So the battle area of Vittoria was reached, and Joseph stood to fight on a front parallel to his line of retreat on Bayonne. As Wellington had been strategically turning the right of the general line of defence so far, so in the battle he tactically continued the same idea, and the result was complete. “Never,” says Napier, “was an army more hardly used by its commander, and never was a victory more complete”; while General Gazan writes that the French “lost all their equipage, all their guns, all their treasure, all their papers, so that no man could prove even how much pay was due to him; generals and subordinate officers alike were reduced to the clothes on their backs, and most of them were barefooted.”
Private 20th Regt 1812.
The following regiments were engaged in the battle:—3rd and 5th Dragoon Guards, 3rd, 14th, 15th, 16th, 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 9th, 20th, 23rd, 24th, 27th, 28th, 31st, 38th, 39th, 40th, 43rd, 45th, 47th, 48th, 50th, 51st, 52nd, 53rd, 57th, 58th, 59th, 60th, 61st, 66th, 68th, 74th, 79th, 83rd, and 84th.
The deliverance of Spain was nearly complete. Only the extreme north-west of Spain and that close to the frontier was left to Joseph, erstwhile King of all Spain. Even this was soon abandoned. Joseph fell back by Pampeluna, and this, with San Sebastian, was blockaded. The former eventually capitulated, and the latter, which was to furnish a new base of operations for Wellington, now too far from Portugal to use his former base, was stormed by the 1st, 4th, 9th, 38th, 47th, and 59th, and fell. Desperate as was the gallantry of the troops, especially of the 52nd, the other side of the picture showed horrors and utter indiscipline, far worse even than those which disgraced the storm of previous sieges. The soldiery perpetrated villainies which would have shamed the most ferocious barbarians of antiquity. At Ciudad Rodrigo intoxication and plunder had been the principal object; at Badajoz lust and murder were added to rapine and drunkenness; but at San Sebastian the direst, the most revolting cruelty was added to the catalogue of crimes.[43]
After sundry operations, including the series of extraordinary combats classed as the “Battles of the Pyrenees,” in which the 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 7th, 11th, 20th, 23rd, 24th, 27th, 28th, 31st, 34th, 36th, 39th, 40th, 42nd, 45th, 48th, 50th, 51st, 53rd, 57th, 58th, 60th, 61st, 66th, 68th, 71st, 74th, and 79th took part, the lines of the Bidassoa, Nivelle, and Nive were successively forced. In these actions the above regiments took part, as well as the 5th, 9th, 20th, 32nd, 38th, 43rd, 46th, 52nd, 62nd, 82nd, 83rd, 87th, 88th, 91st, 94th, 84th, 85th, and Rifle Brigade and 16th Lancers.
Finally, after further actions at Bayonne and the passage of the Adour, the last important battles took place at Orthez and Toulouse, and the long war in the south was practically at an end.
At Orthez were the 14th Hussars, and the 5th, 6th, 7th, 11th, 20th, 23rd, 24th, 27th, 28th, 31st, 32nd, 34th, 36th, 39th, 40th, 42nd, 45th, 48th, 50th, 51st, 52nd, 58th, 60th, 61st, 66th, 68th, 71st, 74th, 82nd, 83rd, 87th, 88th, 91st, 92nd, 94th, and Rifle Brigade. There had been, in addition, minor actions at Bordeaux and Bayonne, and at the latter place war rockets were used for the first time in the British Army; but these actions effected little, and were the last expiring struggles of the Peninsular War. For a time, at least, there was peace in Europe.
The British marched across France, and embarked for England and America. The Spanish and Portuguese armies retired to their respective territories, and the French armies dispersed over France. The now fully established standing army of Great Britain had, notwithstanding the indiscipline and violence that at times unfortunately characterised its fighting, earned a reputation which it has never lost. Its undaunted courage had broken down altogether the civilian fear of an army. It was for the future only to be regarded economically or financially, not as a possible danger to the public peace. There was scarcely a family, hardly a village throughout the land which had not to mourn, but mourn with pride, the loss of some of its sons. It had earned the respect of foe as well as friend. It had dauntlessly shown that Englishmen were not afraid to die. This spirit is touchingly referred to by Thorburn in some poetry relating to a drummer boy of the 43rd, a regiment that, now linked with the 52nd, and, like it, in Peninsular days a component part of the famous Light Division, distinguished itself from the Coa to the Pyrenees. As the story is told, it is that of an old grenadier who, in the rush of the charge which then formed the most important element in battle, as fire and the bullet do now, was wounded, but struggled on to find in his way