Dalhousie and Hill had already had orders to march on Lizaso, the one by the Puerto de Arraiz, the other by the Velate. Both had a long march, but Wellington hoped that they might reach Lizaso during the night of the 27th-28th. If the men were not over-fatigued, all three divisions should follow Pack to Ollocarizqueta, after being given a suitable time of rest. All impedimenta likely to hinder rapid marching, and the wounded from the Maya fight, were to be directed from Lizaso to Yrurzun. Murray had already, acting on the orders of the Sorauren Bridge dispatch of 11 a.m., sent the route for Lizaso to Hill and Dalhousie, adding some precautions of his own, to the effect that they should leave small rearguards at the passes, to detain D’Erlon if he should come up. Moreover, he had spread out the 1st Hussars of the K.G.L. along the roads, to keep up touch between all the divisions on the move, and also between Lizaso and the Light Division, now at Zubieta. The only addition made by Wellington’s new orders was the all-important one that everything of the fighting sort that came to Lizaso was to march for the main army, but all baggage for Yrurzun.
Of the arrangements thus made, that for Pack worked perfectly—he was at Ollocarizqueta with the 6th Division before 10 a.m. on the morning of the 28th. But Hill and Dalhousie were detained in the passes by the storm of the evening of the 27th, and only reached Lizaso so late on the 28th that they were of no use in the fighting of that day. As Wellington observed to Larpent[939], they could both have got into the battle of Sorauren if they had been given a longer march on the 26th, but ignorance of Cole’s and Picton’s retreat had prevented him from starting them early enough. However, the 6th Division alone sufficed to settle the matter.
The morning of the 28th was fine and bright—the storm of the preceding night seemed to have cleared the clouds from the hills, and the eye could range freely over a very wide landscape. Not only was the battle front of each army visible to the other, but from the high crest on or behind each position, a good deal could be made out of what was going on in the rear. This was more the case with the French line than with the British: Wellington’s usual plan of keeping his main force behind the sky-line had great efficacy on such lofty ground as that of the heights of Oricain.
Soult spent the long hours of the July morning in moving his troops to the positions which had been selected on the previous night. Conroux’s division, abandoning Zabaldica, marched over the hills in the rear of Clausel’s other divisions, and occupied Sorauren village—relieving there some of Taupin’s battalions, which shifted a little to their left. To replace Conroux at Zabaldica Lamartinière came up from Iroz, and deployed one brigade (Gauthier’s) in front of the Spaniards’ Hill, while the other (Menne’s) remained in reserve beside the Arga, with two regiments across the high road and the third on the slopes east of the river. Maucune’s division, starting up the slopes from the rear of Iroz, took post on the heights immediately opposite the Col, with its right touching the left of Vandermaesen. Two regiments were in front line exactly in face of the Col, a third somewhat farther to the left, keeping touch with Lamartinière’s brigade near Zabaldica. The other brigade (Montfort’s) was placed in reserve farther up the mountain[940]. Pierre Soult’s light cavalry regiments disentangled themselves from the long cavalry and artillery column in the rear, and picked their way up the heights southward till they reached Foy’s position, from which they extended themselves to the left, till they reached as far as the village of Elcano. Four howitzers were chosen out of the batteries in the rear, and brought forward to the front of Zabaldica, a position in which it was hoped that their high-trajectory fire might reach effectively the Allies on the Col and the Spanish Hill. These were the only French cannon used that day, except some mule-guns employed by Clausel on the side of Sorauren.
The greater part of these movements were perfectly visible to Wellington, though some of them were intermittently screened from sight when the marching columns dipped into dead ground, or were passing through thickets. They took up so many hours that he wrote to Graham at 10.30 that it looked as if Soult was not inclined to attack. Meanwhile, the only British force on the move was the 6th Division, which had been marching since daylight, and arrived about 10 a.m. at Ollocarizqueta. On getting news of its presence, Wellington ordered it to move by a country road which comes across a crack in the hills west of the Ulzama not far from the village of Oricain, and after reaching that river to keep its Portuguese brigade on the western bank, its two British brigades on the eastern, and so to advance till it should arrive facing Sorauren, prolonging Cole’s left in the lower ground, and covering him from any attempt to turn his flank. About noon Pack’s leading troops began to appear—these were Madden’s Portuguese on the left of the division, working along the hillside west of the Ulzama.
Now the ‘zero’ hour for the general attack on the whole Allied front had been fixed by Soult for 1 o’clock, but long before that hour Clausel was informed by an exploring officer, whom he had sent to the hills on the other side of the Ulzama, beyond his right, that a heavy British column was visible coming from the direction of Marcalain, obviously to join the British left[941]. Now the French general had been thinking of turning Cole’s flank on this side, and had actually got troops some little way up the Ulzama valley beyond Sorauren. But hearing of Pack’s approach and of his strength, he determined that he must now turn his attention to fending off this move against his own flank, and that the effort would absorb no small portion of his troops. Conroux’s division had been originally intended for the attack of the north-west corner of the Oricain heights, to the right (French) of the chapel, while Taupin was to make the chapel itself his objective; Vandermaesen was to strike at the centre of Cole’s position, and Maucune to attack the Col. But Clausel determined that, in order to make the general frontal attack feasible, he must at once stop the forward march of Pack, and keep him at a distance, while the other divisions made their great stroke. Accordingly he called in his right wing detachments, and having concentrated Conroux’s strong division (7,000 bayonets) he ordered it, at 12.30, to deploy across the valley of the Ulzama below Sorauren and advance in two lines of brigades against the approaching British column. This movement—probably a necessary one—brought on the first clash of battle, half an hour before the appointed time for the general movement. Clausel at the same moment sent word to the other divisions to attack at once; but they were not quite ready, the fixed hour not having yet been reached.
But Conroux pushed up the valley farther than was prudent, for when he was some half a mile beyond Sorauren, he found himself encompassed on three sides—Madden’s Portuguese pushing forward along the hill on the other side of the river, turned in on his right flank, some of Ross’s skirmishers on the slopes west of the chapel of San Salvador came down and began to fire upon his left flank, while the main body of the 6th Division—Stirling’s brigade deployed in front line, Lambert’s supporting in column—met him face to face in the low ground. The concentric fire was too heavy to be stood, and Conroux had to give back, fighting fiercely, till he had the support of the village of Sorauren at his back: there the battle stood still, for Pack had orders to cover Cole’s flank, not to attack the enemy’s[942].
Meanwhile, the general frontal attack was being delivered by the other French divisions, starting from the right, as each got forward on receiving Clausel’s orders to anticipate the fixed hour and advance at once. Hence the assault was made in échelon of brigades from the right, Taupin’s two brigades being a little ahead of Vandermaesen’s, and Vandermaesen’s perceptibly earlier on the hill than the brigade of Maucune which attacked at the Col. The separate assault by Lamartinière on the Spaniards’ Hill is definitely stated by that general to have been made at 12 o’clock—earlier, apparently, than the others—but he is contradicted by Reille, in command on this front, who says that it started vers une heure. This is much more likely to be correct.
