General Hill arriving about two o’clock attacked without hesitation. General Stewart with two British brigades fell on the French right, a Portuguese brigade assailed their centre, and the other brigades followed in columns of march. The action was however very sudden, the Portuguese were pushed forward in a slovenly manner by general Da Costa, a man of no ability, and the French under Harispe met them on the flat summit of the height with so rough a charge that they gave way in flight. The rear of the allies’ column being still in march the battle was like to be lost, but general Stewart having by this time won the heights on the French right, where Villatte, fearing to be enclosed made but a feeble resistance, immediately detached general Barnes with the fiftieth and ninety-second regiments to the aid of the Portuguese. The vehement charge of these troops turned the stream of battle, the French were broken in turn and thrown back on their reserves, yet they rallied and renewed the action with great courage, fighting obstinately until General Byng’s British brigade came up, when Harispe was driven towards the river Lees, and Villate quite through the town of Aire into the space between the two branches of the Adour behind.
General Reille who was at Barcelona when the action began, brought up Roguet’s division to support Villatte, the combat was thus continued until night at that point, meanwhile Harispe crossed the Lees and broke the bridge, but the French lost many men. Two generals, Dauture and Gasquet, were wounded, a colonel of engineers was killed, a hundred prisoners were taken, many of Harispe’s conscripts threw away their arms and fled to their homes, and the magazines fell into the conqueror’s hands. The loss of the British troops was one hundred and fifty, general Barnes was wounded and colonel Hood killed. The loss of the Portuguese was never officially stated, yet it could not have been less than that of the British, and the vigour of the action proved that the French courage was very little abated by the battle of Orthes. Soult immediately retreated up the Adour by both banks towards Maubourget and Marciac, and he was not followed for new combinations were now opened to the generals on both sides.
OBSERVATIONS.
1º. On the 14th of February the passage of the Gaves was commenced, by Hill’s attack on Harispe at Hellette. On the 2d of March the first series of operations was terminated by the combat at Aire. In these sixteen days lord Wellington traversed with his right wing eighty miles, passed five large and several small rivers, forced the enemy to abandon two fortified bridge-heads and many minor works, gained one great battle and two combats, captured six guns and about a thousand prisoners, seized the magazines at Dax, Mont Marsan, and Aire, forced Soult to abandon Bayonne and cut him off from Bordeaux. And in this time he also threw his stupendous bridge below Bayonne and closely invested that fortress after a sharp and bloody action. Success in war like charity in religion covers a multitude of sins; but success often belongs to fortune as much as skill, and the combinations of Wellington, profound and sagacious, might in this manner be confounded with the lucky operations of the allies on the other side of France, where the presumption and the vacillation of ignorance alternately predominated.
2º. Soult attributed the loss of his positions to the superior forces of the allies. Is this well-founded? The French general’s numbers cannot be determined exactly, but after all his losses in December, after the detachments made by the emperor’s order in January, and after completing the garrison of Bayonne to fourteen thousand men, he informed theOfficial Correspondence, MSS. minister of war that thirty thousand infantry, three thousand cavalry and forty pieces of artillery were in line. This did not include the conscripts of the new levy, all youths indeed and hastily sent to the army by battalions as they could be armed, but brave and about eight thousand of them might have joined before the battle of Orthes. Wherefore deducting the detachments of cavalry and infantry under Berton on the side of Pau, and under Daricau on the side of Dax, it may be said that forty thousand combatants of all arms were engaged in that action. Thirty-five thousand were very excellent soldiers, for the conscripts of the old levy who joined before the battle of the Nivelle were stout men; their vigorous fighting at Garris and Aire proved it, for of them was Harispe’s division composed.
Now lord Wellington commenced his operations with the second third fourth and seventh British divisions, the independent Portuguese division under Le Cor, Morillo’s Spaniards, forty-eight pieces of artillery, and only four brigades of light cavalry, for Vandaleur’s brigade remained with Hope and all the heavy cavalry and the Portuguese were left in Spain. Following the morning states of the army, this would furnish, exclusive of Morillo’s Spaniards, something more than forty thousand fighting men and officers of all arms, of which four thousand were horsemen. But five regiments of infantry, and amongst them two of the strongest British regiments of the light division, were absent to receive their clothing; deduct these and we have about thirty-seven thousand Anglo-Portuguese combatants. It is true that Mina’s battalions and Morillo’s aided in the commencement of the operations, but the first immediately invested St. Jean Pied de Port and the latter invested Navarrens. Lord Wellington was therefore in the battle superior by a thousand horsemen and eight guns, but Soult outnumbered him in infantry by four or five thousand, conscripts it is true, yet useful. Why then was the passage of the Gaves so feebly disputed? Because the French general remained entirely on the defensive in positions too extended for his numbers.
3º. Offensive operations must be the basis of a good defensive system. Let Soult’s operations be tried by this rule. On the 12th he knew that the allies were in motion for some great operation and he judged rightly that it was to drive him from the Gaves. From the 14th to the 18th his left was continually assailed by very superior numbers, but during part of that time Beresford could only oppose to his right and centre, the fourth and a portion of the seventh divisions with some cavalry; and those not in a body and at once but parcelled and extended, for it was not until the 16th that the fourth seventh and light divisions were so closed towards the Bidouze as to act in one mass. On the 15th lord Wellington admitted that his troops were too extended, Villatte’s, Taupin’s, and Foy’s divisions, were never menaced until the 18th, and there was nothing to prevent D’Erlon’s divisions which only crossed the Adour on the 17th from being on the Bidouze the 15th. Soult might therefore by rapid and well-digested combinations have united four divisions of infantry and a brigade of cavalry to attack Beresford on the 15th or 16th between the Nive and the Adour. If successful the defeated troops, pushed back upon the sixth division, must have fought for life with the rivers on their flanks, Soult in front, and the garrison of Bayonne issuing from the works of Mousseroles on their rear. If unsuccessful the French retreat behind the Gave of Oleron could not have been prevented.
It is however to be pleaded that Soult was not exactly informed of the numbers and situation of his opponents. He thought Beresford had the firstSoult’s Official Reports, MSS. division also on the Lower Bidouze; he knew that Wellington had large reserves to employ, and, that general’s design of passing the Adour below Bayonne being unknown to him, he naturally supposed they would be used to support the operations on the Gaves: he therefore remained on the defensive. It might possibly also have been difficult to bring D’Erlon’s division across the Adour by the Port de Lannes before the 17th, because the regular bridge had been carried away and the communications interrupted a few days before by the floods. In fine there are many matters of detail in war known only to a general-in-chief which forbid the best combinations, and this it is that makes the art so difficult and uncertain. Great captains worship Fortune.
On the 24th the passage of the Gave d’Oleron was effected. Soult then recognised his error and concentrated his troops at Orthes to retake the offensive. It was a fine movement and effected with ability, but he suffered another favourable opportunity of giving a counter-blow to escape him. The infantry under Villatte, Harispe, and Paris, supported by a brigade of cavalry, were about Sauveterre, that is to say, four miles from Montfort and only seven from Villenave, where the principal passage was effected, where the ford was deep, the stream rapid, and the left bank although favourable for the passage not entirely commanding the right bank. How then did it happen that the operation was effected without opposition? Amongst the allies it was rumoured at the time that Soult complained of the negligence of a general who had orders to march against the passing troops. The position of Harispe’s division at Monstrueig, forming a reserve at equal distances from Sauveterre and Villenave, would seem to have been adopted with that view, but I find no confirmation of the report in Soult’s correspondence, and it is certain he thought Picton’s demonstrations at Sauveterre was a real attack.