This delay was an error. Cole was alone for five hours, and every action, by augmenting the wounded men and creating confusion, would have augmented the difficulties of a retreat for troops fatigued with incessant fighting and marching during two days and a night. Moreover Reille’s failure from the fog, had reduced the primary combinations to D’Erlon’s co-operation, and reports now brought the mortifying conviction that he also had gone wrong: by rough fighting only could Soult therefore attain his object, and, it is said, his manner discovered a secret anticipation of failure; yet his temper was too steadfast to yield, for he gave orders to advance next day, renewing his instructions to D’Erlon, whose operations must now be noticed.
That general, who had eighteen thousand fighting men, placed two divisions on the morning of the 25th near the passes of Maya, having previously caused the national guards of Val Baygorry to make demonstrations towards the lateral passes of Arriette, Yspeguy and Lorietta, on Hill’s right. General William Stewart, commanding a division, and still the same daring but imprudent man he had shown himself at Albuera, was deceived by these feints, and looked to that quarter which was guarded by Sylviera’s Portuguese more than to his own front. His division, consisting of two British brigades, was consequently neither posted as it should be, nor otherwise prepared for an attack. His ground was strong, but however rugged a position may be, if it is too extensive and the troops are not disposed with judgment, the inequalities constituting its strength become advantageous to an assailant.
There were three passes over the Col de Maya to defend, Aretesque on the right, Lessessa in the centre, Maya on the left; and from these entrances two roads led into the Bastan in parallel directions; one down the valley through the town of Maya, the other along the Atchiola mountain. General Pringle’s brigade guarded the Aretesque, Colonel Cameron’s brigade the Maya and Lessessa passes. The Col itself was broad on the summit, three miles long, and on each flank lofty rocks and ridges rose one above another; those on the right blended with the Goramendi mountains, those on the left with the Atchiola mountain, near the summit of which the 82nd Regiment, belonging to the seventh division, was posted.
Cameron, encamped on the left, had a clear view of troops coming from Urdax, one of D’Erlon’s camps; but at Aretesque a great round hill, one mile in front, masked the movements of an enemy coming from Espelette, the other French camp. This hill was not occupied at night, nor in the daytime, save by some Portuguese cavalry videttes, and the nearest guard was an infantry picquet of eighty men posted on the French slope of the Col. Behind this picquet there was no immediate support, but four light companies were encamped one mile down the reverse slope, which was more rugged and difficult of access than that towards the enemy. The rest of Pringle’s brigade was disposed at distances of two and three miles in the rear, and the signal for occupying the position was to be the fire of four Portuguese guns from the rocks above the Maya pass. Thus of six British regiments, furnishing more than three thousand fighting men, half only were in line, and chiefly massed on the left of a position, wide, open, and of an easy ascent from the Aretesque side. Stewart also, quite deceived as to the real state of affairs, was at Elisondo, several miles off, when at midday D’Erlon commenced the battle.
Combat of Maya. (July, 1813.)
From the Aretesque pass at dawn a glimpse had been obtained of cavalry and infantry in movement along the hills in front, and soon afterwards some peasants announced the approach of the French. At nine o’clock a staff officer, patrolling round the great hill in front, discovered sufficient to make him order up the light companies from the reverse slope, to support the picquet; and they formed on the ridge with their left at the rock of Aretesque, just as D’Armagnac’s division, coming from Espelette, mounted the great hill in front; Abbé’s division followed, while Maransin, with a third division, advanced from Ainhoa and Urdax against the Maya pass, seeking also to turn it by a narrow way leading up the Atchiola mountain.
D’Armagnac forced the picquet back with great loss upon the light companies, who sustained his assault with infinite difficulty; the alarm guns were then heard from the Maya pass, and Pringle hastened to the front; but his battalions, moving hurriedly from different camps, came up irregularly. The 34th arrived first at a running pace, yet by companies not in mass, and breathless from the length and ruggedness of the ascent; the 39th and 28th followed, but not immediately nor together, and meanwhile D’Armagnac, closely supported by Abbé, with domineering numbers and valour combined, maugre the desperate fighting of the light companies and the 34th, established his columns on the broad ridge of the position. Colonel Cameron sent the 50th from the left to the assistance of the overmatched troops, and that fierce and formidable old regiment, charging the head of an advancing column drove it clear out of the pass of Lessessa in the centre. But the French were many, and checked at one point assembled with increased force at another; nor could Pringle restore the battle with the 39th and 28th Regiments, which, cut off from the others, were, though fighting strongly, forced back to a second and lower ridge crossing the main road into the Bastan. They were followed by D’Armagnac, while Abbé pushed the 50th and 34th towards the Atchiola road to the left, upon Cameron’s brigade. That officer, still holding the pass of Maya with the left wings of the 71st and 92nd Regiments, now brought their right wings and the Portuguese guns into action: yet so dreadful was the slaughter, especially of the 92nd, that the enemy was, it is said, actually stopped for a time by the heaped mass of dead and dying; and then the left wing of that noble regiment, coming down from the higher ground, was forced to smite wounded friends and exulting foes alike, as mingled together they stood or crawled before its fire.[33]
Such was the state of affairs when Stewart reached the field by the mountain road of Atchiola. The passes of Lessessa and Aretesque were lost; that of Maya was still held by the left wing of the 71st, but Stewart, seeing Maransin’s men gathered thickly on one side, and Abbé’s men on the other, abandoned it for a new position on the first rocky ridge covering the road over the Atchiola. He called down the 82nd from the highest part of that mountain, sent messengers to demand further aid from the seventh division, and meanwhile, though wounded, made a strenuous resistance, for he was a very gallant man. During this retrograde movement, Maransin suddenly thrust the head of his division across the front of the British line and connected his left with Abbé, throwing as he passed a destructive fire into the wasted remnant of the 92nd, which even then gave way but sullenly, and still fought, though two-thirds had fallen: however, one after the other, all the regiments were forced back, the Portuguese guns were taken and the position lost.
Abbé now followed D’Armagnac on the road to the town of Maya, leaving Maransin to deal with Stewart’s new position; and notwithstanding its extreme strength the French gained ground until six o’clock; for the British, shrunk in numbers, wanted ammunition, and a part of the 82nd defended the rocks on which they were posted with stones. In this desperate condition Stewart was upon the point of abandoning the mountain entirely, when Barnes’ brigade of the seventh division, arriving from Echallar, charged and drove the French back to the Maya ridge. Stewart was then master of the Atchiola, and D’Erlon thinking greater reinforcements had come up, recalled his other divisions from the Maya road and re-united his whole corps on the Col. He had lost fifteen hundred men and a general, but he took four guns, and fourteen hundred British soldiers and one general were killed or wounded.
Such was the commencement of Soult’s operations to restore the fortunes of France. Three considerable actions fought on the same day had each ended in his favour. At San Sebastian the allies’ assault was repulsed; at Roncesvalles they abandoned the passes; at Maya they were defeated—but the decisive blow was still to be struck.