CHAPTER III.
While San Sebastian was being stormed Soult1813. August. fought a battle with the covering force, not willingly nor with much hope of success, but he was averse to let San Sebastian fall without another effort, and thought a bold demeanour would best hide his real weakness. Guided however by the progress of the siege, which he knew perfectly through his sea communication, he awaited the last moment of action, striving meanwhile to improve his resources and to revive the confidence of the army and of the people. Of his dispersed soldiers eight thousand had rejoined their regiments by the 12th of August, and he was promised a reinforcement of thirty thousand conscripts; these last were however yet to be enrolled, and neither the progress of the siege, nor the general panic along the frontier which recurred with increased violence after the late battles, would suffer him to remain inactive.
He was in no manner deceived as to his enemy’s superior strength of position number and military confidence; but his former efforts on the side of Pampeluna had interrupted the attack of San Sebastian, and another offensive movement would necessarily produce a like effect; wherefore he hoped by repeating the disturbance, as long as a free intercourse by sea enabled him to reinforce and supply the garrison, to render the siege a wasting operation for the allies. To renew the movement against Pampeluna was most advantageous, but it required fifty thousand infantry for the attack, and twenty thousand as a corps of observation on the Lower Bidassoa, and he had not such numbers to dispose of. The subsistence of his troops also was uncertain, because the loss of all the military carriages at Vittoria was still felt, and the resources of the country were reluctantly yielded by the people. To act on the side of St. Jean Pied de Port was therefore impracticable. And to attack the allies’ centre, at Vera, Echallar, and the Bastan, was unpromising, seeing that two mountain-chains were to be forced before the movement could seriously affect lord Wellington: moreover, the ways being impracticable for artillery, success if such should befall, would lead to no decisive result. It only remained to attack the left of the allies by the great road of Irun.
Against that quarter Soult could bring more than forty 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, covered all the bridges; but the Lower Bidassoa flowing from Vera with a bend to the left separated the hostile armies, and against this front about nine miles wide Soult’s operations were necessarily directed. On his right, that is to say, from the broken bridge of Behobia in front of Irun to the sea, the river, broad and tidal, offered no apparent facility for a passage; and between the fords of Biriatu and those of Vera, a distance of three miles, there was only the one passage of Andarlassa about two miles below Vera; along this space also the banks of the river, steep craggy mountain ridges without roads, forbade any great operations. Thus the points of attack were restricted to Vera and the fords between Biriatu and the broken bridge of Behobia.
To raise the siege it was only necessary to forcePlan 5. a way to Oyarzun, a small town about seven or eight miles beyond the Bidassoa, from thence the assailants could march at once upon Passages and upon the Urumea. To gain Oyarzun was therefore the object of the French marshal’s combinations. The royal road led directly to it by the broad valley which separates the Peña de Haya from the Jaizquibel mountain. The latter was on the sea-coast, but the Peña de Haya, commonly called the four-crowned mountain, filled with its dependent ridges all the space between Vera, Lesaca, Irun and Oyarzun. Its staring head bound with a rocky diadem was impassable, but from the bridges of Vera and Lesaca, several roads, one of them not absolutely impracticable for guns, passed over its enormous flanks to Irun at one side and to Oyarzun on the other, falling into the royal road at both places. Soult’s first design was to unite Clauzel’s and D’Erlon’s troops, drive the light division from the heights of Santa Barbara, and then using the bridges of Lesaca and Vera force a passage over the Peña de Haya on the left of its summit, and push the heads of columns towards Oyarzun and the Upper Urumea; meanwhile Reille and Villatte, passing the Bidassoa at Biriatu, were to fight their way also to Oyarzun by the royal road. He foresaw thatSoult’s Official Correspondence, MSS. Wellington might during this time collect his right wing and seek to envelope the French army, or march upon Bayonne; but he thought the general state of his affairs required bold measures, and the progress of the besiegers at San Sebastian soon drove him into action.
On the 29th Foy, marching by the road of Lohoussoa, crossed the Nive at Cambo and reached Espelette, leaving behind him six hundred men, and the national guards who were very numerous, with orders to watch the roads and valleys leading upon St. Jean Pied de Port. If pressed by superior forces, this corps of observation was to fall back upon that fortress, and it was supported with a brigade of light cavalry stationed at St. Palais.
In the night two of D’Erlon’s divisions were secretly drawn from Ainhoa, Foy continued his march through Espelette, by the bridges of Amotz and Serres to San Jean de Luz, from whence the reserve moved forward, and thus in the morning of the 30th two strong French columns of attack were assembled on the Lower Bidassoa.
The first, under Clauzel, consisted of four divisions, furnishing twenty thousand men with twenty pieces of artillery. It was concentrated in the woods behind the Commissary and Bayonette mountains, above Vera.
The second, commanded by general Reille, was composed of two divisions and Villatte’s reserve in all eighteen thousand men; but Foy’s division and some light cavalry were in rear ready to augment this column to about twenty-five thousand, and there were thirty-six pieces of artillery and two bridge equipages collected behind the camp of Urogne on the royal road.
Reille’s troops were secreted, partly behind the Croix des Bouquets mountain, partly behind that of Louis XIV. and the lower ridges of the Mandale near Biriatu. Meanwhile D’Erlon, having Conroux’s and Abbé’s divisions and twenty pieces of artillery under his command, held the camps in advance of Sarre and Ainhoa. If the allies in his front marched to reinforce their own left on the crowned mountain, he was to vex and retard their movements, always however avoiding a serious engagement, and feeling to his right to secure his connection with Clauzel’s column; that is to say, he was with Abbé’s division, moving from Ainhoa, to menace the allies towards Zagaramurdi and the Puerto de Echallar; and with Conroux’s division, then in front of Sarre, to menace the light division, to seize the rock of Ivantelly if it was abandoned, and be ready to join Clauzel if occasion offered. On the other hand, should the allies assemble a large force and operate offensively by the Nive and Nivelle rivers, D’Erlon, without losing his connection with the main army, was to concentrate on the slopes descending from the Rhune mountains towards San Pé. Finally, if the attack on the Lower Bidassoa succeeded, he was to join Clauzel, either by Vera, or by the heights of Echallar and the bridge of Lesaca. Soult also desired to support D’Erlon with the two divisions of heavy cavalry, but forage could only be obtained for the artillery horses, two regiments of light horsemen, six chosen troops of dragoons and two or three hundred gensd’armes, which were all assembled on the royal road behind Reille’s column.
It was the French marshal’s intention to attack at daybreak on the 30th, but his preparations being incomplete he deferred it until the 31st, and took rigorous precautions to prevent intelligence passing over to the allies’ camps. Nevertheless Wellington’s emissaries advised him of the movements in the night of the 29th, the augmentation of troops in front of Irun was observed in the morning of the 30th, and in the evening the bridge equipage and the artillery were descried on the royal road beyond the Bidassoa. Thus warned he prepared for battle with little anxiety. For the brigade of English foot-guards, left at Oporto when the campaign commenced, was now come up; most of the marauders and men wounded at Vittoria had rejoined; and three regiments just arrived from England formed a new brigade under lord Aylmer, making the total augmentation of British troops in this quarter little less than five thousand men.
The extreme left was on the Jaizquibel. ThisPlan 5. narrow mountain ridge, seventeen hundred feet high, runs along the coast, abutting at one end upon the Passages harbour and at the other upon the navigable mouth of the Bidassoa. Offering no mark for an attack it was only guarded by a flanking detachment of Spaniards, and at its foot the small fort of Figueras commanding the entrance of the river was garrisoned by seamen from the naval squadron. Fuenterabia a walled place, also at its base, was occupied, and the low ground between that town and Irun defended by a chain of eight large field redoubts, which connected the position of Jaizquibel with the heights covering the royal road to Oyarzun.
On the right of Irun, between Biriatu and the burned bridge of Behobia, there was a sudden bend in the river, the concave towards the French, and their positions commanded the passage of the fords below; but opposed to them was the exceedingly stiff and lofty ridge, called San Marcial, terminating one of the great flanks of the Pena de Haya. The water flowed round the left of this ridge, confining the road leading from the bridge of Behobia to Irun, a distance of one mile, to the narrow space between its channel and the foot of the height, and Irun itself, strongly occupied and defended by a field-work, blocked this way. It followed that the French, after forcing the passage of the river, must of necessity win San Marcial before their army could use the great road.
About six thousand men of the fourth Spanish army now under general Freyre, were established on the crest of San Marcial, which was strengthened by abbattis and temporary field-works.
Behind Irun the first British division, under general Howard, was posted, and lord Aylmer’s brigade was pushed somewhat in advance of Howard’s right to support the left of the Spaniards.
The right of San Marcial falling back from the river was, although distinct as a position, connected with the Pena de Haya, and in some degree exposed to an enemy passing the river above Biriatu, wherefore Longa’s Spaniards were drawn off from those slopes of the Pena de Haya which descended towards Vera, to be posted on those descending towards Biriatu. In this situation he protected and supported the right of San Marcial.
Eighteen thousand fighting men were thus directly opposed to the progress of the enemy, and the fourth division quartered near Lesaca was still disposable. From this body a Portuguese brigade had been detached, to replace Longa on the heights opposite Vera, and to cover the roads leading from the bridge and fords of that place over the flanks of the Pena de Haya. Meanwhile the British brigades of the division were stationed up the mountain, close under the foundry of San Antonio and commanding the intersection of the roads coming from Vera and Lesaca; thus furnishing a reserve to the Portuguese brigade to Longa and to Freyre, they tied the whole together. The Portuguese brigade was however somewhat exposed, and too weak to guard the enormous slopes on which it was placed, wherefore Wellington drew general Inglis’s brigade of the seventh division from Echallar to reinforce it, and even then the flanks of the Pena de Haya were so rough and vast that the troops seemed sprinkled here and there with little coherence. The English general aware that his positions were too extensive had commenced the construction of several large redoubts on commanding points of the mountain, and had traced out a second fortified camp on a strong range of heights, which immediately in front of Oyarzun connected the Haya with the Jaizquibel, but these works were unfinished.
During the night of the 30th Soult garnished with artillery all the points commanding the fords of Biriatu, the descent to the broken bridge and the banks below it, called the Bas de Behobia. This was partly to cover the passage of the fords and the formation of his bridges, partly to stop gun-boats coming up to molest the troops in crossing, and in this view also he spread Casa Palacio’sSoult’s Official Correspondence, MSS. brigade of Joseph’s Spanish guards along the river as far down as Andaya, fronting Fuenterabia.
General Reille, commanding La Martiniere’s, Maucune’s, and Villatte’s divisions, directed the attack. His orders were to storm the camp of San Marcial, and leaving there a strong reserve to keep in check any reinforcement coming from the side of Vera or descending from the Pena de Haya, to drive the allies with the remainder of his force from ridge to ridge, until he gained that flank of the great mountain which descends upon Oyarzun. The royal road being thus opened, Foy’s division with thePlan 5. cavalry and artillery in one column, was to cross by bridges to be laid during the attack on San Marcial. And it was Soult’s intention under any circumstances to retain this last-named ridge, and to fortify it as a bridge-head with a view to subsequent operations.
To aid Reille’s progress and to provide for the concentration of the whole army at Oyarzun, Clauzel was directed to make a simultaneous attack from Vera, not as at first designed by driving the allies from Santa Barbara and seizing the bridges, but leaving one division and his guns on the ridges above Vera to keep the light division in check, to cross the river by two fords just below the town of Vera with the rest of his troops, and assail that slope of the Pena de Haya where the Portuguese brigade and the troops under general Inglis were posted. Then forcing his way upwards to the forge of San Antonio, which commanded the intersection of the roads leading round the head of the mountain, he could aid Reille directly by falling on the rear of San Marcial, or meet him at Oyarzun by turning the rocky summit of the Pena de Haya.
Combat of San Marcial. At daylight on theAugust. 31st, Reille, under protection of the French guns, forded the river above Biriatu with two divisions and two pieces of artillery. He quickly seized a detached ridge of inferior height just under San Marcial, and leaving there one brigade as a reserve detached another to attack the Spanish left by a slope which descended in that quarter to the river. Meanwhile with La Martiniere’s division he assailed their right. But the side of the mountain was covered with brushwood and remarkably steep, theSoult’s Official Report, MSS. French troops being ill-managed preserved no order, the supports and the skirmishers mixing in one mass got into confusion, and when two-thirds of the height were gained the Spaniards charged in columns and drove the assailants headlong down.
During this action two bridges were thrown, partly on trestles partly on boats, below the fords, and the head of Villatte’s reserve crossing ascended the ridge and renewed the fight more vigorously; one brigade even reached the chapel of San Marcial and the left of the Spanish line was shaken, but the eighty-fifth regiment belonging to lord Aylmer’s brigade advanced a little way to support it, and at that moment lord Wellington rode up with his staff. Then the Spaniards who cared so little for their own officers, with that noble instinct which never abandons the poor people of any country acknowledged real greatness without reference to nation, and shouting aloud dashed their adversaries down with so much violence that many were driven into the river, and some of the French pontoon boats coming to their succour were overloaded and sunk. It was several hours before the broken and confused masses could be rallied and the bridges, which had been broken up to let the boats save the drowning men, repaired. When this was effected, Soult who overlooked the action from the summit of the mountain Louis XIV., sent the remainder of Villatte’s reserve over the river, and calling up Foy’s division prepared a more formidable and better arranged attack; and he expected greater success, inasmuch as the operation from the side of Vera, of which it is time to treat, was now making considerable progress up the Pena de Haya on the allies’ right.
Combat of Vera. General Clauzel had descended the Bayonette and Commissari mountains immediately after day-break, under cover of a thick fog, but at seven o’clock the weather cleared, and three divisions formed in heavy columns were seen, by the troops on Santa Barbara, making for the fords below Vera in the direction of two hamlets called the Salinas and the Bario de Lesaca. A fourth division and the guns remained stationary on the slopes of the mountain, and the artillery opened now and then upon the little town of Vera, from which the picquets of the light division were recalled with exception of one post in a fortified house commanding the bridge.
About eight o’clock the enemy’s columns began to pass the fords covered by the fire of their artillery, but the first shells thrown fell into the midst of their own ranks and the British troops on Santa Barbara cheered the French battery with a derisive shout. Their march was however sure, and a battalion of chosen light troops, without knapsacks, quickly commenced the battle on the left bankSoult’s Correspondence, MSS. of the river, with the Portuguese brigade, and by their extreme activity and rapid fire forced the latter to retire up the slopes of the mountain. General Inglis then reinforced the line of skirmishersManuscript Memoir by general Inglis. and the whole of his brigade was soon afterwards engaged, but Clauzel menaced his left flank from the lower ford, and the French troops still forced their way upwards in front without a check, until the whole mass disappeared fighting amidst the asperities of the Pena de la Haya. Inglis lost two hundred and seventy men and twenty-two officers, but he finally halted on a ridge commanding the intersection of the roads leading from Vera and Lesaca to Irun and Oyarzun. That is to say somewhat below the foundry of Antonio, where the fourth division, having now recovered its Portuguese brigade, was, in conjunction with Longa’s Spaniards, so placed as to support and protect equally the left of Inglis and the right of Freyre on San Marcial.
These operations, from the great height and asperity of the mountain, occupied many hours, and it was past two o’clock before even the head of Clauzel’s columns reached this point. Meanwhile as the French troops left in front of Santa Barbara made no movement, and lord Wellington had before directed the light division to aid general Inglis, a wing of the forty-third and three companies of the riflemen from general Kempt’s brigade, with three weak Spanish battalions drawn from O’Donnel’s Andalusians at Echallar, crossed the Bidassoa by the Lesaca bridge, and marched towards some lower slopes on the right of Inglis where they covered another knot of minor communications coming from Lesaca and Vera. They were followed by the remainder of Kempt’s brigade which occupied Lesaca itself, and thus the chain of connection and defence between Santa Barbara and the positions of the fourth division on the Pena de la Haya was completed.
Clauzel seeing these movements, and thinking the allies at Echallar and Santa Barbara wereClauzel’s Official Report, MSS. only awaiting the proper moment to take him in flank and rear, by the bridges of Vera and Lesaca, if he engaged further up the mountain, now abated his battle and sent notice of his situation and views to Soult. This opinion was well-founded; lord Wellington was not a general to let half his army be paralyzed by D’Erlon’s divisions. On the 30th, when he observed Soult’s first preparations in front of San Marcial, he had ordered attacks to be made upon D’Erlon from the Puerto of Echallar Zagaramurdi and Maya; general Hill was also directed to shew the heads of columns towards St. Jean Pied de Port. And on the 31st when the force and direction of Clauzel’s columns were known, he ordered lord Dalhousie to bring the remainder of the seventh division by Lesaca to aid Inglis.
Following these orders Giron, who commanded the Spaniards O’Donnel being sick, slightly skirmished on the 30th with Conroux’s advanced posts in front of Sarre, and on the 31st at day-break the whole of the French line was assailed. That is to say, Giron again fought with Conroux, feebly as before, but two Portuguese brigades of the sixth and seventh divisions, directed by lord Dalhousie and general Colville from the passes of Zagaramurdi and Maya, drove the French from their camp behind Urdax and burned it. Abbé who commanded there being thus pressed, collected his whole force in front of Ainhoa on an entrenched position, and making strong battle repulsed the allies with some loss of men by the sixth division. Thus five combats were fought in one day at different points of the general line, and D’Erlon, who had lost three or four hundred men, seeing a fresh column coming from Maya as if to turn his left, judged that a great movement against Bayonne was in progress and sent notice to Soult. He was mistaken. Lord Wellington being entirely on the defensive, only sought by these demonstrations to disturb the plan of attack, and the seventh division, following the second order sent to lord Dalhousie, marched towards Lesaca; but the fighting at Urdax having lasted until mid-day the movement was not completed that evening.
D’Erlon’s despatch reached Soult at the same time that Clauzel’s report arrived. All his arrangements for a final attack on San Marcial were then completed, but these reports and the ominous cannonade at San Sebastian, plainly heard during the morning, induced him to abandon this object and hold his army ready for a general battle on the Nivelle. In this view he sent Foy’s division which had not yet crossed the Bidassoa to the heights of Serres, behind the Nivelle, as a support to D’Erlon, and caused six chosen troops of dragoons to march upon San Pé higher up on that river. Clauzel received orders to arrest his attack and repass the Bidassoa in the night. He was to leave Maransin’s division upon the Bayonette mountain and the Col de Bera, and with the other three divisions to march by Ascain and join Foy on the heights of Serres.
Notwithstanding these movements Soult kept Reille’s troops beyond the Bidassoa, and the battle went on sharply, for the Spaniards continually detached men from the ridge, endeavouring to drive the French from the lower positions into the river, until about four o’clock when their hardihood abating they desired to be relieved; but Wellington careful of their glory seeing the French attacks were exhausted and thinking it a good opportunity to fix the military spirit of his allies, refused to relieve or to aid them; yet it would not be just to measure their valour by this fact. The English general blushed while he called upon them to fight, knowing that they had been previously famished by their vile government, and that there were no hospitals to receive no care for them when wounded. The battle was however arrested by a tempest which commencing in the mountains about three o’clock, raged for several hours with wonderful violence. Huge branches were torn from the trees and whirled through the air like feathers on the howling winds, while the thinnest streams swelling into torrents dashed down the mountains, rolling innumerable stones along with a frightful clatter. Amidst this turmoil and under cover of night the French re-crossed the river, and the head-quarters were fixed at St. Jean de Luz.
Clauzel’s retreat was more unhappy. Having received the order to retire early in the evening when the storm had already put an end to all fighting, he repassed the fords in person and before dark at the head of two brigades, ordering general Vandermaesen to follow with the remainder of his divisions. It would appear that he expected no difficulty, since he did not take possession of the bridge of Vera nor of the fortified house covering it; and apparently ignorant of the state of his own troops on theSoult’s Official Report, MSS. other bank of the river occupied himself with suggesting new projects displeasing to Soult. Meanwhile Vandermaesen’s situation became critical. Many of his soldiers attempting to cross were drowned by the rising waters, and finally, unable to effect a passage at the fords, that general marched up the stream to seize the bridge of Vera. His advanced guard surprising a corporal’s picquet rushed over, but was driven back by a rifle company posted in the fortified house. This happened about three o’clock in the morning and the riflemen defended the passage until daylight when a second company and some Portuguese Caçadores came to their aid. But the French reserve left at Vera seeing how matters stood opened a fire of guns against the fortified house from a high rock just above the town, and their skirmishers approached it on the right bank while Vandermaesen plied his musquetry from the left bank. The two rifle captains and many men fell under this cross fire, and the passage was forced, but Vandermaesen urging the attack in person was killed, and more than two hundred of his soldiers were hurt.
Soult now learning from D’Erlon that all offensiveSeptember movements on the side of Maya had ceased at twelve o’clock on the 31st, contemplated another attack on San Marcial, but in the course of the day general Rey’s report of the assault on San SebastianSoult’s Official Correspondence, MSS. reached him, and at the same time he heard that general Hill was in movement on the side of St. Jean Pied de Port. This state of affairs brought reflection. San Sebastian was lost, a fresh attempt to carry off the wasted garrison from the castle would cost five or six thousand good soldiers, and the safety of the whole army would be endangered by pushing headlong amongst the terrible asperities of the crowned mountain. For Wellington could throw his right wing and centre, forming a mass of at least thirty-five thousand men, upon the French left during the action, and he would be nearer to Bayonne than the French right when once the battle was engaged beyond the Lower Bidassoa. The army had lost in the recent actions three thousand six hundred men. General Vandermaesen had been killed, and four others, La Martiniere, Menne, Remond, and Guy, wounded, the first mortally; all the superior officers agreed that a fresh attempt would be most dangerous, and serious losses might draw on an immediate invasion of France before the necessary defensive measures were completed.
Yielding to these reasons he resolved to recover his former positions and thenceforward remain entirely on the defensive, for which his vast knowledge of war, his foresight, his talent for methodical arrangement and his firmness of character, peculiarly fitted him. Twelve battles or combats fought in seven weeks, bore testimony that he had strived hard to regain the offensive for the French army, and willing still to strive if it might be so, he had called upon Suchet to aid him and demanded fresh orders from the emperor; but Suchet helped him not, and Napoleon’s answer indicated at once his own difficulties and his reliance upon the duke of Dalmatia’s capacity and fidelity.
“I have given you my confidence and can add neither to your means nor to your instructions.”
The loss of the allies was one thousand Anglo-Portuguese, and sixteen hundred Spaniards. Wherefore the cost of men on this day, including the storming of San Sebastian, exceeded five thousand, but the battle in no manner disturbed the siege. The French army was powerless against such strong positions. Soult had brought forty-five thousand men to bear in two columns upon a square of less than five miles, and the thirty thousand French actually engaged, were repulsed by ten thousand, for that number only of the allies fought.
But the battle was a half measure and ill-judged on Soult’s part. Lord Wellington’s experience of French warfare, his determined character, coolness and thorough acquaintance with the principles of his art, left no hope that he would suffer two-thirds of his army to be kept in check by D’Erlon’s two divisions; and accordingly, the moment D’Erlon was menaced Soult stopped his own attack to make a counter-movement and deliver a decisive battle on favourable ground. Perhaps his secret hope was to draw his opponent to such a conclusion, but if so, the combat of San Marcial was too dear a price to pay for the chance.
A general who had made up his mind to force a way to San Sebastian, would have organized his rear so that no serious embarrassment could arise from any partial incursions towards Bayonne; he would have concentrated his whole army, and have calculated his attack so as to be felt at San Sebastian before his adversary’s counter-movement could be felt towards Bayonne. In this view D’Erlon’s two divisions should have come in the night of the 30th to Vera, which without weakening the reserve opposed to the light division would have augmented Clauzel’s force by ten thousand men; and on the most important line, because San Marcial offered no front for the action of great numbers, and the secret of mountain warfare is, by surprise or the power of overwhelming numbers, to seize such commanding points as shall force an enemy either to abandon his strong position, or become the assailant to recover those he has thus lost. Now the difficulty of defending the crowned mountain was evinced by the rapid manner in which Clauzel at once gained the ridges as far as the foundry of San Antonio; with ten thousand additional men he might have gained a commanding position on the rear and left flank of San Marcial, and forced the allies to abandon it. That lord Wellington thought himself weak on the Haya mountain is proved by his calling up the seventh division from Echallar, and by his orders to the light division.
Soult’s object was to raise the siege, but his plan involved the risk of having thirty-five thousand of the allies interposed during his attack between him and Bayonne, clearly a more decisive operation than the raising of the siege, therefore the enterprise may be pronounced injudicious. He admitted indeed, that excited to the enterprise, partlyCorrespondence with the minister of war, MSS. by insinuations, whether from the minister of war or his own lieutenants does not appear, partly by a generous repugnance to abandon the brave garrison, he was too precipitate, acting contrary to his judgment; but he was probably tempted by the hope of obtaining at least the camp of San Marcial as a bridge-head, and thus securing a favourable point for after combinations.
Lord Wellington having resolved not to invade France at this time, was unprepared for so great an operation as throwing his right and centre upon Soult’s left; and it is obvious also that on the 30th he expected only a partial attack at San Marcial. The order he first gave to assail D’Erlon’s position, and then the counter-order for the seventh division to come to Lesaca, prove this, because the latter was issued after Clauzel’s numbers and the direction of his attack were ascertained. The efforts of two Portuguese brigades against D’Erlon sufficed therefore to render null the duke of Dalmatia’s great combinations, and his extreme sensitiveness to their operations marks the vice of his own. Here it may be observed, that the movement of the forty-third the rifle companies and the Spaniards, to secure the right flank of Inglis, was ill-arranged. Dispatched by different roads without knowing precisely the point they were to concentrate at, each fell in with the enemy at different places; the Spaniards got under fire and were forced to alter their route; the forty-third companies stumbling on a French division had to fall back half a mile; it was only by thus feeling the enemy at different points that the destined position was at last found, and a disaster was scarcely prevented by the fury of the tempest. Nevertheless those detachments were finally well placed to have struck a blow the next morning, because their post was only half an hour’s march from the high ground behind Vandermaesen’s column when he forced the bridge at Vera, and the firing would have served as a guide. The remainder of Kempt’s brigade could also have moved upon the same point from Lesaca. It is however very difficult to seize such occasions in mountain warfare where so little can be seen of the general state of affairs.
A more obvious advantage was neglected by general Skerrit. The defence of the bridge at Vera by a single company of rifles lasted more than an hour, and four brigades of the enemy, crossing in a tumultuous manner, could not have cleared the narrow passage after it was won in a moment. Lord Wellington’s despatch erroneously describes the French as passing under the fire of great part of general Skerrit’s brigade, whereas that officer remained in order of battle on the lower slopes of Santa Barbara, half a mile distant, and allowed the enemy to escape. It is true that a large mass of French troops were on the counter slopes of the Bayonette mountain, beyond Vera, but the seventh division, being then close to San Barbara, would have prevented any serious disaster if the blow had failed. A great opportunity was certainly lost, but war in rough mountains is generally a series of errors.