The French, pursued vigorously by the 4th and 7th Divisions, crossed the river by the various bridges, and took up positions on the heights above St Pé, whereupon Wellington, halting the other divisions, pushed the 3rd and the 7th across the river against Maransin's French division, which stood its ground and fought desperately. "After a hard struggle, in which General Inglis was wounded, and the 51st and 68th Regiments were handled very roughly,"[77] the attack succeeded, and Maransin's troops were put to flight. Thus, at nightfall, when darkness put an end to the fight, the British had established themselves in rear of the French right, and Wellington had reason to be proud of the valour of his troops. In his despatch he included the following: "I likewise particularly observed the gallant conduct of the 51st and 68th Regiments under command of Major Rice and Lieut.-Colonel Hawkins, in Major-General Inglis's brigade, in the attack of the heights above St Pé, in the afternoon of the 10th." On this day the 51st lost two officers and twenty-two men killed, two officers and seventy-three men wounded, and one officer (Captain Phelps) taken prisoner. "Major Rice," says the 'Records of the 51st Regiment,' "commanding the regiment on this occasion in the absence of Colonel Mitchell, detained at Echallar by sickness, was rewarded for his bravery by a lieutenant-colonelcy and the Gold Medal."
The Peninsular Gold Medal was a much-coveted decoration, for it was given sparingly, and only to selected officers, for certain engagements. No officer could claim the right to receive it, but as the war progressed regulations were issued from time to time, and recommendations for the decoration were restricted to certain ranks for the satisfactory performance of certain duties. It must be remembered that, at the commencement of the Peninsular War, medals were almost unknown in the British army. A few had been struck to commemorate great naval victories, but they were bestowed at first only on the chief commanders, though towards the close of the eighteenth century a wider distribution was made to the navy and marines. Soldiers, however, knew nothing of medals, and even Sir John Moore, with all his war service, died without ever having received a medal.[78] The suggestion of granting medals to officers engaged in the war in the Peninsula probably came from Sir Arthur Wellesley, who had recently come from India, where the Honourable East India Company was accustomed to issue medals to all its native troops for the various Indian wars. Gold medals in two sizes were therefore struck and granted to senior officers, the larger medals being given to generals and the smaller to other officers, as a rule not below the rank of major. On one side of the medal was the name of the action for which it was granted, and on the principle of bis dat qui cito dat, the medals were distributed as soon as possible after the action, being sent out for the purpose to the seat of war.
As time went on senior officers began to accumulate many medals, since they received one for each great battle or siege; and the authorities deemed it advisable to issue no more than one medal to an officer, engraving upon it subsequently the names of all the general actions at which he was present. Presently a fresh difficulty arose: the actions became too numerous to admit of their names being engraved on the limited space of the medal; so, eventually, in 1813, regulations concerning the issue of gold medals were finally approved. It was then laid down that an officer should wear only one gold medal, upon which should be engraved the first action in which he was engaged; that for the second and third action he should receive gold clasps, inscribed with the names of the actions. The fourth action entitled the officer to the Gold Cross, upon which were engraved all four actions, and which was to be worn in substitution of the gold medal and clasps previously received; and gold clasps were added to the ribbon of the gold cross for each subsequent action after the original four.
As far as regimental officers were concerned, the commanding officer of a full battalion present in an action for which a commemorative medal was struck[79] was usually recommended for the smaller gold medal (or clasp if he was already in possession of the medal), even though he might have been a major temporarily in command. As a rule, no other regimental officer received the medal for services performed as such, but occasionally a major or a captain was given the decoration for some particularly brilliant service, for which nowadays he would be awarded the V.C. or the D.S.O. But anything like a general distribution of medals to every one engaged was not given a thought; in fact the idea of wearing medals at all was so new that the majority of officers and men of the army regarded such things as far beyond their reach; and it was not until after the issue of a silver medal to all ranks of the army present at Waterloo, that Peninsular veterans began to consider themselves slighted. Yet for upwards of thirty years they agitated in vain, and only in 1848 was justice done to them by the issue of a silver medal, with clasps. Probably, by that time, the greater number of these brave men had passed away, for, between 1808 and 1848, thousands had been killed in action, died of wounds or of disease contracted on active service, died in afterlife from the effects of exposure and hardships during long years of campaigning, or died of old age.
The regimental officers, perhaps, felt the non-recognition of their services more than did the men, for they argued that they had shared in many Peninsular victories as hard-fought as Waterloo, and had nothing to show for them except the scars on their bodies. And they felt the injustice the more when they remembered the manner in which the gold medal had been awarded. Almost every officer on the staff—even the most junior in field rank—had received it as a matter of course; but no such generosity had been extended to regimental officers, few of whom had been able to fulfil the qualifications prescribed by the authorities. There were captains and subalterns who had fought in battles and sieges innumerable, often severely wounded and even maimed for life, yet who went undecorated; while there were majors, perhaps but once engaged, who, by a stroke of fortune, brought their regiments out of action, and thereby qualified for recommendation for the gold medal. Major Sam Rice, however, was not one of these, for he had seen as much service as any officer of the 51st. Still, but for the temporary illness of his commanding officer, his Peninsular services would have gone unrewarded.
After the battle of the Nivelle, Soult withdrew his main body to the entrenched camp at Bayonne. He destroyed the bridge at Ustaritz, and disposed his troops along the right bank of the river Nive, so as to watch all the other crossings. The weather favoured him; for, throughout the next eight days, rain fell incessantly, the river came down in flood, and the roads, knee-deep in mud and slush, were practically impassable, so that Wellington was restrained from following up his victory. Further circumstances, moreover, forced delay upon him: the Spanish troops, elated at the invasion of France, murdered and pillaged the unfortunate inhabitants far and wide, and so incensed was Wellington at their conduct that he forthwith put to death all whom he took red-handed, and sent the Spanish divisions, composed of some 25,000 men, back across the frontier, to their own country, although by so doing he foresaw the possibility of serious trouble with the Spanish Government.
Wellington now felt his way cautiously, his available troops being too few to run any great risks, and he would not have moved forward immediately except for the fact that the enemy still had a footing at one point on the left bank of the Nive. This was at the Cambo bridge, which, covered by a bridge-head on the left bank, was a source of grave concern to the British commander, since its possession could be taken advantage of by Soult to launch an attack on Wellington's right flank. On the 16th November, therefore, Hill was ordered to move out and threaten the bridge-head, an operation which was completely successful, as the enemy made no stand, but, blowing up the bridge-head and the bridge, evacuated the left bank of the river at the first sight of Hill's reconnaissance. With the Nive between his right flank and the French, Wellington knew that he could bide his time, and complete his preparations for a further advance. And it was nearly a month before he pushed on again.
Between the 8th and 13th December the fighting was heavy and almost continuous, but the 51st saw little of it, being moved about from point to point, in reserve, and being brought up at the concluding action at St Pierre only when the day had been won. But in these stoutly contested battles before Bayonne, otherwise known as the "Battles of the Nive," the Anglo-Portuguese force had met with great successes, had crossed that river, and had pushed the enemy back upon Bayonne, thus earning the well-merited praise of its commander, who himself averred that, had he gone against his conscience and brought up the 25,000 disgraced Spaniards, he would have carried Bayonne and driven Soult's army to the winds. As it was, he held the line which he had gained until he opened the campaign of 1814, and commenced the final phase of the long war.
At the time Wellington had the unpleasant feeling that the Spanish Government, smarting under the insult which had been offered to the national army, would join the French, and force the British commander to fight for the embarkation of his army. Within the next few weeks, however, the political situation cleared up, and Soult began to suffer from the calls made upon him by Napoleon to supply reinforcements for the army with which he was endeavouring to stem the tide of German invasion on the eastern frontiers of France. Soult still held the fortress of Bayonne, standing at the confluence of the Nive with the Adour, and up-stream from Bayonne he held the right bank of the Adour as far as the mouth of the river Bidouse, whence his line, bending southwards almost at right angles, followed the right bank of the latter river. Wellington's immediate objective was Bayonne, the investment of which place he had determined to effect at once, and for this purpose it was necessary to throw a portion of his army across the Adour. With the sea at his command, he decided to cross the river below Bayonne, and in order to distract Soult's attention from that direction he threatened the French centre and left, about the upper Adour and Bidouse, with all the troops whom he could spare.
Towards the middle of February (1814) the operations commenced. On the 26th, Hope, with magnificent skill, threw a bridge of boats across the Adour, at the point some three hundred yards wide, and completed the investment of Bayonne forthwith. Meanwhile Soult's troops had been kept fully occupied among the rivers and streams to the eastward, and on the 27th was fought the battle of Orthes. The 51st, which, with the 7th Division (forming part of Beresford's command), had been pushing the French north-eastward from the river Bidouse during the previous week, found itself on the morning of the 27th near St Boes, opposite the enemy's right. Soult had taken up a strong position along the heights extending from St Boes to the Gave de Pau about the village of Orthes, and had made up his mind to give battle. Wellington was ready to meet him. Beresford, with the 4th and 7th Divisions, was ordered to attack the right from the north-west; Hill, with the 2nd Division, moving from the south bank of the Gave de Pau, was directed to advance on the bridge of Orthes and turn the French left; while Picton, with the 3rd and 6th Divisions, and Alten, with the Light Division, held the centre.