HISTORICAL AND ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES TO CANTO III.
This Canto describes the battles of Sauroren on the Pyrenees, with the leading incidents in the minor combats of Buenza, Doña Maria, Echallar and Ivantelly which followed. The first battle of Sauroren took place on the 28th July, 1813, the fourth anniversary of the battle of Talavera, and was remarkable for the extraordinary valour displayed by the French under Soult, which, having obtained a slight success at Buenza, they repeated with almost frantic efforts at Echallar and Ivantelly on the 2nd August, their principal object being to relieve San Sebastian. But in vain. Lord Wellington described the first of these actions as “bludgeon work.” The loss on both sides was very considerable; but it was here demonstrated by our soldiers, in the words of Napier “that their opponents however strongly posted could not stand before them.” The actions will be found detailed in his History, book xxi. chap. 5.
The incident of the defence of the mountain top by flinging down rocks, is taken from the previous combat, where it occurred as described by Napier in the following words: “The British, shrunk in numbers, also wanted ammunition, and a part of the eighty-second under Major Fitzgerald was forced to roll down stones to defend the rocks on which they were posted.” (Hist. ibid.) The allusions to Sisyphus and to Ajax will I trust be excused. It is difficult to exaggerate such incidents. There was surely something Titanic in the character of this Pyrenean warfare.
The Spanish regiment which gave way towards the end of the battle (the poor soldiers were starved by their miserable commissariat) was that of El Pravia, which was stationed on the left of the fortieth, and the latter regiment justly styled by Napier the “invincible” victoriously concluded the combat. “Four times this assault was renewed, and the French officers were seen to pull up their tired men by the belts, so fierce and resolute they were to win. It was, however the labour of Sisyphus.” (Napier, ibid.) The cavalry engagement was maintained by our tenth and eighteenth hussars. I occasionally detach my heroes, Nial and Morton, to other infantry corps for poetic effect.
The terrible scene at the bridge of Yanzi is described by Captain Cooke in his Memoirs as follows:—“We overlooked the enemy at stone’s throw, and from the summit of a tremendous precipice. The river separated us, but the French were wedged in a narrow road with inaccessible rocks on one side and the river on the other. Confusion impossible to describe followed, the wounded were thrown down in the rush and trampled upon, the cavalry drew their swords and endeavoured to charge up the pass of Echallar, but the infantry beat them back; and several, horses and all, were precipitated into the river; some fired vertically at us, the wounded called out for quarter, while others pointed to them supported as they were on branches of trees, on which were suspended great coats clotted with gore, and blood-stained sheets taken from different habitations to aid the sufferers.”
The incident of extricating Wellington by the agency of Nial and Morton from his imminent peril of falling into the hands of the French is taken from the following passage at the end of Napier’s description of the combat of Ivantelly: “Lord Wellington narrowly escaped the enemy’s hands. He had carried with him towards Echallar half a company of the forty-third as an escort, and placed a sergeant named Blood with a party to watch in front while he examined his maps. The French who were close at hand sent a detachment to cut the party off; and such was the nature of the ground that their troops, rushing on at speed, would infallibly have fallen unawares upon Lord Wellington, if Blood, a young intelligent man, seeing the danger, had not with surprising activity, leaping rather than running down the precipitous rocks he was posted on, given the general notice, and as it was the French arrived in time to send a volley of shot after him as he galloped away.” (Hist. book xxi. c. 5.)
The prodigies accomplished by our Peninsular veterans, of which this and the preceding Canto fall short in the narration, need little attestation. But here is the testimony of one of Napoléon’s Generals:—“Bien que leurs corps soient robustes, leurs ames énergiques, et leurs esprits industrieux,” &c. (Foy, Hist. Guerre. Pénins. liv. ii.) “Le Prince-Noir et Talbot étaient nés dans Albion. Marlborough et ses douze mille soldats n’avaient pas été les moins redoutables ennemis de Louis XIV. * * Nos soldats revenus d’Egypte disaient à leurs camarades la valeur indomptée des Anglais. Il n’etait pas besoin d’une réflexion profonde pour déviner que l’ambition, la capacité, et le courage sont bons à autre chose qu’à être embarqués sur des vaisseaux.” (Ibid.) “Leur humeur inquiète et voyageuse les rend propres á la vie errante des guerriers, et ils possèdent une qualité, la plus précieuse de toutes sur les champs de bataille, le calme dans la colère. * * Telle est la puissance Anglaise. C’est Bonaparte en action, mais Bonaparte toujours jeune et toujours vigoureux, Bonaparte persévérant dans sa passion, Bonaparte immortel.” (Ibid.) “Le soldat Anglais ... son corps est robuste. Son ame est vigoureuse, parceque son père lui a dit et ses chefs lui répétent sans cesse que les enfants de la vieille Angleterre, abreuvés de porter et rassasiés de bœuf roti, valent chacun pour le moins trois individus de ces races pygmées qui végètent sur le continent d’Europe. * * Il marche en avant. Dans l’action, il ne regarde pas à droite ni à gauche.” (Ibid.)
The brilliancy of our cavalry service is equally acknowledged, though French military writers strive sometimes to mock it, very ineffectually, as in the following example; “Dans la retraite de la Corogne, les corps de cavalerie faisaient halte; le chef commandait: Pied à terre; prenez vos pistolets; et à un troisième commandement, chaque cavalier brûlait la cervelle à son cheval en un temps et deux mouvements.” (Foy, Hist. Guerre. Pénins. liv. ii.)
In illustration of the character of Napoléon, of which I have attempted some analysis in this Canto, I have drawn together a few striking passages from the most eminent military writers of England and France, Napier and Foy:—
“That greatest of all masters of the art of war.” (Napier, Hist. War in the Penins. book xxiv. chap. 6.) “In following up a victory the English general fell short of the French emperor. The battle of Wellington was the stroke of a battering ram, down went the wall in ruins. The battle of Napoléon was the swell and dash of a mighty wave, before which the barrier yielded and the roaring flood poured onwards covering all.” (Ibid.) “That successful improvisation in which Napoléon seems to have surpassed all mankind.” (Ibid.)
“Vaincre et trouver des instruments de victoire était le travail de sa vie.” (Foy, Hist. Guerre. Pénins. liv. i. Caractère de Napoléon.)
“Jamais esprit plus profondément meditatif ne fut plus fécond en illuminations rapides et soudaines.” (Ibid.)
“Toujours prêt à combattre, habituellement il choisissait l’occasion et le terrain. Il a donné quarante batailles pour huit ou dix qu’il a reçues.” (Ibid.)
“Napoléon’s system of war was admirably adapted to draw forth and augment the military excellence and to strengthen the weakness of the national character. His discipline, severe but appealing to the feelings of hope and honour, wrought the quick temperament of the French soldiers to patience under hardship, and strong endurance under fire. * * He thus made his troops, not invincible indeed, nature had put a bar to that in the character of the British soldier, but so terrible and sure in war that the number and greatness of their exploits surpassed those of all other nations.” (Napier, Hist. War in the Penins. book xxiv. chap. 6.)
“Ce n’est pas avec les règles de Montécuculli et de Turenne manœuvrant sur la Renchen qu’il faut juger de telles entreprises. Les uns guerroyaient pour avoir tel ou tel quartier d’hiver; l’autre, pour conquérir le monde. Il lui fallait souvent non pas seulement gagner une bataille, mats la gagner de telle façon qu’elle épouvantât l’Europe et amenât des résultats gigantesques. Ainsi les vues politiques intervenaient sans cesse dans le génie stratégique. * * Quelque habile qu’on soit, il y a presque toujours dans ce jeu terrible des risques proportionnés à la grandeur des profits. Le succès est devenu plus chanceux. Les armées étaient plus nombreuses. Ses ennemis, à son exemple, ont eu aussi des masses. * * La machine n’était plus maniable; il a été écrasé.” (Foy, liv. i.)
Napoléon’s was a game of double or quits played with the hardihood of a determined gambler. The value of the stakes became multiplied with alarming rapidity, as in the arithmetical problem of the horse-shoe-nails. All the military population and resources of the empire became involved in the chances of the die, and he lost the last throw.
General Foy narrates the following anecdote. He was probably himself the interlocutor: “Dans la campagne de France, aux premiers mois de 1814, Napoléon parlait à Troyes en Champagne, avec un de ses généraux, de l’état des choses. ‘Les ennemis, disait celui-ci, sont trop nombreux; il faut que la France se lève’—‘Eh! comment voulez-vous que la France se lève, interrompit avec vivacité Napoléon; il n’y a pas de noblesse, et j’ai tué la liberté!’”
Of the love which the French people bore to Napoléon, let his march to Cannes be a witness, where the inhabitants, as he passed, surrounded him in hundreds of thousands with unmistakeable demonstrations of blind enthusiasm and delight. Not even the terrible conscription could rase his impression from their hearts. The general equity of his internal administration, the exact system of his public accounts, the effectual discharge of duty which he required of the state servants, the abolition of idle privileged classes, and the cessation of fraud in the management of the revenue or its punishment when detected, caused the people to love him as they everywhere love justice. Napoléon, with all his other splendid faculties, was a skilful financier; he was opposed to public loans, and left no debt. He had no private views, and his active energies were unimpaired in his vassals’ service. The utility of his public works was commensurate with their grandeur, providing at once employment for the poor and embellishment for the country. His Code was a monument of legislative wisdom, and his Cadastre an invaluable equalizer and register of taxation and the liabilities of property. But withal he was a detestable tyrant.
II. “Such stone immense as feigned Æolides
In Orcus tortured flung.”
The epithet “feigned” is imitated from Milton’s treatment of similar subjects. But Milton was not at all uniform in his treatment; and therefore having paid this tribute to the truth of Christianity and entered by this word my protest against the fables of Polytheism, I do not think it necessary, any more than Milton did, to be perpetually marring poetical effects by intimating that comparisons are derived from fictitious subjects. Thus in the finest book of Paradise Lost, the second, all the Greek and Roman fables are introduced with excellent effect, and without any intimation that they are apocryphal. Thus
Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate, &c.
P.L. ii. 577.
Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards
The ford.
Ib. ii. 611.
——The water flies
All taste of living wight, as once it fled
The lip of Tantalus.
Ib. ii. 612.
A cry of Hell-hounds never-ceasing barked
With wide Cerberean mouths.
Ib. ii. 654.
“It rolleth bounding with gigantic ease.”
Καὶ μὴν Σίσυφον εἰσεῖδον, κρατέρ’ ἄλγε’ ἔχοντα,
Λᾶαν βαστάζοντα πελώριον ἀμφοτέρῃσιν·
Ἦτοι ὁ μὲν, σκηριπτόμενος χερσὶν τε ποσὶν τε. κ. τ. λ.
Hom. Od. xi. 592.
The fine dactylic verse which follows, and which Dionysius of Halicarnassus so highly commends, is wonderfully descriptive of the bounding of a huge stone down a mountain:—
Αὖτις ἔπειτα πέδονδε κυλίνδετο λᾶας ἀναιδὴς.
Hom. Od. xi. 598.
Notwithstanding the numerous and highly celebrated attempts of Pope and Dryden at onomatopœiac effects in English iambic lines, I think Thomson has surpassed them both in the following line from what Byron justly pronounces one of the very finest poems in the English language:—
“Down thunders back the stone with mighty sweep!”
Castle of Indolence, cant. i.
III. “Full many a rock’s Aiantine volume rolled.”
Δεῦτερος αὖτ’ Αἴας πολύ μείζονα λᾶαν ἀείρας.
Hom. Il. vii. 268.
“Their powerful hands this rude artillery hold.”
Others with vast Typhœan rage more fell
Rend up both rocks and hills.
—Milt. Par. Lost. ii. 539.
Typhœus was one of the Titans who warred against Heaven.
VII. “And charging through the valley shakes the field
With thunderous gallop.”
Debaixo dos pés duros dos ardentes
Cavallos treme a terra, as valles soam.
Camóens, Lus. iv. 31.
VIII. “Our fiery squadrons. * *
They bathe their swords in blood at every bound.”
Wolauf, ihr kecken streiter!
Wolauf, ihr deutschen reiter!
Wird euch das herz nicht warm?
Nehmt’s liebchen in den arm—
Hurrah!
Körner, Schwertlied.
Well up, ye fearless fighters!
Well-up, ye Saxon riders!
Oh, grows not each heart warm,
The loved one on his arm?
Hurrah!
IX. “Oh, generous, strong, and fleet are England’s steeds.”
ὕμνον ὀρθώσας, ἀκαμαντοπόδων
ἵππων ἄωτον.
Pind. Olymp. iii.
“I will hymn the praise of the flower of foot-weariless horses.”
XX. —“On each towering height
Seemed demons sprung with torches from their den.”
—Auf den mondschein folgen trüber,
Dämm’rung schatten; wüstenthiere jagen aufgeschreckt vorüber.
Schnaubend bäumen sich die pferde; unser führer greift zur fahne;
Sie entsinkt ihm, und er murmelt: “Herr, die Geisterkaravane!”
Freiligrath.
“After the moonshine follow the dark twilight-shades; the wild animals fly past affrighted, the horses rear up snorting; our leader clutches at the standard—it sinks from him, and he murmurs: ‘Lord, the ghostly-caravan!’”
XXI. “Refreshment needful cheered their bivouac.”
Poichè de’ cibi il natural amore
Fú in lor ripresso e l’importuna sete.
Tasso, Gerus. Lib. xi. 17.
XXII. “But thickest mist doth fall, and leave our men at fault.”
(Combat of Dona Maria.) “A thick fog prevented further pursuit, and the loss of the French in the action is unknown.”
Napier, Hist. book xxi. c. 5.
XXIII. “Thus Menelaüs, while his brazen spear, &c.”
Αὐτὰρ ὁ ἂψ ἐπόρουσε κατακτάμεναι μενεαίνων
Ἔγχεϊ χαλκείῳ· τὸν δ’ ἐξήρπαξ’ Ἀφροδίτη
Ῥεῖα μὰλ’, ὥστε θεός· ἐκάλυψε δ’ ἄρ’ ἠέρι πολλῇ·
Hom. Il. iii. 379.
I trust it will not be deemed irreverent to observe, by way of anticipative answer to any critic who in his wisdom may condemn this Homeric allusion, that, as the Deus ex machinâ is not mine, I do not stand sponsor for Venus, and that the notion of a Frenchman in a fog quite naturally suggested Paris.
XXVI. “Clambering Santa Cruz’s torrid steep.”
—Gravis exustos æstus hiulcat agros.
Catul. lxvi.
XXXVI. ——“Friendship’s generous feud!
Where each desired that each the prize should hoard.”
Ὦ λῆμ’ ἄριστον, ὡς ἀπ’ εὐγενοῦς τινος
Ῥίζης πέφυκας, τοῖς φίλοις τ’ ὀρθῶς φίλος.
Eurip. Iph. in Taur. 609.
“Oh, excellent mind, from some noble root thou art sprung, for thou art truly a friend to thy friend!”
“Great Arthur gave each noble youth a sword.”
The Duke of Wellington presented his sword to Sir Henry (now Lord) Hardinge after the Battle of Waterloo.
XXXVIII. “And next to Heaven he loved his native land.
With Blanca there to fly when Spain was free,” &c.
Mas el amor de la mujer y de la patria, pues como dicen: de dó eres, hombre? tiraron por mi.—Mendoza, Lazarillo de Tormes.
XLI. “Thy course for bale that might have been for bliss.”
Then were I brought from bale to blisse,
No lenger wold I lye.
Romance of “Sir Cauline.”
For now this day thou art my bale.
Romance of “Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne.”
Jhesue Christ our balys bete
And to the blys us brynge!
The original “Chevy Chase.”
The origin of the words “bliss” and “bless” is identical.
XLIII. “Scourge of the nations! thy appointed time
Is near its close—exhausted is thy quiver.”
The certainty of the doom that awaits unjust violence is finely expressed by Pindar:—
Βία δὲ καὶ μεγάλαυχον ἔσφα-
λεν ἐν χρόνῳ. Τυφὼς Κίλιξ ἑκατόγκρα-
νος οὔ μιν ἄλυξεν,
ὀυδὲ μὰν βασιλεὺς Γιγάντων.
Δμᾶθεν δὲ κεραυνῷ,
τόξοισί τ’ ἀπόλλωνος.
Pyth. viii.
“But Violence mineth the proud in time. Cilician Typhos with his hundred heads escaped not its effects, nor the King of the Giants himself. They were slain by the thunder (of Jove) and the shafts of Apollo!” The “King of the Giants” is Porphyrion, who carried off the herd of Hercules, and appears to have originated the plan to scale Olympus. Typhos is better known by the names Typhon and Typhœus. Pindar is perpetually alluding to the combats of the Titans, and they impart a matchless sublimity to his poetry, which in this quality surpasses Homer.
IBERIA WON.