Second Combat of Vera. (Oct. 1813.)
Equally unprepared and unsuccessful were the French on the side of Vera, although the struggle there proved more fierce and constant.
Before daybreak Giron descended with his Spaniards from the Ivantelly rocks, and Alten with the light division from Santa Barbara; the first to the gorge of the pass leading from Vera to Sarre, the last to the town of Vera, where he was joined by half of Longa’s force.
One brigade, consisting of the 43rd, 17th Portuguese Regiment, and two battalions of British riflemen, were in columns on the right of Vera; the other brigade under Colonel Colborne, consisting of the 52nd, two battalions of Caçadores, and a third battalion of British riflemen, were on the left of that town: half of Longa’s division was between these brigades, the other half, after crossing the ford of Salinas, drew up on Colborne’s left. The whole of the narrow vale of Vera was thus filled with troops ready to ascend the mountains; and General Cole, displaying his force to advantage on the heights of Santa Barbara, presented a formidable reserve.
Taupin’s division guarded the enormous positions in front. His right was on the Bayonette, from whence a single slope descended to a small plain, two parts down the mountain. From this platform three distinct tongues shot into the valley below, each defended by an advanced post; the platform itself was secured by a star redoubt, behind which, about half-way up the single slope, there was a second retrenchment with abbatis. Another large redoubt and an unfinished breast-work on the superior crest completed the defence.
The Commissari, a continuation of the Bayonette, towards the Great Rhune, had in front a profound gulf thickly wooded and filled with skirmishers; and between this gulf and another of the same nature, run the main road from Vera over the Puerto, piercing the centre of the French position. Ascending with short abrupt turns, this road was blocked at every uncovered point with abbatis and small retrenchments, each obstacle being commanded at half musket shot by small detachments placed on all the projecting parts overlooking the ascent. A regiment, entrenched above on the Puerto itself, connected the troops on the crest of the Bayonette and Commissari with those on a saddle-ridge, which joined those mountains with the Great Rhune, and was to be assailed by Giron.
Between Alten’s right and Giron’s left was an isolated advanced ridge called by the soldiers the Boar’s back, the summit of which, half a mile long and rounded at each end, was occupied by four French companies. This huge cavalier, thrown as it were into the gulf on the allies’ right of the road, covered the Puerto and the saddle-ridge; and though of mean height in comparison of the towering ranges behind, was yet so lofty, that a few warning-shots, fired from the summit by the enemy, only reached the allies at its base with that slow singing sound which marks the dying force of a musket-ball. It was essential to take this Boar’s back before the general attack commenced, and five companies of riflemen, supported by the 17th Portuguese, assailed it at the Vera end, while a battalion of Giron’s Spaniards, preceded by a company of the 43rd, attacked it on the other. Meanwhile the French were in confusion.
Clausel knew by a spy in the night that the Bayonette was to be assaulted, and in the morning had heard from Conroux who was at Sarre, that Giron’s camps were abandoned although the tents of the seventh division were still standing; at the same time musketry was heard on the side of Urdax, a cannonade on the side of Irun; then came Taupin’s report that the vale of Vera was filled with troops, and to this last quarter Clausel hurried. On his left the Spaniards had then driven Conroux’s outposts from the gorge leading to Sarre, and a detachment was creeping up towards the unguarded head of the Great Rhune; wherefore, ordering four regiments of Conroux’s division to occupy the summit, the front, and the flanks, of that mountain, he placed a reserve of two other regiments behind it, hoping thus to secure possession and support Taupin: but that general’s fate had been already decided by Alten.
Soon after seven o’clock a few cannon-shot from some mountain-guns, of which each side had a battery, were followed by the Spanish musketry on the right, and the next moment the Boar’s back was simultaneously assailed at both ends. The riflemen on the Vera side ascended to a small pine-wood two-thirds up and there rested, but soon resumed their movement and with a scornful gallantry swept the French off the top, disdaining to use their rifles, save a few shots down the reverse side to show they were masters of the ridge. This had been the signal for the general attack. The Portuguese followed the victorious sharp-shooters; the 43rd, preceded by their own skirmishers and the remainder of the riflemen of the right wing, plunged into the rugged pass; Longa entered the gloomy wood of the ravine on their left; and beyond Longa, Colborne’s brigade, moving by narrow paths, assailed the Bayonette. The 52nd took the middle tongue, the Caçadores and riflemen the two outermost, all bearing with a concentric movement against the star redoubt on the platform above. Longa’s second brigade should have flanked the left of this attack with a wide skirting movement; but neither he nor his starved soldiers knew much of such warfare, and therefore quietly followed the riflemen in reserve.
Soon the open slopes were covered with men and with fire, and a confused sound of mingled shouts and musketry filled the deep hollows, from whence the white smoke came curling up from their gloomy recesses. The French, compared with their assailants, seemed few and scattered on the mountain side, and Kempt’s brigade fought its way without a check through all the retrenchments on the main pass, the skirmishers spreading wider as the depth of the ravines on each side lessened and melted into the higher ridges. When half-way up an open platform gave a clear view over the Bayonette slopes, and all eyes were turned that way. Longa’s right brigade, fighting in the gulf between, seemed labouring and over-matched; but beyond it, on the broad open space in front of the star-fort, Colborne’s Caçadores and riflemen were seen to come out in small bodies from a forest which covered the three tongues of land up to the edge of the platform. Their fire was sharp, their pace rapid, and in a few moments they closed upon the redoubt in a mass; the 52nd were not then in sight, and the French, thinking from the dark clothing all were Portuguese, rushed in close order out of the entrenchment; they were numerous and very sudden, the rifle as a weapon is overmatched by the musket and bayonet, and this rough charge sent the scattered assailants back over the rocky edge of the descent. With shrill cries the French followed, but just then the 52nd soldiers appeared on the platform and raising their shout rushed forward; their red uniform and full career startled the hitherto adventurous French, they stopped short, wavered, turned, and fled to their entrenchment. The 52nd, following hard, entered the works with them, and then the riflemen and Caçadores, who had meanwhile rallied, passed it on both flanks; for a few moments everything was hidden by a dense volume of smoke, but again the British shout pealed high and the whole mass emerged on the other side, the French, now the fewer, flying, the others pursuing, until the second entrenchment, half-way up the parent slope, enabled the retreating troops to make another stand.
The exulting and approving cheers of Kempt’s brigade then echoed along the mountain-side, and with renewed vigour the men continued to scale the craggy mountain, fighting their toilsome way to the top of the Puerto. Meanwhile Colborne, after having carried the second entrenchment above the star-fort, was brought to a check by the works on the crest of the mountain, from whence the French not only plied his troops with musketry at a great advantage but rolled huge stones down the steep. These works were well lined with men and strengthened by a large redoubt on the right, yet the defenders faltered, for their left flank was turned by Kempt, and the effects of Wellington’s general combinations were then felt in another quarter.
Freyre’s Spaniards, after carrying the Mandale mountain, had pushed to a road leading from the Bayonette to St. Jean de Luz, which was the line of retreat for Taupin’s right wing. The Spaniards got there first, and Taupin, being thus cut off on that side, had to file his right under fire along the crest of the Bayonette to reach the Puerto de Vera road, where he joined his centre, but, so doing, lost a mountain-battery and three hundred men. These last were captured by Colborne in a remarkable manner. Accompanied by one of his staff and half-a-dozen riflemen, he crossed their march unexpectedly, and with his usual cool intrepidity ordered them to lay down their arms; an order which they, thinking themselves entirely cut off, obeyed. During these events, the French skirmishers in the deep ravine between the two lines of attack, being feebly pushed by Longa’s troops, retreated slowly, and getting amongst some rocks from whence there was no escape also surrendered to Kempt. Taupin’s right and centre being then completely beaten fled down the side of the mountain, closely pursued until they rallied upon Villatte’s reserve, which was in order of battle on a ridge extending across the gorge of Olette, between Urogne and Ascain. The Bayonette, Commissari, and Puerto de Vera, were thus won after five hours’ incessant fighting, and toiling, up their craggy sides. Nevertheless the battle was still maintained by the French troops on the summit of the Rhune.
Giron, after driving Conroux’s advanced post from the gorge leading from Vera to Sarre, had pushed a battalion towards the head of the Great Rhune, and placed a reserve in the gorge to cover his rear from any counter-attack. When his left wing was free to move by the capture of the Boar’s back, he fought his way up abreast with the British line until near the saddle-ridge, a little to the right of the Puerto; but there his men were arrested by a strong line of abbatis, from behind which two French regiments poured a heavy fire. An adventurer named Downie, then a Spanish general, exhorted them and they kept their ranks, yet did not advance; but there happened to be present an officer of the 43rd Regiment, named Havelock,[38] who being attached to Alten’s staff had been sent to ascertain Giron’s progress. His fiery temper could not brook the check. He took off his hat, called upon the Spaniards, and putting spurs to his horse at one bound cleared the abbatis and went headlong among the enemy. Then the soldiers, shouting for “El chico blanco,”—“the fair boy,” so they called him, for he was very young and had light hair,—with one shock broke through at the very moment the French centre was flying under the fire of Kempt’s skirmishers from the Puerto on the left.
The two defeated regiments retired by their left to the flanks of the Rhune, and thus Clausel had eight regiments concentrated on this great mountain. Two occupied the highest rocks called the Hermitage; four were on the flanks, which descended towards Ascain on one hand and Sarre on the other; the remaining two occupied a lower parallel mountain behind called the Small Rhune. Giron’s right wing first dislodged a small body from a detached pile of crags about musket-shot below the summit of the Great Rhune, and then assailed the bald staring rocks of the Hermitage itself, endeavouring at the same time to turn it on the right. At both points the attempts were defeated with loss; the Hermitage was impregnable: the French rolled down stones large enough to sweep away a whole column at once, and the Spaniards resorted to a distant musketry which lasted until night.
In this fight Taupin lost two generals, four hundred men killed and wounded, and five hundred prisoners. The loss of the allies was nearly a thousand, of which half were Spaniards, and the success was not complete; for while the French kept possession of the summit of the Rhune the allies’ new position was insecure.
Wellington, observing that the left flank of the mountain descending towards Sarre was less inaccessible, concentrated the Spaniards next day on that side for a combined attack against the mountain itself, and against the camp of Sarre. At three o’clock in the afternoon the rocks which studded the lower parts of the Rhune slope were assailed by the Spaniards, and detachments of the seventh division descended from the Puerto de Echallar upon the fort of San Barbe and other outworks covering the French camp of Sarre. The Andalusians easily won the rocks and an entrenched height commanding the camp; for Clausel, alarmed by some slight demonstrations of the sixth division in rear of his left, thought he should be cut off from his great camp, and very suddenly abandoned, not only the slope of the mountain but all his advanced works in the basin below, including the fort of San Barbe. His troops were thus concentrated on the height behind Sarre, still holding with their right the smaller Rhune, but the consequences of his error were soon apparent. Wellington established a strong body of Spaniards close to the Hermitage, and the two French regiments there, seeing the lower slopes and San Barbe given up, imagined they also would be cut off, and without orders abandoned their impregnable post in the night. Next morning some of the seventh division rashly pushed into the village of Sarre, but were quickly repulsed and would have lost the camp and works taken the day before if the Spaniards had not succoured them.
The whole loss on the three days’ fighting was fourteen hundred French and sixteen hundred of the allies; but many of the wounded were not brought in until the third day after the action, and others perished miserably where they fell, it being impossible to discover them in those vast solitudes. Some men also descended to the French villages, got drunk, and were taken; nor was the number small of those who plundered in defiance of Lord Wellington’s proclamations. He arrested and sent several officers to England, observing in his order of the day, that if he had five times as many men he could not venture to invade France unless marauding was prevented. It is remarkable likewise, that the French troops on the same day acted towards their own countrymen in the same manner, and Soult also checked the mischief with a terrible hand, causing a captain of some reputation to be shot as an example for having suffered his men to plunder a house in Sarre.
With exception of the slight checks sustained at Sarre and Ainhoa, the course of these operations had been eminently successful, and the bravery of troops who assailed and carried such stupendous positions must be admired. To them the unfinished state of the French works was not visible. Day after day, for more than a month, entrenchment had risen over entrenchment, covering the slopes of mountains scarcely accessible from their natural steepness and asperity. These could be seen, but the growing strength of the works, the height of the mountains, the broad river with its heavy sands and its mighty rushing tide, all were despised by those brave soldiers; and while they attacked with such confident valour, the French fought in defence of their dizzy steeps with far less fierceness than when, striving against insurmountable obstacles, they attempted to storm the lofty rocks of Sauroren. Continual defeat had lowered their spirit. Yet the feeble defence on this occasion may be traced to another cause. It was a general’s, not a soldier’s battle. Wellington had with overmastering combinations overwhelmed every point. Taupin’s and Maucune’s divisions, each less than five thousand strong, were separately assailed, the first by eighteen, the second by fifteen thousand men; and at neither point were Reille and Clausel able to bring their reserves into action before the positions were won.
Soult complained that his lieutenants were unprepared, although repeatedly told an attack was to be expected; and though they heard the noise of the guns and pontoons about Irun on the night of the 5th, and again on the night of the 6th. The passage of the river had, he said, commenced only at seven o’clock, long after daylight; the enemy’s masses were clearly seen forming on the banks, and there was full time for Boyer’s division to arrive before the Croix des Bouquets was lost; yet the battle was fought in disorder with less than five thousand men, instead of ten thousand in good order and supported by Villatte’s reserve. To this negligence they also added discouragement. They had so little confidence in the strength of their positions, that if the allies had pushed vigorously forward before his own arrival, they would have entered St. Jean de Luz and forced the French army back upon the Nive and Adour. This was true, but such a stroke did not comport with Wellington’s system. He could not go beyond the Adour, he doubted whether he could even maintain his army during the winter in the position he had already gained; and he was averse to the experiment, while Pampeluna held out and the war in Germany bore an undecided aspect.
Soult was very apprehensive for some days of another attack; but when he saw Wellington’s masses form permanent camps he ordered Foy to recover the fort of San Barbe, which blocked a pass leading from the vale of Vera to Sarre and defended some narrow ground between La Rhune and the Nivelle river. Abandoned without reason by the French, it was only occupied by a Spanish picquet, several battalions being encamped in a wood close behind. Many officers and men quitted their troops to sleep in the fort, and on the night of the 12th three French battalions surprised and escaladed the work; the Spanish troops behind went off in confusion at the first alarm, and two hundred soldiers with fifteen officers were made prisoners. Two Spanish battalions, ashamed of the surprise, made a vigorous effort to recover the fort at daylight, but were repulsed. An attempt was then made with five battalions, but Clausel brought up two guns, and a sharp skirmish took place in the wood which lasted for several hours, the French endeavouring to regain the whole of their old entrenchments, the Spaniards to recover the fort. Neither succeeded. San Barbe remained with the French, who lost two hundred men, while the Spaniards lost five hundred. Soon after this action a French sloop of war run from St. Jean de Luz, but three English brigs cut her off, and the crew after exchanging a few distant shots set her on fire and escaped in boats to the Adour.
Head-quarters were now fixed in Vera, and the allied army was organized in three grand divisions. The right, having Mina’s and Morillo’s battalions attached to it, was commanded by General Hill, and extended from Roncesvalles to the Bastan. The centre, occupying Maya, the Echallar, Rhune and Bayonette mountains, was given to Marshal Beresford. The left, extending from the Mandale mountain to the sea, was under Sir John Hope. This officer succeeded Graham, who had returned to England. Commanding in chief at Coruña after Sir John Moore’s death, he was superior in rank to Lord Wellington during the early part of the Peninsular war; but when the latter obtained the baton of field-marshal at Vittoria, Hope, with a patriotism and modesty worthy of the pupil of Abercrombie, the friend and comrade of Moore, offered to serve as second in command, and Wellington joyfully accepted him, saying—“He was the ablest officer in the army.”