Passage of the Gaves continued. (Feb. 1814.)
While Hope passed the Adour, Wellington pushed his operations on the Gaves with great vigour. Six divisions of infantry and two brigades of cavalry were concentrated on the Gave d’Oleron, between Sauveterre and Navarrens. Beresford lined the Bidouze to its confluence with the Adour, and the 23rd drove Foy from his works on the lower parts of the Oleron Gave, into the bridge-head at Peyrehorade. Soult’s right and centre were thus held in check, and the rest of his army was at Orthes and Sauveterre.
On the 24th Wellington advanced to force the Gave d’Oleron. During the previous days his movements had again deceived Soult, who thought the light division was with Hope, and imagined the first division was with Beresford; he did not expect however to hold the Gave, and looked to a final concentration at Orthes.
On the 24th also, Morillo, reinforced with a detachment of cavalry, moved towards Navarrens, where rough ground concealed his real force while his scouters beat back the French outposts; then a battalion menaced the fords of the Gave at Doguen, with a view to draw the attention of the garrison from the ford of Ville Nave, three miles below, where Wellington designed really to pass. For that object a great concentric movement was now in progress. Favoured by the hilly nature of the country, which concealed all the columns, the sixth division moved towards the ford of Montfort, three miles below that of Ville Nave, while a battalion of the second division menaced the ford of Barraute below Montfort. Picton marched against the bridge-head of Sauveterre, with orders to make a feint of forcing the passage there. Vivian’s hussars, coming up from Beresford’s right, threatened other fords upon Picton’s left, and Beresford, keeping Foy in check at Peyrehorade with the seventh division, sent the fourth above the confluence of the waters to seek a fit place to throw a bridge. Thus the French front was menaced on a line of twenty-five miles, but the great force was above Sauveterre.
The first operations were not happily executed. Some of the columns missed the fords, and Picton, opening a cannonade at Sauveterre, made four companies of Keane’s brigade and some cavalry pass the Gave in the vicinity of the bridge; but they were driven back with a loss of ninety men and officers, of whom some were drowned and thirty made prisoners: the diversion was however complete and the general operations successful. Soult on the first alarm drew Harispe from Sauveterre, placing him on the road to Orthes where a range of hills parallel to the Gave of Oleron separates it from the Gave of Pau; only a division of infantry and Berton’s cavalry then remained at Sauveterre, and Villatte, alarmed by Picton’s demonstrations, abandoned his works on the left bank and destroyed the bridge. Meanwhile the sixth division passed without opposition at Montfort above Sauveterre, and the main body, meeting at the ford of Ville Nave with only a small cavalry picquet, crossed with no more loss than two men drowned: a happy circumstance, for the waters were deep and rapid, the cold intense, and the ford so narrow the passage was not completed before dark. To have forced it in face of an enemy would have been exceedingly difficult; and it is remarkable that Soult, who was with Harispe only five miles from Montfort and seven from Ville Nave, should not have sent that general down to oppose either passage.
On the 25th at daylight, Wellington pushed the French rear-guard into the suburb of Orthes, which masked the bridge there, and the Portuguese of the light division lost twenty-five men in the skirmish. The second, sixth, and light divisions, Hamilton’s Portuguese, five regiments of cavalry, and three batteries, were now massed in front of Orthes; the third division and a brigade of cavalry were in front of the broken bridge of Berenx five miles lower down the Gave; the fourth and seventh divisions, with Vivian’s cavalry, were in front of Peyrehorade, from whence Foy retired to Orthes.
On the morning of the 26th, Beresford, finding Foy had abandoned Peyrehorade, passed the Gave, partly by a pontoon bridge, partly by a ford where the current ran so strong that a column was like to have been carried away bodily; but he had previously detached the 18th Hussars to find another ford higher up, which was effected under the guidance of a miller, and the hussars gaining the high road to Orthes drove some French cavalry through Puyoo. There they rallied on their reserves and beat back the foremost of the pursuers; yet they would not await the shock of the main body, now reinforced by Vivian’s brigade and commanded by Beresford in person. In this affair Major Sewell, an officer of the staff, who had frequently manifested his personal prowess, being without a sword, pulled a large stake from a hedge and with that weapon overthrew two hussars in succession, only ceasing to fight when a third cut his club in twain.
Beresford now threw out a detachment on his left to intercept the enemy’s communication with Dax, and Wellington sent Lord Edward Somerset’s cavalry with the third division across the Gave, by some fords below the broken bridge of Berenx. Then directing Beresford to take a position for the night on some heights near the village of Baïghts, he proceeded to throw a pontoon bridge at Berenx; and thus after a circuitous march of more than fifty miles with his right wing, and the passage of five Gaves, he had again united it with his centre and secured a direct communication with Hope.
The bridge of Orthes, an ancient and beautiful structure, could not be easily forced. Composed of irregular arches, it had a tower in the centre, the gateway of which was built up, and the principal arch in front of the tower was mined, the houses on both sides contributing to the defence. The river immediately above and below the bridge was deep, and full of needle-rocks; but above the town the water, spreading wide, with flat banks, presented the means of crossing. Wellington’s first design was to pass there with Hill’s troops and the light division, but when he heard Beresford had crossed the Gave below, he suddenly threw his bridge at Berenx. This operation was covered by Beresford, while Soult’s attention was diverted by a continual skirmish at the suburbs of Orthes; by the appearance of Hill’s columns above the town; and by Wellington’s taking cognizance of the position near the bridge so openly as to draw a cannonade. The latter thought that when Soult knew Beresford and Picton were over the Gave he would not await a battle, and the emissaries reported that he was already in retreat; a circumstance to be borne in mind, because next day’s operation required success to justify it.
Hope’s happy passage of the Adour now became known and he was instructed to establish a line of communication to the port of Lannes, where a permanent bridge was to be formed with boats brought up from Urt; a direct intercourse was thus secured; yet Wellington felt he was going beyond his strength if Suchet should send reinforcements to Soult; wherefore he called up Freyre’s Spaniards, who were to cross the Adour below Bayonne and join him by the port of Lannes. O’Donnel’s Andalusians and the Prince of Anglona’s troops were also directed to be in readiness to enter France. These orders were given with great reluctance. The feeble resistance made by the French in the difficult country already passed, left him without much uneasiness as to the power of Soult’s army in the field, but his disquietude was extreme about the danger of an insurgent warfare.
“Maintain the strictest discipline, without that we are lost,” was his expression to Freyre; and he issued a proclamation authorizing the people of the districts he had overrun to arm themselves for the preservation of order under the direction of their mayors. He invited them to arrest all straggling soldiers and followers of the army, all plunderers and evil doers, and convey them to head-quarters with proof of their crimes, promising to punish the culpable and pay for all damages. At the same time he confirmed all the local authorities who chose to retain their offices: on the sole condition of having no political or military intercourse with the countries still possessed by the French army. Nor was his proclamation a dead letter. In the night of the 25th the inhabitants of a village, near the road leading from Sauveterre to Orthes, shot one English soldier dead and wounded a second who had come with others to plunder. Wellington caused the wounded man to be hung as an example, and also forced an English colonel to quit the army for suffering his soldiers to destroy the municipal archives of a small town.
Soult had no thought of retreating. His army was concentrated, and every bridge except that at Orthes, the ancient masonry of which resisted his mines, was destroyed. One regiment of cavalry was on his right, watching the fords as far as Peyrehorade; three others, with two battalions of infantry, under Pierre Soult, watched those between Orthes and Pau. Two regiments of cavalry remained with the army, and the design was to fall upon the first column which should cross the Gave. But the officer at Puyoo, who had suffered Vivian’s hussars to pass on the 26th without opposition, made no report of the event, which enabled Beresford to complete his movement unmolested, instead of being assailed by two-thirds of the French army. It was not until three o’clock in the evening that Soult knew of his being over the Gave, although he was then close on the flank of the French army, his scouters being on the Dax road in its rear: and at the same time the sixth and light divisions were seen descending from the heights beyond the river pointing towards Berenx.
In this crisis the French marshal hesitated whether to fall upon Beresford and Picton while the latter was still passing the river, or take a defensive position. Finally, judging he had not time to form an attack, he decided upon the latter, and under cover of a skirmish, hastily threw his army on a new line across the road from Peyrehorade. His right extended to the heights of San Boës, along which ran the road from Orthes to Dax; and the line was prolonged on the left to Castetarbe, a village close to the Gave. Having thus opposed a temporary front to Beresford, he made dispositions to receive battle next morning, bringing Villatte’s infantry and Pierre Soult’s cavalry from the other side of Orthes through that town: it was this movement that led Wellington’s emissaries to say he was retiring.
Soult’s position was on a ridge of hills, partly wooded, partly naked.
In the centre was an open rounded hill, from whence long narrow tongues shot out towards the high-road of Peyrehorade on the left; on the right by St. Boës, towards the church of Baïghts; the whole presented a concave front covered with a marshy ravine, which was crossed by two shorter necks coming from the round hill in the centre.
The road from Orthes to Dax passed behind the line to the village of St. Boës; and behind the centre a succession of undulating bare heathy hills trended for several miles to the rear.
Behind the right the country was low and deep; but Orthes, receding from the river up the slope of a steep hill, was behind the left wing.
Reille, having Taupin’s, Roguet’s, and Paris’s divisions under him, commanded on the right, holding the ground from St. Boës to the centre.
D’Erlon, commanding Foy’s and D’Armagnac’s divisions, was on Reille’s left, extending along a ridge towards the road of Peyrehorade—the second being in reserve. Villatte’s division and the cavalry were posted above the village of Rontun, on open heathy hills, from whence they overlooked the low country beyond St. Boës, and furnished a reserve to both D’Erlon and Reille.
Harispe, whose troops as well as Villatte’s were under Clausel’s orders, occupied Orthes and the bridge, having a regiment near the ford of Souars above the town. Thus the French army extended from St. Boës to Orthes, but the great mass was disposed towards the centre. Twelve guns were attached to Harispe, twelve were upon the round hill in the centre, sweeping the ground beyond St. Boës, sixteen were in reserve on the Dax road.
At daybreak on the 27th, the sixth and light divisions, having passed the Gave near Berenx, by a pontoon bridge thrown in the night, wound up a narrow way between high rocks to the great road of Peyrehorade, and the third division, with Lord Edward Somerset’s cavalry, were already established there, having skirmishers pushed forwards to the edge of the wooded height occupied by D’Erlon’s left. Beresford, having the fourth and seventh divisions and Vivian’s cavalry, then gained the ridge of St. Boës and approached the Dax road beyond. Hill, with his own British and Le Cor’s Portuguese division, menaced the bridge of Orthes, and the ford of Souars from the left bank. Between Beresford and Picton, a mile and a half, there were no troops; but half-way, in front of the French centre, was a Roman camp crowning an isolated peering hill nearly as lofty as the centre of Soult’s position.
On this camp, now covered with vineyards, but then open and grassy, with a few trees, Wellington stopped for an hour to examine the enemy’s order of battle; his two divisions were then coming up from the river, yet so hemmed in by rocks that only a few men could march abreast, and their point of union with the third division was little more than cannon-shot from the French left. It was a critical moment, and Picton did not conceal his disquietude; but Wellington, imperturbable, continued his observations without seeming to notice his dangerous position. When the troops reached the main road he reinforced Picton with the sixth, and drew the light division by cross roads behind the Roman camp, thus connecting his wings and forming a central reserve; because from that point byeways led, on the left to the church of Baïghts and the Dax road; on the right to the Peyrehorade road; and two others led by the low necks across the marsh to the French position.
This marsh, the open hill, where Soult’s guns and reserves were gathered, and the narrow tongues on either side, combined to forbid a front attack, and the flanks were scarcely more promising. The ridge occupied by the French left sunk indeed to a gentle undulation in crossing the Peyrehorade road; yet to push there between D’Erlon and Orthes would have been useless, because that town was strongly occupied by Harispe, and covered by an ancient wall. To turn the St. Boës flank the troops must have descended into the low marshy country beyond the Dax road, where the heathy hills trending backwards from the centre of the French position would have enabled Soult to oppose a new front, at right angles to his actual position; the whole of the allied army must then have made a circuitous flank movement within gun-shot, through a difficult country, or Beresford’s left must have been dangerously extended and the whole line weakened. Nor could the movement be hidden, because the hills, although only moderately high, were abrupt on that side, affording a full view of the low country, and Soult’s cavalry detachments were in observation on every brow.
It only remained to assail the French flanks along the narrow ridges, making the principal effort at St. Boës, and overlapping the French right to seize the road to St. Sever, while Hill passed the Gave at Souars and cut off the road to Pau, thus enclosing the beaten army in Orthes. This was no slight affair. On Picton’s side it was easy to obtain a footing on the flank ridge near the high road; but beyond that the ground rose rapidly, and the French were gathered thickly with a narrow front and plenty of guns. On Beresford’s side they could only be assailed along the summit of the St. Boës ridge, advancing from the high church of Baïghts and the Dax road; but the village of St. Boës was strongly occupied, the ground immediately behind it strangled to a narrow pass; and sixteen guns on the Dax road, placed behind the centre of Soult’s line and well covered from counter-fire, were ready to crush any column emerging from the gorge of St. Boës.