History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year 1807 to the year 1814, vol. 5

by William Francis Patrick Napier

During this time Joseph, not being pressed, had sent the army of the south again into Spain to take possession of the valley of Bastan, which was very fertile and full of strong positions. But O’Donnel, count of Abispal, had now reduced the forts at Pancorbo, partly by capitulation, partly by force, and was marching towards Pampeluna; wherefore general Hill, without abandoning the siege of that place, moved two British and two Portuguese brigades into the valley of Bastan, and on the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th, vigorously driving Gazan from all his positions, cleared the valley with a loss of only one hundred and twenty men. The whole line of the Spanish frontier from Ronscevalles to the mouth of the Bidassoa river was thus occupied by the victorious allies, and Pampeluna and St. Sebastian were invested. Joseph’s reign was over, the crown had fallen from his head, and after years of toils, and combats which had been rather admired than understood, the English general, emerging from the chaos of the Peninsula struggle, stood on the summit of the Pyrennees a recognised conqueror. On those lofty pinnacles the clangor of his trumpets pealed clear and loud, and the splendour of his genius appeared as a flaming beacon to warring nations.

OBSERVATIONS.

1º. In this campaign of six weeks, Wellington, with one hundred thousand men, marched six hundred miles, passed six great rivers, gained one decisive battle, invested two fortresses, and drove a hundred and twenty thousand veteran troops from Spain. This immense result could not have been attained if Joseph had followed Napoleon’s instructions; Wellington could not then have turned the line of the Duero. It could not have been attained if Joseph had acted with ordinary skill after the line of the Duero was passed. Time was to him most precious, yet when contrary to his expectations he had concentrated his scattered armies behind the Carion, he made no effort to delay his enemy on that river. He judged it an unfit position, that is, unfit for a great battle; but he could have obliged Wellington to lose a day there, perhaps two or three, and behind the Upper Pisuerga he might have saved a day or two more. Reille who was with the army of Portugal on the right of the king’s line complained that he could find no officers of that army who knew the PisuergaKing’s correspondence, MSS. sufficiently to place the troops in position; the king then had cause to remember Napoleon’s dictum, namely, that “to command an army well a general must think of nothing else.” For why was the course of the Pisuerga unknown when the king’s head-quarters had been for several months within a day’s journey of it?

2º. The Carion and the Pisuerga being given up, the country about the Hormaza was occupied and the three French armies were in mass between that stream and Burgos; yet Wellington’s right wing only, that is to say, only twenty-three thousand infantry, and three brigades of cavalry, drove Reille’s troops over the Arlanzan, and the castle of Burgos was abandoned. This was on the 12th, the three French armies, not less than fifty thousand fighting men, had been in position since the 9th, and the king’s letters prove that he desired to fight in that country, which was favourable for all arms. Nothing then could be more opportune than Wellington’s advance on the 12th, because a retrograde defensive system is unsuited to French soldiers, whose impatient courage leads them always to attack, and the news of Napoleon’s victory at Bautzen had just arrived to excite their ardour. Wherefore Joseph should have retaken the offensive on the 12th at the moment when Wellington approached the Hormaza, and as the left and centre of the allies were at Villa Diego and Castroxerez, the greatest part at the former, that is to say, one march distant, the twenty-six thousand men immediately under Wellington, would probably have been forced back over the Pisuerga, and the king would have gained time for Sarrut, Foy and Clauzel to join him. Did the English general then owe his success to fortune, to his adversary’s fault rather than to his own skill? Not so. He had judged the king’s military capacity, he had seen the haste, the confusion, the trouble of the enemy, and knowing well the moral power of rapidity and boldness in such circumstances, had acted, daringly indeed, but wisely, for such daring is admirable, it is the highest part of war.

3º. The manner in which Wellington turned the line of the Ebro was a fine strategic illustration. It was by no means certain of success, yet failure would have still left great advantages. He was certain of gaining Santander and fixing a new base of operations on the coast, and he would still have had the power of continually turning the king’s right by operating between him and the coast; the errors of his adversary only gave him additional advantages which he expected, and seized with promptness. But if Joseph, instead of spreading his army from Espejo on his right to the Logroño road on his left, had kept only cavalry on the latter route and on the main road in front of Pancorbo; if he had massed his army to his right pivoting upon Miranda, or Frias, and had scoured all the roads towards the sources of the Ebro with the utmost diligence, the allies could never have passed the defiles and descended upon Vittoria. They would have marched then by Valmaceda upon Bilbao, but Joseph could by the road of Orduña have met them there, and with his force increased by Foy’s and Sarrut’s divisions and the Italians. Meanwhile Clauzel would have come down to Vittoria, and the heaped convoys could have made their way to France in safety.

4º. Having finally resolved to fight at Vittoria, the king should, on the 19th and 20th, have broken some of the bridges on the Zadora, and covered others with field-works to enable him to sally forth upon the attacking army; he should have entrenched the defile of Puebla, and occupied the heights above in strength; his position on the Lower Zadora would then have been formidable. But his greatest fault was in the choice of his line of operation. His reasons for avoiding Guipuscoa were valid, his true line was on the other side, down the Ebro. Zaragoza should have been his base, since Aragon was fertile and more friendly than any other province of Spain. It is true that by taking this new line of operations he would have abandoned Foy; but that general, reinforced with the reserve from Bayonne, would have had twenty thousand men and the fortress of St. Sebastian as a support, and Wellington must have left a strong corps of observation to watch him. The king’s army would have been immediately increased by Clauzel’s troops, and ultimately by Suchet’s, which would have given him one hundred thousand men to oppose the allied army, weakened as that would have been by the detachment left to watch Foy. And there were political reasons, to be told hereafter, for the reader must not imagine Wellington had got thus far without such trammels, which would have probably rendered this plan so efficacious as to oblige the British army to abandon Spain altogether. Then new combinations would have been made all over Europe which it is useless to speculate upon.

5º. In the battle the operations of the French, with the exception of Reille’s defence of the bridges of Gamara and Ariaga, were a series of errors, the most extraordinary being the suffering Kempt’s brigade of the light division, and the hussars, to pass the bridge of Tres Puentes and establish themselves close to the king’s line of battle, and upon the flank of his advanced posts at the bridges of Mendoza and Villodas. It is quite clear from this alone that he decided upon retreating the moment Graham’s attack commenced against his right flank, and his position was therefore in his own view untenable. The fitting thing then was to have occupied the heights of Puebla strongly, but to have placed the bulk of his infantry by corps, in succession, the right refused, towards Vittoria, while his cavalry and guns watched the bridges and the mouth of the Puebla defile; in this situation he could have succoured Reille, or marched to his front, according to circumstances, and his retreat would have been secure.

6º. The enormous fault of heaping up the baggage and convoys and parcs behind Vittoria requires no comment, but the king added another and more extraordinary error, namely the remaining to the last moment undecided as to his line of retreat. Nothing but misfortunes could attend upon such bad dispositions; and that the catastrophe was not more terrible is owing entirely to an error whichSee Wellington’s despatch. Wellington and Graham seem alike to have fallen into, namely, that Reille had two divisions in reserve behind the bridges on the Upper Zadora. They knew not that Maucune’s division had marched with the convoy, and thought Clauzel had only one division of the army of Portugal with him, whereas he had two, Taupin’s and Barbout’s. Reille’s reserves were composed not of divisions but of brigades drawn from La Martiniere’s and Sarrut’s divisions, which were defending the bridges; and his whole force, including the French-Spaniards who were driven back from Durana, did not exceed ten thousand infantry and two thousand five hundred cavalry. Now Graham had, exclusive of Giron’s Gallicians, nearly twenty thousand of all arms, and it is said that the river might have been passed both above and below the points of attack; it is certain also that Longa’s delay gave the French time to occupy Gamara Mayor in force, which was not the case at first. Had the passage been won in time, very few of the French army could have escaped from the field; but the truth is Reille fought most vigorously.

7º. As the third and seventh divisions did not come to the point of attack at the time calculated upon, the battle was probably not fought after the original conception of lord Wellington; it is likely that his first project was to force the passage of the bridges, to break the right centre of the enemy from Arinez to Margarita, and then to envelope the left centre with the second, fourth, and light divisions and the cavalry, while the third and seventh divisions pursued the others. But notwithstanding the unavoidable delay, which gave the French time to commence their retreat, it is not easy to understand how Gazan’s left escaped from Subijana de Alava, seeing that when Picton broke the centre at Arinez, he was considerably nearer to Vittoria than the French left, which was cut off from the main road and assailed in front by Hill and Cole. The having no cavalry in hand to launch at this time and point of the battle has been already noticed; lord Wellington says, that the countryDespatch. was generally unfavourable for the action of that arm, and it is certain that neither side used it with much effect at any period of the battle; nevertheless there are always some suitable openings, some happy moments to make a charge, and this seems to have been one which was neglected.

8º. Picton’s sudden rush from the bridge of Tres Puentes to the village of Arinez, with one brigade, has been much praised, and certainly nothing could be more prompt and daring, but the merit of the conception belongs to the general in chief, who directed it in person. It was suggested to him by the denuded state of the hill in front of that village, and viewed as a stroke for the occasion it is to be admired. Yet it had its disadvantages. For the brigade which thus crossed a part of the front of both armies to place itself in advance, not only drew a flank fire from the enemy, but was exposed if the French cavalry had been prompt and daring, to a charge in flank; it also prevented the advance of the other troops in their proper arrangement, and thus crowded the centre for the rest of the action. However these sudden movements cannot be judged by rules, they are good or bad according to the result. This was entirely successful, and the hill thus carried was called the Englishmen’s hill, not, as some recent writers have supposed, in commemoration of a victory gained by the Black Prince, but because of a disaster which there befel a part of his army. His battle was fought between Navarrette and Najera, many leagues from Vittoria, and beyond the Ebro; but on this hill the two gallant knights sir Thomas and sir William Felton took post with two hundred companions, and being surrounded by Don Tello with six thousand, all died or were taken after a long, desperate, and heroic resistance.