The country was suited to the action of all arms, offering a number of long and nearly parallel ridges of moderate height, the sides of which were sometimes covered with vineyards, but the summits commonly so open that troops could move along them without much difficulty, and between these ranges a number of small rivers and muddy fords descended from the Pyrenees to the Adour. This conformation determined the order of the French general’s march which followed the courses of these rivers. Leaving one regiment of cavalry to watch the valley of the Adour he moved with the rest of his army by Lembege upon Conchez down the smaller Lees. Clauzel thus seized the high land of Daisse and pushed troops to Portet; Reille supported him at Conchez; D’Erlon remained behind that place in reserve. In this position the head of the columns, pointing direct upon Aire, separated Viella from Garlin which was the right of general Hill’s position, and menaced that general’s posts on the great Lees. Meanwhile Pierre Soult marching with three regiments of cavalry along the high land between the two Lees, reached Mascaras and the castle of Sault, he thus covered the left flank of the French army and pushed Fane’s cavalry posts back with the loss of two officers taken and a few men wounded. During this movement Berton advancing from Madiran with two regiments of cavalry towards Viella, on the right flank of the French army, endeavoured toMemoirs by general Berton, MSS. cross the Saye river at a difficult muddy ford near the broken bridge. Sir John Campbell leading a squadron of the fourth Portuguese cavalry overthrewNote by sir John Campbell, MSS. the head of his column, but the Portuguese horsemen were too few to dispute the passage and Berton finally getting a regiment over higher up, gained the table-land above, and charging the rear of the retiring troops in a narrow way leading to the Aire road killed several and took some prisoners, amongst them Bernardo de Sà the since well-known count of Bandeira.
This terminated the French operations for the day, and lord Wellington imagining the arrival of Suchet’s troops had made Soult thus bold, resolved to keep on the defensive until his reinforcements and detachments could come up. Hill however passed the greater Lees partly to support his posts partly to make out the force and true direction of the French movement, but he recrossed that river during the night and finally occupied the strong platform between Aire and Garlin which Soult had designed to seize. Lord Wellington immediately brought the third and sixth division and the heavy cavalry over the Adour to his support, leaving the light division with the hussar brigade still on the right bank. The bulk of the army thus occupied a strong position parallel with the Pau road. The right was at Garlin, the left at Aire, the front covered by the greater Lees a river difficult to pass; Fane’s cavalry was extended along the Pau road as far as Boelho, and on the left of the Adour the hussars pushed the French cavalry regiment left there back upon Plaissance.
On the morning of the 14th Soult intending to fall on Hill, whose columns he had seen the evening before on the right of the Lees, drove in the advanced posts which had been left to cover the retrograde movement, and then examined the allies’ new position; but these operations wasted the day, and towards evening he disposed his army on the heights between the two Lees, placing Clauzel and D’Erlon at Castle Pugon opposite Garlin, and Reille in reserve at Portet. Meanwhile Pierre Soult carried three regiments of cavalry to Clarac, on the Pau road, to intercept the communications with that town and to menace the right flank of the allies, against which the whole French army was now pointing. Fane’s outposts being thus assailed retired with some loss at first but they were soon supported and drove the French horsemen in disorder clear off the Pau road to Carere.
Soult now seeing the strength of the position above Aire, and hearing from the peasants that forty or fifty thousand men were concentrated there, feared to attack, but changing his plan resolved to hover about the right flank of the allies in the hopes of enticing them from their vantage-ground. Lord Wellington on the other hand drew his cavalry posts down the valley of the Adour, and keeping close on that side massed his forces on the right in expectation of an attack. In fine each general acting upon false intelligence of the other’s strength was afraid to strike. The English commander’s error as to the junction of Suchet’s troops was encouraged by Soult, who had formed his battalions upon two ranks instead of three to give himself an appearance of strength, and in the same view had caused his reserve of conscripts to move in rear of his line of battle. And he also judged the allies’ strength by what it might have been rather than by what it was; for though Freyre’s Spaniards and Ponsonby’sMorning States, MSS. dragoons were now up, the whole force did not exceed thirty-six thousand men, including the light division and the hussars who were on the right bank of the Adour. This number was however increasing every hour by the arrival of detachments and reserves; and it behoved Soult, who was entangled in a country extremely difficult if rain should fall, to watch that Wellington while holding the French in check with his right wing did not strike with his left by Maubourget and Tarbes, and thus cast them upon the mountains about Lourdes.
This danger, and the intelligence now obtained of the fall of Bordeaux, induced the French general to retire before day on the 16th to Lembege and Simacourbe, where he occupied both sides of the two branches of the Lees and the heights between them; however his outposts remained at Conchez, and Pierre Soult again getting upon the Pau road detached a hundred chosen troopers against the allies’ communication with Orthes. Captain Dania commanding these men making a forced march reached Hagetnau at nightfall, surprised six officers and eight medical men with their baggage, made a number of other prisoners and returned on the evening of the 18th. This enterprize extended to such a distance from the army was supposed to be executed by the bands, and seemed to indicate a disposition for insurrection; wherefore lord Wellington to check it seized the civil authorities at Hagetnau, and declared that he would hang all the peasants caught in arms and burn their villages.
The offensive movement of the French general had now terminated, he sent his conscripts at once to Toulouse and prepared for a rapid retreat on that place. His recent operations had been commenced too late, he should have been on the Lees the 10th or 11th when there were not more than twenty thousand infantry and two thousand five hundred cavalry to oppose him between Aire and Garlin. On the other hand the passive state of Wellington, which had been too much prolonged, was now also at an end, all his reinforcements and detachments were either up or close at hand, and he could put in motion six Anglo-Portuguese and three Spanish divisions of infantry, furnishing forty thousand bayonets,Morning States, MSS. with five brigades of cavalry, furnishing nearly six thousand sabres, and from fifty to sixty pieces of artillery.
On the evening of the 17th, the English general pushed the hussars up the valley of the Adour, towards Plaissance, supporting them with the light division, which was followed at the distance of half a march by the fourth division coming from the side of Roquefort, on its return from Langon.
The 18th at daylight the whole army was in movement, the hussars with the light and the fourth division, forming the left, marched upon Plaissance; Hill’s troops forming the right marched from Garlin upon Conchez, keeping a detachment on the road to Pau in observation of Pierre Soult’s cavalry. ThePlan 10. main body moved in the centre, under Wellington in person, to Viella, by the high road leading from Aire to Maubourget. The French right was thus turned by the valley of the Adour, while general Hill with a sharp skirmish, in which about eighty British and Germans were killed and wounded, drove back their outposts upon Lembege.
Soult retired during the night to a strong ridge having a small river with rugged banks, called the Laiza, in his front, and his right under D’Erlon was extended towards Vic Bigorre on the great road of Tarbes. Meanwhile Berton’s cavalry, one regimentBerton’s Memoir, MSS. of which retreating from Viella on the 16th disengaged itself with some difficulty and loss, reached Maubourget, and took post in column behind that place, the road being confined on each side by deep and wide ditches. In this situation pressed by Bock’s cavalry, which preceded the centre column of the allies, the French horsemen suddenly charged the Germans, at first with success, taking an officer and some men, but finally they were beaten and retreated through Vic Bigorre. Soult thinking a flanking column only was on this side in the valley of the Adour, resolved to fall upon it with his whole army; but he recognised the skill of his opponent when he found that the whole of the allies’ centre, moving by Madiran,Soult’s Official Report, MSS. had been thrown on to the Tarbes road while he was retiring from Lembege. This heavy mass was now approaching Vic Bigorre, the light division, coming from Plaissance up the right bank of the Adour, were already near Auriebat, pointing to Rabastens, upon which place the hussars had already driven the French cavalry left in observation when the army first advanced: Vic Bigorre was thus turned, Berton’s horsemen had passed it in retreat and the danger was imminent. The French general immediately ordered Berton to support the cavalry regiment at Rabastens and cover that road to Tarbes. Then directing D’Erlon to take post at Vic Bigorre and check the allies on the main road, he marched, in person and in all haste, with Clauzel’s and Reille’s divisions to Tarbes by a circuitous road leading through Ger-sur-landes.