History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year 1807 to the year 1814, vol. 6

by William Francis Patrick Napier

It has been shewn that the Lanz covered the left of the allies and the right of the French. Nevertheless the heights occupied by either army were prolonged beyond that river, the continuation of the allies’ ridge sweeping forward so as to look into the rear of Sauroren, while the continuation of the French heights fell back in a direction nearly parallel to the forward inclination of the opposing ridge. They were both steep and high, yet lower and less rugged than the heights on which the armies stood opposed, for the latter were mountains where rocks piled on rocks stood out like castles, difficult to approach and so dangerous to assail that the hardened veterans of the Peninsula only would have dared the trial. Now the road by which the sixth division marched on the 27th, after clearing the pass of Doña Maria, sends one branch to Lanz, another to Ostiz, a third through Lizasso and Marcalain; the first and second fall into the road from Bellate and descend the valley of Lanz to Sauroren; the third passing behind the ridges, just described as prolonging the positions of the armies, also falls into the valley of Lanz, but at the village of Oricain, that is to say one mile behind the ground occupied by general Cole’s left.

It was by this road of Marcalain that Wellington now expected the sixth and seventh divisions, but the rapidity with which Soult seized Sauroren caused a delay of eighteen hours. For the sixth division, having reached Olague in the valley of Lanz about one o’clock on the 27th, halted there until four, and then following the orders brought by lord Fitzroy Somerset marched by Lizasso to gain the Marcalain road; but the great length of these mountain marches, and the heavy storm which had terminated the action at Zabaldica sweeping with equal violence in this direction, prevented the division from passing Lizasso that night. However the march was renewed at daylight on the 28th, and meanwhile general Hill, having quitted the Bastan on the evening of the 27th, reached the town of Lanz on the morning of the 28th, and rallying general Long’s cavalry and his own artillery, which were in that valley, moved likewise upon Lizasso. At that place he met the seventh division coming from San Estevan, and having restored general Barnes’s brigade to lord Dalhousie, took a position on a ridge covering the road to Marcalain. The seventh division being on his right, was in military communication with the sixth division, and thus lord Wellington’s left was prolonged, and covered the great road leading from Pampeluna by Irurzun to Tolosa. And during these important movements, which were not completed until the evening of the 28th, which brought six thousand men into the allies’ line of battle, and fifteen thousand more into military communication with their left, D’Erlon remained planted in his position of observation near Elizondo!

The near approach of the sixth division early on the morning of the 28th and the certainty of Hill’s junction, made Wellington imagine that Soult would not venture an attack, and certainly that marshal, disquieted about D’Erlon of whom he only knew that he had not followed his instructions, viewed the strong position of his adversary with uneasy anticipations. Again with anxious eyes he took cognizance of all its rugged strength, and seemed dubious and distrustful of his fortune. He could not operate with advantage by his own left beyond the Guy river, because the mountains there were rough, and Wellington having shorter lines of movement could meet him with all arms combined; and meanwhile the French artillery, unable to emerge from the Val de Zubiri except by the Huarte road, would have been exposed to a counter-attack. He crossed the Lanz river and ascended the prolongation of the allies’ ridge, which, as he had possession of the bridge of Sauroren, was for the moment his own ground. From this height he could see all the left and rear of Cole’s position, looking down the valley of Lanz as far as Villalba, but the country beyond the ridge towards Marcalain was so broken that heSoult’s Correspondence, MSS. could not discern the march of the sixth division; he knew however from the deserters, that Wellington expected four fresh divisions from that side, that is to say, the second, sixth, and seventh British, and Sylviera’s Portuguese division which always marched with Hill. This information and the nature of the ground decided the plan of attack. The valley of Lanz growing wider as it descended, offered the means of assailing the allies’ left in front and rear at one moment, and the same combination would cut off the reinforcements expected from the side of Marcalain.

One of Clauzel’s divisions already occupied Sauroren, and the other two coming from the mountain took post upon each side of that village. The division on the right hand was ordered to throw some flankers on the ridge from whence Soult was taking his observations, and upon a signal given to move in one body to a convenient distance down the valley and then, wheeling to its left, assail the rear of the allies’ left flank while the other two divisions advancing from their respective positions near Sauroren assailed the front. Cole’s left, which did not exceed five thousand men, would thus be enveloped by sixteen thousand, and Soult expected to crush it notwithstanding the strength of the ground. Meanwhile Reille’s two divisions advancing from the mountain on the side of Zabaldica, were each to send a brigade against the hill occupied by the fortieth regiment; the right of this attack was to be connected with the left of Clauzel, the remaining brigades were closely to support the assailing masses, the divisions beyond the Guy were to keep Picton in check, and Soult who had no time to lose ordered his lieutenants to throw their troops frankly and at once into action.

First battle of Sauroren.—It was fought on the fourth anniversary of the battle of Talavera.

About mid-day the French gathered at the foot of the position and their skirmishers rushing forward spread over the face of the mountain, working upward like a conflagration; but the columns of attack were not all prepared when Clauzel’s division in the valley of Lanz, too impatient to await the general signal of battle, threw out its flankers on the ridge beyond the river and pushed down the valley in one mass. With a rapid pace it turned Cole’s left and was preparing to wheel up on his rear, when a Portuguese brigade of the sixth division, suddenly appearing on the crest of the ridge beyond the river, drove the French flankers back and instantly descended with a rattling fire upon the right and rear of the column in the valley. And almost at the same instant, the main body of the sixth division emerging from behind the same ridge, near the village of Oricain, formed in order of battle across the front. It was the counter-stroke of Salamanca! The French, striving to encompass the left of the allies were themselves encompassed, for two brigades of the fourth division turned and smote them from the left, the Portuguese smote them from the right; and while thus scathed on both flanks with fire, they were violently shocked and pushed back with a mighty force by the sixth division, yet not in flight, but fighting fiercely and strewing the ground with their enemies’ bodies as well as with their own.

Clauzel’s second division, seeing this dire conflict, with a hurried movement assailed the chapel height to draw off the fire from the troops in the valley, and gallantly did the French soldiers throng up the craggy steep, but the general unity of the attack was ruined; neither their third division nor Reille’s brigades had yet received the signal, and their attacks instead of being simultaneous were made in succession, running from right to left as the necessity of aiding the others became apparent. It was however a terrible battle and well fought. One column darting out of the village of Sauroren, silently, sternly, without firing a shot, worked up to the chapel under a tempest of bullets which swept away whole ranks without abating the speed and power of the mass. The seventh Caçadores shrunk abashed and that part of the position was won. Soon however they rallied upon general Ross’s British brigade, and the whole running forward charged the French with a loud shout and dashed them down the hill. Heavily stricken they were, yet undismayed, and recovering their ranks again, they ascended in the same manner to be again broken and overturned. But the other columns of attack were now bearing upwards through the smoke and flame with which the skirmishers had covered the face of the mountain, and the tenth Portuguese regiment fighting on the right of Ross’s brigade yielded to their fury; a heavy body crowned the heights and wheeling against the exposed flank of Ross forced that gallant officer also to go back. His ground was instantly occupied by the enemies with whom he had been engaged in front, and the fight raged close and desperate on the crest of the position, charge succeeded charge and each side yielded and recovered by turns; yet this astounding effort of French valour was of little avail. Lord Wellington brought Byng’s brigade forward at a running pace, and sent the twenty-seventh and forty-eighth British regiments belonging to Anson’s brigade down from the higher ground in the centre against the crowded masses, rolling them backward in disorder and throwing them one after the other violently down the mountain side; and with no child’s play; the two British regiments fell upon the enemy three separate times with the bayonet and lost more than half their own numbers.

During this battle on the mountain-top, the British brigades of the sixth division strengthened by a battery of guns, gained ground in the valley of Lanz and arrived on the same front with the left of the victorious troops about the chapel. Lord Wellington then seeing the momentary disorder of the enemy ordered Madden’s Portuguese brigade, which had never ceased its fire against the right flank of the French column, to assail the village of Sauroren in the rear, but the state of the action in other parts and the exhaustion of the troops soon induced him to countermand this movement. Meanwhile Reille’s brigades, connecting their right with the left of Clauzel’s third division, had environed the Spanish hill, ascended it unchecked, and at the moment when the fourth division was so hardly pressed made the regiment of El Pravia give way on the left of the fortieth. A Portuguese battalion rushing forward covered the flank of that invincible regiment, which waited in stern silence until the French set their feet upon the broad summit; but when their glittering arms appeared over the brow of the mountain the charging cry was heard, the crowded mass was broken to pieces and a tempest of bullets followed its flight. Four times this assault was renewed, and the French officers were seen to pull up their tired men by the belts, so fierce and resolute they were to win. It was however the labour of Sysiphus. The vehement shout and shock of the British soldier always prevailed, and at last, with thinned ranks, tired limbs, hearts fainting, and hopeless from repeated failures, they were so abashed that three British companies sufficed to bear down a whole brigade.

While the battle was thus being fought on the height the French cavalry beyond the Guy river, passed a rivulet, and with a fire of carbines forced the tenth hussars to yield some rocky ground on Picton’s right, but the eighteenth hussars having better firearms than the tenth renewed the combat, killed two officers, and finally drove the French over the rivulet again.