Leaving Sir John Hope and Admiral Penrose to invest Bayonne, Wellington, with the main force, had pushed on in pursuit of the French under Soult. These were drawn up at Sauveterre, but whilst Wellington demonstrated upon the front of the line on which Soult rested, and whilst the attention of the marshal was wholly engaged by the movements in his front, Sir Rowland Hill crossed the Gave d’Oloron at Villenave without opposition on 24 February and turned his left. Upon this Soult hastily abandoned his ground, transferred his headquarters to Orthez, and took up a formidable position behind the Gave de Pau.
The position chosen by him was well selected and apparently impregnable. A half-moon of heights of sandstone and rubble, steep towards the west, and with gullies torn in the sides, was occupied by him. His right rested on the bluff above the village of S. Boës. The left flank rested on the town of Orthez. A reserve of two divisions of infantry and a brigade of cavalry were drawn up on an elevated and commanding height by the road to Sault de Navailles. The French marshal disposed of eight divisions of infantry and one of cavalry, but these had been wasted from their former strength, and hardly mustered forty thousand sabres and bayonets, with forty guns.
Wellington was able, unopposed, to cross the Gave in three places, in three advancing columns.
At daybreak on the 27th Beresford, with the left wing, commenced the action by turning the enemy’s extreme right at S. Boës, whilst at the same time Picton assaulted the centre. Hill, with the second British and Le Cor’s Portuguese brigade, was to endeavour to force the passage at Orthez and attack the enemy’s left. There was an interval of a mile and a half between Beresford’s and Picton’s columns, and here was a conical hill occupied by a Roman camp on the summit, and separated by a marsh from the semilunar range held by the French. On this height in the midst of the camp Wellington took his station with his staff, having the whole battle spread out like a map before him. Beresford, having overlapped the French right, commenced a vigorous attack in front and flank on the village of S. Boës. At length the English reached the top of the hill, and, pursuing the enemy, began to move along the narrow ridge which stretched from S. Boës to the centre of the French position. But they failed to dislodge the enemy, who kept up a rolling fire upon their pursuers, and the artillery raked both flanks, occasioning dreadful carnage, so that the English were brought to a stand-still. At the same time a Portuguese brigade, completely unnerved, turned and fled in disorderly rout, throwing our own men into confusion.
Happily a brigade was moved up to cover the retreat of the Portuguese and allow our own men to recover and re-form. “At last I have him!” exclaimed Soult exultantly. Wellington, from his point of observation, saw that the effort to dislodge the French and roll them back on their centre had failed. He then executed one of those sudden and masterly changes of attack which exhibit the ready resource of a great general. He at once ordered up the third and sixth divisions to assail the centre of the enemy’s position, and turn and take the right wing in flank. Simultaneously Picton was to mount the ridge where the French had their right centre, and, breaking the line of formation, drive it back on to the left. The gallant troops crossed the swamp, with the water up to their knees, and mounting the hill through the brushwood unperceived by the foe, amidst the smoke, with a loud shout and a withering fire plunged into the opening at the very moment that the French on the right were pressing their advantage against Beresford, and were driving the fourth division before them.
At the same time Picton reached the summit of the ridge in the middle, drove the French down the slope, and, planting his guns, plunged through the enemy’s masses from one end of his position to the other.
Soult saw that the day was lost, and ordered the army to retreat, which it did in regular echelons of divisions, and they held the several positions taken up till the allies closed on their front and moved upon their flank, Hill having by this time crossed above Orthez and cut off the retreat by the road to Pau. Then the French broke their formation, and ran for Sault de Navailles with such speed that the great body of them passed over the bridge in a wild, terror-stricken crowd. However, nearly two thousand prisoners were taken in the pursuit, and several guns. The French loss in killed, wounded, and taken, exceeded six thousand, and some hundreds afterwards deserted, or rather disbanded, and went to their homes. The loss of the allies amounted to 2300.
It is pleasing to know what excellent discipline was maintained by Wellington in his march through the Gascon land from Bayonne to Toulouse. This was due not solely to humanity towards the peasantry, but also as a precaution to obviate insurrectionary movements in his rear. He issued a proclamation, authorizing the people of the country, under the mayors of the villages, to arm themselves, and arrest all stragglers and marauders from the army. Allison says:—
“Nor did his proclamation remain a dead letter, for on the night of the 25th the inhabitants of a village on the high road leading from Sauveterre, having shot one British soldier who had been plundering, and wounded another, he caused the wounded man to be hung, and sent home an English colonel who had permitted his men to destroy the municipal archives of a small town on the line of march. ‘Maintain the strictest discipline; without that we are lost,’ said he to General Freyre. By this means tranquillity was preserved in his rear during this critical movement; and the English general reaped the fruits of the admirable discipline and forbearance he had maintained in the enemy’s country, by being enabled to bring up all his reserves, and hurl his undivided force upon the hostile army.”