CHAPTER V.
Soult was apprehensive for some days that lord1813. October. Wellington would push his offensive operations further, but when he knew by Foy’s reports, andOfficial Correspondence, MSS. by the numbers of the allies assembled on his right, that there was no design of attacking his left, he resumed his labours to advance the works covering St. Jean de Luz. He also kept a vigilant watch from his centre, holding his divisions in readiness to concentrate towards Sarre, and when he saw the heavy masses in his front disperse by degrees into different camps, he directed Clauzel to recover the fort of San Barbe. This work was constructed on a comparatively low ridge barring issue from the gorge leading out of the vale of Vera to Sarre, and it defended the narrow ground between the Rhunes and the Nivelle river. Abandoned on the 8th without reason by the French, since it did not naturally belong to the position of the allies, it was now occupied by a Spanish picquet of forty men. Some battalions were also encamped in a small wood close behind; but many officers and men slept in the fort, and on the night of the 12th, about eleven o’clock, three battalions of Conroux’s division reached the platform on which the fort stood without being perceived. The work was then escaladed, the troops behind it went off in confusion at the first alarm, and two hundred soldiers with fifteen officers were made prisoners. The Spaniards ashamed of the surprize made a vigorous effort to recover the fort at daylight, they were repulsed, and repeated the attempt with five battalions, but Clauzel 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 and the Spaniards to recover the fort. Neither succeeded and San Barbe, too near the enemy’s position to be safely held, was resigned with a loss of two hundred men by the French and five hundred by the Spaniards. Soon after this isolated action a French sloop freighted with stores for Santona attempted to run from St. Jean de Luz, and being chased by three English brigs and cut off from the open sea, her crew after exchanging a few distant shots with one of the brigs, set her on fire and escaped in their 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 sir Rowland 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 lord Wellington joyfully accepted him, observing that he was the “ablest officer in the army.”
The positions of the right and centre were offensive and menacing, but the left was still on the defensive, and the Bidassoa, impassable at high water below the bridge, was close behind. However the ridges were strong, a powerful artillery was established on the right bank, field-works were constructed, and although the fords below Behobia furnished but a dangerous retreat even at low water, those above were always available, and a pontoon bridge laid down for the passage of the guns during the action was a sure resource. The front was along the heights of the Croix des Bouquets facing Urogne and the camp of the Sans Culottes, and there was a reserve in an entrenched camp above Andaya. The right of the line rested on the Mandale, and from that mountain and the Bayonette the allies could descend upon the flank of an attacking army.
Soult had however no intention of renewing the offensive. He had now lost many thousand men in battle, and the old soldiers remaining did not exceed seventy-nine thousand present under arms including officers and artillery-men. Of this number the garrisons absorbed about thirteen thousand, leaving sixty-six thousand in the field, whereas the allies, counting Mina’s and Del Parque’s troops, now at Tudela, Pampeluna, and the Val de Irati, exceeded one hundred thousand, seventy-three[Appendix 7], sect. 2. thousand, including officers, sergeants, and artillery-men, being British and Portuguese. And this was below the calculation of the French general, for deceived by the exaggerated reports which the Spaniards always made of their forces, he thought Del Parque had brought up twenty thousand men and that there were one hundred and forty thousand combatants in his front. But it was not so, and as conscripts of a good description were now joining the French army rapidly, and the national guards of the Pyrenees were many, it was in the number of soldiers rather than of men, that the English general had the advantage.
In this state of affairs Soult’s policy was to maintain a strict defensive, under cover of which the spirit of the troops might be revived, the country in the rear organized, and the conscripts disciplined and hardened to war. The loss of the Lower Bidassoa was in a political view mischievous to him, it had an injurious effect upon the spirit of the frontier departments, and gave encouragement to the secret partizans of the Bourbons; but in a military view it was a relief. The great development of the mountains bordering the Bidassoa had rendered their defence difficult; while holding them he had continual fear that his line would be pierced and his army suddenly driven beyond the Adour. His position was now more concentrated.
The right, under Reille, formed two lines. One across the royal road on the fortified heights of Urogne and the camp of the Sans Culottes; the other in the entrenched camps of Bourdegain andPlan 6. Belchena, covering St. Jean de Luz and barring the gorges of Olhette and Jollimont.
The centre under Clauzel was posted on the ridges between Ascain and Amotz holding the smaller Rhune in advance; but one division was retained by Soult in the camp of Serres on the right of the Nivelle, overhanging Ascain. To replace it one of D’Erlon’s divisions crossed to the left of the Nivelle and reinforced Clauzel’s left flank above Sarre.
Villatte’s reserve was about St. Jean de Luz but having the Italian brigade in the camp of Serres.
D’Erlon’s remaining divisions continued in their old position, the right connected with Clauzel’s line by the bridge of Amotz; the left, holding the Choupera and Mondarin mountains, bordered on the Nive.
Behind Clauzel and D’Erlon Soult had commenced a second chain of entrenched camps, prolonged from the camp of Serres up the right bank of the Nivelle to San Pé, thence by Suraide to the double bridge-head of Cambo on the Nive, and beyond that river to the Ursouia mountain, covering the great road from Bayonne to St. Jean Pied de Port. He had also called general Paris up from Oleron to the defence of the latter fortress and its entrenched camp, and now drew Foy down the Nive to Bidarray half-way between St. Jean Pied de Port and Cambo. There watching the issues from the Val de Baygorry he was ready to occupy the Ursouia mountain on the right of the Nive, or, moving by Cambo, to reinforce the great position on the left of that river according to circumstances.
To complete these immense entrenchments, which between the Nive and the sea were double and on an opening of sixteen miles, the whole army laboured incessantly, and all the resources of the country whether of materials or working men were called out by requisition. Nevertheless this defensive warfare was justly regarded by the duke of Dalmatia as unsuitable to the general state of affairs. Offensive operations were most consonant to the character of the French soldiers, and to the exigencies of the time. Recent experience had shown the impregnable nature of the allies’ positions against a front attack, and he was too weak singly to change the theatre of operations. But when he looked at the strength of the armies appropriated by the emperor to the Spanish contest, he thought France would be ill-served if her generals could not resume the offensive successfully. Suchet had just proved his power at Ordal against lord William Bentinck, and that nobleman’s successor, with inferior rank and power, with an army unpaid and feeding on salt meat from the ships, with jealous and disputing colleagues amongst the Spanish generals, none of whom were willing to act cordially with him upon a fixed and well-considered plan, was in no condition to menace the French seriously. And that he was permitted at this important crisis to paralyze from fifty to sixty thousand excellent French troops possessing all the strong places of the country, was one of the most singular errors of the war.
Exclusive of national guards and detachments of the line, disposed along the whole frontier to guard the passes of the Pyrenees against sudden marauding excursions, the French armies counted at this time about one hundred and seventy thousand men and seventeen thousand horses. Of these one hundred[Appendix 8], sect. 2. and thirty-eight thousand were present under arms, and thirty thousand conscripts were in march to join them. They held all the fortresses of Valencia and Catalonia, and most of those in Aragon Navarre and Guipuscoa, and they could unite behind the Pyrenees for a combined effort in safety. Lord Wellington could not, including the Anglo-Sicilians and all the Spaniards in arms on the eastern coast, bring into line one hundred and fifty thousand men; he had several sieges on his hands, and to unite his forces at any point required great dispositions to avoid an attack during a flank march. Suchet had above thirty thousand disposable men, he could increase them to forty thousand by relinquishing some unimportant posts, his means in artillery were immense, and distributed in all his strong places, so that he could furnish himself from almost any point. It is no exaggeration therefore to say that two hundred pieces of artillery and ninety thousand old soldiers might have united at this period upon the flank of lord Wellington, still leaving thirty thousand conscripts and the national guards of the frontier, supported by the fortresses and entrenched camps of Bayonne and St. Jean Pied de Port, the castles of Navarens and Jaca on one side, and the numerous garrisons of the fortresses in Catalonia on the other, to cover France from invasion.
To make this great power bear in a right direction was the duke of Dalmatia’s object, and his plans were large, and worthy of his reputation. Yet he could never persuade Suchet to adopt his projects, and that marshal’s resistance would appear to have sprung from personal dislike contracted during Soult’s sojourn near Valencia in 1812. It has been already shown how lightly he abandoned Aragon and confined himself to Catalonia after quitting Valencia. He did not indeed then know that Soult had assumed the command of the army of Spain and was preparing for his great effort to relieve Pampeluna; but he was aware that Clauzel and Paris were on the side of Jaca, and he was too good a general not to know that operating on the allies’ flank was the best mode of palliating the defeat of Vittoria. He might have saved both his garrison and castle of Zaragoza; the guns and other materials of a very large field-artillery equipment were deposited there, and from thence, by Jaca, he could have opened a sure and short communication with Soult, obtained information of that general’s projects, and saved Pampeluna.
It may be asked why the duke of Dalmatia did not endeavour to communicate with Suchet. The reason was simple. The former quitted Dresden suddenly on the 4th of July, reached Bayonne the 12th, and on the 20th his troops were in full march towards St. Jean Pied de Port, and it was during this very rapid journey that the other marshal abandoned Valencia. Soult therefore knew neither Suchet’s plans nor the force of his army, nor his movements, nor his actual position, and there was no time to wait for accurate information. However between the 6th and the 16th of August, that is to say, immediately after his own retreat from Sauroren, he earnestly prayed that the army of Aragon should march upon Zaragoza, open a communication by Jaca, and thus drawing off some of Wellington’s forces facilitate the efforts of the army of Spain to relieve San Sebastian. In this communication he stated, that his recent operations had caused troops actually in march under general Hill towards Catalonia to be recalled. This was an error. His emissaries were deceived by the movements, and counter-movements in pursuit of Clauzel immediately after the battle of Vittoria, and by the change in Wellington’s plans as to the siege of Pampeluna. No troops were sent towards Catalonia, but it is remarkable that Picton, Hill, Graham, and the Conde de La Bispal were all mentioned, in this correspondence between Soult and Suchet, as being actually in Catalonia, or on the march, the three first having been really sounded as to taking the command in that quarter, and the last having demanded it himself.
Suchet treated Soult’s proposal as chimerical. His movable troops he said did not exceed eleven thousand, and a march upon Zaragoza with so few men would be to renew the disaster of Baylen, unless he could fly into France by Venasque where he had a garrison. An extraordinary view of affairs which he supported by statements still more extraordinary!
“General Hill had joined lord William Bentinck with twenty-four thousand men.” “La Bispal had arrived with fifteen thousand.” “There were more than two hundred thousand men on the Ebro.” “The Spanish insurrection was general and strongly organized.” “He had recovered the garrison of Taragona and destroyed the works, and he must revictual Barcelona and then withdraw to the vicinity of Gerona and remain on the defensive”!
This letter was written on the 23d of August, when lord William Bentinck had just retreated from the Gaya into the mountains above Hospitalet. The imperial muster-rolls prove that the two armies of Catalonia and Aragon, both under his command,[Appendix 8], Sect. 2. exceeded sixty-five thousand men, fifty-six thousand being present under arms. Thirty thousand were united in the field when he received Soult’s letter. There was nothing to prevent him marching upon Tortoza, except lord William Bentinck’s army which had just acknowledged by a retreat its inability to cope with him; there was nothing at all to prevent him marching to Lerida. The count of Bispal had thrown up his command from bad health, leaving his troops under Giron on the Echallar mountains. Sir Rowland Hill was at Roncesvalles, and not a man had moved from Wellington’s army. Elio and Roche were near Valencia in a starving condition. The Anglo-Sicilian troops only fourteen thousand strong including Whittingham’s division, were on the barren mountains above Hospitalet, where no Spanish army could remain; Del Parque’s troops and Sarzfield’s division had gone over the Ebro, and Copons’ Catalans had taken refuge in the mountains of Cervera. In fine not two hundred thousand but less than thirty-five thousand men, half-organized ill-fed and scattered from Vich to Vinaros were opposed to Suchet; and their generals had different views and different lines of operations. The Anglo-Sicilians could not abandon the coast, Copons could not abandon the mountains. Del Parque’s troops soon afterwards marched to Navarre, and to use lord Wellington’s phrase there was nothing to prevent Suchet “tumbling lord William Bentinck back even to the Xucar.” The true nature of the great insurrection which the French general pretended to dread shall be shown when the political condition of Spain is treated of.
Suchet’s errors respecting the allies were easily detected by Soult, those touching the French in Catalonia he could not suspect and acquiesced in the objections to his first plan; but fertile of resource he immediately proposed another, akin to that which he had urged Joseph to adopt in 1812 after the battle of Salamanca, namely, to change the theatre of war. The fortresses in Spain would he said, inevitably fall before the allies in succession if the French armies remained on the defensive, and the only mode of rendering offensive operations successful was a general concentration of means and unity of action. The levy of conscripts under an imperial decree, issued in August, would furnish, in conjunction with the depôts of the interior, a reinforcement of forty thousand men. Ten thousand would form a sufficient corps of observation about Gerona. The armies of Aragon and Catalonia could, he hoped, by sacrificing some posts produce twenty thousand infantry in the field. The imperial muster-rolls prove that they could have produced forty thousand, but Soult misled by Suchet’s erroneous statements assumed only twenty thousand, and he calculated that he could himself bring thirty-five or forty thousand good infantry and all his cavalry to a given point of junction for the two bodies between Tarbes and Pau. Fifteen thousand of the remaining conscripts were also to be directed on that place, and thus seventy or seventy-five thousand infantry all the cavalry of both armies and one hundred guns, would be suddenly assembled, to thread the narrow pass of Jaca and descend upon Aragon. Once in that kingdom they could attack the allied troops in Navarre if the latter were dispersed, and if they were united retire upon Zaragoza, there to fix a solid base and deliver a general battle upon the new line of operations. Meanwhile the fifteen thousand unappropriated conscripts might reinforce the twenty or twenty-five thousand old soldiers left to cover Bayonne.
An army so great and strongly constituted appearing in Aragon would, Soult argued, necessarily raise the blockades of Pampeluna, Jaca, Fraga, and Monzon, the two last being now menaced by the bands, and it was probable that Tortoza and even Saguntum would be relieved. The great difficulty was to pass the guns by Jaca, yet he was resolved to try, even though he should convey them upon trucks to be made in Paris and sent by post to Pau. He anticipated no serious inconvenience from the union of the troops in France since Suchet had already declared his intention of retiring towards Gerona; and on the Bayonne side the army to be left there could dispute the entrenched line between Cambo and St. Jean de Luz. If driven from thence it could take a flanking position behind the Nive, the right resting upon the entrenched camp of Bayonne, the left upon the works at Cambo and holding communication by the fortified mountain of Ursouia with St. Jean Pied de Port. But there could be little fear for this secondary force when the great army was once in Aragon. That which he most dreaded was delay, because a fall of snow, always to be expected after the middle of October, would entirely close the pass of Jaca.
This proposition written the 2d of September, immediately after the battle of San Marcial, reached Suchet the 11th and was peremptorily rejected. If he withdrew from Catalonia discouragement, he said, would spread, desertion would commence, and France be immediately invaded by lord William Bentinck at the head of fifty thousand men. The pass of Jaca was impracticable and the power of man could not open it for carriages under a year’s labour. His wish was to act on the defensive, but if an offensive movement was absolutely necessary, he offered a counter-project; that is, he would first make the English in his front re-embark at Taragona, or he would drive them over the Ebro and then march with one hundred guns and thirty thousand men by Lerida to the Gallego river near Zaragoza. Soult’s army, coming by Jaca without guns, might there meet him, and the united forces could then do what was fitting. But to effect this he required a reinforcement of conscripts, and to have Paris’s division and the artillery-men and draft horses of Soult’s army sent to Catalonia; he demanded also that two thousand bullocks for the subsistence of his troops should be provided to meet him on the Gallego. Then touching upon the difficulties of the road from Sanguessa to Pampeluna, he declared, that after forcing Wellington across the Ebro, he would return to Catalonia to revictual his fortresses and prevent an invasion of France. This plan he judged far less dangerous than Soult’s, yet he enlarged upon its difficulties and its dangers if the combined movements were not exactly executed. In fine, he continued, “The French armies are entangled amongst rocks, and the emperor should direct a third army upon Spain, to act between the Pyrenees and the Ebro in the centre, while the army of Spain sixty thousand strong and that of Aragon thirty thousand strong operate on the flanks. Thus the reputation of the English army, too easily acquired at Salamanca and Vittoria, will be abated.”
This illiberal remark combined with the defects of his project, proves that the duke of Albufera was far below the duke of Dalmatia’s standard both in magnanimity and in capacity. The one giving his adversary just praise, thought the force already supplied by the emperor sufficient to dispute for victory; the other, with an unseemly boast, desired overwhelming numbers.
Soult’s letter reached Suchet the day before the combat of Ordal, and in pursuance of his own plan he should have driven lord William Bentinck over the Ebro, as he could well have done, because the Catalan troops there separated from the Anglo-Sicilians. In his former letters he had estimated the enemies in his front at two hundred thousand fighting men, and affirmed that his own disposable force was only eleven thousand, giving that as a reason why he could not march to Aragon. Now, forgetful of his previous objections and estimates, he admitted that he had thirty thousand disposable troops, and proposed the very movement which he had rejected as madness when suggested by the duke of Dalmatia. And the futility of his arguments relative to the general discouragement, the desertion of his soldiers, and the temptation to an invasion of France if he adopted Soult’s plan, is apparent; for these things could only happen on the supposition that he was retreating from weakness, a notion which would have effectually covered the real design until the great movement in advance should change the public opinion. Soult’s plan was surer better imagined and grander than his; it was less dangerous in the event of failure and more conformable to military principles. Suchet’s project involved double lines of operation without any sure communications, and consequently without any certainty of just co-operation; his point of junction was within the enemy’s power, and the principal army was to be deprived of its artillery. There was no solidity in this design; a failure would have left no resource. But in Soult’s project the armies were to be united at a point beyond the enemy’s reach, and to operate afterwards in mass with all arms complete, which was conformable to the principles of war. Suchet indeed averred the impracticability of moving the guns by Jaca, yet Soult’s counter-opinion claims more respect. Clauzel and Paris who had lately passed with troops through that defile were in his camp, he had besides made very exact inquiries of the country people, had caused the civil engineers of roads and bridges on the frontiers to examine the route, and from their reports he judged the difficulty to be not insurmountable.
Neither the inconsistency, nor the exaggerations of Suchet’s statements, escaped Soult’s observation, but anxious to effect something while Pampeluna still held out, and the season permitted operations in the mountains he frankly accepted the other’s modification, and adopted every stipulation, save that of sending the artillery-men and horses of his army to Catalonia which he considered dangerous. Moreover he doubted not to pass his own guns by Jaca. The preparations for this great movement were therefore immediately commenced, and Suchet on his part seemed equally earnest although he complained of increasing difficulties, pretended that Longa’s and Morillo’s divisions had arrived in Catalonia, that general Graham was also in march with troops to that quarter, and deplored the loss of Fraga from whence the Empecinado had just driven his garrison. This post commanded indeed a bridge over the Cinca a river lying in his way and dangerous from its sudden and great floods but he still possessed the bridge of Monzon.
During this correspondence between the French marshals, Napoleon remained silent, yet at a later period he expressed his discontent at Suchet’s inactivity, and indirectly approved of Soult’s plans by recommending a movement towards Zaragoza which Suchet however did not execute. It would appear that the emperor having given all the reinforcements he could spare, and full powers to both marshals to act as they judged fitting for his service, would not, at a distance and while engaged in such vast operations as those he was carrying on at Dresden, decide so important a question. The vigorous execution essential to success was not to be expected if either marshal acted under constraint and against his own opinion; Soult had adopted Suchet’s modification and it would have been unwise to substitute a new plan which would have probably displeased both commanders. Meanwhile Wellington passed the Bidassoa, and Suchet’s project was annulled by the approach of winter and by the further operations of the allies.
If the plan of uniting the two armies in Aragon had been happily achieved, it would certainly have forced Wellington to repass the Ebro or fight a great battle with an army much less strongly constituted than the French army. If he chose the latter, victory would have profited him little, because his enemy strong in cavalry could have easily retired on the fortresses of Catalonia. If he received a check he must have gone over the Ebro, perhaps back to Portugal, and the French would have recovered Aragon, Navarre, and Valencia. It is not probable however that such a great operation could have been conducted without being discovered in time by Wellington. It has been already indicated in this History, that besides the ordinary spies and modes of gaining intelligence employed by all generals, he had secret emissaries amongst Joseph’s courtiers, and even amongst French officers of rank; and it has been shown that Soult vainly endeavoured to surprise him on the 31st of August when the combinations were only two days old. It is true that the retreat of Suchet from Catalonia and his junction with Soult in France at the moment when Napoleon was pressed in Germany, together with the known difficulty of passing guns by Jaca, would naturally have led to the belief that it was a movement of retreat and fear; nevertheless the secret must have been known to more than one person about each marshal, and the English general certainly had agents who were little suspected. Soult would however still have had the power of returning to his old positions, and, with his numbers increased by Suchet’s troops, could have repeated his former attack by the Roncesvalles. It might be that his secret design was thus to involve that marshal in his operations, and being disappointed he was not very eager to adopt the modified plan of the latter, which the approach of the bad season, and the menacing position of Wellington, rendered each day less promising. His own project was hardy, and dangerous for the allies, and well did it prove lord Wellington’s profound acquaintance with his art. For he had entered France only in compliance with the wishes of the allied sovereigns, and always watched closely for Suchet, averring that the true military line of operations was towards Aragon and Catalonia. Being now however actually established in France, and the war in Germany having taken a favourable turn for the allies, he resolved to continue the operations on his actual front awaiting only the
FALL OF PAMPELUNA.
This event was produced by a long blockade,September. less fertile of incident than the siege of San Sebastian yet very honourable to the firmness of the governor general Cassan.
The town, containing fifteen thousand inhabitants, stood on a bold table-land on which a number of valleys opened, and where the great roads, coming from St. Jean Pied de Port, Sanguessa, Tudela, Estella, Vittoria, and Irurzun, were concentrated. The northern and eastern fronts of the fortress were covered by the Arga, and the defences there consisted of simple walls edging the perpendicular rocky bank of the river, but the other fronts were regularly fortified with ditches, covered way, and half-moons. Two bad unfinished outworks were constructed on the south front, but the citadel which stood on the south west was a regular pentagon, with bomb-proofs and magazines, vaulted barracks for a thousand men, and a complete system of mines.
Pampeluna had been partially blockaded by Mina for eighteen months previous to the battle of Vittoria, and when Joseph arrived after the action, the place was badly provisioned. The stragglers of his army increased the garrison to something more than three thousand five hundred men of all arms, who were immediately invested by the allies. Many of the inhabitants went off during the short interval between the king’s arrival and departure, and general Cassan, finding his troops too few for action and yet too many for the food, abandoned the two outworks on the south, demolished everything which could interfere with his defence outside, and commenced such works as he deemed necessary to improve it inside. Moreover foreseeing that the French army might possibly make a sudden march without guns to succour the garrison, he prepared a field-train of forty pieces to meet the occasion.
It has been already shown that Wellington,July. although at first inclined to besiege Pampeluna, finally established a blockade and ordered works of contravallation to be constructed. Cassan’s chief object was then to obtain provisions, and on the 28th and 30th of June he sustained actions outside the place to cover his foragers. On the 1st of July he burned the suburb of Madalina, beyond the river Arga, and forced many inhabitants to quit the place before the blockaders’ works were completed. Skirmishes now occurred almost daily, the French always seeking to gather the grain, and vegetables which were ripe and abundant beyond the walls, and the allies endeavouring to set fire to the standing corn within range of the guns of the fortress.
On the 14th of July, O’Donnel’s Andalusians were permanently established as the blockading force, and the next day the garrison made a successful forage on the south side of the town. This operation was repeated towards the east beyond the Arga on the 19th, when a sharp engagement of cavalry took place, during which the remainder of the garrison carried away a great deal of corn.
The 26th the sound of Soult’s artillery reached the place, and Cassan, judging rightly that the marshal was in march to succour Pampeluna, made a sally in the night by the Roncesvalles road; he was driven back, but the next morning he came out again with eleven hundred men and two guns, overthrew the Spanish outguards, and advanced towards Villalba at the moment when Picton was falling back with the third and fourth divisions. Then O’Donnel, as I have before related, evacuated some of the entrenchments, destroyed a great deal of ammunition, spiked a number of guns, and but for the timely arrival of Carlos D’España’s division, and the stand made by Picton at Huarte, would have abandoned the blockade altogether.
Soon the battle on the mountains of Oricain commenced, the smoke rose over the intervening heights of Escava and San Miguel, the French cavalry appeared on the slopes above El Cano, and the baggage of the allies was seen filing in the opposite direction by Berioplano along the road of Irurzun. The garrison thought deliverance sure, and having reaped a good harvest withdrew into the place. The bivouac fires of the French army cheered them during the night, and the next morning a fresh sally being made with the greatest confidence, a great deal of corn was gathered with little loss of men. Several deserters from the foreign regiments in the English service also came over with intelligence exaggerated and coloured after the manner of such men, and the French re-entered the place elated with hope; but in the evening the sound of the conflict ceased and the silence of the next day shewed that the battle was not to the advantage of Soult. However the governor losing no time made another sally and again obtained provisions from the south side.
The 30th the battle recommenced but the retreating fire of the French told how the conflict was decided and the spirit of the soldiers fell. Nevertheless their indefatigable officers led another sally on the south side, whence they carried off grain and some ammunition which had been left in one of the abandoned outworks.
On the 31st Carlos D’España’s troops and two thousand of O’Donnel’s Andalusians, in all about seven thousand men, resumed the blockade, and maintained it until the middle of September, whenSeptember. the Prince of Anglona’s division of Del Parque’s army, relieved the Andalusians who rejoined their own corps near Echallar. The allies’ works of contravallation were now augmented, and when Paris retired into France from Jaca, part of Mina’s troops occupied the valleys leading from the side of Sanguessa to Pampeluna and made entrenchments to bar the escape of the garrison that way.
In October Cassan put his fighting men upon rations of horse-flesh, four ounces to each, with some rice, and he turned more families out of the town, but this time they were fired upon by their countrymen and forced to re-enter.
On the 9th of September baron Maucune, who had conducted most of the sallies during the blockade, attacked and carried some fortified houses on the east side of the place; he was immediately assailed by the Spanish cavalry, but he beat them and pursued the fugitives close to Villalba. Carlos D’España then advanced to their aid in person with a greater body and the French were driven in with the loss of eighty men, yet the Spaniards lost a far greater number, Carlos D’España himself was wounded, and the garrison obtained some corn which was their principal object.
The soldiers were now feeding on rats and other disgusting animals; seeking also for roots beyond the walls many in their hunger poisoned themselves with hemlock, and a number of others unable to bear their misery deserted. In this state CassanOctober. made a general sally on the 10th of October, to ascertain the strength of the lines around him, with a view to breaking through, but after some fighting, his troops were driven in with the loss of seventy men and all hope of escape vanished. Yet he still spoke of attempting it, and the public manner in which he increased the mines under the citadel induced Wellington to reinforce the blockade, and to bring up his cavalry into the vicinity of Pampeluna.
The scurvy now invaded the garrison. One thousand men were sick, eight hundred had been wounded, the deaths by battle and disease exceeded four hundred, one hundred and twenty had deserted, and the governor moved by the great misery, offered on the 26th to surrender if he was allowed to retire into France with his troops and six pieces of cannon. This being refused he proposed to yield on condition of not serving for a year and a day, which being also denied, he broke off the negociation, giving out that he would blow up the works of the fortress and break through the blockade. To deter him a menacing letter was thrown to his outposts, and lord Wellington being informed of his design denounced it as contrary to the laws of war, and directed Carlos D’España to put him, all his officers and non-commissioned officers, and a tenth of the soldiers to death when the place should be taken if any damage were done to the works.
Cassan’s object being merely to obtain better terms this order remained dormant, and happily so, for the execution would never have borne the test of public opinion. To destroy the works of Pampeluna and break through the blockading force, as Brennier did at Almeida, would have been a very noble exploit, and a useful one for the French army if Soult’s plan of changing the theatre of war by descending into Aragon had been followed. There could therefore be nothing contrary to the laws of war in a resolute action of that nature. On the other hand if the governor, having no chance whatever of success, made a hopeless attempt the pretence for destroying a great fortress belonging to the Spaniards and depriving the allies of the fruits of their long blockade and glorious battles, the conquerors might have justly exercised that severe but undoubted right of war, refusing quarter to an enemy. But lord Wellington’s letter to D’España involved another question, namely the putting of prisoners to death. For the soldiers could not be decimated until captured, and their crime would have been only obedience to orders in a matter of which they dared not judge. This would have been quite contrary to the usages of civilized nations, and the threat must undoubtedly be considered only as a device to save the works of Pampeluna and to avoid the odium of refusing quarter.
A few days longer the governor and garrison endured their distress and then capitulated, having defended themselves more than four months with great constancy. The officers and soldiers became prisoners of war. The first were allowed to keep their arms and baggage, the second their knapsacks, expressly on the ground that they had treated the inhabitants well during the investment. This compliment was honourable to both sides, but there was another article, enforced by D’España without being accepted by the garrison, for which it is difficult to assign any motive but the vindictive ferocity of the Spanish character. No person of either sex was permitted to follow the French troops, and women’s affections were thus barbarously brought under the action of the sword.
There was no stronghold now retained by the French in the north of Spain except Santona, and as the blockade of that place had been exceedingly tedious, lord Wellington, whose sea communications were interrupted by the privateers from thence, formed a small British corps under lord Aylmer with a view to attack Laredo, which being on the opposite point of the harbour to Santona commanded the anchorage. Accidental circumstances however prevented this body from proceeding to its destination and Santona remained in the enemy’s possession. With this exception the contest in the northern parts of Spain was terminated and the south of France was now to be invaded; but it is fitting first to show with what great political labour Wellington brought the war to this state, what contemptible actions and sentiments, what a faithless alliance, and what vile governments his dazzling glory hid from the sight of the world.