Villatte who including the foreign battalions had eighteen thousand troops on the rolls, furnishing about fifteen thousand sabres and bayonets, remained in observation on the Bidassoa. If threatened by superior forces he was to retire slowly and in mass upon the entrenched camp commenced at Bayonne, yet halting successively on the positions of Bordegain in front of St. Jean de Luz, and on the heights of Bidart in rear of that town. He was especially directed to shew only French troops at the advanced posts, and if the assailants made a point with a small corps, to drive them vigorously over the Bidassoa again. But if the allies should in consequence of Soult’s operations against their right retire, Villatte was to relieve San Sebastian and to follow them briskly by Tolosa.
Rapidity was of vital importance to the French general, but heavy and continued rains swelled the streams, and ruined the roads in the deep country between Bayonne and the hills; the head-quarters, which should have arrived at St. Jean Pied de Port on the 20th, only reached Olhonce, a few milesSoult’s Official Correspondence, MSS. short of that place, the 21st; and Reille’s troops unable to make way at all by Cambo took the longer road of Bayonne. The cavalry was retarded in like manner, and the whole army, men and horses, were worn down by the severity of the marches. Two days were thus lost, but on the 24th more than sixty thousand fighting men including cavalry national guards and gensd’armes, with sixty-six pieces of artillery, were assembled to force the passes of Roncesvalles and Maya. The main road leading to the former was repaired, three hundred sets of bullocks were provided to draw the guns up the mountain, and the national guards of the frontier on the left were ordered to assemble in the night on the heights of Yropil, to be reinforced on the morning of the 25th by detachments of regular troops with a view to vex and turn the right of the allies which extended to the foundry of Orbaiceta.
Such were Soult’s first dispositions, but as mountain warfare is complicated in the extreme, it will be well to consider more in detail the relative positions and objects of the hostile forces and the nature of the country.
It has been already stated that the great spine of the hills, trending westward, run diagonally across the theatre of operations. From this spine huge ridges shot out on either hand, and the communications between the valleys thus formed on both sides of the main chain passed over certain comparatively low places called “cols” by the French, and puertos by the Spaniards. The Bastan, the Val Carlos, and the Val de Baygorry the upper part of which is divided into the Alduides and the Val de Ayra, were on the French side of the great chain; on the Spanish side were the valleys of Ahescoa or Orbaiceta, the valley of Iscua or Roncesvalles, the valley of Urros, the Val de Zubiri, and the valley of Lanz, the two latter leading down directly upon Pampeluna which stands within two miles of the junction of their waters. Such being the relative situations of the valleys, the disposition, and force, of the armies, shall now be traced from left to right of the French, and from right to left of the allies. But first it must be observed that the main chain, throwing as it were a shoulder forward from Roncesvalles towards St. Jean Pied de Port, placed the entrance to the Spanish valley of Ahescoa or Orbaiceta, in the power of Soult, who could thus by Yropil turn the extreme right of his adversary with detachments, although not with an army.
Val Carlos.—Two issues led from this valley over the main chain, namely the Ibañeta and Mendichuri passes; and there was also the lateral pass of Atalosti leading into the Alduides, all comprised within a space of two or three miles.
The high road from St. Jean Pied de Port to Pampeluna, ascending the left-hand ridge or boundary of Val Carlos, runs along the crest until it joins the superior chain of mountains, and then along the summit of that also until it reaches the pass of Ibañeta, whence it descends to Roncesvalles. Ibañeta may therefore be called the Spanish end of the pass; but it is also a pass in itself, because a narrow road, leading through Arnegui and the village of Val Carlos, ascends directly to Ibañeta and falls into the main road behind it.
Clauzel’s three divisions of infantry, all the artillery and the cavalry were formed in two columns in front of St. Jean Pied de Port. The head of one was placed on some heights above Arnegui about two miles from the village of Val Carlos; the head of the other at the Venta de Orrisson, on the main road and within two miles of the remarkable rocks of Chateau Piñon, a little beyond which one narrow way descended on the right to the village of Val Carlos, and another on the left to the foundry of Orbaiceta.
On the right-hand boundary of Val Carlos, near the rock of Ayrola, Reille’s divisions were concentrated, with orders to ascend that rock at daylight, and march by the crest of the ridge towards a culminant point of the great chain called the Lindouz, which gained, Reille was to push detachments through the passes of Ibañeta and Mendichuri to the villages of Roncesvalles and Espinal. He was, at the same time, to seize the passes of Sahorgain and Urtiaga immediately on his right, and even approach the more distant passes of Renecabal and Bellate, thus closing the issues from the Alduides, and menacing those from the Bastan.
Val de Ayra. The Alduides. Val de Baygorry. The ridge of Ayrola, at the foot of which Reille’sPlan, No. 2. troops were posted, separates Val Carlos from these valleys which must be designated by the general name of the Alduides for the upper part, and the Val de Baygorry for the lower. The issues from the Alduides over the great chain towards Spain were the passes of Sahorgain and Urtiaga; and there was also a road running from the village of Alduides through the Atalosti pass to Ibañeta a distance of eight miles, by which general Campbell’s brigade communicated with and could join Byng and Morillo.
Bastan. This district, including the valley of Lerins and the Cinco Villas, is separated from the Alduides and Val de Baygorry by the lofty mountain of La Houssa, on which the national guards of the Val de Baygorry and the Alduides were ordered to assemble on the night of the 24th, and to light fires so as to make it appear a great body was menacing the Bastan by that flank. The Bastan however does not belong to the same geographical system as the other valleys. Instead of opening to the French territory it is entirely enclosed with high mountains, and while the waters of the Val Carlos, the Alduides, and Val de Baygorry run off northward by the Nive, those of the Bastan run off westward by the Bidassoa, from which they are separated by the Mandale, Commissari, La Rhune, Santa Barbara, Ivantelly, Atchiola and other mountains.