OBSERVATIONS.
1º. The French general’s plan was conceived with genius but the execution offers a great contrast to the conception. What a difference between the sudden concentration of his whole army on the platforms of Arcangues and Bussussary, where there were only a few picquets to withstand him, and from whence he could have fallen with the roll of an avalanche upon any point of the allies’ line! what a difference between that and the petty attack of Clauzel, which a thousand men of the light division sufficed to arrest at the village and church of Arcangues. There beyond question was the weak part of the English general’s cuirass. The spear pushed home there would have drawn blood. For the disposition and movements of the third fourth and seventh divisions, were made more with reference to the support of Hill than to sustain an attack from Soult’s army, and it is evident that Wellington, trusting to the effect of his victory on the 10th of November, had treated the French general and his troops, more contemptuously than he could have justified by arms without the aid of fortune. I know not what induced marshal Soult to direct his main attack by Anglet and the connecting ridge of Bussussary, against Barrouilhet, instead of assailing Arcangues as he at first proposed; but this is certain, that for three hours after Clauzel first attacked the picquets at the latter place, there were not troops enough to stop three French divisions, much less a whole army. And this point being nearer to the bridge by which D’Erlon passed the Nive, the concentration of the French troops could have been made sooner than at Barrouilhet, where the want of unity in the attack caused by the difficulty of the roads ruined the French combinations.
The allies were so unexpectant of an attack, that the battle at Barrouilhet which might have been fought with seventeen thousand men, was actually fought by ten thousand. And those were not brought into action at once, for Robinson’s brigade and Campbell’s Portuguese, favoured by the narrow opening between the tanks, resisted Reille’s divisions for two hours, and gave time for the rest of the fifth division and Bradford’s brigade to arrive. But if Foy’s division and Villatte’s reserve had been able to assail the flank at the same time, by the ridge coming from Bussussary, the battle would have been won by the French; and meanwhile three divisions under Clauzel and two under D’Erlon remained hesitating before Urdains and Arcangues, for the cannonade and skirmishing at the latter place were the very marks and signs of indecision.
2º. On the 11th the inactivity of the French during the morning may be easily accounted for. The defection of the German regiments, the necessity of disarming and removing those that remained, the care of the wounded, and the time required to re-examine the allies’ position and ascertain what changes had taken place during the night, must have given ample employment to the French general. His attack in the afternoon also was well judged because already he must have seen from the increase of troops in his front, from the intrenched battery and other works rapidly constructed at the church of Arcangues, that no decisive success could be expected on the left of the Nive, and that his best chance was to change his line of attack again to the right bank. To do this with effect, it was necessary, not only to draw all lord Wellington’s reserves from the right of the Nive but to be certain that they had come, and this could only be done by repeating the attacks at Barrouilhet. The same cause operated on the 12th, for it was not until the fourth and seventh divisions were seen by him on the side of Arbonne that he knew his wile had succeeded. Yet again the execution was below the conception, for first, the bivouac fires on the ridge of Bussussary were extinguished in the evening, and then others were lighted on the side of Mousseroles, thus plainly indicating the march, which was also begun too early, because the leading division was by Hill seen to pass the bridge of boats before sun-set.
These were serious errors yet the duke of Dalmatia’s generalship cannot be thus fairly tested. There are many circumstances which combine to prove, that when he complained to the emperor of the contradictions and obstacles he had to encounter he alluded to military as well as to political and financial difficulties. It is a part of human nature to dislike any disturbance of previous habits, and soldiers are never pleased at first with a general, who introduces and rigorously exacts a system of discipline differing from what they have been accustomed to. Its utility must be proved and confirmed by habit ere it will find favour in their eyes. Now Soult suddenly assumed the command of troops, who had been long serving under various generals and were used to much license in Spain. They were therefore, men and officers, uneasy at being suddenly subjected to the austere and resolute command of one who, from natural character as well as the exigency of the times, the war being now in his own country, demanded a ready and exact obedience, and a regularity which long habits of a different kind rendered onerous. Hence we find in all the French writers, and in Soult’s own reports, manifest proofs that his designs were frequently thwarted or disregarded by his subordinates when circumstances promised impunity. His greatest and ablest military combinations were certainly rendered abortive by the errors of his lieutenants in the first operations to relieve Pampeluna, and on the 31st of August a manifest negligence of his earnest recommendations to vigilance led to serious danger and loss at the passage of the Lower Bidassoa. Complaint and recrimination were rife in all quarters about the defeat on the 10th of November, and on the 19th the bridge-head of Cambo was destroyed contrary to the spirit of his instructions. These things, joined to the acknowledged jealousy and disputes prevalent amongst the French generals employed in Spain, would indicate that the discrepancy between the conception and execution of the operations in front of Bayonne was not the error of the commander-in-chief. Perhaps king Joseph’s faction, so inimical to the duke of Dalmatia, was still powerful in the army and difficult to deal with.
3º. Lord Wellington has been blamed for putting his troops in a false position, and no doubt he under-valued, it was not the first time, the military genius and resources of his able adversary, when he exposed Hill’s troops on the left of the Nive to a species of surprize. But the passage of the Nive itself, the rapidity with which he moved his divisions from bank to bank, and the confidence with which he relied upon the valour of his troops, so far from justifying the censures which have been passed upon him by French writers, emphatically mark his mastery in the art. The stern justice of sending the Spaniards back into Spain after the battle of the Nivelle is apparent, but the magnanimity of that measure can only be understood by considering lord Wellington’s military situation at the time. The battle of the Nivelle was delivered on political grounds, but of what avail would his gaining it have been if he had remained enclosed as it were in a net between the Nive and the sea, Bayonne and the Pyrenees, unable to open communications with the disaffected in France, and having the beaten army absolutely forbidding him to forage or even to look beyond the river on his right. The invasion of France was not his own operation, it was the project of the English cabinet and the allied sovereigns; both were naturally urging him to complete it, and to pass the Nive and free his flanks was indispensable if he would draw any profit from his victory of the 10th of November. But he could not pass it with his whole army unless he resigned the sea-coast and his communications with Spain. He was therefore to operate with a portion only of his force and consequently required all the men he could gather to ensure success. Yet at that crisis he divested himself of twenty-five thousand Spanish soldiers!
Was this done in ignorance of the military glory awaiting him beyond the spot where he stood?
“If I had twenty thousand Spaniards paid and fed,” he wrote to lord Bathurst, “I should have Bayonne. If I had forty thousand I do not know where I should stop. Now I have both the twenty thousand and the forty thousand, but I have not the means of paying and supplying them, and if they plunder they will ruin all.”
Requisitions which the French expected as a part of war would have enabled him to run this career, but he looked further; he had promised the people protection and his greatness of mind was disclosed in a single sentence. “I must tell your lordship that our success and every thing depends upon our moderation and justice.” Rather than infringe on either, he sent the Spaniards to the rear and passed the Nive with the British and Portuguese only, thus violating the military rule which forbids a general to disseminate his troops before an enemy who remains in mass lest he should be beaten in detail. But genius begins where rules end. A great general always seeks moral power in preference to physical force. Wellington’s choice here was between a shameful inactivity or a dangerous enterprise. Trusting to the influence of his reputation, to his previous victories, and to the ascendancy of his troops in the field, he chose the latter, and the result, though he committed some errors of execution, justified his boldness. He surprised the passage of the Nive, laid his bridges of communication, and but for the rain of the night before, which ruined the roads and retarded the march of Hill’s columns, he would have won the heights of St. Pierre the same day. Soult could not then have withdrawn his divisions from the right bank without being observed. Still it was an error to have the troops on the left bank so unprepared for the battle of the 10th. It was perhaps another error not to have occupied the valley or basin between Hope and Alten, and surely it was negligence not to entrench Hill’s position on the 10th, 11th, and 12th. Yet with all this so brave so hardy so unconquerable were his soldiers that he was successful at every point, and that is the justification of his generalship. Hannibal crossed the Alps and descended upon Italy, not in madness but because he knew himself and his troops.
4º. It is agreed by French and English that the battle of St. Pierre was one of the most desperate of the whole war. Lord Wellington declared that he had never seen a field so thickly strewn with dead, nor can the vigour of the combatants be well denied where five thousand men were killed or wounded in three hours upon a space of one mile square. How then did it happen, valour being so conspicuous on both sides, that six English and Portuguese brigades, furnishing less than fourteen thousand men and officers with fourteen guns, were enabled to[Appendix 7], Sect. 4. withstand seven French divisions, certainly furnishing thirty-five thousand men and officers with twenty-two guns? The analysis of this fact shows upon what nice calculations and accidents war depends.