In the night the allies repaired the damage and pushed saps from each flank, to meet in the centre near the second French line and serve as a parallel to check future sallies. Meanwhile the howitzers on San Michael continued their fire, and the breaching battery in the horn-work opened; but the guns, being unable to see the wall sufficiently low soon ceased to speak, and the embrasures were masked. On the other hand the besieged could not, from the steepness of the castle-hill, depress their guns to bear on the lodgement at the breaches in the first line; yet their musketry was murderous, and they rolled down large shells to retard the approaches towards the second line.
On the 7th the besiegers were so close to the wall that the howitzers above could not play without danger to the workmen, and two French field-pieces taken in the horn-work were substituted. The breaching battery on San Michael being amended renewed its fire and at five o’clock had beaten down fifty feet from the parapet of the second line, yet the enemy’s return was heavy and another eighteen-pounder lost a trunnion. In the night block-carriages with supports for the broken trunnions were provided, and the disabled guns again fired with low charges; but rain now filled the trenches, the communications were injured, the workmen negligent, the approaches to the second line went on slowly, and again Dubreton came thundering down from the upper ground, driving the guards and workmen from the new parallel at the lodgements, levelling all the works, carrying off all the tools, and killing or wounding two hundred men. Colonel Cocks, promoted for his gallant conduct at the storming of San Michael, restored the fight and repulsed the French, but fell dead on the ground recovered: he was a young man of a modest demeanour, brave, thoughtful and enterprising: he lived and died a good soldier.
After this severe check the approaches to the second line were abandoned, the trenches were extended to embrace the whole of the front attacked, and as the battery on San Michael had now formed a practicable breach twenty-five feet wide the parallel was prolonged towards it, and a trench was opened for marksmen at thirty yards’ distance. Nevertheless another assault could not be risked, because the powder was nearly exhausted and the troops, if unsuccessful, would have been without ammunition in front of the French army, then gathering head near Briviesca. Heated shot were however thrown at the White Church to burn the magazines, and the miners were directed to drive a gallery on the other side of the castle against the church of San Roman, a building occupied by the French beyond their line.
On the 10th a supply of ammunition arrived from Santander, but Dubreton had meanwhile strengthened his works, and isolated the new breach on one flank by a stockade, extending at right angles from the second to the third line of defence. The fire from the Napoleon battery then compelled the besiegers again to withdraw their guns within the horn-work, and the attempt to burn the White Church was relinquished, yet the gallery against San Roman was continued.
On the 15th the battery in the horn-work was rearmed against the Napoleon battery, but was silenced in three-quarters of an hour. The embrasures were then altered, that the guns might bear on the breach in the second line, and the besiegers worked to repair the mischief done by rain, and to push the gallery under San Roman, where the mine was loaded with nine hundred pounds of powder.
The 17th the battery of the horn-work cleared away the temporary defences at the breach, the howitzers damaged the rampart on each side, and, a small mine being sprung, a cavalier or mound from which the enemy had killed many men in the trenches was taken, yet the French soon recovered that work.
On the 18th the new breach being practicable, the storm was ordered, the explosion of the mine under San Roman to be the signal; that church was also to be assaulted, and between these attacks the works covering the ancient breach were to be escaladed.
Fifth Assault. (Oct. 1812.)
At half-past four o’clock the mine at San Roman exploded, with little injury to the church itself; but the latter was resolutely attacked by some Spanish and Portuguese troops, and though the enemy sprung a countermine which brought the building entirely down the assailants lodged themselves in the ruins. Meanwhile two hundred of the Foot-Guards, with strong supports, pouring through the old breach in the first line escaladed the second, and between that and the third line were strongly met by the French. A like number of Germans under Major Wurmb, similarly supported, simultaneously stormed the new breach, and some men mounting the hill above actually gained the third line. Unhappily at neither point did the supports follow closely, and the Germans, cramped on their left by the enemy’s stockade, extended their right towards the Guards; but at that moment Dubreton came dashing like a torrent from the upper ground and in an instant cleared the breaches. Wurmb and many other brave men fell, and the French gathering round the Guards forced them also beyond the outer line. More than two hundred men and officers were killed or wounded in this combat, and next night the enemy recovered San Roman by a sally.
The siege was now virtually terminated, for though the French were beaten out of San Roman again, and a gallery was opened from that church against the second line, these were mere demonstrations. The fate of Burgos was fixed outside. For while the siege was going on, Caffarelli and Clausel had received a reinforcement of twelve thousand men from France, and thus forty-four thousand good troops were prepared to relieve the Castle before October, although they could not act until Souham, appointed to command in chief, had arrived. It was also essential to combine their operations with the king, who had formed a great army to recover Madrid; but all the lines of correspondence were so circuitous and beset by the Partidas that the most speedy and certain communication was through the minister of war at Paris, who found the information he wanted in the English newspapers! These, while deceiving the British public by accounts of battles never fought, victories never gained, enthusiasm and vigour nowhere existing, with great assiduity enlightened the enemy upon the numbers, situation, movements and reinforcements of the allies.