But on the very eve of the decisive engagement, and with Jourdan’s dispatch advising him ‘de se rapprocher de Vittoria’ before his eyes, Foy decided that the petty affairs of the Biscay garrisons were of more importance than the fate of the King’s Army. Instead of bringing down his own and Berlier’s troops to Vittoria, where 5,000 bayonets would have been most welcome to the depleted Army of Portugal, he proceeded to disperse them. He sent, on the 20th, two battalions to El Orrio to facilitate the retreat of the garrison of Bilbao, dispatched two others to Deba, on the coast, to guard against a rumoured British demonstration against that port, and remained at Bergara with the 6th Léger alone. Orders were forwarded to Berlier to stand fast at Villafranca, and to the troops expected from Bilbao to make the best pace that they could, as the Army of Galicia would soon be upon them[644]. Giron’s demonstration on the Balmaseda road had convinced Foy that the Spanish 4th Army was aiming at Bilbao—he could not know that Wellington had brought the Galicians down by Orduña to join his main body.
On the evening of the 21st the division of Maucune, escorting the convoy which had started from Vittoria at dawn, came through the pass of Salinas unmolested. Its general met Foy, and told him that he had heard heavy cannonading for many hours behind him, but had no notion of what was going on upon the Zadorra. The column bivouacked between Mondragon and Bergara, and started off again before daybreak. It had not gone more than a league when fugitives began to drop in from Vittoria, bringing news of the disaster. The King’s army had been routed—his artillery abandoned: he had been pushed aside on to the Pampeluna road, and Allied columns were coming up the great chaussée making for Bergara and Durango. On hearing these depressing news the commandants of the forts which guarded the passes—those of Arlaban, Mondragon, and Salinas—spiked their guns, and fell back without orders to join Foy at Bergara.
The news was only too true. On the night of the battle Wellington had issued orders for Longa’s Division to set out at dawn on the 22nd to force the passes, and, if possible, to overtake Maucune’s unwieldy convoy. Giron was to follow, when his men, who had suffered dreadful fatigue in their forced march from Orduña, were capable of movement. As the Galicians were terribly under-gunned—there appear to have been only six pieces with the 12,000 infantry—Wellington lent them two batteries from the British artillery reserve[645]. Giron started from the neighbourhood of Vittoria at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, and had gone only some six miles when the news of Clausel’s raid was sent to him by Pakenham. The whole army halted and began to retrace its steps, with the object of joining the 6th Division and fending off this unexpected attack. But the return march had hardly begun when the message arrived that Clausel’s cavalry had retreated in haste, and that there was no danger on the side of Vittoria. Giron therefore resumed his original advance, but only reached Escoriaza, a hamlet half-way between Salinas and Mondragon after dark[646]. His troops were worn out, and had not received any regular rations that day.
It thus chanced that only Longa’s Division continued the advance along the Bayonne chaussée on the 22nd, and that all day the Cantabrians were far ahead of, and quite out of touch with, the Army of Galicia. It was with this small force alone that Foy had to deal. The French General had been prepared for trouble by the ominous news that Maucune had given him on the previous day, and conceived that it was his duty to hold the passes as long as was prudent, in order to gain time for the convoy to get on its way, and for the garrison of Bilbao to come in from the right rear. Accordingly he was much vexed to find that the officers commanding the Mondragon forts had evacuated them, and had fallen back on Bergara. He resolved to hold the defile if possible, and marched back toward it, taking with him the only two battalions of his division which he had at hand[647], and the garrisons of the three forts.
The fort of Mondragon was found empty—there were no enemies visible save some local guerilleros who fled. But on advancing a little farther, Foy came on the head of Longa’s column, descending from the defile of Salinas. He spent the whole afternoon in a series of rearguard actions, making his men fall back by alternate battalions, and defending each turn of the road. The French troops behaved with great steadiness, and Longa was cautious, having received false news that the Bilbao garrison had joined Foy. He contented himself with turning each successive position that the enemy took up, and at nightfall had only got about two miles beyond Mondragon. Here he halted, having occupied the fort (where he found six spiked guns) and taken 53 prisoners. Foy had lost about 200 men in all in the long bickering, and had been himself slightly wounded in the shoulder, though he was not disabled: the Spaniards probably somewhat less[648].
During the evening hours three more battalions of Foy’s own division arrived at Bergara, but the garrison of Bilbao and St. Pol’s Italians had not yet been heard of. Having now 3,000 men in hand, the French general resolved to hold Longa up, until the missing troops should have passed behind him and got into a safe position. He waited opposite the Cantabrians all the morning, but was not attacked: a reconnaissance sent out reported that the enemy was quiescent at Mondragon. The fact was that Longa had heard that the French had received reinforcements, and was waiting for Giron to come up with the three Galician divisions. They arrived by noon, much fatigued and drenched by heavy rain, and Giron contented himself with making arrangements for an attack on Bergara on the next morning.
But this attack was never delivered, for Foy having at last picked up the missing brigades, retreated on Villareal during the afternoon, using St. Pol’s Italians as his rearguard. He says in his dispatch that he had deduced from Longa’s strange quiescence the idea (quite correct in itself) that the Spaniards were refraining from pushing him, because they were hoping that he would linger long enough at Bergara to be cut off by some other column, coming from Salvatierra on to Tolosa far in his rear. And Graham’s force had actually been detached for this very purpose that afternoon—but Giron did not know it, and was really detained only by the exhaustion of his troops. It was not till evening that he got a dispatch from Wellington directing him to press hard upon Foy and delay his march, because an Anglo-Portuguese force was moving by the Puerto de San Adrian to intercept his retreat[649]. But Foy, having guessed what plans might be brewing for his discomfiture, had not only retreated betimes, but ordered Maucune, who was now a day’s march in front of him with the convoy, to drop the impedimenta and bring all his fighting force back to Villafranca, to block the road from Salvatierra until he and his 8,000 men should have got past the point of danger. This order Maucune executed on the morning of the 24th, turning the convoy into Tolosa, and turning back to hold the junction of the roads, with one of his brigades in Villafranca town, and the other thrown forward across to the river Oria to Olaverria and Beassayn on the south bank. News had by this time come to hand that the march of a British column from Salvatierra across the hills had been verified, and that the peril was a real one. Wherefore Foy pressed his retreat, and sent Maucune orders to hold on at all costs till the column from Bergara should have passed his rear.
Now Wellington’s orders to Graham to cut in by the Puerto de San Adrian with the 1st Division, Pack’s and Bradford’s Portuguese, and Anson’s Light Dragoons, had been issued late on the 22nd, but had only reached the General and the greater part of his troops on the morning of the 23rd. Of all the column only the two Light Battalions of the King’s German Legion and Bradford’s Portuguese had turned off that night. Consequently on the 23rd, the critical day, Graham and the bulk of his command were toiling up the pass in heavy rain, and had not crossed the watershed, only Bradford and the two German battalions having reached the village of Segura. It was not till dawn on the 24th that Anson’s cavalry and Pack’s Portuguese got to the front; the rest of the infantry was still far off. Graham then advanced on Villafranca, and soon came into collision with Maucune, who was already in position covering the cross-roads. The head of Foy’s column, coming in from the West, was clearly visible on the other side of the Oria in the act of passing behind the screen formed by Maucune’s covering force. He had started from Villareal before dawn, and got clear away before Longa and Giron were on the move, or able to delay him.
Graham attacked at once, in the hope of driving in Maucune before Foy could get past. Bradford’s Portuguese, endeavouring to turn the French flank, pushed to the right; Halkett’s Germans, supported by the grenadier and light companies of Pack’s brigade, made for Beassayn on the left wing. Bradford’s leading unit, the 5th Caçadores, attacking recklessly on unexplored ground, was thrown back at its first assault; but the Brigadier, extending other battalions farther to his right, ended by taking the village of Olaverria and pushing his immediate opponents across the river. The German light battalions carried Beassayn at their first rush. But Maucune, retiring to a new position on high ground immediately above Villafranca, continued his resistance, trying to gain time at all risks. In this he was successful: Foy, hurrying past his rear, got well forward on the Tolosa road with his two leading brigades—the other two he dropped behind the town, to support Maucune or relieve him when he should be driven in.
Owing to the early hour—three in the morning—at which Foy had started on his retreat from Villareal, the bulk of Giron’s army was never able to catch him up. Only Longa’s Cantabrians, leading the advance as usual, came into contact with his rear brigade—St. Pol’s Italians—at the defile of La Descarga west of Villafranca. Failing to force a passage by a frontal attack, Longa turned the position; but the delay permitted St. Pol to get off with small loss and to catch up the rest of Foy’s column.