It was not so much the arguments used by Melville as his offensive tone which Wellington resented. The victor of Salamanca was naturally irritated at finding himself treated de haut en bas by a personage of such complete insignificance, who had not even the equivocal reputation of his father (the devisor of so many unlucky expeditions, the impeached minister of 1806) to lend weight to his lectures. He replied in a very short letter that he was not desirous of getting into discussions, that his demands for more naval assistance had begun in the winter of 1812-13, and that after reading over again his letters to naval officers he could see nothing to find fault with—save that he had once sent to Sir George Collier an extract of a dispatch to Lord Bathurst, instead of a separate communication on the same topic addressed to Collier personally—a trifling subject on which to start a controversy[791]. Meanwhile he considered, as a dozen letters show, that he was being poorly served by the Admiralty, and ‘formed private opinions on the subject—which private opinions may not perhaps deserve much attention,’ as he sardonically observed.
One thing, however, the Admiralty had contrived to carry out according to Wellington’s request—the stores and battering train, which he had accumulated at Corunna in the spring, had come round to the Biscay coast as soon as could have been expected; they had been sent to Santander, as he directed, and arrived in that harbour on the very day (June 29) on which Major Frazer, sent off four days after Vittoria, came from Head-Quarters to inquire for them[792]. The orders were to land them at Deba in Guipuzcoa, fifteen miles west of St. Sebastian; but just as the disembarkation was commencing (July 3), a change of destination was made—everything was to be put ashore at Passages, a much more convenient place, only a couple of miles from the blockaded fortress. This is a most astonishing little harbour, the safest port on the coast, for it is absolutely land-locked; its entrance is so narrow that the circular basin looks like a lake without an issue, till the eye has with some difficulty discovered its exit. It pays for its security, however, by being hard to enter in time of storm, when very careful navigation is required. But a besieging army has seldom been granted a base so near to its field of operations—it was only two and a half miles from the water’s edge at Passages to the Chofres sandhills, where the chief batteries were to be constructed, though four miles to the head of the isthmus where the left attack was to be made. And the fording of the Urumea, whose bridge the French had burned, was sometimes dangerous—more than one gun was lost in the quicksands[793].
By the time that Wellington had worked out the scheme of assault with Charles Smith, the guns were already arriving, not only the battering train from Corunna, which had begun to come ashore on July 7, but the heavy artillery reserve of the army, which had traversed all the weary miles of road from Ciudad Rodrigo. The total of pieces available was twenty-eight from the convoy, six from the heavy battery of the army reserve, and six lent by Sir George Collier from the main deck of his ship, the Surveillante—or forty in all[794]—a very different train from the miserable four guns which had battered Burgos in the preceding autumn.
Before any regular siege work could begin, it was obviously necessary to clear the French out of the monastery of San Bartolomé, on its hill at the neck of the isthmus: till this should be taken, it was impossible to get forward on the shore from which the assault was to be delivered. Under-estimating the strength of the post Graham and the engineers, contrary to the advice of Major Hartmann of the K.G.L., the senior artillery officer present before Dickson’s arrival[795], had tried to reduce it on July 7th by the fire of a Portuguese field battery belonging to the artillery reserve; but the walls proved too solid for 8-pounders to damage, and some firing with red hot shot failed to set fire to the roof. It was clear that it would be necessary to wait for the heavy guns to come up. Meanwhile the French continued to strengthen San Bartolomé, throwing up an earthwork in its cemetery and loopholing and barricading the ruined houses near it, as well as those in the burnt-out suburb of San Martin, which lay at its foot. They also commenced a redoubt on the isthmus, half-way between the outlying convent and the hornwork in front of the city wall.
While the siege train was being got ashore, the engineers made ready the emplacements for the guns—they started with throwing up two batteries on the Ayete heights to play on the convent of San Bartolomé[796], three on the Chofres sandhills[797] to act against the sea-wall where the main breach was to be formed, and one on the lofty Monte Olia, for long-distance fire against all the fortifications, including those of the rock of Monte Urgull[798]. But on the 14th, when the battering began, the only guns used were those on the left attack opposite the convent, as it was considered unwise to molest the city fortifications before there was any way of getting near them: approach was impossible as long as the isthmus was all in the enemy’s hands.
Two days’ battering (July 14-15) brought down the roof and part of the walls of San Bartolomé, and damaged the subsidiary works around it severely. But General Rey was determined to hold on to his outer defences as long as possible: the best part of two battalions was told off to hold the ruins and the suburb of San Martin behind them. On the afternoon of the 15th General Oswald, judging from the dilapidation of the buildings that they were untenable, sent in the 8th Caçadores from his Portuguese brigade to storm them; but the French had dug themselves well in, a furious fire broke out against the assailants, and the attack was turned back with the loss of 65 men[799]. It was obvious that more battering was required to evict the gallant garrison, so the fire was resumed on the 16th, with the aid of a field battery playing across the Urumea to enfilade the defences, and to pound the ruined houses of San Martin, where the French reserves were sheltering.
The fire was very effective: the inner woodwork of the monastery blazed up, its porch was levelled to the ground, great gaps appeared in the walls, and the earthwork in the cemetery was much damaged. At 10 a.m. on the 17th a second storm was tried, with forces much larger than those used at the first—not one battalion, but the equivalent of three: Oswald drew upon Bradford’s independent brigade from across the Urumea for 700 Portuguese volunteers. Two columns were launched against the French position, each consisting of a screen of Caçadores, a support of Portuguese Line troops, and a reserve of British companies from the first brigade of the 5th Division[800]. The right column aimed at the cemetery earthwork and the fortified houses—the left at the main buildings of the convent, which were still smouldering from the fire. Both achieved their purpose without any very serious loss, and the garrison was driven down hill into the suburb of San Martin, pursued by the stormers. Here the French reserves intervened, and for a moment the attack was turned back; but the companies of the 1/9th which formed the British supports re-established the fight, and the enemy retired in disorder towards the town. Unfortunately the victors pursued recklessly, and came under the fire of the French guns in the hornwork and the bastion behind it, whence many unnecessary casualties. For it had never been intended that the troops should advance on to the isthmus, where of course they could do nothing against an intact front of fortifications. The total losses of the assailants were 207 killed and wounded—the 1/9th which had headed the rush on to the bare ground suffering most, with 70 casualties. The French had 40 killed and 200 wounded.
It was now possible to commence the subsidiary attack on the side of the isthmus, as the French held nothing outside the walls save the recently constructed redoubt in front of the hornwork[801]. Two batteries were thrown up on the San Bartolomé hill, and on the 18th the guns with which the convent had been breached were moved down into them[802]. The main object of these batteries was to enfilade the stretch of sea-wall, on which the greater weight of metal on the Chofres downs was to play from the front. Two additional batteries were thrown up, more to the right, which, while aiding the enfilading fire, were also intended to shell the land-front, and keep down the fire from the bastion and hornwork[803]. Finally, the Chofres attack was strengthened with two more batteries[804]. On the night of the 19th sixteen guns in all were in place on the isthmus front, or left attack, twenty-three on the right attack to the east of the Urumea, including six on the summit of the lofty Monte Olia, on the extreme flank[805]. Meanwhile the approaches, by which the troops would have to move out to assault the breaches when made, were not nearly so far forward as could have been desired: little more had been done than to push a zig-zag down the slope of San Bartolomé into the ruins of San Martin—further advance was made difficult by the fact that the French were still holding the forward position of the redoubt in the centre of the isthmus. It was only on the night between the 19th and 20th that they evacuated this post[806]. Moreover the fire of the defence was as yet intact, since the British heavy batteries had not begun their work: hence the sap-head was a decidedly unhealthy place.
At 8 a.m. on the morning of July 20 nine of the eleven siege batteries opened—all but the two new ones on San Bartolomé, where the work was a little belated. The effect of the first day’s work was fairly satisfactory—the parapet of the sea-wall began to crumble, the enemy’s guns en barbette on the land-front were partly silenced, and the high trajectory fire from the lofty Monte Olia battery searched the streets, the back of the bastion, and the interior of the hornwork. The enemy concentrated all his attention on the largest British battery upon the Chofres dunes, the eleven guns which were farthest forward (No. 3) and were doing much damage to the sea-wall. The counter-fire here was severe—one gun was split by a ball striking its muzzle, others had wheels broken, three had to stop firing because their embrasures, badly built with sand, fell in and could not be kept clear[807]. By evening only six of the eleven guns were still at work.
An afternoon of wind and showers, which had made accurate aim difficult, was followed on the night of the 20th-21st by a torrential rain, which much impeded the special work which had been set aside for the dark hours. Seven hundred men from Spry’s Portuguese brigades had been told off to open a parallel right across the isthmus, starting from the lodgment already established in the ruined houses of San Martin. ‘In the perfect deluge the working parties sneaked away by degrees into houses and holes and corners. After numerous difficulties and exertions only about 150 could be collected and set to work at 11 p.m. The party was not discovered, and the soil being light soon got under cover.... But the parallel finished was for only about one-third of the extent required[808].’