The troops whose arrival at Irun had been reported consisted of the two leading divisions of the 4th Corps, that of Lefebvre, and of the whole of the 1st Corps, that of Victor. The former, arriving as early as October 18, only seven days after Blake captured Bilbao, marched westward, and replaced Merlin and Verdier in the Durango position. The troops of these two generals were directed by King Joseph to rejoin their proper commanders when relieved, so Verdier led the Guards back to the central reserve, while Merlin reported himself to Ney, at La Guardia. To compensate Lefebvre for their departure, and for the non-arrival of his third division, that of Valence, which still lay far to the rear, Villatte’s division of the 1st Corps was sent to Durango. Marshal Victor himself, with his other two divisions, took the road to Vittoria, and from thence, at the King’s orders, transferred himself to Murguia, on the cross-road over the mountains to Bilbao. Here he was in a position to strike at Blake’s rear, after driving off the 4,000 men of Acevedo’s Asturian division, who (as it will be remembered) had been told off by the Spanish General to cover this road[429].
King Joseph, inclining for once to a bold stroke, wished to push Victor across the hills on to Bilbao, while Lefebvre should advance along the high-road and drive Blake into the trap. Bessières at the same moment might move a division by Orduña and Oquendo, and place himself at Valmaceda, which Blake would have to pass if he escaped from Victor at Bilbao. This plan was eminently sound, for there was no doubt that the two marshals, who had at their disposal some 35,000 men, could easily have brushed out of their way the two divisions under Acevedo and Martinengo which Blake had left behind him in the passes. Nothing could have prevented them from seizing Bilbao and Valmaceda, and the Spanish army would have been surrounded and captured. At the best some part of it might have escaped along the coast-road to Santander, if its commander detected ere it was too late the full danger of his position.
This scheme, however, was not carried out: Bessières, Victor, and Ney showed themselves opposed to it: Napoleon had announced that he intended ere long to appear in person, and that he did not wish to have matters hurried before his arrival. His obsequious lieutenants refused to concur in any great general movement which might not win his approval. Victor, in particular, urged that he had been ordered to have the whole of the 1st Corps concentrated at Vittoria, and that if he marched northward into Biscay he would be violating his master’s express command[430]. Joseph and Jourdan, therefore, resolved to defer the execution of their plan for the annihilation of Blake, and sent orders to Lefebvre to maintain his defensive position at Durango, and make no forward movement. In so doing they were acting exactly as the Emperor desired.
They had forgotten, however, to reckon with the personal ambition of the old Duke of Dantzig. Lefebvre, in spite of his many campaigns, had never before had the chance of fighting on his own account a pitched battle of the first class. The Spanish army had been lying before him for a week doing nothing, its commander being evidently afraid to attack. Its force was not very great—indeed it was outnumbered by that of the Marshal whose three divisions counted not less than 21,000 bayonets[431]. Noting with the eye of an old soldier Blake’s indecision and obvious timidity, he could not resist the temptation of falling upon him. Notwithstanding the King’s orders, he resolved to strike, covering his disobedience by a futile excuse to the effect that he had observed preparations for taking the offensive on the part of the enemy, and that his outposts had been attacked.
Blake’s army lay before him, posted in three lines, with the village of Zornoza to its rear. In front, on a range of comparatively low hills, was the ‘Vanguard Brigade,’ drawn up across the road with the 1st Division of Galicia to its left on somewhat higher ground. They were supported by the 3rd and 4th Divisions, while the ‘Reserve Brigade’ occupied the houses of Zornoza to the rear of all. There were only six guns with the army, as Blake had sent the rest of his artillery to the rear, when advancing into the mountains: this single battery lay with the Vanguard on the lower heights. The whole amounted to 19,000 men, a slight reinforcement having just come to hand by the arrival of the 1st Catalonian Light Infantry[432], the advanced guard of La Romana’s army from the Baltic. That general, having landed at Santander on October 11, had reorganized his force as the ‘5th Division of the army of Galicia’ and sent it forward under his senior brigadier, the Conde de San Roman. But only the single Catalonian battalion had passed Bilbao at the moment when Lefebvre delivered his attack.
The plan of the Marshal’s advance was quite simple. The division of Villatte drove in the front line of the Spanish right, and then spread itself out on a long front threatening to turn Blake’s flank. That of Sebastiani, formed in a single dense column, marched along the high-road at the bottom of the valley to pierce the Spanish centre; meanwhile Leval’s Germans attacked the left wing of the enemy, the 1st Division of the army of Galicia[433]. A dense fog, a common phenomenon in the Pyrenees in the late autumn, hid the advance of the French, so that they were close upon the front line of Blake’s army before they were observed. The first line was easily driven in, but the whole army rallied on the heights of San Martin and stood at bay. Lefebvre cannonaded them for some time, without meeting with any reply, for Blake had hurried off his single battery to the rear when his first line gave way. Then the Marshal sent in the ten battalions of the division of Sebastiani, who completely cut through the Spanish centre, and left the two wings in isolated and dangerous positions. Without waiting for further developments, Blake gave way and ordered a retreat on Bilbao and Valmaceda. His intact wing-divisions covered the retreat, and though badly beaten he got away with very small loss, no more than 300 killed and wounded, and about the same number of prisoners. The French casualties were insignificant, not amounting in all to more than 200 men. The whole combat, indeed, though 40,000 men were on the field, was very short and not at all costly. The fact was that Blake had been surprised, and had given way at the first push, without making a serious attempt to defend himself. His sending away the guns, at the very commencement of the action, makes it sufficiently clear that he did not hope for ultimate success, and was already contemplating a retreat on Bilbao. His army, if properly handled, could have made a much more creditable fight; in fact it was tactically beaten rather than defeated by force of arms. It made its retreat in very fair order, and was irritated rather than cowed by the check which it had received. English eye-witnesses vouch for the steadiness and good spirit shown by the troops[434].
Immediately after giving orders for a general retreat behind the river Nervion, Blake had sent dispatches to the two divisions of Acevedo and Martinengo, which were covering his flank against a possible turning movement from the valley of the Ebro. They were told to save themselves, by falling back at once to Bilbao and joining the main army in its retreat. The part of the Asturian division which lay at Orduña succeeded in carrying out this order. But the remainder of Acevedo’s men and the whole of those of Martinengo—some 8,000 bayonets in all—were at Villaro, a point higher up in the mountains, on a much more difficult road, and closer to the French. They received Blake’s dispatch too late, and on pushing down the northern side of the pass which they had been holding, they learnt at Miravalles, only ten miles from Bilbao, that the latter town was in the hands of the French. Blake had evacuated it on the early morning of November 1, and Lefebvre had occupied it on the same night. Urging his pursuit some way beyond Bilbao in the hope of overtaking Blake, the duke pushed as far as Valmaceda: but even here the Galician army would make no stand, but fell back still further westward to Nava. Seeing that he could not reach his adversary, Lefebvre left the division of Villatte at Valmaceda to observe Blake, and returned with those of Sebastiani and Leval to Bilbao, to feed and rest his men in the town, after four days of marching in the mountains with very insufficient supplies. This was a very dangerous step, for Blake had been outmanœuvred rather than beaten, and was still far too strong to be contained by a mere 7,000 men.
When therefore Acevedo and his column drew near to Bilbao, they learnt that 13,000 French troops blocked their road towards Blake [Nov. 3]. They drew back a little up the pass, keeping very quiet, and very fortunately failed to attract the attention of Lefebvre, who thought at the most that there were some bands of stragglers in the mountains on his left.
But their situation was still most uncomfortable, for their rearguard began to report that French troops were pushing up from Vittoria and entering the southern end of the defile in which they were blocked. King Joseph had been much vexed to hear of Lefebvre’s disobedience to his orders at Zornoza, but, wishing to draw what profit he could from the victory, sent Victor up the Murguia—Orduña road, with orders to cut in upon the line of Blake’s retreat. This the Duke of Belluno failed to accomplish, on account of the rapidity with which the Spanish army had retired. But reaching Amurrio, a few miles beyond Orduña, he came upon the flank of Acevedo’s column, whose head was blocked at Miravalles, ten miles further north, by the presence of Lefebvre at Bilbao. If either marshal had realized the situation, the 8,000 Spaniards, caught in a defile without lateral issues, must have surrendered en masse. But Victor had only one division with him, the other was far behind: and imagining that he had chanced upon the whole of Blake’s army he came to a dead stop, while Lefebvre, not yet aware of Victor’s approach, did not move at all. Acevedo wisely kept quiet, and tried to slip across Victor’s front towards Orantia and the river Salcedon: meanwhile the news of his situation reached Blake.
That general was never wanting in personal courage, and had been deeply distressed to hear that his flanking detachment had been cut off. Realizing Acevedo’s danger he resolved to make a sudden ‘offensive return’ against Lefebvre, and to endeavour to clear for a moment the road from Miravalles to Valmaceda, by which his subordinate could escape. On the night of November 4 he concentrated his whole army, which had now been raised to 24,000 men by the arrival of the main body of La Romana’s division from Santander. At dawn on the fifth he fell upon the enemy in his front, by the two roads on each side of the river Salcedon, sending one division[435] and the ‘Vanguard Brigade’ to attack Valmaceda, and two[436] and the ‘Reserve Brigade’ by Orantia along the southern bank of the stream. Villatte had been holding both these paths; but on seeing the heavy forces deployed against him, he withdrew from Orantia and concentrated at Valmaceda. This left the path clear for Acevedo, who escaped along the hillsides without being molested by Victor’s advanced guard, and got into communication with his chief. The inactivity of Victor is inexplicable: when he saw the Asturian division pushing hastily across his front, he should have attacked it at all costs; but though he heard plainly the cannonade of Villatte’s fight with Blake at Valmaceda, he held back, and finally retired on Orduña when Acevedo had got out of sight[437]. His only excuse was that he had heard the distant roar of battle die down, and concluded therefore that Villatte (who as he supposed might be supported by the whole of Lefebvre’s corps) must have been victorious.