Wellington's movements were at the beginning so far concealed that the French did not penetrate his purpose. King Joseph did not understand that the game was substantially lost, and hoped to concentrate the French armies behind the Douro, and stop Wellington, if he could not force him back to Portugal once more. Graham's divisions appearing north of the Douro, and steadily pushing forwards, undeceived him. The French retreated first to Burgos, protecting as long as possible the vast amount of property of all kinds which was being poured along the great high-road to Bayonne, from the reserve artillery to the pictures robbed from Spanish churches and palaces, all the treasure and apparatus of the usurping government and court, all the military stores which had accumulated during five years of war, all the non-military persons who had so identified themselves with the invaders that they dared not stay in Spain. Wellington continued moving in the same manner, pushing his left forward while with his right he followed up the French, thus ever threatening to cut their communications, ever securing the command of more and more of the north coast. King Joseph found it necessary to retreat still further, till at Vittoria he had to choose between abandoning Spain altogether, and risking a battle. That he could have fought with at least equal chances of success two or three times, at earlier stages of the retreat, seems clear: but there was no sound directing head at the French head-quarters. Joseph was always incompetent, his military adviser, Marshal Jourdan, was either over-ruled or failed even less excusably because he had more experience; the subordinate generals received vacillating orders. The whole machine in fact was out of gear; though in the various combats, large and small, generals and soldiers fought as well as ever, the army as a whole expected to be beaten and was beaten.
The basin of Vittoria is about twelve miles in length, from the defile of Salinas, where the river Zadorra enters it on the east, to the defile of Puebla, where the river quits it to flow towards the Ebro. The great royal road, the only one good enough for the enormous convoys with which the French army was burdened, traversed these defiles, running through the town of Vittoria on the south side of the river. The basin is more or less completely surrounded with hills, crossed by rough and difficult roads. To the west is the valley of the small river Bayas, which converges towards the Zadorra, joining the Ebro just above it. From the Bayas there is a way into the basin of Vittoria by a gap in the hills behind the village of Subijana de Morillos, four or five miles from the Puebla defile. A dozen miles higher up the Bayas the road from Bilbao crosses that stream, and threading the defiles of the northern hills comes down straight on Vittoria. The French, who were in fact to fight for the plunder of Spain and the accumulated material of the army, had been already weakened by large detachments sent forward in charge of convoys. Outnumbered in fact, outweighed still more in imagination, they were massed, except Reille's divisions, at the western end of the basin, the plain behind them being full of waggons of all descriptions. Reille was posted north of Vittoria, facing the Bilbao road, so far from the rest of the army that he could not possibly be supported if attacked by superior numbers, though it is obvious that if Reille were overpowered the great road would be lost. Nothing could better illustrate the extreme unwisdom of not standing to fight earlier: defeat at Vittoria meant the loss of everything, and the dispositions made invited defeat. Wellington fully realised his advantage: he sent Graham with some 20,000 men up the Bayas, to cross into the basin of Vittoria by the Bilbao road and attack Reille, while the rest of the army attacked the main body of the French posted behind the Zadorra at the west end of the basin.
At daybreak on June 21 Wellington's immediate right under Hill moved forwards and slowly crossed the Zadorra just below the defile of Puebla. There was no occasion for haste, rather it was expedient to be leisurely, so as to give time for Graham to accomplish his much longer march. Then a brigade of Spanish infantry was sent to scale the heights which form the eastern side of the defile, and push along them so as to threaten to turn the French left. The remainder of the right wing passed through the defile and attacked the French left in front. Meanwhile Wellington with his centre had made his way through and over the hills separating the Bayas from the Zadorra, part by the gap of Subijana de Morillos, so as to converge on Hill's force, part some distance further to the northwards. By this time it was one o'clock, and the distant sound of cannonading told that Graham was already engaged. The French main army began to retreat, pressed steadily in front by Wellington, till they were driven back to within a mile of Vittoria. By this time Graham, who had considerably larger forces than those immediately opposed to him, had obtained command of the royal road. Carrying out on a small scale in action the same idea which had inspired Wellington's movements on the large scale, he had pushed forwards his left, winning possession of the village of Gamarra Mayor on Reille's extreme right. The French here held their ground with admirable tenacity, and Graham could seize neither the bridge at Gamarra, nor that directly in his front by which the Bilbao road enters Vittoria, though his guns could sweep the great road towards France. Reille thus saved the French army from annihilation: if he had been driven over the Zadorra a comparatively small part would have been able to escape at all. Thanks to him, the bulk of the soldiers were able to retire by the Pampeluna road; but it could scarcely be called an army. The losses in the battle, or rather in the pair of simultaneous battles, had not been exceptional, and had been tolerably equal, about 6000 killed and wounded on each side; but nothing escaped except the men. To quote the words of a French officer who took part in the action: "They lost all their equipages, all their guns, all their treasure, all their stores, all their papers, so that no man could prove how much pay was due to him: generals and soldiers alike were reduced to the clothes on their backs, and most of them were barefoot."
The deliverance of Spain was not yet complete, but it was virtually achieved by the battle of Vittoria. Before Wellington could capture San Sebastian, the fortress which guarded the Spanish side of the frontier at the extreme south-west corner of France, Soult had been sent by Napoleon to reorganise the disordered fragments of several separate commands which had escaped from Vittoria. As soon as he could move, Soult crossed the passes of the western Pyrenees, trying to break up the scattered parts of the English army, which had to besiege San Sebastian and Pampeluna, besides its other duties. Wellington was able to concentrate just in time, and after some very complicated warfare in the mountain country, involving serious losses on both sides, Soult was driven back into France. Before the end of the year Wellington was in France; he had stormed San Sebastian, converted the siege of Pampeluna into a blockade, driven Soult successively across the two little rivers beyond the frontier, and surrounded Bayonne. The fall of Napoleon early in 1814 put an end to the war, not without two more battles, in the latter of which Soult was driven from a very strong position close to the city of Toulouse, while inflicting very great loss on his assailants. Wellington had contributed largely to the overthrow of Napoleon by his direct efforts, by his caution and foresight so long as was necessary, by his daring at the right moment, by his skilful and bold offensive strategy. How much he contributed indirectly, by keeping up resistance to the universal conqueror in one corner of Europe, it would be difficult to estimate.
