But Soult can have been no better pleased: time, to him also, meant

everything; and the orders which he had issued to his lieutenants had

presupposed an easy triumph by surprise in the early morning, with a

forward march in the afternoon. Instead of this he had won by nightfall

a bare foothold on the summit of each pass, after much fighting of an

unsatisfactory sort. He, too, had lost a day; and it was only on the

morrow that he discovered that both at Maya and at Roncesvalles the

enemy had slipped away in the dark, leaving to him the power to debouch

from the defiles.

[Illustration: BATTLE OF SORAUREN

July 28th 1813 Showing the General Situation at 1.15 PM.]

Nevertheless, the Marshal sent on the morning of the 26th a very

flamboyant message of victory to his master the Emperor, who then lay

at Mayence. Both Maya and Roncesvalles had been forced, D’Erlon had

captured five guns and many hundreds of prisoners at the former pass:

he himself hoped to be at Pampeluna, and to have raised its siege, by

the 27th. These news were sent on from Bayonne by semaphore to Paris

and the Rhine, and reached Napoleon on August 1st. At the same time,

and by the same rapid method of transmission, arrived General Rey’s

report of his successful repulse of the assault of July 25th. It

is worth while to turn away from solid history for a moment, in order

to see how the Imperial editor of the _Moniteur_ utilized this useful

material for propaganda. He first wrote to Clarke the Minister of

War: ‘We can now give the public some account of affairs in Spain.

The Vittoria business and the King must not be mentioned. The first

note which you must put in the _Moniteur_ should run as follows--“His

Majesty has named the Duke of Dalmatia as his lieutenant-general

commanding his armies in Spain. The Marshal took up the command on July

12, and made immediate dispositions for marching against the besiegers

of Pampeluna and St. Sebastian.” After that put in General Rey’s first

letter about the events of the 25th-27th. You had better make some

small additions to the number of prisoners and of guns captured, not

for French consumption but to influence European opinion. As I am

printing General Rey’s dispatch in the _Frankfort Journal_, and have

made some changes of this sort in it, I send you a corrected copy so

that it may appear in the _Moniteur_ in identical terms.’

The Emperor’s second letter to his Foreign Minister, the Duke of

Bassano, sent from Dresden three days later, is even more amusing. ‘You

had better circulate the news that in consequence of Marshal Soult’s

victory over the English on July 25, the siege of St. Sebastian has

been raised, and 30 siege-guns and 200 waggons taken. The blockade of

Pampeluna was raised on the 27th: General Hill, who was in command at

that siege, could not carry off his wounded, and was obliged to burn

part of his baggage. Twelve siege-guns (24-pounders) were captured

there. Send this to Prague, Leipzig, and Frankfort[897].’

This ‘intelligent anticipation of the future,’ for utilization in the

armistice-negotiations going on with Austria, could not have been

bettered. Unfortunately there arrived next day another semaphore

message from Soult of the night of the 26th-27th. The Emperor has to

warn Caulaincourt that yesterday’s propaganda will not stand criticism.

‘I have just got another “telegraphic dispatch” sent on by the Empress

from Mayence, giving another communication from Soult, written 24 hours

after the last, in which he said he would be at Pampeluna on the 27th.

The enemy lost many men and seven guns. But nothing decisive seems to

have happened. I am impatient for more news, in order to be able to

understand in detail Soult’s dispositions, and to form from them a

general idea of the situation[898].’

Alas for human ingenuity! Soult’s next dispatch, of July 29, was not to

be of the sort that craved for publicity in the _Moniteur_, even with

the most judicious editing.

But to return from Dresden to Biscay, and from the head-quarters of the

Emperor to those of the ‘Sepoy General’ whom he had at last begun to

recognize as capable of ‘des projets très sensés.’

If only Wellington had been at his head-quarters at Lesaca at 11

o’clock on the morning of July 25th, and if William Stewart had been

on the spot at Maya, and had sent early news of D’Erlon’s attack,

many things might have happened differently. Wellington would have

had a long afternoon before him to concert operations, and would

have possessed information to guide him in drawing up his scheme.

Unfortunately he was absent--as we have seen--and only received at

6 o’clock a second-hand report from Lord Dalhousie at Echalar, to

the effect that fighting was going on at Maya, with the unfortunate

addition that D’Erlon had been repulsed--a most inaccurate summary

of what had happened. Later on in the evening, not before 10 p.m.,

came Cole’s first dispatch from Roncesvalles, to say that he and Byng

were heavily engaged at 1 o’clock with a large French force, and

were holding their own. On these scanty data Wellington felt that no

conclusions could be drawn--he wrote to Graham that there must be a

great mass of French troops not yet discovered, which would come into

action on some other point on the 26th, and that his policy would

depend on where that force appeared--he could only account for 30,000

of Soult’s men so far. He did not commit himself to any definite guess

as to the undiscovered part of the Marshal’s plan, but from his other

correspondence it is clear that he suspected an attempt to relieve St.

Sebastian by an attack on the lower Bidassoa--a very possible solution

of the problem, but not the correct one[899].

Awaiting further developments, Wellington issued no more orders on the

night of the 25th, save one to the Conde de Abispal, directing him to

send one of his two infantry divisions from in front of Pampeluna to

join Picton and Cole, and to keep the fortress blockaded by the other.

The force thus taken away would be replaced by Carlos de España’s

division, which was marching up from Burgos, and due to arrive on the

26th. In this dispatch Wellington asked the Conde to direct Mina to

send up his infantry from Saragossa, and told him that he was intending

to order to the front the British heavy cavalry brigades, now cantoned

along the Ebro. No other movements were settled that night; but

Wellington was aware that during his absence his Quartermaster-General,

George Murray, had directed Lord Dalhousie to have the 7th Division

massed at Echalar, prepared to move at an hour’s notice, and Charles

Alten at Vera to have the Light Division got into a similar readiness.

Either would be able to march off at dawn.

Somewhere late in the night[900] Wellington received more news, which

made the situation clearer but more unsatisfactory. The true story of

the Maya fighting came in from two sources: Hill sent a dispatch dated

from Elizondo at some hour after 6 p.m., to say that on getting back

from the Alduides he had found Stewart unable to hold the Pass, and had

bidden him to retire. Stewart, who was wounded and unable to write,

sent a verbal message, which came in about the same time, reporting

that Hill had directed him to fall back on Elizondo and Berueta. The

officers who brought this information stated that the French were in

great force, and that the 2nd Division had been much cut up. No more

reports arrived from Cole, so that the result of the Roncesvalles

fighting remained unknown.

After what must have been a very short and disturbed night’s rest,

Wellington was in the saddle by 4 a.m. on the 26th, and preparing to

ride up the Bastan to visit Hill, and to ascertain the exact measure

of the mishap at Maya. Before departing from Lesaca he gave his first

definite orders in view of the events of the previous day[901]. Maya

being lost, the 7th Division must fall back from Echalar to Sumbilla,

on the road to Santesteban: the Light Division must retire from

Vera to the west bank of the Bidassoa, and be ready to march either

towards Yanzi or towards Santesteban, as might be necessary. Longa’s

Cantabrians were to block the hill road from the Bidassoa to Oyarzun.

Graham was told to hurry on the embarkation of the siege-train from

St. Sebastian. Hill was to hold on as long as he could to the position

at Irurita, in order to keep touch with the 6th Division, which was

directed to feel towards him, and to be ready to join him if necessary.

It was to push two of its three brigades to Legasa, on the road from

Santesteban along the upper Bidassoa, which would bring them within

eight miles of Hill’s proposed line of defence at Irurita. The third

brigade of the 6th Division was to stand fast at Santesteban, where it

would be in touch with Dalhousie, when the latter should have reached

Sumbilla.

All these orders, as is obvious, are concerned only with the measures

necessary to stop D’Erlon’s advance. None of them have any reference to

the action of the other French force at Roncesvalles. Till news should

come up from Cole and Picton, it was impossible to realize what was

going on at that front, or whether the enemy was making his main attack

in that direction. There might be still (as Wellington had guessed

three days back) a violent demonstration towards Pampeluna, intended to

distract a real attempt to relieve St. Sebastian.

And this state of ignorance with regard to the southern theatre of

operations was destined to last till late in the afternoon. Either

Cole and Picton themselves, or the officers to whom they entrusted

their dispatches, were sadly lacking in a sense of the value of the

prompt delivery of news. Wellington rode along the Bidassoa for many

a mile, till he came on Hill still holding the position of Irurita,

and entirely unmolested by the French. There were now in line the

sadly reduced remnant of the British brigades which had fought at

Maya, and da Costa’s and Ashworth’s Portuguese, with the three

7th-Division battalions which had saved Stewart from disaster. The

total made up about 9,000 bayonets. Hill estimated[902] D’Erlon’s force

at 14,000 men--a miscalculation, for even after the losses at Maya

there were still 18,000 French in line. The immediate result of the

error, however, was beneficial rather than otherwise, for Wellington

considered that Hill was in no particular danger, and let him stand,

while he himself rode southward towards the lofty Col de Velate, to

seek for intelligence from the Pampeluna front in person, since his

lieutenants had vouchsafed him none. He reached Almandoz, near the

crest of the Pass, in the afternoon, and resolved to establish his

head-quarters there for the night, as it was conveniently central

between the two halves of his army.

Soon after his arrival Wellington, being much vexed at receiving no

news whatever from the south, resolved to send the 6th Division toward

Pampeluna by the Col de Velate as a matter of precaution--they were

to march to Olague in the valley of the Lanz. The 7th Division was

to close in, to take up the ground where the 6th had been placed,

and cover Hill’s left flank[903]. That haste in these movements was

not considered a primary necessity, is shown by the fact that Pack

and Dalhousie were told that they need not march till the morning of

the 27th. For the enemy’s surprising quiescence at the head of the

Maya pass had reassured Wellington as to any danger on this side. If

D’Erlon, indeed, possessed no more than 14,000 men, Hill with the

aid of the 7th Division could easily take care of him. And the Light

Division might still be left near Lesaca, as a reserve for Graham in

case any new mass of French troops should take the offensive on the

Bidassoa.

D’Erlon’s conduct on the morning of the 26th was explicable to himself,

though inexplicable to his enemy. He had been engaged in a most

bitter fight, in which he had lost 2,000 men and more. Two British

divisions, so he wrote to Soult, were in front of him--the 2nd and the

7th. For he had taken Barnes’s brigade for the whole of Dalhousie’s

unit--the effect of its desperate charge almost justified him in the

hypothesis. These troops had been forced to a strategic retreat, but

by no means put out of action. They must have been joined, ere now,

by the Portuguese column which Darmagnac had sighted on its approach

to Ariscun. But there were also troops on his right, of whom he must

beware: he knew that Vera and Echalar had been held in strength, and

Graham might send reinforcements in that direction, and assemble a

heavy force on his flank. Hence he resolved to discover how matters lay

by reconnaissances, before committing himself to the march down into

the Bastan and then up the Col de Velate which his orders prescribed.

‘In my position on the pass of Maya,’ he wrote, ‘I had on my right all

the forces which the enemy had in line as far as St. Sebastian. I had

to be prudent, in order not to expose myself to a check in the Bastan,

in which the enemy was holding the strongest position. I therefore

determined to leave Abbé and Maransin in the pass, with orders to send

out reconnaissances towards Santesteban, Echalar, and Mount Atchiola.

They would profit by the halt to distribute the half-ration of food

which had just come up from Ainhoue. I sent Darmagnac down the road to

Ariscun, with orders to push a vanguard to Elizondo, and to explore

towards the passes of Ispegui and Berderis, to see if there were any

hostile force still on my left.’

An advance of six miles to Elizondo, and that by a mere advanced guard,

was all the movement that D’Erlon made this day. It was not till

the afternoon that he learnt, by Abbé’s reconnaissances, that there

were still allied troops on his right--apparently the Light Division

opposite Vera, and the 7th at Sumbilla--while Darmagnac reported that

the eastern passes were clear, but that Hill was lying across the road

beyond Elizondo in great strength. In the evening D’Erlon heard that

Soult had forced the pass of Roncesvalles, and was about to advance:

this success, he deduced, would make the enemy in front of him give

way, in fear that his positions might be taken from behind. So he

thought himself justified in ordering a general advance for the morning

of the 27th--though Maransin was still to remain for a day at Maya,

lest any allied force might move up from the west against the pass.

Thus it came that for the whole of July 26th Hill was unmolested, and

Soult’s plan for a rapid concentration round Pampeluna became almost

impossible to carry out. A whole day had been wasted by D’Erlon, though

he was not without his extenuating circumstances.

Wellington meanwhile received at Almandoz, probably at about 8

p.m., the long-expected news from the South. They were, as we

know, most unsatisfactory: Cole reported from Linzoain, on the

Roncesvalles-Pampeluna road, that he had been driven out of the pass

by an army of 35,000 men or more, that he had not yet been joined

by the 3rd Division, and was still retreating towards Zubiri, where

he understood that Picton would meet him and take over the command.

His view of the situation was shown by a remark that if he had not

been superseded, and had been compelled to retreat past Pampeluna, he

supposed that the road towards Vittoria would have been the right one

to take[904]. This most exasperating dispatch only reached Wellington

that night by mere chance. The officer bearing it was going to Lesaca,

having no knowledge that Army Head-Quarters had left that place: at

Lanz he happened to meet the cavalry brigadier Long, whose squadrons

were keeping up the line of communication between the two halves of the

Army. Hearing from the aide-de-camp of the sort of news that the letter

contained, Long opened it and made a copy of it, which he sent to Sir

Rowland Hill, before permitting the bearer to go on. Hill received

the transcript at Berueta at 6 p.m., and very wisely forwarded it to

Wellington at Almandoz. The original was carried on by Cole’s messenger

to Santesteban, and did not reach Wellington that night.

Thanks to Long’s and Hill’s intelligent action, the Commander-in-Chief

could grasp the whole unpleasant situation at 8 p.m. on the 26th. He

sent orders to Picton at once, telling him that the enemy must at all

costs be detained: that considering the force at his disposal, he

ought to be able to check Soult for some time in front of Zubiri: that

he would be joined at once by one of O’Donnell’s divisions from the

Pampeluna blockading force, and shortly by reinforcements coming from

the Bastan (the 6th Division). Wellington himself was intending to ride

over to the right wing by the next afternoon. Till he should arrive,

Picton must send reports every few hours[905]. Unfortunately, Cole and

Picton had got things into an even worse state than could have been

expected. Just as Wellington was drafting these orders for an obstinate

rearguard action, they were at 8.30 p.m. preparing to evacuate the

Zubiri position, and setting out on a night march for Pampeluna[906].

To explain this move we must go back to the state of affairs at

Roncesvalles on the very foggy morning of July 26th. Cole, Byng, and

Morillo had abandoned, as we have already seen[907], their position on

Altobiscar and the Linduz under cover of the night, and had all fallen

into the Pampeluna road, Ross’s brigade descending from the heights

by the Mendichuri pass, the other three brigades and Morillo moving

by the _chaussée_ past the Abbey and Burguete. Anson’s brigade formed

the rearguard, not having been engaged on the previous day. Morillo’s

outlying battalion at the Foundry of Orbaiceta safely joined in by a

hill path. Campbell’s Portuguese retired by the way that they had come,

along the Path of Atalosti, but instead of returning to the Alduides

followed a mule track to Eugui in the upper valley of the Arga.

Cole’s long column, after completing its night march, took a

much-needed rest for many hours along the high road near Viscarret. It

saw nothing of the French till the early afternoon, when an exploring

party of chasseurs ran into the rearguard of Anson’s brigade.

What had Soult been doing between early dawn, when his outposts

ascertained that there was no enemy in front of them, and three

o’clock in the afternoon, when his cavalry rediscovered Cole? To our

surprise we find that he had been attempting to repeat his error of

the preceding day--that of sending a whole army corps along a rugged

mule track, similar to the one on which Reille’s column had been

blocked by Ross’s brigade. His original order on the 25th had been that

Reille, after seizing the Linduz, should turn along the ‘crest of the

mountains’, occupy the Atalosti defile, and push ever westward till

he could threaten the Col de Velate, the main line of communication

between the two sections of Wellington’s army. One would have supposed

that the events of the 25th on the Linduz, where one British brigade

had checked for a whole day Reille’s column of 17,000 men in Indian

file, would have taught him the impracticability of such plans. But (as

Soult’s malevolent critic, quoted already above, observed) when the

Marshal had once got his plan drawn up on paper it was like the laws of

the Medes and Persians, and must not be altered[908].

While Clausel was directed to use the _chaussée_ and pursue Cole

along the Pampeluna road past Roncesvalles, Burguete, and Espinal,

Reille was once more ordered[909] ‘to follow the crest of the

mountains to the right, and to try to take in the rear the hostile

corps which has been holding the pass of Maya against Count D’Erlon.’

The itinerary seems insane: there was a mule track and no more, and

Soult proposed to engage upon it a column of 17,000 men, with a front

of one file and a depth of at least six miles, allowing for the

battalion- and brigade-intervals. The crest was not a flat plateau,

but an interminable series of ups and downs, often steep and stony,

occasionally wooded. Campbell’s brigade had traversed part of it on the

25th, but to move a brigade on a fine day is a different thing from

moving an army corps in a fog.

Reille obeyed orders, though the fog was lying as densely upon the

mountains as on the preceding night. Apparently Soult had supposed

that it would lift at dawn--but it did not till midday. Lamartinière’s

division was left to guard the Linduz and the debouch of the Atalosti

path: Foy’s, followed by Maucune’s, tried to keep to the crest, with

the most absurd results. It was supposed to be guided by French-Basque

peasants (smugglers, no doubt) who were reputed to know the ground.

After going no more than a mile or two in the fog, the guides, at a

confusion of tracks in the middle of a wood, came to a standstill,

and talked volubly to Foy in unintelligible Basque. Whether they had

lost their way, or were giving advice, the General could not quite

discover. In despair he allowed the leading battalion to take the most

obvious track. They had got completely off the Atalosti path, and after

two miles of downhill marching found themselves on the _chaussée_

not far from Espinal, with the rear of Clausel’s corps defiling past

them[910]. It would still have been possible to stop the column, for

only one brigade had reached the foot of the mountain, and Maucune and

Lamartinière were still on the crest. But Reille took upon himself the

responsibility of overriding his commander’s impracticable directions,

and ordered Foy to go on, and the rest to follow, and to fall in to the

rear of Clausel’s impedimenta. ‘Il est fort dangereux dans les hautes

montagnes de s’engager sans guides et en brouillard,’ as he very truly

observed. Justifying himself in a letter of that night to Soult, he

wrote that if it were absolutely necessary to get on the crest-path

again, it could be done by turning up the Arga valley at Zubiri, and

following it to Eugui, from which there were tracks both to the Col de

Velate and to Irurita.[911]

Thus ended Soult’s impracticable scheme for seizing the Col de Velate

by marching three divisions along a precipitous mule track. Even if

there had been no fog, it is hard to believe that anything could have

come of it, as Campbell’s Portuguese would have been found at Eugui

well on in the day, and after Reille’s column would have been much

fatigued. Any show of resistance, even by one brigade, would have

checked Foy, and compelled Reille to deploy--an interminable affair, as

the fight on the Linduz upon the preceding afternoon had sufficiently

demonstrated. But to try this manœuvre in a dense fog was insane, and

Reille was quite right to throw it up.

The whole interest, therefore, of the French operation on July 26th

turns on the doing of Clausel’s column. It advanced very cautiously

down the slopes to the Abbey of Roncesvalles, discovering no trace of

the enemy save a few abandoned wounded. Having reached the upland

valley of Burguete, Clausel sent out cavalry patrols, and found, after

much searching in the fog, that Cole had gone off with his whole force

towards Espinal. His rearguard was discovered bivouacking along the

road beyond that village. When it sighted the French it retired towards

Viscarret. Clausel then ordered his infantry to pursue, but they were

far to the rear and it was only about 3 p.m. when Taupin’s division

came into touch with the light companies of Anson’s brigade, just

as they were falling back on the whole 4th Division, drawn up in a

favourable position on heights behind the Erro river, near the village

of Linzoain. The day had at last become clear and fine. The 31st Léger,

leading the French column, exchanged a lively fusillade with the light

companies, while a squadron of chasseurs tried a charge on their flank.

But both were driven off, and Clausel halted when he saw Cole waiting

for him in order of battle. It was not till he had brought up and

deployed two divisions that he ventured to press the Allied front, and

nothing serious happened till after 4 o’clock.

Meanwhile Picton had come up from the rear, and joined Cole at

Linzoain: the head of his troops had reached Zubiri only three miles

behind. The arrival of the truculent general, looking even more

eccentric than usual, for he was wearing a tall round civilian hat

above a blue undress frock-coat, and was using a furled umbrella by

way of riding whip, was taken by the 4th-Division soldiers as a sign

of battle[912]. ‘Here comes old Tommy: now, boys, make up your minds

for a fight’ passed down the ranks[913]. But, oddly enough, this

was about the only day in Sir Thomas’s military career when he did

not take a fair risk. He certainly came up in a bellicose mood, for

he ordered Ross’s brigade to be ready to move forward when the 3rd

Division should have come up to support it. But after riding to the

front, and holding a long talk with Cole, he agreed with the latter

that it would be dangerous to fight on ground which could be turned

on both flanks, with an enemy who was known to have 35,000 men in

hand. Only part of the French were up--Reille’s divisions after their

stroll in the fog were far to the rear behind Clausel--so it would

be possible to hold on till night, and slip away in the dark. Picton

wrote to Wellington to report his decision, and does not seem in

his dispatch to have realized in the least that he was contravening

the whole spirit of his commander’s instructions of July 23rd with

reference to the ‘stopping of the enemy’s progress towards Pampeluna in

the event of the passes being given up[914].’ He merely stated that he

had received these instructions too late to make it possible for him

to reach Roncesvalles, or to join Cole before the latter had evacuated

his positions[915]. As there was no favourable ground between the Erro

river and the immediate vicinity of Pampeluna, on which a smaller

force could make an effectual stand against a much larger one, he had

determined to retire at once, and proposed to ‘take up a position at

as short a distance as practicable from Pampeluna’--by which he meant

the heights of San Cristobal, only two or three miles out from that

fortress. He was thus intending to give up without further fighting

ten miles of most difficult hilly country, where the enemy could be

checked for a time at every successive ridge--though, no doubt, all the

positions could be turned one after the other by long flank détours.

But the net result was that Picton gave Soult a clear road on the 27th,

and allowed him to arrive in front of Pampeluna on that day, whereas

the least show of resistance between Zubiri and the debouch into the

plains at Huarte, would have forced the French to deploy and waste

time, and they could not have reached the open country till the 28th.

This is sufficiently proved by the extreme difficulty which Soult found

in conducting his march, even when he was not opposed.

So determined was Picton not to fight on the Erro river, or on the

Arga, that he did not bring up his own division from Zubiri, but let it

stand, only three miles behind the line on which Cole kept up a mild

detaining action during the late afternoon hours of the 26th. Soult

attacked with great caution, and more by way of flank movements than by

frontal pressure. By evening Cole had drawn back one mile, and had 168

casualties, all but four of them in Anson’s brigade[916]. Those of the

French can hardly have been more numerous: they seem all to have been

in Taupin’s division[917].

On the afternoon of the 26th Picton had nearly 19,000 men at his

disposition[918], Soult had somewhat less, since Reille’s column was

so far to the rear that it could not get up before dark. There was no

wonder, therefore, that the enemy made no resolute attack; and it can

only be said that the Marshal was acting very wisely, for the French

force on the ground was not sufficient to move the opposing body, until

Reille should have come up; and Cole and Picton had resolved not to

give way before dark. But when the fires of the French, shining for

many miles on each side of the road, showed that they had settled down

for the night, Cole drew off his division, and retired on Zubiri, where

he passed through Picton’s troops, who were to take over the rearguard

duty, as they were fresh and well rested. Campbell’s Portuguese dropped

into the line of march from Eugui, by orders issued to them that

afternoon, and by 11 p.m. the whole corps was in march for Pampeluna.

Its departure had passed wholly unnoticed by the enemy. Meanwhile,

Wellington’s aide-de-camp, riding through the night from Almandoz, with

orders to Picton to maintain the ground which he was abandoning, can

only have met the column when it was drawing near its destination.

It was quite early in the morning, though the sun was well up, when the

head of the retreating column reached the village of Zabaldica, where

the valley of the Arga begins to open out into the plain of Pampeluna,

between the last flanking heights which constrict it. In front was the

very ill-chosen position which Picton intended to hold, along a line of

hills which are quite separate from the main block of the mountains,

and stretch isolated in the lowland for some five miles north-west and

south-east. These are the hill of Huarte on the right, parted from the

mountains by the valley of the Egues river; the hill of San Miguel in

the centre, on the other side of the high road and of the Arga river,

and on the left the very long ridge of San Cristobal, separated from

San Miguel by the Ulzama river, which flows all along its front.

Now these hills are strong posts in themselves, each with a good

glacis of slope in its front; the gaps between them are stopped

by the large villages of Villaba and Huarte, both susceptible of

obstinate defence; and the two flanking hills are covered in front

by river-beds--though fordable ones. But they are far too close to

Pampeluna, which is but one single mile from San Cristobal: the guns

of the fortress actually commanded at a range of only 1,200 yards, the

sole road of communication along the rear of the position. Cassan’s

garrison of 3,000 men was not large enough to furnish men for any large

sortie--though he made a vigorous sally against O’Donnell’s blockading

division on the 27th, and destroyed some of its trenches[919]. But no

army should fight with a hostile fortress less than two miles in its

rear, and commanding its line of retreat: it is surprising that such

an old soldier as Picton chose this ground--presumably he was seduced

by the fine position for both infantry and guns which it shows looking

towards the enemy’s road of arrival.

Apparently Cole had a better eye for ground than Picton, for as they

were riding together between Zabaldica and Huarte, he pointed out to

his senior the advantage that would be gained by throwing forward the

left wing of the army to a position much more remote from Pampeluna,

the hill of Oricain or Sorauren, which faces the San Cristobal ridge

from the other side of the Ulzama river[920]. This height is the

last roll of the mountains, but almost separated from their main

_massif_: it is only joined to the next summit by a high _col_ at its

right centre. For the rest of its length it is separated from its

neighbour-height by a well-marked ravine. Its flanks are guarded by

the beds of the Arga to the right and the Ulzama to the left. It is

well under two miles long, about 1,000 feet high, and except at the

Col has a very formidable front of steep slopes, covered with gorse

and scattered bushes. The whole formed a strong and self-contained

position, whose weak point was that it was rather too much in advance

of the Huarte-San Miguel heights, which trend away southward, so that

when the army was drawn out its right was much ‘refused,’ and its left

very much thrown forward. It was also inconvenient that the access

to the crest from the rear was bad, a steep climb by sheep-tracks

from Oricain or Arre, up which all food or munitions would have to

be brought. From the north there was a slightly better path to the

summit from Sorauren, leading up to the small pilgrimage chapel of

San Salvador on the left end of the crest. But this would be of more

use to the assailants than to the defenders of the heights. Between

the Col and the river Arga, and close above the village of Zabaldica,

there was a spur or under-feature of the main position, which formed

a sort of outwork or flank protection to it. At the moment when the

retreating army was passing on towards Huarte, this spur was being held

by two Spanish battalions, part of the division which O’Donnell, by

Wellington’s orders, had detached to reinforce Picton. It was perhaps

the sight of this small force in a very good position which suggested

to Cole that the right policy was to prolong his line in continuation

of it, across the Col and as far as the chapel above Sorauren.

Having allowed Cole to take up his new advanced position, Picton drew

out the 3rd Division on the hill to the right of Huarte, with its flank

eastwards covered by four brigades of cavalry, which had come up by

Wellington’s orders from their cantonments on the Ebro[921]. Morillo’s

Spaniards continued the line westward along the Cerro de San Miguel,

as far as Villaba: from thence the San Cristobal ridge was occupied by

the greater part of the division which O’Donnell had drawn from the

blockading lines--all, in fact, save the two battalions in advance

on the hill by Zabaldica. Later in the day two battalions more were

added from the besieging force, for Carlos de España’s division from

Castile had arrived, and relieved part of the troops which had hitherto

been observing Pampeluna. Byng’s brigade was told off to support the

4th Division, and took post on the rear of the summit of the Oricain

hill, half a mile behind Cole. The actual fighting line on the left

was composed of Anson’s brigade on the Col, next to the Spaniards on

the lower spur, of Campbell’s Portuguese upon the central stretch

of the heights (except one battalion which was sent to support the

Spaniards below)[922], and of Ross’s brigade holding the left. Stubbs’s

Portuguese were in rear of Campbell’s, except the 7th Caçadores, which

was detached to the front and held the ground about the chapel of San

Salvador. The divisional battery (Sympher’s of the K.G.L.) was placed

far down the right side of the hill, below and behind Byng’s brigade,

in a position from which it could sweep the high road from Zabaldica to

Arleta. Cole’s tactical dispositions were in the complete Wellingtonian

style, with the light companies and caçadores thrown out some way

down the slope, far in advance of the main force, whose battalions

were drawn back well behind the sky-line, so as to be invisible till

the last moment to enemies storming the hill. Soult followed up the

retreating Allies at such a slow pace that the whole of Picton’s

troops were settling into their ground before the enemy came in

sight[923].

The slow advance of the French was due to the accumulation of such

a large force in a narrow valley provided with only one road. The

Marshal made an attempt to relieve the congestion, by ordering that the

_chaussée_ should be left to Clausel and to the cavalry and impedimenta

in his rear, while Reille’s divisions should move on the east bank of

the Arga by local paths between the villages. The excellent intention

of securing room for both columns to move freely had no good result.

Clausel arrived in front of Zabaldica by 9 a.m.[924] But Reille was

nowhere in sight. His report fully explains his absence: he had

obeyed orders by turning up into the hills a mile and a half beyond

the village of Erro. ‘This direction rendered the march of the three

divisions extremely slow and difficult. They found no road, and had

to tramp through brushwood, climb steep slopes, or to follow tracks

obliterated by recent rain. At last Count Reille took the decision

to abandon the high ground. The 1st Division (Foy) dropped down to

the village of Alzuza on the extreme left. The 7th Division (Maucune)

re-descended into the valley of the Arga, a little above Iroz, where

it bivouacked. The 9th Division (Lamartinière) also came down into the

valley opposite Larrasoana, and kept along the high road to Iroz,’

where it fell in with the rear of Clausel’s column late in the day. The

only result of Soult’s precaution had been to put Reille out of the

game on the 27th, just as on the 26th.

For the whole of the morning hours, therefore, Soult had only Clausel’s

corps at his disposition, a fact which accounts for the unenterprising

character of his action. But that the 27th was a very slack day on

the French side was not Clausel’s fault. On arriving at Zabaldica,

and discovering that the heights of Oricain were held in strength,

he did not wait for the Marshal’s orders, but began to form a line

of battle parallel to Cole’s front, along the mountain opposite.

Halting Conroux’s division on the high road in face of the hill held

by the Spaniards, he pushed Taupin’s and Vandermaesen’s divisions

up the slopes, with cavalry detachments feeling the way in front

of them, till they had lined the whole ridge, and their right was

overlooking Sorauren and the valley of the Ulzama. He then sent down

to ask the Marshal’s leave to attack, saying that he could see from

the summit behind his line large baggage trains moving away along

the Vittoria road in the plain of Pampeluna, and bodies of troops in

motion northward[925]--the enemy was about to raise the siege, and was

only offering a rearguard action in order to cover the retreat of his

impedimenta. If pressed he would give way at once[926].

Soult did not believe this, and very rightly; but being pressed by

repeated messages he mounted up to the heights behind Clausel’s front

at 11 a.m.: if he had chanced to notice it, he was just in time to see

a solitary horseman ride up the north-western slope of the hill of

Oricain, and to hear the whole of the Allied troops aligned opposite

him burst out into a storm of tempestuous cheering. Wellington had come

upon the ground. Soult heard the noise, but (as his dispatches show)

did not guess its precise cause. He thought that reinforcements had

just come up for Cole.

The story of Wellington’s eventful ride from Almandoz to Sorauren is a

very interesting one. Much irritated at receiving no further news from

Picton, he had mounted at sunrise and ridden over the Col de Velate,

taking with him only George Murray, his Quartermaster-General, his

Military Secretary Fitzroy Somerset, and three or four other officers:

the bulk of the head-quarters staff was to follow at leisure. On

arriving at Lanz, the first village on the south side of the pass, they

heard rumours of Picton’s continued retreat, though they do not seem to

have met the aide-de-camp whom he had sent off on the preceding night

to report it. This news was so unexpected and vexatious that Wellington

halted for a moment, to send back orders to Hill to the effect that it

was conceivable that affairs might go badly on the Pampeluna front.

If so, the whole right or southern wing of the army might have to

swing back to the line Yrurzun-Tolosa, and Hill would have to direct

his own two divisions, and also Dalhousie, and Pack, with all the

artillery and baggage, to fall back westward on Lizaso and Lecumberri,

instead of coming over the Col de Velate towards Pampeluna. The Light

Division, too, might have to leave the neighbourhood of the Bastan,

and to retire to Zubieta on the Oyarzun-Lecumberri road, in order to

keep up the touch between the main army and Graham’s force in front of

St. Sebastian. The latter general, however, was not to move, unless

matters went very badly indeed, as the blockade of St. Sebastian must

be kept up till the last possible minute. But previous orders were to

stand, unless and until the Commander-in-Chief should send new ones: in

particular Pack and the 6th Division were expected at Olague, and the

batteries of Silveira’s division and the Light Division might come on

to Lanz, as there was an artillery road from Olague by which they might

be turned off eastward if it became necessary[927].

On getting five miles farther down the road, Wellington halted for

another moment at Olague, to leave word that the 6th Division[928],

when it arrived, was to hold that place till further notice, and

especially to look out for a possible movement of the French across the

hills from Eugui, which must be blocked at all costs. Pack must turn

all wheeled transport, batteries, convoys, &c., arriving from the Col

de Velate off the high road to Pampeluna, and send them westward by the

side road Olague-Lizaso, at which last-named village everything must

wait for further orders. The closest and most frequent communication

must be kept up with Hill’s corps, which would be wanting to use this

same road. Finally, Pack, after resting his division and giving it its

noonday meal, must be ready to march again at a moment’s notice in the

afternoon[929].

Three miles farther down the road, at Ostiz, Wellington found waiting

for him General Long, with some of the squadrons of his Light Dragoons,

who were dispersed all along the lines of communication, keeping touch

with all divisions. Long gave the alarming information that Picton had

abandoned the Linzoain and Zubiri positions during the previous night,

and was now in the immediate neighbourhood of Pampeluna, where he was

intending to fight on the San Cristobal heights. The French were known

to be in pursuit, and a collision might occur at any moment--indeed

might have occurred already, but no firing had yet been heard.

Ostiz is only four miles from Sorauren and six from Villaba; there

was probably time to reach the fighting ground before an action might

commence. Wellington directed his Quartermaster-General to stop behind,

and make preparations for turning all troops off the Lanz valley road

on to the Lizaso road, if he should receive further orders in the next

hour--everything depended on what was going on six miles away. He

then went off at racing speed down the _chaussée_, gradually dropping

behind him all his staff except Fitzroy Somerset--their horses could

not keep up with his thoroughbred. Turning the corner half a mile from

Sorauren, he suddenly came on the whole panorama of battle. Cole’s

line was visible on the right-hand heights stretching away from the

Chapel of San Salvador to the Col above Zabaldica. On the opposite

mountain Taupin’s and Vandermaesen’s divisions were moving along the

crest towards Sorauren and the Ulzama valley: cavalry vedettes were

pushing ahead of them all over the slopes, looking for paths or British

outposts. They were only a mile away at most. There was just time,

and no more, to join Cole and take over the direction of affairs.

Wellington put on full speed till he reached Sorauren bridge, and

then (with his usual cool-blooded calculation of risks and moments)

dismounted, and wrote a short order to Murray in pencil, using the

cap-stone of the bridge end as his table. While he was writing the

thirteen hurried lines, he was much distracted by well-intentioned

peasants, who flocked around him with shouts that the French were

coming down into the other end of the village. But the dispatch reads

clearly enough. Murray is informed that the high road is blocked

by the presence of the French at Sorauren; all troops, therefore,

must turn off on to the side-road Olague-Lizaso, both Pack and the

artillery, and also Hill’s corps. The latter must march at once from

the Bastan, and get across the Col de Velate by nightfall if it could,

leaving a rearguard to hold the pass against any possible pursuit by

D’Erlon. The 7th Division near Santesteban should also come across by

the Puerto de Arraiz to Lizaso. Orders for the further movements of all

troops would be sent to Lizaso as soon as possible[930].

Fitzroy Somerset dashed out of the village at its northern end with the

completed dispatch, just as the French chasseurs came exploring into

its other end. He was not seen, or at least not pursued, and Murray

received the orders, which made Lizaso the concentration point of all

the central divisions of the army in half an hour, and set to work to

amplify them and to forward them to their destinations. As Wellington

very truly observed, several hours were gained by sending back Somerset

by the straight road, and in particular the 6th Division was able to

reach Lizaso by dark, and to get a good rest for the march of the next

day to the battlefield[931].

Meanwhile, Wellington, now all alone, rode up the steep track which

rises from Sorauren to the pilgrimage-chapel on the height above, and

was presently among the skirmishing line of O’Toole’s Caçadores, who

were holding that corner of the front. His familiar but unobtrusive

silhouette--the short frock-coat, small plumeless cocked hat fitting

down tight over the great Roman nose, and wiry thoroughbred--was

at once recognized--the Portuguese set up the cry of ‘Douro,’ with

which they were wont to greet him--recalling the first victory in

which English and Portuguese co-operated, and also his first title

of nobility: the noise swelled into the hoarse cheers of the British

soldier as it passed up the line towards the Col. The 4th Division,

which had been grumbling bitterly since it had been on the retreat,

suddenly felt the atmosphere change. ‘I never can forget the joy

which beamed in every countenance when his Lordship’s presence became

known. It diffused a feeling of confidence throughout all ranks. No

more dispiriting murmurs on the awkwardness of our situation: now we

began to talk of driving the French over the frontier as a matter of

course[932].’ Wellington halted in front of Ross’s brigade, and for a

long time studied the French movements through a telescope. He easily

made out Soult himself, who was conferring with Clausel and other

staff-officers in a conspicuous group. Napier says that he observed

that the Marshal would have heard the cheering, and would try to make

out what it was about, before taking any serious step: ‘that will give

time for the 6th Division to arrive, and I shall beat him.’ There is

no corroboration for this story, though it may be true: Napier was in

England on July 28th, and speaks only from hearsay. But an eye-witness

present on the spot says that General Ross, as his chief continued

to focus the French staff, ventured the remark that ‘this time Soult

certainly meditates an attack,’ to which Wellington, with the glass

still to his eye, replied, ‘It is just probable that _I_ shall attack

_him_[933]. And this thought seems to be corroborated by a remark

which Wellington made six days after to Judge Larpent, to the effect

that he should and could have done more on the 27th[934]. The French

army was but half arrived--only Clausel’s three divisions were up,

and Reille was at 11 a.m. still miles away. The enemy was tempting

Providence by marching across the Allied front, just as Marmont had

done at Salamanca a year before.

Whether Soult was stopped from an early attack, by guessing that the

cheers on Cole’s front implied the arrival of Wellington, seems more

than doubtful. There is, of course, no trace of such an idea in the

French dispatches--naturally it would not have been mentioned. But the

one personal narrative which we have from a member of the group of

Soult’s staff-officers whom Wellington was eyeing, is to the effect

that Clausel was at the moment trying to persuade the Marshal to attack

at once, though only half his force was up, that Soult utterly refused

to do so, spread out his maps, and finally took his lunch and a nap

after it. ‘Clausel meanwhile leaning against an oak was literally

beating his forehead with rage, muttering “Who could go to sleep at

such a moment”[935].’

What is certain is that Soult’s dispatch to Paris says that he had

discovered that Wellington had arrived _in the afternoon_, which would

seem to show that he did not know by personal observation that he

had come up at 11 a.m. He says, also, that at the moment of his own

arrival the Allies had 30,000 men in line, including all the blockading

troops from Pampeluna, which rendered it necessary to make a thorough

examination of their position, and to get up all the divisions[936].

To discover the exact ground on which the enemy intended to fight, it

proved necessary to make demonstrations or partial attacks.

Two of these were executed: the spur held by the two Spanish

battalions, above Zabaldica, was so close in to the French position,

that it was thought worth while to make an attempt to occupy it. A

regiment of Conroux’s division was sent up from the village to storm

it, but was handsomely repulsed, when near the top of the slope, by

a charge in line of these corps (Principe and Pravia of O’Donnell’s

Andalusian Reserve). Clausel’s report says that his men ‘took the hill

but could not keep it,’ but many British eye-witnesses on the slope

above say that the summit was never reached. Clausel estimates the loss

of his regiment at 100 men, Soult gives the more liberal estimate of

200. The repulse showed plainly enough that the whole hill of Oricain

was to form part of the Allies’ position, and that they intended to

fight for every inch of it.

Late in the afternoon Soult directed Foy, who had now reached Alzuza on

the extreme French left, to demonstrate against the heights of Huarte,

so as to discover the end of the British line, and the strength in

which it was held. Foy sent forward two regiments in column down the

slope toward the Egues river, while showing the rest of his troops on

the hill behind. When the French got within cannon shot, Picton brought

up the whole 3rd Division to the crest, and R. Hill’s and Ponsonby’s

heavy cavalry showed themselves in front of the village of Gorraiz,

covering his flank. The divisional battery fired a few rounds at the

columns, which at once swerved and retired in haste. Foy could report

that the Huarte heights were held in strength, and by all arms.

This was the last incident of the day--shortly afterwards a heavy

thunderstorm swept down from the Pyrenees, darkened the twilight,

and drenched both armies. The same thing had happened on the eve of

Salamanca--and was to happen again on the eve of Waterloo.

Far more important than the trifling skirmishes of the afternoon were

the arrangements for the morrow--orders and dispatches, which the rival

commanders were evolving during the evening hours. Soult felt himself

still blocked in the valley of the Arga and wanted to deploy--was

it possible to get his long column of guns and cavalry out of the

defile--and if so, how? Was there a possibility of extending to the

left beyond Foy’s present position, or to the right beyond Sorauren,

the limit of Clausel’s occupation? Or must the Oricain heights be

captured at all costs before the army could get into a proper order

of battle? Could any immediate help be expected from D’Erlon, whose

tiresome letter of the 26th had come to hand, showing that he was no

farther forward than Elizondo on that night? He was not doing his best

to occupy the enemy in his front, and there was a danger that Hill

might arrive at Sorauren long before the corps that had been set the

task of occupying his attention.

There would appear to have been something like a council of war at the

French head-quarters in the evening, in which Clausel, Reille, Gazan,

the Chief of the Staff, and probably other officers took part. Clausel

wished to extend the line northward up the valley of the Ulzama, and

to turn the flank of the whole Oricain position. The objection to this

was that the transport and guns could not follow over the mule-tracks

which must be used; they were blocked in the Arga valley as long as the

Allies held the heights commanding the main road. Moreover, reports

had come in that British troops were descending on to Sorauren by

the Lanz valley road, who would take in flank any attempt of Clausel

to turn the Oricain position. (This seems to refer to the arrival of

the 6th Division at Olague, but Long’s cavalry was also visible up

the _chaussée_.) And an extension of the French right to the heights

westward would make the whole line of battle very long and weak:

how could Reille’s three divisions take over the whole ground from

Sorauren to Alzuza? After much discussion Soult decided in favour of

a concentric attack on the whole Oricain position by five of his six

divisions, while only Foy should remain out on the left, observing

and containing the British force on the Huarte hills. Clausel’s three

divisions should attack Cole’s line from Sorauren to the Col, two of

Reille’s divisions should co-operate, by assailing the Col and the

Spaniards’ Hill south of it. Some guns should be got to the front if

possible, and Foy should be lent some cavalry, who must climb over

the hills to cover his flank. Details would have to be settled on the

morrow, also the transference of troops, who could not move in the dark

over steep and unknown ground. Yet there was an uneasy feeling that too

much time had been lost already--Soult notes a rumour that Wellington

had announced the approach of four more British divisions. Even the

arrival of D’Erlon could not compensate for this, and it did not look

as if D’Erlon was likely to appear early on the 28th.

Wellington moved the troops who were on the ground very little

that evening--only relieving the Portuguese battalion which was in

reserve on the hill above Zabaldica by a British regiment of Anson’s

brigade--the 40th Foot--and sending two of O’Donnell’s battalions to

Ollocarizqueta, to watch the mountain road west of Sorauren, by which

it was conceivable that Clausel might try to turn the hill of Oricain.

He had got news that French troops had been seen beyond Sorauren,

and did not want to have them prying too close behind this flank, or

observing the paths by which he intended to bring up his reserves on

that side.

For his main attention that afternoon was devoted to drawing up the

orders for the divisions coming from the Bastan, which he had promised

to send to Murray, in the note that Fitzroy Somerset bore from the

bridge of Sorauren. At 4 o’clock he sent off the all-important

dispatch[937]. It will be remembered that his last orders provided

for the successive arrival at Lizaso of the 6th and 7th Divisions, of

the whole corps of Hill, and of the artillery, and divisional baggage

trains of all the troops.

Pack was to start from Lizaso at dawn, and to move as rapidly as

possible along the country road by Marcalain to Ollocarizqueta, which

goes along the back of the hills that form the right bank of the valley

of the Ulzama. At the last-named village (which he would find held by

two Spanish battalions) he would be only five miles from Cole’s flank,

and in a position to strengthen or cover it. A supplementary note[938]

warned Pack that if any French were found anywhere on the way he must

not let himself be turned off; even if it came to leaving the road

and taking to mountain tracks, the 6th Division _must_ arrive at its

destination. The artillery and the reserve of infantry ammunition were

to follow Pack, unless serious opposition were offered to him, in which

case they must return to Lizaso, and from thence turn on to Yrurzun.

Dalhousie and Hill had already had orders to march on Lizaso, the one

by the Puerto de Arraiz, the other by the Velate. Both had a long

march, but Wellington hoped that they might reach Lizaso during the

night of the 27th-28th. If the men were not over-fatigued, all three

divisions should follow Pack to Ollocarizqueta, after being given a

suitable time of rest. All impedimenta likely to hinder rapid marching,

and the wounded from the Maya fight, were to be directed from Lizaso

to Yrurzun. Murray had already, acting on the orders of the Sorauren

Bridge dispatch of 11 a.m., sent the route for Lizaso to Hill and

Dalhousie, adding some precautions of his own, to the effect that they

should leave small rearguards at the passes, to detain D’Erlon if he

should come up. Moreover, he had spread out the 1st Hussars of the

K.G.L. along the roads, to keep up touch between all the divisions

on the move, and also between Lizaso and the Light Division, now at

Zubieta. The only addition made by Wellington’s new orders was the

all-important one that everything of the fighting sort that came to

Lizaso was to march for the main army, but all baggage for Yrurzun.

Of the arrangements thus made, that for Pack worked perfectly--he was

at Ollocarizqueta with the 6th Division before 10 a.m. on the morning

of the 28th. But Hill and Dalhousie were detained in the passes by

the storm of the evening of the 27th, and only reached Lizaso so late

on the 28th that they were of no use in the fighting of that day. As

Wellington observed to Larpent[939], they could both have got into the

battle of Sorauren if they had been given a longer march on the 26th,

but ignorance of Cole’s and Picton’s retreat had prevented him from

starting them early enough. However, the 6th Division alone sufficed to

settle the matter.

The morning of the 28th was fine and bright--the storm of the preceding

night seemed to have cleared the clouds from the hills, and the eye

could range freely over a very wide landscape. Not only was the battle

front of each army visible to the other, but from the high crest on or

behind each position, a good deal could be made out of what was going

on in the rear. This was more the case with the French line than with

the British: Wellington’s usual plan of keeping his main force behind

the sky-line had great efficacy on such lofty ground as that of the

heights of Oricain.

Soult spent the long hours of the July morning in moving his troops to

the positions which had been selected on the previous night. Conroux’s

division, abandoning Zabaldica, marched over the hills in the rear of

Clausel’s other divisions, and occupied Sorauren village--relieving

there some of Taupin’s battalions, which shifted a little to their

left. To replace Conroux at Zabaldica Lamartinière came up from Iroz,

and deployed one brigade (Gauthier’s) in front of the Spaniards’ Hill,

while the other (Menne’s) remained in reserve beside the Arga, with

two regiments across the high road and the third on the slopes east

of the river. Maucune’s division, starting up the slopes from the

rear of Iroz, took post on the heights immediately opposite the Col,

with its right touching the left of Vandermaesen. Two regiments were

in front line exactly in face of the Col, a third somewhat farther to

the left, keeping touch with Lamartinière’s brigade near Zabaldica.

The other brigade (Montfort’s) was placed in reserve farther up the

mountain[940]. Pierre Soult’s light cavalry regiments disentangled

themselves from the long cavalry and artillery column in the rear,

and picked their way up the heights southward till they reached Foy’s

position, from which they extended themselves to the left, till they

reached as far as the village of Elcano. Four howitzers were chosen

out of the batteries in the rear, and brought forward to the front of

Zabaldica, a position in which it was hoped that their high-trajectory

fire might reach effectively the Allies on the Col and the Spanish

Hill. These were the only French cannon used that day, except some

mule-guns employed by Clausel on the side of Sorauren.

The greater part of these movements were perfectly visible to

Wellington, though some of them were intermittently screened from sight

when the marching columns dipped into dead ground, or were passing

through thickets. They took up so many hours that he wrote to Graham at

10.30 that it looked as if Soult was not inclined to attack. Meanwhile,

the only British force on the move was the 6th Division, which had been

marching since daylight, and arrived about 10 a.m. at Ollocarizqueta.

On getting news of its presence, Wellington ordered it to move by a

country road which comes across a crack in the hills west of the Ulzama

not far from the village of Oricain, and after reaching that river

to keep its Portuguese brigade on the western bank, its two British

brigades on the eastern, and so to advance till it should arrive facing

Sorauren, prolonging Cole’s left in the lower ground, and covering him

from any attempt to turn his flank. About noon Pack’s leading troops

began to appear--these were Madden’s Portuguese on the left of the

division, working along the hillside west of the Ulzama.

Now the ‘zero’ hour for the general attack on the whole Allied front

had been fixed by Soult for 1 o’clock, but long before that hour

Clausel was informed by an exploring officer, whom he had sent to the

hills on the other side of the Ulzama, beyond his right, that a heavy

British column was visible coming from the direction of Marcalain,

obviously to join the British left[941]. Now the French general had

been thinking of turning Cole’s flank on this side, and had actually

got troops some little way up the Ulzama valley beyond Sorauren. But

hearing of Pack’s approach and of his strength, he determined that he

must now turn his attention to fending off this move against his own

flank, and that the effort would absorb no small portion of his troops.

Conroux’s division had been originally intended for the attack of the

north-west corner of the Oricain heights, to the right (French) of

the chapel, while Taupin was to make the chapel itself his objective;

Vandermaesen was to strike at the centre of Cole’s position, and

Maucune to attack the Col. But Clausel determined that, in order to

make the general frontal attack feasible, he must at once stop the

forward march of Pack, and keep him at a distance, while the other

divisions made their great stroke. Accordingly he called in his right

wing detachments, and having concentrated Conroux’s strong division

(7,000 bayonets) he ordered it, at 12.30, to deploy across the valley

of the Ulzama below Sorauren and advance in two lines of brigades

against the approaching British column. This movement--probably a

necessary one--brought on the first clash of battle, half an hour

before the appointed time for the general movement. Clausel at the same

moment sent word to the other divisions to attack at once; but they

were not quite ready, the fixed hour not having yet been reached.

But Conroux pushed up the valley farther than was prudent, for when he

was some half a mile beyond Sorauren, he found himself encompassed

on three sides--Madden’s Portuguese pushing forward along the hill on

the other side of the river, turned in on his right flank, some of

Ross’s skirmishers on the slopes west of the chapel of San Salvador

came down and began to fire upon his left flank, while the main body of

the 6th Division--Stirling’s brigade deployed in front line, Lambert’s

supporting in column--met him face to face in the low ground. The

concentric fire was too heavy to be stood, and Conroux had to give

back, fighting fiercely, till he had the support of the village of

Sorauren at his back: there the battle stood still, for Pack had orders

to cover Cole’s flank, not to attack the enemy’s[942].

Meanwhile, the general frontal attack was being delivered by the other

French divisions, starting from the right, as each got forward on

receiving Clausel’s orders to anticipate the fixed hour and advance

at once. Hence the assault was made in échelon of brigades from the

right, Taupin’s two brigades being a little ahead of Vandermaesen’s,

and Vandermaesen’s perceptibly earlier on the hill than the brigade of

Maucune which attacked at the Col. The separate assault by Lamartinière

on the Spaniards’ Hill is definitely stated by that general to have

been made at 12 o’clock--earlier, apparently, than the others--but

he is contradicted by Reille, in command on this front, who says that

it started _vers une heure_. This is much more likely to be correct.

[Illustration: Second Battle of SORAUREN and Combat of BEUNZA _July 30,

1813_]

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].

SECTION XXXVIII: CHAPTER V

SOULT’S RETREAT, JULY 30-31. THE SECOND BATTLE OF SORAUREN

While the battle of July 28th was being fought, the outlying divisions

of both Soult’s and Wellington’s armies were at last beginning to draw

in towards the main bodies.

Hill, as we have already seen, had received the orders written by

Wellington on Sorauren bridge at 11 a.m. by the afternoon of the same

day, and had started off at once with his whole force--the three

2nd Division brigades, Silveira’s one brigade, and Barnes’s three

battalions of the 7th Division. His directions were to endeavour

to cross the Puerto de Velate that night, so as to sleep at Lanz,

the first village on the south side of the pass. He was to leave a

detachment at the head of the defile, to check D’Erlon’s probable

movement of pursuit. The supplementary order, issued at 4 p.m. from

the heights of Oricain, directed Hill to march from the place where

his corps should encamp on the night of the 27th (Lanz as was hoped)

to Lizaso, abandoning the high road for the side road Olague-Lizaso,

since the former was known to be cut by the French at Sorauren. If the

men were not over-fatigued when they reached Lizaso, Hill must try to

bring them on farther, to Ollocarizqueta on the flank of the Sorauren

position, where the 6th Division would have preceded them.

Similarly Dalhousie with the 7th Division (minus the three battalions

with Hill) was to march that same evening from Santesteban over

the Puerto de Arraiz on to Lizaso, to sleep there and to march on

Ollocarizqueta, like Hill, on the morning of the 28th, if the state

of the troops allowed it. All the baggage, sick, stores, and other

impedimenta from the Bastan were also directed on Lizaso, but they were

to go through it westward and turn off to Yrurzun, not to follow the

fighting force to Ollocarizqueta.

None of these directions worked out as was desired, the main

hindering cause being the fearful thunderstorm already recorded,

which raged during the twilight hours of the evening of the 27th.

Hill had started from Irurita, as directed, keeping as a rearguard

Ashworth’s Portuguese, who were intended to hold the Puerto de Velate

when the rest of the column should have crossed it. He was nearing

the watershed, in the roughest part of the road, where it has many

precipitous slopes on the left hand, when the storm came down,

completely blotting out the evening light with a deluge of rain, and

almost sweeping men off their feet. One of Barnes’s officers describes

the scene as follows: ‘So entangled were we among carts, horses,

vicious kicking mules, baggage, and broken-down artillery, which

lined the road, that we could not extricate ourselves. Some lighted

sticks and candles only added to the confusion, for we were not able

to see one yard beyond the lights, owing to the thick haze, which

seemed to render darkness still more dark. In this bewildered state

many who could not stand were obliged from fatigue to sit down in the

mire: to attempt going on was impossible, except by climbing over the

different vehicles that blocked the road. In this miserable plight, I

seated myself against a tree, when weariness caused me, even amidst

this bustle, mud, and riot, to fall fast asleep[958].’ All sorts of

disasters happened: one of Tulloh’s 9-pounders went over the precipice

with the shaft animals drawn down with it, when the side of the roadway

crumbled in[959]. Ross’s battery lost another gun in a similar way,

owing to the sudden breaking of a wheel, and many carts and mules

blundered over the edge. The only thing that could be done was to stick

to the track, sit down, and wait for daylight, which was fortunately

early in July.

When it came, the drenched and miserable column picked itself up from

the mire, and straggled down the defile of the Velate, passing Lanz and

turning off at Olague towards Lizaso, as ordered. Troops and baggage

were coming in all day to this small and overcrowded mountain village,

in very sorry plight. It was of course quite impossible for them to

move a mile farther on the 28th, and Hill had to write to Wellington

that he could only hope to move his four brigades on the early morning

of the 29th.[960]

Lord Dalhousie had fared, as it seems, a little better in crossing

the Puerto de Arraiz; he had a less distance to cover, but the

dispatch from Sorauren bridge only reached him at 7 p.m. when the

rain was beginning. With laudable perseverance he kept marching all

night, and reached Lizaso at 12 noon on the 28th, with all his men,

except a battalion of Caçadores left behind to watch the pass. The

condition of the division was so far better than that of Hill’s

column, that Dalhousie wrote to Wellington that he could march again

in the late afternoon, after six hours’ rest, and would be at or

near Ollocarizqueta by dawn on the 29th[961], though two successive

night marches would have made the men very weary. This the division

accomplished, much to its credit, and reached the appointed destination

complete, for Hill had returned to it the three battalions which had

saved the day at Maya on the 25th.

Lizaso on the afternoon of July 28th was a dismal sight, crammed with

the drenched and worn-out men of seven brigades, who had just finished

a terrible night march, with large parties of the Maya wounded, much

baggage and transport with terrified muleteers in charge, and a horde

of the peasants of the Bastan, who had loaded their more precious

possessions on ox-wagons, and started off to escape the French. It took

hours to sort out the impedimenta and start them on the Yrurzun road.

There was a general feeling of disaster in the air, mainly owing to

physical exhaustion, which even the report of the victory of Sorauren

arriving in the evening could not exorcise. Rumours were afloat that

Wellington was about to retire again, despite of the successes of the

afternoon. However, the day being fine, the men were able to cook and

to dry themselves, and the 7th Division duly set out for another night

march.

It was fortunate that the retiring columns were not troubled by

any pursuit either on the 27th or the 28th. The storm which had so

maltreated Hill’s column seems to have kept the French from discovering

its departure. Darmagnac had moved forward on the 27th from Elizondo

to ground facing Hill’s position at Irurita, but had not attempted

to attack it, D’Erlon having decided that it was ‘_très forte par

elle-même, et inattaquable, étant gardée par autant de troupes_.’ So

badly was touch kept owing to the rainy evening, that Hill got away

unobserved, and it was only on the following morning that Darmagnac

reported that he had disappeared. This news at last inspired D’Erlon

with a desire to push forward, and on the morning of the 28th Abbé

took over the vanguard, passed Almandoz, and crossed the Velate, with

Darmagnac following in his rear, while Maransin--kept back so long at

Maya--came down in the wake of the other divisions to Elizondo. The

head of Abbé’s division passed the Puerto de Velate, pushing before it

Ashworth’s Portuguese, who had been left as a detaining force. Abbé

reported that the pass was full of wrecked baggage, and that he had

seen guns shattered at the foot of precipices. D’Erlon says that 400

British stragglers were gleaned by the way--no doubt Maya wounded and

footsore men. On the night of the 28th Abbé and Darmagnac bivouacked

at and about Lanz, Maransin somewhere by Irurita. He left behind one

battalion at Elizondo[962], to pick up and escort the convoy of food

expected from Urdax and Ainhoue.

The light cavalry[963] who accompanied Abbé duly reported that Hill had

not followed the great road farther than Olague, but had turned off

along the valley of the upper Ulzama to Lizaso; his fires were noted at

evening all along the edge of the woods near that village. One patrol

of chasseurs, pushing down the main road to Ostiz, sighted a similar

exploring party of Ismert’s dragoons coming from Sorauren, but could

not get in touch with them, as the dragoons took them for enemies and

decamped. However, the two bodies of French cavalry met again and

recognized each other at dawn on the 29th, so that free communication

between the two parts of Soult’s army was now established.

D’Erlon has been blamed by every critic for his slow advance between

the 26th and the 29th. He was quite aware that it was slow, and frankly

stated in his reports that he did not attack Hill because he could not

have turned him out of the position of Irurita, not having a sufficient

superiority of numbers to cancel Hill’s advantage of position. This

is quite an arguable thesis--D’Erlon had, deducting Maya losses, some

18,000 men: Hill counting in Dalhousie who had been placed on his

flank by Wellington for the purpose of helping him if he were pressed,

had (also deducting Maya losses) four British and three Portuguese

brigades, with a strength of about 14,000. If Cameron’s and Pringle’s

regiments had been terribly cut up at Maya, Darmagnac’s and Maransin’s

had suffered a perceptibly larger loss, though one distributed over

more units. D’Erlon was under the impression that Hill had three

divisions with him, having received false information to that effect.

If this had been true, an assault on the position of Irurita would

have been very reckless policy. It was _not_ true--only two divisions

and one extra Portuguese brigade being in line. Yet still the event

of the combat of Beunza, only three days later, when D’Erlon’s three

divisions attacked Hill’s own four brigades--no other allied troops

being present--and were held in check for the better part of a day,

suggests that D’Erlon may have had good justification for not taking

the offensive on the 26th or 27th, while the 7th Division was at Hill’s

disposition. The most odd part of his tactics seems to have been the

way in which he kept Maransin back at Maya and Elizondo so long: this

was apparently the result of fear that Graham might have something to

say in the contest--an unjustifiable fear as we know now, but D’Erlon

cannot have been so certain as we are! The one criticism on the French

general’s conduct which does seem to admit of no adequate reply, is

that in his original orders from Soult, which laid down the scheme of

the whole campaign, he was certainly directed to get into touch with

the main army as soon as possible, though he was also directed to

seize the pass of Maya and to pursue Hill by Elizondo and the Puerto

de Velate. If he drew the conclusion on the 26th that he could not

hope to dislodge Hill from the Irurita position, it was probably his

duty to march eastward by the Col de Berderis or the Col d’Ispegui and

join the main body by the Alduides. It is more than doubtful whether,

considering the character of the country and the tracks, he could

have arrived in time for the battle of Sorauren on the 28th. And if

Hill had seen him disappear eastward, he could have marched to join

Wellington by a shorter and much better road, and could certainly have

been in touch with his chief before D’Erlon was in touch with Soult.

Nevertheless, it cannot be said that the French general obeyed the

order which told him that ‘_il ne perdra pas de vue qu’il doit chercher

à se réunir le plutôt possible au reste de l’armée_[964].’ And orders

ought to be obeyed--however difficult they may appear.

At dawn on the 29th, therefore, Soult’s troops were in their position

of the preceding day, and D’Erlon’s leading division was at Lanz,

requiring only a short march to join the main body. But Wellington

was in a better position, since he had already been joined by the 6th

Division, and would be joined in a few hours by the 7th Division,

which, marching all night, had reached Ollocarizqueta. Hill, with his

four original brigades, was at Lizaso, as near to Wellington as D’Erlon

was to Soult. The only other troops which could have been drawn in, if

Wellington had so originally intended, were the brigades of the Light

Division, for which (as we shall see) he made another disposition.

But omitting this unit, and supposing that the other troops on both

sides simply marched in to join their main bodies on the 29th, it was

clear that by night Wellington would have a numerical equality with

his adversary, and this would make any further attempts to relieve

Pampeluna impossible on the part of Soult.

This was the Marshal’s conviction, and he even overrated the odds set

against him, if (as he said in his dispatch to Clarke) he estimated

his adversary’s force on the evening of the 28th at 50,000 men, and

thought that several other divisions would join him ere long. In face

of such conditions, what was to be the next move? Obviously a cautious

general would have decided that his bolt had been shot, and that he

had failed. He had a safe retreat before him to Roncesvalles, by a

road which would take all his cavalry and guns; and D’Erlon had an

equally secure retreat either by Elizondo and Maya on a good road, or

by the Alduides, if absolute security were preferred to convenience in

marching. The country was such that strong rearguards could have held

off any pursuit. And this may have been the Marshal’s first intention,

for in his letter to Clarke, written on the evening after the battle,

before he had any knowledge of D’Erlon’s approach, he said that he was

sending back his artillery and dragoons on Roncesvalles, since it was

impossible to use them in Navarre, and that he was dispatching them to

the Bidassoa ‘where he could make better use of them in new operations,

which he was about to undertake’. He was intending to remain a short

time in his present position with the infantry, to see what the enemy

would do. No news had been received of D’Erlon since the 27th, when he

was still at Elizondo, declaring that he could not move because he was

blocked by a large hostile force--‘the same force, as I believe, which

fell on Clausel’s flank to-day.’ Further comment the Marshal evidently

judged superfluous[965]. The column of guns and baggage actually

marched off on the night of the 28th-29th.

But early on the morning of the 29th D’Erlon’s cavalry was met, and

the news arrived that he was at Lanz, and marching on Ostiz, where he

would arrive at midday, and would be only five miles from Sorauren.

This seems to have changed the Marshal’s outlook on the situation,

and by the afternoon he had sketched out a wholly different plan of

campaign, and one of the utmost hazard. As the critic quoted a few

pages back observed, he recovered his confidence when once he was

twenty-four hours away from a defeat, and his strategical conceptions

were sometimes risky in the extreme[966].

The new plan involved a complete change of direction. Hitherto Soult

had been aiming at Pampeluna, and D’Erlon was, so to speak, his

rearguard. Now he avowed another objective--the cutting of the road

between Pampeluna and Tolosa, with the purpose of throwing himself

between Wellington and Graham and forcing the latter to raise the

siege of St. Sebastian[967]. He had now, as he explained, attracted to

the extreme south nearly the whole of the Anglo-Portuguese divisions:

there was practically a gap between Wellington, with the troops about

to join him, and the comparatively small force left on the Bidassoa.

He would turn the British left, by using D’Erlon’s corps as his

vanguard and cutting in north of Lizaso, making for Hernani or Tolosa,

whichever might prove the more easy goal. He hoped that Villatte and

the reserves on the Bidassoa might already be at Hernani, for D’Erlon

had passed on to him an untrustworthy report that an offensive had

begun in that direction, as his original orders had directed. The

manœuvre would be so unexpected that he ought to gain a full day on

Wellington--D’Erlon was within striking distance of Hill, and should be

able to thrust him out of the way, before the accumulation of British

troops about Sorauren, Villaba, and Huerta could come up. There was

obviously one difficult point in the plan: D’Erlon could get at Hill

easily enough. But was it certain that the rest of the troops, now in

such very close touch with Wellington’s main body--separated from it on

one front of two miles by no more than a narrow ravine--would be able

to disentangle themselves without risk, and to follow D’Erlon up the

valley of the Ulzama? When armies are so near that either can bring on

a general action by advancing half a mile, it is not easy for one of

them to withdraw, without exposing at least its rearguard or covering

troops to the danger of annihilation.

Soult took this risk, whether underrating Wellington’s initiative, or

overrating the manœuvring power of his own officers and men. It was

a gross tactical error, and he was to pay dearly for it on the 30th.

In fact, having obliged his enemy with a second Bussaco on the 28th,

he presented him with the opportunity of a second Salamanca two days

after. For in its essence the widespread battle of the 30th, which

extended over ten miles from D’Erlon’s attack on Hill near Lizaso

to Wellington’s counter-attack on Reille near Sorauren, was, like

Salamanca, the sudden descent of an army in position upon an enemy who

has unwisely committed himself to a march right across its front.

Soult made the most elaborate plans for his manœuvre--D’Erlon was

to move from Ostiz and Lanz against Hill: he was lent the whole of

Treillard’s dragoons, to give him plenty of cavalry for reconnaissance

purposes; Clausel was to march Taupin’s and Vandermaesen’s troops

behind Conroux, who was to hold Sorauren village till they had passed

him. Conroux would then be relieved by Maucune’s division from the high

ground opposite the Col, and when it had taken over Sorauren from him,

would follow the rest of Clausel’s troops up the high road. Maucune’s

vacant position would be handed over to Foy and Lamartinière. The

former was to evacuate Alzuza and the left bank of the Arga, where he

was not needed, as the column of guns and baggage, with its escort of

cavalry, had got far enough away on the road to Zubiri and Roncesvalles

to be out of danger. He was then to go up on to the heights where

Maucune had been posted during the recent battle, as was also

Lamartinière. The latter was to leave one battalion, along with the

corps-cavalry (13th Chasseurs) of Reille’s wing, on the high road north

of Zabaldica, as an extra precaution to guard against any attempt by

the enemy to raid the retreating column of impedimenta[968].

Finally, some orders impossible to execute were dictated--viz. that

all these movements were to be carried out in the night, and that both

Clausel and Reille were to be careful that the British should get no

idea that any change in the position of the army was taking place;

one general is told that ‘_il opérera son mouvement de manière à ce

que l’ennemi ne puisse aucunement l’apercevoir_,’ the other that ‘_il

disposera ses troupes à manière que l’ennemi ne puisse soupçonner

qu’il y a de changement ni de diminution_.’ Reille was to hold the

line Sorauren-Zabaldica for the whole day of the 30th, and then to

follow Clausel with absolute secrecy and silence. Now, unfortunately,

one cannot move 35,000 men on pathless hillsides and among woods and

ravines in the dark, without many units losing their way, and much

noise being made. And when one is in touch with a watchful enemy at a

distance of half a mile only, one cannot prevent him from seeing and

hearing that changes are going on. The orders were impracticable.

Such were Soult’s plans for the 30th. Wellington’s counter-plans do

not, on the 29th, show any signs of an assumption of the offensive

as yet, though it was certainly in his mind. They are entirely

precautionary, all of them being intended to guard against the next

possible move of the opponent. The troops which had suffered severely

in the battle were drawn back into second line, Byng’s and Stubbs’s

brigades taking over the ground held by Ross and Campbell. The 6th

Division--now under Pakenham, Pack having been severely wounded on the

previous day--occupied the heights north-west of Sorauren, continuing

the line held on the 28th to the left. Both Cole and Pakenham were told

to get their guns up, if possible. And when Lord Dalhousie came up from

Lizaso after his night march, his division also was placed to prolong

the allied left--two brigades to the left-rear of the 6th Division,

hidden behind a high ridge, the third several miles westward over a

hill which commanded the by-road Ostiz-Marcalain--a possible route for

a French turning movement[969].

Originally Wellington had supposed that Hill would reach Lizaso earlier

than Dalhousie, and had intended that the 2nd Division should come

down towards Marcalain and Pampeluna, while the 7th remained at Lizaso

to protect the junction of roads. But the storm, which smote Hill

worse than it smote Dalhousie, had settled matters otherwise. It was

the latter, not the former, who turned up to join hands with the main

army. Accepting the change, Wellington directed Hill to select a good

fighting position by Lizaso, in which he should place the two English

brigades of the 2nd Division and Ashworth, while Da Costa’s Portuguese

were to move to Marcalain[970], close to the rear brigade which the 7th

Division had left in the neighbourhood. Thus something like a covering

line was provided for any move which D’Erlon might make against the

British left. Wellington was feeling very jealous that day of attempts

to turn this flank, and took one more precaution which (as matters were

to turn out) he was much to regret on the 31st. Orders were sent to

Charles Alten to move the Light Division from Zubieta towards the high

road that goes from Tolosa to Yrurzun via Lecumberri. In ignorance of

the division’s exact position, the dispatch directed Alten to come down

so far as might seem best--Yrurzun being named as the farthest point

which should be taken into consideration[971]. This caused Alten to

move, by a very toilsome night march, from Zubieta, where he would have

been very useful later on, to Lecumberri, where (as it chanced) he was

not needed. But this was a hazard of war--it was impossible to guess

on the 29th the unlikely place where Soult’s army was about to be on

the 31st. Another move of troops to the Yrurzun road was that Fane’s

cavalry brigade, newly arrived from the side of Aragon, was directed to

Berrioplano, behind Pampeluna on the Vittoria road, with orders to get

into touch with Lizaso, Yrurzun, and Lecumberri.

Obviously all these arrangements were defensive, and contemplated

three possible moves on the part of the enemy--(1) a renewal of the

battle of the 28th at and north of Sorauren, with which the 6th and

7th Divisions could deal; (2) an attempt to turn the allied flank on

the short circuit Ostiz-Marcalain; (3) a similar attempt by a larger

circuit via Lizaso, which would enable the enemy to get on to the roads

Lizaso-Yrurzun, and Lizaso-Lecumberri, and so cut the communication

between Wellington and Graham. The third was the correct reading of

Soult’s intentions. To foil it Hill was in position at Lizaso, with the

power to call in first Da Costa, then the 7th Division, and much later

the Light Division, whose whereabouts was uncertain, and whose arrival

must obviously come very late. But if the enemy should attack Hill with

anything more than the body of troops which had been seen at Ostiz and

Lanz (D’Erlon’s corps), Wellington intended to fall upon their main

corps, so soon as it began to show signs of detaching reinforcements to

join the turning or enveloping column.

Soult’s manœuvre had duly begun on the night of the 28th-29th by the

retreat of the artillery, the wounded, the train and heavy baggage

towards Roncesvalles, under the escort of the dragoon regiments of

Pierre Soult’s division, whose chasseur regiments, however, remained

with Reille as ‘corps cavalry’. On the news of this move going round,

a general impression prevailed that the whole army was about to retire

by the road on which it had come up. This seemed all the more likely

because the last of the rations brought from St. Jean-Pied-du-Port

had been distributed on the battle-morning, and the troops had been

told on the 29th to make raids for food on all the mountain villages

on their flanks and rear. They had found little save wine--which was

more a snare than a help. The perspicacious Foy noted in his diary his

impression that Soult’s new move was not made with any real hope of

relieving St. Sebastian or cutting the Allies’ communication, it was

in essence a retreat; but, to save his face, the Marshal was trying

to give it the appearance of a strategic manœuvre[972]. This was a

very legitimate deduction--it certainly seemed unlikely that an army

short of food, and almost equally short of munitions, could be asked

to conduct a long campaign in a region where it was notorious that it

could not hope to live by requisitions, and would find communication

with its base almost impossible. It was true that convoys were coming

up behind D’Erlon--one was due at Elizondo--but roads were bad and

appointments hard to keep. There were orders sent to Bayonne on the

28th for the start of another--but how many days would it take before

the army got the benefit?--a week at least. Men and officers marched

off on the new adventure grumbling and with stomachs ill-filled.

The result of Soult’s orders was to produce two separate actions on the

30th--one between D’Erlon and Hill behind Lizaso, in which the French

gained a tactical advantage of no great importance, the other on the

heights along the Ulzama between Wellington’s main body and Clausel and

Reille, in which the French rear divisions were so routed and dispersed

that Soult had to throw up all his ambitious plans, and rush home for

safety as fast as was possible.

The more important action, generally called the Second Battle of

Sorauren, may be dealt with first.

At midnight Clausel’s two divisions on the heights, separated from

Cole’s position by the great ravine, moved off, leaving their fires

burning. By dawn they had safely arrived on the high road between

Sorauren and Ostiz, and were ready to move on towards D’Erlon when

the third division--Conroux’s--should have been relieved at Sorauren

village by Maucune. But this had not yet been accomplished, even by

five in the morning: for Maucune’s troops having woods and pathless

slopes to cross, in great part lost their way, and were straggling in

small bands over the hills during the night. They had only two miles

to go in many cases, yet when the light came some of them were still

far from their destination and in quite unexpected places. Conroux had

disentangled one brigade from Sorauren, while the other was still

holding the outposts, and Maucune was just beginning to file some of

his men behind the barricades and defences, when the whole of the

village received a salvo of shells, which brought death and confusion

everywhere. During the night Pakenham and Cole, obeying Wellington’s

orders, had succeeded in getting some guns up to the crest of the

heights--the 6th Division had hauled six guns up the hill on its left:

they were now mounted in front of Madden’s Portuguese, only 500 yards

from their mark[973]. Of the 4th Division battery[974] two guns and a

howitzer had been dragged with immense toil to the neighbourhood of the

chapel of San Salvador, overlooking Sorauren, the other three guns to

a point farther east, opposite the front from which Vandermaesen had

attacked on the 28th.

This was apparently the commencement of the action, but it soon started

on several other points. Foy had evacuated Alzuza at midnight, but

having rough country-paths in a steep hillside as his only guides in

the darkness, had not succeeded in massing his division at Iroz till 5

a.m. He then mounted the heights in his immediate front, pushing before

him (as he says) fractions of Maucune’s division which had lost their

way. His long column had got as far as the Col and the ground west

of it, when--full daylight now prevailing--he began to be shelled by

guns from the opposite heights--obviously the other half of Sympher’s

battery[975].

Meanwhile Lamartinière’s division (minus the one battalion of the

122nd left to watch the Roncesvalles road) had moved very little in

the night, having only drawn itself up from Zabaldica to the heights

immediately to the left of the Col, where it lay in two lines of

brigades, the front one facing the Spaniards’ Hill, the rear one

a few hundred yards back. Foy, coming from Iroz, had marched past

Lamartinière’s rear, covered by him till he got west of the Col. This

division was not shelled, as Conroux, Maucune, and Foy had all been,

but noted with disquiet that British troops were streaming up from

Huarte on the Roncesvalles road, with the obvious intention of turning

its left, and getting possession of the main route to France.

Wellington, as it chanced, was in the most perfect condition to take

advantage of the mistake which Soult had made in planning to withdraw

his troops by a march right across the front of the allied army in

position. The night-movements of the French had been heard, and under

the idea that they might portend a new attack, all the divisions

had been put under arms an hour before dawn. The guns, too, were in

position, only waiting for their mark to become visible--it had been

intended to shell the French out of Sorauren in any case that morning.

Wellington had risen early as usual, and was on the look-out place on

the Oricain heights which he used as his post on the 28th and 29th.

When the panorama on the opposite mountain became visible to him, he

had only to send orders for a general frontal attack, for which the

troops were perfectly placed.

Accordingly, the 6th Division attacked Sorauren village at once, while

the troops on the Oricain heights descended, a little later, in two

lines--the front one formed of Byng’s brigade, Stubbs’s Portuguese,

and the 40th and Provisional Battalion of Anson’s--while Ross’s

brigade and Anson’s two other battalions (the troops which had taken

the worst knocks on the 28th) formed the reserve line. Preceded by

their skirmishers, Byng’s battalions made for Sorauren, Cole’s marched

straight for Foy’s troops on the opposite hills[976]. Farther to the

right Picton had discovered already that there was no longer any French

force opposite him, and had got his division assembled for an advance

along the Roncesvalles road. He would seem to have been inclined to

go a little farther than Wellington thought prudent, as there was a

dispatch sent to him at 8 a.m. bidding him to advance no farther, until

it was certain that all was clear on the left, though he might push

forward light troops on the heights east of the Arga river. He did

not therefore get into touch with Lamartinière on the mountain above

Zabaldica for some time after Foy and Maucune had been attacked.

Meanwhile it was not only to the old fighting-ground of the 28th that

the attack was confined. Wellington ordered Lord Dalhousie to emerge

from the shelter of the hills beyond the left of the 6th Division, and

to assail the troops below him in the Ulzama valley--that is Taupin’s

and Vandermaesen’s divisions, halted by Clausel some way short of

Ostiz, when the sound of firing began near Sorauren.

The French units which were in the greatest danger were the three

divisions of Conroux, Maucune, and Foy, all suddenly caught under the

artillery fire of an enemy whom they had not believed to possess any

guns in line. Troops marching in column are very helpless when saluted

in this fashion. Foy writes ‘we had not been intending to fight, and

suddenly we found ourselves massed under the fire of the enemy’s

cannon. We were forced to go up the mountain side to get out of range;

we should have to retreat, and we already saw that we should be turned

on both flanks by the two valleys on our left and right.... General

Reille only sent part of my division up on to the high crests after

its masses had been well played upon by an enemy whose artillery fire

is most accurate[977].’ Now Foy could, after all, get out of range by

going up hill--but Maucune and Conroux were in and about a village

which it was their duty to hold, since they had to cover the retreat of

Foy and Lamartinière across their rear. If Sorauren were lost, Reille’s

two left divisions would be driven away from the main army--perhaps

even cut off. Yet it was a hard business to hold a village under a

close-range artillery fire from commanding ground, which enfiladed it

on both sides, when the enemy’s infantry intervened. Pakenham sent

Madden’s Portuguese round the village on the north--where they drove

in one regiment[978] which Conroux had thrown out as a flank guard on

the west bank of the Ulzama, and then proceeded to push round the rear

of the place. At the same time the left wing of the troops which had

descended from the chapel of San Salvador (Byng’s brigade) began to

envelop Sorauren on the eastern flank. And frontally it was attacked by

the light companies of Lambert’s brigade of the 6th Division.

Conroux’s first brigade (Rey’s) had succeeded in getting away to the

north of the village before it was completely surrounded, and, after

bickerings with Madden’s Portuguese and other 6th Division troops,

finally straggled across the hills to Ostiz. His other brigade,

however, and all Maucune’s division were very nearly exterminated.

They made an obstinate defence of Sorauren for nearly two hours, till

the place was entirely encompassed: Maucune says that he cleared a way

for the more compromised units by a charge which retook part of the

village, and then led the whole mass up the hill. The bulk of them

scraped through, but were intercepted by 4th Division troops in the

hollow hillside above. One whole battalion was forced to surrender,

and great part of two others; there were 1,700 unwounded prisoners

taken, of whom 1,100 belonged to Maucune and 600 to Conroux’s rear

brigade[979].

Maucune’s division was practically destroyed: having reported 600

casualties on the 28th, he reported 1,800 more on the 30th, and as his

total strength was only 4,186, it is clear that only 1,700 men got

away. The general and the survivors rallied in to Foy on the heights

above, along with the wrecks of Conroux’s second brigade, which lost

1,000 men: the first brigade, though less hard hit, seems to have had

500 or 600 casualties, and many stragglers. Altogether both divisions

were no longer a real fighting force during the rest of the campaign.

Meanwhile, there had been a distinct and separate combat going on

farther up the Ulzama valley. When the fighting in and about Sorauren

began, Clausel had halted Vandermaesen’s and Taupin’s division at a

defile near the village of Olabe, knowing that if he continued on his

way towards Ostiz and Olague Reille’s wing would be completely cut off

from him. Having seen suspicious movements in the hills on his left, he

sent up two battalions from Vandermaesen’s division to hold the heights

immediately beyond the river and cover his flank. The precaution

was wise but insufficient: somewhere about 8.30 a.m. the British 7th

Division, having received its orders to join in the general attack,

came up from its concealed position in the rear, and fell upon the

covering troops, who were driven off their steep position by Inglis’s

brigade, and thrown down on to the main body of Clausel’s troops in the

valley. There was close and bloody fighting in the bottom, ‘a small

level covered with small bushes of underwood,’ but after a time the

French gave way. Vandermaesen’s men soon got locked in a stationary

fight with Inglis’s battalions, but the two other 7th Division brigades

(Le Cor and Barnes) which had not descended to the river and the road,

were plying Taupin’s column with a steady fire from the slope of the

opposite bank, which made standing still impossible[980]. Having to

choose between attacking or retreating, Clausel opted for the easier

alternative, and drew off. In his report to Soult he gives as his

reason the fact that Sorauren had now been lost, that Reille’s troops

were streaming over the hills in disorder, and that it was no use

waiting any longer to cover their retreat, which was not going to

be by the road, but broadcast across the mountains. Accordingly he

disengaged himself as best he could, and retreated up the _chaussée_

followed by the 7th Division, which naturally took some time to get

into order. Inglis’s brigade followed by the road, presently supported

by Byng’s troops, who came up from the side of Sorauren at noon: the

other two brigades kept to the slopes on the west of the river, turning

each position which Clausel took up[981]. By one o’clock he was back

to Etulain, by dusk at Olague, where he was joined by Conroux and the

3,000 men who represented the wreck of his division. Vandermaesen

had been much mauled--and had left behind 300 prisoners, while many

stragglers from his division, and more from both of the brigades of

Conroux, were loose in the hills. It is doubtful whether Clausel had

more than 8,000 men out of his original 17,000 in hand that evening.

The survivors were not fit for further fighting[982].

Meanwhile, Reille was undergoing equally unpleasant experiences. He

had stopped behind to conduct the retreat of Foy’s and Lamartinière’s

divisions, when the unexpected cannonade, followed by the advance of

the British infantry, showed that he was not to get away without hard

fighting. When Pakenham attacked Sorauren, and Cole a little later

crossed the ravine to assail Foy’s position, Reille tried for some

time to maintain himself on the heights, but soon saw that it was

impossible. He sent Maucune permission to evacuate Sorauren--of which

the latter could not avail himself, for he was pressed on all sides

and no longer a free agent. And having thus endeavoured to divest

himself of responsibility for the fate of his right division, he gave

orders for the retreat of the two others not by any regular route, but

straight across country, up hill and down dale. The reason for haste

was not only that Cole was now pressing hard upon Foy’s new position,

but that Picton was visible marching hard for Zabaldica, with the

obvious intention of turning Lamartinière’s flank. There was an ominous

want of any frontal attack on this division--it was clear that Picton

intended to encircle it, while Foy on the other flank was being driven

in by Cole, and there was a chance of the whole wing being surrounded.

Accordingly, at about 10 o’clock by Lamartinière’s reckoning, he began

to give way in échelon of brigades, much hindered after a time by

Picton’s light troops, who had now swerved up into the hills after

him, and pestered each battalion when it turned to retreat[983]. Foy

reports that his rear brigade and part of his colleague’s division were

at one moment nearly cut off, and that he ran some danger of being

taken prisoner. It evidently became a helter-skelter business to get

away, and the French can have made no serious resistance, as Picton’s

three brigades that day had only just 110 casualties between them[984].

The retreat was made more disorderly by the arrival of a drove of some

4,000 fugitives of Conroux’s and Maucune’s divisions, accompanied

by the latter general himself, who had escaped over the hills from

Sorauren, and ran in for shelter on Foy’s rear.

At about one o’clock Reille’s divisions, having outdistanced their

pursuers by their rapidity, halted in considerable disarray in a valley

by the village of Esain[985], where Reille tried to restore order,

and to settle a practicable itinerary, with the object of rejoining

Clausel. For reasons which he does not specify, he marched himself by

a road down the valley, which would lead him to Olague, but told Foy

to take a parallel track farther up the slope which should take him

to Lanz, higher in the same valley. The partition was obviously made

in a very haphazard fashion, for while the bulk of Lamartinière’s

division, and the poor remnant of Maucune’s which preserved any order,

accompanied the corps-commander, Foy found that he was being followed

by two stray battalions of Gauthier’s brigade of Lamartinière, and by

a great mass of stragglers, largely Conroux’s men, but partly also

Maucune’s and Lamartinière’s.

Reille got to Olague at dusk and joined Clausel, but brought with

him a mere wreck of his corps, probably not 6,000 men. For Foy never

appeared--and never was to appear again during the campaign. He

explained, not in the most satisfactory way, that part of his track

lay through woods, where the sense of direction is lost, that he

was worried by the reappearance of British light troops, who had

to be driven off repeatedly, and that the stragglers smothered his

marching columns and led them astray. Anyhow, he found himself at

dusk at Iragui in the upper valley of the Arga, instead of at Lanz

in the upper valley of the Ulzama--having marched ten miles instead

of the five that would have taken him from Esain to Lanz. Picton’s

light troops were still in touch with him, and he resolved that it

was hopeless to try to struggle over mountains in the dark. Dropping

into the pass that leads from Zubiri to the Alduides (the Puerto de

Urtiaga), he marched for some hours more, bivouacked, and next morning

descended into French territory[986]. He sent off the stragglers

to St. Jean-Pied-de-Port--they sacked all the mountain villages on

their way[987]--and took his own division at leisure down the Val de

Baigorry to Cambo--having lost only 550 men out of his 6,000 in the

whole campaign. Some critics whispered that, seeing disaster behind

him, _il a su trop bien tirer son épingle du jeu_, and had saved his

division, regardless of what might happen to colleagues--just as on

the eve of Vittoria he had refused to join Jourdan, and had managed a

safe retreat for himself. That it was not absolutely impossible to get

away to the Bastan was shown by the fact that the two stray battalions

of Lamartinière’s division which had followed Foy in error, branched

off from him at Iragui and got to Almandoz, Elizondo, and the pass of

Maya. Another lost party--the battalion and cavalry regiment which

Lamartinière had left to cover the Roncesvalles road[988]--turned

off at Zubiri and followed Foy’s route by the Alduides and Baigorry.

Reille’s ‘main body’ was a poor remnant by the night of the 30th, after

all these deductions had come to pass.

It must not be supposed that the operations of Pakenham, Dalhousie,

Cole, and Picton during the morning of the 30th were left to the

personal initiative of these officers. Wellington’s orders for the

first move had been made on the spur of the moment, as the position of

the French became visible at dawn. But after the capture of Sorauren,

probably between 9 and 10 a.m., he issued a definite programme for the

remainder of the day’s operations.

Picton was to pursue the enemy who had gone off north-eastward

(Lamartinière) toward the Roncesvalles road. He was given two squadrons

of hussars, and told to take his divisional battery with him.

Cole was to act on the _massif_ between the Arga and the Ulzama,

keeping touch with Picton on one flank and Pakenham on the other: if

the enemy in his front (Foy and the wrecks of Maucune) made a strong

stand, he was not to lose men by violent frontal attacks, but to wait

for the effect of Picton’s turning movement, ‘which will alarm the

enemy for his flank.’

Up the main road Ostiz-Olague there were to march Byng’s brigade, the

6th Division, and O’Donnell’s troops from the San Cristobal position

(some six battalions). The 6th Division was to take its divisional

battery with it.

Dalhousie should operate on the east bank of the Ulzama, keeping touch

with Byng and Pakenham--he would be in a position to turn all positions

which the French (Taupin and Vandermaesen) might take up, if they tried

to hold back the main column on the high road. Like Cole, he was not to

attempt anything costly or hazardous.

Finally, and here later news caused a complete alteration of the

programme, Hill was to ‘point a movement’ from Lizaso on Olague and

Lanz, if the situation of the enemy made it possible. Attacked himself

by the superior numbers of D’Erlon’s corps, Hill was (of course) unable

to do anything of the kind. Wellington seems to have suspected that he

might be too weak for his task, and in the general rearrangement of the

army sent him not only Campbell’s Portuguese brigade (which properly

belonged to the division of Silveira, who was in person with Hill but

only with one brigade, Da Costa’s), but also the Spanish battalions

which O’Donnell had detached to Ollocarizqueta on the 27th[989], and

finally Morillo’s division. These 7,000 men were started from their

positions before noon, but did not arrive in time to help Hill[990].

A separate supplementary order went off to Charles Alten to tell him

that the Light Division would not be wanted at Lecumberri, and should

return to Zubieta.

The whole of this series of orders is purely offensive in character,

and, as is easily seen, presupposes first, that a large section of the

French army is retiring on the Roncesvalles road, but secondly that the

main body is about to go back by Lanz, the Col de Velate, Elizondo, and

Maya. Hence the heaviness of the column directed on the _chaussée_: if

Wellington had dreamed that Soult was intending to send nothing back by

the Roncesvalles road, and had started a vigorous attack on Hill that

morning, the orders given would have been different.

Meanwhile, during the hours which saw the destruction of Clausel’s and

Reille’s divisions, Soult himself was urging on D’Erlon’s corps to

overwhelm Hill, and hoping for the early arrival of Clausel’s to lend

assistance. Reille he had left behind as a containing force, and did

not expect to see for another twenty-four hours. Soult informs us that

he left Zabaldica and the left wing so early that he had no reason to

expect the trouble which was about to break out behind him. He noticed

Maucune’s division beginning to file into Sorauren, and passed Clausel

in march on Ostiz, before the British guns opened, i.e. before 6

o’clock in the morning. But they must have been sounding up the valley

before he reached D’Erlon on the heights by Etulain: he resolved to

pay no attention to the ominous noise, being entirely absorbed in the

operation which he had in hand.

D’Erlon was already in movement, by the valley of the Ulzama, and had

just been joined by the cavalry, which had come up from the Arga valley

by cross roads in the rear[991]. It was, of course, no use to him in

the sort of engagement on which he was launched. The Marshal instructed

him to push on and hurry matters, as there were reports from deserters

that three hostile divisions were on their way to reinforce the British

force at Lizaso. Accordingly D’Erlon, having discovered his enemy’s

position with some little difficulty, for it lay all along the edge of

woods, delivered his attack as soon as his troops were up. Hill, on

news of the French advance reaching him, had evacuated Lizaso, which

lies in a hole, and had drawn up his four brigades along a wooded ridge

half a mile to the south, with the village of Gorron in front of his

left wing, and that of Arostegui behind his right wing. The Portuguese

brigade of Ashworth formed his centre: on the right was one regiment of

Da Costa’s brigade which had been called up from the Marcalain road,

on the left the other and the remains of Cameron’s brigade, which had

suffered so heavily at Maya: Fitzgerald of the 5/60th was in command,

the brigadier having been wounded on the 25th. Pringle’s brigade (under

O’Callaghan that day, for Pringle was acting as division-commander vice

William Stewart wounded at Maya) was in reserve--apparently distributed

by battalions along the rear of the line. The edge of the woods was

lined with a heavy skirmishing line of light companies, and the Caçador

battalion of Ashworth’s brigade. Altogether there were under 9,000 men

in line.

D’Erlon determined to demonstrate against Hill’s front with Darmagnac’s

division, who were to hold the Portuguese closely engaged, but not to

attack seriously. Meanwhile Abbé was to assail the Allied left, and

also to turn it by climbing the high hills beyond its extreme flank, in

the direction of the village of Beunza. He had ample force to do this,

having the strongest division in Soult’s army--8,000 bayonets--and the

only one which had not yet been seriously engaged during the campaign.

Maransin followed Abbé in support. The arrangements being scientific,

and the force put in action more than double Hill’s, success seemed

certain.