Wellington, on reaching Vittoria, set Robert Hill’s brigade of the Household Cavalry to guard the town from plunder, and sent on the rest of the horse, and the infantry as they came up, in pursuit of the enemy. The French, however, had by now a good start, and troops in order cannot keep up with troops in disorder, who have got rid of their impedimenta, and scattered themselves. The country, moreover, was unfavourable for cavalry, as has been said above, and the infantry divisions were tired out. The chase ended five miles beyond Vittoria—the enemy, when last seen, being still on the run, with no formed rearguard except on the side road where the Army of Portugal was retreating.

If the prisoners were fewer than might have been expected, the material captured was such as no European army had ever laid hands on before, since Alexander’s Macedonians plundered the camp of the Persian king after the battle of Issus. The military trophies compared well even with those of Leipzig and Waterloo—151 guns, 415 caissons, 100 artillery waggons. Probably no other army ever left all its artillery save two solitary pieces in the enemy’s hands[606]. There was but one flag captured, and that was only the standard of a battalion of the 100th Line which had been reduced in May, and had not been actually borne in the battle[607]. The baton of Jourdan, as Marshal of the Empire, was an interesting souvenir, which delighted the Prince Regent when it arrived in London[608], but only bore witness to the fact that his personal baggage, like that of his King, had been captured. A few thousand extra prisoners—the total taken was only about 2,000—would have been more acceptable tokens of victory.

But non-military spoil was enormous—almost incredible. It represented the exploitation of Spain for six long years by its conquerors. ‘To the accumulated plunder of Andalusia were added the collections made by the other French armies—the personal baggage of the King—fourgons having inscribed on them in large letters “Domaine extérieur de S.M. l’Empereur”—the military chest containing the millions recently received from France for the payment of the Army, and not yet distributed—jewels, pictures, embroidery, silks, all manner of things costly and portable had been assiduously transported thus far. Removed from their frames and rolled up carefully, were the finest Italian pictures from the royal collections of Madrid: they were found in the “imperials” of Joseph’s own carriages. All this mixed with cannon, overturned coaches, broken-down waggons, forsaken tumbrils, wounded soldiers, French and Spanish civilians, women and children, dead horses and mules, absolutely covered the face of the country, extending over the surface of a flat containing many hundred acres[609].’ The miserable crowd was guessed by an eye-witness to have numbered nearly 20,000 persons. Spanish and French camp-followers and military stragglers had already started plunder—on them supervened English and Portuguese civil and military vultures of the same sort—servants and muleteers by the thousand, bad soldiers by the hundred: for while the good men marched on, the bad ones melted out of the ranks and flew to the spoil, evading the officers who tried to urge them on. In such a chaos evasion was easy. Nor were the commissioned ranks altogether without their unobtrusive seekers after gain—as witness the subjoined narrative by one whom a companion in a contemporary letter describes as a ‘graceless youth.’

‘As L. and I rode out of Vittoria, we came to the camp in less than a mile. On the left-hand side of the road was a heap of ransacked waggons already broken up and dismantled. There arose a shout from a number of persons among the waggons, and we found that they had discovered one yet unopened. We cantered up and found some men using all possible force to break open three iron clasps secured with padlocks. On the side of the fourgon was painted “Le Lieutenant-Général Villatte.” The hasps gave way, and a shout followed. The whole surface of the waggon was packed with church plate, mixed with bags of dollars. A man who thrust his arm down said that the bottom was full of loose dollars and boxes. L. and I were the only ones on horseback, and pushed close to the waggon. He swung out a large chalice, and buckling it to his holster-strap cantered off. As the people were crowding to lay hold of the plate, I noted a mahogany box about eighteen inches by two feet, with brass clasps. I picked out four men, told them that the box was the real thing, and if they would fetch it out we would see what it held. They caught the idea: the box was very heavy. I led the way through the standing corn, six or seven feet high, to a small shed, where we put it down and tried to get it open. After several devices had failed, two men found a large stone, and, lifting it as high as they could, dropped it on the box. It withstood several blows, but at length gave way. Gold doubloons and smaller pieces filled the whole box, in which were mixed some bags with trinkets. Just then an Ordnance store-keeper came up, and said there was no time to count shares: he would go round and give a handfull in turn to each. He first poured a double handfull into my holster. The second round was a smaller handfull. By this time I was reflecting that I was the only officer present, and in rather an awkward position. I said they might have the rest of my share,—there was first a look of surprise, and then a burst of laughter, and I trotted away. I rode eight or ten miles to the bivouack and found the officers in an ancient church—housed à la Cromwell. On the 23rd, before we left our quarters, I and —— went up into the belfry, and counted out the gold—the doubloons alone made nearly £400. I remitted £250 to my father, and purchased another horse with part of the balance[610].’

General Villatte, no doubt, had special facilities in Andalusia—but every fourgon and carriage contained something that had been worth carrying off. The amount of hard cash discovered was almost incredible. Men and officers who had been self-respecting enough to avoid the unseemly rush at the waggons, had wonderful bargains at a sort of impromptu fair or auction which was held among the débris of the convoy that night. Good mules were going for three guineas—horses for ten. Every one wished to get rid of the heavy duros and five-franc pieces, which constituted the greater part of the plunder; six and eight dollars respectively were offered and taken for a gold twenty-franc piece or a guinea. ‘The camp was turned into a fair—it was lighted up, the cars, &c., made into stands, upon which the things taken were exposed for sale. Many soldiers, to add to the absurdity of the scene, dressed themselves up in uniforms found in the chests. All the Portuguese boys belonging to some divisions are dressed in the uniforms of French officers—many of generals[611].’

Wellington had hoped to secure the five million francs of the French subsidy which had just arrived at Vittoria before the battle. His expectations were deceived; only one-twentieth of the sum was recovered, though an inquisitorial search was made a few days later in suspected quarters. One regiment, which had notoriously prospered, was made to stack its knapsacks on the 23rd, and they were gone through in detail by an assistant provost-marshal—but little was found: the men had stowed away their gains in belts and secret pockets; or deposited them with quartermasters and commissaries who were known to be honest and silent.

The only feature in this discreditable scene that gives the historian some satisfaction is to know that there was no mishandling of prisoners—not even of prominent Spanish traitors. The only person recorded to have been killed in the chaos was M. Thiébault, the King’s treasurer, who fought to defend his private strong-box containing 100,000 dollars, and got shot[612]. The women were particularly well treated—the Countess Gazan, wife of the Commander of the Army of the South, was sent by Wellington’s orders in her own carriage to join her husband—a courtesy acknowledged by several French diarists[613]. The same leave was given later to many others, and the Commander-in-Chief wrote to the Spanish Ministry to beg that no vengeance might be taken on the captured afrancesados, and seems to have secured his end in the main.

The French loss in the battle, according to the definitive report made from the head-quarters of the three armies after they had got back into France, was 42 officers and 716 men killed, 226 officers and 4,210 men wounded, and 23 officers and 2,825 prisoners or missing—a total of 8,091. It is known that of the ‘missing’ some hundreds were stragglers who rejoined later, and some other hundreds dead men, who had not got into the list of killed. The total number of prisoners did not really exceed 2,000. But on the other hand the official returns are incomplete, not giving any figures for the artillery or train of the Armies of Portugal and the Centre, or for the Royal Guards (which lost 11 officers and therefore probably 150 to 200 men), or for the General Staff (which had 35 casualties), or for the stray troops of the Army of the North present in the battle. Probably the real total, therefore, was very much about the 8,000 men given by the official return.

The Allied casualties were just over 5,000—of whom 3,672 were British, 921 Portuguese, and 552 Spaniards. A glance at the table in the Appendix will show how unequally they were distributed. Seven-tenths of the whole loss fell on the 2nd and 3rd Divisions, with Grant’s brigade of the 7th, Robinson’s of the 5th, and Stubbs’s Portuguese in the 4th. These troops furnished over 3,500 of the total loss of 5,158. The 1st Division (54 casualties), the British brigades of the 4th Division (125 casualties), Hay’s and Spry’s brigades of the 5th (200 casualties), Barnes’ and Lecor’s of the 7th (no casualties[614]), the Light Division (132 casualties), Silveira’s Division (10 casualties), the cavalry (155 casualties) had no losses of importance. The 266 men marked as missing were all either dead or absent marauding, save 40 of the 71st whom the French took prisoners to Pampeluna. The Spanish loss of 14 officers and 524 men was entirely in Morillo’s and Longa’s Divisions, and much heavier among the Estremadurans, who fought so well on the heights of La Puebla, than among the Cantabrians who skirmished all day at Durana. Giron’s Galicians were never engaged, having only arrived in the rear of Graham’s column just as the fighting north of the Zadorra was over. They encamped round Arriaga at the end of the day.

That the battle of Vittoria was the crowning-point of a very brilliant strategic campaign is obvious. That in tactical detail it was not by any means so brilliant an example of what Wellington and his army could accomplish, is equally obvious. Was the General’s plan to blame? or was a well-framed scheme wrecked by the faults of subordinates? It is always a dangerous matter to criticize Wellington’s arrangements—so much seems clear to the historian that could not possibly have been known to the soldier on the morning of June 21st. It is obvious to us now that there was a fair chance not only of beating the French army, and of cutting off its retreat on Bayonne, but of surrounding and destroying at least a considerable portion of it. Wellington’s orders are always extremely reticent in stating his final aims, and give a list of things to be done by each division, rather than a general appreciation of what he intends the army to accomplish. But reading his directions to Graham, Hill, and Dalhousie, and looking at the way on which they work out on the map, and the allocation of forces in each column, it would seem that in view of the distribution of the French troops on the afternoon of June 20th, he planned a complete encircling scheme, which should not only accomplish what he actually did accomplish, but much more. Graham, with his 20,000 men, must have been intended not only to force the line of the Zadorra and cut the Royal Road, but to fall upon the rear of the whole French army, which on the afternoon of the 20th had been seen to have a most inadequate flank-guard towards the north-east. Hill’s 20,000 men were not, as Jourdan thought, the only main attack, nor as Gazan (equally in error) thought, a mere demonstration. They were intended to make an encircling movement to the south, as strong as Graham’s similar movement to the north. But obviously both the flanking columns, Hill’s far more than Graham’s, were in danger of being repulsed, if the French could turn large unemployed reserves upon them. Wherefore the central attacks, by the 4th and Light Divisions on the Nanclares side, and by the 3rd and 7th Divisions on the Mendoza side, were necessary in order to contain any troops which Jourdan might have sent off to overwhelm Hill or Graham.

And here comes the weak point of the whole scheme—all the movements had to be made through defiles and over rough country: Hill had to debouch from the narrow pass of Puebla, Graham had a long mountain road from Murguia, and, worst of all, Dalhousie, with the 3rd and 7th Divisions, had to cross the watershed of a very considerable mountain by mere peasants’ tracks. Only the column which marched from the Bayas to Nanclares had decent going on a second-rate road. There was, therefore, a considerable danger that some part of the complicated scheme might miscarry. And any failure at one point imperilled the whole, since the Nanclares column was not to act till Hill was well forward, and the Mendoza column was ordered to get into touch with the troops to its right, and regulate its movements by them; while Graham, still farther off, was also to guide himself by what was going on upon his right, to correct himself with the Mendoza column, and only to attack on the Bilbao road when it should be seen that an attack would be obviously useful to the main advance.

Hill discharged his part of the scheme to admiration, as he always did anything committed to him, and took up the attention of the main part of the Army of the South. But the central and left attacks did not proceed as Wellington had desired. Graham got to his destined position within the time allotted to him, but when he had reached it, was slow and unenterprising in his action. He was seeking for Dalhousie’s column, with which he had been directed to co-ordinate his operations: he sent out cavalry scouts and Bradford’s Portuguese to his right, but could find nothing. This, I think, explains but does not wholly excuse his caution at noon. But it neither explains nor excuses at all his tactics after he had received, at two o’clock, Wellington’s orders telling him to press the enemy hard, and make his power felt. With his two British divisions, the Portuguese of Pack and Bradford, and two cavalry brigades, he only made a genuine attack at one point, and did not put into serious action (as the casualty lists show) more than four battalions—those used at Gamarra Mayor. The whole left column was contained by little more than half of its number of French troops. Graham says in his dispatch to Wellington that ‘in face of such force as the enemy showed it was evidently impossible to push a column across the river by Gamarra bridge.’ He does not explain his inactivity at other points, except by mentioning that the enemy had ‘at least two divisions in reserve on strong ground behind the river[615].’ There was really only one brigade in reserve, and so far from being compelled to attack at Gamarra only, Graham had besides Arriaga bridge on the main road, two other bridges open to assault (those of Goveo and Yurre), besides at least one and probably three fords. All these more southern passages were watched by cavalry only, without infantry or guns. It is clear that Graham could have got across the Zadorra somewhere, if he had tried. Very probably his quiescence was due to his failing eyesight, which had been noticed very clearly by those about him during this campaign[616]. The only part of his corps which did really useful work was Longa’s Spanish division, which at least cut the Bayonne road at the proper place and time.

But if Graham’s tactics cannot be praised, Lord Dalhousie was even more responsible for the imperfect consequence of the victory. Why Wellington put this fussy and occasionally disobedient officer in charge of the left-centre column, instead of Picton, passes understanding. The non-arrival of the 7th Division, which was to lead the attack, was due to incompetent work by him or his staff. He says in his dispatch that he was delayed by several accidents to his artillery (Cairnes’s battery). But from his own narrative we see that the guns got up almost as soon as his leading infantry brigade (Grant’s), while his two rear brigades (Barnes and Le Cor) never reached the front in time to fire a shot. What really happened was that for want of staff guidance, for which the divisional commander was responsible, these troops did not take the path assigned to them, and went right over, instead of skirting, the summit of Monte Arrato, making an apparently short (and precipitous) cut, which turned out to be a very long one[617]. So when Dalhousie did arrive, with one brigade and his guns, Picton had long been waiting by Las Guetas in a state of justifiable irritation. Finally, Dalhousie (lacking the greater part of his division) did not attack till he got peremptory orders to do so from the Commander-in-Chief. Hence the extreme delay, which caused grave risk to Hill’s wing, so long engaged without support. It is fair to add that the delay had one good effect—since it led Jourdan to think that his right was not going to be attacked, and therefore to send off Villatte’s and Cassagne’s divisions to the far left. If Dalhousie had advanced an hour earlier, these divisions would have been near enough to support Leval. But this is no justification for the late arrival and long hesitations of the commander of the 7th Division. Undoubtedly a part of the responsibility devolves on Wellington himself, for putting an untried officer in charge of a crucial part of the day’s operations, when he had in Picton an old and experienced tactician ready to hand.

The strategical plan was so good that minor faults of execution could not mar its general success. Yet it must be remembered that, if all had worked out with minute accuracy, the French army would have been destroyed, instead of merely losing its artillery and train. And the fact that 55,000 men escaped to France, even if in sorry condition, made the later campaign of the Pyrenees possible. There would have been no combats of Maya and Roncesvalles, no battles of Sorauren and St. Marcial, if the eight French divisions present at Vittoria had been annihilated, instead of being driven in disorder on to an eccentric line of retreat.