Wellington, who had sent Graham’s corps into Guipuscoa by the pass of St. Adrian, overtook the French rear and captured one of the two guns saved from Vittoria, and on the 28th the king fled into France by the Roncesvalles. Foy and Clausel were thus isolated on each flank and in great danger. The first had a strong country, but his troops were disseminated, and the fugitives from the battle spread such alarm that the forts of Arlaban, Montdragon, and Salinas, blocking the passes into Guipuscoa, were abandoned to Longa and Giron. Foy, who had only one battalion in hand, rallied the fugitive garrisons, advanced, and from some prisoners acquired exact intelligence of the battle. Then he ordered the two convoys from Vittoria to march day and night towards France, and reinforcing himself with Maucune’s escort gave battle to the Spanish general, who, having three times his force, worsted him with a loss of six guns and two hundred men. He retreated to Villafranca, where, late in the evening of the 24th, Graham came upon him from the side pass of San Adrian: he had now rallied a considerable force and gave battle on the Orio with Maucune’s troops and St. Pol’s Italian division: the first were beaten, yet the Italians gained some advantages, and the position was so strong that Graham had recourse to flank operations; Foy then retired to Tolosa, and again offered battle; whereupon Graham turned his flank with the Spaniards, broke his front with the Anglo-Portuguese, drove his wings beyond Tolosa on each side, and bursting the gate of the town forced a passage through his centre by the main road. Nevertheless Foy retreated with a loss of only four hundred men, and he had killed and wounded more than four hundred Anglo-Portuguese in the two days’ operations. The Spanish loss was not known, but must have been considerable, and Graham, who was himself hurt, halted two days to hear of Wellington’s progress. During that time the convoys reached France in safety, and Foy, his force increased by the junction of detachments to more than sixteen thousand men, threw a garrison into San Sebastian and joined Reille on the Bidassoa: twenty-five thousand men were then on that river, and Graham halted to invest Sebastian.
While these events passed in Guipuscoa, Clausel was more hardly pressed on the other flank of the allies. He had approached Vittoria with fourteen thousand men on the 22nd, but finding Pakenham there with the 6th division, retired to Logroño and halted until the evening of the 23rd, thus enabling Wellington, who thought he was at Tudela, to discover his real situation and march against him. He fled to Tudela, reached it the 27th, after a march of sixty miles in forty hours, and thinking he had outstripped his pursuers proposed to enter France by Taffalla and Olite, but an alcalde told him Wellington had forestalled him at those places and he marched upon Zaragoza. He could have been intercepted again, yet Wellington, fearing to drive him on Suchet, only launched Mina in pursuit, and Clausel after destroying guns and baggage finally escaped by Jacca into France. The king had meanwhile caused Gazan to re-enter Spain by the Bastan, from whence Hill quickly drove him. Joseph’s reign was over. After years of toils and combats, admired rather than understood, Lord Wellington, emerging from the chaos of the Peninsula struggle, crowned the Pyrenees—a recognized conqueror. From that pinnacle the clangour of his trumpets was heard, and the splendour of his genius blazed out, a flaming beacon for warring nations.
BOOK X.
Battle of Castalla—English Siege of Taragona—Siege of San Sebastian—Storming of San Bartolomeo—First Storm of San Sebastian.
While the main armies strove in the north of Spain, the Mediterranean coast was the scene of a secondary contest maintained by an English expedition sent from Sicily in 1812. Destined at first for Catalonia, it finally landed at Alicant, where it remained inactive until April, 1813, but then Sir John Murray, whose want of vigour on the Douro was overbalanced by aristocratic influence at home, assumed command. Acting in conjunction with the Spanish general Elio, he commenced a series of petty enterprises, and broached several projects which he had not nerve to execute, and only roused Suchet to serious action. That marshal, previously inert, concentrated in the night of the 11th all his disposable force, and next morning falling upon Mijares, Elio’s lieutenant, defeated him with a loss of fifteen hundred prisoners. Then he marched against Murray, who retreated through the pass of Biar to a position of battle, leaving Colonel F. Adam with two thousand five hundred men and six guns in the defile. The ground was very strong, but the French light troops crowned the rocks on each side and after two hours’ fighting the allies abandoned the pass, with a loss of two guns and some prisoners besides killed and wounded, yet made their retreat, three miles, to the main position, in good order, and were not pursued.
This double success in one day indicated the approach of a decisive battle, in anticipation of which Murray had studied and chosen his ground with judgment. His left, composed of Whittingham’s Spanish division, was intrenched on a rugged sierra, and the troops coming from Biar prolonged the line on a front of two miles, until the ridge ended abruptly over the town of Castalla. That place with its old castle, crowning an isolated sugar-loaf hill, was prepared for defence, having all the approaches commanded by batteries, and being strongly occupied with Mackenzie’s British division. The cavalry was disposed on a plain, partly in front, partly behind the town. Clinton’s English and Roche’s Spanish divisions were in reserve in rear of the right, on a lower height nearly perpendicular to the main front; and their line as well as the town was covered by the dry bed of a torrent called a baranco, having precipitous sides and in many places a hundred feet in depth: that front was therefore refused and scarcely attackable.
On the 12th Suchet’s cavalry, issuing cautiously from the defile of Biar, extended to its left on the plain; the infantry, following, took possession of a low ridge facing the Sierra, and then the cavalry, passing the baranco, turned the town as if to menace the divisions in reserve. This movement alarmed Murray, and notwithstanding the impregnable strength of his ground he shrunk from the encounter; even while Suchet was advancing he thrice gave orders to the quartermaster general Donkin to put the army in retreat; the last time so peremptorily, that obedience must have followed if at that moment the French light troops in advance had not commenced firing.
Battle of Castalla. (April, 1813.)
Suchet’s dispositions were slowly made, as if he feared to commence. A mountain spur, jutting from the Sierra between Whittingham and the troops from Biar, hid two-thirds of the allies from his view, and he first sent an exploring column of infantry towards Castalla, to turn the intercepting spur and discover all the conditions of the position; when that was effected his cavalry closed towards the baranco. Then he formed two powerful columns of attack and sent them against Whittingham and Adam on each side of the spur, retaining a reserve on his own ridge, and keeping his exploring column towards Castalla to meet any sally from that point.