History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year 1807 to the year 1814, vol. 6

by William Francis Patrick Napier

CHAPTER I.

Lord Wellington’s difficulties have been described.1814. January. Those of his adversary were even more embarrassing because the evil was at the root; it was not misapplication of power but the want of power itself which paralyzed Soult’s operations. Napoleon trusted much to the effect of his treaty with Ferdinand who, following his intentions, should have entered Spain in November, but the intrigues to retard his journey continued, and though Napoleon, when the refusal of the treaty by the Spanish government became known, permitted him to return without any conditions, as thinking his presence would alone embarrass and perhaps break the English alliance with Spain, he did not as we have seen arrive until March. How the emperor’s views were frustrated by his secret enemies is one of the obscure parts of French history, at this period, which time may possibly clear but probably only with a feeble and uncertain light. For truth can never be expected in the memoirs, if any should appear, of such men as Talleyrand, Fouché, and other politicians of their stamp, whose plots rendered his supernatural efforts to rescue France from her invaders abortive. Meanwhile there is nothing to check and expose the political and literary empirics who never fail on such occasions to poison the sources of history.

Relying upon the effect which the expected journey of Ferdinand would produce, and pressed by the necessity of augmenting his own weak army, Napoleon gave notice to Soult that he must ultimately take from him, two divisions of infantry and one of cavalry. The undecided nature of his first battle at Brienne caused him to enforce this notice in the beginning of February, but he had previously sent imperial commissaries to the different departments of France, with instructions to hasten the new conscription, to form national and urban guards, to draw forth all the resources of the country, and to aid the operations of the armies by the action of the people. These measures however failed generally in the south. The urban cohorts were indeed readily formed as a means of police, and the conscription was successful, but the people remained sullen and apathetic; and the civil commissaries are said toSoult’s Despatches, MSS. have been, with some exceptions, pompous, declamatory, and affecting great state and dignity without energy and activity. Ill-will was also produced by the vexatious and corrupt conduct of the subordinate government agents, who seeing in the general distress and confusion a good opportunity to forward their personal interests, oppressed the people for their own profit. This it was easy to do, because the extreme want of money rendered requisitions unavoidable, and under the confused direction of civilians, partly ignorant and unused to difficult times, partly corrupt, and partly disaffected to the emperor, the abuses inevitably attendant upon such a system were numerous; and to the people so offensive, that numbers to avoid them passed with their carts and utensils into the lines of the allies. An official letter written from Bayonne at this period run thus: “The English general’s policy and the good discipline he maintains does us more harm than ten battles. Every peasant wishes to be under his protection.”

Another source of anger was Soult’s works near Bayonne, where the richer inhabitants could not bear to have their country villas and gardens destroyed by the engineer, he who spares not for beauty or for pleasure where his military traces are crossed. The merchants, a class nearly alike in all nations, with whom profit stands for country, had been with a few exceptions long averse to Napoleon’s policy which from necessity interfered with their commerce. And this feeling must have been very strong in Bayonne and Bordeaux, for one Batbedat, a banker of the former place, having obtained leave to go to St. Jean de Luz under pretence of settling the accounts of English officers, prisoners of war, to whom he had advanced money, offered lord Wellington to supply his army with various commodities and even provide money for bills on the English treasury. In return he demanded licenses for twenty vessels to go from Bordeaux, Rochelle and Mants, to St. Jean de Luz, and they were given on condition that he should not carry back colonial produce. The English navy however shewed so little inclination to respect them that the banker and his coadjutors hesitated to risk their vessels, and thus saved them, for the English ministers refused to sanction the licenses and rebuked their general.

During these events the partizans of the Bourbons,February. coming from Brittany and La Vendée, spread themselves all over the south of France and entered into direct communication with lord Wellington. One of the celebrated family of La Roche Jacquelin arrived at his head-quarters, Bernadotte sent an agent to those parts, and the count of Grammont, then serving as a captain in the British cavalry, was at the desire of the marquis de Mailhos, another of the malcontents, sent to England to call the princes of the house of Bourbon forward. Finally the duke of Angoulême arrived suddenly at the head-quarters, and he was received with respect in private though not suffered to attend the movements of the army. The English general indeed, being persuaded that the great body of the French people especially in the south, were inimical to Napoleon’s government, was sanguine as to the utility of encouraging a Bourbon party. Yet he held his judgment in abeyance, sagaciously observing that he could not come to a safe conclusion merely from the feelings of some people in one corner of France; and as the allied sovereigns seemed backward to take the matter in hand unless some positive general movement in favour of the Bourbons was made, and there were negociations for peace actually going on, it would be, he observed, unwise and ungenerous to precipitate the partizans of the fallen house into a premature outbreak and then leave them to the vengeance of the enemy.

That lord Wellington should have been convinced the prevailing opinion was against Napoleon is not surprising, because every appearance at the time would seem to prove it so; and certain it is that a very strong Bourbon party and one still stronger averse to the continuation of war existed. But in civil commotions nothing is more dangerous, nothing more deceitful, than the outward show and declarations on such occasions. The great mass of men in all nations are only endowed with moderate capacity and spirit, and as their thoughts are intent upon the preservation of their families and property they must bend to circumstances; thus fear and suspicion, ignorance baseness and good feeling, all combine to urge men in troubled times to put on the mask of enthusiasm for the most powerful, while selfish knaves ever shout with the loudest. Let the scene change and the multitude will turn with the facility of a weathercock. Lord Wellington soon discovered that the count of Viel Chastel, Bernadotte’s agent, while pretending to aid the Bourbons was playing a double part, and only one year after this period Napoleon returned from Elba, and neither the presence of the duke of Angoulême, nor the energy of the duchess, nor all the activity of their partizans, could raise in this very country more than the semblance of an opposition to him. The tricolor was every where hoisted and the Bourbon party vanished. And this was the true test of national feeling, because in 1814 the white colours were supported by foreign armies, and misfortune had bowed the great democratic chief to the earth; but when rising again in his wondrous might he came back alone from Elba, the poorer people, with whom only patriotism is ever really to be found, and that because they are poor and therefore unsophisticated, crowded to meet and hail him as a father. Not because they held him entirely blameless. Who born of woman is? They demanded redress of grievances even while they clung instinctively to him as their stay and protection against the locust tyranny of aristocracy.

There was however at this period in FranceJanuary. enough of discontent passion and intrigue, enough of treason, and enough of grovelling spirit in adversity, added to the natural desire of escaping the ravages of war, a desire so carefully fostered by the admirable policy of the English general, as to render the French general’s position extremely difficult and dangerous. Nor is it the least remarkable circumstance of this remarkable period, that while Soult expected relief by the Spaniards falling away from the English alliance, lord Wellington received from the French secret and earnest warnings to beware of some great act of treachery meditated by the Spaniards. It was at this period also that Morillo and other generals encouraged their soldiers’ licentiousness, and displayed their own ill-will by sullen discontent and captious complaints, while the civil authorities disturbed the communications and made war in their fashion against the hospitals and magazines.

His apprehensions and vigilance are plainly to be traced in his correspondence. Writing about general Copons he says, “his conduct is quite unjustifiable both in concealing what he knew of the duke de San Carlos’ arrival and the nature of his mission.” In another letter he observes, that the Spanish military people about himself desired peace with Napoleon according to the treaty of Valençay; that they all had some notion of what had occurred and yet had been quite silent about it; that he had repeated intelligence from the French of some act of treachery meditated by the Spaniards; that several persons of that nation had come from Bayonne to circulate reports of peace, and charges against the British which he knew would be well received on that frontier; that he had arrested a man calling himself an agent of and actually bearing a letter of credence from Ferdinand.

But the most striking proof of the alarm he felt was his great satisfaction at the conduct of the Spanish government in rejecting the treaty brought by San Carlos and Palafox. Sacrificing all his former great and just resentment he changed at once from an enemy to a friend of the regency, supported the members of it even against the serviles, spoke of the matter as being the most important concern of all that had engaged his attention, and when the count of La Bispal, the deadly enemy of the regency, proposed some violent and decided action of hostility which a few weeks before would have been received with pleasure, he checked and softened him, observing, that the conduct of the government about the treaty should content every Spaniard, that it was not possible to act with more frankness and loyalty, and that they had procured honour for themselves and for their nation not only in England but all over Europe. Such is the light mode in which words are applied by public men, even by the noblest and greatest, when their wishes are fulfilled. This glorious and honourable conduct of the regency was simply a resolution to uphold their personal power and that of their faction, both of which would have been destroyed by the arrival of the king.

Napoleon hoping much from the effect of these machinations not only intimated to Soult, as I have already shewn, that he would require ten thousand of his infantry immediately, but that twice that number with a division of cavalry would be called away if the Spaniards fell off from the English alliance. The duke of Dalmatia then foreseeing the ultimate result of his own operations against Wellington, conceived a vast general plan of action which showed how capable a man he was to treat the greatest questions of military policy.

“Neither his numbers nor means of supply after Wellington had gained the banks of the Adour above Bayonne would, he said, suffice to maintain his positions covering that fortress and menacing the allies’ right flank; the time therefore approached when he must, even without a reduction of force, abandon Bayonne to its own resources and fight his battles on the numerous rivers which run with concentric courses from the Pyrenees to the Adour. Leval’s and Boyer’s divisions of infantry were to join the grand army on the eastern frontier, Abbé’s division was to reinforce the garrison of Bayonne and its camp to fourteen thousand men, but he considered this force too great for a simple general of division and wished to give it to general Reille whose corps would be broken up by the departure of the detachments. That officer was however altogether averse, and as an unwilling commander would be half beaten before the battle commenced he desired that count D’Erlon should be appointed in Reille’s place.

“The active army remaining could not then be expected to fight the allies in pitched battles, and he therefore recommended the throwing it as a great partizan corps on the left, touching always upon the Pyrenees and ready to fall upon lord Wellington’s flank and rear if he should penetrate into France. Clauzel a native of those parts and speaking the country language was by his military qualities and knowledge the most suitable person to command. General Reille could then march with the troops called to the great army, and as there would be nothing left for him, Soult, to do in these parts he desired to be employed where he could aid the emperor with more effect. This he pressed urgently because, notwithstanding the refusal of the Cortez to receive the treaty of Valençay, it was probable the war on the eastern frontier would oblige the emperor to recall all the troops designated. It would then become imperative to change from a regular to an irregular warfare, in which a numerous corps of partizans would be more valuable than the shadow of a regular army without value or confidence, and likely to be destroyed in the first great battle. For these partizans it was necessary to have a central power and director. Clauzel was the man most fitted for the task. He ought to have under his orders all the generals who were in command in the military departments between the Garonne and the Pyrenees, with power to force all the inhabitants to take arms and act under his directions.

“I am sensible,” he continued, “that this system, one of the least unhappy consequences of which would be to leave the enemy apparently master of all the country between the mountains and the Garonne, can only be justified by the necessity of forming an army in the centre of France sufficiently powerful to fend off the multitude of our enemies from the capital; but if Paris falls all will be lost, whereas if it be saved the loss of a few large towns in the south can be repaired. I propose then to form a great army in front of Paris by a union of all the disposable troops of the armies on the different frontiers, and at the same time to spread what remains of the latter as partizans wherever the enemy penetrates or threatens to penetrate. All the marshals of France the generals and other officers, either in activity or in retirement, who shall not be attached to the great central army, should then repair to their departments to organize the partizan corps and bring those not actively useful as such up to the great point of union, and they should have military power to make all men able to bear arms, find them at their own expense.” “This measure is revolutionary but will infallibly produce important results, while none or at least a very feeble effect will be caused by the majority of the imperial commissioners already sent to the military divisions. They are grand persons, they temporize, make proclamations and treat every thing as civilians instead of acting with vigour to obtain promptly a result which would astonish the world; for notwithstanding the cry to the contrary, the resources of France are not exhausted, what is wanted is to make those who possess resources use them for the defence of the throne and the emperor.”

Having thus explained his views, he again requested to be recalled to Paris to serve near the emperor, but declared that he was ready to obey any order and serve in any manner; all he demanded was clear instructions with reference to the events that might occur. 1º. What he should do if the treaty arrangements with Ferdinand had no effect and the Spanish troops remained with lord Wellington. 2º. If those troops retired and the British seeing the French weakened by detachments should alone penetrate into France. 3º. If the changes in Spain should cause the allies to retire altogether.

Such was Soult’s plan of action but his great project was not adopted and the emperor’s reasons for neglecting it have not been made known. Nor can the workings of that capacious mind be judged of without a knowledge of all the objects and conditions of his combinations. Yet it is not improbable that at this period he did not despair of rejecting the allies beyond the Rhine either by force of arms, by negociation, or by working upon the family pride of the emperor of Austria. With this hope he would be naturally averse to incur the risk of a civil war by placing France under martial law, or of reviving the devouring fire of revolution which it had been his object for so many years to quell; and this is the more probable because it seems nearly certain, that one of his reasons for replacing Ferdinand on the Spanish throne was his fear lest the republican doctrines which had gained ground in Spain should spread to France. Was he wrong? The fierce democrat will answer Yes! But the man who thinks that real liberty was never attained under a single unmixed form of government giving no natural vent to the swelling pride of honour birth or riches; those who measure the weakness of pure republicanism by the miserable state of France at home and abroad when Napoleon by assuming power saved her; those who saw America with all her militia and her licentious liberty unable to prevent three thousand British soldiers from passing three thousand miles of ocean and burning her capital, will hesitate to condemn him. And this without detriment to the democratic principle which in substance may and should always govern under judicious forms. Napoleon early judged, and the event has proved he judged truly, that the democratic spirit of France however violent was unable to overbear the aristocratic and monarchic tendencies of Europe; wisely therefore while he preserved the essence of the first by fostering equality, he endeavoured to blend it with the other two; thus satisfying as far as the nature of human institutions would permit the conditions of the great problem he had undertaken to solve. His object was the reconstruction of the social fabric which had been shattered by the French revolution, mixing with the new materials all that remained of the old sufficiently unbroken to build with again. If he failed to render his structure stable it was because his design was misunderstood, and the terrible passions let loose by the previous stupendous explosion were too mighty even for him to compress.

To have accepted Soult’s project would have been to endanger his work, to save himself at the expense of his system, and probably to plunge France again into the anarchy from which he had with so much care and labour drawn her. But as I have before said, and it is true, Napoleon’s ambition was for the greatness and prosperity of France, for the regeneration of Europe, for the stability of the system which he had formed with that end, never for himself personally; and hence it is that the multitudes of many nations instinctively revere his memory. And neither the monarch nor the aristocrat, dominant though they be by his fall, feel themselves so easy in their high places as to rejoice much in their victory.

Whatever Napoleon’s motive was he did not adopt Soult’s project, and in February two divisions of infantry and Trielhard’s cavalry with many batteries were withdrawn. Two thousand of the best soldiers were also selected to join the imperial guards, and all the gensd’armes were sent to the interior. The total number of old soldiers left, did not, including the division of General Paris, exceed forty thousand exclusive of the garrison of Bayonne and other posts, and the conscripts, beardless youths, were for the most part unfit to enter the line nor were there enough of musquets in the arsenals to arm them. It is remarkable also, as shewing how easily military operations may be affected by distant operations, that Soult expected and dreaded at this time the descent of a great English army upon the coast of La Vendée, led thereto by intelligence of an expedition preparing in England, under sir Thomas Graham, really to aid the Dutch revolt.

While the French general’s power was thus diminished, lord Wellington’s situation was as suddenly ameliorated. First by the arrival of reinforcements, next by the security he felt from the rejection of the treaty of Valençay, lastly by the approach of better weather, and the acquisition of a very large sum in gold which enabled him not only to put his Anglo-Portuguese in activity but also to bring the Spaniards again into line with less danger of their plundering the country. During the forced cessation of operations he had been actively engaged preparing the means to enter France with power and security, sending before him the fame of a just discipline and a wise consideration for the people who were likely to fall under his power, for there was nothing he so much dreaded as the partizan and insurgent warfare proposed by Soult. The peasants of Baygorry and Bidarray had done him more mischief than the French army, and his terrible menace of destroying their villages, and hanging all the population he could lay his hands upon if they ceased not their hostility, marks his apprehensions in the strongest manner. Yet he left all the local authorities free to carry on the internal government, to draw their salaries, and raise the necessary taxes in the same mode and with as much tranquillity as if perfect peace prevailed; he opened the ports and drew a large commerce which served to support his own army and engage the mercantile interests in his favour; he established many sure channels for intelligence political and military, and would have extended his policy further and to more advantage if the English ministers had not so abruptly and ignorantly interfered with his proceedings. Finally foreseeing that the money he might receive would, being in foreign coin, create embarrassment, he adopted an expedient which he had before practised in India to obviate this. Knowing that in a British army a wonderful variety of knowledge and vocations good and bad may be found, he secretly caused the coiners and die-sinkers amongst the soldiers to be sought out, and once assured that no mischief was intended them, it was not difficult to persuade them to acknowledge their peculiar talents. With these men he established a secret mint at which he coined gold Napoleons, marking them with a private stamp and carefully preserving their just fineness and weight with a view of enabling the French government when peace should be established to call them in again. He thus avoided all the difficulties of exchange, and removed a very fruitful source of quarrels and ill-will between the troops and the country people and shopkeepers; for the latter are always fastidious in taking and desirous of abating the current worth of strange coin, and the former attribute to fraud any declination from the value at which they receive their money. This sudden increase of the current coin tended also to diminish the pressure necessarily attendant upon troubled times.

Nor was his provident sagacity less eminently displayed in purely military matters than in his administrative and political operations. During the bad weather he had formed large magazines at the ports, examined the course of the Adour, and carefully meditated upon his future plans. To penetrate into France and rally a great Bourbon party under the protection of his army was the system he desired to follow; and though the last point depended upon the political proceedings and successes of the allied sovereigns the military operations most suitable at the moment did not clash with it. To drive the French army from Bayonne and either blockade or besiege that place were the first steps in either case. But this required extensive and daring combinations. For the fortress and its citadel, comprising in their circuit the confluence of the Nive and the Adour, could not be safely invested with less than three times the number necessary to resist the garrison at any one point, because the communications of the invested being short internal and secure, those of the investers external difficult and unsafe, it behoved that each division should be able to resist a sally of the whole garrison. Hence, though reduced to the lowest point, the whole must be so numerous as seriously to weaken the forces operating towards the interior.

How and where to cross the Adour with a view to the investment was also a subject of solicitude. It was a great river with a strong current and well guarded by troops and gun-boats above Bayonne; still greater was it below the town; there the ebb tide run seven miles an hour, there also there were gun-boats, a sloop of war, and several merchant-vessels which could be armed and employed to interrupt the passage. The number of pontoons or other boats required to bridge the stream across either above or below, and the carriage of them, an immense operation in itself, would inevitably give notice of the design and render it abortive, unless the French army were first driven away, and even then the garrison of Bayonne nearly fifteen thousand strong might be sufficient to baffle the attempt. Nevertheless in the face of these difficulties he resolved to pass, the means adopted being proportionate to the greatness of the design.

He considered, that, besides the difficulty of bringing the materials across the Nive and through the deep country on each side of that river, he could not throw his bridge above Bayonne without first driving Soult entirely from the confluents of the Adour and from the Adour itself; that when he had effected this his own communications between the bridge and his magazines at the sea-ports would still be difficult and unsafe, because his convoys would have a flank march, passing the Nive as well as the Adour and liable to interruption from the overflowing of those rivers; finally, that his means of transport would be unequal to the wear and tear of the deep roads and be interrupted by rain. But throwing his bridge below the town he would have the Adour itself as a harbour, while his land convoys used the royal causeway leading close to the river and not liable to be interrupted by weather. His line of retreat also would then be more secure if any unforeseen misfortune should render it necessary to break up the investment. He had no fear that Soult, while retiring before the active force he intended to employ against him on the upper parts of the rivers, would take his line of retreat by the great Bordeaux road and fall upon the investing force: that road led behind Bayonne through the sandy wilderness called the Landes, into which the French general would not care to throw himself, lest his opponent’s operations along the edge of the desert should prevent him from ever getting out. To draw the attention of the French army by an attack on their left near the roots of the Pyrenees would be sure to keep the lower Adour free from any formidable defensive force, because the rapidity and breadth of the stream there denied the use of common pontoons, and the mouth, about six miles below Bayonne, was so barred with sand, so beaten by surges, and so difficult of navigation even with the help of the landmarks, some of which had been removed, that the French would never expect small vessels fit for constructing a bridge could enter that way. Yet it was thus lord Wellington designed to achieve his object. He had collected forty large sailing boats of from fifteen to thirty tons burthen, called chasse marées, as if for the commissariat service, but he secretly loaded them with planks and other materials for his bridge. These and some gun-boats he designed, with the aid of the navy, to run up the Adour to a certain point upon which he meant also to direct the troops and artillery, and then with hawsers, and pontoons formed into rafts, to throw over a covering body and destroy a small battery near the mouth of the river. He trusted to the greatness and danger of the attempt for success and in this he was favoured by fortune.

The French trading vessels in the Adour had offered secretly to come out upon licenses and enter the service of his commissariat, but he was obliged to forego the advantage because of the former interference and dissent of the English ministers about the passports he had previously granted. This added greatly to the difficulty of the enterprize. He was thus forced to maltreat men willing to be friends, to prepare grates for heating shot, and a battery of Congreve rockets with which to burn their vessels and the sloop of war, or at least to drive them up the river, after which he proposed to protect his bridge with the gun-boats and a boom.

While he was thus preparing for offensive operations the French general was active in defensive measures. He had fortified all the main passes of the rivers by the great roads leading against his left, but the diminution of his force in January obliged him to withdraw his outposts from Anglet, which enabled lord Wellington to examine the whole course of the Adour below Bayonne and arrange for the passage with more facility. Soult then in pursuance of Napoleon’s system of warfare, which always prescribed a recourse to moral force to cover physical weakness, immediately concentrated his left wing against the allies’ right beyond the Nive, and redoubled that harassing partizan warfare which I have already noticed, endeavouring to throw his adversary entirely upon the defensive. Thus on the 26th of January, Morillo having taken possession of an advanced post near Mendionde not properly belonging to him, Soult, who desired to ascertain the feelings of the Spaniards about the English alliance, caused Harispe under pretence of remonstrating to sound him; he did not respond and Harispe then drove him, not without a vigorous resistance, from the post.

The French marshal had however no hope of checking the allies long by these means. He judged justly that Wellington was resolved to obtain Bordeaux and the line of the Garonne, and foreseeing that his own line of retreat must ultimately be in a parallel direction with the Pyrenees, he desired to organize in time a strong defensive system in the country behind him and to cover Bordeaux if possible. In this view he sent general Darricau a native of the Landes to prepare an insurgent levy in that wilderness, and directed Maransin to the High Pyrenees to extend the insurrection of the mountaineers already commenced in the Lower Pyrenees by Harispe. The castle of Jaca was still held by eight hundred men but they were starving, and a convoy collected at Navarrens being stopped by the snow in the mountain-passes made a surrender inevitable. Better would it have been to have withdrawn the troops at an early period; for though the Spaniards would thus have gained access to the rear of the French army and perhaps ravaged a part of the frontier, they could have done no essential mischief to the army; and their excesses would have disposed the people of those parts who had not yet felt the benefit of lord Wellington’s politic discipline to insurrection.

At Bordeaux there was a small reserve commandedFebruary. by general La Huillier, Soult urged the minister of war to increase it with conscripts from the interior. Meanwhile he sent artillery-men from Bayonne, ordered fifteen hundred national guards to be selected as a garrison for the citadel of Blaye, and desired that the Médoc and Paté forts and the batteries along the banks of the Garonne should be put in a state of defence. The vessels in that river fit for the purpose he desired might be armed, and a flotilla of fifty gun-boats established below Bordeaux, with a like number to navigate that river above the city as far as Toulouse. But these orders were feebly carried into execution or entirely neglected, for there was no public spirit, and treason and disaffection were rife in the city.

On the side of the Lower Pyrenees Soult enlarged and improved the works of Navarrens and designed to commence an entrenched camp in front of it. The castle of Lourdes in the High Pyrenees was already defensible, and he gave orders to fortify the castle of Pau, thus providing a number of supporting points for the retreat which he foresaw. At Mauleon he put on foot some partizan corps, and the imperial commissary Caffarelli gave him hopes of being able to form a reserve of seven or eight thousand national guards, gensd’armes, and artillery-men, at Tarbes. Dax containing his principal depôts was already being fortified, and the communication with it was maintained across the rivers by the bridges and bridge-heads at Port de Lannes, Hastingues, Pereyhorade, and Sauveterre; but the floods in the beginning of February carried away his bridge at the Port de Lannes, and the communication between Bayonne and the left of the army was thus interrupted until he established a flying bridge in place of the one carried away.

Such was the situation of the French general when lord Wellington advanced, and as the former supposed with one hundred and twenty thousand infantry and fifteen thousand cavalry, for he knew nothing of the various political and financial difficulties which had reduced the English general’s power and prevented all the reinforcements he expected from joining him. His emissaries told him that Clinton’s force was actually broken up, and the British part in march to join Wellington; that the garrisons of Carthagena Cadiz and Ceuta were on the point of arriving and that reinforcements were coming from England and Portugal. This information made him conclude that there was no intention of pressing the war in Catalonia and that all the allied troops would be united and march against him; wherefore with more earnestness than before he urged that Suchet should be ordered to join him that their united forces might form a “dike against the torrent” which threatened to overwhelm the south of France. The real power opposed to him was however very much below his calculations. The twenty thousand British and Portuguese reinforcements promised had not arrived, Clinton’s army was still in Catalonia; and though it is impossible to fix the exact numbers of the Spaniards, their regular forces available, and that only partially and with great caution on account of their licentious conduct, did not exceed the following approximation.

Twelve thousand Gallicians under Freyre including Carlos D’España’s division; four thousand under Morillo; six thousand Andalusians under O’Donnel; eight thousand of Del Parque’s troops under the prince of Anglona. In all thirty thousand. The Anglo-Portuguese present under arms were by the morning states on the 13th of February, the day on which the advance commenced, about seventy thousand men and officers of all arms, nearly ten thousand being cavalry. The whole force, exclusive of Mina’s bands which were spread as we have seen from Navarre to the borders of Catalonia, was therefore, one hundred thousand men and officers, with one hundred pieces of field-artillery of which ninety-five were Anglo-Portuguese.

It is difficult to fix with precision the number of the French army at this period, because the imperial muster-rolls, owing to the troubled state of the emperor’s affairs were either not continued beyond December 1813 or have been lost. But from Soult’s correspondence and other documents it would appear, that exclusive of his garrisons, his reserves and detachments at Bordeaux and in the department of the High Pyrenees, exclusive also of the conscripts of the second levy which were now beginning to arrive, he could place in line of battle about thirty-five thousand soldiers of all arms, three thousand being cavalry, with forty pieces of artillery. But Bayonne alone without reckoning the fortresses of St. Jean Pied de Port and Navarrens occupied twenty-eight thousand of the allies; and by this and other drains lord Wellington’s superiority in the field was so reduced, that his penetrating into France, that France which had made all Europe tremble at her arms, must be viewed as a surprising example of courage and fine conduct, military and political.

PASSAGE OF THE GAVES.

In the second week of February the weather set in with a strong frost, the roads became practicable and the English general, eagerly seizing the long-expected opportunity, advanced at the moment when general Paris had again marched with the convoy from Navarrens to make a last effort for the relief of Jaca. But the troops were at this time receiving the clothing which had been so long delayed in England, and the regiments wanting the means of carriage, marched to the stores; the English general’s first design was therefore merely to threaten the French left and turn it by the sources of the rivers with Hill’s corps, which was to march by the roots of the Pyrenees, while Beresford kept the centre in check upon the lower parts of the same rivers. Soult’s attention would thus he hoped be drawn to that side while the passage of the Adour was being made below Bayonne. And it would seem that uncertain if he should be able to force the passage of the tributary rivers with his right, he intended, if his bridge was happily thrown, to push his main operations on that side and thus turn the Gaves by the right bank of the Adour: a fine conception by which his superiority of numbers would have best availed him to seize Dax and the Port de Landes and cut Soult off from Bordeaux.

On the 12th and 13th Hill’s corps, which including Picton’s division and five regiments of cavalry furnished twenty thousand combatants with sixteen guns, being relieved by the sixth and seventh divisions in front of Mousseroles and on the Adour, was concentrated about Urcurray and Hasparen. The 14th it marched in two columns. One by BonlocPlan 9. to drive the French posts beyond the Joyeuse; another by the great road of St. Jean Pied de Port against Harispe who was at Hellette. This second column had the Ursouia mountain on the right, and a third, composed of Morillo’s Spaniards, having that mountain on its left marched from La Houssoa against the same point. Harispe who had only three brigades, principally conscripts, retired skirmishing in the direction of St. Palais and took a position for the night at Meharin. Not more than thirty men on each side were hurt but the line of the Joyeuse was turned by the allies, the direct communication with St. Jean Pied de Port cut, and that place was immediately invested by Mina’s battalions.

On the 15th Hill, leaving the fifty-seventh regiment at Hellette to observe the road to St. Jean Pied de Port, marched through Meharin upon Garris, eleven miles distant, but that road being impracticable for artillery the guns moved by Armendaritz more to the right. Harispe’s rear-guard was overtaken and pushed back fighting, and meanwhile lord Wellington directed Beresford to send a brigade of the seventh division from the heights of La Costa across the Gamboury to the Bastide de Clerence. The front being thus extended from Urt by Briscons, the Bastide and Isturitz, towards Garris, a distance of more than twenty miles, was too attenuated; wherefore he caused the fourth division to occupy La Costa in support of the troops at the Bastide. At the same time learning that the French had weakened their force at Mousseroles, and thinking that might be to concentrate on the heights of Anglet, which would have frustrated his plan for throwing a bridge over the Adour, he directed Hope secretly to occupy the back of those heights in force and prevent any intercourse between Bayonne and the country.

Soult knew of the intended operations against his left on the 12th, but hearing the allies had collected boats and constructed a fresh battery near Urt on the Upper Adour, and that the pontoons had reached Urcurray, he thought lord Wellington designed to turn his left with Hill’s corps, to press him on the Bidouze with Beresford’s, and to keep the garrison of Bayonne in check with the Spaniards while Hope crossed the Adour above that fortress. Wherefore, on the 14th, when Hill’s movement commenced, he repaired to Passarou near the Bastide de Clerence and made his dispositions to dispute the passage, first of the Bidouze and the Soissons or Gave of Mauleon, and then of the Gave of Oleron. He had four divisions in hand with which he occupied a position on the 15th along the Bidouze; and heSoult’s Official Reports, MSS. recalled general Paris, posting him on the road between St. Palais and St. Jean Pied de Port, with a view to watch Mina’s battalions which he supposed to be more numerous than they really were. Jaca thus abandoned capitulated on the 17th, the garrison returning to France on condition of not serving until exchanged. This part of the capitulation it appears was broken by the French, but the recent violation by the Spaniards of the convention made with the deluded garrisons of Lerida, Mequinenza, and Monzon, furnished a reply.

Harispe, having Paris under his command and being supported by Pierre Soult with a brigade of light cavalry, now covered the road from St. Jean Pied de Port with his left, and the upper line of the Bidouze with his right. Lower down that river, Villatte occupied Ilharre, Taupin was on the heights of Bergoney below Villatte, and Foy guarded the banks of the river from Came to its confluence with the Adour. The rest of the army remained under D’Erlon on the right of the latter river.

Combat of Garris.—Harispe had just taken a position in advance of the Bidouze, on a height called the Garris mountain which stretched to St. Palais, when his rear-guard came plunging into a deep ravine in his front closely followed by the light troops of the second division. Upon the parallel counter-ridge thus gained by the allies general Hill’s corps was immediately established, and though the evening was beginning to close the skirmishers descended into the ravine, and two guns played over it upon Harispe’s troops. These last to the number of four thousand were drawn up on the opposite mountain, and in this state of affairs Wellington arrived. He was anxious to turn the line of the Bidouze before Soult could strengthen himself there, and seeing that the communication with general Paris by St. Palais was not well maintained, sent Morillo by a flank march along the ridge now occupied by the allies towards that place; then menacing the enemy’s centre with Le Cor’s Portuguese division he at the same time directed the thirty-ninth and twenty-eighth regiments forming Pringle’s brigade to attack, observing with a concise energy, “you must take the hill before dark.”

The expression caught the attention of theMemoir of the action published in the United Service Journal. troops, and it was repeated by colonel O’Callaghan as he and general Pringle placed themselves at the head of the thirty-ninth, which, followed by the twenty-eighth, rushed with loud and prolonged shouts into the ravine. The French fire was violent, Pringle fell wounded and most of the mounted officers had their horses killed, but the troops covered by the thick wood gained with little loss the summit of the Garris mountain, on the right of the enemy who thought from the shouting that a larger force was coming against them and retreated. The thirty-ninth then wheeled to their own right intending to sweep the summit, but soon the French discovering their error came back at a charging pace, and receiving a volley without flinching tried the bayonet. Colonel O’Callaghan distinguished by his strength and courage received two strokes of that weapon but repaid them with fatal power in each instance, and the French, nearly all conscripts, were beaten off. Twice however they came back and fought until the fire of the twenty-eighth was beginning to be felt, when Harispe seeing the remainder of the second division ready to support the attack, Le Cor’s Portuguese advancing against the centre, and the Spaniards in march towards St. Palais, retreated to that town and calling in Paris[ See Plan 9.] from the side of Mauleon immediately broke down the bridges over the Bidouze. He lost on this day nearly five hundred men, of whom two hundred were prisoners, and he would hardly have escaped if Morillo had not been slow. The allies lost only one hundred and sixty of whom not more than fifty fell at Garris, and these chiefly in the bayonet contest, for the trees and the darkness screened them at first.

During these operations at Garris Picton moved from Bonloc to Oreque, on Hill’s left, menacing Villatte, but though Beresford’s scouting parties, acting on the left of Picton, approached the Bidouze facing Taupin and Foy, his principal force remained on the Gamboury, the pivot upon which Wellington’s line hinged while the right sweeping forward turned the French positions. Foy however though in retreat observed the movement of the fourth and seventh divisions on the heights between the Nive and the Adour, pointing their march as he thought towards the French left, and his reports to that effect reached Soult at the moment that general Blondeau gave notice of the investment of St. Jean Pied de Port. The French general being thus convinced that lord Wellington’s design was not to pass the Adour above Bayonne, but to gain the line of that river by constantly turning the French left, made new dispositions.

The line of the Bidouze was strong, if he could have supported Harispe at St. Palais, and guarded at the same time the passage of the Soissons at Mauleon; but this would have extended his front, already too wide, wherefore he resolved to abandon both the Bidouze and the Soissons and take the line of the Gave d’Oleron, placing his right at Peyrehorade and his left at Navarrens. In this view D’Erlon was ordered to pass the Adour by the flying bridge at the Port de Landes and take post on the left bank of that river, while Harispe, having Paris’ infantry still attached to his division, defended the Gave de Mauleon and pushed parties onSoult’s Official Report. his left towards the town of that name. Villatte occupied Sauveterre, where the bridge was fortified with a head on the left bank, and from thence Taupin lined the right bank to Sordes near the confluence of the Gave de Pau. Foy occupied the works of the bridge-head at Peyrehorade and Hastingues guarding that river to its confluence with the Adour; this line was prolonged by D’Erlon towards Dax, but Soult still kept advanced parties on the lower Bidouze at the different entrenched passages of that river. One brigade of cavalry was in reserve at Sauveterre, another distributed along the line. Head-quarters were transported to Orthes, and the parc of artillery to Aire. The principal magazines of ammunition were however at Bayonne, Navarrens, and Dax, and the French general seeing that his communications with all these places were likely to be intercepted before he could remove his stores, anticipated distress and wrote to the minister of war to form new depôts.

On the 16th lord Wellington repaired the broken bridges of St. Palais, after a skirmish in which a few men were wounded. Hill then crossed the Bidouze, the cavalry and artillery by the repaired bridge, the infantry by the fords, but the day being spent in the operation the head of the column only marched beyond St. Palais. Meanwhile the fourth and part of the seventh divisions occupied the Bastide de Clerence on the right of the Joyeuse, and the light division came up in support to the heights of La Costa on the left bank of that river.

The 17th Hill, marching at eight o’clock, passed through Domenzain towards the Soissons, while the third division advancing from Oreque on his left passed by Masparraute to the heights of Somberraute, both corps converging upon general Paris, who was in position at Arriveriete to defend the Soissons above its confluence with the Gave d’Oleron. The French outposts were immediately driven across the Gave. General Paris attempted to destroy the bridge of Arriveriete but lord Wellington was too quick; the ninety-second regiment covered by the fire of some guns crossed at a ford above the bridge, and beating two French battalions from the village secured the passage. The allies then halted for the day near Arriveriete having marched only five miles and lost one man killed with twenty-three wounded. Paris relinquished the Soissons but remained between the two rivers during the night and retired on the morning of the 18th. The allies then seized the great road, which here runs from Sauveterre to Navarrens up the left bank of the Oleron Gave.

Harispe, Villatte, and Paris, supported by a brigadeSoult’s Official Correspondence, MSS. of cavalry were now at Sauveterre occupying the bridge-head on the left bank, Taupin’s division was opposite the Bastide de Bearn lower down on the right, Foy on the right of Taupin, and D’Erlon on the left of the Adour above its confluence with the Gave de Pau. Meanwhile the fourth division advanced to Bidache on the Bidouze, and the light division followed in support to the Bastide de Clerence, the seventh division remaining as before, partly in that vicinity partly extended on the left to the Adour. The cavalry of the centre, under sir Stapleton Cotton, arrived also on the banks of the Bidouze connecting the fourth with the third division at Somberraute. In this state of affairs Hill sent Morillo up the Soissons to guard the fords as high as Nabas, then spreading Fane’s cavalry and the British and Portuguese infantry between that river and the Gave d’Oleron, he occupied all the villages along the road to Navarrens and at the same time cannonaded the bridge-head of Sauveterre.

Soult thrown from the commencement of the operations entirely upon the defensive was now at a loss to discover his adversary’s object. The situation of the seventh division, and the march of the fourth and light divisions, led him to think his works at Hastingues and Peyrehorade would be assailed. The weakness of his line, he having only Taupin’s division to guard the river between Sauveterre and Sordes a distance of ten miles, made him fear the passage of the Gave would be forced near the Bastide de Bearn, to which post there was a good road from Came and Bidache. On the other hand the prolongation of Hill’s line up the Gave towards Navarrens indicated a design to march on Pau, or it might be to keep him in check on the Gaves while the camp at Bayonne was assaulted. In this uncertainty he sent Pierre Soult, with a cavalry brigade and two battalions of infantry to act between Oleron and Pau, and keep open a communication with the partizan corps forming at Mauleon. That done he decided to hold the Gaves as long as he could, and when they were forced, to abandon the defensive concentrate his whole force at Orthes and fall suddenly upon the first of the allies’ converging columns that approached him.