To aid Reille’s progress and provide for a general concentration at Oyarzun, Clausel was to make a simultaneous attack from Vera; not as first designed, by driving the allies from Santa Barbara, but, leaving one division and his guns to keep the light division in check, to cross the river by fords just below the town of Vera and assail the Portuguese brigade and Inglis, forcing his way upwards to the forge of Antonio, from whence he was to fall down again on the rear of San Marcial, or move on Oyarzun.
Combat of San Marcial. (Aug. 1813.)
At daylight on the 31st, Reille forded the Bidassoa above Biriatu with two divisions and two pieces of artillery, to seize a detached ridge just under San Marcial. Leaving there one brigade as a reserve, he detached another to attack the Spanish left, while in person he assailed their right. The side of the mountain was covered with brushwood and very steep, the French troops preserved no order, the supports and skirmishers got mixed in one mass, and the charging Spaniards drove them headlong down.
During this action two bridges were thrown below the fords, by which Villatte’s reserve crossed and renewed the fight; one of his brigades reached the chapel San Marcial above, and the left of the Spanish line was shaken; but then the 85th, from Lord Aylmer’s brigade, advanced to support, and at that moment Wellington rode up with all his staff. He exhorted the Spaniards, and they, with a noble instinct which never abandons the poor people of any country, acknowledged real greatness without reference to nation; for, shouting in reply they dashed their adversaries down with so much violence that many were driven into the river, and some of the French pontoon boats coming to the succour were overloaded and sunk. It was several hours before the broken and confused masses could be rallied, or the bridges, which were broken up to let the boats save the drowning men, be replaced. When that was effected, Soult sent the whole of Villatte’s reserve over the river, called up Foy, and prepared a better attack: with greater hope of success, also, because Clausel was now making good way up the Peña de Haya.
Combat of Vera. (Aug. 1813.)
Clausel had descended the Bayonette and Commissari mountains at daybreak in a thick fog, but at seven o’clock the weather cleared, and three heavy columns were seen by the troops on Santa Barbara making for the fords below Vera. A fourth column and the guns remained stationary on the mountains, the artillery opening now and then upon Vera, from which the picquets of the light division were recalled, with the exception of one post in a fortified house commanding the bridge. At eight o’clock the French passed the fords, covered by a fire of artillery, but the first shells thrown fell into the midst of their own ranks, and the British troops on Santa Barbara cheered their battery with a derisive shout. Their march was however sure, and their light troops, without knapsacks, soon commenced battle with the Portuguese brigade, forcing it to retire up the mountain. Inglis fed his line of skirmishers until the whole of his brigade was engaged, but Clausel menaced his left flank from the lowest ford, and the French skirmishers still forced their way upwards in front until the contending masses disappeared fighting amidst the asperities of the Peña de la Haya. The British lost two hundred and seventy men and twenty-two officers, and were driven up to the fourth division at the foundry of San Antonio.
This fight, from the great height and asperity of the mountain, occupied many hours, and it was past two o’clock before even the head of Clausel’s column reached Antonio. Meanwhile, his reserve in front of Santa Barbara made no movement, and as Wellington had directed the light division to aid Inglis, a wing of the 43rd, three companies of riflemen and three weak Spanish battalions, drawn from Echallar, crossed the Bidassoa by the Lesaca bridge and marched towards some lower slopes on the right of Inglis. This covered a knot of minor communications coming from Lesaca and Vera, and the remainder of Kempt’s brigade occupied Lesaca itself. Thus the chain of connection and defence between Santa Barbara and the positions of the fourth division on the Peña de la Haya was completed.
Clausel seeing these movements, thought the allies at Echallar and Santa Barbara were only awaiting to take him in flank and rear by the bridges of Vera and Lesaca, wherefore he abated his battle and informed Soult of his views, and his opinion was well-founded. Wellington was not a general to have half his army paralyzed by D’Erlon’s divisions in the centre, and had on the 30th, when Soult first assembled in front of San Marcial, ordered attacks to be made upon D’Erlon from Echallar, Zagaramurdi and Maya; Hill also had been directed to show the heads of columns towards St. Jean Pied de Port; and on the 31st, when the force and direction of Clausel’s columns were known, the seventh division was called to Lesaca.
Following these orders, Giron’s Spaniards skirmished on the 30th with the advanced posts in front of Sarre, and next day the whole line was assailed. Two Portuguese brigades drove the French from their camp behind Urdax and burned it, but Abbé who commanded there, collecting all his force on an intrenched position made strong battle and repulsed the attack. Thus five combats besides the assault on Sebastian were fought in one day at different points of the general line, and D’Erlon who had lost three or four hundred men, seeing a fresh column coming from Maya, as if to turn his left, judged that a great movement against Bayonne was in progress and sent notice to Soult. He was mistaken. Wellington only sought by these demonstrations to disturb the French plan of attack, and the seventh division marched towards Lesaca.
D’Erlon’s despatch reached Soult at the same time that Clausel’s report arrived. All his arrangements for a final attack on San Marcial were then completed, but these reports and the ominous cannonade at San Sebastian, plainly heard during the morning, induced him to abandon this project and prepare to receive a general battle on the Nivelle. In this view he sent Foy’s infantry and six troops of dragoons to the heights of Serres, behind the Nivelle, as a support to D’Erlon, and directed Clausel to repass the Bidassoa in the night, to leave a division on the Bayonette mountain and join Foy at Serres.