Yielding to these reasons he resolved to recover his former positions and thenceforward remain entirely on the defensive, for which his vast knowledge of war, his foresight, his talent for methodical arrangement and his firmness of character, peculiarly fitted him. Twelve battles or combats fought in seven weeks, bore testimony that he had strived hard to regain the offensive for the French army, and willing still to strive if it might be so, he had called upon Suchet to aid him and demanded fresh orders from the emperor; but Suchet helped him not, and Napoleon’s answer indicated at once his own difficulties and his reliance upon the duke of Dalmatia’s capacity and fidelity.
“I have given you my confidence and can add neither to your means nor to your instructions.”
The loss of the allies was one thousand Anglo-Portuguese, and sixteen hundred Spaniards. Wherefore the cost of men on this day, including the storming of San Sebastian, exceeded five thousand, but the battle in no manner disturbed the siege. The French army was powerless against such strong positions. Soult had brought forty-five thousand men to bear in two columns upon a square of less than five miles, and the thirty thousand French actually engaged, were repulsed by ten thousand, for that number only of the allies fought.
But the battle was a half measure and ill-judged on Soult’s part. Lord Wellington’s experience of French warfare, his determined character, coolness and thorough acquaintance with the principles of his art, left no hope that he would suffer two-thirds of his army to be kept in check by D’Erlon’s two divisions; and accordingly, the moment D’Erlon was menaced Soult stopped his own attack to make a counter-movement and deliver a decisive battle on favourable ground. Perhaps his secret hope was to draw his opponent to such a conclusion, but if so, the combat of San Marcial was too dear a price to pay for the chance.
A general who had made up his mind to force a way to San Sebastian, would have organized his rear so that no serious embarrassment could arise from any partial incursions towards Bayonne; he would have concentrated his whole army, and have calculated his attack so as to be felt at San Sebastian before his adversary’s counter-movement could be felt towards Bayonne. In this view D’Erlon’s two divisions should have come in the night of the 30th to Vera, which without weakening the reserve opposed to the light division would have augmented Clauzel’s force by ten thousand men; and on the most important line, because San Marcial offered no front for the action of great numbers, and the secret of mountain warfare is, by surprise or the power of overwhelming numbers, to seize such commanding points as shall force an enemy either to abandon his strong position, or become the assailant to recover those he has thus lost. Now the difficulty of defending the crowned mountain was evinced by the rapid manner in which Clauzel at once gained the ridges as far as the foundry of San Antonio; with ten thousand additional men he might have gained a commanding position on the rear and left flank of San Marcial, and forced the allies to abandon it. That lord Wellington thought himself weak on the Haya mountain is proved by his calling up the seventh division from Echallar, and by his orders to the light division.
Soult’s object was to raise the siege, but his plan involved the risk of having thirty-five thousand of the allies interposed during his attack between him and Bayonne, clearly a more decisive operation than the raising of the siege, therefore the enterprise may be pronounced injudicious. He admitted indeed, that excited to the enterprise, partlyCorrespondence with the minister of war, MSS. by insinuations, whether from the minister of war or his own lieutenants does not appear, partly by a generous repugnance to abandon the brave garrison, he was too precipitate, acting contrary to his judgment; but he was probably tempted by the hope of obtaining at least the camp of San Marcial as a bridge-head, and thus securing a favourable point for after combinations.
Lord Wellington having resolved not to invade France at this time, was unprepared for so great an operation as throwing his right and centre upon Soult’s left; and it is obvious also that on the 30th he expected only a partial attack at San Marcial. The order he first gave to assail D’Erlon’s position, and then the counter-order for the seventh division to come to Lesaca, prove this, because the latter was issued after Clauzel’s numbers and the direction of his attack were ascertained. The efforts of two Portuguese brigades against D’Erlon sufficed therefore to render null the duke of Dalmatia’s great combinations, and his extreme sensitiveness to their operations marks the vice of his own. Here it may be observed, that the movement of the forty-third the rifle companies and the Spaniards, to secure the right flank of Inglis, was ill-arranged. Dispatched by different roads without knowing precisely the point they were to concentrate at, each fell in with the enemy at different places; the Spaniards got under fire and were forced to alter their route; the forty-third companies stumbling on a French division had to fall back half a mile; it was only by thus feeling the enemy at different points that the destined position was at last found, and a disaster was scarcely prevented by the fury of the tempest. Nevertheless those detachments were finally well placed to have struck a blow the next morning, because their post was only half an hour’s march from the high ground behind Vandermaesen’s column when he forced the bridge at Vera, and the firing would have served as a guide. The remainder of Kempt’s brigade could also have moved upon the same point from Lesaca. It is however very difficult to seize such occasions in mountain warfare where so little can be seen of the general state of affairs.
A more obvious advantage was neglected by general Skerrit. The defence of the bridge at Vera by a single company of rifles lasted more than an hour, and four brigades of the enemy, crossing in a tumultuous manner, could not have cleared the narrow passage after it was won in a moment. Lord Wellington’s despatch erroneously describes the French as passing under the fire of great part of general Skerrit’s brigade, whereas that officer remained in order of battle on the lower slopes of Santa Barbara, half a mile distant, and allowed the enemy to escape. It is true that a large mass of French troops were on the counter slopes of the Bayonette mountain, beyond Vera, but the seventh division, being then close to San Barbara, would have prevented any serious disaster if the blow had failed. A great opportunity was certainly lost, but war in rough mountains is generally a series of errors.