How far is this curious confidence, made to Croker in January 1837, and taken down by him in two separate drafts (Croker Papers, ii. p. 309, and iii. pp. 336-7), a blurred impression, coloured by after events? It is quite true that the Burgos explosion took place early on the morning of June 13, that the orders dictated at Villadiego that day (Suppl. Disp. vii, p. 637) give a sudden new direction to the army, and that next evening (June 14) the heads of the columns were over the Ebro. But Wellington’s own dispatches seem to show that he did not know anything of the Armistice on June 13, for he wrote to his brother Henry that day, ‘I have no news from England. The French have a bulletin of May 24th, when Napoleon was at Dresden—they talk of successes, but as he was still at Dresden on the 24th, having arrived there on the 8th, they cannot have been very important.’ Now the Armistice of Plässwitz was signed on June 4, and on the 13th Wellington’s latest news was of May 24. But on the 17th, when he had been two days across the Ebro, he did at last hear something. Again he writes to his brother:
‘I have got, by Corunna, English papers of the 3rd. There were several actions in the neighbourhood of Bautzen on the 20th-22nd May.... Bonaparte turned then, and they retired. The Allies have lost ground but are unhurt. He has offered (before the battle) to consent to a congress at Prague.... An armistice is to commence when the ministers shall arrive at Prague.... I do not think that the Russians and Prussians can agree to the armistice, unless they submit entirely’ (Disp. x. p. 443).
Clearly, then, Wellington on the 13th knew nothing of any armistice, since he introduces the proposal, not the accomplishment, of it to his most trusted correspondent on the 17th, as the last news to hand. He was committed to the advance on Vittoria long before he could know of its subsequent political effects. And thus in his old age he underrated his own prescience. But the fact that his officers doubted the wisdom of the advance, and that he swept their objections away, is probably correct. That he had considered the possibility of an advance far beyond the Ebro seems, as has been said before (pp. 301-3), to be proved by orders given in the spring, before the campaign began.
On the evening of the 13th head-quarters were at Villadiego, while the columns were all heading northward on parallel routes. The Galicians were moving from Aguilar on the bridge of Rocamonde[511], the highest on the Ebro save that at its source near Reynosa. The bulk of Graham’s column was marching by La Piedra on the bridge of San Martin, a few miles lower down than Rocamonde, though some of its flanking cavalry crossed at the latter passage, ahead of the Galicians. The Head-Quarters divisions and Hill’s column moved, using all available secondary roads, from their position opposite the lower Urbel, by Villadiego and Montorio respectively, on the bridge of Puente Arenas, some fifteen miles below that of San Martin. All three columns had on the 13th-14th-15th very hard marches, of four long Spanish leagues on three successive days, across upland roads where artillery had never been seen before. The move would only have been practicable at midsummer. But the columns were absolutely unopposed, and the upper Ebro country had been entirely neglected by the French, as Wellington had foreseen. ‘One division could have stopped the whole column at the bridge of San Martin,’ wrote an intelligent observer, ‘or the other at Rocamonde, where some of our column likewise crossed—the enemy cannot be aware of our movement[512].’ Graham was all across the Ebro by noon on the 14th, Hill by the morning of the 16th. Wellington who had fixed his head-quarters at the lost village of Masa in the hills, was able to declare with confidence that the whole army would be over the river by the night—‘and then the French must either fight, or retire out of Spain altogether.’
The Ebro country was a surprise to the British observers who had spent so many years in the uplands of Portugal or the rolling plains of the Tierra de Campos. ‘Winding suddenly out of a narrow pass, we found ourselves in the river valley, which extended some distance on our right. The beauty of the scenery was beyond description: the rocks rose perpendicularly on every side, without any visible opening to convey an idea of an outlet. This enchanting valley is studded with picturesque hamlets and fruitful gardens producing every description of vegetation. At the Puente Arenas we met a number of sturdy women loaded with fresh butter from the mountains of the Asturias. We had not tasted that commodity for two years, therefore it will be unnecessary to describe how readily we made a purchase, nibbling by the way at such a luxury[513].’ Northern or Pyrenean Spain is a very different country from the dusty wind-swept central plateaux: above all the lack of water, which is the curse of Castile, ceased at last to be the bane of marching columns.
After crossing the Ebro on the 14th Graham’s column made another four-league march on the 15th to the large town of Villarcayo, while the Galicians got to Soncillo on the main road from Santander to Burgos; thus Wellington was certain of the new naval base to which he had bid the Corunna transports sail only five days before. Hill’s troops, who had a longer march during the last two days than the other columns, were not so far forward, but nearing the river had occupied the heights on the southern side of the Puente de Arenas. The three columns forming the Anglo-Portuguese army were, as a glance at the map shows, in close touch with each other, and in a position where the whole 80,000 men could be concentrated by a single march. Undoubtedly the most surprising features of the advance is that Wellington’s commissariat was able to feed such a mass of troops in such a limited area, after they had left the plains of Castile and plunged into the thinly inhabited mountains. The local supplies obtainable must have been very limited. Several diarists speak of biscuit being short[514], though meat was not. But somehow or other the commissaries generally contrived to find more or less food for the army—the well-organized mule trains were not far behind the infantry columns, and the long and difficult movement was never checked—as earlier marches had been in 1809 and 1811[515]—by the mere question of provisions, though many brigades got but scanty meals.
SECTION XXXVI: CHAPTER VI
WELLINGTON ON THE EBRO.
JUNE 15-20,1813
After evacuating Burgos the French army had retired, at a rather leisurely rate, down the high road which leads by Briviesca and the defile of Pancorbo to the valley of the Ebro. The rearguard, as we have seen, had left Burgos on the morning of the 13th, and halted for great part of the day at Gamonal, a few miles east of the city, on the spot where Napoleon had won his easy victory over the Conde de Belveder on November 10, 1808. It was only followed by Spanish irregular horse—some of Julian Sanchez’s ubiquitous lancers. Head-quarters that night and the next (June 14) were at Briviesca, and remained there for forty-eight hours: on the 15th they were moved on to Pancorbo, an admirable position with a high-lying fort in the centre, while the road is flanked for miles by steep slopes, on which an advantageous rearguard action might have been fought. But no pursuing enemy came in sight: this fact began to worry the French Head-quarters Staff. ‘What could have become of Lord Wellington? The French Army, in full retreat, was permitted to move leisurely along the great route, without being harassed or urged forward, not a carriage of any description being lost. It appeared inexplicable[516].’ The French retreat was leisurely for two reasons—the first was that King Joseph wished to gain time for the immense convoys lumbering in front of him to reach Miranda and Vittoria without being hustled. The second was that he thought that every day gained gave more time for Clausel to come up: at the slow rate at which he was proceeding he might almost hope to find the missing divisions of the Army of Portugal converging on Miranda, at the moment when he should arrive there himself. The Council of War at Burgos had decided that Wellington must inevitably pursue by the great chaussée. The routes from the Burgos region to the upper Ebro had been reported both by French officers who claimed to know the country, and by local Afrancesados, as presenting insuperable difficulties to a large army. There was, it is true, the high road Burgos-Santander by Santijanez, Pedrosa, and Reynosa—but this led north-west in an eccentric direction, not towards Miranda or Vittoria. That the danger lay on the rough mountain ways a little farther east, which fall down to San Martin and Puente de Arenas, seems not to have been suspected. Yet it was disquieting to find no pursuit in progress: could the Allied Army possibly have been forced to halt at Burgos for want of supplies?
On the 16th the French army descended from the defile of Pancorbo to the Ebro, and proceeded to distribute itself in the region round Miranda, in cantonments which permitted of rapid concentration when it should become necessary. Nothing was yet to be heard of Clausel—but on the other hand Lamartinière’s division was again picked up—it handed over the duty of escorting the convoys toward Vittoria to Joseph’s Spanish contingent, the small division of Casapalacios. Sarrut’s division also came in from Biscay, and reported that it had been lately in touch with Foy, who was successfully hunting the local guerrilleros in the coast-land. But neither Foy himself, nor the troops of the Army of the North which had been co-operating with him of late, were anywhere near. Strange as it may appear, that very capable officer had wholly failed to understand the general situation: though apprised ere now of the evacuation of Madrid and Valladolid, he had nothing in his mind save his wholly secondary operations against the Biscay bands. His dispatches of this period show him occupied entirely with the safety of Bilbao, and the necessity for guarding the high road from Bergara and Tolosa to France. There were 20,000 troops in Biscay, but they were entirely dispersed on petty expeditions and convoy work. On June 19, when he got from head-quarters the first dispatch that caused him to think of concentrating and joining the main army, Foy had only one battalion with him at the moment at Bergara. A column of 1,000 men was moving to reinforce the garrison of Bilbao, a brigade was at Villafranca escorting towards France the large body of prisoners whom he had captured in his recent operations—another brigade was waiting on the road between Vittoria and Mondragon, to pick up a large convoy which, as he had been warned, would be coming up the Royal Road and would require to be protected as far as San Sebastian. He was making efforts to send provisions by sea to Bilbao and Castro-Urdiales—a task in which he was being worried by British cruisers off the coast—and was preparing to go to Bilbao himself[517].