4°. There was a neglect of moral influence, followed by its natural consequence, want of vigour in execution. No general went out of the trenches. Oswald had opposed the plan of attack, and his opinion, in which other officers of rank joined, was freely expressed out of council, it was said even in the hearing of the troops, abating that daring confidence which victory loves.
Wellington repaired immediately to St. Sebastian and would have renewed the attack, but there was no ammunition, and next day extraneous events compelled him to turn the siege into a blockade. The battering train was then sent to Passages, and at daybreak the garrison sallied and swept off two hundred Portuguese with thirty British soldiers. This terminated the first siege of San Sebastian, in which the allies lost thirteen hundred men.
BOOK XI.
Pyrenees—Combat of Roncesvalles—Combat of Linzoain—Combat of Maya—Combat of Zabaldica—First Battle of Sauroren—Combat of Buenza—Second Battle of Sauroren—Combat of Doña Maria—Combats of Echallar and Ivantelly.
The battle of Vittoria was fought the 21st of June, and on the 1st of July Marshal Soult, under a decree issued at Dresden, succeeded Joseph as lieutenant to the emperor.
The 12th, travelling with surprising expedition, that marshal assumed command of the French troops, now reorganized in one body, called the army of Spain, and he had secret orders to put Joseph forcibly aside if necessary, but that monarch voluntarily retired.[32]
Reinforced from the interior, Soult’s army was composed of nine divisions of infantry, a reserve and two regular divisions of cavalry, besides light horsemen attached to the infantry. Including garrisons, and thirteen German, Italian, and Spanish battalions not belonging to the organization, he had one hundred and fourteen thousand men: and as the armies of Catalonia and Aragon numbered at the same period above sixty-six thousand, the whole force still employed against Spain exceeded one hundred and eighty thousand men, with twenty thousand horses.
Soult was one of the few men whose energy rendered them worthy lieutenants of the emperor, and with singular zeal and ability he now served. Nominally he had ninety-seven thousand men under arms, with eighty-six pieces of artillery; but the foreign battalions, most of which were to return to their own countries for the disciplining of new levies, only counted as part of the garrisons of Pampeluna, San Sebastian, Santoña and Bayonne: they amounted to seventeen thousand, and the permanent army of Spain furnished therefore, only seventy-seven thousand five hundred men under arms, seven thousand being cavalry. Its condition was not satisfactory. The military administration was disorganized, the soldiers were discouraged by disaster, discipline had been deteriorated, and the people were flying from the frontier.
To secure his base and restore order ere he retook the offensive was Soult’s desire; but Napoleon’s orders were imperative against delay, and he was compelled to immediate action, though Wellington’s advance from Portugal had been so rapid that the great resources of the French frontier were not immediately available, and everything was reeling and rocking in terror from the blow given to the army at Vittoria.