XXVII. “Till rapid Soult,” &c.
Rapidity of conception and execution were marked features in Marshal Soult’s military character. The decree by which Napoléon appointed him his Lieutenant in Spain was issued at Dresden on the 1st July, 1813, ten days after the battle of Vittoria. On the eleventh day he was in the midst of the army in Spain! “The 12th, Soult, travelling with surprising expedition, assumed the command of the armies of the ‘north,’ the ‘centre,’ and the ‘south,’ now reorganized in one body called ‘the Army of Spain.’ And he had secret orders to put Joseph forcibly aside if necessary, but that monarch voluntarily retired from the army.” Napier, Hist. War in the Penins. book xxi. chap. 4. “Marshal Soult was one of the few men whose indefatigable energy rendered them worthy lieutenants of the emperor; and with singular zeal, vigour, and ability he now served.”—Ibid. “Such was Soult’s activity that on the 16th all the combinations for a gigantic offensive movement were digested.”—Ibid.
XXIX. “His rugged spine full many a peak doth bear,
His ribs, huge ridges, part on either hand.”
This is the actual formation of the Pyrenees. A great spinal ridge runs diagonally across this entire mountain tract, trending westward. From this spine sierras shoot forth on both sides, and the communications between the valleys formed by these ridges pass over breaks in the sierras, called puertos by the Spaniards, and cols by the French.
XXXI. “What clattering steed doth gallop fleet as air.”
On the 27th July, Wellington, having been unable to learn any thing of the movements of Picton and Cole, who had been left in the valley of Zubiri and on the adjoining heights of Linzoain, on the evening preceding, and dreading lest Soult’s combinations should cut them off, quitted Sir Rowland Hill’s quarters in the Bastan at a very early hour in the morning (these early matutinal movements have been always characteristic of his Grace) and descending the valley of Lanz, reached Ostiz, a few miles from Sauroren, where he met General Long with his brigade of light cavalry, who informed him that Picton and Cole had abandoned the heights of Linzoain, and were moving on Huarte, “He left his quarter-master-general with instructions to stop all the troops coming down the valley of Lanz until the state of affairs at Huarte should be ascertained. Then at racing speed he made for Sauroren. As he entered that village he saw Clauzel’s divisions moving from Zabaldíca along the crest of the mountain, and it was clear that the allied troops in the valley of Lanz were intercepted, wherefore pulling up his horse, he wrote on the parapet of the bridge of Sauroren fresh instructions to turn every thing from that valley to the right, by a road which led through Lizasso and Marcalain behind the hills to the village of Oricain, that is to say in rear of the position now occupied by Cole. Lord Fitzroy Somerset, the only staff officer who had kept up with him, galloped with these orders out of Sauroren by one road, the French light cavalry dashed in by another, and the English general rode alone up the mountain to reach his troops,” &c.—Napier, Hist. book xxi. c. 5.
—“Thought-swift they make
Sauróren.”
I trust this Teutonism will be pardoned, believing these forms of expression to be more suited to the genius of our language than has been hitherto supposed, and likely to be more generally introduced into poetical diction.
XXXII. “Cole eagle-eyed and gallant Picton.”
The gallantry of Picton and the keen observation of Cole were eminent characteristics of those two generals respectively. The danger which they ran in this instance was very imminent. Picton “directed Cole to occupy some heights between Oricain and Arletta. But that general having with a surer eye, &c.”—Napier, Hist. book xxi. c. 5. Wellington’s rapid riding on this occasion defeated a very able combination of Soult’s. The Duke was always an expert and eager horseman, and it was not for nothing that he kept his pack of fox-hounds in the Peninsula.