With this idea in their heads the King and the Marshal issued orders of a lamentably unpractical scope, considering the position occupied by Wellington’s leading divisions on June 17th. Reille was ordered to collect his three infantry divisions at Osma, and to hurry across the mountains by Valmaseda, to cover Bilbao from the west, by taking up a position somewhere about Miravalles. He would find the Biscayan capital already held by St. Pol’s Italians, and Rouget’s brigade of the Army of the North. Foy, who was believed to be at Tolosa, was instructed to bring up his division to the same point. Thus a force of some 25,000 men would be collected at Bilbao. Meanwhile Reille’s original positions at Frias and the Puente Lara would be taken over by Gazan, who would march up the Ebro from Arminion with two divisions of infantry and one of cavalry, to watch the north bank of the Ebro. ‘These dispositions,’ remarks Jourdan, ‘were intended to retard the advance of the enemy in this mountainous region, and so to gain time for the arrival of the reinforcements we were expecting [i.e. Clausel]. But it was too late![523]’
No worse orders could have been given. If Wellington had struck twenty-four hours later than he did, and Reille had been able to carry out his first day’s appointed move, and to get forward towards Bilbao, the result would have been to split the French army in two, with the main range of the Cantabrian sierras between them: since Reille and Foy would have joined at Bilbao—three days’ forced marches away from the King. Meanwhile Joseph, deprived of the whole Army of Portugal, would have had Wellington striking in on his flank by Osma, and would have been forced to fight something resembling the battle of Vittoria with 10,000 men less in hand than he actually owned on June 21. Either he would have suffered an even worse defeat than was his lot at Vittoria, or he would have been compelled to retreat without fighting, down the Ebro, or towards Pampeluna. In either case he would have lost the line of communication with France; and while he was driven far east, Foy and Reille would have had to hurry back on Bayonne, with some risk of being intercepted and cut off on the way.
As a matter of fact, Reille was checked and turned back upon the first day of his northward march. He had sent orders to Maucune to join him from Frias, either by the road along the Ebro by Puente Lara, or by the mountain track which goes directly from Frias to Espejo. Then, without waiting for Maucune, he started from Espejo to march on Osma. He had gone only a few miles when he discovered a British column debouching on Osma, by the road from Berberena[524] and the north-west, which he had been intending to take himself. Seeing his path blocked, but being loth to give way before what might be no more than a detachment, he drew up his two divisions on the hillside a mile south of Osma and appeared ready to offer battle. Moreover, he was expecting the arrival of Maucune, and judged that if he made off without delaying the enemy in front of him, the column from Frias might be intercepted and encircled.
The troops which Reille had met were Graham’s main column—the 1st and 5th divisions with Bradford’s Portuguese and Anson’s Light Dragoons, on their march towards Orduña. Graham prepared to attack, sent forward the German Legion light battalions of the 1st Division, and pushed out Norman Ramsay’s horse artillery, with a cavalry escort, to the right of Osma, forming the rest of his force for a general advance across the Bilbao road. After estimating the strength of the British, Reille appeared at first inclined to fight, or at least to show an intention of fighting. But a new enemy suddenly came up—the 4th Division appeared on a side road, descending from the hills on the right of Graham’s line. It had just time to throw out its light companies to skirmish[525] when Reille, seeing himself obviously outnumbered and outflanked, retreated hastily on Espejo; the 5th Division followed him on the left, with some tiraillade, the 4th Division on the right, but he was not caught. ‘Considerable fire on both sides but little done,’ remarked an observer on the hillside[526]. Reille’s loss was probably about 120 men, nearly all in Sarrut’s division[527]: that of the British some 50 or 60.
Meanwhile there had been a much more lively fight, with heavier casualties, a few miles farther south among the mountains nearer the Ebro. Maucune had started before dawn from Frias, intending to join Reille by a short cut through the hills, instead of sticking to the better road along the river-bank by the Puente Lara. He only sent his guns with a cavalry escort by that route. He was marching with his two brigades at a considerable distance from each other, the rear one being hampered by the charge of the divisional transport and baggage.
The leading brigade had reached the hamlet of San Millan and was resting there by a brook, when British cavalry scouts came in upon them—these were German Legion Hussars, at the head of the Light Division, which Wellington had sent by the cross-path over the hills by La Boveda. The approaching column had been marching along a narrow road, shrouded by overhanging rocks and high banks, in which it could neither see nor be seen. On getting the alarm the four French battalions formed up to fight, in the small open space about the village, while the head of the British column, Vandeleur’s brigade, deployed as fast as it could opposite them, and attacked; the 2/95th and 3rd Caçadores in front line, the 52nd in support. Maucune was forced to make a stand, because his rear brigade was coming up, unseen by his enemies, and would have been cut off from him if he had retreated at once. But when the head of Kempt’s brigade of the Light Division appeared, and began to deploy to the left of Vandeleur’s, he saw that he was outnumbered, and gave ground perforce. He had been driven through the village, and was making off along the road, with the Rifle battalions in hot pursuit, when his second brigade, with the baggage in its rear, came on the scene—most unexpected by the British, for the track by which it emerged issued out between two perpendicular rocks and had not been noticed. Perceiving the trap into which they had fallen, the belated French turned off the road, and made for the hillside to their right, while Kempt’s brigade started in pursuit, scrambling over the rocky slopes to catch them up. The line of flight of the French took them past the ground over which Vandeleur’s men were chasing their comrades of the leading brigade, and the odd result followed that they came in upon the rear of the 52nd, and, though pursued, seemed to be themselves pursuing. The Oxfordshire battalion thereupon performed the extraordinary feat of bringing up its left shoulder, forming line facing to the rear at a run, and charging backward. They encountered the enemy at the top of a slope, but the French, seeing themselves between two fires, for Kempt’s men were following hotly behind them, avoided the collision, struck off diagonally, and scattering and throwing away their packs went off in disorder eastward, still keeping up a running fight. The large majority escaped, and joined Gazan’s troops at Miranda. Meanwhile the first brigade, pursued by the Rifles and Caçadores, got away in much better order, and reached Reille’s main body at Espejo. The transport which had come out of the narrow road too late to follow the regiments, was captured whole, after a desperate resistance by the baggage-guard. Maucune got off easily, all things considered, with the loss of three hundred prisoners, many of them wounded, and all his impedimenta[528]. The fight was no discredit to the general or to his men, who saved themselves by presence of mind, when caught at every disadvantage—inferior troops would have laid down their arms en masse when they found themselves between two fires in rough and unknown ground[529]. The total British loss in the two simultaneous combats of Osma and San Millan was 27 killed and 153 wounded.
Reille, having picked up Maucune’s first brigade at Espejo, continued his retreat, and got behind the Bayas river at Subijana that night. The report which he had to send to head-quarters upset all the plans of Jourdan and the King, and forced them to reconsider their position, which was obviously most uncomfortable, as their line of defence along the Ebro was taken in flank, and the proposed succour to Bilbao made impossible. At least four British divisions had been detected by Reille, but where were the rest, and where were the Spaniards, who were known to be in some strength with Wellington? Was the whole Allied host behind the force which had driven in the Army of Portugal, or was there some great unseen column executing some further inscrutable movement?
There was hot discussion at Miranda that night. Reille repeated the proposition which had already been made at Burgos six days back, that in consideration of the fact that the army was hopelessly outflanked, and that its retreat by the high road to Vittoria and Bayonne was threatened by the presence of Wellington on the Bayas, it should abandon that line of communication altogether, march down the Ebro, and take up the line of Pampeluna and Saragossa, rallying Clausel and, if possible, Suchet, for a general concentration, by which the British army could be driven back as it had been from Burgos in 1812. Foy and the Biscay garrisons would have to take care of themselves—it was unlikely that Wellington would be able to fall upon them, when the whole of the rest of the French armies of Spain were on his flank, and taking the offensive against him.
Joseph, for the third time, refused to consider this scheme, alleging, as before, the Emperor’s strict orders to keep to the Bayonne base, and to hold on to the great royal chaussée. But, as is clear, his refusal was affected by another consideration which in his eyes had almost equally decisive weight. Vittoria was crammed with the great convoys of French and Spanish refugees which had accumulated there, along with all the plunder of Madrid, and the military material representing the ‘grand train’ of the whole army of Spain—not to speak of his own immense private baggage. There had also arrived, within the last few days, a large consignment of hard cash—the belated arrears of the allowance which the Emperor had consented to give to the Army of Spain. One of Foy’s brigades had escorted these fourgons of treasure to Vittoria, and dropped them there, returning to Bergara with a section of the refugees in charge, to be passed on to Bayonne.[530] The amount delivered was not less than five million francs—bitterly needed by the troops, who were in long arrears. All this accumulation at Vittoria was in large measure due to the King’s reluctance during the retreat to order a general shift of all his officials and impedimenta over the border into France. As long as his ministers, and all the plant of royalty, remained on the south side of the Pyrenees, he still seemed a king. And he had hoped to maintain himself first on the Douro, then about Burgos, then on the Ebro. It was only when this last line was forced that he made up his mind to surrender his theoretical status, and think of military considerations alone. The lateness of his decision was to prove most fatal to his adherents.
Having resolved to order a general retreat on Vittoria, Joseph and Jourdan took such precautions as seemed possible. Reiterated orders for haste were sent to Foy and Clausel: the latter was told to march on Vittoria not on Miranda. Unfortunately he had received the dispatch sent from Burgos on June 15th, which gave him Miranda as the concentration-point, and had already gathered his divisions at Pampeluna on June 18, and started to march by Estella and Logroño and along the north bank of the Ebro. This gave him two sides of a triangle to cover, while if he had been assigned the route Pampeluna-Salvatierra-Vittoria, he would have been saved eighty miles of road. But on June 9th, when the original orders were issued, no one could have foreseen, save Wellington, that the critical day of the campaign would have found the French army far north of the Ebro. And the new dispatch, sent off on the night of the 18th-19th, started far too late to reach Pampeluna in time to stop Clausel’s departure southward. Indeed, it did not catch him up till the battle of Vittoria had been fought, and the King was a fugitive on the way to France. Foy received orders a little earlier, though not apparently those sent directly by the King, but a copy of a dispatch to Thouvenot, governor of Vittoria, in which the latter was instructed ‘that if General Foy and his division are in your neighbourhood, you are to bid him give up his march on Bilbao, and draw in towards Vittoria, unless his presence is absolutely necessary at the point where he may be at present[531].’ This unhappy piece of wording gave Foy a choice, which he interpreted as authorizing him to remain at Bergara, so as to cover the high road to France, a task which he held to be ‘absolutely necessary.’