‘certainly far exceeded judgement or utility[1046].’ What led the commander of the 7th Division to this astounding escapade was the obvious unpreparedness of the enemy. ‘We caught them,’ he wrote, ‘cooking above, and plundering below in the village. I thought it best to be at them instantly, and I really believe Barnes’s brigade was among them before their packs were well on[1047].’

The leading troops, and the only ones which really got into action, were the three battalions (1/6th, 3rd Provisional[1048], and Brunswick-Oels) of Barnes’s brigade—led by that same fighting general who had stopped the rout at Maya with two of these same battalions. Barnes got his line formed, and attacked uphill against the front of Conroux’s division, long before Inglis’s brigade was ready to follow, or Lecor’s Portuguese had even got down from the hill path into the narrow valley of the Sari stream. With such speed and vigour was the assault delivered, under a frontal fire from Conroux’s men, and a flank fire from Vandermaesen’s on the right, that Inglis’s brigade, which was aiming at the village of Echalar, never had the chance of getting near its enemy. The advancing line suffered severely as it climbed—nearly 300 casualties—but when it came against the front of Conroux, and delivered its first volley, the enemy simply melted away[1049]. As Clausel writes in apology, ‘the resistance ought to have been greater, and in the ordinary state of the army, that is to say when a better spirit prevailed, it would never have been possible for the enemy to establish himself in this fashion on a section of the main chain of the Pyrenees. This day the morale of the troops was bad[1050].’ It must be remembered that Conroux’s was the division which had suffered so heavily in the village of Sorauren both on the 28th and the 30th of July. Several of its battalions were skeletons—all much thinned. Still there must have been 3,000 men yet present out of the original 7,000—and they turned and fled before the uphill attack of 1,800 or less. Nor was this the end of the disaster. Clausel tried to hurry Vandermaesen’s division to the succour of Conroux’s. But the manœuvre failed: the French General says that Conroux’s flying troops ran in upon Vandermaesen’s, that confusion followed, and that he was obliged to let the whole mass roll back to seek shelter with Taupin’s division in the reserve line[1050].

At this moment the leading brigade of the 4th Division, that of Ross, at last appeared on Dalhousie’s left, and began to skirmish with Lamartinière’s line[1051]: demonstrations began—probably by Lecor’s Portuguese—against the front of Maransin[1052], D’Erlon’s right-hand division. But these were of no importance in comparison with the effect of the turning of Reille’s end of the line by the Light Division. This was almost as startling in effect as Barnes’s dealings with the French centre. Having reached the front on the heights of Santa Barbara, below the Peak of Ivantelly, Alten brushed aside Maucune’s feeble skirmishing line, and let loose five companies of the Rifle Brigade supported by four of the 43rd against the dominating peak of the Ivantelly, the most prominent feature of the French position. Clouds swept down along the hills at this moment, and the supporting companies lost sight of the front line. ‘An invisible firing commenced, and it was impossible to ascertain which party was getting the better of the fight: the combatants were literally contending in the clouds[1053].’ But when the 43rd came up, they found that the rifle companies had dislodged the 2nd Léger, Lamartinière’s flank regiment, from the precipitous crest, and were in full possession of it. As they lost only 1 officer and 26 men in taking a most formidable peak, it is clear that the enemy’s resistance must have been very ineffective[1054].

All was now confusion on the French right wing—Reille speaks of himself as wandering about in a fog with three battalions of Lamartinière’s, and meeting no one save the brigadier Montfort, who was bringing up a mere 200 men to try to reinforce the troops on the Ivantelly. The soldiers were profiting by the mist to go off to the rear, and could not be kept together. ‘On se tirailla faiblement, et nos troupes se retirèrent sur la route de Sarre.’ With his centre smashed in, and his right dispersed, Soult could do nothing but retire. The remains of Clausel’s and Reille’s divisions fell back on the road to Sarre. D’Erlon, who had never been attacked, could not use this route, but made his way along the crest of the mountains to Zagaramurdi, Urdax, and Ainhoue. What would have been his fate if he had found there not the picquet which (by Wellington’s order) Byng had thrown forward to Urdax, but the whole of Byng’s and Hill’s troops blocking his retreat—as would have been the case if the great scheme drawn up on the night of August 1 had been carried out? But the Pass of Maya had not been utilized that day, and D’Erlon had only to drive away 50 men.

There was no pursuit: if there had been it would seem that the whole French army would have broken up, for it had shown itself this day no longer able to fight. ‘The spirit not only of the men but of the officers,’ wrote Reille next morning, ‘has been very bad during these last days. The absolute want of food must be the excuse for this state of things.’ The condition of the army was deplorable—Maucune’s division showed less than 1,000 men holding together. The 1st Line of Vandermaesen’s had precisely 27 men with the eagle—yet had lost only 4 officers and 193 men in action—where were the remaining 400? Other units could show a few hundred men but absolutely or practically no officers—the 55th Line of Conroux had lost every one of 13 officers, the 51st Line of Darmagnac 12 out of 17, the 34th Léger of Maucune 30 out of 35; these were exceptionally hard cases, but in all the divisions save those of Foy and Abbé (the least engaged during the short campaign), the proportion was appalling. For the infantry of the whole army it was 420 casualties among 1,318 officers present. Soult wrote to Clarke on the last day of the campaign: ‘I deceived myself in the strangest way when I told your Excellency that the troops had their morale intact, and would do their duty. I mistook the sentiment of shame for their recent disaster (Vittoria) for that of steadfastness. When tested, they started with one furious rush, but showed no power of resistance.... Since I first entered the service I have seen nothing like this. It reminded me of the behaviour of the levy en masse of 1792. The spirit of these troops must be terribly broken to have permitted them to behave in this fashion. One general told me that he had overheard men remarking, when we were near Pampeluna, that they had better not fight too hard, because it would be preferable to get back to the frontier rather than to be led off into the middle of Spain[1055].’ These were cruel and spiteful words—the army had fought with excellent courage, till after July 30th it had convinced itself that the Marshal had got wrong with all his calculations, that the game was up—that they were being taken on a wild goose chase without rations in the most desolate and rocky region of Europe. But by August 2 Soult was not far out in his statement—on that day the greater part of his army was a spent force. If Wellington had resolved to pursue with vigour, he could have pushed it as far as he pleased. Perhaps the great encircling scheme with which his mind dallied for a few hours on the night of August 1 might have resulted in its surrender or complete dispersion.

This was not to be. On August 3 Wellington halted, and commenced to rearrange his troops on much the same principles, and in much the same positions, that he had selected before. He wrote to Graham next day that he was perfectly well aware of the objection to taking up a defensive position in the Pyrenees, but that an advance was too risky[1056]. It was not so much the prospect of the wastage of his troops, even in successful operation, that deterred him, though this was the point on which he insisted in his letter to Graham, but the general political situation of Europe. The eternal Armistice of Plässwitz was still holding up operations in Germany: it was still possible that the Allied Sovereigns might make a selfish peace with Napoleon, and permit the Emperor to expand Soult’s army ad infinitum with sudden reinforcements. What would then become of the Anglo-Portuguese host, even if it had won its way not only to Bayonne but to Bordeaux? All this he had considered, and wrote to the Secretary for War in Whitehall that ‘as for the immediate invasion of France, from what I have seen of the state of negotiations in the North of Europe, I have determined to consider it only in reference to the convenience of my own operations.... If peace should be made by the Powers of the North, I must necessarily withdraw into Spain.’ No advance, however tempting the opportunity, should be made until he was certain that war had recommenced in Saxony[1057]. Meanwhile, ‘Soult will not feel any inclination to renew his expeditions—on this side at least.’

So the army settled down to hold once more the line of the Pyrenees, and to resume the siege of St. Sebastian. On August 3 the Head-quarters were once more at Lesaca, as they had been on July 25—how many things had happened in the interval! Hill and the 2nd Division, now rejoined by the long-missing brigade of Byng, as also Silveira’s Portuguese, were in the Maya passes once more. The 3rd Division was holding the Roncesvalles defiles, the 4th and 7th were at Echalar, the 6th in the Alduides (replacing Campbell’s Portuguese in that remote valley); the Light Division lay on the heights opposite Vera. Morillo’s Division was in the Bastan behind Hill, the part of the Army of Reserve of Andalusia which O’Donnell had carried to the front, when he left the rest before Pampeluna, was at the moment near the bridge of Yanzi. The remainder of that army and Carlos de España were continuing the blockade of Pampeluna.

The total losses of the Allies during the nine days’ ‘Campaign of the Pyrenees’ had amounted to slightly over 6,400 officers and men for the English and Portuguese[1058]. The Spanish loss could not add over 600 more—at Sorauren it was 192; Morillo’s casualties at Altobiscar, and those of the regiment of Asturias at Yanzi bridge are the only unknown quantities, and can hardly have reached 400. The distribution among divisions and corps was odd—the 3rd and Light Division had practically negligible casualties: the former under 120, the latter under 50. The main stress fell on the 2nd and 4th Divisions, the former with 2,000 British and 350 Portuguese casualties, the latter with 1,400 and 300 respectively. But it must be remembered that the 2nd Division had (including Byng) four brigades, the 4th Division only three. Every unit in both was severely tried; the most terrible return was that of the 1/92nd with its 26 officers and 445 men killed, wounded, and missing. But this was a strong battalion of 750 bayonets, and I am not sure that the 284 casualties of the 20th and the 296 casualties of the 3/27th, both in the 4th Division, do not represent almost as great a proportional loss, as these were both much smaller corps.

The 6th Division was engaged on two days only, at the two battles of Sorauren, and had the appreciable number of 450 British and 370 Portuguese casualties. The 7th Division fought on three days—at second Sorauren, at the Combat of the Venta de Urroz, and at Echalar, and three of its battalions also saved the day at Maya—with a loss in all of 750 British but only 60 Portuguese. Lastly, we must name the two Portuguese brigades of Silveira’s division, of which Campbell’s fought at Sorauren, Da Costa’s at Beunza, with a loss to the former of 350 and to the latter of 280 men. The general fact emerges that the 2nd and 4th Divisions lost between them 4,350 men out of the total 7,000—no other division had so many as 1,000 casualties.

The official list of French losses is not quite complete, as it includes only the infantry and cavalry units—but such casualties as may have been suffered by the general staff, the artillery (very little engaged) sappers, and train can have added comparatively little to the total, though a good many men of the train were taken at Yanzi on August 1. The figures given work out to 12,563—1,308 killed, 8,545 wounded, and 2,710 prisoners. The last-named total should probably be brought up to 3,000 in order to include individuals of the non-combatant corps captured in the retreat. The divisions suffered in very unequal measure: Foy and Abbé got off very lightly, because the one was practically not engaged at first Sorauren, nor the latter at Maya—they lost respectively only 550 and 750 men. Vandermaesen’s and Maucune’s Divisions—each a small unit of only 4,000 men, had the crushing losses of 1,480 and 1,850 respectively, and were dissolved when the campaign was over, and re-formed to a large extent with battalions drawn from the Bayonne reserve. Darmagnac and Conroux each lost well over 2,000 men out of 7,000—their divisions having been terribly cut up, the one at Maya the other at Sorauren. Maransin and Taupin each return over 1,000 men lost out of 6,000; Lamartinière just under 1,000 out of 7,000. The cavalry, barely engaged and quite useless, had only 67 casualties to report.

But to get at Soult’s fighting strength on the last day of the retreat, it is not sufficient merely to deduct the 12,563 casualties from the 59,000 which took the field in Navarre. The eight divisions collected on the 2nd August were short not only of their own casualties, but of Foy’s division, which had gone off on an eccentric line of retreat, as had several smaller detachments[1059]. But the great deficit was that of at least 8,000 or 10,000 stragglers, who rejoined at their leisure during the next ten days. The cavalry and artillery had all gone to the rear, and it is doubtful if the last stand at Echalar was made with so many as 25,000 weary infantry. If the Marshal had been faced with an opponent who had no political arrière pensée to hold him back, he would have been doomed to absolute destruction. Only a wreck of his army would have escaped, and Wellington might have driven the remnants as far as he pleased—even to the gates of Bordeaux.

But the British General had made his ‘great refusal’ on the night of August 1st-2nd, and had resolved that the tempting scheme for invading France, which had flitted before his eyes for a few evening hours, must be postponed. He would risk nothing till he should get certain information that the war had begun again in Germany. And as the news of the rupture of the Armistice did not reach him till September 3rd, he was condemned to another month of waiting. He turned back to his old policy of June—St. Sebastian and Pampeluna must be reduced. When they should have fallen, it would be time enough to see whether the general European situation had made the invasion of France a feasible enterprise.