[811] Burgoyne, whose diary of the siege is one of the primary authorities, says that in his opinion the mine could have been much more useful than it was. ‘On the discovery of the drain, I should have immediately have altered the whole plan of attack. I would have made a “globe of compression” to blow in the counterscarp and the crest of the glacis, and then at low water have threatened an attack on the breaches, exploded the mine, and have made the real assault on the hornwork, which not being threatened had few people in it, and would undoubtedly have been carried easily.’ There was, he says, good cover in the hornwork, which would have been easily connected with the parallel, and used as the base for attacking the main front, with breaching batteries in its terre-plein and the crest of the glacis. Burgoyne, i. p. 271. But this is wisdom after the event.
[812] Jones, ii. p. 36.
[813] For all these details see Belmas, iv. pp. 620-1.
[814] Burgoyne says (i. 369) that the engineers on the 24th settled that the mine was no more than a signal ‘with a chance of alarming them’. On the 25th it would seem that a little more attention, but not nearly enough, was given to this useful subsidiary operation.
[815] Burgoyne says at 4.30.
[816] This is slurred over in the British narratives except Dickson’s Diary, p. 973. Belmas gives some account of it, however, though he calls the assailants British instead of Portuguese (iv. p. 623). They were some companies of the 8th Caçadores.
[817] Most of this narrative is from Colin Campbell’s long and interesting letter to Sir J. Cameron, printed on pp. 25-30 of his Life by General Shadwell.
[818] Gomm, p. 312.
[819] Frazer’s Letters from the Peninsula, p. 205.
[820] The 38th lost 53 men, the 9th 25, the Portuguese 138 in the side-attack. Why need Belmas, who had Jones’s book before him, give the total of British losses as 2,000? (Sièges, iv. 625).
[821] Though Jones says that he saw some wounded bayoneted.
[822] Printed in Maxwell’s Peninsular Sketches, vol. ii.
[823] Campbell’s letter quoted above in his Life, i. p. 30.
[824] ‘The men, panic stricken, turned and could never be rallied,’ writes Frazer next day (p. 204). ‘One party, I believe of the 9th and 38th, went up to the breach and then turned and ran away,’ says Larpent (p. 200). Neither saw the actual assault in the dark.
[825] So at least he wrote to Castaños on the 24th: ‘j’espère que cette affaire est finie.’ Dispatches, x. p. 564.
[826] See Frazer, p. 206, and Burgoyne, i. p. 269.
[827] See Wellington to Graham, night of the 25th, Dispatches, x. p. 566.
[828] Permission was given to leave four guns behind in the main breaching batteries and two on Monte Olia, to keep up a semblance of continued attack. Dispatches, x. p. 566.
[829] The British officer in command in the trenches, Major O’Halloran, was court martialled, but acquitted. It was proved that he had given the correct orders to the Portuguese captains of the companies on guard, who had not obeyed them. All the prisoners except 30 were Portuguese.
[830] The history of this proclamation is curious. Clarke, or Napoleon himself, considered it too full of insults of a person who was, after all, the Emperor’s brother. So it had to be disavowed: Soult wrote to Paris that he had not authorized it, and Clarke had the ingenuity to print in the French newspapers that it was an invention of the English government, intended to disgust the Spanish partisans of King Joseph, and to advertise the ill feeling that prevailed between the French army and the Imperial family. See Vidal de la Blache, i. p. 138; as he remarks, the style is all Soult’s, and there is not a trace of foreign diction in it. No Englishman or Spaniard could have written it.
[831] Joseph to Napoleon, 1st February 1813.
[832] See notably the case of General Excelmans.
[833] See especially the proclamation of March 6, 1815.
[834] Mémoires of St. Chamans, p. 35.
[835] Maximilien Lamarque, ii. p. 182.
[836] Stanhope’s Conversations with Wellington, p. 20.
[837] The gendarmerie were those who had come from the ‘legions’, employed in 1811-12-13 as garrisons in Northern Spain. They were embodied in units, horse and foot, and used as combatants (as at the combat of Venta del Pozo, for which see p. 71).
[838] As Table XVI in the Appendix shows, Foy’s division received two of Sarrut’s regiments: Cassagne’s (now Darmagnac’s) took all the French infantry of the old Army of the Centre: Villatte’s (now Abbé’s) was given two of Abbé’s regiments of the Army of the North: Conroux’s division absorbed Maransin’s independent brigade: Barbot’s (now Vandermaesen’s) received two regiments of the Army of the North: Daricau’s (now Maransin’s) got half Leval’s ‘scrapped’ division, Taupin the other half of it: Maucune absorbed one of Vandermaesen’s old regiments, Lamartinière one of Sarrut’s.
[839] 120th Line of Lamartinière.
[840] 2nd Léger of same, which suffered heavily at Vittoria while under Sarrut.
[841] 20,957 to be exact.
[842] Not only the Afrancesados but some of the Army of the North troops withdrawn from the Biscay garrisons had a poor record, and had disgusted Foy in his recent Tolosa fight. These were high-numbered battalions, recently made up from the Bayonne conscript reserve.
[843] The best proof of the efficiency of the bulk of Villatte’s corps is that when Vandermaesen’s and Maucune’s divisions were cut to pieces in the battles of the Pyrenees, Soult made up a new brigade for each of them out of the Reserve. Joseph’s French Guards fought splendidly at San Marcial. The Germans were very steady veteran troops.
[844] Vidal de la Blache, i. p. 160.
[845] See above, p. 533. Jourdan to Joseph, July 5. The memorandum had been made over to Soult. Cf. Clere, Campagne du Maréchal Soult, p. 46, and Vidal de la Blache, i. p. 182.
[846] One asks oneself why Soult did not give Reille the Maya attack, saving him two-thirds of his journey, and send D’Erlon to join Clausel at St. Jean-Pied-du-Port, by a march much shorter than Reille was asked to make.
[847] It is said that persons acquainted with the country told Soult to send the whole column round by Bayonne, on account of the artillery, but that he refused. As a matter of fact, Lamartinière’s division and some of the guns did go that détour, owing to the broken bridge.
[848] Wellington to Graham, July 22. Dispatches, x. p. 559.
[849] Ibid., p. 563, same to same.
[850] Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 113.
[851] Ibid., p. 114.
[852] Wellington to Graham, July 24, Dispatches, x. p. 563.
[853] Same morning, to Giron, ibid., p. 564.
[854] Wellington to Graham, 25th July, Dispatches, x. p. 566.
[855] Wellington to Graham, Dispatches, x. p. 570.
[856] See especially Lemonnier-Delafosse, pp. 211-12, and Wachholz of Brunswick-Oels, p. 321.
[857] Vittoria and light companies of Doyle, La Union, and Legion Estremena.
[858] La Union and the Legion, minus their light companies.
[859] Doyle and 2nd of Jaen.
[860] Sometimes called the Puerto de Val Carlos.
[861] See the very interesting letter of Bainbrigge of the 20th, printed as an Appendix to the regimental history of that corps, p. 390.
[862] Bainbrigge says that it was 7 a.m. before the regiment reached the Linduz, but that it was an hour earlier is demonstrated by the fact that they heard firing at Roncesvalles after arriving. Now Byng’s fight on the Leiçaratheca began at 6 a.m. Therefore Ross was on the Linduz earlier.
[863] What became of this Spanish company? Captain Tovey of the 20th (see history of that corps, p. 408) says that the French ‘made the Spanish picquet, who were posted to give us intelligence, prisoners, without their firing a shot’. Another account is that having seen Ross arrive, they quietly went off to rejoin their brigade, without giving any notice.
[864] There is a curious and interesting account of all this in the Memoirs of Lemonnier-Delafosse, aide-de-camp to Clausel, who was twice sent to stir up Barbot, whose conduct he describes in scathing terms (pp. 212-14). Clausel says that the 50th stormed the Leiçaratheca. That it stormed an abandoned position is shown by the figure of its losses. What Clausel does not tell can be gathered from Byng’s workmanlike dispatch to Cole, in Supplementary Dispatches, viii. pp. 128-9.
[865] Of the 27th and 130th Line.
[866] I confess that I doubt these figures. Martinien’s lists show the 27th Line with seven officer-casualties, the 1st Line with two, the 25th Léger with three, the 130th with two. Fourteen officer-casualties ought to mean more like 280 than 100 casualties of all ranks. In the whole Pyrenean campaign the French army lost 120 officers to 12,300 men—nearly 30 men to each officer. Clausel asks us to believe that at Roncesvalles the proportion was one officer to twelve men! Yet, of course, such disproportion is quite possible.
[867] While we have quite a number of good personal narratives of the fight on the Linduz, I have found for the fight on the Leiçaratheca nothing but the official reports of Clausel, Byng, and Morillo, save the memoirs of George L’Estrange of the 31st and of Lemonnier-Delafosse, who is interesting but obviously inaccurate, since he says that the French regiment which carried the hill was the 71st. Not only was it the 50th, as Clausel specially mentions, but 71 was a blank number in the French Army List.
[868] Four, not five, because the light company of the 20th was absent with the other light companies far to the right: so the wing was only four companies strong, or three deducting Tovey’s men. Wachholz forgets this.
[869] Wachholz, p. 322.
[870] Tovey fortunately wrote a narrative of this little affair, which may be found in the history of the 20th, p. 408. He says: ‘The enemy’s light troops opened so galling a fire that Major-General Ross called out for a company to go to the front. Without waiting for orders I pushed out with mine, and in close order and double-quick cleared away the skirmishers from a sort of plateau. They did not wait for us: on reaching its opposite side we came so suddenly on the head of the enemy’s infantry column, which had just gained a footing on the summit of the hill, that the men of my company absolutely paused in astonishment, for we were face to face with them. The French officer called to us to throw down our arms: I replied “bayonet away,” and rushing on them we turned them back down the descent. Such was the panic and confusion caused by the sudden onset, that our small party (for such it was compared to the French column) had time to regain the regiment, but my military readers may rest assured that it required to be done double quick.’
[871] This ditch had been cut by the Spaniards in 1793 as an outer protection to their redoubt on the Linduz.
[872] Wachholz, p. 324.
[873] The 6th Léger, 69th (2 battalions), 76th, and 36th show casualties, the rear regiments (39th and 65th) none. Nor does Maucune’s division. Similarly on the British side none of Anson’s or Stubbs’s battalions contribute to the list.
[874] As we have seen already, Clausel puts his loss at the Leiçaratheca at 160, to Byng’s and Morillo’s 120. At the other end of the line Ross’s brigade had lost 216 men—139 of them in the 20th, 31 in the 7th, 42 in the 23rd, 4 in the Brunswick company. [I know not where Napier got his strange statement that this company lost 42 men: their captain, Wachholz, reports 2 killed and 2 wounded.] Foy’s six front battalions had lost 10 officers and 361 men. The total Allied loss was about 350, there having been a few casualties among Campbell’s Portuguese and among the Spaniards at Orbaiceta. The total French loss was not less than 530. Both figures are very moderate. Cole estimated the French casualties at 2,000 men! Soult wrote that he had almost exterminated the 20th, whose total loss had been 139.
[875] Cole to Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 127.
[876] Wellington to Liverpool, Dispatches, x. p. 596.
[877] See vol. iv. pp. 389-90.
[878] Cole to Murray, Linzoain, July 26th. Wrongly dated July 27th in Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 124.
[879] See diary of Dr. Henry, who was at Elizondo, and notes how all the senior officers rode out eastward (p. 161).
[880] Bell, vol. i. p. 102; Cadell, p. 161.
[881] One from each battalion plus the odd company of the 5/60th attached to each 2nd Division brigade.
[882] See Hope’s Military Memoirs, p. 319. Sceptical observers with telescopes said that the objects seen were droves of bullocks.
[883] See Moyle Sherer (who commanded the picquet), p. 257.
[884] Major Thorne, assistant quartermaster-general. Moyle Sherer says that Thorne owned that there was a small column on the move, but that he judged it to be a battalion shifting its quarters, or a relief of outposts.
[885] Mr. Fortescue (History of the Army, ix. p. 258) thinks that the 34th got up in time to join in their last struggle. But Bell of that regiment says ‘we laboured on, but all too late—a forlorn hope—our comrades were all killed, wounded, or prisoners. The enemy had full possession of the ground.’ Bell’s Rough Notes, i. p. 103.
[886] Bell’s Rough Notes, i. p. 103.
[887] Bell, i. p. 104.
[888] All this is most difficult to follow, our numerous sources contradicting each other in matters of detail in the most puzzling fashion. For this part of the narrative I have used, beside the dispatch of William Stewart, the books of Moyle Sherer of the 34th, who commanded the Aretesque picquet and was taken prisoner—Sir George Bell of the same regiment, Cadell of the 28th, Hope and Sergeant Robertson of the 92nd, Patterson of the 50th, the two anonymous diarists ‘J. S.’ and the ‘Scottish Soldier’ of the 71st, besides D’Erlon’s and Darmagnac’s original dispatches, lent me by Mr. Fortescue. I take it that each authority may be followed for the doings of his own corps, but is of inferior weight for those of other units. Patterson says that the 34th was at one time in close touch with the 50th, Cadell that the 28th and 92nd worked together, while Hope says that the 28th was only seen by the 92nd right wing after it had ended its terrible first entry into the fight. Patterson says that he saw O’Callaghan of the 39th fighting along with the 50th in the third episode of the combat, when, according to other sources, that regiment had already retreated south toward the valley with the 34th. Stewart’s dispatch only speaks of the 28th and 34th retiring in that direction, not the 39th. A confused fight has left confused memories. I cannot be sure of all the details.
[889] The statement in Napier and succeeding writers that the wounded of the right wing of the 92nd formed a bank behind which the French advance halted, and stood to receive the fire of the left wing of that same corps, whose bullets hit many of its comrades, comes from the narrative of Norton of the 34th (Napier, V. appendix, p. 442), who was some way off. That the troops which came up were the right wing 71st, and not the left wing 92nd, seems to me proved by the narrative of Hope of the 92nd, who distinctly says that the right wing were relieved by the 71st, and that the left wing were still holding the Maya position and under Stewart, who had just arrived, along with the left wing of the 71st (Military Memoirs, p. 210).
[890] He himself in his dispatch only says that it was after 1 p.m.
[891] Tulloh (commanding 2nd division batteries) to Dickson, in Dickson Papers, p. 1022. Wellington’s censure of Stewart may be found in Dispatches, x. p. 588, and his reply to the latter’s self-defence in xi. p. 107. The details are hard to follow: Wellington says that Pringle ordered the guns to be taken off by the road to Maya—that Stewart directed that they were to go back, and look to ‘the mountain road to Elizondo’ as their proper line of retreat. When it became necessary for them to retire at all costs, that road was already in the hands of the French. But I do not know precisely what Wellington meant by the mountain-road to Elizondo. Does it mean the track by which the 28th and 34th had retired?
[892] See Stewart’s Report to Hill, Berueta, July 26.
[893] Robertson, pp. 109-10.
[894] Stewart’s dispatch says that it was the 82nd who fought with stones.
[895] This was not the brigade to which the 82nd belonged, but the reserve brigade of the 7th Division, short of one of its units, the 3rd Provisional.
[896] Cf. Dispatches, x. pp. 597-8.
[897] ‘Lettres de l’Empereur Napoléon non insérées dans la Correspondance, publiées par X. Paris and Nancy, 1909,’ page 3. It is amusing to find out what Napoleon III omitted of his uncle’s letters.
[898] ‘Lettres de l’Empereur Napoléon non insérées dans la Correspondance,’ p. 13.
[899] Wellington’s letter to Graham, giving the false report that D’Erlon had been repulsed at Maya, is dated at 10 p.m. The letter to O’Donnell must be a little later, as it repeats this error, but adds that a note has come in from Cole, saying that he was heavily engaged at noon. Dispatches, x. pp. 566-7.
[900] The dispatch giving this information (Dispatches, x. p. 570) is wrongly dated in the Wellington correspondence. It should be July 26th at 4 a.m. The hour of the receipt of Hill’s and Stewart’s reports is not given.
[901] All in Supplementary Dispatches, viii. pp. 120-1.
[902] Hill to Murray, Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 121.
[903] The orders to Pack and Dalhousie may be found in Supplementary Dispatches, xix. p. 258-9, dated from Almandoz—obviously before Cole’s dispatch had come to hand.
[904] This letter in Supplementary Dispatches, viii. pp. 124-5, is there wrongly dated July 27th (for 26th). Cole, of course, was no longer at Linzoain on the 27th.
[905] To Picton from Almandoz, Supplementary Dispatches, xiv. p. 259.
[906] Picton to Murray, 8.30 p.m., Supplementary Dispatches, xviii. pp. 121-2.
[909] These are his own words, in his Report of August 2.
[910] Foy to Reille, July 20.
[911] Reille to Soult, July 27.
[912] The tall hat is vouched for by George L’Estrange of the 31st, and Wachholz from Ross’s brigade, the furled umbrella by Bainbrigge of the 20th, all eye-witnesses, whose narratives are among the few detailed accounts of this retreat.
[913] Words overheard by Bainbrigge in his own company.
[914] See Quartermaster-General to Picton, enclosing letter for Cole, sent off from Lesaca on July 23 (Supplementary Dispatches, viii. pp. 112-13), which must have reached Picton at Olague on the 24th.
[915] This seems a more controvertible plea. Orders went out from Lesaca on the 23rd, and must have reached Picton not very late in the day on the 24th. Supposing he had marched from Olague on the afternoon of the 24th, he would have been at Zubiri (only 6 miles off) on that same night, or even at Viscarret. And from Zubiri to Roncesvalles is not an excessive day’s march for the 25th, especially when firing was to be heard at the front.
[916] The remaining four were in the Caçador battalion of Stubbs’s Portuguese brigade.
[917] Unfortunately all French losses are given en bloc for the six days July 27 to August 1, and the casualties of each day cannot be disentangled. The casualties of Maya and Roncesvalles can be ascertained, but not those of the subsequent days.
[918] Viz. about 6,000 of Cole’s division, 5,000 of his own, 1,700 of Byng’s brigade, 2,500 of Campbell’s Portuguese at Eugui, only a few miles away, and something under 4,000 of Morillo’s Spaniards.
[919] See Belmas, iv. p. 803.
[920] Napier says (v. p. 225), and all subsequent historians have followed him, that Picton originally intended to place Cole on a line between Oricain and Arleta, i. e. on the low back-slope of the ridge. This seems to me almost incredible, as this ground is all running downhill, completely commanded by the much loftier crests about the Col. Surely no one, according to the tactical ideas of 1813, would take up a defensive position half-way down a slope whose summit is abandoned to the enemy. I can find no authority save Napier (who was not in the battle) for this curious statement. And I am justified, I think, in holding that the San Miguel hill was the place where Picton intended to place Cole, by the narrative and sketch-map of Wachholz of Ross’s brigade, who places the first position of the 4th Division on a well-marked hill immediately to the right of Villaba, and close to the 3rd Division’s ground at Huarte. This must mean San Miguel.
[921] R. Hill’s, Ponsonby’s, the Hussar brigade, and D’Urban’s Portuguese, Fane’s brigade, which was observing on the side of Aragon, did not arrive this day.
[922] One of the 4th Line.
[923] Reille’s report of August 1st.
[924] Clausel in his report says that he arrived in time to see the 4th Division cross the hill of Oricain.
[925] Perhaps Carlos de España’s division, arriving from the south.
[926] All this from the very interesting narrative of Clausel’s aide-de-camp Lemonnier Delafosse (p. 220), who bore the first message to Soult, and was (like his chief) much irritated by the Marshal’s caution and refusal to commit himself. Clausel had got a completely erroneous notion of the enemy’s intentions—like Ney at Bussaco.
[927] Quartermaster-General to Sir R. Hill, Supplementary Dispatches, viii. pp. 259-60.
[928] Wellington to Pack, Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 122, wrongly dated 1 o’clock—it should be 10 o’clock. Wellington was at Sorauren by 11.
[929] Final destination not given—clearly it might be down the high-road to Pampeluna; but if Picton had retreated still further and raised the siege, it might be to Lizaso, to join Hill and the rest.
[930] Wellington described his ride to Larpent, his Judge-Advocate General, a week later, in the following terse language (Larpent, p. 242): ‘At one time it was rather alarming, certainly, and a close run thing. When I came to the bridge of Sorauren I saw French on the hills on one side, and it was clear that we could make a stand on the other hill, in our position of the 28th, but I found that we could not keep Sorauren, as it was exposed to their fire and not to ours. I was obliged to write my orders accordingly at Sorauren, to be sent back instantly. For if they had not been dispatched back directly, by the way I had come, I must have sent them four leagues round, a quarter of an hour later. I stopped therefore to write accordingly, people saying to me all the time, “The French are coming!” “The French are coming!” I looked pretty sharp after them every now and then, till I had completed my orders, and then set off. I saw them just near the one end of the village as I went out of it at the other end. And then we took up our ground.’ Wellington then added, in a confidential moment, that there need have been no fuss or trouble, if only Cole had kept sending the proper information on the 26th and 27th. If only his intention of going right back to Pampeluna had been known earlier, the 6th and 7th Divisions could have been up on the 27th, and Hill’s corps too, which had been kept at Irurita and Berueta for 36 hours, because the situation in the south was concealed by Cole’s reticence. ‘We should have stopped the French much sooner.’
[931] French critics expressed surprise that Wellington did not tell Pack to fall on Clausel’s flank and rear. But the 6th Division, attacking from Olague, would have been out of touch with the rest of the army, and Wellington did not believe in attacks by isolated corps uncombined with the main army, and unable to communicate with it. See Dumas’ Campagne du Maréchal Soult, p. 163.
[932] Bainbrigge’s narrative in Smyth’s History of the XXth, p. 396.