[979] Maucune’s 34th Léger reports 13 officers and 531 men prisoners out of a strength of 773. Why does Captain Vidal de la Blache, usually accurate, give this as Maucune’s total loss in prisoners? (cf. p. 251). His other battalions contribute another 550. Conroux’s 55th and 58th Line give respectively 282 and 348 prisoners—the other regiments smaller but appreciable lists of captured.
[980] Interesting accounts of this fight may be found in the narratives of Wood of the 82nd, Green of the 68th, and Wheeler of the 51st—all in Inglis’s brigade. They are, however, most confused, none of them having much notion of how or where they came into the general scheme of the fight. All speak of the steepness of the ground.
[981] I cannot make out for certain when Le Cor’s Portuguese joined Dalhousie on the 30th, coming from the Marcalain road, where they had been placed on the previous evening. Probably not early, as they had 64 casualties only (mostly in 2nd Caçadores), while the other brigades had 200 apiece. The fact that the losses are nearly all in the light battalion shows that a skirmishing pursuit was the task of Le Cor’s men.
[982] Clausel’s report is (perhaps naturally) very reticent, and would give a reader who had no other sources to utilize a very inadequate account of the day’s work—no one could possibly gather from it that Conroux lost 600 prisoners and Vandermaesen 300, or that the whole corps was in great disorder. For a picture of Conroux’s division scattered over the hills, and its general storming at the fugitives, see Lemonnier-Delafosse, p. 232.
The hours at which events took place on Clausel’s wing are hard to settle. I follow him in making the artillery begin to play on Sorauren long before 7, the infantry attack soon after that hour, and the loss of Sorauren about 9.
[983] So Lamartinière, who admits that there was ‘un peu de désordre’ but confesses much less than Foy, for whose account see Girod de l’Ain, p. 221.
[984] Picton’s division lost 89 in Brisbane’s brigade, 20 among Power’s Portuguese, none in Colville’s brigade.
[985] So Foy. Reille thinks that it was Sarrasibar, 3 miles farther east.
[986] Girod de l’Ain, p. 223.
[987] See Vidal de la Blache, p. 280, for complaints by the French maires of atrocities committed.