The French loss in the battle, according to the definitive report made from the head-quarters of the three armies after they had got back into France, was 42 officers and 716 men killed, 226 officers and 4,210 men wounded, and 23 officers and 2,825 prisoners or missing—a total of 8,091. It is known that of the ‘missing’ some hundreds were stragglers who rejoined later, and some other hundreds dead men, who had not got into the list of killed. The total number of prisoners did not really exceed 2,000. But on the other hand the official returns are incomplete, not giving any figures for the artillery or train of the Armies of Portugal and the Centre, or for the Royal Guards (which lost 11 officers and therefore probably 150 to 200 men), or for the General Staff (which had 35 casualties), or for the stray troops of the Army of the North present in the battle. Probably the real total, therefore, was very much about the 8,000 men given by the official return.
The Allied casualties were just over 5,000—of whom 3,672 were British, 921 Portuguese, and 552 Spaniards. A glance at the table in the Appendix will show how unequally they were distributed. Seven-tenths of the whole loss fell on the 2nd and 3rd Divisions, with Grant’s brigade of the 7th, Robinson’s of the 5th, and Stubbs’s Portuguese in the 4th. These troops furnished over 3,500 of the total loss of 5,158. The 1st Division (54 casualties), the British brigades of the 4th Division (125 casualties), Hay’s and Spry’s brigades of the 5th (200 casualties), Barnes’ and Lecor’s of the 7th (no casualties[614]), the Light Division (132 casualties), Silveira’s Division (10 casualties), the cavalry (155 casualties) had no losses of importance. The 266 men marked as missing were all either dead or absent marauding, save 40 of the 71st whom the French took prisoners to Pampeluna. The Spanish loss of 14 officers and 524 men was entirely in Morillo’s and Longa’s Divisions, and much heavier among the Estremadurans, who fought so well on the heights of La Puebla, than among the Cantabrians who skirmished all day at Durana. Giron’s Galicians were never engaged, having only arrived in the rear of Graham’s column just as the fighting north of the Zadorra was over. They encamped round Arriaga at the end of the day.
That the battle of Vittoria was the crowning-point of a very brilliant strategic campaign is obvious. That in tactical detail it was not by any means so brilliant an example of what Wellington and his army could accomplish, is equally obvious. Was the General’s plan to blame? or was a well-framed scheme wrecked by the faults of subordinates? It is always a dangerous matter to criticize Wellington’s arrangements—so much seems clear to the historian that could not possibly have been known to the soldier on the morning of June 21st. It is obvious to us now that there was a fair chance not only of beating the French army, and of cutting off its retreat on Bayonne, but of surrounding and destroying at least a considerable portion of it. Wellington’s orders are always extremely reticent in stating his final aims, and give a list of things to be done by each division, rather than a general appreciation of what he intends the army to accomplish. But reading his directions to Graham, Hill, and Dalhousie, and looking at the way on which they work out on the map, and the allocation of forces in each column, it would seem that in view of the distribution of the French troops on the afternoon of June 20th, he planned a complete encircling scheme, which should not only accomplish what he actually did accomplish, but much more. Graham, with his 20,000 men, must have been intended not only to force the line of the Zadorra and cut the Royal Road, but to fall upon the rear of the whole French army, which on the afternoon of the 20th had been seen to have a most inadequate flank-guard towards the north-east. Hill’s 20,000 men were not, as Jourdan thought, the only main attack, nor as Gazan (equally in error) thought, a mere demonstration. They were intended to make an encircling movement to the south, as strong as Graham’s similar movement to the north. But obviously both the flanking columns, Hill’s far more than Graham’s, were in danger of being repulsed, if the French could turn large unemployed reserves upon them. Wherefore the central attacks, by the 4th and Light Divisions on the Nanclares side, and by the 3rd and 7th Divisions on the Mendoza side, were necessary in order to contain any troops which Jourdan might have sent off to overwhelm Hill or Graham.
And here comes the weak point of the whole scheme—all the movements had to be made through defiles and over rough country: Hill had to debouch from the narrow pass of Puebla, Graham had a long mountain road from Murguia, and, worst of all, Dalhousie, with the 3rd and 7th Divisions, had to cross the watershed of a very considerable mountain by mere peasants’ tracks. Only the column which marched from the Bayas to Nanclares had decent going on a second-rate road. There was, therefore, a considerable danger that some part of the complicated scheme might miscarry. And any failure at one point imperilled the whole, since the Nanclares column was not to act till Hill was well forward, and the Mendoza column was ordered to get into touch with the troops to its right, and regulate its movements by them; while Graham, still farther off, was also to guide himself by what was going on upon his right, to correct himself with the Mendoza column, and only to attack on the Bilbao road when it should be seen that an attack would be obviously useful to the main advance.
Hill discharged his part of the scheme to admiration, as he always did anything committed to him, and took up the attention of the main part of the Army of the South. But the central and left attacks did not proceed as Wellington had desired. Graham got to his destined position within the time allotted to him, but when he had reached it, was slow and unenterprising in his action. He was seeking for Dalhousie’s column, with which he had been directed to co-ordinate his operations: he sent out cavalry scouts and Bradford’s Portuguese to his right, but could find nothing. This, I think, explains but does not wholly excuse his caution at noon. But it neither explains nor excuses at all his tactics after he had received, at two o’clock, Wellington’s orders telling him to press the enemy hard, and make his power felt. With his two British divisions, the Portuguese of Pack and Bradford, and two cavalry brigades, he only made a genuine attack at one point, and did not put into serious action (as the casualty lists show) more than four battalions—those used at Gamarra Mayor. The whole left column was contained by little more than half of its number of French troops. Graham says in his dispatch to Wellington that ‘in face of such force as the enemy showed it was evidently impossible to push a column across the river by Gamarra bridge.’ He does not explain his inactivity at other points, except by mentioning that the enemy had ‘at least two divisions in reserve on strong ground behind the river[615].’ There was really only one brigade in reserve, and so far from being compelled to attack at Gamarra only, Graham had besides Arriaga bridge on the main road, two other bridges open to assault (those of Goveo and Yurre), besides at least one and probably three fords. All these more southern passages were watched by cavalry only, without infantry or guns. It is clear that Graham could have got across the Zadorra somewhere, if he had tried. Very probably his quiescence was due to his failing eyesight, which had been noticed very clearly by those about him during this campaign[616]. The only part of his corps which did really useful work was Longa’s Spanish division, which at least cut the Bayonne road at the proper place and time.
But if Graham’s tactics cannot be praised, Lord Dalhousie was even more responsible for the imperfect consequence of the victory. Why Wellington put this fussy and occasionally disobedient officer in charge of the left-centre column, instead of Picton, passes understanding. The non-arrival of the 7th Division, which was to lead the attack, was due to incompetent work by him or his staff. He says in his dispatch that he was delayed by several accidents to his artillery (Cairnes’s battery). But from his own narrative we see that the guns got up almost as soon as his leading infantry brigade (Grant’s), while his two rear brigades (Barnes and Le Cor) never reached the front in time to fire a shot. What really happened was that for want of staff guidance, for which the divisional commander was responsible, these troops did not take the path assigned to them, and went right over, instead of skirting, the summit of Monte Arrato, making an apparently short (and precipitous) cut, which turned out to be a very long one[617]. So when Dalhousie did arrive, with one brigade and his guns, Picton had long been waiting by Las Guetas in a state of justifiable irritation. Finally, Dalhousie (lacking the greater part of his division) did not attack till he got peremptory orders to do so from the Commander-in-Chief. Hence the extreme delay, which caused grave risk to Hill’s wing, so long engaged without support. It is fair to add that the delay had one good effect—since it led Jourdan to think that his right was not going to be attacked, and therefore to send off Villatte’s and Cassagne’s divisions to the far left. If Dalhousie had advanced an hour earlier, these divisions would have been near enough to support Leval. But this is no justification for the late arrival and long hesitations of the commander of the 7th Division. Undoubtedly a part of the responsibility devolves on Wellington himself, for putting an untried officer in charge of a crucial part of the day’s operations, when he had in Picton an old and experienced tactician ready to hand.
The strategical plan was so good that minor faults of execution could not mar its general success. Yet it must be remembered that, if all had worked out with minute accuracy, the French army would have been destroyed, instead of merely losing its artillery and train. And the fact that 55,000 men escaped to France, even if in sorry condition, made the later campaign of the Pyrenees possible. There would have been no combats of Maya and Roncesvalles, no battles of Sorauren and St. Marcial, if the eight French divisions present at Vittoria had been annihilated, instead of being driven in disorder on to an eccentric line of retreat.
SECTION XXXVII
EXPULSION OF THE FRENCH FROM SPAIN