We left General Foy at the decisive moment when he received the dispatch forwarded by Thouvenot from Vittoria, which informed him of the King’s retreat beyond the Ebro, and suggested that he might come in to join the main army, but left him the fatal choice of deciding whether his own immediate operations were or were not of such paramount importance that they could not be abandoned[643]. Foy decided, and many other generals have made a similar error in all ages, that his own job was the really important thing. The dispatch reached him on the 19th, when he had his division concentrated at Bergara, and could have brought it to Vittoria in time for the battle. Probably the brigade of Berlier, belonging to the Army of the North, which was under his orders, could also have been brought in from Villafranca to Vittoria by the 21st.

But on the very eve of the decisive engagement, and with Jourdan’s dispatch advising him ‘de se rapprocher de Vittoria’ before his eyes, Foy decided that the petty affairs of the Biscay garrisons were of more importance than the fate of the King’s Army. Instead of bringing down his own and Berlier’s troops to Vittoria, where 5,000 bayonets would have been most welcome to the depleted Army of Portugal, he proceeded to disperse them. He sent, on the 20th, two battalions to El Orrio to facilitate the retreat of the garrison of Bilbao, dispatched two others to Deba, on the coast, to guard against a rumoured British demonstration against that port, and remained at Bergara with the 6th Léger alone. Orders were forwarded to Berlier to stand fast at Villafranca, and to the troops expected from Bilbao to make the best pace that they could, as the Army of Galicia would soon be upon them[644]. Giron’s demonstration on the Balmaseda road had convinced Foy that the Spanish 4th Army was aiming at Bilbao—he could not know that Wellington had brought the Galicians down by Orduña to join his main body.

On the evening of the 21st the division of Maucune, escorting the convoy which had started from Vittoria at dawn, came through the pass of Salinas unmolested. Its general met Foy, and told him that he had heard heavy cannonading for many hours behind him, but had no notion of what was going on upon the Zadorra. The column bivouacked between Mondragon and Bergara, and started off again before daybreak. It had not gone more than a league when fugitives began to drop in from Vittoria, bringing news of the disaster. The King’s army had been routed—his artillery abandoned: he had been pushed aside on to the Pampeluna road, and Allied columns were coming up the great chaussée making for Bergara and Durango. On hearing these depressing news the commandants of the forts which guarded the passes—those of Arlaban, Mondragon, and Salinas—spiked their guns, and fell back without orders to join Foy at Bergara.

The news was only too true. On the night of the battle Wellington had issued orders for Longa’s Division to set out at dawn on the 22nd to force the passes, and, if possible, to overtake Maucune’s unwieldy convoy. Giron was to follow, when his men, who had suffered dreadful fatigue in their forced march from Orduña, were capable of movement. As the Galicians were terribly under-gunned—there appear to have been only six pieces with the 12,000 infantry—Wellington lent them two batteries from the British artillery reserve[645]. Giron started from the neighbourhood of Vittoria at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, and had gone only some six miles when the news of Clausel’s raid was sent to him by Pakenham. The whole army halted and began to retrace its steps, with the object of joining the 6th Division and fending off this unexpected attack. But the return march had hardly begun when the message arrived that Clausel’s cavalry had retreated in haste, and that there was no danger on the side of Vittoria. Giron therefore resumed his original advance, but only reached Escoriaza, a hamlet half-way between Salinas and Mondragon after dark[646]. His troops were worn out, and had not received any regular rations that day.

It thus chanced that only Longa’s Division continued the advance along the Bayonne chaussée on the 22nd, and that all day the Cantabrians were far ahead of, and quite out of touch with, the Army of Galicia. It was with this small force alone that Foy had to deal. The French General had been prepared for trouble by the ominous news that Maucune had given him on the previous day, and conceived that it was his duty to hold the passes as long as was prudent, in order to gain time for the convoy to get on its way, and for the garrison of Bilbao to come in from the right rear. Accordingly he was much vexed to find that the officers commanding the Mondragon forts had evacuated them, and had fallen back on Bergara. He resolved to hold the defile if possible, and marched back toward it, taking with him the only two battalions of his division which he had at hand[647], and the garrisons of the three forts.

The fort of Mondragon was found empty—there were no enemies visible save some local guerilleros who fled. But on advancing a little farther, Foy came on the head of Longa’s column, descending from the defile of Salinas. He spent the whole afternoon in a series of rearguard actions, making his men fall back by alternate battalions, and defending each turn of the road. The French troops behaved with great steadiness, and Longa was cautious, having received false news that the Bilbao garrison had joined Foy. He contented himself with turning each successive position that the enemy took up, and at nightfall had only got about two miles beyond Mondragon. Here he halted, having occupied the fort (where he found six spiked guns) and taken 53 prisoners. Foy had lost about 200 men in all in the long bickering, and had been himself slightly wounded in the shoulder, though he was not disabled: the Spaniards probably somewhat less[648].

During the evening hours three more battalions of Foy’s own division arrived at Bergara, but the garrison of Bilbao and St. Pol’s Italians had not yet been heard of. Having now 3,000 men in hand, the French general resolved to hold Longa up, until the missing troops should have passed behind him and got into a safe position. He waited opposite the Cantabrians all the morning, but was not attacked: a reconnaissance sent out reported that the enemy was quiescent at Mondragon. The fact was that Longa had heard that the French had received reinforcements, and was waiting for Giron to come up with the three Galician divisions. They arrived by noon, much fatigued and drenched by heavy rain, and Giron contented himself with making arrangements for an attack on Bergara on the next morning.

But this attack was never delivered, for Foy having at last picked up the missing brigades, retreated on Villareal during the afternoon, using St. Pol’s Italians as his rearguard. He says in his dispatch that he had deduced from Longa’s strange quiescence the idea (quite correct in itself) that the Spaniards were refraining from pushing him, because they were hoping that he would linger long enough at Bergara to be cut off by some other column, coming from Salvatierra on to Tolosa far in his rear. And Graham’s force had actually been detached for this very purpose that afternoon—but Giron did not know it, and was really detained only by the exhaustion of his troops. It was not till evening that he got a dispatch from Wellington directing him to press hard upon Foy and delay his march, because an Anglo-Portuguese force was moving by the Puerto de San Adrian to intercept his retreat[649]. But Foy, having guessed what plans might be brewing for his discomfiture, had not only retreated betimes, but ordered Maucune, who was now a day’s march in front of him with the convoy, to drop the impedimenta and bring all his fighting force back to Villafranca, to block the road from Salvatierra until he and his 8,000 men should have got past the point of danger. This order Maucune executed on the morning of the 24th, turning the convoy into Tolosa, and turning back to hold the junction of the roads, with one of his brigades in Villafranca town, and the other thrown forward across to the river Oria to Olaverria and Beassayn on the south bank. News had by this time come to hand that the march of a British column from Salvatierra across the hills had been verified, and that the peril was a real one. Wherefore Foy pressed his retreat, and sent Maucune orders to hold on at all costs till the column from Bergara should have passed his rear.

Now Wellington’s orders to Graham to cut in by the Puerto de San Adrian with the 1st Division, Pack’s and Bradford’s Portuguese, and Anson’s Light Dragoons, had been issued late on the 22nd, but had only reached the General and the greater part of his troops on the morning of the 23rd. Of all the column only the two Light Battalions of the King’s German Legion and Bradford’s Portuguese had turned off that night. Consequently on the 23rd, the critical day, Graham and the bulk of his command were toiling up the pass in heavy rain, and had not crossed the watershed, only Bradford and the two German battalions having reached the village of Segura. It was not till dawn on the 24th that Anson’s cavalry and Pack’s Portuguese got to the front; the rest of the infantry was still far off. Graham then advanced on Villafranca, and soon came into collision with Maucune, who was already in position covering the cross-roads. The head of Foy’s column, coming in from the West, was clearly visible on the other side of the Oria in the act of passing behind the screen formed by Maucune’s covering force. He had started from Villareal before dawn, and got clear away before Longa and Giron were on the move, or able to delay him.

Graham attacked at once, in the hope of driving in Maucune before Foy could get past. Bradford’s Portuguese, endeavouring to turn the French flank, pushed to the right; Halkett’s Germans, supported by the grenadier and light companies of Pack’s brigade, made for Beassayn on the left wing. Bradford’s leading unit, the 5th Caçadores, attacking recklessly on unexplored ground, was thrown back at its first assault; but the Brigadier, extending other battalions farther to his right, ended by taking the village of Olaverria and pushing his immediate opponents across the river. The German light battalions carried Beassayn at their first rush. But Maucune, retiring to a new position on high ground immediately above Villafranca, continued his resistance, trying to gain time at all risks. In this he was successful: Foy, hurrying past his rear, got well forward on the Tolosa road with his two leading brigades—the other two he dropped behind the town, to support Maucune or relieve him when he should be driven in.

Owing to the early hour—three in the morning—at which Foy had started on his retreat from Villareal, the bulk of Giron’s army was never able to catch him up. Only Longa’s Cantabrians, leading the advance as usual, came into contact with his rear brigade—St. Pol’s Italians—at the defile of La Descarga west of Villafranca. Failing to force a passage by a frontal attack, Longa turned the position; but the delay permitted St. Pol to get off with small loss and to catch up the rest of Foy’s column.

By three in the afternoon Graham was beginning to outflank Maucune’s line about Villafranca, with Bradford’s brigade on his right and Pack’s on his left, while Longa had come in sight upon the chaussée. Thereupon the French General, having held his ground for the necessary space of time, made a prompt retreat along the Tolosa road, pursued but not much harmed by the Portuguese.

This ended a rather unsatisfactory day—the French had lost more men than the Allies[650], but the trap to catch them had failed completely. It is clear that if Graham’s column could have crossed the Puerto de San Adrian twelve hours earlier, or if Giron had pressed Foy hard and delayed his movements either on the 23rd or on the 24th, the scheme would have worked. Bad staff work was apparently responsible in some measure for both of these failures, though the extreme inclemency of the weather was a secondary cause. Foy’s conduct of the operations on the 22nd-23rd appears a little rash—he might have been caught but for his good luck. But till he had picked up the troops from Bilbao, at noon on the 23rd, he was constrained to wait at Bergara; and after he had once received them he marched hard, and so escaped, thanks to his wise precaution in sending Maucune to Villafranca.

After the combat of the morning Graham moved forward a few miles as far as Ichasondo and neighbouring villages on the Tolosa road, while Giron came up in the evening, and billeted his army in Villafranca, Beassayn, and other places on the Oria. As the missing brigades of the 1st Division appeared that night, there were now some 10,000 Anglo-Portuguese[651] and 16,000 Spaniards[652] massed along the chaussée; Foy, having picked up the garrisons of Tolosa and some smaller places, and having been joined by a stray brigade from the Army of the North, had also as many as 16,000 men in hand[653], so that the opposing forces on both sides had swollen to a considerable strength.

Graham having failed (through no fault of his own) to intercept the enemy’s retreat at Villafranca, and regarding extreme haste as no longer necessary, since the scheme had miscarried, set himself to carry out Wellington’s orders to drive back the enemy to the Bidassoa without any great hurry. He was much hampered by the fact that Giron’s army had outmarched its train, and was therefore suffering for want of supplies, which could not be procured in the mountains of Guipuzcoa. On the 25th he brought the whole of the allied forces up to Alegria, half-way to Tolosa, driving out Maucune’s division, which Foy had left there as a rearguard. It was then discovered that the enemy had taken up a long and extensive position on each side of Tolosa, and showed no disposition to give ground. It was clear that he must be driven off by force.

Foy, as he explains in his dispatch of June 28th[654], had resolved to make a stand at the junction of roads in Tolosa, because he was obsessed by a theory (less accurate than that which he had formed as to Graham’s march two days before) to the effect that King Joseph might have dispatched part or the whole of his army, by the road which leads from Yrurzun on the Araquil to Tolosa across the mountains, in order to transfer it to the lower Bidassoa and the Bayonne road. He was still ignorant of the full effects of the battle of Vittoria, and having heard cannonading far to the south-west on the 23rd[655] had jumped to the conclusion that the main army might be moving up to join him at Tolosa. As a matter of fact King Joseph had turned a detachment off the Pampeluna road at Yrurzun—Reille’s two divisions—but they had been sent not by the more westerly road to Tolosa, but by the Col de Velate route to Santesteban, on which they travelled fast because they had no guns or transport.

But to cover the imaginary movement Foy disposed his troops in front of the junction of roads. Tolosa town lies in a narrow defile, through which pass the Oria river and the great chaussée. It had been prepared long before for serious defence, as it was one of the chief halting-places on the great road from Bayonne to Madrid. The old walls had been strengthened with blockhouses, the gates were palisaded outside and had guns mounted by them. The town blocks the defile completely, but is commanded by steep hills on either side.

Foy sent on the great convoy which Maucune had escorted, under charge of four battalions commanded by General Berlier. The rest of his troops he disposed for defence. De Conchy’s brigade held the fortified town. On the south-east Bonté’s brigade and St. Pol’s Italians were placed on the heights above the Lizarza torrent, a forward position in which they protected the Pampeluna road. The second brigade of Foy’s own division was placed on the hill of Jagoz, on the same flank but nearer the town. On the other or western bank of the Oria Rouget’s brigade (the troops from Bilbao) were on commanding ground, flanking the town and blocking two mountain paths which came down on to it from Azpeytia in the valley of the Uroli. Maucune’s division was in reserve behind Tolosa, massed on the chaussée. As Foy very truly observes in his dispatch, the position was strong against frontal attack, and could only be turned by very wide détours by any troops arriving from the south.

This was as evident to Graham as to Foy, and the British General prepared for a long day’s work. His intention was to outflank the position, even though it should take many hours. In the centre the bulk of the 1st Division, followed by Pack’s Portuguese and Giron’s Galicians, advanced up the chaussée on the left bank of the river Oria, and halted a considerable distance from Tolosa. But Longa’s Cantabrians and Porlier’s small Asturian division were sent off to make a very circuitous march over the mountains on the right by Alzo and Gastolu with the object of cutting into the Pampeluna road many miles east of Tolosa, and then taking the town in the rear. A less wide curve was made by a column consisting of Bradford’s Portuguese brigade, with the three Line-battalions of the King’s German Legion in support, who were also to operate to the east of the chaussée and of the river Oria, and were directed to cross the Lizarza ravine and carry the hill behind it, from whence they were to push forward to the Pampeluna road and then turn inwards against the town. A smaller column, consisting of one battalion of Pack’s brigade and the light companies of Giron’s 3rd Division, was to make a corresponding movement to the west, and to endeavour to get on to the hill dominating Tolosa on that side. Nor was this all: information came to hand that Mendizabal had brought to Aspeytia what remained of the Biscayan irregulars whom Foy had routed and dispersed a month back[656]. Graham wrote to beg him to demonstrate with these bands against the Bayonne chaussée north of Tolosa, and to get on to that road if possible and block it.

The main column halted while the flanking operations were pursuing their slow course. The only fighting which took place in the morning was an attack by Bradford’s brigade on the heights occupied by Bonté, opposite Aleon and beyond the Lizarza torrent. The French Brigadier had neglected to guard the passages of the ravine, and allowed the Portuguese to get on to the ridge of his position without much difficulty[657]. He then counter-attacked them, first with his own brigade, then with St. Pol’s Italians also, but was unable to cast them down from the hill: nor could Bradford get forward. All the hours of the early afternoon were spent in an indecisive tiraillade on this front. It is curious to note that both the commanders-in-chief write in sharp criticism of their subordinates: Foy says that Bonté was careless and disobeyed orders; Graham that Bradford’s men, after a good start, fought in a confused and disorderly fashion[658]. On the other flank the Spanish-Portuguese detachment, sent to try to gain a footing on the hills to the west of Tolosa, reported that they had come up against an absolute precipice, and could do nothing.

So matters wore on till about six o’clock in the afternoon, when distant firing in the rear of the French position announced that both Longa on the right and Mendizabal on the left were in touch with the enemy. Graham then ordered a general attack, the three German Line-battalions, hitherto in reserve behind Bradford, being ordered to strike at the Pampeluna road; meanwhile the main column, which had so long waited opposite Tolosa, deployed the two light German battalions in its front, with the Guards Brigade and Giron’s 3rd Division supporting, and advanced against the south face of the town. The detachment to the extreme left, which had failed to get up the precipices in its front, was directed to turn inward to attack the west side of Tolosa.

These orders brought on very heavy fighting, for Foy had held his forward positions so long that he had great difficulty in withdrawing his troops from them, when he found that he was outflanked, and even attacked in the rear. At the south end of the field, along the chaussée, the allied attack failed entirely, the strength of the fortifications of the town having been under-estimated. When the leading battalion (1st Light Battalion K.G.L.) approached the gate, it came into a cross-fire from the blockhouses, and still heavier frontal musketry from the well-lined ramparts, which proved wholly inaccessible. Scaling ladders would have been required to mount them. The line broke, but the men did not retire, but threw themselves down behind walls and in ditches and tried to answer the fire from such cover as they could find. Many took refuge in the courtyard of a convent not far outside the Vittoria gate, from which their colonel, Ompteda, led out a second assault, which melted away under the fire as the first had done. In truth, the attempt was a misjudged one on Graham’s part—possibly his bad eyesight had failed to note the strength of the defences. The 1st Light Battalion lost five officers and 58 men killed and wounded in a quarter of an hour[659], and had to keep under shelter as best it could; the supporting troops were halted and ordered to lie down, while guns were brought up from the rear to batter the gate. This should obviously have been done before, and not after, the assault. The check was unnecessary, as was shown a little later when the artillery smashed the gate by a few shots, and cleared the neighbouring walls.

Meanwhile there had been fierce fighting on the eastern side of the town, where Bradford’s Portuguese, and the three German line-battalions, with Longa’s men on their northern flank, had fallen upon the three French brigades lying outside the town. Bonté’s and St. Pol’s battalions, still frontally engaged against Bradford, suddenly realized the danger of their position, when the Germans attacked their left flank, and Longa appeared almost in their rear. They retreated in haste towards Tolosa, and got jammed outside the Pampeluna gate, which had been blocked for defence and could not readily be entered. To avoid being crushed against the walls, they massed themselves for a counter-stroke, and thrusting back the Germans for a moment, raced along the river-bank, past the foot of the ramparts, till they got under the cover of Foy’s second brigade on the hill of Jagoz, and escaped beyond the north end of the town. The Germans, though in great disorder, made an attack on the Pampeluna gate, which failed for the same reason that had wrecked that on the Vittoria gate—the impossibility of escalading a well-defended rampart.

Meanwhile there was heavy skirmishing going on to the north-west of Tolosa: Mendizabal’s bands had appeared on the mountain road from Aspeytia, and had engaged Rouget’s brigade, which was covering Foy’s right flank. The French general’s dispatch confesses that the troops from the Bilbao garrison, which included some conscript battalions from the Bayonne reserve, behaved badly, lost ground, and had to be rallied by their general’s personal exertions. They were apparently thrown into a panic by an attack delivered on their flank, by the small Spanish-Portuguese detachment which Graham had sent out on his left: it had worked up by the narrow space between the walls of Tolosa and the precipice above, and came up very opportunely to aid Mendizabal. Rouget held on till dark, but with difficulty, and the knowledge that his route of retreat was threatened added to Foy’s anxiety, for Longa was also pushing behind the town on the other side. Accordingly he ordered Deconchy’s brigade to evacuate Tolosa at once, just as the sun was setting, and prepared for a general retreat.

If the order had been given half an hour later, the garrison of Tolosa would probably have been captured whole, for Graham’s guns had just blown the defences of the Vittoria gate to pieces, and the German light battalions burst in with ease at the point where they had been checked before. There was some confused fighting in the streets, but the French got off with no great loss under cover of the darkness, and fell in with the rear of their main column, which went off down the chaussée at great speed. Mendizabal made some prisoners from Rouget’s brigade, as it fell back to join the rest across the slopes, and Longa caught some fugitives on the other flank[660].

Foy says that he lost some 400 men in the fight, which would seem a low estimate, as the Allies could show 200 prisoners, and Bonté’s and Rouget’s brigades had been very roughly handled. Graham reports 58 killed, 316 wounded, and 45 missing—the last all from Bradford’s brigade. Of the Spaniards Longa and Mendizabal only were engaged: Giron’s report (as so often occurs with Spanish documents) gives no figures, only remarking that some of Longa’s 1st battalion of Iberia ‘perished by reason of their rash courage, but had a great share in deciding the day’—presumably by pushing far ahead in the turning movement which caused Foy to order a general retreat. If we allow 200 Spanish killed and wounded, we shall probably not be far out of our reckoning. Had Graham withheld his unlucky assault on the Vittoria gate till it had been well battered, and trusted entirely to his turning movements, he would have got off with a much smaller casualty list. His original design of manœuvring Foy out of Tolosa was the right game, considering the strength of the position. The French general could plead in defence of his risky tactics that he had held up a superior force for a whole day—but at that particular moment time did not happen to matter—as Graham’s leisurely pursuit on the subsequent days sufficiently shows. He was only set on getting Foy across the Bidassoa; and nothing in the general course of the campaign depended on whether he did so a day sooner or a day later. On the other hand, by standing too long at Tolosa Foy nearly lost three brigades, and might indeed have lost his whole force.

The remainder of this side-campaign displays none of the interest of its four first days. Foy retired to Andoain on the night of the combat of Tolosa, where he was joined by the battalions of the 40th and 101st under General Berlier, which had escorted Maucune’s convoy to the frontier, and by the 62nd and a Spanish ‘Juramentado’ regiment withdrawn from Biscay garrisons. This, despite of his recent losses, gave him a force of 16,000 infantry, 400 sabres, and 10 guns. Graham did not press him, his troops being much fatigued: only the indefatigable Longa appeared with his Cantabrians in front of the position. On the 27th the whole French force retired unmolested to Hernani.

It was of course all-important to Foy to know what were the situation and intentions of the King. Nothing could be heard of the main army at Andoain or Hernani, so he detached Berlier’s brigade to seek for news in the Bastan, along the upper Bidassoa. On the 28th Berlier discovered Reille and two divisions of the Army of Portugal at Vera. They were in bad order, without guns and much under strength, though stragglers were rejoining in considerable numbers. Reille had been as ignorant of Foy’s whereabouts as Foy had been of that of the main army. He was rejoiced to hear that all the Biscay garrisons had been saved, and that there was a solid force ready to co-operate with him in the defence of the line of the Bidassoa. His own troops were not yet fit for fighting. Accordingly he sent Foy orders to evacuate Hernani and come back to the frontier, though he need not actually cross the Bidassoa unless he were compelled to do so. By stopping at Oyarzun he could keep up communication with St. Sebastian, which must be needing attention.

The condition of that fortress, indeed, had already been troubling the mind of Foy on his last day of independent command. It lay so near the French border, and had been for years so far from any enemy—Guipuzcoan guerrilleros excepted—that it had been much neglected. When General Rey, named as Governor by King Joseph two days before the battle of Vittoria, arrived with orders to put it in a state of defence, he found it garrisoned only by 500 gendarmes, a battalion of recruits on the way to join the 120th Line, and two weak companies of pioneers and sappers—1,200 men in all. The stores of food were low, the glacis was cumbered with huts and sheds, there was no provision of gabions, fascines, or timber. Moreover, the town was full of Spanish and French fugitives who had preceded the King on his retreat—there were (it is said) as many as 7,000 of them, lingering in Spain till the last moment, in the hope that Wellington might be stopped on the Ebro. The news of Vittoria arrived on the 23rd, and caused hopeless consternation—the place was not ready to stand a siege—the garrison so small that it could not even spare a battalion to escort the tiresome mass of refugees to Bayonne. Rey began in feverish haste to clear the glacis, palisade the outworks, and rearrange the cannons on the walls, but he had too few hands for work, and was in a state resembling despair when on the 28th Foy turned up for a flying visit, saw and acknowledged the nakedness of the land, and promised to do all that he could to help—though it was less than the Governor required. He took away the old garrison—the recruits were not too trustworthy, the gendarmes not siege troops: to replace them he threw in the whole of Deconchy’s brigade—four battalions, about 2,000 infantry—and all the gunners that he could spare. As the garrison of Guetaria, 450 strong, escaped by sea to San Sebastian two days later, and a number of stragglers dropped into the place before the siege began, the gross total of the garrison was raised to some 3,000 men. Rey asked for 4,000, but Foy would not grant him another battalion—and was justified by the course of the siege, for the place was very small and, if it could be held at all, was defensible by the lesser number. The only doubt was whether there would be time to get it in order before the Allies appeared[661]. But perhaps the best service that Foy did for Rey was that he removed, at two hours’ notice, the whole mass of refugees. They marched, much lamenting, for Bayonne, under the escort of the old outgoing garrison. On the 29th Reille ordered Foy to evacuate Oyarzun and fall back to the Bidassoa, and before he had been gone three hours Mendizabal’s Guipuzcoan irregulars, 3,000 strong, appeared in front of the fortress and cut its communication with France. They were an unorganized band, without artillery, but effective enough for stopping the highway.

Graham, seeing that the French had escaped him, and had a clear retreat to the frontier, had made no serious attempt to press them. He was quite content that they should go at their own pace, and was determined not to harass the 1st Division, who, as he wrote to Wellington, were in a state of great exhaustion. To have hurried Foy out of Spain two days earlier would have cost men, and would have had no beneficial effect on the general course of the campaign; for Wellington and the main army were far away in Navarre, and if Graham had reached the Bidassoa on the 26th or 28th, with his own and Giron’s 25,000 men, they could have done nothing, since they had in front of them the fortress of Bayonne, with Foy’s 16,000 men, the 7,000 whom Reille had brought up from Santesteban, and the remains of the general reserve—for though Rouget’s battalions and other detachments had been lent from Bayonne already, there were still a few thousand men in hand. In all, Reille would have had an army as large as Graham’s own, and though some of it was rather demoralized, the fortress, and the strong positions in front of it along the Bidassoa, Nive, and Nivelle, counterbalanced this disadvantage. If Wellington had chosen to march on Bayonne with his main body, the day after Vittoria, the problem would have been a very different one. But since he had preferred to move in pursuit first of King Joseph and then of Clausel, there was nothing more which the commander of a detached corps like that of Graham could accomplish. He did all that his chief required of him, when he pushed Foy out of Spain and laid siege to St. Sebastian. That the project for cutting off the French detachments at Villafranca came to nothing was no fault of Graham’s—being due partly to bad staff-work at Head-Quarters, partly to the chances of rough weather, and partly to Foy’s laudable caution and celerity.

The side-show in Guipuzcoa came to a tame end twenty-four hours after the blockade of St. Sebastian had been formed. On the 30th Reille ordered all the troops on the south bank of the lower Bidassoa to retire into France. Foy’s and Maucune’s divisions crossed the bridge of Behobie, under the protection of four battalions of the Bayonne reserve, which remained on the heights by the hermitage of St. Marcial, and marched to Urogne and other villages down-stream. Lamartinière’s division remained at Vera, Fririon’s (late Sarrut’s) at Hendaye.

Late on the same afternoon the advance-guard of Graham’s army came in sight of the Bidassoa—it consisted as usual of Longa’s untiring Cantabrians only, the 1st Division and the Portuguese having been halted near St. Sebastian, the bulk of the Galicians at Hernani and Renteria. Longa, keeping to the coast, surprised and captured the French garrison of Passages (150 men), which was too late in obeying Reille’s order to retreat on France while the bridge of Behobie was still available. He then came in contact with the covering force on the heights of San Marcial[662], which was at the same time menaced by Castañon with a brigade of the 4th Galician Division, who had come up the high road from Renteria.

The French brigadier evacuated the position at once. Reille had told him that he was only placed there to protect the retreat of Foy. He crossed the Bidassoa, leaving only a detachment of sixty men in the tête de pont which covered the south or Spanish end of the bridge of Behobie; it consisted of a stone blockhouse surrounded with palisades. The further or French end of the long bridge was blocked by the fortified village of Hendaye.

Next morning Graham resolved that the tête de pont must be taken or destroyed, so that the enemy should have no open road by which he might return to Spain. While some Spanish infantry exchanged a vague fusillade across the river with the French in Hendaye, ten guns[663] were turned on the blockhouse. The garrison tried to blow it up and to retreat, but their mine failed, their commanding-officer was killed, and they were about to surrender when Foy sent two fresh companies over the bridge to bring them off. This was done, at the cost of four officers and 64 men, killed and wounded while crossing the much-exposed bridge. Foy then ordered the structure to be set on fire; and as its floor was composed of wood this was easily done: the four arches nearest France were burnt out by the following morning (July 1).

This evacuation, without any attempt at defence, of the bridgehead on the Bidassoa angered the Minister of War at Paris, and still more Napoleon, when the news reached him at Wittenberg nine days later. Foy and Reille had men enough to have held the heights of San Marcial, against anything short of an attack by the whole of Graham’s and Giron’s infantry. And it is certain that Graham would not have delivered any such assault, but would have halted in front of them, and waited for orders from Wellington. The Emperor, who—as we shall presently see—was set on a counter-offensive from the moment when the news of Vittoria reached him, was wild with wrath at the abandonment of the foothold in Spain. ‘It was insane,’ he wrote to Clarke, ‘to recross the Bidassoa: they all show themselves as timid as women[664].’

But whether it would have been possible for the French to hold the Irun-Behobie-San Marcial tête de pont, when Wellington had come up in person from the south, is another matter. Probably he would have decided that the enemy must be thrust back across the Bidassoa, before he dared to sit down to beleaguer San Sebastian. And undoubtedly he had men enough to carry out that operation. But this was no excuse for Reille’s evacuation of the position, one of the highest strategical value, before he was compelled to do so by force. The fact was that Reille, like most of the other French generals, was demoralized at the moment by the recent disaster of Vittoria, and had lost confidence both in himself and in his troops.