The French, under pressure at every point, had already been compelled to abandon Madrid, the two Castiles, and to recross the Ebro, to concentrate their main forces round the town of Vittoria. Attacked in this position by three times their number, they lost a battle; a loss which was made all the more disastrous by the fact that King Joseph and Marshal Jourdan had made no arrangements for the carrying out of a retreat, so that it became chaotic. The King's suite, the artillery parks, the many coaches of a crowd of Spaniards, who having taken sides with Joseph, sought to escape the vengence of their compatriots, the wagons of the treasury, of the military administration, etc., etc., all found themselves piled up in confusion, so that the roads were obstructed and the regiments had great difficulty in moving. However they did not lose their formation, and in spite of vigorous attacks by the enemy, the greater part of the army managed to reach Salvatierra and the road to Pamplona, by which the retreat was made.
The battle of Vittoria demonstrated the talent and courage of General Clausel, who rallied the army and gave it some direction. It was, however, an unhappy day. The French lost 6000 men killed, wounded or taken prisoner, and left in the hands of the enemy a large part of their artillery and almost all their baggage.
Despite this set-back, the troops, whose morale was excellent, could have remained in Navarre, with the aid of the fortress of Pamplona and the Pyrenees mountains, but King Joseph ordered the continuation of the retreat and the crossing of the Bidassoa, where our rear-guard, commanded by General Foy, was ordered to blow up the bridge. So, from the end of June, we abandoned that part of the Spanish frontier; nevertheless, Marshal Suchet still held out in Aragon (The region of Zaragossa. Ed.), and Catalonia, and in the kingdom of Valencia; but the results of the battle of Vittoria had so much weakened us that when Wellington sent reinforcements to central Spain, Suchet found it necessary to leave the town and the kingdom.
These events were taking place at a time when Napoleon was still triumphant in Germany. As soon as he was told of the state of affairs across the Pyrenees, he hastily revoked the powers which he had given to King Joseph and Marshal Jourden, and appointed Marshal Soult commander of all the armies in Spain.
Soult, after re-organising the divisions, made a great effort to help the French garrison left in Pamplona, but in vain; they were forced to capitulate and Marshal Soult had to take his troops back across the Bidassoa. The fortress of San-Sebastian, governed by General Rey, held out for a long time; but was eventually taken by assault by the Anglo-Portuguese, who, ignoring the laws of humanity, robbed, raped and massacred the unfortunate inhabitants of this Spanish town, although they were their allies! The English officers made no attempt to stop these atrocities, which went on for three days, to the shame of Wellington, his generals, and the English.
Marshal Soult defended the Pyrenees foot by foot, and beat Wellington on several occasions; but the greater numbers at the latter's disposal allowed him unceasingly to take the offensive, so that he was able eventually to cross our frontier and set up his headquarters in Saint-Jean de Luz, the first town in France, which had never previously been lost, even during the defeats suffered by Francis I, or the disastrous wars of the end of the reign of Louis XIV.
It was evident that after the defection of the German troops at
Leipzig, Marshal Soult could not hope to keep in the army of the
Pyrenees several thousand soldiers from across the Rhine. They
all went over to the enemy in a single night, thus augmenting
Wellington's strength.
However, Marshal Soult, after concentrating several divisions below the ramparts of Bayonne, once more attacked the Anglo-Portuguese. On the 9th of December, at Saint-Pierre de Rube, there was a battle which lasted for five days, and was one of the bloodiest of the war, for it cost the enemy 16,000 lives and the French 10,000, but we were able to remain in position around Bayonne.
Before these events in the Pyrenees, Marshal Suchet, having learned of the reverses suffered by Napoleon in Germany, realised that it would be impossible for him to remain in the middle of Spain, and prepared to return to France. To do this he withdrew to Tarragon, where after taking the garrison into his army he blew up the ramparts. The retreat, although harried by the Spanish, was carried out in good order, and by the end of December 1813, Suchet and the troops under his command were established in Gerona.
To complete this examination of the position of the French armies at the end of 1813, one needs to recall that in the spring of that year, the Emperor, who distrusted Austria, had built up in the Tyrol and in his kingdom of Italy, a large army, the command of which he had given to his step-son Eugene de Beauharnais, the viceroy of the country. This prince was a good man, very gentle and greatly devoted to the Emperor, but although much more of a soldier than King Joseph of Spain, he lacked many of the qualities required to lead an army. The Emperor's affection for Eugene led him astray in this matter.