English Battles and Sieges in the Peninsula. / Extracted from his 'Peninsula War'.

by William Francis Patrick Napier

Beyond this ridge an extensive table-land was bounded by a deep ravine, one narrow space on the right of the marsh excepted, where the enemy had a traverse of loose stones running perpendicularly from behind the hog’s-back and ending in a star fort. This rampart and fort, and the hog’s-back itself, were defended by Barbot’s brigade, whose line of retreat was a low neck of land bridging the deep ravine and linking the Rhune to Clausel’s main position. A reserve was placed there to sustain the 34th French Regiment on the slope of the mountain, and to protect the neck, which was the only approach to the main position in that part: to storm the smaller Rhune was therefore a necessary preliminary to the general battle.

Alten, filing his troops after dark on the 9th, from the Hermitage, the Commissari, and the Puerto de Vera, collected them at midnight on that slope of the greater Rhune which descended towards Ascain. His main body, turning the marsh by the left, was to assail the stone traverse and lap over the star fort by the ravine beyond; Longa, stretching still farther on the left, was to turn the smaller Rhune altogether; the 43rd Regiment was to assail the hog’s-back. One battalion of riflemen and the mountain-guns were left on the greater Rhune, with orders to assail the French 34th and connect Alten’s attack with Giron’s. All these troops gained their respective stations so secretly the enemy had no suspicion of their presence, although for several hours the columns were lying within half musket-shot of the works: towards morning indeed, five or six guns fired in a hurried manner from the low ground near the sea broke the stillness, yet all remained quiet on the Rhunes: the British troops silently awaited the rising of the sun, when three guns fired from the summit of the Atchubia mountain were to be the signal of attack.

Battle of the Nivelle. (Nov. 1813.)

With great splendour the day broke, and as the first ray of light played on the summit of the lofty Atchubia the signal guns were fired in rapid succession; then the light division soldiers leaped up, and the French beheld with astonishment the columns rushing onward from the flank of the great Rhune. Running to their works with much tumult, they opened a few pieces, which were answered from the top of the greater Rhune by the mountain-artillery, and two companies of the 43rd were detached to cross the marsh, if possible, and keep down the enemy’s fire from the lower part of the hog’s-back. The action being thus commenced, the remainder of that regiment advanced against the high rocks, from whence the French shot fast and thickly; but the quick even movement of the line deceived their aim, and the soldiers, running forward very swiftly, turned suddenly between the rocks and the marsh and were immediately joined by the two companies, which had passed that obstacle notwithstanding its depth. Then all together jumped into the lower works, and the men, exhausted by their exertions, for they had run over half a mile of very rough difficult ground with a wonderful speed, remained for a few minutes lying down and panting within half-pistol shot of the first stone castle, from whence came a sharp and biting musketry: when their breath returned they arose and with a stern shout commenced the assault.

As numerous as the assailants were the defenders, and for six weeks they had been labouring on their well-contrived castles; but strong and valiant in arms must the soldiers have been who stood in that hour before the veterans of the 43rd. One French grenadier officer only dared to sustain the rush. Standing alone on the high wall of the first castle and flinging large stones with both his hands, a noble figure, he fought to the last and fell, while his men, shrinking on each side, sought safety among the rocks behind. Close and confused then was the fight, man met man at every turn, yet with a rattling fire of musketry, sometimes struggling in the intricate narrow paths, sometimes climbing the loose stone walls, the British soldiers won their desperate way, and soon carried a second castle, named by the French the magpie’s nest because of a lofty rock within it, on which a few marksmen were perched. From this castle they were driven into a culminant citadel, called the Donjon, larger than the others, and covered by a natural ditch or cleft in the rocks fifteen feet deep.

Here they made a final stand, and the assailants, having advanced so as to look into the rear of the rampart and star fort on the table-land below, suspended the vehement throng of their attack for a while; partly to gather head for storming the Donjon, partly to fire on the enemy beneath, who were warmly engaged with the two battalions of riflemen, the Portuguese Caçadores, and the 17th Portuguese. This last regiment was to have followed the 43rd, but seeing how rapidly and surely the latter were carrying the rocks, had moved at once against the traverse on the other side of the marsh. The French thus pressed in front, and taught by the fire they were outflanked on the ridge above; seeing the 52nd also turning their extreme right by the deep ravine beyond the star fort, abandoned their works below. Then the 43rd gathering a strong head stormed the Donjon. Some leaped with a shout down the deep cleft in the rock, others turned it by the narrow paths on each flank, and the walls were abandoned at the moment of being scaled. Thus in twenty minutes six hundred old soldiers were hustled out of this labyrinth; yet not so easily but that the victorious regiment lost eleven officers and sixty-seven men.

The whole mountain was now cleared, for the riflemen, dropping almost perpendicularly down from the greater Rhune upon the post of crags, had seized it with small loss. Yet they were ill seconded by Giron’s Spaniards, and hardly handled by the French 34th, which maintained its main post on the slope, and covered the flight of the confused crowd then rushing down from the smaller Rhune towards the neck of land behind: there however all rallied and seemed inclined to renew the action, yet, after some hesitation, continued their retreat. This favourable moment for a decisive stroke had been looked for by the commander of the 43rd, but the officer intrusted with the reserve companies of the regiment had thrown them heedlessly into the fight, and rendered it impossible to collect in time a body strong enough to assail such a heavy mass. The contest at the stone rampart and star fort, being shortened by the rapid success on the hog’s-back, had not been very severe, but General Kempt, always conspicuous for his valour, was severely wounded: nevertheless he did not quit the field, and soon re-formed his brigade on the platform he had so gallantly won. Longa, during the fight, got close to Ascain, in connection with Freyre’s troops, and in this state of affairs, the enemy now and then cannonading from a distance, Alten awaited the progress of the army on his right, for the columns there had a long way to march and it was essential to regulate the movements.

The signal-guns from the Atchubia which sent the light division against the Rhune, had also sent the fourth and seventh divisions against San Barbe and Grenada, and while eighteen guns, placed in battery against the former, poured streams of shot, the troops advanced with scaling-ladders. The skirmishers soon got in rear of the work, whereupon the French leaping out fled, and then Ross’s battery of horse-artillery, galloping to a rising ground in rear of the Grenada fort, drove the enemy from there also. After that the following troops won the village of Sarre and the heights beyond, and advanced to the attack of Clausel’s main position.

It was now eight o’clock, and, to the troops posted on the Rhune, a splendid spectacle was presented. On one hand the ships of war, slowly sailing to and fro, were exchanging shots with the fort of Socoa, while Hope, menacing all the French lines in the low ground, sent the sound of a hundred pieces of artillery bellowing up the rocks. He was answered by nearly as many from the tops of the mountains, amidst the smoke of which the summit of the great Atchubia glittered to the rising sun, while fifty thousand men, rushing down its enormous slopes with ringing shouts, seemed to chase the receding shadows into the deep valley. The plains of France, so long overlooked from the towering crags of the Pyrenees, were to be the prize of battle, and the half-famished soldiers in their fury were breaking through the iron barrier erected by Soult as if it were but a screen of reeds.

The principal action was on a space of seven or eight miles, yet the skirts of battle spread wide, and in no point had the combinations failed. Far on the right Hill by a long and difficult night march had got near the enemy before seven o’clock; opposing then his Spanish troops to Abbé’s left wing on the Mondarain rocks, he with the second division brushed back D’Armagnac’s brigade from the forge of Urdax and the village of Ainhoa; but he called the sixth division and Hamilton’s Portuguese over the Nivelle, to act on the right instead of the left bank, against the bridge of Amotz. Thus three divisions approached D’Erlon’s second position in mass, yet the country was very rugged, and it was eleven o’clock before they got within cannon-shot of the French redoubts, each of which contained five hundred men. They were placed along the summit of a high ridge thickly clothed with bushes and covered by a ravine; but General Clinton, leading the sixth division on the extreme left, turned this ravine and drove the enemy from the unfinished works covering the bridge, after which, wheeling to the right, he advanced against the nearest redoubt and the garrison abandoned it. Meanwhile the Portuguese and the second division, passing the ravine, appeared on the right of the sixth, menacing the second and third redoubts, whereupon all were abandoned. D’Armagnac then set fire to his hutted camp and retreated to Helbacen de Borda, behind San Pé, pursued by Clinton. Abbé’s second brigade, forming the French left, though separated by a ravine from D’Armagnac, after some hesitation also retreated towards Cambo, where his first brigade, coming down the Mondarain mountain rejoined him.