Battles on the Bidassoa. (Aug. 1813.)
While Sebastian was being stormed Soult fought a battle with the covering force, not willingly, nor with much hope of success; but being averse to let it fall without another effort, he thought a bold demeanour would best hide his real weakness. Guided however by the progress of the siege, which he knew through his sea communication, he awaited the last moment of action, striving meanwhile to improve his resources and revive public confidence. Of his dispersed soldiers eight thousand had rejoined, and he was promised a reinforcement of thirty thousand conscripts; but these last were yet to be enrolled, and neither the progress of the siege nor the panic along the frontier, which recurred with increased violence after the late battles, would suffer him to wait.
He knew his enemy’s superior strength in positions, number and military confidence, yet expected, as his former effort had interrupted the siege, another would produce a like effect; and he hoped, by repeating the disturbance, as long as he could by sea reinforce and supply the garrison, to render the siege a wasting operation. To renew the movement against Pampeluna was most advantageous, but it required fifty thousand infantry for attack, twenty thousand for observation on the Lower Bidassoa, and he had not so many. His supplies also were uncertain, the loss of all the military carriages at Vittoria was still felt, the resources of the country were reluctantly yielded by the people, and to act on the side of St. Jean Pied de Port was therefore impracticable.
To attack the allies’ centre was unpromising. Two mountain-chains were to be forced before the movement could seriously affect Wellington, and as the ways were impracticable for guns success would not give any decisive result. To attack the left of the allies by the great road of Irun remained. He could there employ forty-five thousand infantry, but the positions were of perilous strength. The Upper Bidassoa was in Wellington’s power, because the light division, occupying Vera and the heights of Santa Barbara on the right bank, commanded all the bridges. The Lower Bidassoa, flowing from Vera with a bend to the left, separated the hostile armies, and against that line, of nine miles, the attack was necessarily directed. From the broken bridge of Behobia, in front of Irun, to the sea, the river, broad and tidal, offered no apparent passage; from the fords of Biriatu up to those of Vera, three miles, there was only the one passage of Andarlassa, two miles below Vera, and there steep craggy mountain-ridges without roads lining the river forbade great operations. Thus the points of attack were restricted to Vera itself and the fords between Biriatu and Behobia.
To gain Oyarzun, a small town eight miles beyond the Bidassoa and close to Passages, was Soult’s object, and a royal road led directly to it by a broad valley between the Peña de Haya and Jaizquibel mountains; but the Peña de Haya, called also the four-crowned mountain, filled all the space between Vera, Lesaca, Irun and Oyarzun, and its staring head, bound with a rocky diadem, was impassable: from the bridges of Vera and Lesaca, however, roads, one of them not absolutely impracticable for guns, passed over its enormous flanks to Irun on one side, to Oyarzun on the other, falling into the royal road at both places. Soult therefore proposed to drive the light division from Santa Barbara, and use the bridges of Lesaca and Vera to force a passage over the Peña de Haya on his own right of its summit, pushing the heads of columns towards Oyarzun and the Upper Urumea, while Reille and Villatte, passing the Bidassoa at Biriatu, forced their way by the royal road.
Soon he changed this plan, and with great caution and subtilty brought his left from St. Jean Pied de Port to his right, masking the movement by his cavalry, and thus formed two columns of attack on the Lower Bidassoa. One under Clausel, of twenty thousand men with twenty pieces of artillery, was concentrated in the woods behind the Commissari and Bayonette mountains above Vera. The other under Reille, eighteen thousand strong, was placed on the Lower Bidassoa, having Foy’s division and some light cavalry in the rear ready to augment it to twenty-five thousand. Thirty-six pieces of artillery and two bridge equipages were disposed near Urogne, on the royal road, all being secreted behind the lower ridge of the mountains near Biriatu.
Soult’s first design was to attack at daybreak on the 30th, but his preparations being incomplete he deferred it until the 31st, taking rigorous precautions to prevent intelligence passing over to the allies; Wellington’s emissaries had, however, told him in the night of the 29th that the French were in movement, and the augmentation of troops in front of Irun was observed in the morning of the 30th. In the evening the bridge equipage and the artillery were discovered on the royal road, and thus warned he prepared for battle with little anxiety; for a fresh brigade of English foot-guards, most of the marauders and men wounded at Vittoria, and three regiments from England, forming a new brigade under Lord Aylmer, had recently joined.
His extreme left was on the Jaizquibel, a narrow mountain-ridge seventeen hundred feet high, running along the coast and abutting at one end on the Passages harbour, at the other on the navigable mouth of the Bidassoa. Offering no mark for attack, it was only guarded by some Spaniards; but the small fort of Figueras, commanding the entrance of the river at its foot, was garrisoned by seamen from the naval squadron, and Fuenterabia, a walled place, also at its base, was occupied.
The low ground between Fuenterabia and Irun was defended by large field redoubts, connecting the Jaizquibel with some heights covering the royal road to Oyarzun.
On the right of Irun, between Biriatu and the burned bridge of Behobia, a sudden bend in the river presented the convex to the French, who thus commanded the fords; but beyond those fords was a stiff and lofty ridge, called San Marcial, terminating one of the great flanks of the Peña de Haya. The water flowed round the left of this ridge, confining the road from the Behobia bridge to Irun, one mile, to the narrow space between the channel and the foot of the height; Irun itself, defended by a field-work, blocked this way; and hence the French, after passing the river, had to win San Marcial before they could use the great road; but six thousand Spaniards occupied that strong ridge, which was strengthened by abbattis and temporary field-works.
Behind Irun the first British division was posted under General Howard, and Lord Aylmer’s brigade supported the left of the Spaniards.
San Marcial, receding from the river on the right, was exposed to an enemy passing above Biriatu; but Longa’s Spaniards, drawn off from those slopes of the Peña de Haya descending towards Vera, were posted on those descending towards Biriatu, where they supported the right of the Spaniards on San Marcial.
Eighteen thousand fighting men were thus in position, and as the fourth division was still disposable, a Portuguese brigade was detached from it to replace Longa near Vera, and cover the roads from that place over the flanks of the Peña de Haya. The British brigades of that division were stationed up the mountain, near the foundry of San Antonio, commanding the intersection of the roads coming from Vera and Lesaca, and furnishing a reserve to the Portuguese brigade, to Longa, and to San Marcial—tying all together. The Portuguese brigade being however too weak to guard the enormous slopes near Vera, Inglis’s brigade was drawn from Echallar to reinforce it; yet the flanks of the Peña de Haya were so rough and vast the troops seemed sprinkled rather than posted.
In the night of the 30th Soult placed his guns, and gave his orders. Reille was to storm San Marcial, to leave a strong reserve there to meet troops coming from Vera or descending the Peña de Haya, and with the rest of his force drive the allies from ridge to ridge, until he gained the slope of the mountain which descends upon Oyarzun. When the royal road was thus opened, Foy’s infantry, with the cavalry and artillery in one column, were to cross by bridges to be laid during the fight.
To aid Reille’s progress and provide for a general concentration at Oyarzun, Clausel was to make a simultaneous attack from Vera; not as first designed, by driving the allies from Santa Barbara, but, leaving one division and his guns to keep the light division in check, to cross the river by fords just below the town of Vera and assail the Portuguese brigade and Inglis, forcing his way upwards to the forge of Antonio, from whence he was to fall down again on the rear of San Marcial, or move on Oyarzun.