Battle of Orthes. (Feb. 1814.)
From daybreak there had been a slight skirmish, with occasional cannon-shots on the allies’ right, and the French cavalry at times pushed parties forward on each flank; but at nine o’clock Wellington commenced the real attack. The third and sixth divisions won without difficulty the lower part of the ridges occupied by Foy, and endeavoured to extend their left towards the French centre with a sharp fire of musketry; yet the main battle was on the other flank. There Cole, keeping Anson’s brigade of the fourth division in reserve, had assailed St. Boës with Ross’s British brigade and Vasconcellos’ Portuguese, his object being to get on to the open ground beyond. Fierce and slaughtering was the struggle; five times breaking through the scattered houses did Ross carry his battle into the wider space beyond; but ever as his troops emerged the French guns from the centre hill smote them in front, and the reserved battery on the Dax road swept through them with grape from flank to flank; while Taupin’s supporting masses, rushing forward with a wasting fire and lapping the flanks with skirmishers, which poured along the ravines on either hand, forced the shattered columns back into the village. It was in vain that with desperate valour the allies broke time after time through the narrow way and strived to spread a front beyond: Ross fell dangerously wounded, and Taupin’s troops, thickly clustered and well supported, defied every effort. Nor was Soult less happy on the other side. From the narrowness of the ground the third and sixth divisions could only engage a few men at once, no progress was made; one small detachment, which Picton extended to his left, attempting to gain the smaller tongue jutting out from the central hill, was very suddenly charged as it neared the summit, by Foy, and driven down again in confusion, losing several prisoners.
When the combat had continued with unabated fury on the side of St. Boës for three hours, Wellington sent a caçadore regiment of the light division from the Roman camp to protect the right flank of Ross’s brigade against the French skirmishers; this was of no avail, for the Portuguese already there under Vasconcellos being unable to sustain the violence of the enemy, had given way in disorder, and the French pouring on, the British troops retreated through St. Boës with difficulty. This happened at the moment when the detachment on Picton’s left was repulsed, victory seemed to declare for the French, and Soult, conspicuous on his central hill, the knot of all his combinations, seeing his enemies thus broken and thrown backwards on each side, put all his reserves in movement to complete the success. It is said that in the exultation of the moment he smote his thigh, exclaiming, “At last I have him.” And it was no vain-glorious speech, the crisis seemed to justify the exultation. There was however a small black cloud rising just beneath, unheeded by the French commander amidst the thundering din and tumult that now shook the field of battle, but which soon burst with irresistible violence.
Wellington, seeing St. Boës was inexpugnable, had suddenly changed his plan of battle. Supporting Ross with Anson’s brigade, which had not hitherto been engaged, he backed both with the seventh division and Vivian’s cavalry, thus establishing a very heavy body towards the Dax road. Then he ordered the third and sixth divisions to be thrown in mass upon the French left, and at the same time sent the 52nd Regiment down from the Roman camp, with instructions to cross the marsh in front, mount the French position, and assail the flank and rear of the troops engaged with the fourth division at St. Boës. Colonel Colborne, so often distinguished, immediately led this regiment across the marsh under a skirmishing fire, the men sinking at every step above the knees, in some places to the middle; yet still pressing forwards with that stern resolution and order to be expected from the veterans of the light division, soldiers who had never yet met their match in the field, they soon obtained footing on firm land, and ascended the heights in line at the moment when Taupin, on the French right, was pushing vigorously through St. Boës; and when Foy and D’Armagnac, hitherto more than masters of their positions, were being assailed on the left by the third and sixth divisions.
With a mighty shout and a rolling fire the 52nd soldiers dashed forwards between Foy and Taupin, beating down a French battalion in their course and throwing everything before them into disorder. General Bechaud was killed, Foy was dangerously wounded, and his troops, discouraged by his fall and by this sudden storm from a quarter where no enemy was expected, for the march of the 52nd had been hardly perceived save by the skirmishers, got into confusion, and the disorder spreading to Reille’s wing, he also was forced to fall back and take a new position. The narrow pass behind St. Boës was thus opened, and Wellington, seizing the critical moment, thrust the fourth and seventh divisions, Vivian’s cavalry, and two batteries of artillery through, and spread a front beyond. Victory was thus secured. For the third and sixth divisions on the other flank had won D’Armagnac’s position and established a battery of guns on a knoll, from whence the bullets ploughed through the French masses from one flank to another; and though a squadron of French chasseurs, coming suddenly at a hard gallop down the main road of Orthes, charged these guns and rode over some of the sixth division which had advanced too far, their brave career was too madly pushed, they got entangled in a hollow way and nearly all destroyed. The third and seventh divisions then advanced and the wings of the army were united.
Soult now concentrated his forces on the heathy hills beyond the Dax road, and with Taupin’s, Roguet’s, Paris’s, and D’Armagnac’s divisions made strong battle to cover the rallying of Foy’s disordered men. But his foes were not all in front. Hill, having twelve thousand combatants, received orders, when Wellington changed his plan of attack, to force the passage of the Gave, partly to prevent Harispe from falling upon the flank of the sixth division, partly in hope of a successful issue: and so it happened. Unable to force the bridge, he forded the river above, at Souars, drove back the troops there, seized the heights, cut off the French from the road to Pau, and turned the town of Orthes. He thus menaced Soult’s only line of retreat by Salespice, on the road to St. Sever, at the moment the junction of the allies’ wings was effected on the French position. Clausel, so pressed, made Harispe abandon Orthes and close towards Villatte on the heights above Rontun, leaving however some conscript battalions on a rising point near the road of St. Sever called the Motte de Turenne, while in person he endeavoured to check Hill with two cavalry regiments and a brigade of infantry.
Soult, seeing that Hill’s passage at Souars rendered the whole position untenable, now gave orders for a general retreat. This was a perilous matter. The heathy hills upon which he was now fighting, furnished for a short distance a succession of parallel positions favourable for defence, but then resolved themselves into a low ridge running to the rear on a line parallel with the road to St. Sever; and on the opposite side of that road, at cannon-shot distance, was a corresponding ridge along which Hill, judging by the firing how matters went, was now rapidly advancing. Five miles off was the Luy de Bearn, and four miles further on the Luy de France, two rivers deep and with difficult banks. Beyond them the Lutz, the Gabas, and the Adour crossed the line; and though once beyond the wooden bridge of Sault de Navailles on the Luy de Bearn, these streams would necessarily cover the retreat, it seemed impossible to carry off by one road and one bridge a defeated army still closely engaged in front. Soult did so however. For Paris sustained the fight on his right until Foy and Taupin’s troops rallied, and when the impetuous assault of the 52nd, and a rush of the fourth and seventh divisions, drove Paris back, D’Armagnac interposed to cover him until the union of the allies’ wings was completed: then both retired, covered by Villatte. In this manner the French yielded step by step and without confusion, and the allies advanced with an incessant deafening musketry and cannonade, yet losing many men, especially on the right where the third division were very strongly opposed. As the danger of being cut off at Salespice by Hill became imminent, the retrograde movements were more hurried and confused, and Hill seeing this quickened his pace. At last both sides began to run violently, and so many men broke from the French ranks, making across the fields towards the fords, and there was such a rush by the rest to gain the bridge of Sault de Navailles, that the whole country was covered with scattered bands, amongst which General Cotton poured Lord Edward Somerset’s hussars, first breaking through a covering body opposed to him by Harispe. In this charge two or three hundred men were sabred, and two thousand threw down their arms in an inclosed field; yet from some mismanagement the greatest part, recovering their weapons, escaped, and the pursuit ceased at the Luy of Bearn.
Apparently the French army was now entirely dispersed, yet it was not so. Soult passed the Luy of Bearn and destroyed the bridge with the loss of only six guns and less than four thousand men killed, wounded, and prisoners. Many thousands of conscripts however threw away their arms, and one month afterwards the stragglers still amounted to three thousand. Nor would the passage of the Luy have been effected so happily, if Wellington had not been struck by a musket-ball just above the thigh, which caused him to ride with difficulty. The loss of the allies was two thousand three hundred, of which fifty, with three officers, were taken; among the wounded were Wellington, General Walker, General Ross, and the Duke of Richmond, then Lord March; this last had served on the head-quarter staff during the whole war without a hurt, but being made a captain in the 52nd, like a good soldier joined his regiment the night before the battle, and was shot through the chest a few hours afterwards; thus learning by experience the difference between the labours and dangers of staff and regimental officers, which are generally in the inverse ratio to their promotions.
General Berton, who had been between Pau and Orthes during the battle, was cut off by Hill’s movement; but skirting that general’s march he retreated by Mant and Samadet with his cavalry, picking up two battalions of conscripts on the road. Meanwhile Soult, having no position to rally upon, continued his retreat in the night to St. Sever, breaking down all the bridges behind him. Wellington pursued at daylight in three columns, one in the centre by the main road, the others on the right and left. At St. Sever he hoped to find the French still in confusion, but they had crossed the river, the bridge was broken, and the allied army halted. The result of the battle was however soon made known far and wide, and Daricau, who with a few hundred soldiers was endeavouring to form an insurgent levy at Dax, immediately destroyed part of the stores, removed the rest to Mont Marsan, and retreated through the Landes to Langon on the Garonne.
From St. Sever, which offered no position, Soult turned short to his own right, moving upon Barcelona up the Adour. He left D’Erlon however with two divisions of infantry, some cavalry and four guns, at Caceres on the right bank, sent Clausel into Aire on the opposite side of the river, abandoned his magazines at Mont Marsan, and opened the direct road to Bordeaux; but with his right he commanded another road by Roquefort to that city, while his left protected at Aire the magazines and artillery parc at that place, and covered the road to Pau. This movement made it difficult to judge what line he meant to adopt.