Now the 7th Division did not follow the spoil-strewn river road, but cut across from Sumbilla towards Echalar, over the same hill-tracks which Clausel’s divisions had taken on the preceding afternoon, when they escaped from the pursuit of Cole’s skirmishers. Hence it chanced that they arrived in front of Echalar on a route where the enemy was keeping no good watch, long before the 4th Division came up from the bridge of Yanzi and the Vera cross-roads. The mists on the hills had kept them screened—as Clausel complains in his report. Lord Dalhousie now carried out a most dangerous manœuvre—a frontal attack on an enemy in position by a series of brigades arriving at long intervals—without any co-operation having been sought or obtained from the troops known to be on his left. ‘Bravery and success,’ as a Light-Division neighbour observed, ‘certainly far exceeded judgement or utility[1046].’ What led the commander of the 7th Division to this astounding escapade was the obvious unpreparedness of the enemy. ‘We caught them,’ he wrote, ‘cooking above, and plundering below in the village. I thought it best to be at them instantly, and I really believe Barnes’s brigade was among them before their packs were well on[1047].’
The leading troops, and the only ones which really got into action, were the three battalions (1/6th, 3rd Provisional[1048], and Brunswick-Oels) of Barnes’s brigade—led by that same fighting general who had stopped the rout at Maya with two of these same battalions. Barnes got his line formed, and attacked uphill against the front of Conroux’s division, long before Inglis’s brigade was ready to follow, or Lecor’s Portuguese had even got down from the hill path into the narrow valley of the Sari stream. With such speed and vigour was the assault delivered, under a frontal fire from Conroux’s men, and a flank fire from Vandermaesen’s on the right, that Inglis’s brigade, which was aiming at the village of Echalar, never had the chance of getting near its enemy. The advancing line suffered severely as it climbed—nearly 300 casualties—but when it came against the front of Conroux, and delivered its first volley, the enemy simply melted away[1049]. As Clausel writes in apology, ‘the resistance ought to have been greater, and in the ordinary state of the army, that is to say when a better spirit prevailed, it would never have been possible for the enemy to establish himself in this fashion on a section of the main chain of the Pyrenees. This day the morale of the troops was bad[1050].’ It must be remembered that Conroux’s was the division which had suffered so heavily in the village of Sorauren both on the 28th and the 30th of July. Several of its battalions were skeletons—all much thinned. Still there must have been 3,000 men yet present out of the original 7,000—and they turned and fled before the uphill attack of 1,800 or less. Nor was this the end of the disaster. Clausel tried to hurry Vandermaesen’s division to the succour of Conroux’s. But the manœuvre failed: the French General says that Conroux’s flying troops ran in upon Vandermaesen’s, that confusion followed, and that he was obliged to let the whole mass roll back to seek shelter with Taupin’s division in the reserve line[1050].
At this moment the leading brigade of the 4th Division, that of Ross, at last appeared on Dalhousie’s left, and began to skirmish with Lamartinière’s line[1051]: demonstrations began—probably by Lecor’s Portuguese—against the front of Maransin[1052], D’Erlon’s right-hand division. But these were of no importance in comparison with the effect of the turning of Reille’s end of the line by the Light Division. This was almost as startling in effect as Barnes’s dealings with the French centre. Having reached the front on the heights of Santa Barbara, below the Peak of Ivantelly, Alten brushed aside Maucune’s feeble skirmishing line, and let loose five companies of the Rifle Brigade supported by four of the 43rd against the dominating peak of the Ivantelly, the most prominent feature of the French position. Clouds swept down along the hills at this moment, and the supporting companies lost sight of the front line. ‘An invisible firing commenced, and it was impossible to ascertain which party was getting the better of the fight: the combatants were literally contending in the clouds[1053].’ But when the 43rd came up, they found that the rifle companies had dislodged the 2nd Léger, Lamartinière’s flank regiment, from the precipitous crest, and were in full possession of it. As they lost only 1 officer and 26 men in taking a most formidable peak, it is clear that the enemy’s resistance must have been very ineffective[1054].
All was now confusion on the French right wing—Reille speaks of himself as wandering about in a fog with three battalions of Lamartinière’s, and meeting no one save the brigadier Montfort, who was bringing up a mere 200 men to try to reinforce the troops on the Ivantelly. The soldiers were profiting by the mist to go off to the rear, and could not be kept together. ‘On se tirailla faiblement, et nos troupes se retirèrent sur la route de Sarre.’ With his centre smashed in, and his right dispersed, Soult could do nothing but retire. The remains of Clausel’s and Reille’s divisions fell back on the road to Sarre. D’Erlon, who had never been attacked, could not use this route, but made his way along the crest of the mountains to Zagaramurdi, Urdax, and Ainhoue. What would have been his fate if he had found there not the picquet which (by Wellington’s order) Byng had thrown forward to Urdax, but the whole of Byng’s and Hill’s troops blocking his retreat—as would have been the case if the great scheme drawn up on the night of August 1 had been carried out? But the Pass of Maya had not been utilized that day, and D’Erlon had only to drive away 50 men.
There was no pursuit: if there had been it would seem that the whole French army would have broken up, for it had shown itself this day no longer able to fight. ‘The spirit not only of the men but of the officers,’ wrote Reille next morning, ‘has been very bad during these last days. The absolute want of food must be the excuse for this state of things.’ The condition of the army was deplorable—Maucune’s division showed less than 1,000 men holding together. The 1st Line of Vandermaesen’s had precisely 27 men with the eagle—yet had lost only 4 officers and 193 men in action—where were the remaining 400? Other units could show a few hundred men but absolutely or practically no officers—the 55th Line of Conroux had lost every one of 13 officers, the 51st Line of Darmagnac 12 out of 17, the 34th Léger of Maucune 30 out of 35; these were exceptionally hard cases, but in all the divisions save those of Foy and Abbé (the least engaged during the short campaign), the proportion was appalling. For the infantry of the whole army it was 420 casualties among 1,318 officers present. Soult wrote to Clarke on the last day of the campaign: ‘I deceived myself in the strangest way when I told your Excellency that the troops had their morale intact, and would do their duty. I mistook the sentiment of shame for their recent disaster (Vittoria) for that of steadfastness. When tested, they started with one furious rush, but showed no power of resistance.... Since I first entered the service I have seen nothing like this. It reminded me of the behaviour of the levy en masse of 1792. The spirit of these troops must be terribly broken to have permitted them to behave in this fashion. One general told me that he had overheard men remarking, when we were near Pampeluna, that they had better not fight too hard, because it would be preferable to get back to the frontier rather than to be led off into the middle of Spain[1055].’ These were cruel and spiteful words—the army had fought with excellent courage, till after July 30th it had convinced itself that the Marshal had got wrong with all his calculations, that the game was up—that they were being taken on a wild goose chase without rations in the most desolate and rocky region of Europe. But by August 2 Soult was not far out in his statement—on that day the greater part of his army was a spent force. If Wellington had resolved to pursue with vigour, he could have pushed it as far as he pleased. Perhaps the great encircling scheme with which his mind dallied for a few hours on the night of August 1 might have resulted in its surrender or complete dispersion.
This was not to be. On August 3 Wellington halted, and commenced to rearrange his troops on much the same principles, and in much the same positions, that he had selected before. He wrote to Graham next day that he was perfectly well aware of the objection to taking up a defensive position in the Pyrenees, but that an advance was too risky[1056]. It was not so much the prospect of the wastage of his troops, even in successful operation, that deterred him, though this was the point on which he insisted in his letter to Graham, but the general political situation of Europe. The eternal Armistice of Plässwitz was still holding up operations in Germany: it was still possible that the Allied Sovereigns might make a selfish peace with Napoleon, and permit the Emperor to expand Soult’s army ad infinitum with sudden reinforcements. What would then become of the Anglo-Portuguese host, even if it had won its way not only to Bayonne but to Bordeaux? All this he had considered, and wrote to the Secretary for War in Whitehall that ‘as for the immediate invasion of France, from what I have seen of the state of negotiations in the North of Europe, I have determined to consider it only in reference to the convenience of my own operations.... If peace should be made by the Powers of the North, I must necessarily withdraw into Spain.’ No advance, however tempting the opportunity, should be made until he was certain that war had recommenced in Saxony[1057]. Meanwhile, ‘Soult will not feel any inclination to renew his expeditions—on this side at least.’
So the army settled down to hold once more the line of the Pyrenees, and to resume the siege of St. Sebastian. On August 3 the Head-quarters were once more at Lesaca, as they had been on July 25—how many things had happened in the interval! Hill and the 2nd Division, now rejoined by the long-missing brigade of Byng, as also Silveira’s Portuguese, were in the Maya passes once more. The 3rd Division was holding the Roncesvalles defiles, the 4th and 7th were at Echalar, the 6th in the Alduides (replacing Campbell’s Portuguese in that remote valley); the Light Division lay on the heights opposite Vera. Morillo’s Division was in the Bastan behind Hill, the part of the Army of Reserve of Andalusia which O’Donnell had carried to the front, when he left the rest before Pampeluna, was at the moment near the bridge of Yanzi. The remainder of that army and Carlos de España were continuing the blockade of Pampeluna.
The total losses of the Allies during the nine days’ ‘Campaign of the Pyrenees’ had amounted to slightly over 6,400 officers and men for the English and Portuguese[1058]. The Spanish loss could not add over 600 more—at Sorauren it was 192; Morillo’s casualties at Altobiscar, and those of the regiment of Asturias at Yanzi bridge are the only unknown quantities, and can hardly have reached 400. The distribution among divisions and corps was odd—the 3rd and Light Division had practically negligible casualties: the former under 120, the latter under 50. The main stress fell on the 2nd and 4th Divisions, the former with 2,000 British and 350 Portuguese casualties, the latter with 1,400 and 300 respectively. But it must be remembered that the 2nd Division had (including Byng) four brigades, the 4th Division only three. Every unit in both was severely tried; the most terrible return was that of the 1/92nd with its 26 officers and 445 men killed, wounded, and missing. But this was a strong battalion of 750 bayonets, and I am not sure that the 284 casualties of the 20th and the 296 casualties of the 3/27th, both in the 4th Division, do not represent almost as great a proportional loss, as these were both much smaller corps.
The 6th Division was engaged on two days only, at the two battles of Sorauren, and had the appreciable number of 450 British and 370 Portuguese casualties. The 7th Division fought on three days—at second Sorauren, at the Combat of the Venta de Urroz, and at Echalar, and three of its battalions also saved the day at Maya—with a loss in all of 750 British but only 60 Portuguese. Lastly, we must name the two Portuguese brigades of Silveira’s division, of which Campbell’s fought at Sorauren, Da Costa’s at Beunza, with a loss to the former of 350 and to the latter of 280 men. The general fact emerges that the 2nd and 4th Divisions lost between them 4,350 men out of the total 7,000—no other division had so many as 1,000 casualties.
The official list of French losses is not quite complete, as it includes only the infantry and cavalry units—but such casualties as may have been suffered by the general staff, the artillery (very little engaged) sappers, and train can have added comparatively little to the total, though a good many men of the train were taken at Yanzi on August 1. The figures given work out to 12,563—1,308 killed, 8,545 wounded, and 2,710 prisoners. The last-named total should probably be brought up to 3,000 in order to include individuals of the non-combatant corps captured in the retreat. The divisions suffered in very unequal measure: Foy and Abbé got off very lightly, because the one was practically not engaged at first Sorauren, nor the latter at Maya—they lost respectively only 550 and 750 men. Vandermaesen’s and Maucune’s Divisions—each a small unit of only 4,000 men, had the crushing losses of 1,480 and 1,850 respectively, and were dissolved when the campaign was over, and re-formed to a large extent with battalions drawn from the Bayonne reserve. Darmagnac and Conroux each lost well over 2,000 men out of 7,000—their divisions having been terribly cut up, the one at Maya the other at Sorauren. Maransin and Taupin each return over 1,000 men lost out of 6,000; Lamartinière just under 1,000 out of 7,000. The cavalry, barely engaged and quite useless, had only 67 casualties to report.