Reille’s troops were not recalled from San Marcial and the battle went on sharply; for the Spaniards continually detached men from the crest to drive the French from the lower ridges into the river until about four o’clock, when, their hardihood abating, they desired to be relieved; but Wellington, careful of their glory, and seeing the French attacks were exhausted, refused to relieve or aid them. It would not be just to measure their valour by this fact; the English general blushed while he called upon them to fight; knowing they had been previously famished by their vile government, and that there were no hospitals to receive, no care for them when wounded. The battle was however arrested by a tempest, which commenced about three o’clock and raged for several hours with wonderful violence, tearing huge branches from the trees, and whirling them through the air like feathers on the howling winds, while the thinnest streams swelling into torrents dashed down the mountains, rolling innumerable stones along with a frightful clatter. Amidst this turmoil and under cover of night the French re-crossed the river at San Marcial.
Clausel’s retreat was more unhappy. The order to retire reached him when the storm had put an end to all fighting, and he repassed the fords in person before dark at the head of two brigades, ordering General Vandermaesen to follow with the remainder of the troops. Expecting no difficulty, he neglected to seize the bridge of Vera and the fortified house covering it, occupying himself with suggesting new projects to Soult. Meanwhile Vandermaesen’s situation became desperate. Many of his soldiers were drowned by the rising waters, and finally, unable to effect a passage at the fords, he marched up the stream to seize the bridge of Vera, which Clausel should have done before. His advanced guard surprised a corporal’s picquet and rushed over, but was driven back by a rifle company posted in the fortified house. This happened at three o’clock in the morning, and the riflemen defended the passage until daylight, when a second company and some Portuguese Caçadores came to their aid. But then the French reserve left at Vera, seeing how matters stood, opened a fire of guns against the house from a high rock just above, and their skirmishers approached it on the right bank, while Vandermaesen plied his musketry from the left bank: the two rifle captains and many men fell under this cross fire and the passage was forced; but Vandermaesen, urging the attack in person, was killed, and more than two hundred of his soldiers were hurt.
Meanwhile Soult, who was preparing a new attack on San Marcial, got Rey’s report of the assault on San Sebastian, and also heard that Hill was moving on the side of St. Jean Pied de Port. San Sebastian was lost, an attempt to carry off the garrison of the castle would cost five or six thousand men, and the whole army would be endangered amongst the terrible asperities of the crowned mountain; for Wellington could now throw his right and centre, thirty-five thousand men, upon the French left during the action, and would be nearer to Bayonne than their right when the battle was beyond the Lower Bidassoa. Three thousand six hundred men had been lost, one general had been killed, four wounded; a fresh attempt would be very dangerous, and serious losses might cause an immediate invasion of France. Reflecting on these things, he resolved to adopt defensive measures at once, for which his vast knowledge of war, his foresight, his talent for methodical arrangement, and his firmness of character, peculiarly fitted him. Twelve battles or combats in seven weeks he had delivered to regain the offensive, unsuccessfully; yet willing still to strive, he called on Suchet to aid him, and demanded fresh orders from the emperor; but Suchet helped him not, and Napoleon’s answer indicated at once his own difficulties and his reliance upon the Duke of Dalmatia’s capacity and fidelity. “I have given you my confidence and can add neither to your means nor to your instructions.”
In this straggling battle the loss of the allies had been one thousand Anglo-Portuguese and sixteen hundred Spaniards: hence the cost of men on the day, including the assault, exceeded five thousand; but the battle in no manner disturbed the siege; the French army was powerless against such strong positions.
BOOK XIII.
English Passage of the Bidassoa and Second Combat of Vera—The Passage of the Lower Bidassoa—Second Combat of Vera—Battle of the Nivelle; Characters of Colonel Lloyd and Lieutenant Freer.
English Passage of the Bidassoa and Second Combat of Vera (Oct. 1813.)
The fall of San Sebastian gave Lord Wellington a new port, and let loose a considerable body of troops; Austria had joined the allies in Germany; the English cabinet had promised the continental sovereigns that France should be immediately invaded; the English newspaper editors were actively deceiving the people of all countries by their dictatorial absurd projects and assumptions; the Bourbon partizans were conspiring, and the Duke of Berri desired to join the British army, pretending that twenty thousand Frenchmen were armed and organized to receive him. All was exultation and extravagance, but Wellington, despising such inflated hopes and promises, exposed the absurdity of the newspapers, and checked similar folly in higher places, by observing, “that if he had done all that was expected he should have been before that period in the moon.”
Far from designing to invade France, he felt his own position insecure while Suchet was master of Catalonia: and he was only prevented from transferring the war to that province by the disasters Napoleon now experienced in Germany, rendering it impossible to reinforce Soult. However, pressed by the ministers and the allied sovereigns, he so far bent his military judgment to political pressure, as to undertake the establishing his army in a menacing position on French ground; and in that view matured an offensive movement as daring as any undertaken during the whole war. But to comprehend all the audacious grandeur of this operation, the relative positions of the hostile armies must be glanced at.