There was no pursuit: if there had been it would seem that the whole French army would have broken up, for it had shown itself this day no longer able to fight. ‘The spirit not only of the men but of the officers,’ wrote Reille next morning, ‘has been very bad during these last days. The absolute want of food must be the excuse for this state of things.’ The condition of the army was deplorable—Maucune’s division showed less than 1,000 men holding together. The 1st Line of Vandermaesen’s had precisely 27 men with the eagle—yet had lost only 4 officers and 193 men in action—where were the remaining 400? Other units could show a few hundred men but absolutely or practically no officers—the 55th Line of Conroux had lost every one of 13 officers, the 51st Line of Darmagnac 12 out of 17, the 34th Léger of Maucune 30 out of 35; these were exceptionally hard cases, but in all the divisions save those of Foy and Abbé (the least engaged during the short campaign), the proportion was appalling. For the infantry of the whole army it was 420 casualties among 1,318 officers present. Soult wrote to Clarke on the last day of the campaign: ‘I deceived myself in the strangest way when I told your Excellency that the troops had their morale intact, and would do their duty. I mistook the sentiment of shame for their recent disaster (Vittoria) for that of steadfastness. When tested, they started with one furious rush, but showed no power of resistance.... Since I first entered the service I have seen nothing like this. It reminded me of the behaviour of the levy en masse of 1792. The spirit of these troops must be terribly broken to have permitted them to behave in this fashion. One general told me that he had overheard men remarking, when we were near Pampeluna, that they had better not fight too hard, because it would be preferable to get back to the frontier rather than to be led off into the middle of Spain[1055].’ These were cruel and spiteful words—the army had fought with excellent courage, till after July 30th it had convinced itself that the Marshal had got wrong with all his calculations, that the game was up—that they were being taken on a wild goose chase without rations in the most desolate and rocky region of Europe. But by August 2 Soult was not far out in his statement—on that day the greater part of his army was a spent force. If Wellington had resolved to pursue with vigour, he could have pushed it as far as he pleased. Perhaps the great encircling scheme with which his mind dallied for a few hours on the night of August 1 might have resulted in its surrender or complete dispersion.

This was not to be. On August 3 Wellington halted, and commenced to rearrange his troops on much the same principles, and in much the same positions, that he had selected before. He wrote to Graham next day that he was perfectly well aware of the objection to taking up a defensive position in the Pyrenees, but that an advance was too risky[1056]. It was not so much the prospect of the wastage of his troops, even in successful operation, that deterred him, though this was the point on which he insisted in his letter to Graham, but the general political situation of Europe. The eternal Armistice of Plässwitz was still holding up operations in Germany: it was still possible that the Allied Sovereigns might make a selfish peace with Napoleon, and permit the Emperor to expand Soult’s army ad infinitum with sudden reinforcements. What would then become of the Anglo-Portuguese host, even if it had won its way not only to Bayonne but to Bordeaux? All this he had considered, and wrote to the Secretary for War in Whitehall that ‘as for the immediate invasion of France, from what I have seen of the state of negotiations in the North of Europe, I have determined to consider it only in reference to the convenience of my own operations.... If peace should be made by the Powers of the North, I must necessarily withdraw into Spain.’ No advance, however tempting the opportunity, should be made until he was certain that war had recommenced in Saxony[1057]. Meanwhile, ‘Soult will not feel any inclination to renew his expeditions—on this side at least.’

So the army settled down to hold once more the line of the Pyrenees, and to resume the siege of St. Sebastian. On August 3 the Head-quarters were once more at Lesaca, as they had been on July 25—how many things had happened in the interval! Hill and the 2nd Division, now rejoined by the long-missing brigade of Byng, as also Silveira’s Portuguese, were in the Maya passes once more. The 3rd Division was holding the Roncesvalles defiles, the 4th and 7th were at Echalar, the 6th in the Alduides (replacing Campbell’s Portuguese in that remote valley); the Light Division lay on the heights opposite Vera. Morillo’s Division was in the Bastan behind Hill, the part of the Army of Reserve of Andalusia which O’Donnell had carried to the front, when he left the rest before Pampeluna, was at the moment near the bridge of Yanzi. The remainder of that army and Carlos de España were continuing the blockade of Pampeluna.

The total losses of the Allies during the nine days’ ‘Campaign of the Pyrenees’ had amounted to slightly over 6,400 officers and men for the English and Portuguese[1058]. The Spanish loss could not add over 600 more—at Sorauren it was 192; Morillo’s casualties at Altobiscar, and those of the regiment of Asturias at Yanzi bridge are the only unknown quantities, and can hardly have reached 400. The distribution among divisions and corps was odd—the 3rd and Light Division had practically negligible casualties: the former under 120, the latter under 50. The main stress fell on the 2nd and 4th Divisions, the former with 2,000 British and 350 Portuguese casualties, the latter with 1,400 and 300 respectively. But it must be remembered that the 2nd Division had (including Byng) four brigades, the 4th Division only three. Every unit in both was severely tried; the most terrible return was that of the 1/92nd with its 26 officers and 445 men killed, wounded, and missing. But this was a strong battalion of 750 bayonets, and I am not sure that the 284 casualties of the 20th and the 296 casualties of the 3/27th, both in the 4th Division, do not represent almost as great a proportional loss, as these were both much smaller corps.

The 6th Division was engaged on two days only, at the two battles of Sorauren, and had the appreciable number of 450 British and 370 Portuguese casualties. The 7th Division fought on three days—at second Sorauren, at the Combat of the Venta de Urroz, and at Echalar, and three of its battalions also saved the day at Maya—with a loss in all of 750 British but only 60 Portuguese. Lastly, we must name the two Portuguese brigades of Silveira’s division, of which Campbell’s fought at Sorauren, Da Costa’s at Beunza, with a loss to the former of 350 and to the latter of 280 men. The general fact emerges that the 2nd and 4th Divisions lost between them 4,350 men out of the total 7,000—no other division had so many as 1,000 casualties.

The official list of French losses is not quite complete, as it includes only the infantry and cavalry units—but such casualties as may have been suffered by the general staff, the artillery (very little engaged) sappers, and train can have added comparatively little to the total, though a good many men of the train were taken at Yanzi on August 1. The figures given work out to 12,563—1,308 killed, 8,545 wounded, and 2,710 prisoners. The last-named total should probably be brought up to 3,000 in order to include individuals of the non-combatant corps captured in the retreat. The divisions suffered in very unequal measure: Foy and Abbé got off very lightly, because the one was practically not engaged at first Sorauren, nor the latter at Maya—they lost respectively only 550 and 750 men. Vandermaesen’s and Maucune’s Divisions—each a small unit of only 4,000 men, had the crushing losses of 1,480 and 1,850 respectively, and were dissolved when the campaign was over, and re-formed to a large extent with battalions drawn from the Bayonne reserve. Darmagnac and Conroux each lost well over 2,000 men out of 7,000—their divisions having been terribly cut up, the one at Maya the other at Sorauren. Maransin and Taupin each return over 1,000 men lost out of 6,000; Lamartinière just under 1,000 out of 7,000. The cavalry, barely engaged and quite useless, had only 67 casualties to report.

But to get at Soult’s fighting strength on the last day of the retreat, it is not sufficient merely to deduct the 12,563 casualties from the 59,000 which took the field in Navarre. The eight divisions collected on the 2nd August were short not only of their own casualties, but of Foy’s division, which had gone off on an eccentric line of retreat, as had several smaller detachments[1059]. But the great deficit was that of at least 8,000 or 10,000 stragglers, who rejoined at their leisure during the next ten days. The cavalry and artillery had all gone to the rear, and it is doubtful if the last stand at Echalar was made with so many as 25,000 weary infantry. If the Marshal had been faced with an opponent who had no political arrière pensée to hold him back, he would have been doomed to absolute destruction. Only a wreck of his army would have escaped, and Wellington might have driven the remnants as far as he pleased—even to the gates of Bordeaux.

But the British General had made his ‘great refusal’ on the night of August 1st-2nd, and had resolved that the tempting scheme for invading France, which had flitted before his eyes for a few evening hours, must be postponed. He would risk nothing till he should get certain information that the war had begun again in Germany. And as the news of the rupture of the Armistice did not reach him till September 3rd, he was condemned to another month of waiting. He turned back to his old policy of June—St. Sebastian and Pampeluna must be reduced. When they should have fallen, it would be time enough to see whether the general European situation had made the invasion of France a feasible enterprise.