The result of Soult’s orders was to produce two separate actions on the 30th—one between D’Erlon and Hill behind Lizaso, in which the French gained a tactical advantage of no great importance, the other on the heights along the Ulzama between Wellington’s main body and Clausel and Reille, in which the French rear divisions were so routed and dispersed that Soult had to throw up all his ambitious plans, and rush home for safety as fast as was possible.
The more important action, generally called the Second Battle of Sorauren, may be dealt with first.
At midnight Clausel’s two divisions on the heights, separated from Cole’s position by the great ravine, moved off, leaving their fires burning. By dawn they had safely arrived on the high road between Sorauren and Ostiz, and were ready to move on towards D’Erlon when the third division—Conroux’s—should have been relieved at Sorauren village by Maucune. But this had not yet been accomplished, even by five in the morning: for Maucune’s troops having woods and pathless slopes to cross, in great part lost their way, and were straggling in small bands over the hills during the night. They had only two miles to go in many cases, yet when the light came some of them were still far from their destination and in quite unexpected places. Conroux had disentangled one brigade from Sorauren, while the other was still holding the outposts, and Maucune was just beginning to file some of his men behind the barricades and defences, when the whole of the village received a salvo of shells, which brought death and confusion everywhere. During the night Pakenham and Cole, obeying Wellington’s orders, had succeeded in getting some guns up to the crest of the heights—the 6th Division had hauled six guns up the hill on its left: they were now mounted in front of Madden’s Portuguese, only 500 yards from their mark[973]. Of the 4th Division battery[974] two guns and a howitzer had been dragged with immense toil to the neighbourhood of the chapel of San Salvador, overlooking Sorauren, the other three guns to a point farther east, opposite the front from which Vandermaesen had attacked on the 28th.
This was apparently the commencement of the action, but it soon started on several other points. Foy had evacuated Alzuza at midnight, but having rough country-paths in a steep hillside as his only guides in the darkness, had not succeeded in massing his division at Iroz till 5 a.m. He then mounted the heights in his immediate front, pushing before him (as he says) fractions of Maucune’s division which had lost their way. His long column had got as far as the Col and the ground west of it, when—full daylight now prevailing—he began to be shelled by guns from the opposite heights—obviously the other half of Sympher’s battery[975].
Meanwhile Lamartinière’s division (minus the one battalion of the 122nd left to watch the Roncesvalles road) had moved very little in the night, having only drawn itself up from Zabaldica to the heights immediately to the left of the Col, where it lay in two lines of brigades, the front one facing the Spaniards’ Hill, the rear one a few hundred yards back. Foy, coming from Iroz, had marched past Lamartinière’s rear, covered by him till he got west of the Col. This division was not shelled, as Conroux, Maucune, and Foy had all been, but noted with disquiet that British troops were streaming up from Huarte on the Roncesvalles road, with the obvious intention of turning its left, and getting possession of the main route to France.
Wellington, as it chanced, was in the most perfect condition to take advantage of the mistake which Soult had made in planning to withdraw his troops by a march right across the front of the allied army in position. The night-movements of the French had been heard, and under the idea that they might portend a new attack, all the divisions had been put under arms an hour before dawn. The guns, too, were in position, only waiting for their mark to become visible—it had been intended to shell the French out of Sorauren in any case that morning. Wellington had risen early as usual, and was on the look-out place on the Oricain heights which he used as his post on the 28th and 29th. When the panorama on the opposite mountain became visible to him, he had only to send orders for a general frontal attack, for which the troops were perfectly placed.
Accordingly, the 6th Division attacked Sorauren village at once, while the troops on the Oricain heights descended, a little later, in two lines—the front one formed of Byng’s brigade, Stubbs’s Portuguese, and the 40th and Provisional Battalion of Anson’s—while Ross’s brigade and Anson’s two other battalions (the troops which had taken the worst knocks on the 28th) formed the reserve line. Preceded by their skirmishers, Byng’s battalions made for Sorauren, Cole’s marched straight for Foy’s troops on the opposite hills[976]. Farther to the right Picton had discovered already that there was no longer any French force opposite him, and had got his division assembled for an advance along the Roncesvalles road. He would seem to have been inclined to go a little farther than Wellington thought prudent, as there was a dispatch sent to him at 8 a.m. bidding him to advance no farther, until it was certain that all was clear on the left, though he might push forward light troops on the heights east of the Arga river. He did not therefore get into touch with Lamartinière on the mountain above Zabaldica for some time after Foy and Maucune had been attacked.
Meanwhile it was not only to the old fighting-ground of the 28th that the attack was confined. Wellington ordered Lord Dalhousie to emerge from the shelter of the hills beyond the left of the 6th Division, and to assail the troops below him in the Ulzama valley—that is Taupin’s and Vandermaesen’s divisions, halted by Clausel some way short of Ostiz, when the sound of firing began near Sorauren.
The French units which were in the greatest danger were the three divisions of Conroux, Maucune, and Foy, all suddenly caught under the artillery fire of an enemy whom they had not believed to possess any guns in line. Troops marching in column are very helpless when saluted in this fashion. Foy writes ‘we had not been intending to fight, and suddenly we found ourselves massed under the fire of the enemy’s cannon. We were forced to go up the mountain side to get out of range; we should have to retreat, and we already saw that we should be turned on both flanks by the two valleys on our left and right.... General Reille only sent part of my division up on to the high crests after its masses had been well played upon by an enemy whose artillery fire is most accurate[977].’ Now Foy could, after all, get out of range by going up hill—but Maucune and Conroux were in and about a village which it was their duty to hold, since they had to cover the retreat of Foy and Lamartinière across their rear. If Sorauren were lost, Reille’s two left divisions would be driven away from the main army—perhaps even cut off. Yet it was a hard business to hold a village under a close-range artillery fire from commanding ground, which enfiladed it on both sides, when the enemy’s infantry intervened. Pakenham sent Madden’s Portuguese round the village on the north—where they drove in one regiment[978] which Conroux had thrown out as a flank guard on the west bank of the Ulzama, and then proceeded to push round the rear of the place. At the same time the left wing of the troops which had descended from the chapel of San Salvador (Byng’s brigade) began to envelop Sorauren on the eastern flank. And frontally it was attacked by the light companies of Lambert’s brigade of the 6th Division.
Conroux’s first brigade (Rey’s) had succeeded in getting away to the north of the village before it was completely surrounded, and, after bickerings with Madden’s Portuguese and other 6th Division troops, finally straggled across the hills to Ostiz. His other brigade, however, and all Maucune’s division were very nearly exterminated. They made an obstinate defence of Sorauren for nearly two hours, till the place was entirely encompassed: Maucune says that he cleared a way for the more compromised units by a charge which retook part of the village, and then led the whole mass up the hill. The bulk of them scraped through, but were intercepted by 4th Division troops in the hollow hillside above. One whole battalion was forced to surrender, and great part of two others; there were 1,700 unwounded prisoners taken, of whom 1,100 belonged to Maucune and 600 to Conroux’s rear brigade[979].