Bayonne, a fortress of no great strength, had been entirely neglected. But the arming and provisioning that and other places; the restoration of an intrenched camp, originally traced by Vauban to cover Bayonne; the enforcement of discipline; the removal of the immense train of Joseph’s wasteful court; the establishment of a general system for supplies, and judicious efforts to stimulate the civil authorities and excite the national spirit, soon indicated the presence of a great commander. The soldiers’ confidence then revived, and some leading merchants of Bayonne zealously seconded the general: the people were however more inclined to avoid burdens than to answer calls on their patriotism.
Soult examined the line of military positions on the 14th, and ordered Reille, who then occupied the passes of Vera and Echallar, to prepare pontoons for throwing two bridges over the Bidassoa at Biriatou; Wellington, as before said, drove him from those passes next day, yet he prepared his bridges, and by the 16th, Soult was ready for a gigantic offensive movement.
His army was divided into three corps of battle and a reserve. Clausel with the left was at St. Jean Pied de Port, and in communication, by the French frontier, with a division under General Paris at Jaca, belonging to Suchet but under Soult’s orders.
Drouet, Count D’Erlon, with the centre, occupied the heights near Espelette and Ainhoa.
Reille with the right wing was on the mountains overlooking Vera from the side of France.
The reserve, under Villatte, guarded the right bank of the Bidassoa from the mouth to Irun, at which place the stone bridge was destroyed. The heavy cavalry under Trielhard, and the light horsemen under Pierre Soult, the marshal’s brother, were on the banks of the Nive and the Adour.
To oppose this force Wellington had in Navarre and Guipuscoa above a hundred thousand men. Of these the Anglo-Portuguese furnished fifty thousand infantry and seven thousand cavalry; the Spanish regulars under Giron, Abispal, and Carlos España, about twenty-five thousand infantry; the rest were irregular; and hence the troops in line were, of the allies, eighty-two thousand, of the French seventy-eight thousand.
The theatre of operations was quadrilateral, with sides from forty to sixty miles in length, having a fortress at each angle, namely, Bayonne, San Jean Pied de Port, San Sebastian and Pampeluna, all in possession of the French. The interior, broken and tormented by peaked mountains, narrow craggy passes, deep watercourses, dreadful precipices and forests, appeared a wilderness which no military combinations could embrace. The great spinal ridge of the Pyrenees furnished a clue to the labyrinth. Running diagonally across the quadrilateral, it entirely separated Bayonne, St. Jean Pied de Port and San Sebastian from Pampeluna, and the troops blockading the latter were thus cut off from those besieging San Sebastian, the only direct communication between them being a great road running behind the mountains from Tolosa, by Irurzun, to Pampeluna.
A secondary range of mountains on the French side of the Great Spine, inclosing the valley of Bastan and lining that of the Bidassoa, furnished positions for the centre and left of the covering armies, with interior but difficult lateral communications.
The troops covering Pampeluna were on the Great Spine of the Pyrenees. Behind them were valleys into which the passes across the spine led, descending at the other side in parallel lines, and giving to each division means for a concentric retreat on Pampeluna.