Maucune’s division was practically destroyed: having reported 600 casualties on the 28th, he reported 1,800 more on the 30th, and as his total strength was only 4,186, it is clear that only 1,700 men got away. The general and the survivors rallied in to Foy on the heights above, along with the wrecks of Conroux’s second brigade, which lost 1,000 men: the first brigade, though less hard hit, seems to have had 500 or 600 casualties, and many stragglers. Altogether both divisions were no longer a real fighting force during the rest of the campaign.
Meanwhile, there had been a distinct and separate combat going on farther up the Ulzama valley. When the fighting in and about Sorauren began, Clausel had halted Vandermaesen’s and Taupin’s division at a defile near the village of Olabe, knowing that if he continued on his way towards Ostiz and Olague Reille’s wing would be completely cut off from him. Having seen suspicious movements in the hills on his left, he sent up two battalions from Vandermaesen’s division to hold the heights immediately beyond the river and cover his flank. The precaution was wise but insufficient: somewhere about 8.30 a.m. the British 7th Division, having received its orders to join in the general attack, came up from its concealed position in the rear, and fell upon the covering troops, who were driven off their steep position by Inglis’s brigade, and thrown down on to the main body of Clausel’s troops in the valley. There was close and bloody fighting in the bottom, ‘a small level covered with small bushes of underwood,’ but after a time the French gave way. Vandermaesen’s men soon got locked in a stationary fight with Inglis’s battalions, but the two other 7th Division brigades (Le Cor and Barnes) which had not descended to the river and the road, were plying Taupin’s column with a steady fire from the slope of the opposite bank, which made standing still impossible[980]. Having to choose between attacking or retreating, Clausel opted for the easier alternative, and drew off. In his report to Soult he gives as his reason the fact that Sorauren had now been lost, that Reille’s troops were streaming over the hills in disorder, and that it was no use waiting any longer to cover their retreat, which was not going to be by the road, but broadcast across the mountains. Accordingly he disengaged himself as best he could, and retreated up the chaussée followed by the 7th Division, which naturally took some time to get into order. Inglis’s brigade followed by the road, presently supported by Byng’s troops, who came up from the side of Sorauren at noon: the other two brigades kept to the slopes on the west of the river, turning each position which Clausel took up[981]. By one o’clock he was back to Etulain, by dusk at Olague, where he was joined by Conroux and the 3,000 men who represented the wreck of his division. Vandermaesen had been much mauled—and had left behind 300 prisoners, while many stragglers from his division, and more from both of the brigades of Conroux, were loose in the hills. It is doubtful whether Clausel had more than 8,000 men out of his original 17,000 in hand that evening. The survivors were not fit for further fighting[982].
Meanwhile, Reille was undergoing equally unpleasant experiences. He had stopped behind to conduct the retreat of Foy’s and Lamartinière’s divisions, when the unexpected cannonade, followed by the advance of the British infantry, showed that he was not to get away without hard fighting. When Pakenham attacked Sorauren, and Cole a little later crossed the ravine to assail Foy’s position, Reille tried for some time to maintain himself on the heights, but soon saw that it was impossible. He sent Maucune permission to evacuate Sorauren—of which the latter could not avail himself, for he was pressed on all sides and no longer a free agent. And having thus endeavoured to divest himself of responsibility for the fate of his right division, he gave orders for the retreat of the two others not by any regular route, but straight across country, up hill and down dale. The reason for haste was not only that Cole was now pressing hard upon Foy’s new position, but that Picton was visible marching hard for Zabaldica, with the obvious intention of turning Lamartinière’s flank. There was an ominous want of any frontal attack on this division—it was clear that Picton intended to encircle it, while Foy on the other flank was being driven in by Cole, and there was a chance of the whole wing being surrounded. Accordingly, at about 10 o’clock by Lamartinière’s reckoning, he began to give way in échelon of brigades, much hindered after a time by Picton’s light troops, who had now swerved up into the hills after him, and pestered each battalion when it turned to retreat[983]. Foy reports that his rear brigade and part of his colleague’s division were at one moment nearly cut off, and that he ran some danger of being taken prisoner. It evidently became a helter-skelter business to get away, and the French can have made no serious resistance, as Picton’s three brigades that day had only just 110 casualties between them[984]. The retreat was made more disorderly by the arrival of a drove of some 4,000 fugitives of Conroux’s and Maucune’s divisions, accompanied by the latter general himself, who had escaped over the hills from Sorauren, and ran in for shelter on Foy’s rear.
At about one o’clock Reille’s divisions, having outdistanced their pursuers by their rapidity, halted in considerable disarray in a valley by the village of Esain[985], where Reille tried to restore order, and to settle a practicable itinerary, with the object of rejoining Clausel. For reasons which he does not specify, he marched himself by a road down the valley, which would lead him to Olague, but told Foy to take a parallel track farther up the slope which should take him to Lanz, higher in the same valley. The partition was obviously made in a very haphazard fashion, for while the bulk of Lamartinière’s division, and the poor remnant of Maucune’s which preserved any order, accompanied the corps-commander, Foy found that he was being followed by two stray battalions of Gauthier’s brigade of Lamartinière, and by a great mass of stragglers, largely Conroux’s men, but partly also Maucune’s and Lamartinière’s.
Reille got to Olague at dusk and joined Clausel, but brought with him a mere wreck of his corps, probably not 6,000 men. For Foy never appeared—and never was to appear again during the campaign. He explained, not in the most satisfactory way, that part of his track lay through woods, where the sense of direction is lost, that he was worried by the reappearance of British light troops, who had to be driven off repeatedly, and that the stragglers smothered his marching columns and led them astray. Anyhow, he found himself at dusk at Iragui in the upper valley of the Arga, instead of at Lanz in the upper valley of the Ulzama—having marched ten miles instead of the five that would have taken him from Esain to Lanz. Picton’s light troops were still in touch with him, and he resolved that it was hopeless to try to struggle over mountains in the dark. Dropping into the pass that leads from Zubiri to the Alduides (the Puerto de Urtiaga), he marched for some hours more, bivouacked, and next morning descended into French territory[986]. He sent off the stragglers to St. Jean-Pied-de-Port—they sacked all the mountain villages on their way[987]—and took his own division at leisure down the Val de Baigorry to Cambo—having lost only 550 men out of his 6,000 in the whole campaign. Some critics whispered that, seeing disaster behind him, il a su trop bien tirer son épingle du jeu, and had saved his division, regardless of what might happen to colleagues—just as on the eve of Vittoria he had refused to join Jourdan, and had managed a safe retreat for himself. That it was not absolutely impossible to get away to the Bastan was shown by the fact that the two stray battalions of Lamartinière’s division which had followed Foy in error, branched off from him at Iragui and got to Almandoz, Elizondo, and the pass of Maya. Another lost party—the battalion and cavalry regiment which Lamartinière had left to cover the Roncesvalles road[988]—turned off at Zubiri and followed Foy’s route by the Alduides and Baigorry. Reille’s ‘main body’ was a poor remnant by the night of the 30th, after all these deductions had come to pass.
It must not be supposed that the operations of Pakenham, Dalhousie, Cole, and Picton during the morning of the 30th were left to the personal initiative of these officers. Wellington’s orders for the first move had been made on the spur of the moment, as the position of the French became visible at dawn. But after the capture of Sorauren, probably between 9 and 10 a.m., he issued a definite programme for the remainder of the day’s operations.
Picton was to pursue the enemy who had gone off north-eastward (Lamartinière) toward the Roncesvalles road. He was given two squadrons of hussars, and told to take his divisional battery with him.
Cole was to act on the massif between the Arga and the Ulzama, keeping touch with Picton on one flank and Pakenham on the other: if the enemy in his front (Foy and the wrecks of Maucune) made a strong stand, he was not to lose men by violent frontal attacks, but to wait for the effect of Picton’s turning movement, ‘which will alarm the enemy for his flank.’
Up the main road Ostiz-Olague there were to march Byng’s brigade, the 6th Division, and O’Donnell’s troops from the San Cristobal position (some six battalions). The 6th Division was to take its divisional battery with it.
Dalhousie should operate on the east bank of the Ulzama, keeping touch with Byng and Pakenham—he would be in a position to turn all positions which the French (Taupin and Vandermaesen) might take up, if they tried to hold back the main column on the high road. Like Cole, he was not to attempt anything costly or hazardous.