General Hill overtook the French rear-guard early on the 31st, just as the seventh division appeared on his right, and the enemy could only gain the summit of the Doña Maria pass under the fire of his guns; there however they turned, and throwing out skirmishers made strong battle. General Stewart, leading the attack and now for the third time engaged with D’Erlon’s troops, was again badly wounded and his first brigade was repulsed; yet Pringle renewed the attack with the second brigade, and broke the enemy’s right; the seventh division did the same for the left, and some prisoners were taken: a thick fog prevented further pursuit, and the loss of the French was unknown, but that of the allies was four hundred.
The seventh division remained on the mountain. Hill, following his orders, moved by a short rugged way between Doña Maria and Vellate over the Great Spine to join Wellington, who had during this combat entered the Bastan. Meanwhile General Byng, previously pushed forward, had captured at Elisondo a large convoy of provisions and ammunition left there by D’Erlon, had made several hundred prisoners after a sharp skirmish, and seized the pass of Maya. Wellington then occupied the hills through which the road from San Estevan led to the Bastan, and full of hope he was to strike a terrible blow; for Soult, after passing Doña Maria, had halted in San Estevan, although from his scouts he knew the convoy had been taken by Byng. He was in a deep valley, and four divisions were behind the crest of the mountains overlooking his post; the seventh division was on the summit of the Doña Maria pass; the light division and Graham’s Spaniards were marching to block the valley at Vera and Echallar; Byng was at Maya, and Hill was moving by Almandoz just behind Wellington; a few hours gained and the French must surrender or disperse!
Strict orders were given to prevent the lighting of fires, the straggling of soldiers, or any other indication of the presence of troops, and the English commander placed himself on some rocks at a culminant point, from whence he could observe every movement. Soult seemed tranquil, and when four of his “gens d’armes” were seen to ride up the valley in a careless manner some staff-officers proposed to cut them off. Wellington, whose object was to hide his own presence, forbade this; but the next moment three marauding English soldiers entering the valley, were seen and carried off by the French patrol; half an hour afterwards their drums beat to arms and the 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.36
Soult walked from his prison, yet his chains still hung upon him. The way was narrow, the multitude great, wounded men borne on their comrades’ shoulders filed in long procession with the baggage, Clausel’s troops, forming the rear-guard, were therefore still near San Estevan the next morning; and scarcely had they marched a league when Cole’s skirmishers and the Spaniards, thronging along the heights on their flank, opened a fire on them, to which little reply could be made: the soldiers and baggage soon got mixed in disorder, numbers fled up the hills, and the energy of Soult, whose personal exertions were conspicuous, could scarcely prevent a general dispersion. Prisoners and baggage were now taken at every step, and the boldest were dismayed; worse would have awaited them, if Wellington had been on other points well seconded by his subordinate generals.
Instead of taking the first road leading from Sumbilla to Echallar, the head of the French column 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 being defended by a battalion of Spanish Caçadores from Vera. The head of the column was by this time as much disordered as the rear, and had the Caçadores been reinforced, only those French near Sumbilla, who could take the road from that place to Echallar, would have escaped; but the Spanish general Longa kept aloof, D’Erlon won the defile, and Reille’s divisions were following, when a new enemy appeared.
The light division had been directed to head the French at San Estevan or Sumbilla. The order was received on the evening of the 31st, and General Alten, threading the defiles of Zubieta and descending the deep valley of Lerins, reached Elgoriaga about mid-day on the 1st of August, having then marched twenty-four miles. He was little more than a league from Estevan, was about the same distance from Sumbilla, and the movement of the French along the Bidassoa was immediately discovered. Instead of moving direct on Sumbilla he turned to his left, clambered up the great mountain of Santa Cruz and made for the bridge of Yanzi. The weather was very sultry, the mountain steep and hard to overcome, many men fell and died convulsed and frothing at the mouth, 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. However, towards evening, after marching nineteen consecutive hours, and over forty miles of mountain roads, the head of the exhausted column reached the edge of a precipice near the bridge of Yanzi. Below it, within pistol-shot, Reille’s divisions were seen hurrying forward along the horrid defile in which they were pent up, a fire of musketry commenced, and the scene which followed is thus described by an eye-witness.37
“We overlooked the enemy at stone’s throw, and 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 vain effort, the night found the British in possession of the bridge; and though the great body of the enemy escaped by the mountain path to Echallar, the baggage was cut off and with many prisoners fell into the hands of the light troops which were still hanging on the rear in pursuit from San Estevan.
That day the French losses were great, yet Wellington was justly discontented with the result. Neither Longa nor Alten had fulfilled their missions. The former should have stopped D’Erlon; the latter should have passed the bridge of Yanzi and struck a great blow: it was for that his soldiers had made such a prodigious exertion.
In the night Soult rallied his divisions about Echallar, and on the morning of the 2nd occupied the Puerto of that name. His left was on the rocks of Zagaramurdi, his right, on the Ivantelly mountain, communicating with Villatte, who held certain ridges between the Ivantelly and the head of the great Rhune mountain. Clausel’s three divisions, reduced to six thousand men, were on a strong hill between the Puerto and town of Echallar. This position was momentarily adopted by Soult to make Wellington discover his final object, but that general would not suffer the affront. He had the fourth, seventh, and light divisions in hand, and resolved to fall upon Clausel, whose position was dangerously advanced.
From Yanzi the light division marched to the heights of Santa Barbara, which were connected with the Ivantelly, thus turning Clausel’s position and menacing Soult’s right, while the fourth division moved to attack his front, and the seventh menaced his left; these attacks were to be simultaneous, but General Barnes led his brigade of the seventh division against Clausel’s strong post before the fourth and light divisions were seen or felt. A vehement fight ensued, yet 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 the astonishing spectacle was presented of fifteen hundred men, driving by sheer valour and force of arms six thousand good troops from ground so rugged, the numbers might have been reversed and the defence made good without much merit. Incalculable is the preponderance of moral power in war! These were the Frenchmen 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; yet now, five days only having elapsed, although posted so strongly, they did not 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 as 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 use of brute force is the highest qualification of a general!
Clausel 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 ascended the broad heights of Santa Barbara, and halted until the operations of the fourth and seventh divisions rendered it advisable to attack the Ivantelly, which lifted its sugar-loaf head on their right rising as it were out of the Santa Barbara heights, and shutting them off from the ridges through which the troops beaten at Echallar were now retiring. Evening was coming on, a thick mist capped the crowning rocks, where a strong French regiment was ensconced, and the division, besides its terrible march the previous day, had been for two days without sustenance. Weak and fainting, the soldiers were leaning on their arms when the advancing fire at Echallar imported an attack on the Ivantelly, and Andrew Barnard led five companies of riflemen up the mountain. Four companies of the 43rd followed in support, the misty cloud descended lower, the riflemen were soon lost to the view, and 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 companies of the 43rd 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 on the highest peak, just as the coming night showed the long ridges of the mountains beyond, sparkling with the last musket-flashes from Clausel’s troops retiring in disorder from Echallar.
This day cost the British four hundred men, and Wellington himself narrowly escaped the enemy’s hands. He had taken towards Echallar half a company of the 43rd as an escort, and placed a sergeant, named Blood, with a party to watch in front while he examined his maps. A French detachment endeavoured to cut the party off, and their troops, rushing on at speed, would infallibly have fallen unawares upon Wellington, if Blood, leaping down the precipitous rocks, had not given him warning: as it was, they arrived in time to send a volley after him while galloping away.
Now, after nine days of continual movement during which ten serious actions had been fought, the operations ceased. 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. Wellington called it twelve thousand, but hearing the French officers admitted more, raised his estimate to fifteen thousand. The engineer Belmas, in his Journals of Sieges compiled from official documents, sets down above thirteen thousand. Soult in his official correspondence at the time, gave fifteen hundred for Maya, four hundred for Roncesvalles, two hundred on the 27th, eighteen hundred the 28th, after which he spoke no more of losses by battle. There remain therefore to be added, the combats of Linzoain, the battles of Sauroren and Buenza on the 30th, the combats on the 31st, 1st and 2nd: finally, four thousand unwounded prisoners. Let this suffice. It is not needful to sound the stream of blood in all its horrid depths.