This was the Marshal’s conviction, and he even overrated the odds set against him, if (as he said in his dispatch to Clarke) he estimated his adversary’s force on the evening of the 28th at 50,000 men, and thought that several other divisions would join him ere long. In face of such conditions, what was to be the next move? Obviously a cautious general would have decided that his bolt had been shot, and that he had failed. He had a safe retreat before him to Roncesvalles, by a road which would take all his cavalry and guns; and D’Erlon had an equally secure retreat either by Elizondo and Maya on a good road, or by the Alduides, if absolute security were preferred to convenience in marching. The country was such that strong rearguards could have held off any pursuit. And this may have been the Marshal’s first intention, for in his letter to Clarke, written on the evening after the battle, before he had any knowledge of D’Erlon’s approach, he said that he was sending back his artillery and dragoons on Roncesvalles, since it was impossible to use them in Navarre, and that he was dispatching them to the Bidassoa ‘where he could make better use of them in new operations, which he was about to undertake’. He was intending to remain a short time in his present position with the infantry, to see what the enemy would do. No news had been received of D’Erlon since the 27th, when he was still at Elizondo, declaring that he could not move because he was blocked by a large hostile force—‘the same force, as I believe, which fell on Clausel’s flank to-day.’ Further comment the Marshal evidently judged superfluous[965]. The column of guns and baggage actually marched off on the night of the 28th-29th.
But early on the morning of the 29th D’Erlon’s cavalry was met, and the news arrived that he was at Lanz, and marching on Ostiz, where he would arrive at midday, and would be only five miles from Sorauren. This seems to have changed the Marshal’s outlook on the situation, and by the afternoon he had sketched out a wholly different plan of campaign, and one of the utmost hazard. As the critic quoted a few pages back observed, he recovered his confidence when once he was twenty-four hours away from a defeat, and his strategical conceptions were sometimes risky in the extreme[966].
The new plan involved a complete change of direction. Hitherto Soult had been aiming at Pampeluna, and D’Erlon was, so to speak, his rearguard. Now he avowed another objective—the cutting of the road between Pampeluna and Tolosa, with the purpose of throwing himself between Wellington and Graham and forcing the latter to raise the siege of St. Sebastian[967]. He had now, as he explained, attracted to the extreme south nearly the whole of the Anglo-Portuguese divisions: there was practically a gap between Wellington, with the troops about to join him, and the comparatively small force left on the Bidassoa. He would turn the British left, by using D’Erlon’s corps as his vanguard and cutting in north of Lizaso, making for Hernani or Tolosa, whichever might prove the more easy goal. He hoped that Villatte and the reserves on the Bidassoa might already be at Hernani, for D’Erlon had passed on to him an untrustworthy report that an offensive had begun in that direction, as his original orders had directed. The manœuvre would be so unexpected that he ought to gain a full day on Wellington—D’Erlon was within striking distance of Hill, and should be able to thrust him out of the way, before the accumulation of British troops about Sorauren, Villaba, and Huerta could come up. There was obviously one difficult point in the plan: D’Erlon could get at Hill easily enough. But was it certain that the rest of the troops, now in such very close touch with Wellington’s main body—separated from it on one front of two miles by no more than a narrow ravine—would be able to disentangle themselves without risk, and to follow D’Erlon up the valley of the Ulzama? When armies are so near that either can bring on a general action by advancing half a mile, it is not easy for one of them to withdraw, without exposing at least its rearguard or covering troops to the danger of annihilation.
Soult took this risk, whether underrating Wellington’s initiative, or overrating the manœuvring power of his own officers and men. It was a gross tactical error, and he was to pay dearly for it on the 30th. In fact, having obliged his enemy with a second Bussaco on the 28th, he presented him with the opportunity of a second Salamanca two days after. For in its essence the widespread battle of the 30th, which extended over ten miles from D’Erlon’s attack on Hill near Lizaso to Wellington’s counter-attack on Reille near Sorauren, was, like Salamanca, the sudden descent of an army in position upon an enemy who has unwisely committed himself to a march right across its front.
Soult made the most elaborate plans for his manœuvre—D’Erlon was to move from Ostiz and Lanz against Hill: he was lent the whole of Treillard’s dragoons, to give him plenty of cavalry for reconnaissance purposes; Clausel was to march Taupin’s and Vandermaesen’s troops behind Conroux, who was to hold Sorauren village till they had passed him. Conroux would then be relieved by Maucune’s division from the high ground opposite the Col, and when it had taken over Sorauren from him, would follow the rest of Clausel’s troops up the high road. Maucune’s vacant position would be handed over to Foy and Lamartinière. The former was to evacuate Alzuza and the left bank of the Arga, where he was not needed, as the column of guns and baggage, with its escort of cavalry, had got far enough away on the road to Zubiri and Roncesvalles to be out of danger. He was then to go up on to the heights where Maucune had been posted during the recent battle, as was also Lamartinière. The latter was to leave one battalion, along with the corps-cavalry (13th Chasseurs) of Reille’s wing, on the high road north of Zabaldica, as an extra precaution to guard against any attempt by the enemy to raid the retreating column of impedimenta[968].
Finally, some orders impossible to execute were dictated—viz. that all these movements were to be carried out in the night, and that both Clausel and Reille were to be careful that the British should get no idea that any change in the position of the army was taking place; one general is told that ‘il opérera son mouvement de manière à ce que l’ennemi ne puisse aucunement l’apercevoir,’ the other that ‘il disposera ses troupes à manière que l’ennemi ne puisse soupçonner qu’il y a de changement ni de diminution.’ Reille was to hold the line Sorauren-Zabaldica for the whole day of the 30th, and then to follow Clausel with absolute secrecy and silence. Now, unfortunately, one cannot move 35,000 men on pathless hillsides and among woods and ravines in the dark, without many units losing their way, and much noise being made. And when one is in touch with a watchful enemy at a distance of half a mile only, one cannot prevent him from seeing and hearing that changes are going on. The orders were impracticable.
Such were Soult’s plans for the 30th. Wellington’s counter-plans do not, on the 29th, show any signs of an assumption of the offensive as yet, though it was certainly in his mind. They are entirely precautionary, all of them being intended to guard against the next possible move of the opponent. The troops which had suffered severely in the battle were drawn back into second line, Byng’s and Stubbs’s brigades taking over the ground held by Ross and Campbell. The 6th Division—now under Pakenham, Pack having been severely wounded on the previous day—occupied the heights north-west of Sorauren, continuing the line held on the 28th to the left. Both Cole and Pakenham were told to get their guns up, if possible. And when Lord Dalhousie came up from Lizaso after his night march, his division also was placed to prolong the allied left—two brigades to the left-rear of the 6th Division, hidden behind a high ridge, the third several miles westward over a hill which commanded the by-road Ostiz-Marcalain—a possible route for a French turning movement[969].
Originally Wellington had supposed that Hill would reach Lizaso earlier than Dalhousie, and had intended that the 2nd Division should come down towards Marcalain and Pampeluna, while the 7th remained at Lizaso to protect the junction of roads. But the storm, which smote Hill worse than it smote Dalhousie, had settled matters otherwise. It was the latter, not the former, who turned up to join hands with the main army. Accepting the change, Wellington directed Hill to select a good fighting position by Lizaso, in which he should place the two English brigades of the 2nd Division and Ashworth, while Da Costa’s Portuguese were to move to Marcalain[970], close to the rear brigade which the 7th Division had left in the neighbourhood. Thus something like a covering line was provided for any move which D’Erlon might make against the British left. Wellington was feeling very jealous that day of attempts to turn this flank, and took one more precaution which (as matters were to turn out) he was much to regret on the 31st. Orders were sent to Charles Alten to move the Light Division from Zubieta towards the high road that goes from Tolosa to Yrurzun via Lecumberri. In ignorance of the division’s exact position, the dispatch directed Alten to come down so far as might seem best—Yrurzun being named as the farthest point which should be taken into consideration[971]. This caused Alten to move, by a very toilsome night march, from Zubieta, where he would have been very useful later on, to Lecumberri, where (as it chanced) he was not needed. But this was a hazard of war—it was impossible to guess on the 29th the unlikely place where Soult’s army was about to be on the 31st. Another move of troops to the Yrurzun road was that Fane’s cavalry brigade, newly arrived from the side of Aragon, was directed to Berrioplano, behind Pampeluna on the Vittoria road, with orders to get into touch with Lizaso, Yrurzun, and Lecumberri.
Obviously all these arrangements were defensive, and contemplated three possible moves on the part of the enemy—(1) a renewal of the battle of the 28th at and north of Sorauren, with which the 6th and 7th Divisions could deal; (2) an attempt to turn the allied flank on the short circuit Ostiz-Marcalain; (3) a similar attempt by a larger circuit via Lizaso, which would enable the enemy to get on to the roads Lizaso-Yrurzun, and Lizaso-Lecumberri, and so cut the communication between Wellington and Graham. The third was the correct reading of Soult’s intentions. To foil it Hill was in position at Lizaso, with the power to call in first Da Costa, then the 7th Division, and much later the Light Division, whose whereabouts was uncertain, and whose arrival must obviously come very late. But if the enemy should attack Hill with anything more than the body of troops which had been seen at Ostiz and Lanz (D’Erlon’s corps), Wellington intended to fall upon their main corps, so soon as it began to show signs of detaching reinforcements to join the turning or enveloping column.
Soult’s manœuvre had duly begun on the night of the 28th-29th by the retreat of the artillery, the wounded, the train and heavy baggage towards Roncesvalles, under the escort of the dragoon regiments of Pierre Soult’s division, whose chasseur regiments, however, remained with Reille as ‘corps cavalry’. On the news of this move going round, a general impression prevailed that the whole army was about to retire by the road on which it had come up. This seemed all the more likely because the last of the rations brought from St. Jean-Pied-du-Port had been distributed on the battle-morning, and the troops had been told on the 29th to make raids for food on all the mountain villages on their flanks and rear. They had found little save wine—which was more a snare than a help. The perspicacious Foy noted in his diary his impression that Soult’s new move was not made with any real hope of relieving St. Sebastian or cutting the Allies’ communication, it was in essence a retreat; but, to save his face, the Marshal was trying to give it the appearance of a strategic manœuvre[972]. This was a very legitimate deduction—it certainly seemed unlikely that an army short of food, and almost equally short of munitions, could be asked to conduct a long campaign in a region where it was notorious that it could not hope to live by requisitions, and would find communication with its base almost impossible. It was true that convoys were coming up behind D’Erlon—one was due at Elizondo—but roads were bad and appointments hard to keep. There were orders sent to Bayonne on the 28th for the start of another—but how many days would it take before the army got the benefit?—a week at least. Men and officers marched off on the new adventure grumbling and with stomachs ill-filled.