General Thouvenot, deceived by spies and prisoners, thought the light division was with Hope as well as the first division, and that fifteen thousand men had been embarked at St. Jean de Luz to land between Cape Breton and the Adour; he feared therefore to send a strong force to any distance; and when he heard of Stopford’s detachment on the right hank, detached only two battalions under Macomble to gain information, because a pine-forest and the bending of the river prevented him from obtaining a view from Bayonne. Macomble menaced Stopford, but the latter, flanked by the field artillery on the other bank, received him with a discharge of rockets; projectiles which, like the elephants in ancient warfare, often turn upon their own side: this time, amenable to their directors, they smote the French column and it fled amazed with a loss of thirty wounded. It is however obvious that if Thouvenot had kept strong guards with a field-battery on the right bank of the Adour, Hope could not have passed his troops in pontoons, no vessels could have crossed the bar, and to disembark troops between the river and Cape Breton must have been attempted. This error was fatal to the French. The British remained unmolested until twelve o’clock on the 24th, and then the long-expected flotilla was seen under a press of sail making with a strong breeze for the mouth of the river.
To enter the Adour is, from the flatness of the coast, never an easy task; it was now most difficult; the high winds of the preceding days had raised a great sea, and the enemy had removed one of the guiding flag-staves by which the navigation was ordinarily directed. In front of the flotilla came the boats of the men of war, and the naval captain, O’Reilly, ran his craft, a chosen Spanish vessel, first into the midst of the breakers, which rolling in a frightful manner over the bar dashed her on to the beach. That brave officer, stretched senseless on the shore, would have perished with all his crew but for the ready succour of the soldiers; some were drowned, but the remainder with an intrepid spirit launched their boat again to aid the passage.
O’Reilly had been followed successfully by Lieutenant Debenham in a six-oared cutter, but the tide was then falling, and the remainder of the boats, the impossibility of passing until high water being evident, drew off and a pilot was landed to direct the line of navigation by concerted signals. When the flood again came, the crews being promised rewards in proportion to their successful daring, the whole flotilla approached in close order; with it however came black clouds and a driving gale which sent along the whole coast a rough tumbling sea, dashing and foaming without an interval of dark water to mark the entrance of the river. The men-of-war’s boats first drew near this terrible surge, and Mr. Bloye of the Lyra, having the chief pilot with him, heroically led into it, but in an instant his barge was ingulfed and he and all with him were drowned. The following vessels seeing the Lyra’s boat thus swallowed swerved in their course, and shooting up to the right and left kept hovering undecided on the edge of the tormented waters. Suddenly Lieutenant Cheyne of the Woodlark pulled ahead, and striking the right line with courage and fortune combined, safely passed the bar. The wind then lulled, the waves as if conquered abated somewhat of their rage, and the chasse-marées, manned with Spanish seamen, but having an engineer officer with a party of sappers in each who compelled them to follow the men-of-war’s boats, came plunging one after another through the huge breakers and reached the point designed for the bridge. Thus was achieved this perilous and glorious exploit. Not without more loss. Captain Elliot of the Martial, with his crew and the crews of three transports’ boats, perished close to the shore in despite of the most violent efforts made by the troops to save them; three other vessels, cast on the beach, lost part of their crews; and one large chasse-marée, full of men, after passing the line of surf safely, was overtaken by a swift bellying wave which broke on her deck and dashed her to pieces.
Eight thousand men were now on the right bank. They remained in the sand-hills for the night, and next morning, sweeping in a half-circle round the citadel and its entrenchments, placed their left on the Adour above the fortress, their right on the same river below; the water however made such a bend that their front was little more than two miles wide, and for the most part covered by a marshy ravine. This nice operation was effected without opposition, because the Vauban camps, menaced by the troops on the other side of the Adour, were so extensive that Thouvenot’s force was scarcely sufficient to maintain them. The bridge was then constructed three miles below Bayonne, at a place where the river was contracted to eight hundred feet by strong retaining walls, built with the view of sweeping away the bar by increasing the force of the current. Bridge and boom were the joint conception of Colonel Sturgeon and Major Todd of the Staff corps; but the execution was confided entirely to the latter, who, with a mind less brilliant than Sturgeon’s, yet more indefatigable, very ably and usefully served his country throughout this war.
Twenty-six chasse-marées, moored head and stem at distances of forty feet, were first bound together with ropes; two thick cables were then carried loosely across their decks, the ends, cast over the walls on each bank, being strained and fastened in various modes to the sands. They were sufficiently slack to meet the spring-tides, which rose fourteen feet, and planks were tied upon them without any supporting beams. The boom, moored with anchors above and below, was a double line of masts connected with chains and cables, so as to form a succession of squares, in the design, if a vessel broke through the outside, that it should by the shock turn round in the square and get entangled with the floating wrecks of the line it had broken. Gun-boats, with aiding batteries on the banks, were then stationed to protect the boom, and to keep off fire-vessels, row-boats were furnished with grappling irons. The whole was by the united labour of seamen and soldiers finished on the 26th, and, contrary to the general opinion on such matters, Major Todd assured the Author of this History that he found the soldiers, with minds quickened by the wider range of knowledge attendant on their service, more ready of resource, and their efforts under a regular discipline of more avail, with less loss of time, than the irregular activity of the seamen. But fortune, the errors of the enemy, the matchless skill and daring of the British seamen, and the discipline and intrepidity of the British soldiers, combined by the genius of Wellington, were all necessary to the success of this stupendous undertaking, which must always rank amongst the prodigies of war.
When the bridge was finished Hope contracted the line of investment, a difficult operation, for the position of the French outside the citadel was exceedingly strong. The flanks were protected by ravines, the sides of which were covered with fortified villas, the front being on a ridge, crowned by the village and church of St. Etienne, both dominant, strongly entrenched, and under the fire of the citadel. Three converging columns, covered by skirmishers, were employed, and the wings attained the edges of the ravines at either side, their flanks resting on the Adour above and below; but a very vigorous action happened in the centre. The German and a brigade of guards were to attack simultaneously, the guards on the left, the light German troops on the right, their heavy infantry in the centre; some accident retarded the wings, and St. Etienne being first attacked the citadel guns opened and the skirmishing fire was heavy; yet the Germans stormed church and village, forced the entrenched line of houses, and took a gun, which however they could not carry off under the fire of the citadel. The action then ceased for a time, but the people of Bayonne were in such consternation that Thouvenot to re-assure them sallied at the head of the troops, charged the Germans twice, and fought well; he was however wounded and finally lost a gun and the position of St. Etienne: the British loss was however not less than five hundred men and officers.
Passage of the Gaves continued. (Feb. 1814.)
While Hope passed the Adour, Wellington pushed his operations on the Gaves with great vigour. Six divisions of infantry and two brigades of cavalry were concentrated on the Gave d’Oleron, between Sauveterre and Navarrens. Beresford lined the Bidouze to its confluence with the Adour, and the 23rd drove Foy from his works on the lower parts of the Oleron Gave, into the bridge-head at Peyrehorade. Soult’s right and centre were thus held in check, and the rest of his army was at Orthes and Sauveterre.
On the 24th Wellington advanced to force the Gave d’Oleron. During the previous days his movements had again deceived Soult, who thought the light division was with Hope, and imagined the first division was with Beresford; he did not expect however to hold the Gave, and looked to a final concentration at Orthes.
On the 24th also, Morillo, reinforced with a detachment of cavalry, moved towards Navarrens, where rough ground concealed his real force while his scouters beat back the French outposts; then a battalion menaced the fords of the Gave at Doguen, with a view to draw the attention of the garrison from the ford of Ville Nave, three miles below, where Wellington designed really to pass. For that object a great concentric movement was now in progress. Favoured by the hilly nature of the country, which concealed all the columns, the sixth division moved towards the ford of Montfort, three miles below that of Ville Nave, while a battalion of the second division menaced the ford of Barraute below Montfort. Picton marched against the bridge-head of Sauveterre, with orders to make a feint of forcing the passage there. Vivian’s hussars, coming up from Beresford’s right, threatened other fords upon Picton’s left, and Beresford, keeping Foy in check at Peyrehorade with the seventh division, sent the fourth above the confluence of the waters to seek a fit place to throw a bridge. Thus the French front was menaced on a line of twenty-five miles, but the great force was above Sauveterre.