The victory was thus secured. For the third and sixth divisions had now won D’Armagnac’s position and established a battery of guns on a knoll, from whence their shot ploughed through the French masses from one flank to another. Suddenly a squadron of French chasseurs came at a hard gallop down the main road of Orthes to charge these guns, and sweeping to their right they rode over some of the sixth division which had advanced too far; but pushing this charge too madly got into a hollow lane and were nearly all destroyed. The third and seventh divisions then continued to advance and the wings of the army were united. The French general rallied all his forces on the open hills beyond the Dax road, and with Taupin’s, Roguet’s, Paris’, and D’Armagnac’s divisions made strong battle to cover the reformation of Foy’s disordered troops, but his foes were not all in front. This part of the battle was fought with only two-thirds of the allied army. Hill who had remained with twelve thousand combatants, cavalry and infantry, before the bridge of Orthes, received orders, when Wellington changed his plan of attack, to force the passage of the Gave, partly in the view of preventing Harispe from falling upon the flank of the sixth division, partly in the hope of a successful issue to the attempt: and so it happened. Hill though unable to force the bridge, forded the river above at Souars, and driving back the troops posted there seized the heights above, cut off the French from the road to Pau, and turned the town of Orthes. He thus menaced Soult’s only line of retreat by Salespice, on the road to St. Sever, at the very moment when the fifty-second having opened the defile of St. Boës the junction of the allies’ wings was effected on the French position.
Clauzel immediately ordered Harispe to abandon Orthes and close towards Villatte on the heights above Rontun, leaving however some conscript battalions on a rising point beyond the road of St. Sever called the “Motte de Turenne.” Meanwhile in person he endeavoured to keep general Hill in check by the menacing action of two cavalry regiments and a brigade of infantry; but Soult arrived at the moment and seeing that the loss of Souars had rendered his whole position untenable, gave orders for a general retreat.
This was a perilous matter. The heathy hills upon which he was now fighting, although for a short distance they furnished a succession of parallel positions favourable enough for defence, soon resolved themselves into a low ridge running to the rear on a line parallel with the road to St. Sever; and on the opposite side of that road about cannon-shot distance was a corresponding ridge along which general Hill, judging by the firing how matters went, was now rapidly advancing. Five miles distant was the Luy de Bearn, and four miles beyond that the Luy de France, two rivers deep and with difficult banks. Behind these the Lutz, the Gabas, and the Adour, crossed the line, and though once beyond the wooden bridge of Sault de Navailles on the Luy de Bearn, these streams would necessarily cover the retreat, to carry off by one road and one bridge a defeated army still closely engaged in front seemed impossible. Nevertheless Soult did so. For Paris sustained the fight on his right until Foy and Taupin’s troops rallied, and when the impetuous assault of the fifty-second and the rush of the fourth and seventh divisions drove Paris back, D’Armagnac interposed to cover him until the union of the allies’ wings was completed, then both retired, being covered in turn by Villatte. In this manner the French yielded, step by step and without confusion, the allies advancing with an incessant deafening musketry and cannonade, yet losing many men especially on the right where the third division were very strongly opposed. However as the danger of being cut off at Salespice by Hill became more imminent the retrograde movements were more hurried and confused; Hill seeing this, quickened his pace until at last both sides began to run violently, and so many men broke from the French ranks making across the fields towards the fords, and such a rush was necessarily made by the rest to gain the bridge of Sault de Navailles, that the whole country was covered with scattered bands. Sir Stapleton Cotton then breaking with lord Edward Somerset’s hussars through a small covering body opposed to him by Harispe sabred two or three hundred men, and the seventh hussars cut off about two thousand who threw down their arms in an enclosed field; yet some confusion or mismanagement occurring the greatest part recovering their weapons escaped, and the pursuit ceased at the Luy of Bearn.
The French army appeared to be entirely dispersed, but it was more disordered in appearance than reality, for Soult passed the Luy of Bearn and destroyed the bridge with the loss of only six guns and less than four thousand men killed wounded and prisoners. Many thousands of conscripts however threw away their arms, and we shall find one month afterwards the stragglers still amounting to three thousand. Nor would the passage of the river have been effected so happily if lord Wellington had not been struck by a musket-ball just above the thigh, which caused him to ride with difficulty, whereby the vigour and unity of the pursuit was necessarily abated. The loss of the allies was two thousand three hundred, of which fifty with three officers were taken, but among the wounded were lord Wellington, general Walker, general Ross, and the duke of Richmond, then lord March. He had served on lord Wellington’s personal staff during the whole war without a hurt, but being made a captain in the fifty-second, like a good soldier joined his regiment the night before the battle. He was shot through the chest a few hours afterwards, thus learning by experience, the difference between the labours and dangers of staff and regimental officers, which are generally in the inverse ratio to their promotions.
General Berton, stationed between Pau and OrthesMemoir by general Berton, MSS. during the battle, had been cut off by Hill’s movement, yet skirting that general’s march he retreated by Mant and Samadet with his cavalry, picking up two battalions of conscripts on the road. Meanwhile Soult having no position to rally upon, continued his retreat in the night to St. Sever, breaking down all the bridges behind him. Lord Wellington pursued at daylight in three columns, the right by Lacadée and St. Medard to Samadet, the centre by the main road, the left by St. Cricq. At St. Sever he hoped to find the enemy still in confusion, but he was too late; the French were across the river, the bridge was broken, and the army halted. The result of the battle was however soon made known far and wide, and Darricau who with a few hundred soldiers was endeavouring to form an insurgent levy at Dax, the works of which were incomplete and still unarmed, immediately destroyed part of the stores, the rest had been removed to Mont Marsan, and retreated through the Landes to Langon on the Garonne.
From St. Sever which offered no position Soult turned short to the right and moved upon Barcelona higher up the Adour; but he left D’Erlon with two divisions of infantry some cavalry and four guns at Caceres on the right bank, and sent Clauzel to occupy Aire on the other side of the river. He thus abandoned his magazines at Mont Marsan and left open the direct road to Bordeaux, but holding Caceres with his right he commanded another road by Rocquefort to that city, while his left being at Aire protected the magazines and artillery parc at that place and covered the road to Pau. Meanwhile the main body at Barcelona equally supported Clauzel and D’Erlon, and covered the great roads leading to Agen and Toulouse on the Garonne, and to the mountains by Tarbes.
In this situation it was difficult to judge what line of operations he meant to adopt. Wellington however passed the Adour about one o’clock, partly by the repaired bridge of St. Sever partly by a deep ford below, and immediately detached Beresford with the light division and Vivian’s cavalry to seize the magazines at Mont Marsan; at the same time he pushed the head of a column towards Caceres where a cannonade and charge of cavalry had place, and a few men and officers were hurt on both sides. The next day Hill’s corps marching from Samadet reached the Adour between St. Sever and Aire, and D’Erlon was again assailed on the right bank and driven back skirmishing to Barcelona. This event proved that Soult had abandoned Bordeaux, but the English general could not push the pursuit more vigorously, because every bridge was broken and a violent storm on the evening of the 1st had filled the smaller rivers and torrents, carried away the pontoon bridges, and cut off all communication between the troops and the supplies.
The bulk of the army was now necessarily haltedMarch. on the right bank of the Adour until the bridges could be repaired, but Hill who was on the left bank marched to seize the magazines at Aire. Moving in two columns from St. Savin and St. Gillies on the 2d, he reached his destination about three o’clock with two divisions of infantry a brigade of cavalry and a battery of horse-artillery; he expected no serious opposition, but general Clauzel had arrived a few hours before and was in order of battle covering the town with Villatte’s and Harispe’s divisions and some guns. The French occupied a steep ridge in front of Aire, high and wooded on the right where it overlooked the river, but merging on the left into a wide table-land over which the great road led to Pau. The position was strong for battle yet it could be readily outflanked on the left by the table-land, and was an uneasy one for retreat on the right where the ridge was narrow, the ravine behind steep and rugged with a mill-stream at the bottom between it and the town. A branch of the Adour also flowing behind Aire cut it off from Barcelona, while behind the left wing was the greater Lees a river with steep banks and only one bridge.