The assault on the hill of Oricain bears a remarkable likeness to the battle of Bussaco, both being attacks by a series of brigade columns on a steep hill, with every disadvantage except numbers to the assailant. Cole’s position was singularly like that of Picton in the battle of 1810, the main differences being that the hillside was not quite so steep or quite so high, and was strewn with clumps of brushwood in its lower slopes, while the Bussaco ground only shows heather and a little gorse. At the Portuguese fight the defenders of the hill had some help from artillery—at the Navarrese fight none. On the other hand, Cole had a shorter line to defend, and more men to hold it. Reynier attacked with 13,000 infantry—Clausel with 20,000—including in each case unengaged reserve brigades. Picton held the slopes of San Antonio de Cantaro with 6,800 men—Cole had about 11,000 at Oricain—the proportional difference therefore between the attacking and the defending force was much the same[943]. By an odd chance no less than four French regiments climbed both these deadly hills (17th Léger, 31st Léger, 47th and 70th Line); but the only officer who has left us his narrative of both fights does not chance to have compared them, though he was a competent observer and a fluent writer[944]. None of Cole’s regiments, on the other hand, had been engaged at Bussaco, though eight of them were present on that field in unattacked sectors of Wellington’s line.

The direction of the attack of the six French brigades which mounted the hill of Oricain was such that in their first advance Taupin’s right brigade (Lecamus) attacked Ross; his left brigade (Béchaud) came in where Ross’s and Campbell’s lines met: both Vandermaesen’s were opposed to Campbell’s centre and right; Maucune’s front brigade tackled Anson at the Col, and Gauthier of Lamartinière’s division assailed the 40th and the Spaniards on the slopes above Zabaldica. The six brigades made 15,000 bayonets in all—the rear brigades of Maucune and Lamartinière not being counted, for they never closed. Conroux was paired off against Pack in the low ground, fighting against numbers not much inferior to his own.

Lecamus’s brigade, starting from a short distance south of Sorauren, made for the north-west corner of the heights,—its four battalion columns screened by their eight compagnies d’élite in a dense swarm[945], much thicker than the usual French skirmishing line. This column, the first up the hill, pushed before it the light companies of the British 20th and 23rd, and the 7th Portuguese Caçadores, and won its way nearly to the crest, when it was charged by Ross with the whole Fusilier Brigade and thrown violently down hill. It was not pursued far, and ultimately rallied, but was for some time out of action. The Fusiliers had hardly resumed their former position and re-formed, when the second French column came up the hill a little way to the left of the last attack, aiming at the Chapel of San Salvador. This was the five battalions of Béchaud’s brigade, which had in front of it the line of the 10th Caçadores, supported by Ross’s right-hand battalion and the left battalion of Campbell’s Portuguese. This column actually reached the summit, driving the Caçadores before it, and established itself by the chapel, but was finally thrown down by a flank attack of Ross’s left-hand battalions, while it was heavily engaged with the 7th Fusiliers and Campbell’s 10th Line in front. It rallied only a short way down the hill, as there was no pursuit.

This fight was still in progress when Vandermaesen’s two brigades came up the hill, each in a single column preceded by a heavy screen of tirailleurs. They came into collision with Campbell’s centre and left, drove in his Caçadores[946] and light companies, and forced their way right to the summit, after a very sharp exchange of fire. Cole was obliged to send up Stubbs’s Portuguese to strengthen the line, which held for some time, but finally gave way on its left, where the 10th Line broke, thus exposing the flank of Ross’s 7th Fusiliers, its next neighbours along the crest. At the same time Béchaud’s brigade, now rallied, came up the hill for a second attack on Ross, whose line, or at least the right-hand part of it, lost ground and fell back in some disorder. At the same moment the French column beyond Vandermaesen—Maucune’s front brigade—was attacking the Col. ‘At that instant,’ wrote Clausel to Soult, ‘I had, despite all the difficulties of the enterprise, some hope of success[947].’

The combat seems to have stood still for a perceptible time—the French troops had established themselves on a long strip of the crest, and were slowly pushing back Campbell’s left and Ross’s right, which had suffered severely and were in bad order. But the enemy was also in great confusion—the columns and the skirmishing line had dissolved into irregular crowds. The men were absolutely exhausted by the steep climb which they had just made; and the blasting volleys which they had received before reaching the crest had laid low a very large proportion of the officers, who had led with reckless courage. There was no impetus left in their advance, which was slow and irregular.

The decision of the fight seems to have started on the very highest point of the hill, where Maucune’s front brigade was attacking Anson. Here the French never won the crest, and were thrown back with extreme violence and terrible loss. The laconic report of the division merely says that ‘the advance was a complete failure: the troops were repulsed at every point, and returned to their original position with the loss of 600 to 700 men and a colonel[948].’ The whole strength of the three attacking battalions had been only 2,200 men, and all the casualties coming in ten minutes, the column was too hard hit to rally. Nor did Maucune choose to send in his rear brigade, which was the only intact reserve on the French heights. After watching this complete failure of the central assault from behind Anson’s line, and noting the demoralization of the enemy, Wellington took the very bold step of ordering two of Anson’s three battalions[949], the 3/27th and 1/48th, to descend from their own ground, and fall on the flank of Vandermaesen’s division, which was advancing slowly and in disorder, pushing back Campbell’s and Stubbs’s Portuguese. He left only the 2nd Provisional (2nd and 2/53rd) to hold the high point from which Maucune had just been repulsed. At the same time Byng’s brigade, hitherto kept in reserve a quarter of a mile back, on the centre of the hill, was ordered to advance and support Ross.

The diagonal downhill charge of the 3/27th and 1/48th was swift and irresistible, when falling on the flank of a disordered mass. A French observer on the opposite mountain noted and admired it. ‘The enemy’s reinforcements, which he launched against our divisions, charged at a running pace, but with such order and unity that looking on from a distance one might have thought it was cavalry galloping. Hardly had they repulsed the troops on their right, when they ran in on the centre, and after the centre on to the left.... Our men came back four times to the assault, but what could three divisions do against an army perfectly settled down into its position, which had only to receive the shock of troops already half discomfited by exhaustion and by the obstacles of an inaccessible hillside[950].’ Wellington merely says, ‘I ordered the 27th and 48th to charge first that body of the enemy which had first established itself on the heights (Vandermaesen) and next those on the left (Béchaud): both attacks succeeded, and the enemy was driven down with immense loss.’

Byng’s brigade was in time to give assistance in the last part of the attack, but was only slightly engaged; its three battalions had no more than 70 casualties among them[951], while the 27th and 48th counted no less than 389—a sufficient proof of the sort of resistance which they respectively met.

With the general repulse of the French brigades which had established themselves on the crest, the crisis of the battle was over. But sporadic fighting continued for an hour more, owing to the gallant obstinacy of the French officers, who at several points of the line rallied their battalions and brought them up the hill again for partial and obviously futile attacks. As Wellington had forbidden all pursuit, the enemy had full power to reassemble half-way down the hill and to try his luck again. But since the men were tired out, and quite understood that if a general assault by six brigades had failed, isolated pushes by individual regiments were hopeless, there was no conviction in these later attacks. About four o’clock Soult sent orders that they must cease, and that all troops must return to their original positions.

It remains to speak of three side-shows of the battle, one of which was of great interest and some importance. It will be remembered that when the great advance took place about 1 a.m., Gauthier’s brigade at Zabaldica was told to storm the spur opposite, now held by the British 40th and the Spanish battalions Pravia and Principe. There was some artillery preparation here, the howitzers beside the village having been directed to open a high-trajectory fire on the hill. It had, however, no effect, and the infantry were put in ere long. As to what happened British and French accounts show a satisfactory agreement. Gauthier first sent up the 120th, a strong three-battalion unit, keeping the 122nd (two battalions) in reserve. The attack was frontal, and in one column—possibly the presence of Sympher’s battery to the right rear, sweeping all the slopes above the Arga river, prohibited any flank extension to turn the position.

Reille, who directed this attack in person from Zabaldica, says that the regiment went up the hill with a very strong screen of skirmishers (no doubt all the six compagnies d’élite) but in great disorder, the pace having been pressed too much up a very steep ascent, so that the whole arrived at the crest in a mass. The enemy, who had been waiting behind the sky-line, suddenly appeared at the critical moment, and opened such a heavy and effective fire that the 120th crumpled up and rolled down hill. The Allies, contented with the result of their salvo, did not pursue, but stepped back behind the crest. Gauthier rallied the defeated regiment half-way down the slope, and brought up the 122nd to assist: he then repeated the assault over the same ground, and with better success, for the 120th reached the crest, and broke up a Portuguese regiment (it was really two Spanish battalions), and came to a deadly musketry contest with the English regiment posted on the highest ground. There was a fusillade almost muzzle to muzzle, but the French regiment finally gave way ‘whether from the disadvantage of the position or from over-fatigue after twice climbing such steep slopes’. The 122nd, coming up just too late, then delivered a similar attack, and suffered a similar repulse. Both regiments were then rallied half-way down the slope, and kept up from thence a scattering fire, until Soult’s orders came to withdraw all the line, in consequence of the defeat of Clausel’s divisions. This exactly tallies with the narratives of the British officers of the 40th, who also speak of three attacks, the first easily foiled-a mere rush of skirmishers—the second very serious, and rendered almost fatal by the incomprehensible panic of the Spaniards, who, after behaving very well both on the previous day and during the first attack, suddenly broke and fled—‘all attempts to rally them being ineffectual’—over the whole face of the hill behind. The rout was only stopped by a desperate charge against the front of the leading French battalion, which was successful contrary to every expectation and probability. For the 40th, who had suffered considerable loss in the combat of Linzoain two days before, had only 10 officers and 400 men in line, and were attacking a column of nearly 2,000 men. This column had been cast down hill, and the men of the 40th had barely been re-formed—they showed a great wish to pursue and came back reluctantly—when the third French attack, that of the 122nd, was delivered with resolution and steadiness but without success. Even then the fight was not over, for after an interval the enemy came up the hill again, in disorder but with drums beating and eagles carried to the front, the officers making incredible efforts to push the men forward. They did not, however, get to the crest, but, after rolling up to within twenty-five yards of it, stood still under the heavy musketry fire, and then fell back, completely ‘fought out[952].’

Reille’s report declares that Gauthier’s brigade only lost ‘50 killed and several hundred wounded’—say 350 in all—in this combat. The British 40th had 129 casualties—the Spanish battalions on their flanks 192. If a brigade of five battalions and 3,300 bayonets allowed itself to be stopped by a single battalion in the last phases of the combat, after suffering a loss of only one man in nine, there must have been something wrong with it, beside bad guidance. One would suspect that Reille is understating casualties in the most reckless fashion.

While this fight was going on by the banks of the Arga, there was another in progress on the other flank of the hill of Oricain, on the banks of the Ulzama. The 6th Division had been intermittently engaged with Conroux’s troops during the whole time of the French assaults on the heights. When it was seen that Clausel’s men were ‘fought out’ and falling back, Pack made an effort to utilize the moment of the French débâcle by capturing Sorauren. He brought up his divisional guns (Brandreth’s battery) to a position close to the village, and sent forward the light companies of the two British brigades to press in upon its south side, while Madden’s Portuguese, on the other bank of the river, tried to get into it from the rear on the north side. The attack failed, indeed was never pushed home, Sorauren being too strongly held. The guns had to be drawn back, many horses and some gunners having been shot down. Pack himself was severely wounded in the head, and Madden’s brigade lost 300 men. Wellington sent down from the hill to order the attack to cease, for even if Sorauren had been taken, the rest of his front-line troops were in no condition to improve the advantage[953].

While this was going on upon the extreme left, an almost bloodless demonstration was in progress on the extreme right, where Foy, as on the previous day, had been ordered to keep Picton employed. He showed his infantry in front of Alzuza, and pushed forward the considerable body of light cavalry which had been lent him to his left flank by Elcano, till their skirmishers had got into collision with those of the British Hussar Brigade, along the river Egues. There was much tiraillade but few casualties on either side; the 10th Hussars were driven across the river, but were replaced by the 18th, who kept the French in check for the rest of the day. Pierre Soult showed no intention of closing, and Stapleton Cotton had been warned by Wellington that his four brigades were intended for flank-protection not for taking the offensive. The afternoon, therefore, passed away in noisy but almost harmless bickering between lines of vedettes. Foy in his report expressed himself contented with having kept a larger force than his own occupied all day.

Thus ended this second Bussaco, a repetition in its main lines of the first, and a justification of the central theory of Wellington’s tactical system. Once more the line, in a well-chosen position, and with proper precautions taken, had proved itself able to defeat the column. The French made a most gallant attempt to storm a position held by much inferior numbers, but extremely strong. They were beaten partly—as all the critics insisted—by the fact that men who have just scaled a hill of 1,000 feet are inevitably exhausted at the moment when they reach its crest, but much more by the superiority of fire of the line over the column when matters came to the musketry duel. The French generals had learnt one thing at least from previous experience—they tried to sheathe and screen the column by exceptionally heavy skirmishing lines, but even so they could not achieve their purpose. The only risk in Wellington’s game was that the enemy’s numbers might be too overwhelming—if, for example, the 6th Division had not been up in time on July 28th, and Clausel had been able to put in Conroux’s division (7,000 extra bayonets) along with the rest, operating against Ross’s extreme flank, it is not certain that the heights of Oricain could have been held. But Wellington only offered battle, as he did, because he was relying on the arrival of the 6th Division. If he had known on the night of the 27th that it could not possibly come up in time, he would probably have accepted the unsatisfactory alternative policy of which he speaks in several dispatches, that of raising the siege of Pampeluna and falling back on Yrurzun. ‘I hope we should in any case have beaten the French at last, but it must have been further back certainly, and probably on the Tolosa road[954].’

Soult is said to have felt from the 26th onward—his original project of a surprise followed by a very rapid advance having failed—‘une véritable conviction de non-réussite[955].’ We could well understand this if he really believed—as he wrote to Clarke on the evening after the battle—that Wellington had 50,000 men already in line. But this was an ex post facto statement, intended to explain his defeat to the Minister; and we may be justified in thinking that if he had really estimated the hostile army at any such a figure, he would never have attacked. His long delay in bringing on the action may be explained by the fact that Reille’s divisions were not on the field before evening on the 27th, and that on the 28th it took many hours to rearrange the troops on a terrain destitute of any roads, rather than by a fear of a defeat by superior numbers. It might have been supposed on the 27th that he was waiting for the possible arrival of D’Erlon, but on the morning of the 28th he had heard overnight from his lieutenant, and knew that he could not reach the battle-front on that day. In his self-exculpatory dispatch to Clarke, Soult complains that D’Erlon told him that he was blocked by British divisions at Irurita, ‘but I have no doubt that these are the same troops which fell upon General Clausel’s flank this afternoon[956].’ In this he was wrong—D’Erlon was speaking of Hill’s and Dalhousie’s divisions, while it was Pack (whom D’Erlon had never seen) that rendered a French success at Sorauren impossible.

The loss of the Allied Army was 2,652—of whom 1,358 were British, 1,102 Portuguese, and 192 Spaniards. The heaviest casualties fell on the 3/27th in Anson’s brigade, who first repulsed Maucune, and then swept away Vandermaesen, and the 1/7th in Ross’s brigade, the regiment whose flank was exposed by the breaking of the 10th Portuguese—which corps also, as was natural, was very hard hit. But all the front-line battalions, both British and Portuguese, had considerable losses. Soult (as at Albuera) made a most mendacious understatement of his casualties, putting them at 1,800 only. As Clausel alone had reported about 2,000, Maucune about 700, and Lamartinière at least 350, it is certain that the Marshal’s total loss was over 3,000—how much over it is impossible to say, since the only accessible regimental casualty-lists include all men killed, wounded, or missing between July 25th and August 2nd. But the chances are that 4,000 would have been nearer the mark than 3,000[957].