Wellington’s limited ambitions of August 1 are made clear by his dispatch written at 6 in the morning, which says that he is sending the 4th Division on to Santesteban ‘with the intention of aiding Dalhousie’s advance, and to endeavour to cut some of them off.’ It is true that he adds, ‘I sent in triplicate to the Light Division at Zubieta yesterday, to desire that General Alten should move toward St. Estevan, and at all events get hold of Sumbilla if he could. But I have heard nothing of him[1017].’ He was therefore not relying on certain help from the Light Division, or from Graham or from Longa, though advices of the situation were sent to all three. Of the troops under his own hand he only sent the 4th Division to join the hunt. Cole was directed to push the French on the north bank of the Bidassoa, while Dalhousie was pressing them on the south bank. Byng was told to remain stationary, till Hill’s column should come up from Almandoz, ‘when I shall know better how things are situated on all sides, and how far Sir Rowland has advanced.’
The 4th Division, starting early despite of its long march on the preceding day, was attacking the French rear by seven o’clock in the morning—7th Division diaries would seem to show that Dalhousie was much later in closing. We have, oddly enough, no good account of the fight that ensued from any British source[1018]; but Clausel’s narrative enables us to understand pretty well what happened. At dawn Vandermaesen’s division had been left as rearguard on the hill facing Santesteban on the north side of the Bidassoa, with Taupin’s in support, while Conroux’s was trying to make its way towards Sumbilla, but found the path blocked by D’Erlon’s baggage in front. Wherefore Clausel directed his brigadiers to give up any idea of keeping to the road, and to march along the slopes above it, so long as was possible. When the British appeared, they attacked with long lines of skirmishers, keeping to the hillside and attempting to turn Vandermaesen’s flank on the high ground. The French, therefore, also extended themselves uphill, but reached the crest only after the enemy had just crowned it. ‘On this ground, where no regular deployment could take place, the side which had got to the top first had every advantage.’ Vandermaesen’s battalions evidently broke up, as we are told that they got into trouble, ‘continuing a retrograde movement high up the mountain among horrid precipices,’ and were only rallied on two of Taupin’s regiments above the gorge of the defile between Santesteban and Sumbilla, where Clausel had to halt perforce, because there was a complete block in front of him—Darmagnac’s division of D’Erlon’s corps was halted there from absolute inability to proceed, owing to trouble in front. The French narrative then describes an hour of incoherent fighting on the slopes above Sumbilla, in which Darmagnac’s troops on the road below were also engaged. It ended with the retreat of all Clausel’s three divisions across the hills, each taking its own way by foot-tracks up a different spur of the Atchiola range, and arriving in succession in the upland valley of Echalar by separate routes. The British did not follow, but stuck to Darmagnac and the baggage-train down in the road, whom they continued to press and persecute. All this reads like a serious fight and a deliberate retreat—but the critical historian must remark that to all appearances Clausel is glozing over a complete débandade and a disorderly flight across the mountains—for that there was no real resistance is shown by the casualty list of the pursuing British. The 4th Division brigades, English and Portuguese, lost that day precisely three men killed and three officers and 42 men wounded among their twelve battalions—i. e. there can have been no attempt at a stand at any time in the morning—and from the first moment, when Vandermaesen’s flank was turned, the enemy must have continued to make off over inaccessible ground as hard as he could go. If he had tried to hold the pursuers back, the 4th Division would have shown more than 48 killed and wounded. The 7th Division had no casualties at all, so evidently did not get to the front in time to do more than pick up stragglers and baggage. The same impression of mere flight is produced by the French lists of officers killed and hurt—six in Vandermaesen’s division, one in Conroux’s, none in Taupin’s—this should, on the usual proportion between the ranks, represent perhaps 150 or 160 as the total loss of Clausel’s corps[1019]. Obviously then, we are facing the record of a flight not of a fight; and the conduct of these same divisions on the following morning, when attacked by Barnes’s brigade—of which, more in its proper place—sufficiently explains the happenings of August 1st.
So much for the chronicle of the rearguard. That of the vanguard is much more interesting. Reille, as has been before mentioned, was in charge of the advance, which consisted of one battalion of the 120th Regiment, followed by Treillard’s dragoon division, the baggage of the corps, and the main convoy of wounded; the rest of the infantry was separated by a couple of miles of impedimenta from the leading battalion. There was no trouble, though progress was very slow, until, late in the morning, the head of the column arrived near the bridge of Yanzi, where a by-path, leading down from that village and from Lesaca, crosses the Bidassoa. The bridge of Yanzi was, as has been mentioned above—the extreme right point of the long observation line which Longa’s Spaniards had been holding since July 25th. The village above it, on the west bank, a mile uphill, was occupied by a battalion of Barcena’s division of the Galician Army, lent to Longa on the preceding day—the 2nd Regiment of Asturias[1020]. But there were two companies of Longa’s own on outlying picket at the bridge, which had been barricaded but not broken. The road from Santesteban bifurcates a short distance up-stream from the bridge, the left-hand branch following the bank of the Bidassoa to Vera, the right-hand one diverging inland and uphill to Echalar. The route of the French was not across the bridge, since they were not going to Lesaca or Yanzi, nor past it, since they were not going to Vera; they had to turn off eastward at the cross-roads, almost opposite the bridge but a little south of it, and to follow the minor road which leads up to Echalar along the south bank of the Sari stream, on which that village stands. When Reille’s battalion at the head of the marching column came to the cross roads, it was fired upon by the Spanish post at the bridge. This created some confusion: the critic can only ask with wonder why Reille, who had six cavalry regiments under his orders, had not sent out vedettes along the roads far ahead, and become aware long before of the obstruction in his front: evidently, however, he had not. After the first shots were fired, there was a general stoppage all down the column. The battalion at its head could see that the Spaniards were very few, and prepared to dislodge them. Meanwhile the dragoons had halted and many of them, at places where the river was level with the road, walked their horses into the stream, to let them drink. Suddenly there came a violent explosion of musketry from the front—the bridge was being attacked and forced. But to those far down the road, who could not see the bridge, it sounded as if the enemy was assailing and driving in the solitary battalion on which the safety of the whole army depended for the moment. A great part of the dragoons shouted ‘right about turn,’ and galloped backward up the pass without having received any order[1021], till they plunged into General Reille and his staff, moving at the head of Lamartinière’s division, and nearly rode them down. The column of infantry blocking the road stopped the further progress of the foremost fugitives, who got jammed in a mass by the impetus of squadrons pressing behind them. Reille could not make out the cause of the panic, but filed the 2nd Léger out of the road and sent them past the dragoons by a footpath on the slope, by which they got to the bridge. It was found that the Spaniards had been driven from it, and forced to retire up the west bank of the river, the way to Echalar being clear. Thereupon the battalion of the 120th, followed by the 2nd Léger, turned up the road, and after them the leading regiments of dragoons. The officers in charge at the front forgot that their enemies might return, and left no one to guard the bridge. Hence, when Reille came up in person a little later, he was vexed to find that the Spaniards had reappeared on the rocky farther bank of the river half a mile above the bridge, and were firing across the ravine at the passing cavalry, causing much confusion and some loss. Unable to cross the river, which had precipitous banks at this point, he ordered that the next infantry which arrived—the 2nd battalion of the 120th—should deploy on the slopes above the road, and keep down the enemy’s fire by continuous volleys. He also directed another battalion to cross the bridge, and work up-stream till they should come on the flank of the Spaniards, and then to drive them away. This was done, and the rest of the dragoons, Lamartinière’s infantry, and the head of the column of baggage filed past the cross-roads and went on towards Echalar—with Reille himself in their company. He had left a battalion at the Yanzi bridge, with orders to hold the pass, but had little expectation of seeing it molested again, taking the enemy for a mere party of guerrilleros.
But worse was now to come. The Spanish companies which had been driven off were now reinforced by the main body of the regiment of Asturias, which, coming down from Yanzi village, made a vigorous attack on the bridge, swept back the French battalion which was holding it[1022], and began firing into the baggage train which was passing the cross roads at that moment. The bulk of it turned back in confusion, and rushed up the defile, soon causing a complete block among the convoy of wounded and the division of Maucune, which was the next combatant unit in the line of march. The Spaniards held the bridge for more than two hours, during which complete anarchy prevailed on the road as far as Sumbilla, where D’Erlon’s rearguard, the division of Darmagnac, was now engaged in skirmishing with the British 4th Division. The real difficulty was that owing to the bad arrangement of the order of march, it took an inordinate time to bring fresh troops from the rear up to the head of the column; while Reille, now safely arrived at Echalar and busy in arranging his troops in position there, does not seem to have thought for a moment of what might be going on behind him[1023]. Maucune’s division (a mere wreck) came up at last, thrusting the baggage and wounded aside: its general confesses that ‘it fought feebly with the Spaniards at the bridge—its loss was not more than 30 men. The division was so weak, its men so short of cartridges, that it was necessary to wait for one of Count D’Erlon’s divisions to come up, before the road could be cleared[1024].’ He does not add—but his corps-commander[1025] gives us the fact—that ‘the 7th Division ended by quitting the road and throwing itself into the mountains in order to avoid the enemy’s fire,’ i. e. it went over the hills in disorder, and arrived at Echalar as a mob rather than a formed body. Abbé’s troops, at the head of D’Erlon’s column, at last got up, after a desperate scramble through the mass of baggage, wounded, and (apparently) cavalry also, for some of Pierre Soult’s regiments seem to have been marching after Maucune. ‘Jammed between the river, whose right bank is very steep, and the mountain, whose slopes are wooded and impracticable, the soldiers shoved the train aside, upsetting much into the river, and turning the disorder of the movement to profit by pillaging all that they could lay their hands upon[1026].’ At last Abbé got four or five battalions disentangled[1027] and formed them to attack the bridge, which was carried by the 64th Regiment after a struggle which did the Asturians much credit—the French units engaged showed a loss of 9 officers, probably therefore of some 200 men[1028]. Leaving a couple of battalions to guard the bridge and the knoll beyond it, Abbé hurried the rest of his division towards Echalar, the baggage following as it could, mixed with the troops that were coming up from the rear. Thus the greater part of D’Erlon’s corps got through; but there was still one more episode to come in this day of alarms and excursions. Darmagnac’s division, at the rear of all, had reached the cross-roads, and had relieved Abbé’s battalions at the bridge by a covering force of its own, when a new and furious fire of musketry suddenly broke out from the slopes above, and a swarm of green-coated skirmishers rushed down the heights, carried the knoll and the bridge below it, and opened fire on the passing troops—Darmagnac’s rear brigade—and the mass of baggage which was mixed with it. This marked the arrival—when it was too late—of the much tried British Light Division, whose unfortunate adventures of the last three days it is necessary to explain.
It will be remembered that Wellington had sent orders to Charles Alten, on the 29th July, that he should move from Zubieta to such a point on the Tolosa-Yrurzun road as might seem best—possibly Lecumberri. This dispatch travelled fast, and Alten marched that same night to Saldias—a short stage but fatiguing, as marches in the dark are prone to be. Next day—the 30th—the Light Division made an extremely long and exhausting march by vile mountain roads to Lecumberri, hearing all day incessant cannonading and musketry fire to their left—this was the noise of the second battle of Sorauren and the combat of Beunza. Unfortunately Alten was in touch neither with Hill nor with Head-Quarters, and though he reached Lecumberri at dark on the 30th, got no news of what had happened till late on the afternoon of the 31st, when one of Wellington’s aides-de-camp rode in, ‘more dead than alive from excessive fatigue[1029],’ bearing the order issued late on the 30th for the return of the division to Zubieta. He brought the news of Soult’s defeat—but Wellington and every one else had supposed that the French would go back by the Puerto de Velate, and Alten’s orders were merely to get into communication with the 7th Division, sent on the side-operation by the Puerto de Arraiz, which was at the time of the issue of the order thought comparatively subsidiary[1030]. The Light Division marched that evening to Leyza—eight or nine miles on a mountain road—not a bad achievement for the dark hours, but critics (wise after the event) whispered that Alten might have got to Saldias, eight miles farther, if he had chosen to push the men. It, at any rate, made a mighty difference to the fate of the campaign that Wellington’s next orders, those issued from Almandoz at noon on the 31st, found the Light Division not near Zubieta but at Leyza, when they were handed in during the small hours before dawn on the 1st.
This dispatch, as will be remembered, told Alten that Soult had retired by the Puerto de Arraiz and Santesteban, and was obviously going home through the gorge of the Bidassoa, by Vera and Echalar. He was directed to ‘head off’ the enemy at Santesteban, if that were possible, if not at Sumbilla seven miles farther north—or at least to ‘cut in upon their column of march’ somewhere[1031]. All this would have been quite possible, if Wellington had not on the 29th sent the Light Division on the unlucky southward march from Zubieta to Lecumberri. This misdirection was at the root of all subsequent misadventure. We may add that it would still have been possible, if the dispatch sent off in the early morning of the 31st to bid the division come back to Zubieta, had contained any indication that the enemy was retiring by Santesteban, or that haste was necessary. But it had only directed Alten to ‘put his division in movement for Zubieta,’ but to keep up his touch with Lecumberri, and told him that Dalhousie would be marching by the passes of Donna Maria[1032]. The Almandoz note, which contained the really important general information and detailed orders, wandered about for many hours in the sabretache of an aide-de-camp who could not know where Alten was, and found him after many hours of groping in the night at Leyza, and not at Zubieta. From the latter place, only six miles from Santesteban, the operation directed by Wellington would have been possible to execute in good time—from Leyza (on the other side of a difficult pass, and many miles farther away) it was not. This simple fact settled the fate of the Light Division on August 1.
Alten put his men under arms at dawn on that morning, and marched, as ordered, for Santesteban via Zubieta; having passed the latter place and got to Elgorriaga, four miles farther on, he received the news that the enemy had left Santesteban early, and could not be headed off there. Wellington’s alternative scheme dictated an attempt to break into Soult’s line of march at Sumbilla, so the Light Division was put in motion by the very bad country road over the mountain of Santa Cruz from Elgorriaga to Aranaz and Yanzi. The men had already gone a full day’s journey, and were much fatigued. They had (it will be remembered) executed a night march from Lecumberri to Leyza only twelve hours back. The Santa Cruz path was heart-breaking—officers had to dismount and walk up to spare their horses: the men went bent double under their knapsacks: the day was one of blazing August sunshine: the track was over big stones embedded in deep shale—one sufferer compared his progress to striding from one stepping-stone to another[1033].
On reaching the crest of the Santa Cruz mountain, opposite Sumbilla, at four in the afternoon, the Light Division at last came in sight of the enemy—a dense and disorderly column hurrying along the road from Sumbilla northward, pressed by the 4th Division, the bickering fire of whose skirmishers could be seen round the tail of the rearguard. They were separated from the observer’s point of view by the canon of the Bidassoa, here very deep and precipitous—the Santa Cruz mountain is over 3,000 feet high. It would have taken much time to scramble down the steep path to Sumbilla, and the enemy was already past that village. Alten, therefore, resolved to push for the bridge of Yanzi, seven miles farther on, with the hope of cutting off at least the rearguard of the French.
But this seven miles was too much for men already in the last stages of fatigue from over-marching and want of food. ‘When the cry was set up “the enemy,” the worn soldiers raised their bent heads covered with dust and sweat: we had nearly reached the summit of the tremendous mountain, but nature was quite exhausted. Many men had lagged behind, having accomplished thirty miles over rocky roads interspersed with loose stones. Many fell heavily on the naked rock, frothing at the mouth, black in the face, and struggling in their last agonies. Others, unable to drag one leg after the other, leaned on the muzzles of their firelocks, muttering in disconsolate accents that “they had never fallen out before”[1034].’
This was a heart-breaking sight for the divisional commander, who could see both the opportunity still offered him, and the impossibility of taking full advantage of it. After a short halt the troops, or such of them as could still keep up, were started off again to shuffle down the shaly track on the north side of the mountain. At the foot of it, by a brook near the village of Aranaz, the 2nd Brigade was told to halt and fall out—it was a trifle more exhausted than the 1st Brigade, because it had endured more of the dust, and more of the delay from casual stoppages and accidents, which always happens in the rear of a long column. Alten carried the survivors—the 1st and 3rd battalions Rifle Brigade, 1/43rd, and 1st Caçadores—as far as Yanzi, and then turned them down the road to the Bidassoa, which is screened by woods. The French were taken wholly by surprise: the Rifle battalions carried the knoll above the bridge, and the bridge itself, without much difficulty. The 43rd and Caçadores spread themselves out on the slope to their right and opened fire on the hurrying mass below them.