OPERATIONS OF THE ANGLO-SICILIAN ARMY. THE ALLIES ENTER FRANCE.
PASSAGE OF THE BIDASSOA, THE NIVELLE, AND THE NIVE. TREATY
BETWEEN BUONAPARTE AND FERDINAND, AND CONSEQUENT PROCEEDINGS
OF THE SPANISH GOVERNMENT.
♦1813.♦
♦THE REMAINS OF ROMANA’S ARMY RETURN FROM THE NORTH.♦
During the siege of S. Sebastian’s, some few hundred men, the remains
of Romana’s army, who had not been able to effect their escape from
the North, when their magnanimous general and their comrades went to
take part in their country’s struggle, and most of them to perish in
it, returned to Spain. The resistance to Buonaparte’s tyranny, which
the Spaniards and Portugueze had begun, had prepared the way for the
deliverance of the continent, and thus eventually restored them to
their native land.
♦LORD W. BENTINCK INVESTS TARRAGONA.♦
The Anglo-Sicilian army had no sooner returned to Alicante from its
ill-conducted expedition against Tarragona, than every exertion was
used for enabling it to take the field, and profit by the retreat of
the enemy from Valencia. Lord William Bentinck entered that capital
on the 9th of July, and leaving General Elio to observe Murviedro,
proceeded with his own troops, and such of the Spaniards as he could
♦AUGUST.♦ find means of providing with subsistence, for in this
essential point there was the greatest difficulty. Having arrived at
Vinaroz, he detached a corps under Lieutenant-General Sir William
Clinton by sea to Tarragona, in the hope of preventing the enemy from
dismantling that fortress, if such should be their intention. When
the fleet arrived off Tarragona, a French force was discovered in
its vicinity; but there were no indications of any such purpose. The
detachment, therefore, landed at the Col de Balaguer; and there, Lord
William, having crossed the Ebro at Amposta on flying bridges, joined
him with the advance of the army, some cavalry, and artillery; the
whole then moved forward to the village of Cambrils, and on the first
of August they invested Tarragona: that operation was well performed,
and cover was obtained three hundred yards nearer than the most
advanced point which had been occupied during the previous attack.
Preparations were now observable in the place for its destruction; but
it was evident that the ♦COL. JONES’S ACCOUNT, V. 2. 201.♦ garrison
could not effect this in the presence of the allied army, unless
Marshal Suchet came in force to cover the operation. That general
was at Barcelona; his troops were at Villafranca and at Villanova de
Sitges, being thus divided to lessen the difficulty of subsisting
them; and his advance was at Arbos and at Vendrell: sometimes he
seemed to be menacing a movement against the allies, and sometimes
preparing for a farther retreat. Lord William, with such an enemy in
such force so near, would not expose himself to a failure like that
of Sir John Murray; and he deferred beginning the siege and landing
his heavy artillery, till the Duque del Parque’s army should come up,
and Sarsfield with his Catalan troops. The Duque joined on the third;
the Catalans were actively employed upon the right flank of Suchet’s
divisions, cutting off his supplies; and on the 7th they surprised a
battalion who were guarding the mills at S. Sadurni, and occasioned
them a loss of 200 men. Sarsfield joined on the 11th. But as the
appearance of the allies before Tarragona prevented the garrison from
demolishing the works, so on the other hand it gave Marshal Suchet time
for bringing together as large a force as he thought the occasion
required. The British general, like Generals Maitland and Murray before
him, felt all the difficulties of his situation; he was conscious that
his ill-composed army was far from being efficient in proportion to
its numerical strength; he had no means of feeding the Spanish part of
that army if the enemy should manœuvre upon his flank, so as to cut
off the supplies which they obtained from the country; he had found
it impracticable to throw a bridge over the Ebro; and should he be
compelled in his present situation to retreat, the ships could not
take off more than a third of his forces. But while the prudence of
remaining in that situation became a serious question, preparations for
breaking ground were carried on.
♦SUCHET RAISES THE SIEGE.♦
Suchet meantime acting as if he were opposed to a much greater force,
had waited till Generals Decaen, Maurice Mathieu, and Maximien Lamarque
could join him with 8000 men belonging to the army of Catalonia; with
this accession his numbers were estimated at from 27,000 to 30,000.
They effected their junction at Villafranca on the 14th. The first
attempt was by the coast road; but Admiral Hallowell effectually
checked this movement, by stationing his troops as close as possible
to the low sandy shore in front of the Torre del Barra. On the ensuing
morning Lord William was informed that a large body of the French were
advancing through the inland country by the Col de Santa Christina;
and in the evening a sharp skirmish took place between the advance of
hussars and the cavalry under Colonel Lord Frederick Bentinck, which he
sent forward to observe their motions: in this the Brunswick hussars
distinguished themselves, repulsing the enemy and making several
prisoners. Suchet advanced rapidly beyond the Gaya that day, while
Decaen advanced upon Valls and the Francoli. Lord William did not deem
it prudent to risk a general action before Tarragona; at nightfall,
therefore, he commenced his retreat, and when day broke the whole army
was out of sight of the city; the British, Germans, and Sicilians,
covering the road towards Tortosa, took up a position near Cambrils.
Sarsfield occupied Reus; and the Duque del Parque was directed to
proceed to the Col de Balaguer, where, if Suchet should push the
retreating army so as to make a general action necessary, it was
intended to await his attack. But the French commander had no such ♦THE
FRENCH ABANDON TARRAGONA.♦ purpose; his present object was to bring off
the garrison from Tarragona, and to demolish its fortifications, so
that they might afford no support to the allies. On the night of the
18th the works were blown up; and Marshal Suchet then withdrew for ever
from a place where, by the premeditated atrocities which were committed
at its capture, he has fixed upon his memory an indelible stain. The
demolition was effectual: the artillery consisted of about 200 pieces
of brass ordnance and 46 iron mortars; 50 of the former were left
uninjured; and he did not tarry long enough to destroy the quantity of
warlike stores which he had not the means of removing. Sarsfield on the
following day took possession of the city.
♦PLANS PROPOSED TO SUCHET BY MARSHAL SOULT.♦
Suchet soon fell back upon the line of the Llobregat, having drained
the plain of Villafranca of its resources. In a country thus exhausted,
General Copons declared it was not possible to provide for the whole
Spanish force under Lord William’s command; and in consequence of this,
and upon erroneous information that part of the French troops had been
detached to aid Marshal Soult, the British general, conformably to an
arrangement made with Lord Wellington, sent the Duque del Parque, with
the 4th Spanish army, to Zaragoza; and he reinforced the corps, then
employed under Elio, in the blockade of Tortosa. Early in September he
concentrated the greater part of his remaining force at Villafranca.
At this time Marshal Soult had proposed to Suchet that he should cross
the Pyrenees with the whole disposable force of the armies of Aragon
and Catalonia, and unite with him at Tarbes and at Pau, for the purpose
of re-entering Spain together by Oleron and Jaca, and making another
effort for the relief of Pamplona. A different project was offered
to his consideration by the minister at war, ... that he should as
much as possible occupy the enemy upon the Ebro: in either case a
reinforcement of conscripts was to be counted on. The difficulties in
the way of the first plan were soon perceived by Soult himself to be
insurmountable; and Suchet represented the danger of drawing after him
the Anglo-Sicilian army into the southern departments of France, which
were defenceless. But as a practicable though a perilous operation, he
offered to advance between the Ebro and the Pyrenees, with 70 pieces of
field and 30 of mountain artillery, to meet Soult, who might debouche
from Jaca with his infantry and cavalry, but without cannon. But for
this two things were necessary, ... that he should have conscripts to
place in the garrisons, and that before he marched from Catalonia he
should defeat the Anglo-Sicilians.
Lord William’s numbers were not equal to those which could be brought
against him, the want both of provisions and means of transport having
obliged him to leave Whittingham’s division at Reus and Valls; but
he had no suspicion that Suchet would advance against him. His army
was posted at Villafranca and in the villages in its front, as far
as the mountains on the Llobregat; the advance, under Colonel Adams,
consisting of the 27th British regiment, one Calabrian and three
Spanish battalions, with four mountain guns, occupied the pass of
Ordal, on the main road, about ten miles in their front, and the same
distance from the enemy’s posts on the Llobregat. The pass was so
strong that Lord William was without any apprehension of its being
forced, especially as he thought the probable point of attack ♦SUCHET
SURPRISES THE ALLIES AT THE PASS OF ORDAL.♦ would be by turning his
left at Martorell and San Sadurni, where Copons was posted. Nor,
indeed, was it likely Suchet would have confined himself to the front
attack of a position which was strong there, but open on both flanks,
unless, because such an attack was improbable, he thought the enemy
might be taken there by surprise, before they had strengthened the post.
Accordingly, having concerted his plans with General Decaen, he
collected the divisions of Harispe and Habert, with his cavalry at the
bridge of Molins del Rey, and at eight o’clock on the night of the
12th moved for the pass. The allies were reposing in position, when
about midnight their piquets were rapidly driven in, and they were
presently attacked in force. An old work which commanded the main road
was well defended by the Calabrians, till they were driven from it by
the repeated attacks of superior numbers; they rallied then about sixty
paces in rear of it, behind some old ruins, and there, in conjunction
with the Spaniards, who were close on their left, stood their ground
some time longer. But in a night attack the assailants, acting upon
ground with which they were well acquainted, and on a concerted plan,
had greatly the advantage over a very inferior force who were taken by
surprise. Colonel Adams and the two officers next in succession to him
were badly wounded, and obliged to quit the field; owing to the changes
this occasioned, the regular directions were interrupted, and the
ground in consequence was disputed much longer than it ought to have
been against a force so greatly superior, both British and Spaniards
maintaining it so resolutely that the right and the centre were nearly
destroyed in their position. The Calabrian corps on the left fell back
along the hills, and endeavoured to reach San Sadurni, which Manso
occupied with his brigade. Their hope was to rejoin the army by the
road leading from thence to Villafranca; but after crossing the river
Noya, in front of San Sadurni, they were attacked by a considerable
column, and forced back toward the Barcelona road: they succeeded,
however, in making their way to Sitges, and there effected their
embarkation on the following night. The guns were taken by the enemy,
but most of the fugitives joined Manso.
♦THE ANGLO-SICILIANS RETREAT.♦
As soon as the attack was known at head-quarters, Lord William put the
army in motion to sustain his advance; but before any reinforcements
could reach the spot, the French had carried every point, and it
remained for him then either to retreat without loss of time, or give
battle to an enemy superior in numbers and flushed with success, upon
ground which afforded no advantage of position. He determined therefore
upon retiring; Major-General Mackenzie, with the 2d division, covered
the retreat during the most difficult part of its execution, to the
village of Monjoz; Sarsfield moved to the left of Villafranca, by the
hilly and woody country on that side; and the British, Germans, and
Sicilians, took the main road by the villages of Monjoz and Arbos.
Marshal Suchet expected that Decaen would arrive before Villafranca in
time to co-operate with him, and force the allies to an action; but
that general had to cross the Llobregat and the Noya, and was delayed
also in the defiles by Manso, and by the Calabrese, with whom he fell
in when they were making for San Sadurni. His own cuirassiers and
dragoons, under General Meyer, pressed with very superior numbers,
near Monjoz, upon the cavalry under Lord Frederic Bentinck, who
covered the retreat, and some sabre strokes were exchanged between
the two leaders. At length a most timely and vigorous charge was
made simultaneously by Lord Frederic with the 20th dragoons, under
Lieutenant-Colonel Hawker, and the Sicilians, and by Lieutenant-Colonel
Schrader with the German hussars, by which the enemy were driven back,
and so completely checked, that they made no farther attempt upon the
retreating army; so it reached Vendrells that evening, without any
loss. During the night it retired to Altafulla, and on the evening
following took up its ground in front of Tarragona, as the nearest
protecting situation; the Spaniards, under Sarsfield, moving upon Reus.
The ruins of Tarragona could have afforded little support if the allies
had not been better protected by their own strength, and by the opinion
which Suchet had learned to entertain of them. He advanced no farther
than Villafranca in pursuit; and after exacting a contribution from the
distressed inhabitants, returned to Barcelona.
♦THE COMMAND DEVOLVES UPON SIR WILLIAM CLINTON.♦
At this time the uneasy state of affairs in Sicily, and the ill success
of political changes there, as premature as they were well intended,
rendered it necessary for Lord William Bentinck to repair thither,
and the command of the army devolved upon Lieutenant-General Sir
William Clinton. That general was left with an inadequate force, and
under discouraging circumstances, to attend to objects which were of
no inconsiderable importance to the common cause. He had to provide
against the likelihood of Suchet’s availing himself of his late success
to relieve or to withdraw his garrisons in Valencia or on the Ebro; and
he had to occupy the attention of that able commander so as to prevent
him from sending any considerable detachment to take part in Soult’s
operations against Lord Wellington. It was found impracticable to
construct a bridge upon the Ebro as low down as Amposta; and if it had
not been so, he could not have spared troops enough from other more
important services, to protect it against the sallies of the strong
garrison in Tortosa. The best course therefore which he could pursue
seemed to be that of repairing the defences of Tarragona, as far as
time and means permitted, so as to render it a point of support. Well
was it for the Anglo-Sicilian army that, notwithstanding the credit
it had lost by Sir John Murray’s precipitate retreat, and the recent
loss which it had sustained at Ordal, it had yet impressed Marshal
Suchet with a most respectable opinion of its ability in the field;
skilful as he was, nothing but that opinion withheld him from acting
vigorously against it when he had it so greatly at advantage. His
disposable force at this time was not short of 25,000 men, with a large
body of cavalry; better troops he could not desire; and their supplies
were protected by the possession of several important fortresses, all
which were garrisoned well. The Anglo-Sicilian army amounted barely to
12,000 effective men, including a small body of cavalry; about half of
these were British and Germans, the remainder Italians and Sicilians in
British pay, on whom, though they were not ill-disciplined, the same
confidence could not be placed in the presence of an enemy. There were
about 11,000 Spanish troops whose services General Clinton might have
commanded, if there had been means for rendering them available, but
they were in a state almost of destitution; without pay, ill-clothed,
and worse fed; and he had no control (as his predecessors had had) over
the first Spanish army, which army also was prevented by its wants
from taking the field, except occasionally, and then from keeping
it, except for a very short time. With the commander of that army,
General Copons, and with the other leaders, the best understanding
prevailed; nor indeed were there among all the Spaniards better men
or more distinguished officers than some of them, ... the names of
Manso and Eroles will be held in honour as long as the Catalans
retain any of that national spirit by which they are so honourably
distinguished. They might be expected to check any movement of the
enemy on the side of Lerida, or towards Tarragona; and to interrupt
their communication with France along the inland road, by which their
supplies were principally brought; but direct co-operation was not to
be looked for where there was no unity of command, and ... on the one
part ... all but a total want of means. Even the troops in British
pay suffered great privations, their communication with the depôts at
Malta and Gibraltar being interrupted because of the plague. But the
tide of the enemy’s fortunes had now turned; and all difficulties were
met cheerfully by the allies, in the sure hope that their perseverance
would soon be crowned with success. As soon as arrangements were made
for restoring the works at Tarragona, and for supplying as far as
possible the Spaniards who were attached to the Anglo-Sicilian army,
head-quarters were established at Villafranca; the troops which had
been cantoned at Reus, Valls, and other places in the environs of
Tarragona, were ordered to occupy an advanced line of cantonments:
a force, consisting of cavalry, with some field artillery, and
Sarsfield’s Spanish division of about 5000 infantry, were stationed
at Villafranca; the enemy’s movements on the Llobregat were narrowly
observed; and the remainder of the allied troops (with the exception
of those who carried on the works at Tarragona) were so distributed,
that, upon any emergency, they could be assembled at Villafranca in
four-and-twenty hours.
Meantime, on the opposite side of the peninsula, an ♦POSITION OF THE
ARMIES ON THE PYRENEAN FRONTIER.♦ interval of seeming inactivity had
followed the capture of S. Sebastian’s; but the time, though marked
by no military movements, was busily employed in preparing for them,
by closing up the troops, replacing the ammunition, and re-organizing
those divisions which had suffered most. The opposing armies were in
sight of each other. There was something mournful as well as impressive
to a thoughtful mind in the contrast between the stupendous scenery of
the Pyrenees and the diminutive appearance of field-works, and large
armies upon such a theatre: “the little huts, and the less beings who
inhabited them,” might have been overlooked as mere specks in the
prospect, had it not been for the more mournful knowledge that these
tens of thousands were collected there for life or for death; one party
having been sent thither by the wicked will of an individual drunk
with ambition, and the other brought there by the duty and necessity
of resisting his lust of power. The troops who covered the blockade
of Pamplona suffered severely from wet and cold, and were unavoidably
subject to privations from which their more fortunate comrades near the
coast were exempt. When the clouds opened they could see the fertile
country of the enemy beneath them, in sunshine. During the weeks of
hard, irksome duty, passed thus in a situation where exertion and
enterprise were not required, but in their stead continual vigilance
and patience, desertions became frequent; they were most numerous, as
might be expected, among the Spaniards, because they were in their own
country; and least, in a remarkable degree, among[2] the Portugueze.
It was now no longer in Buonaparte’s power to allot conscripts by
the hundred thousand for the consumption ♦LEVY ORDERED IN FRANCE FOR
SOULT’S ARMY.♦ of his war in the Peninsula. A levy of 30,000 was
all that could be ordered to reinforce Soult’s army; “the armies of
Spain, it was admitted, having been compelled to yield before ♦SPEECH
OF M. REGNAUD.♦ superior numbers, and the advantages which the enemy
drew from their maritime communications, needed reinforcement; for
England, while in the north of Europe it lavished its intrigues and
its promises, was not less lavish in the south of its resources and
sacrifices. The proposed levy, however, raised in the departments
adjacent to the Pyrenees, would suffice to stop the successes upon
which the enemy were congratulating themselves too soon; it would
suffice for resuming the attitude which became France, and for
preparing the moment when England should no longer dispose of the
treasures of Mexico, for the devastation of both the Spains!” This
was the language of M. Regnaud de St. Jean d’Angely in an official
speech; and the senator, M. le Comte de Beurnonville, making a report
in the name of a special commission, spake in the same strain, ... a
strain that becomes doubly curious when compared with the events which
were so soon to follow. “England,” said he, “who intrigues much and
hazards little, has not dared to compromise her land forces by sending
them to combat in the north of Germany, and uniting them with the
Russian and Prussian phalanxes; she feared reverses which she could not
but foresee, and which for her would be irreparable. In this thorny
conjuncture, and that it might have the air of doing something for the
powers whom it had set to play, the cabinet of London had preferred
mingling the English troops with the Spanish and Portugueze _bands_,
being sure that it could withdraw them without inconvenience, according
to its interest. Hence that sudden augmentation of its force, which
had determined our armies to a retrograde movement; and these _bands_,
encouraged by some ephemeral successes, have carried their audacity
so far as to invest the places of S. Sebastian’s and Pamplona.” ...
Buonaparte’s ministers never thought proper to inform the senate that
these _bands_ soon carried their audacity a little farther, and took
them both. “The proposed levy,” it was added, “would enable the French
armies of the Peninsula to resume their ancient attitude.”
♦OCTOBER.
LORD WELLINGTON’S ORDERS UPON ENTERING FRANCE.♦
The orator, and the special commission for whom he spake, were
mistaken: it was England who resumed her ancient attitude, ... who
re-asserted and resumed her military superiority upon that ground
where her Plantagenets had displayed it. Her victorious armies were
at this time preparing to plant their banners in France, leading thus
the way to the general invasion of what the French in the pride of
their military strength had called the sacred territory. As soon,
indeed, as the enemy had been driven beyond the Pyrenees, the army
had looked forward to this with all the pride of the military spirit,
and of excited national feeling: the Spaniards and Portugueze talked
of retribution and revenge; and among the British, the question was
discussed whether or not they were to be freebooters. That question
was answered by Lord Wellington in the general order which he issued
as soon as the troops encamped among the Pyrenees. “The commander of
the forces,” said he, “is anxious to draw the attention of the officers
of the army to the difference of the situation in which they have been
hitherto, among the people of Portugal and Spain, and that in which
they may hereafter find themselves, among those of the frontiers of
France.” After observing that every military endeavour must thenceforth
be used for obtaining intelligence, and preventing surprise, he
proceeded to say that, notwithstanding the utmost precautions were
absolutely necessary, as the country in front of the army was the
enemy’s, he was particularly desirous that the inhabitants should be
well treated, and private property respected, as it had been till that
time. The officers and soldiers of the army, said he, must recollect,
that their nations are at war with France solely because the Ruler of
the French nation will not allow them to be at peace, and is desirous
of forcing them to submit to his yoke; and they must not forget that
the worst of the evils suffered by the enemy in his profligate invasion
of Spain and Portugal have been occasioned by the irregularities of
the soldiers and their cruelties, authorized and encouraged by their
chiefs, towards the unfortunate and peaceful inhabitants of the
country. To revenge this conduct on the peaceable inhabitants of France
would be unmanly and unworthy of the nations to whom the commander
of the forces now addresses himself; and at all events would be the
occasion of similar and worse evils to the army at large, than those
which ♦GENERAL ORDERS, JULY 9, 1813.♦ the enemy’s army have suffered
in the Peninsula, and would eventually prove highly injurious to the
public interest.
♦PASSAGE OF THE BIDASSOA.♦
Though it was not possible to act on the offensive upon a great scale,
till Pamplona should have surrendered, Lord Wellington determined with
the left wing of his army to cross the Bidassoa, and dislodge the enemy
from some strong ground which they occupied on the right of that river
as an advanced position; the key to it being the high steep mountain
called La Rhune, which fronts the passes of Vera and Etchalar. Mount
La Rhune is a remarkable spot; and its possession had been obstinately
contested in the campaign of 1794, because its summit served as a
watch-tower from whence the whole country between Bayonne and the
Pyrenees might be observed. The mountain itself is within the French
territory, but there is a chapel, or, in Romish language, a hermitage,
on its summit, which used to be supported at the joint expense of the
villages of Vera in Spain, and of Sarré, Ascain, and Urogne, in France;
people of different nations, and hostile feelings, being there drawn
together by the bond of their common faith.... The right of the army
being at Roncesvalles and Maya, could at any time descend from its
commanding situation into France.
♦THE BIDASSOA.♦
The Bidassoa, a river not otherwise remarkable than as forming the
boundary of two great kingdoms, rises on Mount Belat, flows down the
valley of Bastan, and, spreading into a broad stream after it has
passed Irun, enters the Bay of Biscay between the Point of Figueras
(a rocky promontory in which Mount Jaysquibel terminates) and the
heights on the French side. Mount Jaysquibel, which extends along the
coast from Passages to this point (its highest elevation being about
1700 feet), is separated from the chain of the Pyrenees by a broad
valley, along which the Vittoria road passes; at its foot stands the
old and melancholy town of Fontarabia, ... a name which Milton has made
familiar to English ears; the river rising sixteen feet there, and
forming a tide harbour, washes the ruins of its walls, which were blown
up in the war of 1794; but when the tide is out there is a considerable
extent of sand on both sides of the stream. The little town of Andaye,
famed for its brandy, is on the French shore opposite. The bridge,
which the enemy had destroyed in their retreat, is about a mile from
Irun, and a little below it is the Isle of Pheasants, better known by
its later name from the Conference held there in 1660, which brought
in its consequences so many evils, not upon Spain alone, but upon the
greater part of Europe. Between this island and the mouth of the river
three fords had been discovered: Spanish fishermen had been employed in
this service, and they performed it so well, as if pursuing the while
their ordinary occupation, that the French sentries on the opposite
bank never suspected their intent.
♦ATTACK OF THE FRENCH POSITION.♦
A stronger position as to all natural advantages can hardly be imagined
than that which the allies were to attack, after they should have
crossed the Bidassoa; the French had strengthened it by redoubts, by
_abattis_, and intrenchments at every knoll; the paths were hardly
practicable; it was laborious work even for an unarmed man to reach
points which were now to be assailed in the face of an enemy perfectly
prepared. But it was necessary to advance from a country where the
nature of the ground rendered it difficult to support the troops; and
where supplies for many of the corps were carried to the mountain
encampments on the heads of men and women, long strings of whom were
to be seen toiling up the steep and slippery ascents. Preparations
for the attack were made on the 6th, and the troops were under arms
and in motion soon after midnight. The tents were left standing, that
the enemy might discover no signs when dawn appeared of the intended
movement. It was a stormy night, with thunder and lightning, and some
rain, ... the rain not enough in any way to impede or increase the
difficulties of the attempt, and the storm in other respects favouring
it; for it moved in the same direction as the troops, and prevented
the enemy from hearing the noise of the artillery and pontoon train.
The storm was succeeded by an extraordinary sultry heat, what little
wind there was feeling like the breath of an oven. The 1st and 5th
divisions, with Wilson’s Portugueze brigade, were to cross the river in
three columns below, and one above, the bridge, and carry the French
intrenchments about and above Andaye; and General Freyre, with the
Spaniards, was to cross in three columns at the higher ford, and turn
the enemy’s left by carrying their intrenchments on the Montagne Verte,
and on the heights of Mandale. The troops arrived at their appointed
stations without having been noticed; and every thing thus far had
been so fortunately performed, that the enemy did not begin to fire
till the heads of the columns were nearly half over, when a rocket
was discharged from the steeple at Fontarabia, as the signal for the
simultaneous advance of the troops above.
Every thing succeeded perfectly. The 5th division was the first that
set foot on the French soil; they advanced under a brisk fire from the
enemy’s piquets, against the line which was hastily forming on the
nearest range of hills. The first came presently up, and the enemy
were driven from the works. Freyre was equally successful on his side;
the Spaniards rushed down the mountain, forded the river, and carried
the Montagne Verte. The affair began at eight, and at nine it was seen
that the huts of the mountain post had been set on fire and abandoned.
Meantime Baron Alten, with the light division, and with Longa’s,
attacked and forced the intrenchments on the Puerto de Vera; and Giron,
still farther on the right, attacked their position on Mount La Rhune.
The light division drove them from redoubts, and intrenchments, and
abattis, such, in the words of a distinguished officer then present,
“as men ought to have defended for ever;” and the Spaniards, in like
manner, carried every thing before them, till they reached the foot of
the rock on which the hermitage stands, which on that side presents a
craggy cliff, though on the other it is accessible by a gentle slope.
Even that post the Spaniards made several attempts to carry by storm,
which failed only because it was impossible to ascend there; the enemy,
therefore, remained in possession of the hermitage that night, and of
a rock on the same range of mountains with the right of the Spanish
troops. ♦BATTY’S CAMPAIGN IN THE WESTERN PYRENEES, P. 28.♦ In all
other parts the firing had ceased early in the afternoon, here it was
kept up till late at night; and the conical outline of the mountain
was seen far and wide by the light of this awful illumination. Some
time elapsed on the following morning before the fog cleared away
sufficiently for Lord Wellington to reconnoitre Mount La Rhune, the
prominent mountain there, towering above its neighbours; he perceived
that it was least difficult of access on its right, and that the
attack might advantageously be connected with that on the enemy’s
works in front of the camp of Sarré. Accordingly, he ordered the army
of reserve to concentrate to their right: Giron at the same time
attacked the post on the rock, and won it most gallantly; his troops
followed up their success, and carried an intrenchment upon a hill
which protected the right of the camp: the enemy immediately evacuated
all their works in order to defend the approaches to their camp, and
these posts were occupied by detachments which Lord Dalhousie sent
from the 7th division through the Puerto de Etchalar for this purpose.
Giron then established a battalion on the enemy’s left upon Mount La
Rhune. Night, opportunely for the enemy, prevented farther operations;
they retired under cover of the darkness both from the hermitage and
the camp, and the allied armies pitched their tents in France. The
British loss in these two days was 579 killed, wounded, and missing;
that of the Portugueze 233; that of the Spaniards 750. Sir Thomas
Graham, having thus established within the French territory the troops
who had so often been distinguished under his direction, resigned the
command to Lieutenant-General Sir John Hope, who had arrived from
Ireland the preceding day, and departed himself to take a command in
the Low Countries. As soon as the left of the allied army had made
this important movement, the enemy moved General Paris’s division from
Oleron to the neighbourhood of St. Jean de Pied-de-Port, and on the
night of the 12th they surprised and carried a redoubt in front of the
camp of Sarré, taking prisoners a piquet of forty Spaniards, and one
hundred pioneers. The redoubt was farther from the line, and from the
ground from whence it could be supported, than Lord Wellington had
supposed when he gave orders for occupying it; he left it, therefore,
now in their possession. On the following morning they made an attack
upon the advanced posts of the Andalusian army, hoping to regain the
works which they had constructed in front of the camp; but they were
repulsed with little difficulty.
The country which was now occupied by the contending armies had been
well disputed in the years 1793 and 1794, during the heat of the French
revolution, and men whose names afterwards became conspicuous served at
that time in both armies: Mendizabal and the high-minded Romana among
the Spaniards; among the French, Latour d’Auvergne; Moncey, one of the
few French Marshals who brought no reproach upon himself by rapacity or
cruelty; and Laborde, who will be remembered in Portugal for both, and
for having been the first French General whom Lord Wellington defeated.
In that war the Spaniards fought with the manifold disadvantage of
having a wretched administration, an ill-disciplined and worse provided
army, and a revolutionary spirit showing itself in some of their own
countrymen; yet they made a longer and sturdier resistance in the
Pyrenees than the French displayed when it was now their turn to
defend the passes and protect their own country from invasion. But,
honourable as it was for the armies of England, Portugal, and Spain
thus to have driven the enemy from Lisbon and Cadiz to the Pyrenees,
and pursued him into his own territories, the spirit in which that
invasion was undertaken was not less honourable to the allied nations
than the success of their arms. The French, indeed, as soon as they
apprehended that their own country must soon become the seat of war,
spoke with horror of what might be expected from the Portugueze and
Spaniards, remembering then with uneasiness, if not with shame and
remorse, the atrocities which they themselves had committed. Their hope
was that the peasantry would rise, and carry on that kind of war which
within the Peninsula had been found so destructive to the invaders;
and no endeavour was omitted for exciting them to such a course.
But a circumstance had happened to check this spirit upon its first
manifestation, a few days before the passage of the ♦CONDUCT OF THE
FRENCH PEASANTRY.♦ Bidassoa. The Portugueze, when they surprised and
took a French piquet on the side of Roncesvalles, were fired at by the
peasantry: they took fourteen of them, and these men were immediately
marched to Passages, there to be embarked for England as prisoners
of war. This treatment had the effect of intimidating the people,
while it awakened no spirit of vengeance, because it was perceived to
be nothing more than what was strictly just. That spirit might have
been roused if Lord Wellington had not by timely severity effectually
checked the license which the troops were but too ready to have taken,
and from which it had not been possible to protect the Spaniards in the
Pyrenean valleys. The French peasantry did not forsake their houses
when the allies crossed the Bidassoa. The inhabitants of the large
village of Urogne did not leave it till the battle approached, and
then they collected in an adjoining field; but they dispersed as soon
as flames broke out among their dwellings; for the troops who entered
it began to plunder ... they set several houses on fire, and drank to
such excess that, had the enemy been on the alert, he might easily have
captured or destroyed them. Some of the officers were more culpable
than the troops, for they used no exertions to prevent the outrages
which they saw. Lord Wellington, as soon as he was informed of this
misconduct, republished his former orders, and accompanied them with a
severe reprimand, declaring his determination not to command officers
who would not obey his orders, and of sending some of them, who had
been thus grossly unmindful of their duty, to England, that their names
might be brought under the notice of the Prince Regent.
It was now seen how much the moral conduct and character of an army
depends upon its general. Lord Melville once made the monstrous
assertion in Parliament that the worst men were the fittest for
soldiers. His strong understanding should have taught him better, if
his heart had failed to do so; and he was properly rebuked for it
by the Duke of Gloucester, who observed, that the men who had the
strictest sense of their personal duties were those who served their
country with most patience and most fidelity in war. But Mr. Wyndham’s
hope of recruiting our armies with men of a better description than
those who used to be forced or inveigled into it, or driven by
desperation to enlist, had not been realized, and the want of moral and
religious training was still left to be supplied by military discipline
... as far as that could supply it. Lord Wellington enforced that
means; and it is not the least of his many and eminent merits, that he
made such means effectual, without bringing upon himself any reproach
for undue severity. After the excesses at Urogne, not an inhabitant was
to be seen in the French territory; they had withdrawn more because
of these outrages, than in obedience to the injunctions of their
own government. But a proclamation was issued in French and Basque,
assuring them that their persons and property should be respected. Some
necessary examples of justice upon those who ventured to violate orders
so emphatically repeated, convinced the inhabitants that they might
trust to the word of the British general; and, after those examples
had been made, never, perhaps, since the days of the great Gustavus,
was such excellent discipline observed in an enemy’s country. Even
the Portugueze and Spaniards, whom it might have been thought almost
impossible to restrain from giving way to that desire of vengeance
which had been so wantonly, cruelly, and insolently provoked, obeyed
the injunction of the great commander who had beaten their invaders out
of Portugal and Spain, and demeaned themselves with such good order and
humanity, that the French often said their own armies were the foes
whom they dreaded.
♦PAMPLONA IS SURRENDERED.♦
Two pontoon bridges, and one bridge of boats, were laid over the
Bidassoa immediately after the passage had been effected; and works
were thrown up to strengthen the position, in which Lord Wellington now
waited for the surrender of Pamplona, that he might advance with his
whole strength. That city, the modern capital of Navarre (Olite, now a
miserably decayed place, was the ancient one), was the great bulwark
against the French on that side. Lord Wellington trusted to a sure
blockade for reducing it. Its wells supply it abundantly with water;
and it was provided with a corn-mill, the largest in existence of its
kind, to be worked by hand or by horses, and setting in motion four or
five grindstones of such dimensions that four-and-twenty loads of wheat
could be ground by each in a day. When corn began to fail for this
well-constructed mill, and there was little prospect of relief after
the failure of Soult’s great effort in the Pyrenees, the governor
made a bold attempt to obtain subsistence from the very force which
blockaded him: he sent to Don Carlos d’España, requiring him to furnish
7000 rations daily for the inhabitants of the city, whom, he said, he
could no longer afford to feed. Don Carlos, who knew that the French
general had, with characteristic effrontery, included his troops in
this estimate, replied, that, unless the inhabitants were fed as well
as the garrison, while any food lasted, he should hold the governor
responsible for their treatment, and would strictly inquire into this
when the place should be surrendered, as it must. When the stores were
nearly exhausted it was reported and believed that the enemy intended,
as they had done at Almeida, to blow up the works, and endeavour to
effect their escape: the attempt would have been far more hazardous;
but it is said to have been prevented by an intimation from Don Carlos,
that if the place were thus injured he would put the governor and all
the officers to death, and decimate the men. Towards the end of October
they proposed to surrender, on condition of being allowed to march into
France with six pieces of cannon; their second proposal was, that they
should march thither under an engagement of not serving against the
allies for a year and a day. Don Carlos replied, that he had orders not
to grant them a capitulation on any terms excepting that they should be
prisoners of war; and to this they declared they would never submit.
Upon these terms, nevertheless, on the last day of October, they
surrendered, being 4000 in number; and the Spanish general, setting an
example of proper determination on such an occasion, refused to grant
these till he had ascertained that none of the inhabitants had perished
during the blockade either through ill-treatment or for want.
♦MARSHAL SOULT’S POSITION ON THE NIVELLE.♦
Marshal Soult, meantime, was receiving a considerable reinforcement
of conscripts. Papers in all the languages of the allies were thrown
into the outposts, and distributed wherever it was likely they might be
found, inviting deserters, and denouncing vengeance if France should
be invaded: the whole French nation, it was said, was in arms, and
if the English and Spanish and Portugueze should set foot upon their
territory, they should meet with nothing but death and destruction.
Some expectation the French commander placed upon the hardships to
which the troops must be exposed, at that season, in the Pyrenees, upon
the weather, and in consequence the increased difficulty of supplying
the allied armies. Forage, indeed, had become so scarce that some of
the cavalry were reduced to graze their horses, which of course could
not long have been kept in condition without better food. The cattle
brought for the consumption of the troops through a great part of Spain
arrived in a jaded and lean condition, ... those which lived to reach
the place of slaughter, ... for the roads along which they had been
driven might easily be traced by their numerous carcasses, ♦NOVEMBER.♦
lying half-buried or unburied by the way-side, ... sad proofs of the
wasteful inhumanity of war! The weather had been more stormy than was
usual even on that coast and at that season. The transports at Passages
were moored stem and stern in rows, and strongly confined by their
moorings; yet they were considered in danger even in that land-locked
harbour: some were driven forward by the rising of the swell, while
others, close alongside, were forced backward by its fall, so that
the bowsprits of some were entangled in the mizen-chains of others.
The cold on the mountains was so intense that several men perished.
A piquet in the neighbourhood of Roncesvalles was snowed up: the
parties who were sent to rescue it drove bullocks before them as some
precaution against the danger of falling into chasms, and the men were
brought off; but the guns could not be removed, and were buried under
the snow in the ditch of the redoubt. Soult, since his failure in the
Pyrenees three months before, had been fortifying a formidable line of
works in them. The right rested upon the sea in front of S. Jean de
Luz, and on the left of the Nivelle; the centre on La Petite Rhune, and
the heights behind the village of Sarré; the left, consisting of two
divisions of infantry, under General Drouet, was on the right of the
river, on a strong height behind the village of Ainhoue, and on the
mountain of Mondarin, which protected the approach to that village.
Two divisions, under Generals Foy and Paris, were at St. Jean de
Pied-de-Port. This position described half a circle through Irogne,
Ascain, Sarré, Ainhoue, Espelette, and Cambo, the centre projecting
very much at Sarré. La Petite Rhune, though overtopped by the greater
hill of the same name, from which it is separated by a narrow valley,
is a very high ridge: from the sea to its foot the enemy’s front was
covered by a range of works: the ridge itself was strongly fortified;
and a range of high steep hills, extending from thence to Ainhoue, was
defended by a chain of redoubts near enough to protect each other. The
enemy’s centre was in great force upon this range; and there was a
strong corps in the village of Sarré, which was protected by a regular
closed work with ditch and palisades. Their left was thrown back, at
nearly an acute angle, upon Espelette.
♦PASSAGE OF THE NIVELLE.♦
The first intention was to turn this position, by advancing Sir
Rowland’s corps from Roncesvalles through St. Jean de Pied-de-Port;
this movement would turn the sources of the Nive, threaten Soult’s
rear, and compel him, it was thought, to abandon his works, and retire
beyond Bayonne; but this plan was given up upon full consideration,
Soult’s line being so short, and the road behind it so good, that he
might have it in his power to fall upon Sir Rowland with a superior
force, or to attack Sir John Hope when it would be difficult to
reinforce either; or he might retire untouched, and keep his army in
a condition to continue active and harass the allies in their winter
quarters. Lord Wellington resolved, therefore, to strike at the centre
of his position, strong as it was, and at the same time to attack the
heights of Ainhoue, which were its immediate support on the left. With
this view Sir Rowland had been ordered, as soon as Pamplona should
fall, to move leftward, into the valley of Bastan, and the cavalry to
close up his rear in readiness for supporting the right of Beresford’s
corps at Maya.
The enemy, fully expecting an attack, were always under arms at
daybreak, and remained in their redoubts till nightfall; and they
improved every day’s delay, which the state of the weather afforded
them, in strengthening their works, strong as the labour of three
months had already made them. The rain, indeed, continued so many days,
and so heavy, that many persons began to fear it would be impossible
for them to move; and Lord Wellington, with all his just confidence
in himself and in the troops which he commanded, could not but feel
how easily human strength and military skill might be baffled by
the elements. The weather cleared on the 4th; and on the 7th he met
Sir Rowland, Marshal Beresford, and all the chiefs of the right and
centre at Urdache, from whence he reconnoitred Ainhoue closely, and
pointed out the mode by which that part of the position was to be
attacked. The object was to force their centre, and establish the
army in rear of their right; and the attack was to be made by columns
of divisions, each led by the general officers commanding it, and
each forming its own reserve. Sir Rowland directed the movements of
the right, consisting of the 2d and 6th divisions, under Sir William
Stewart and Sir Henry Clinton, Sir John Hamilton’s Portugueze, and
Morillo’s Spanish division, Colonel Grant’s brigade of cavalry, a
brigade of Portugueze artillery under Lieutenant-Colonel Tulloh, and
three mountain guns under Lieutenant Robe. Marshal Beresford directed
the right of the centre, with the 3rd, 7th, and 4th divisions, under
Major-General Colville, Camp-Marshal Le Cor and Sir Lowry Cole. Giron
was to act on his immediate left with the Andalusian army of reserve.
Baron Alten’s light division, with three mountain guns, and Longa’s
corps, was to attack La Petite Rhune; Sir Stapleton Cotton to follow
the movement of the centre, with General Alten’s brigade of cavalry,
and three brigades of British artillery. Freyre, with the Galician
army, was to move from the heights of Mandale toward Ascain, prevent
the enemy from detaching troops from thence to the support of others,
and take advantage of any movement which they might make from their
right toward their centre; and Sir John Hope was to act along the
remainder of their line to the sea.
The 8th was the day intended for the attack, but the state of the roads
prevented the artillery and some of Sir Rowland’s brigade from coming
up; it was postponed therefore till the 10th. This opened with so clear
and beautiful a moonlight morning, that it was scarcely perceptible
when daylight began to predominate; and men who had served in India
were reminded of an Indian sky. Lord Wellington was on horseback at
five, and reached the point of attack at six: he found Sir Lowry Cole’s
division at its post, with 18 pieces of cannon at the head of the
column: it was on a sloping ridge, which ends in a high point above
the village of Sarré; and on that point was the redoubt which he was
to attack, and which had been made with the greatest care, having a
deep ditch, an _abattis_ in front, and _trous de loup_, so named from
their resemblance to the pit-falls in which wolves are taken. Giron
was close on his left, and Le Cor on the right, both in valleys. Lord
Wellington, Beresford, Sir Lowry, General Colville, and other staffs,
were in a little grove, which covered them, about 600 yards from the
redoubt, walking about till it was light enough to commence the attack.
Sir Lowry then drove in the enemy’s piquets, and the horse artillery
were enabled to gain the ridge, and open in front of the grove within
400 yards of the redoubt: their fire in return rattled through the
branches: Colonel Ross dashed forward, and opened six guns within 300
yards, which riddled the curtain: the French, however, stood firm,
till after about an hour’s firing they saw the Spaniards moving to
their rear, and the infantry advancing with ladders to escalade them;
they then leaped over the parapet and ran: ... they were about 300, of
whom some twenty were taken in the ditch, and not more than eight or
ten killed. The artillery was then rapidly advanced against the next
redoubt on the right, and that cost only about a quarter of an hour,
for it was abandoned with discreditable precipitation.
By this time the troops were advancing with great celerity over most
difficult ground. Lord Wellington moved on to the first redoubt, from
whence he could direct the movements of the Spaniards, and of the 3rd,
7th, and 4th divisions; one of those bursts of cheering which electrify
the hearers indicated his presence. Beresford advanced with the 3rd
and 7th, while the Spaniards attacked the village of Sarré by its
right, and Sir Lowry turned its left. Downie commanded the battalion
of Spaniards to whom this service was assigned, while Giron remained
in the valley with a brigade which was to support the light division;
and as in that situation it might not be seen when the village was
carried, Downie, as a signal, said he would send his aide-de-camp to
toll the church bell. He made the attack with great spirit: the enemy
in front of the village made a show of more determination than they
kept up, and they rushed from their second line as if ashamed of having
too hastily given up the first; but after some skirmishing they retired
to the second, and thence from the redoubts and heights cannonaded the
assailants. Downie carried the village most gallantly, and the bell
tolled. Sir Lowry meantime attacked and carried the works on the low
hills in the rear of Sarré, and there halted for orders.
Baron Alten, meanwhile, was equally successful in his operations.
He had formed the light division before daylight, in a ravine
separating the great and little La Rhune, and within 300 yards of the
intrenchments with which the face of La Petite Rhune was covered.
Rushing from thence as soon as the day opened, the troops forced
line after line: the enemy did not wait in their redoubts to be
assaulted; and the assailants having carried all the works, and formed
without farther opposition on the summit of the hill, were crossing
the valley to attack the right of the high range behind Sarré, when
Lord Wellington reached the point which Sir Lowry had gained. The
preliminary attacks having thus succeeded, the whole moved forward
against the intrenched range of heights which formed the strongest
part of the enemy’s position. The Spaniards on Giron’s left were not
sufficiently alert to support the light division: it was not for some
time that the guns could be got up over most difficult ground: part
of the 95th, who had gained the first high point, were attacked and
obliged to retire; and the enemy had the advantage till the Spaniards,
quickened by messages from Lord Wellington, came up; the French then
gave way, and the lower ridge, in the centre of the position opposite
to our two central columns, was immediately occupied. The Prince of
Orange, who was with Lord Wellington that day, was then sent to Marshal
Beresford, desiring him to attack that part of the high range in his
front, while Sir Lowry should at the same time assail it on his side.
It was now about ten o’clock, and before this simultaneous effort
could be made there was time to look at the position which was about
to be attacked. The mountain extends about twelve miles from Ascain
to Mondarin; only one valley intersects it, which is that through
which the Nivelle flows; but there are several dips in the range;
every higher point had its redoubt, and in the intervals the enemy
were formed in great strength, some in lines, some in columns, with
sharp-shooters half way down the hills. A friend of Lord Wellington’s
said at the time to Sir George Murray, that he should expect a very
difficult task here, if he had not seen the amazing superiority of our
troops in the attack on Sarré. Sir George replied, “It is impossible to
say how that position may be defended; it is very formidable, but we
probably shall get it very easily; when the French see the red coats
they know we are determined to carry our point, and they never dispute
it long.” The troops justified this brave confidence; six columns began
to ascend, with a chain of sharp-shooters in their front; and never
could greater intrepidity be displayed than that with which the British
and Portugueze advanced against strong works, or solid columns at the
top of steep ascents, where they were frequently obliged to use their
hands as well as feet in climbing. When they approached a redoubt, they
halted a few minutes to take breath: a party was sent to turn it: the
sharp-shooters went close up, and another party went straight at it in
front, with as much confidence as if to charge a regiment on a plain:
when they got within twenty or thirty paces, the enemy uniformly fled,
and the assailants being out of breath, could overtake but few of them.
Most of these redoubts had a glacis, with an _abattis_ in front, which
gave them time to get off. From one large one, which was attacked by
the 21st Portugueze regiment, the garrison continued to fire till the
assailants jumped into the ditch; then the French hastened out at the
rear with all alacrity.
Lord Wellington ascended in the interval between the 7th and 4th
divisions. Just as he reached the summit of the range at one of its
dips, Beresford and Colville, with the 3rd division, had carried a
very high hill, crowned with a strong stockaded redoubt, which was, in
fact, the key of the position, and looked down upon the whole range on
both sides. The 40th suffered here from having pushed on too fast. The
allies were now gaining the upper ridge on all sides, and the artillery
attempted to follow: Ross’s troop was the only one which succeeded, and
that by two hours’ of the utmost exertion, and by partly making a road.
Sir Lowry, with the 4th division, reached the top at a lower part:
two brigades of the enemy were formed upon a height on his left; and
beyond them, on a very high point above Ascain, was a large and strong
redoubt, manned by a battalion of infantry. The light division was
toiling up the hill to the right of this work, and the Spaniards to the
left. Sir Lowry attacked the brigades: there were two generals at their
heads; but when the assailants came near, the French fired five or six
rounds in rather an unsoldier-like hurry, and then moved hastily off,
leaving the redoubt to its fate. Downie, seizing a colour, and waving
it as he advanced on horseback at the head of his battalion, led on
his men: they went against it gallantly, in spite of their officers,
who behaved ill: the light division commenced an attack upon it, in
which Colonel Barnard was wounded; and the 52nd lost a good many men
here, before Lord Wellington’s orders for desisting and summoning the
garrison could arrive. While this attack continued, the troops under
Beresford got so far in the rear of the redoubt, that it was impossible
for the garrison to retreat. They proved to be the first battalion of
the 88th regiment, nearly 600 strong: their colonel had been promoted
for his defence of S. Christoval’s, at the first siege of Badajoz: he
hesitated, parleyed, and requested to confer with his officers, and
subsequently with the non-commissioned officers; but it was in vain
to resist, and there was no way to escape; so they surrendered, and
laid down their arms on the glacis. Some of the men expressed their
indignation in coarse and indecent language at finding themselves
prisoners; and one serjeant, in particular, who wore the cross of the
Legion of Honour, cursed his fortune, that after being present in
the battles of Austerlitz and Wagram, he should now be captured in a
redoubt!
While these operations were going on in the centre, Sir Henry Clinton,
with the 6th division, having driven in the enemy’s piquets on both
banks of the Nivelle, crossed that river, covered the passage of Sir
John Hamilton’s Portugueze division, and ascended the hill in line,
scarcely firing a shot. The enemy were formed on the top of the hill,
as on a fine parade, in front of their huts, and with strong redoubts
on both flanks. The first party in its eagerness pushed on too fast,
and was driven back; but as the support came near they dashed forward
again; and the enemy, having thrown away their fire, went off in great
confusion, abandoning redoubts, camp, and all. Sir William Stewart’s
division carried a work on a parallel ridge in the rear. Morillo, by
attacking the enemy’s posts on the slopes of Mondarin, and following
them towards Itzatce, covered the advance of the whole to the heights
behind Ainhoue. Sir Rowland then forced the enemy to retire from those
heights towards the bridge of Cambo on the Nivelle; and Sir William
Stewart drove a division from Mondarin into the mountains toward
Baygorri. By two o’clock the allies had gained possession of the whole
of the position behind Sarré and Ainhoue.
The enemy, who had been in front of our centre, were now retiring
along the road to St. Pé, a village on the Nivelle, between three and
four miles distant. The nature of the country rendered it impossible
to cut them off; and Lord Wellington was obliged to wait an hour,
that the troops might take breath, and to see that the operations on
the right had succeeded; and that the 6th division, after carrying
the works in its front, had inclined to the left, and closed upon the
third. This having been ascertained, about three o’clock he directed
the 7th and 3rd divisions (being the right of the centre) to move by
the left of the river upon St. Pé, and the 6th by the right upon the
same place; while the 4th and light divisions, with Giron’s reserve,
held the heights above Ascain, covering the movement on that side,
and Sir Rowland covered it on the other. The Nivelle is from twenty
to thirty yards wide, rapid like a mountain stream, and not fordable;
there is a stone bridge at St. Pé, a wooden one half a mile lower
down, and a stone one about the same distance still lower, at the
village of Ayan. The first of these bridges was eagerly contested;
but, after some severe skirmishing, the allies effected the passage of
all three. Lord Wellington halted upon the heights above St. Pé; and,
having occupied the bridges and the villages, waited there for reports
from the right and left. During the whole day he could distinctly
hear, and generally see, the firing on the right, Sir Rowland’s
quarter; but the projecting base of La Rhune entirely prevented him
from seeing what passed on Sir John Hope’s side; and a steady breeze,
setting towards the sea, prevented any sound from reaching him in that
direction. But on that side there could be no anxiety, for it was not
intended to be the scene of serious action; and what service was to
be performed there, was performed well. The French had constructed a
redoubt round the ruins of a small chapel on a hill, and connected it
with the defence of Urogne by intrenchments, and a strong _abattis_.
From this work, which formed a sort of advanced post to their right
wing, Sir John Hope drove them, and from Urogne, and pushed forward
the 5th division to the inundation which covered the intrenchments
in front of Ciboure, and those protecting the heights in advance of
Fort Socoa. The enemy were kept in expectation here that this position
would be assaulted; and they were menaced in their intrenchments, which
covered the heights behind Urogne, and extended along the hills in the
direction of Ascain: that village they abandoned in the afternoon, and
Freyre took possession of it. As soon as Lord Wellington had received
the reports, he gave orders for attacking the heights behind St. Pé:
they were of difficult access, through vineyards, and were crowned
with woods; and the enemy had a considerable force there: during the
intervals of severer action, the sharp-shooters had been warmly engaged
in the village, and along the river; and shrapnells had been thrown at
the heights with visible effect from Ross’s brigade. The 3rd division
now crossed near the village, the 6th advanced upon its right, and the
7th attacked the left of the heights; the brunt of the action on this
side was borne by this division. The 51st and 68th regiments, light
troops, scoured a wood in full cry, like a pack of hounds, and drove
out a large body of sharp-shooters, whom they drove up the hills, but
with so much eagerness as to leave their support behind. Instantly
upon this advantage being presented, a strong column moved from behind
the hill, and attacked them: the enemy were led by a general officer
on horseback, and behaved with more spirit than they had shown in
any other part of the engagement. The two regiments, if they had not
been two of the best, must have been cut to pieces; but though they
were very weak in numbers, and were driven back, they formed in close
order, and in the most gallant manner retook the hill. This was the
last business of the day. The three divisions took post on the heights
beyond St. Pé; thus establishing themselves in the rear of the enemy’s
right; and the remainder of the army rested on the ground which they
occupied, the evening being so far advanced that no further movement
could be made.
♦NOV. 11.♦
Lord Wellington was on the heights above St. Pé before daylight; the
morning was hazy, and it was noon before he received the reports which
enabled him to put the troops in motion. During the night the enemy had
abandoned all their works and positions in front of St. Jean de Luz,
and knowing no time was to be lost, lest the divisions at St. Pé should
interpose between them and Bayonne, retired upon Bidart, destroying
all the bridges on the lower Nivelle. Sir John Hope followed with the
left, as soon as he could cross the river; but it was mid-day before
he could repair the bridge which connects Ciboure with S. Jean de Luz,
and construct a flying bridge to expedite the passage of the troops.
The 5th division passed here, part with the artillery by the bridge,
part by fords close above the town; the first, with Wilson’s Portugueze
brigade, by a ford about a mile higher up, and broad enough for the men
to cross by platoons. It rained most heavily; the water was deep, the
opposite bank muddy, and the shore swampy ground: but no opposition
was offered, and the men, elated by the signal success of yesterday,
were in high spirits. The centre moved forward about a league, and the
right made a corresponding move, which was as far as the state of the
roads, after so violent a fall of rain, would allow. Soult showed about
16,000 men at Bidart all day. The army bivouacked a second night. On
the following morning Lord Wellington was again in front of the centre
at daybreak, but a thick fog enveloped every thing; it was noon before
it cleared, and he then learned that the enemy had retired during the
night into an intrenched camp, in front of Bayonne.
By these operations, in which the allies lost little more than 500
killed, and less than 2400 wounded, the French were driven from
positions strong in themselves, and which they had been fortifying with
great skill and great labour for six months: 51 pieces of cannon, 1500
prisoners, and 400 wounded, were taken. Soult had full 70,000 men; but
though there was no flight, nor any thing like a rout, no determined
spirit of resistance was manifested; they fought like brave men, but
dispirited ones, and in several instances their officers used every
endeavour to bring them on in vain. They had relied upon the difficulty
of the ground, not dreaming that artillery could be brought to act
against them over rivers and rocks and mountains; and indeed, the
allies were beholden for their success, in no slight degree, to the
extraordinary skill and activity with which this part of the service
was directed by Colonel Dickson. Mountain-pieces on swivel carriages,
harnessed on the backs of mules which had been trained for the purpose,
were conveyed to the ridges of the mountains, and brought to bear on
the French from positions which they had considered inaccessible for
guns.... The foot and horse-artillery were alike active and expert; and
the artillerymen dragged their cannon with ropes up steep precipices,
or lowered them down, wherever they could be employed with most effect.
Generals Byng and Kempt were wounded: Colonel Lloyd of the 94th, an
officer of great promise, and who had frequently distinguished himself,
was killed.
♦THE ALLIES CANTONED BETWEEN THE NIVELLE AND THE SEA.♦
The weather, which continued wet, without intermission, from the
11th to the 18th, rendered the cross roads so bad, and the streams
so formidable, that Lord Wellington could not follow up his success
as he would otherwise have done. He placed the army, therefore, in
cantonments between the Nivelle and the sea; but as the enemy were
concentrated in great numbers round Bayonne, two miles only in their
immediate front, a defensive line was formed against any sudden
advance. It commenced at the sea on the left, in rear of Biaritz,
passed over the main ridge of heights, and crossed the high road,
near a country house belonging to the mayor of that little town. The
front of this part of the line was protected by the two small lakes
of Chuhigue and Rousta; the high road passes across a valley between
them, and here was the most advanced line of sentinels guarding the
left wing; from thence it followed the right bank of the valley, in
front of Arcangues, and coming there upon the Nive, near a chateau
belonging to Garat (one of the contemporary historians of the French
revolution, and himself an actor in it), it was thrown back along the
left of that river by Arrauntz, Ustaritz, Larressore, and Cambo;
from which latter place the enemy, who occupied a tête-de-pont there,
withdrew their posts on the 18th, and blew up the bridge. Head-quarters
were at St. Jean de Luz, ♦ST JEAN DE LUZ.♦ a town which dates its decay
from the peace of 1763, when France was deprived of its possessions in
North America. The Nivelle divides it from Ciboure (a smaller town),
spreading just above both into a beautiful bay, and forming an island
where it spreads, which is connected by bridges with both. The bay
terminates on the north-east by a rocky point of land, on which a
battery called Fort St. Barbe was erected, and on the opposite side
is the harbour of Socoa, defended by a martello tower. Between these
points the bay is nearly a mile in width, and on both sides a pier had
been begun, which it was intended to have carried so nearly across,
as only to have left a sufficient entrance, and thus to have afforded
safe anchorage on this stormy coast, where it is grievously needed.
When the Spanish fleet was wrecked here in 1627, the dead who were cast
up on the immediate shores filled ninety-six carts. On that occasion
the inhabitants of St. Jean de Luz behaved with exemplary kindness
to the survivors; and it was proposed in the Spanish council that,
as a becoming acknowledgment, its ships and merchants should enjoy
a perpetual exemption from all duties in Portugal, whither they ♦D.
FRANCESCO MANOEL. EPANAPHORAS, P. 256.♦ traded largely for salt: I wish
it could be added, that such a proof of national gratitude had been
given. During the action of the 10th, a naval demonstration was made
opposite Fort Socoa, by four of Sir George Collier’s squadrons: the
swell would not admit of a close approach, but they came near enough
for one of them to be struck by some shot from the sea-batteries.
♦DISCIPLINE OBSERVED BY THE ALLIES.♦
The inhabitants of St. Jean de Luz had mostly remained in their own
houses, shutting themselves up there to abide their fate, in dread
of invaders whom they had been taught to consider as being equally
rapacious and merciless. There was still a disposition in the allied
troops to take that license which brutal spirits promise themselves
in war; but, during the action of the 10th, two offenders had been
hanged, each upon the nearest tree to the spot where his crime was
committed, with a paper upon his breast declaring for what offence
this summary justice had been executed. Such severity was equally
politic and just; and the allies soon acquired as good a character
for their conduct toward the inhabitants as for their behaviour in
the field. The people were the more sensible of this, because it was
strikingly contrasted with the predatory habits in which their own
troops had long been licensed, and which those troops had not laid
aside when they were driven within the French frontier. Marshal Soult
would gladly now have withheld them from courses which he had so long
permitted or encouraged; and just at this time an instance occurred
in which he endeavoured to strike terror by a wholesome example. When
they were quitting St. Jean de Luz, a woman complained to an officer
whose company was quartered there, that the men, expecting to depart,
were beginning to plunder her house: he gave no ear to her entreaties
that he would restrain them, and the woman at length, in her emotion at
seeing her goods thus given up to spoil, exclaimed, that “if those who
ought to be their defenders would not protect them, the English might
as well be there at once.” “Oh!” said the officer, “if you are a friend
to the English, you shall see how I will protect you!” and immediately
he set fire to her house himself. A _gendarme_ who was present took
the woman’s part, and declared that though he could not take the
officer into custody, nor prevent him by force, he would report the
circumstance to the Marshal: he did so; and the officer, who was a
captain of infantry and a member of the Legion of Honour, was brought
to a court-martial, condemned, and shot.
♦THE INHABITANTS RETURN TO THEIR HOMES.♦
But it was too late for Marshal Soult to correct the inveterate habits
of men who, during all their campaigns in the Peninsula, had been
supported by a predatory system; and though most of the people, and
especially the villagers, forsook their houses at the approach of the
allies, yet, when proclamations were issued in French and in Basque
(which is the language of these parts), assuring them that their
persons and property should be respected, and when they understood that
British discipline would afford them a security which it was in vain to
hope for amid their own armies, they returned. The French authorities
endeavoured in vain to dissuade them; the general wish was expressed so
strongly, that at length no farther impediment was opposed to it than
that of forbidding them to carry back anything with them. Above 3000
persons came back to St. Jean de Luz and the neighbouring places before
the end of November, and as many more passed through the line of the
allied outposts, in one day early in December, on their return; ...
among them were several young men, escaping in women’s clothes from the
conscription.
The weather had prevented Lord Wellington from passing the Nive, as
he intended to have done, immediately after having forced the French
position, and the army in consequence occupied only the confined
space on the left of that river; while the enemy profited by all the
resources of the country on its right, and had a free communication
between Bayonne and St. Jean de Pied-de-Port. They occupied an
intrenched camp in front of Bayonne, about twelve miles from S. Jean
de Luz, and this position they had been fortifying with provident care
from the time of their defeat at Vittoria. Bayonne ♦BAYONNE.♦ obtained
its present name in the twelfth century, till when it was called
Lapurdum, as when the cohort of Novempopulania had its head-quarters
there. This ancient city, which during three centuries belonged to our
Plantagenet kings, is memorable in military history for the invention
of the bayonet, a weapon that in its name indicates the place of its
origin, and that, in British hands, has proved more destructive than
any other to the nation by which it was invented. In the war of the
French revolution this city would not have been tenable against a
single division of an enemy’s army: the war of the intrusion made it
immediately a place of great importance, as a depôt for the French;
and therefore it was well fortified, to secure it against a sudden
attack from the English, before the possibility of any more serious
danger had been contemplated. It stands at the junction of the Nive
with the Adour; the latter a great river, and the former not fordable
for several miles up: the city is on the left of the Adour, the citadel
on the other side. The position which Marshal Soult occupied was under
the fire of the fortress; the right resting on the Adour, and covered
in front by a morass, formed by a rivulet which falls into that river.
The right of the centre rested upon the same morass, and its left upon
the Nive; the left was between the Nive and the Adour, resting on
the latter river and defending the former, and communicating with a
division of the army of Catalonia, under General Paris, at St. Jean de
Pied-de-Port. The roads from that place, and from St. Jean de Luz to
Paris, pass through Bayonne; and these are the only paved roads, all
the others are so bad as to be impracticable in winter. The enemy had
their advanced posts, from their right, in front of Anglet, and toward
Biaritz; and they had a considerable corps cantoned in Ville-Franche
and Monguerre.
♦DECEMBER.
PASSAGE OF THE NIVE.♦
As soon as the weather and the state of the roads allowed, preparations
were made for crossing the Nive. On the 8th of December Lord Wellington
moved the troops out of their cantonments. The preceding day had
brought intelligence that Hanover was delivered from the French,
... and that the Dutch also had risen against their oppressors, and
asserted their independence. With this news to encourage them, at which
even the French people appeared to rejoice, because it gave them a
hope of peace, which could only be obtained by the total defeature of
Buonaparte’s ambitious schemes, the allies recommenced their operations
on the morrow. Sir Rowland, with the right of the army, was to cross
at Cambo, and Beresford to support him by passing Sir Henry Clinton’s
division at Ustaritz: the bridges at both places had been destroyed.
The river, dividing into two branches, forms an island of considerable
extent opposite Ustaritz; our piquets had previously occupied this, and
here a pontoon bridge was thrown across during the night. The bridge
at Campo had been hastily and insufficiently repaired, so that very
few succeeded in getting over its broken slope. There were fords above
and below; the lower was good enough for cavalry, but ten men were
drowned in attempting it; the upper one, therefore, was chiefly used
by the infantry, ... and it was no easy passage, the left bank being
steep, and the water rising at the time, in consequence of renewed
rain. At both places, however, it was effected with little opposition,
and the enemy were immediately driven from the right bank. The troops,
advancing then through swampy meadow-land and very deep roads, soon
found themselves on the high road from St. Jean de Pied-de-Port; and
the French retired skirmishing, being followed and pressed; those
opposite Cambo were nearly intercepted by Sir Henry Clinton. The enemy
now assembled in considerable force upon a range of heights running
parallel with the Adour, keeping Ville-Franche upon their right; and
they kindled fires, as if intending to remain there. A galling fire
was kept up from the detached houses of this village; but houses,
village, and heights were carried by the 8th Portugueze regiment, the
9th Caçadores, and the light battalions of the 6th division; and the
French, after one or two hasty volleys, retired. The advance of the
allies had been so much impeded by the condition of the ground, that
by this time evening had closed; and Lord Wellington contented himself
therefore with the possession of the ground that he occupied.
This had been a day of great fatigue for the left wing of the army.
At one in the morning the drums had beat to arms; and, after a
most toilsome march through heavy rain, the first division, under
Major-General Howard, was assembled by daybreak at the Plateau of
Barouillet, in advance of Bidart. At dawn the rain ceased; and the
5th division, under Major-General Hay, supported by the 12th light
dragoons, was seen crossing the valley which separates the hilly ground
of Biaritz from that of Bidart; its right in communication with the
first, and its left extending to the sea-coast. At eight o’clock the
whole line of light troops commenced their fire; those of the enemy
contested every hedge and bank which afforded them shelter, and from
whence they could take deliberate aim; but a fire of shells from the
artillery, who posted themselves on the eminences along the whole line,
assisted greatly in dislodging them. The whole line gradually advanced,
and the enemy retreated before them to Anglet, not venturing to await
their approach. About one the first division gained the heights on the
right of the chaussée, opposite to Anglet, the light infantry driving
the enemy down the slopes to their intrenched camp. The 5th division
made equal progress, sweeping the country between Anglet and the sea as
far as the banks of the Adour, and occupying with its light infantry
the Bois de Bayonne, a large pine-wood which covers the whole space
on the left of that river, between the intrenched camp and the sea.
General Alten, meantime, made a corresponding advance with the light
division, between the left wing and the Nive; they drove the enemy from
behind the deep morass which ♦BATTY’S CAMPAIGN, PP. 83–5.♦ covered
their advanced posts in front of Bassussarry, and compelled them to
retreat to their intrenched camp near the Chateau de Marrac, ... that
castle to which, in the first act of this great drama, Ferdinand had
been decoyed by Buonaparte.
As the movements on this side were intended only to favour the
operations on the right, Sir John Hope’s instructions were to return
to his cantonments, and to commence retiring thither at six in the
evening, unless a countermand should arrive. It began again to rain
heavily in the afternoon; and the troops, supposing they were to remain
on the ground which they had gained, lighted, not without difficulty,
their bivouac fires; but the weather was far too bad for them to remain
in such exposed situations; and at the appointed time they began their
march back toward their several cantonments, the 5th division forming
the rear guard. By this time it was quite dark; even the main road
had been completely broken up by the passage of artillery, and of so
many troops; the hollow ways were knee-deep in mud: one little drummer
stuck fast in it, and was obliged to be lifted out and carried for some
distance by two soldiers; many of the men were so completely exhausted
that they sunk down by the way-side; and before they reached the place
of rest, they had been little less than four-and-twenty hours on foot,
and during the greater part of that time in a heavy winter’s rain.
On the morning of the 10th Sir Rowland found that the enemy on his
side had retired into their intrenched camp, on the right of the Nive.
He established himself, therefore, in the position intended for him,
with his right on the Adour, his left on the heights of Ville-Franche,
above the Nive, and his centre across the chaussée at the village of
St. Pierre. Marshal Beresford’s troops were again drawn to the left of
the Nive; and Sir Rowland communicated with the centre of the army, by
a bridge which had been laid over that river. Morillo’s division was
placed at Urcuray, and Colonel Vivian’s brigade of light dragoons at
Hasparren, to watch Paris’s movements, who, upon the passage of the
Nive, had retired towards St. Palais.
Thus the allied army formed a sort of crescent, which was intersected
by a river, and along which the communications were exceedingly bad.
On any part of this bending line Marshal Soult could direct an attack
with his main force; and, if he should be repulsed, there was a secure
retreat for him within his intrenched camp. Supposing, therefore, that
the allies would have their principal strength on the right of the
Nive to support Sir Rowland, he left just troops enough to occupy the
works opposite to that General’s position, and with the rest of his
army moved at daybreak against Sir John Hope, expecting to overpower
the left wing by numbers. The 5th division occupied the Plateau of
Barouillet, having General Campbell’s Portugueze brigade in its front,
on the high road. Baron Alten, with the light division, was posted at
Arcangues, about two miles to the right. Both were on strong ground;
but there was no defensive connexion between them, except along a range
of hills, which projected too much to be occupied otherwise than by
small posts; and between Barouillet and Arcangues there is a broad
valley, which was left almost without defence, because it was thought
that Marshal Soult would not attempt to advance in this direction, with
posts of such strength upon either flank.