General Alten, who had now been separated for three days from the army, sent mounted officers in various directions to obtain tidings, and at six o’clock in the evening renewed his march. At Areysa he halted for some time without suffering fires to be lighted, for he knew nothing of the enemy and was fearful of discovering his situation, but at night he again moved and finally established his bivouacs near Lecumberri early on the 30th. The noise of Hill’s battle at Buenza was clearly heard in the course of the day, and the light division was thus again comprized in the immediate system of operations directed by Wellington in person. Had Soult continued his march upon Guipuscoa Alten would have been in great danger, but the French general being forced to retreat, the light division was a new power thrown into his opponent’s hands, the value of which will be seen by a reference to the peculiarity of the country through which the French general was now to move.
It has been shewn that Foy cut off from the main army was driven towards the Alduides; that the French artillery and part of the cavalry were again on the Bidassoa, whence Villatte, contrary to the intelligence received by Soult, had not advanced, though he had skirmished with Longa, leaving the latter however in possession of heights above Lesaca. The troops under Soult’s immediate command were therefore completely isolated, and had no resources save what his ability and their own courage could supply. His single line of retreat by the pass of Doña Maria was secure as far as San Estevan, and from that town he could march up the Bidassoa to Elizondo and so gain France by the Col de Maya, or down the same river towards Vera by Sumbilla and Yanzi, from both of which places roads branching off to the right lead over the mountains to the passes of Echallar. There was also a third mountain-road leading direct from Estevan to Zagaramurdi and Urdax, but it was too steep and rugged for his wounded men and baggage.
The road to Elizondo was very good, but that down the Bidassoa was a long and terrible defile, and so contracted about the bridges of Yanzi and Sumbilla that a few men only could march abreast. This then Soult had to dread; that Wellington who by the pass of Vellate could reach Elizondo before him would block his passage on that side; that Graham would occupy the rocks about Yanzi, blocking the passage there and by detachments cut off his line of march upon Echallar. Then, confined to the narrow mountain-way from San Estevan to Zagaramurdi, he would be followed hard by general Hill, exposed to attacks in rear and flank during his march, and perhaps be headed at Urdax by the allied troops moving through Vellate Elizondo and the Col de Maya. In this state, his first object being to get through the pass of Doña Maria, he commenced his retreat as we have seen in the night of the 30th, and Wellington still deceived as to the real state of affairs did not take the most fitting measures to stop his march, that is to say, he continued in his first design, halting in the valley of Lanz while Hill passed his front to enter the Bastan, into which district he sent Byng’s brigade as belonging to the second division. But early on the 31st, when Soult’s real strength became known, he directed the seventh division to aid Hill, followed Byng through the pass of Vellate with the remainder of his forces, and thinking the light division might be at Zubieta in the valley of Lerins, sent Alten orders to head the French if possible at San Estevan, or at Sumbilla, in fine to cut in upon their line of march somewhere; Longa also was ordered to come down to the defiles at Yanzi, thus aiding the light division to block the way on that side, and sir Thomas Graham was advertised to hold his army in readiness to move in the same view, and it would appear that the route of the sixth and third divisions were also changed for a time.
Combat of Doña Maria.—At ten o’clock in the morning of the 31st, general Hill overtook Soult’s rear-guard between Lizasso and the Puerto. The seventh division, coming from the hills above Olague, was already ascending the mountain on his right, and the French only gained a wood on the summit of the pass under the fire of Hill’s guns. There, however, they turned and throwing out their skirmishers made strong battle. General Stewart, leading the attack of the second division, now for the third time engaged with D’Erlon’s troops, was again wounded and his first brigade was repulsed, but general Pringle who succeeded to the command, renewed the attack with the second brigade, and the thirty-fourth regiment leading, broke the enemy at the moment that the seventh division did the same on the right. Some prisoners were taken, but a thick fog prevented further pursuit, and the loss of the French in the action is unknown, probably less than that of the allies which was something short of four hundred men.
The seventh division remained on the mountain, but Hill fell back to Lizasso, and then, following his orders, moved by a short but rugged way, leading between the passes of Doña Maria and Vellate over the great chain to Almandoz, to join Wellington, who had during the combat descended into the Bastan by the pass of Vellate. Meanwhile Byng reached Elizondo, and captured a large convoy of provisions and ammunition left there under guard of a battalion by D’Erlon on the 29th; he made several hundred prisoners also after a sharp skirmish and then pushed forward to the pass of Maya. Wellington now occupied the hills through which the road leads from Elizondo to San Estevan, and full of hope he was to strike a terrible blow; for Soult, not being pursued after passing Doña Maria, had halted in San Estevan, although by his scouts he knew that the convoy had been taken at Elizondo. He was in a deep narrow valley, and three British divisions with one of Spaniards were behind the mountains overlooking the town; the seventh division was on the mountain of Doña Maria; the light division and sir Thomas Graham’s Spaniards were marching to block the Vera and Echallar exits from the valley; Byng was already at Maya, and Hill was moving by Almandoz just behind Wellington’s own position. A few hours gained and the French must surrender or disperse. Wellington gave strict orders to prevent the lighting of fires the straggling of soldiers or any other indication of the presence of troops; and he placed himself amongst some rocks at a commanding point from whence he could observe every movement of the enemy. Soult seemed tranquil, and four of his “gensd’armes” were seen to ride up the valley in a careless manner. Some of the staff proposed to cut them off; the English general whose object was to hide his ownNotes by the duke of Wellington, MSS. presence, would not suffer it, but the next moment three marauding English soldiers entered the valley and were instantly carried off by the horsemen. Half an hour afterwards the French drums beat to arms and their columns began to move out of San Estevan towards Sumbilla. Thus the disobedience of three plundering knaves, unworthy of the name of soldiers, deprived one consummate commander of the most splendid success, and saved another from the most terrible disaster.
The captives walked from their prison but their chains hung upon them. The way was narrow, the multitude great, and the baggage, and wounded men borne on their comrades’ shoulders, filed with such long procession, that Clauzel’s divisions forming the rear-guard were still about San Estevan on the morning of the 1st of August, and scarcely had they marched a league of ground, when the skirmishers of the fourth division and the Spaniards thronging along the heights on the right flank opened a fire to which little reply could be made. The troops and baggage then got mixed with an extreme disorder, numbers of the former fled up the hills, and the commanding energy of Soult whose personal exertions were conspicuous could scarcely prevent a general dispersion. However prisoners and baggage fell at every step into the hands of the pursuers, the boldest were dismayed at the peril, and worse would have awaited them in front, if Wellington had been on other points well seconded by his subordinate generals.
The head of the French column instead of taking the first road leading from Sumbilla to Echallar, had passed onward towards that leading from the bridge near Yanzi; the valley narrowed to a mere cleft in the rocks as they advanced, the Bidassoa was on their left, and there was a tributary torrent to cross, the bridge of which was defended by a battalion of Spanish Caçadores detached to that point from the heights of Vera by general Barceñas. The front was now as much disordered as the rear, and had Longa or Barceñas reinforced the Caçadores, those only of the French who being near Sumbilla could take the road from that place to Echallar would have escaped; but the Spanish generals kept aloof and D’Erlon won the defile. However Reille’s divisions were still to pass, and when they came up a new enemy had appeared.
It will be remembered that the light division wasAugust. directed to head the French army at San Estevan, or Sumbilla. This order was received on the evening of the 31st, and the division, repassing the defiles of the Zubieta, descended the deep valley of Lerins and reached Elgoriaga about mid-day on the 1st of August, having then marched twenty-four miles and being little more than a league from Estevan and about the same distance from Sumbilla. The movement of the French along the Bidassoa was soon discovered, but the division instead of moving on Sumbilla turned to the left, clambered up the great mountain of Santa Cruz and made for the bridge of Yanzi. The weather was exceedingly sultry, the mountain steep and hard to overcome, many men fell and died convulsed and frothing at the mouth, while others whose spirit and strength had never before been quelled, leaned on their muskets and muttered in sullen tones that they yielded for the first time.
Towards evening, after marching for nineteen consecutive hours over forty miles of mountain roads, the head of the exhausted column reached the edge of a precipice near the bridge of Yanzi. Below, within pistol-shot, Reille’s divisions were seen hurrying forward along the horrid defile in which they were pent up, and a fire of musketry commenced, slightly from the British on the high rock, more vigorously from some low ground near the bridge of Yanzi, where the riflemen had ensconced themselves in the brushwood. The scene which followed is thus described by an eye-witness.
“We overlooked the enemy at stone’s throw, andCaptain Cooke’s Memoirs. from the summit of a tremendous precipice. The river separated us, but the French were wedged in a narrow road with inaccessible rocks on one side and the river on the other. Confusion impossible to describe followed, the wounded were thrown down in the rush and trampled upon, the cavalry drew their swords and endeavoured to charge up the pass of Echallar, but the infantry beat them back, and several, horses and all, were precipitated into the river; some fired vertically at us, the wounded called out for quarter, while others pointed to them, supported as they were on branches of trees, on which were suspended great coats clotted with gore, and blood-stained sheets taken from different habitations to aid the sufferers.”
On these miserable supplicants brave men could not fire, and so piteous was the spectacle that it was with averted or doubtful aim they shot at the others, although the latter rapidly plied their muskets in passing, and some in their veteran hardihood even dashed across the bridge of Yanzi to make a counter-attack. It was a soldier-like but a vain effort! the night found the British in possession of the bridge, and though the great body of the enemy escaped by the road to Echallar, the baggage was cut off and fell, together with many prisoners, into the hands of the light troops which were still hanging on the rear in pursuit from San Estevan.
The loss of the French this day was very great, that of the allies about a hundred men, of which sixty-five were British, principally of the fourth division. Nevertheless lord Wellington was justly discontented with the result. Neither Longa nor general Alten had fulfilled their mission. The former excused himself as being too feeble to oppose the mass Soult led down the valley; but the rocks were so precipitous that the French could not have reached him, and the resistance made by the Spanish caçadores was Longa’s condemnation. A lamentable fatuity prevailed in many quarters. If Barceñas had sent his whole brigade instead of a weak battalion, the small torrent could not have been forced by D’Erlon; and if Longa had been near the bridge of Yanzi the French must have surrendered, for the perpendicular rocks on their right forbade even an escape by dispersion. Finally if the light division instead of marching down the valley of Lerins as far as Elgoriaga, had crossed the Santa Cruz mountain by the road used the night of the 28th, it would have arrived much earlier at the bridge of Yanzi, and then belike Longa and Barceñas would also have come down. Alten’s instructions indeed prescribed Sumbilla and San Estevan as the first points to head the French army, but judging them too strong at Sumbilla he marched as we have seen upon Yanzi; and if he had passed the bridge there and seized the road to Echallar with one brigade, while the other plied the flank with fire from the left of the Bidassoa, he would have struck a great blow. It was for that the soldiers had made such a prodigious exertion, yet the prize was thrown away.
During the night Soult rallied his divisions about Echallar, and on the morning of the 2d occupied the “Puerto” of that name. His left was placed at the rocks of Zagaramurdi; his right at the rock of Ivantelly communicating with the left of Villatte’s reserve, which was in position on the ridges between Soult’s right and the head of the great Rhune mountain. Meanwhile Clauzel’s three divisions, now reduced to six thousand men, took post on a strong hill between the “Puerto” and town of Echallar. This position was momentarily adopted by Soult to save time, to examine the country, and to make Wellington discover his final object, but that general would not suffer the affront. He had sent the third and sixth divisions to reoccupy the passes of Roncesvalles and the Alduides; Hill had reached the Col de Maya, and Byng was at Urdax; the fourth, seventh, and light divisions remained in hand, and with these he resolved to fall upon Clauzel whose position was dangerously advanced.
Combats of Echallar and Ivantelly.—The light division held the road running from the bridge of Yanzi to Echallar until relieved by the fourth division, and then marched by Lesaca to Santa Barbara, thus turning Clauzel’s right. The fourth division marched from Yanzi upon Echallar to attack his front, and the seventh moved from Sumbilla against his left; but Barnes’s brigade, contrary to lord Wellington’s intention, arrived unsupported before the fourth and light divisions were either seen or felt, and without awaiting the arrival of more troops assailed Clauzel’s strong position. The fire became vehement, but neither the steepness of the mountain nor the overshadowing multitude of the enemy clustering above in support of their skirmishers could arrest the assailants, and then was seen the astonishing spectacle of fifteen hundred men driving, by sheer valour and force of arms, six thousand good troops from a position, so rugged that there would have been little to boast of if the numbers had been reversed and the defence made good. It is true that the fourth division arrived towards the end of the action, that the French had fulfilled their mission as a rear-guard, that they were worn with fatigue and ill-provided with ammunition, having exhausted all their reserve stores during the retreat, but the real cause of their inferiority belongs to the highest part of war.
The British soldiers, their natural fierceness stimulated by the remarkable personal daring of their general, Barnes, were excited by the pride of success; and the French divisions were those which had failed in the attack on the 28th, which had been utterly defeated on the 30th, and which had suffered so severely the day before about Sumbilla. Such then is the preponderance of moral power. The men who had assailed the terrible rocks above Sauroren, with a force and energy that all the valour of the hardiest British veterans scarcely sufficed to repel, were now, only five days afterwards, although posted so strongly, unable to sustain the shock of one-fourth of their own numbers. And at this very time eighty British soldiers, the comrades and equals of those who achieved this wonderful exploit, having wandered to plunder surrendered to some French peasants, who lord Wellington truly observed, “they would under other circumstances have eat up!” What gross ignorance of human nature then do those writers display who assert, that the employing of brute force is the highest qualification of a general!
Clauzel, thus dispossessed of the mountain, fell back fighting to a strong ridge beyond the pass of Echallar, having his right covered by the Ivantelly mountain which was strongly occupied. Meanwhile the light division emerging by Lesaca from the narrow valley of the Bidassoa, ascended the broad heights of Santa Barbara without opposition, and halted there until the operations of the fourth and seventh divisions were far enough advanced to render it advisable to attack the Ivantelly. This lofty mountain lifted its head on the right, rising as it were out of the Santa Barbara heights, and separating them from the ridges through which the French troops beaten at Echallar were now retiring. Evening was coming on, a thick mist capped the crowning rocks which contained a strong French regiment, the British soldiers besides their long and terrible march the previous day had been for two days without sustenance, and were leaning, weak and fainting, on their arms, when the advancing fire of Barnes’s action about Echallar indicated the necessity of dislodging the enemy from Ivantelly. Colonel Andrew Barnard instantly led five companies of his riflemen to the attack, and four companies of the forty-third followed in support. The misty cloud had descended, and the riflemen were soon lost to the view, but the sharp clang of their weapons heard in distinct reply to the more sonorous rolling musketry of the French, told what work was going on. For some time the echoes rendered it doubtful how the action went, but the following companies of the forty-third could find no trace of an enemy save the killed and wounded. Barnard had fought his way unaided and without a check to the summit, where his dark-clothed swarthy veterans raised their victorious shout from the highest peak, just as the coming night shewed the long ridges of the mountains beyond sparkling with the last musket-flashes from Clauzel’s troops retiring in disorder from Echallar.
This day’s fighting cost the British four hundred men, and lord Wellington narrowly escaped the enemy’s hands. He had carried with him towards Echallar half a company of the forty-third as an escort, and placed a serjeant named Blood with a party to watch in front while he examined his maps. The French who were close at hand sent a detachment to cut the party off; and such was the nature of the ground that their troops, rushing on at speed, would infallibly have fallen unawares upon lord Wellington, if Blood a young intelligent man, seeing the danger, had not with surprising activity, leaping rather than running down the precipitous rocks he was posted on, given the general notice, and as it was the French arrived in time to send a volley of shot after him as he galloped away.
Soult now caused count D’Erlon to re-occupy the hills about Ainhoa, Clauzel to take post on the heights in advance of Sarre, and Reille to carry his two divisions to St. Jean de Luz in second line behind Villatte’s reserve. Foy, who had rashly uncovered St. Jean Pied de Port by descending upon Cambo, was ordered to return and reinforce his troops with all that he could collect of national guards and detachments.
Wellington had on the 1st directed general Graham to collect his forces and bring up pontoons for crossing the Bidassoa, but he finally abandoned this design, and the two armies therefore rested quiet in their respective positions, after nine days of continual movement during which they had fought ten serious actions. Of the allies, including the Spaniards, seven thousand three hundred officers and soldiers had been killed wounded or taken, and many were dispersed from fatigue or to plunder. On the French side the loss was terrible and the disorder rendered the official returns inaccurate. Nevertheless a close approximation may be made. Lord Wellington at first called it twelve thousand, but hearing that the French officers admitted more he raised his estimate to fifteen thousand. The engineer, Belmas, in his Journals of Sieges, compiled from official documents by order of the French government, sets down above thirteen thousand. Soult in his dispatches at the time, stated fifteen hundred as the loss at Maya, four hundred at Roncesvalles, two hundred on the 27th, and eighteen hundred on the 28th, after which he speaks no more of losses by battle. There remains therefore to be added the killed and wounded at the combats of Linzoain on the 26th, the double battles of Sauroren and Buenza on the 30th, the combats of the 31st, and those of the 1st and 2d of August; finally, four thousand unwounded prisoners. Let this suffice. It is not needful to sound the stream of blood in all its horrid depths.
OBSERVATIONS.
1º. The allies’ line of defence was weak. Was it therefore injudiciously adopted?
The French beaten at Vittoria were disorganized and retreated without artillery or baggage on excentric lines; Foy by Guipuscoa, Clauzel by Zaragoza, Reille by San Estevan, the King by Pampeluna. There was no reserve to rally upon, the people fled from the frontier, Bayonne and St. Jean Pied de Port if not defenceless were certainly in a very neglected state, and the English general might have undertaken any operation, assumed any position, offensive or defensive, which seemed good to him. Why then did he not establish the Anglo-Portuguese beyond the mountains, leaving the Spaniards to blockade the fortresses behind him? The answer to this question involves the difference between the practice and the theory of war.
“The soldiers, instead of preparing food and restingWellington’s Dispatches. themselves after the battle dispersed in the night to plunder, and were so fatigued that when the rain came on the next day they were incapable of marching and had more stragglers than the beaten enemy. Eighteen days after the victory twelve thousand five hundred men, chiefly British, were absent, most of them marauding in the mountains.”
Such were the reasons assigned by the English general for his slack pursuit after the battle of Vittoria, yet he had commanded that army for six years! Was he then deficient in the first qualification of a general, the art of disciplining and inspiring troops, or was the English military system defective? It is certain that he always exacted the confidence of his soldiers as a leader. It is not so certain that he ever gained their affections. The barbarity of the English military code excited public horror, the inequality of promotion created public discontent; yet the general complained he had no adequate power to reward or punish, and he condemned alike the system and the soldiers it produced. The latter “were detestable for every thing but fighting, and the officers as culpable as the men.” The vehemence of these censures is inconsistent with his celebrated observation, subsequently made, namely, “that he thought he could go any where and do any thing with the army that fought on the Pyrenees,” and although it cannot be denied that his complaints were generally too well-founded, there were thousands of true and noble soldiers, and zealous worthy officers, who served their country honestly and merited no reproaches. It is enough that they have been since neglected, exactly in proportion to their want of that corrupt aristocratic influence which produced the evils complained of.
2º. When the misconduct of the troops had thus weakened the effect of victory, the question of following Joseph at once into France assumed a new aspect. Wellington’s system of warfare had never varied after the battle of Talavera. Rejecting dangerous enterprize, it rested on profound calculation both as to time and resources for the accomplishment of a particular object, namely, the gradual liberation of Spain by the Anglo-Portuguese army. Not that he held it impossible to attain that object suddenly, and his battles in India, the passage of the Douro, the advance to Talavera, prove that by nature he was inclined to daring operations; but such efforts, however glorious, could not be adopted by a commander who feared even the loss of a brigade lest the government he served should put an end to the war. Neither was it suitable to the state of his relations with the Portuguese and Spaniards; their ignorance jealousy and passionate pride, fierce in proportion to their weakness and improvidence, would have enhanced every danger.
No man could have anticipated the extraordinary errors of the French in 1813. Wellington did not expect to cross the Ebro before the end of the campaign, and his battering train was prepared for the siege of Burgos not for that of Bayonne. A sudden invasion of France her military reputation considered, was therefore quite out of the pale of his methodized system of warfare, which was founded upon political as well as military considerations; and of the most complicated nature, seeing that he had at all times to deal with the personal and factious interests and passions, as well as the great state interests of three distinct nations two of which abhorred each other. At this moment also, the uncertain state of affairs in Germany strongly influenced his views. An armistice which might end in a separate peace excluding England, would have brought Napoleon’s whole force to the Pyrenees, and Wellington held cheap both the military and political proceedings of the coalesced powers. “I would not move a corporal’s guard in reliance upon such a system,” was the significant phrase he employed to express his contempt.
These considerations justified his caution as to invading France, but there were local military reasons equally cogent. 1º. He could not dispense with a secure harbour, because the fortresses still in possession of the French, namely, Santona, Pancorbo, Pampeluna, and St. Sebastian, interrupted his communications with the interior of Spain; hence the siege of the latter place. 2º. He had to guard against the union of Suchet and Clauzel on his right flank; hence his efforts to cut off the last-named general; hence also the blockade of Pampeluna in preference to siege and the launching of Mina and the bands on the side of Zaragoza.
3º. After Vittoria the nature of the campaign depended upon Suchet’s operations, which were rendered more important by Murray’s misconduct. The allied force on the eastern coast was badly organized, it did not advance from Valencia as we have seen until the 16th, and then only partially and by the coast, whereas Suchet had assembled more than twenty thousand excellent troops on the Ebro as early as the 12th of July; and had he continued his march upon Zaragoza he would have saved the castle of that place with its stores. Then rallying Paris’ division, he could have menaced Wellington’s flank with twenty-five thousand men exclusive of Clauzel’s force, and if that general joined him with forty thousand.
On the 16th, the day lord William Bentinck quitted Valencia, Suchet might have marched from Zaragoza on Tudela or Sanguessa, and Soult’s preparations originally made as we have seen to attack on the 23d instead of the 25th, would have naturally been hastened. How difficult it would then have been for the allies to maintain themselves beyond the Ebro is evident, much more so to hold a forward position in France. That Wellington feared an operation of this nature is clear from his instructions to lord William Bentinck and to Mina; and because Picton’s and Cole’s divisions instead of occupying the passes were kept behind the mountains solely to watch Clauzel; when the latter had regained the frontier of France Cole was permitted to join Byng and Morillo. It follows that the operations after the battle of Vittoria were well considered and consonant to lord Wellington’s general system. Their wisdom would have been proved if Suchet had seized the advantages within his reach.
4º. A general’s capacity is sometimes more taxed to profit from a victory than to gain one. Wellington, master of all Spain, Catalonia excepted, desired to establish himself solidly in the Pyrenees, lest a separate peace in Germany should enable Napoleon to turn his whole force against the allies. In this expectation, with astonishing exertion of body and mind, he had in three days achieved a rigorous examination of the whole mass of the Western Pyrenees, and concluded that if Pampeluna and San Sebastian fell, a defensive position as strong as that of Portugal, and a much stronger one than could be found behind the Ebro, might be established. But to invest those places and maintain so difficult a covering line was a greater task than to win the battle of Vittoria. However, the early fall of San Sebastian he expected, because the errors of execution in that siege could not be foreseen, and also for gain of time he counted upon the disorganized state of the French army, upon Joseph’s want of military capacity, and upon the moral ascendancy which his own troops had acquired over the enemy by their victories. He could not anticipate the expeditious journey, the sudden arrival of Soult, whose rapid reorganization of the French army, and whose vigorous operations contrasted with Joseph’s abandonment of Spain, illustrated the old Greek saying, that a herd of deer led by a lion are more dangerous than a herd of lions led by a deer.
5º. The duke of Dalmatia was little beholden to fortune at the commencement of his movements. Her first contradiction was the bad weather, which breaking up the roads delayed the concentration of his army at St. Jean Pied de Port for two days; all officers know the effect which heavy rain and hard marches have upon the vigour and confidence of soldiers who are going to attack. If Soult had commenced on the 23d instead of the 25th the surprise would have been more complete his army more brisk; and as no conscript battalions would have arrived to delay Reille, that general would probably have been more ready in his attack, and might possibly have escaped the fog which on the 26th stopped his march along the superior crest of the mountain towards Vellate. On the other hand the allies would have been spared the unsuccessful assault on San Sebastian, and the pass of Maya might have been better furnished with troops. However Soult’s combinations were so well knit that more than one error in execution, and more than one accident of fortune, were necessary to baffle him. Had count D’Erlon followed his instructions even on the 26th general Hill would probably have been shouldered off the valley of Lanz, and Soult would have had twenty thousand additional troops in the combats of the 27th and 28th. Such failures however generally attend extensively combined movements, and it is by no means certain that the count would have been able to carry the position of the Col de Maya on the 25th, if all general Stewart’s forces had been posted there. It would therefore perhaps have been more strictly within the rules of art, if D’Erlon had been directed to leave one of his three divisions to menace the Col de Maya while he marched with the other two by St. Etienne de Baygorry up the Alduides. This movement, covered by the national guards who occupied the mountain of La Houssa, could not have been stopped by Campbell’s Portuguese brigade, and would have dislodged Hill from the Bastan while it secured the junction of D’Erlon with Soult on the crest of the superior chain.
6º. The intrepid constancy with which Byng and Ross defended their several positions on the 25th, the able and clean retreat made by general Cole as far as the heights of Linzoain, gave full effect to the errors of Reille and D’Erlon, and would probably have baffled Soult at an early period if general Picton had truly comprehended the importance of his position. Lord Wellington says that the concentration of the army would have been effected on the 27th if that officer and general Cole had not agreed in thinking it impossible to make a stand behind Linzoain; and surely the necessity of retreating on that day may be questioned. For if Cole with ten thousand men maintained the position in front of Altobiscar, Ibañeta, and Atalosti, Picton might have maintained the more contracted one behind Linzoain and Erro with twenty thousand. And that number he could have assembled, because Campbell’s Portuguese reached Eugui long before the evening of the 26th, and lord Wellington had directed O’Donnel to keep three thousand five hundred of the blockading troops in readiness to act in advance, of which Picton could not have been ignorant. It was impossible to turn him by the valley of Urroz that line being too rugged for the march of an army and not leading directly upon Pampeluna. The only roads into the Val de Zubiri were by Erro and Linzoain, lying close together and both leading upon the village of Zubiri over the ridges which Picton occupied, and the strength of which was evident from Soult’s declining an attack on the evening of the 26th when Cole only was before him. To abandon this ground so hastily when the concentration of the army depended upon keeping it, appears therefore an error, aggravated by the neglect of sending timely information to the commander-in-chief,Original Note by the Duke of Wellington, MSS. for lord Wellington did not know of the retreat until the morning of the 27th and then only from general Long. It might be that Picton’s messenger failed, but many should have been sent when a retrograde movement involving the fate of Pampeluna was contemplated.
It has been said that general Cole was the adviser of this retreat which if completed would have ruined lord Wellington’s campaign. This is incorrect, Picton was not a man to be guided by others. General Cole indeed gave him a report, drawn up by colonel Bell one of the ablest staff-officers of the army, which stated that no position suitable for aNote by General Cole, MSS. very inferior force existed between Zubiri and Pampeluna, and this was true in the sense of the report, which had reference only to a division not to an army; moreover, although the actual battle of Sauroren was fought by inferior numbers, the whole position, including the ridges of the second line occupied by Picton and the Spaniards, was only maintained by equal numbers; and if Soult had made the attack of the 28th on the evening of the 27th before the sixth division arrived, the position would have been carried. However there is no doubt thatIbid. colonel Bell’s report influenced Picton, and it was only when his troops had reached Huarte and Villalba that he suddenly resolved on battle. That was a military resolution, vigorous and prompt; and not the less worthy of praise that he so readily adopted Cole’s saving proposition to regain the more forward heights above Zabaldica.
7º. Marshal Soult appeared unwilling to attack on the evenings of the 26th and 27th. Yet success depended upon forestalling the allies at their point of concentration; and it is somewhat inexplicable that on the 28th, having possession of the ridge beyond the Lanz river and plenty of cavalry, he should have known so little of the sixth division’s movements. The general conception of his scheme on the 30th has also been blamed by some of his own countrymen, apparently from ignorance of the facts and because it failed. Crowned with success it would have been cited as a fine illustration of the art of war. To have retired at once by the two valleys of Zubiri and Lanz after being reinforced with twenty thousand men would have given great importance to his repulse on the 28th; his reputation as a general capable of restoring the French affairs would have vanished, and mischief only have accrued, even though he should have effected his retreat safely, which, regard being had to the narrowness of the valleys the position of general Hill on his right and the boldness of his adversary, was not certain. To abandon the valley of Zubiri and secure that of Lanz; to obtain another and shorter line of retreat by the Doña Maria pass; to crush general Hill with superior numbers, and thus gaining the Irurzun road to succour San Sebastian, or failing of that, to secure the union of the whole army and give to his retreat the appearance of an able offensive movement; to combine all these chances by one operation immediately after a severe check was Soult’s plan, it was not impracticable and was surely the conception of a great commander.
To succeed however it was essential either to beat general Hill off-hand and thus draw Wellington to that side by the way of Marcalain, or to secure the defence of the French left in such a solid manner that no efforts against it should prevail to the detriment of the offensive movement on the right: neither was effected. The French general indeed brought an overwhelming force to bear upon Hill, and drove him from the road of Irurzun, but he did not crush him, because that general fought so strongly and retired with such good order, that beyond the loss of the position no injury was sustained. Meanwhile the left wing of the French was completely beaten, and thus the advantage gained on the right was more than nullified. Soult trusted to the remarkable defensive strength of the ground occupied by his left, and he had reason to do so, for it was nearly impregnable. Lord Wellington turned it on both flanks at the same time, but neither Picton’s advance into the valley of Zubiri on Foy’s left, nor Cole’s front attack on that general, nor Byng’s assault upon the village of Sauroren, would have seriously damaged the French without the sudden and complete success of general Inglis beyond the Lanz. The other attacks would indeed have forced the French to retire somewhat hastily up the valley of the Lanz, yet they could have held together in mass secure of their junction with Soult. But when the ridges running between them and the right wing of the French army were carried by Inglis, and the whole of the seventh division was thrown upon their flank and rear, the front attack became decisive. It is clear therefore that the key of the defence was on the ridge beyond the Lanz, and instead of two regiments Clauzel should have placed two divisions there.
8º. Lord Wellington’s quick perception and vigorous stroke on the 30th were to be expected from such a consummate commander, yet he certainly was not master of all the bearings of the French general’s operations; he knew neither the extent of Hill’s danger nor the difficulties of Soult, otherwise it is probable that he would have put stronger columns in motion, and at an earlier hour, towards the pass of Doña Maria on the morning of the 31st. Hill did not commence his march that day until 8 o’clock, and it has been shewn that even with the help of the seventh division he was too weak against the heavy mass of the retreating French army. The faults and accidents which baffled Wellington’s after operations have been sufficiently touched upon in the narrative, but he halted in the midst of his victorious career, when Soult’s army was broken and flying, when Suchet had retired into Catalonia, and all things seemed favourable for the invasion of France.
His motives for this were strong. He knew the armistice in Germany had been renewed with a view to peace, and he had therefore reason to expect Soult would be reinforced. A forward position in France would have lent his right to the enemy who pivotted upon St. Jean Pied de Port could operate against his flank. His arrangements for supply, and intercourse with his depôts and hospitals, would have been more difficult and complicated, and as the enemy possessed all the French and Spanish fortresses commanding the great roads, his need to gain one, at least, before the season closed, was absolute if he would not resign his communications with the interior of Spain. Then long marches and frequent combats had fatigued his troops destroyed their shoes and used up their musquet ammunition; and the loss of men had been great, especially of British in the second division where their proportion to foreign troops was become too small. The difficulty of re-equipping the troops would have been increased by entering an enemy’s state, because the English system did not make war support war and his communications would have been lengthened. Finally it was France that was to be invaded, France in which every person was a soldier, where the whole population was armed and organised under men, not as in other countries inexperienced in war but who had all served more or less. Beyond the Adour the army could not advance, and if a separate peace was made by the northern powers, if any misfortune befel the allies in Catalonia so as to leave Suchet at liberty to operate towards Pampeluna, or if Soult profiting from the possession of San Jean Pied de Port should turn the right flank of the new position, a retreat into Spain would become necessary, and however short would be dangerous from the hostility and warlike disposition of the people directed in a military manner.
These reasons joined to the fact, that a forward position, although offering better communications from right to left, would have given the enemy greater facilities for operating against an army which must until the fortresses fell hold a defensive and somewhat extended line, were conclusive as to the rashness of an invasion; but they do not appear so conclusive as to the necessity of stopping short after the action of the 2d of August. The questions were distinct. The one was a great measure involving vast political and military conditions, the other was simply whether Wellington should profit of his own victory and the enemy’s distresses; and in this view the objections above-mentioned, save the want of shoes the scarcity of ammunition and the fatigue of the troops, are inapplicable. But in the two last particulars the allies were not so badly off as the enemy, and in the first not so deficient as to cripple the army, wherefore if the advantage to be gained was worth the effort it was an error to halt.
The solution of this problem is to be found in the comparative condition of the armies. Soult had recovered his reserve his cavalry and artillery, but Wellington was reinforced by general Graham’s corps which was more numerous and powerful than Villate’s reserve. The new chances then were for the allies, and the action of the 2d of August demonstrated that their opponents however strongly posted could not stand before them; one more victory would have gone nigh to destroy the French force altogether; for such was the disorder that Maucune’s division had on the 2d only one thousandSoult’s Official Report, MSS. men left out of more than five thousand, and on the 6th it had still a thousand stragglers besides killed and wounded: Conroux’s and La Martinière’s divisions were scarcely in better plight, and the losses of the other divisions although less remarkable were great. It must also be remembered that general Foy with eight thousand men was cut off from the main body; and the Nivelle, the sources of which were in the allies’ power, was behind the French. With their left pressed from the pass of Maya, and their front vigorously assailed by the main body of the allies, they could hardly have keptSoult’s Official Report, MSS. together, since more than twenty-one thousand men exclusive of Foy’s troops were then absent from their colours. And as late as the 12th of August Soult warned the minister of war that he was indeed preparing to assail his enemy again, but he had not the means of resisting a counter-attack, although he held a different language to his armyAppendix, 4. and to the people of the country.
Had Cæsar halted because his soldiers were fatigued, Pharsalia would have been but a common battle.