Early in October a reinforcement of twelve hundred British soldiers arrived from England. Mina was then on the right of Hill, who was thus enabled to call Campbell’s Portuguese from the Alduides, and replace at Maya the third division, which, shifting to its left, then occupied the heights of Zagaramurdi and enabled the seventh division to relieve Giron’s Andalusians in the Puerto de Echallar.
These dispositions were made with a view to the attack of the Great Rhune and its dependents, for which Wellington assembled the fourth and light divisions on Santa Barbara, Giron’s Spaniards being on their right, and Longa’s on their left. The sixth division, supported by the third, was at Zagaramurdi to make a demonstration against D’Erlon’s advanced posts. Thus, without weakening his line between Roncesvalles and Echallar, he could assail the Rhune mountain and its dependents with twenty thousand men, and had still twenty-four thousand disposable for the passage of the Lower Bidassoa.
It has been before said that between the Andarlasa ford, below Vera, and the fords of Biriatu, a distance of three miles, there were neither roads nor fords nor bridges. The French, trusting to this difficulty of approach and to their entrenchments on the craggy slopes of the Mandale, had collected their troops principally where the Bildox or green mountain, and the entrenched camp of Biriatu overlooked the fords, and against them Wellington directed Freyre’s Spaniards from San Marcial.
Between Biriatu and the sea the advanced points of defence were the mountain of Louis XIV., a ridge called the Caffé Républicain, and the town of Andaya; behind which the Calvaire d’Urogne, the Croix des Bouquets, and the camp of the Sans Culottes, served as rallying posts. The first and fifth divisions, and the unattached brigades of Wilson and Lord Aylmer, in all fifteen thousand men, were destined to assault these works; and the Spanish fishermen had secretly indicated three fords practicable at low water between the bridge of Behobia and the sea. Wellington therefore, with an astonishing hardihood, designed to pass his columns at the old known fords above and these secret fords below bridge, though the tides rose sixteen feet, leaving at the ebb open heavy sands not less than half a mile broad! The left bank of the river also was completely exposed to observation from the enemy’s hills, which, though low in comparison of the mountains above the bridge, were strong ridges of defence; but relying on his previous measures the English general disdained these dangers, and his anticipations were not belied by the result. For the unlikelihood that, having a better line of operations, he would force such a river as the Bidassoa at its mouth, entirely deceived Soult, whose lieutenants were also very negligent. Of Reille’s two divisions, one under Boyer was dispersed, labouring on the entrenched camp of Urogne far from the river; Villatte’s reserve was at Ascain and Serres; and five thousand men of Maucune’s division, though on the first line, were unexpectant of an attack. The works on the Mandale were finished, those at Biriatu in a forward state, but from the latter to the sea all were imperfect.
The Passage of the Lower Bidassoa. (Oct. 1813.)
On the 6th the night set in heavily. A sullen thunderstorm, gathering about the craggy summit of the Peña de Haya, came slowly down its flanks, and towards morning, rolling over the Bidassoa, fell in its greatest violence upon the French positions. During this turmoil Wellington, whose pontoons and artillery were close up to Irun, disposed a number of guns and howitzers along the crest of San Marcial, and his columns secretly attained their stations along the banks of the river. The Spaniards, one brigade of Guards, and Wilson’s Portuguese, stretching from the Biriatu fords to the broken bridge of Behobia, were ensconced behind the lower ridge of San Marcial, which had been seized by the French in the attack of the 31st; another brigade of Guards and the Germans were concealed near Irun, close to a ford, below bridge, called the Great Jonco; the fifth division were covered by a river embankment opposite Andaya; Sprye’s Portuguese and Lord Aylmer’s brigade were posted in the ditch of Fuenterabia.
All the tents were left standing in the camps, and the enemy, seeing no change on the morning of the 7th, were unsuspicious; but at seven o’clock, the fifth division and Aylmer’s brigade, emerging from their concealment took the sands in two columns. The left one moved against the French camp of the Sans Culottes, the other against the ridge of Andaya, but no shot was fired until they passed the low water channel, when an English rocket was sent up from the steeple of Fuenterabia as a signal. Then the artillery opened from San Marcial, the troops near Irun, covered by the fire of a battery, made for the Jonco, and the passage above the bridge also commenced.
From the crest of San Marcial seven columns could now be seen at once, attacking on a line of five miles; those above bridge plunging at once into the fiery contest, those below, appearing in the distance like huge serpents sullenly winding over the heavy sands. The Germans missed the Jonco ford and got into deep water, yet quickly recovered the true line, and the French, completely surprised, permitted even the brigades of the fifth division to gain the right bank and form their lines before a hostile musket flashed. The cannonade from San Marcial was heard by Soult at Espelette, and at the same time the sixth division made a false attack on D’Erlon’s positions; the Portuguese brigade under Colonel Douglas, was however pushed too far and got beaten with the loss of a hundred and fifty men.
Soult now comprehending the true state of affairs hurried to his right, but his camps on the Bidassoa were lost before he arrived. For when the British artillery first opened, Maucune’s troops assembled at their different posts, and the French guns opened from the Louis XIV. and Caffé Républicain; then the alarm spread, and Boyer marched from Urogne to support Maucune, without waiting for the junction of his working parties; but his brigades moved separately as they could collect, and before the first came into action, Sprye’s Portuguese, forming the extreme left of the allies, were menacing the camp of the Sans Culottes: thither therefore one of Boyer’s regiments was ordered, while the others advanced by the royal road towards the Croix des Bouquets. Andaya, guarded only by a picquet, was meanwhile abandoned, and Reille, thinking the camp of the Sans Culottes would be lost before Boyer’s men could reach it, sent a battalion there from the centre; he thus weakened the chief point; for the British brigades of the fifth division were now bearing from Andaya towards the Croix des Bouquets under a fire of guns and musketry.
The first division had passed the river, one column above bridge, preceded by Wilson’s Portuguese, the other below, preceded by the German light troops, who with the aid of the artillery on San Marcial won the Caffé Républicain and the mountain of Louis XIV., driving the French to the Croix des Bouquets. This last was the key of the position, and towards it guns and troops were now hastening from both sides, but the Germans were there brought to a check, for the heights were strong and Boyer’s leading battalions close at hand; at that moment however, Colonel Cameron, coming up with the 9th Regiment, passed through the German skirmishers and vehemently ascended the first height, whereupon the French opened their ranks to let their guns retire, and then retreated at full speed to a second ridge, somewhat lower, but only to be approached on a narrow front. Cameron as quickly threw his men into a single column and bore against this new position under a concentrated fire, yet his violent course did not seem to dismay the French until within ten yards when the furious shout and charge of the 9th appalled them and the ridges of the Croix des Bouquets were won as far as the royal road. Cameron lost many men and officers, and during the fight the French artillery and scattered troops, coming from different points and rallying on Boyer’s battalions, had gathered on other ridges close at hand.