Joseph was still unacquainted with his enemy. Higher than seventy or eighty thousand he did not estimate his force, and proposed to fight on the elevated plains of Burgos. But more than a hundred thousand men were before and around him; for all the Partidas of the Asturias and Montaña were drawing together on his right, Julian Sanchez and the Partidas of Castile were closing on his left, and Abispal having passed the Gredos mountains with the Andalusian reserve and Frere’s cavalry was in full march for Valladolid. Joseph was however hopeful to win if he could rally Clausel’s and Foy’s divisions in time, and his despatches to the former were frequent and urgent. Come with the infantry of the army of Portugal! Come with the army of the north, and we shall drive the allies over the Duero! Such was his cry, but he was not a general to contend with Wellington, and recover the initiatory movement at such a crisis.
While still on the Pisuerga he received Jourdan’s report. The castle of Burgos was untenable, there were no magazines of provisions, the new works were unfinished and commanded the old, which were unable to hold out a day. Of Clausel’s and Foy’s divisions nothing had been heard. This intelligence was decisive, and he resolved to retire behind the Ebro. All the French outposts in the Bureba and Montaña were immediately withdrawn, and the great depôt of Burgos was evacuated upon Vittoria, which was thus encumbered with the artillery depôts of Madrid, Valladolid and Burgos, and with the baggage and stores of many armies and many fugitive families; and at that moment also arrived, from France, a convoy of treasure which had long waited for escort at Bayonne.
Meanwhile the tide of war flowed onwards with terrible power. The allies having crossed the Carion the 7th, Joseph retired to Burgos with his left wing, composed of the armies of the south and centre, while Reille’s army, forming the right wing, moved by Castro Xerez. Wellington followed hard: conducting his operations continually on the same principle, he pushed his left wing and the Gallicians along bye-roads, and passed the upper Pisuerga on the 8th, 9th, and 10th. Having thus turned the line of the Pisuerga entirely, and outflanked Reille, he made a short journey the 11th, and on the 12th halted his left wing to arrange the supplies; yet he still pushed forward the right wing, resolved to make the French yield the castle of Burgos or fight for possession.
Reille, who had regained the great road to Burgos the 9th, was now strongly posted behind the Hormaza stream, barring the way to Burgos; the other armies were in reserve behind Estepar. In this situation they had been for three days, cheered by intelligence of Napoleon’s victory at Bautzen, and the consequent armistice; but on the 12th, Wellington’s columns came up, and the light division, preceded by the hussars and dragoons, turned Reille’s right, while the rest of the troops attacked the whole range of heights to Estepar. Reille, finding horsemen acting behind his right flank while his front was strongly menaced, made for the bridge of Baniel under the fire of Gardiner’s horse-artillery, losing some prisoners and a gun; an effort was made to cut him off from the bridge, but he bore the artillery fire without shrinking, and, evading a serious attack, passed the Arlanzan with a loss of only thirty men killed. The three French armies being then covered by the Urbel and Arlanzan rivers could not be easily attacked, all the stores of Burgos were removed, and in the night the king, having mined the castle, retreated along the high road to Pancorbo, into which he threw a garrison. Everything was done confusedly. The mines under the castle exploded outwardly at the moment a column of infantry was defiling beneath, several streets were laid in ruins, thousands of shells and other combustibles were driven upwards with a horrible crash, the hills rocked above the devoted column, and a shower of iron, timber, and stony fragments falling on it, in an instant destroyed more than three hundred men! Fewer deaths might have sufficed to determine the crisis of a great battle! Such and so fearful is the consequence of error, so terrible the responsibility of a general!
Wisely did Napoleon speak when he told Joseph, if he would command he must give himself up entirely to the business, labouring day and night, thinking of nothing else. Here was a noble army driven like sheep before prowling wolves, yet in every action the inferior generals had been prompt and skilful, the soldiers brave, ready and daring, and in a country very favourable for defence; but the mind of a great commander was wanting, and the Esla, the Tormes, the Duero, the Carion, the Pisuerga, the Arlanzan, seemed to be dried up, the rocks, the mountains, the deep ravines to be levelled. Clausel’s strong positions, Dubreton’s thundering castle, all disappeared like a dream, and sixty thousand veteran soldiers, willing to fight, were hurried with all the confusion of defeat across the Ebro: nor was that barrier found of more avail to mitigate the rushing violence of their formidable adversary.
Joseph, having placed the defile and fort of Pancorbo between him and his enemy, thought he could safely await his reinforcements, and extended his wings for the sake of subsistence. Hence on the 16th Drouet marched to Aro on the left, while Gazan held the centre, having a strong advanced guard beyond Pancorbo; for as the king’s hope was to retake the offensive, he retained the power of issuing beyond the defiles, and his scouting parties were pushed forward on all sides. The rest of the army was cantoned by divisions in rear, and Reille, from behind the Ebro, was to watch the road to Bilbao, being there joined by Sarrut.
While these movements were in progress, all the incumbrances of the armies were assembled in the basin of Vittoria, and many small garrisons of the army of the north came in; for Clausel, having received the king’s first letter on the 15th of June, had gathered his scattered columns to rejoin by the way of Logroño, yet his garrisons were many, and he could only concentrate fourteen thousand men. The king was nevertheless confident in the strength of his front, and had no doubt of retaking the offensive when all his forces came in.
His dream was short-lived. On the 13th, while the explosion at Burgos was still ringing in the hills, Wellington was marching by his left towards the country about the sources of the Ebro. This great movement, masked by the cavalry and the Spanish irregulars who infested the rear of the French, suddenly placed the army between the sources of the Ebro and the great mountains of Reynosa; this cut the French entirely off from the sea-coast, and all the ports, except Santona and Bilbao, were immediately evacuated. Santona was then invested by the Spaniards, and the English ships entered Sant Andero, where a depôt and hospital station was established; the connection of the army with Portugal was thus severed: she was cast off as a heavy tender is cast from its towing-rope, and all the British military establishments were transferred by sea to the coast of Biscay.
The English general had now to choose between a march down the left bank of the Ebro to seek a battle; or to place the army on the great communication with France, while the fleet, keeping pace, furnished fresh depôts at Bilbao and other ports. The first was an uncertain operation, because of the many narrow and dangerous defiles which were to be passed; the second was secure even if the first should fail; but both were compatible to a certain point; for to gain the great road leading from Burgos to Bilbao, was a good step for either, and, failing of that, there was a road leading by Valmaceda to Bilbao in reserve. Wherefore with an eagle’s sweep Wellington brought his left wing round, and poured his numerous columns through all the deep narrow valleys and rugged defiles towards the great road of Bilbao. At Medina de Pomar, a central point, he left the sixth division to guard his stores and supplies, but the march of the other divisions was unmitigated; neither the winter gullies, nor the ravines, nor the precipitous passes amongst the rocks, retarded the march even of the artillery; where horses could not draw men hauled, when the wheels would not roll the guns were let down or lifted up with ropes; and strongly did the rough veteran infantry work their way through those wild and beautiful regions: six days they toiled unceasingly; on the seventh, swelled by Longa’s Spaniards, and all the smaller bands which came trickling from the mountains, they burst like raging streams from every defile and went foaming into the basin of Vittoria.
During this movement many reports reached the French, some absurdly exaggerated, as that Wellington had one hundred and ninety thousand men, yet all indicating the true direction of his march; and as early as the 15th, Jourdan, warning Joseph that the allies would turn his right, pressed him to place Reille at Valmaceda and close the other armies towards the same quarter. Joseph yielded so far, that Reille was ordered to concentrate at Osma and gain Valmaceda by Orduña if it was still possible; if not he was to descend rapidly upon Bilbao, and rally Foy’s division and the garrisons of Biscay upon his army: but no general decided dispositions were made.