Passage of the Nive--Battles in front of Bayonne--Combat of
Arcangues--First Battle of Barrouilhet--Second Battle of
Barrouilhet--Third Combat of Barrouilhet--Battle of St.
Pierre--Operations beyond the Nive.
Soult, having lost the Nivelle, at first designed to leave part of his
force in the entrenched camp of Bayonne, and take a flanking position
behind the Nive, half-way between Bayonne and St. Jean Pied de Port.
With his left on the entrenched mountain of Ursouia, his right on the
heights above Cambo, the double bridge-head of which would enable him
to make offensive movements on the left bank, he hoped to confine
Wellington to the district between that river and the sea, and render
his situation very uneasy during the winter if he did not retire.
He was forced to modify this plan; the Bayonne camp was incomplete;
the work on the Ursouia mountain had been neglected, contrary to his
orders; the bridge-head at Cambo was only commenced on the right bank,
and on the left constructed defectively; the river in dry weather was
fordable also at Ustaritz below Cambo, and in many places above that
point. Remaining therefore at Bayonne with six divisions and Villatte’s
reserve, he sent D’Erlon with three divisions to reinforce Foy at Cambo.
But neither D’Erlon’s divisions nor Soult’s whole army could have
stopped Wellington if other circumstances had permitted him to follow
up his victory. Neither the works of the Bayonne camp nor the barrier
of the Nive could have barred the progress of his fiery host, if Nature
had not opposed her obstacles. The clayey country at the foot of the
Pyrenees was impassable after rain, except by the royal road near the
coast or by that of St. Jean Pied de Port, and both were in the power
of the French. On the bye-roads the infantry sunk to the mid-leg, the
cavalry above the horses’ knees, even to the saddle-girths in some
places, and the artillery could not move at all. Rain and fogs on the
12th had enabled Soult to regain his camp and secure the high road to
St. Jean Pied de Port; his troops then easily recovered their proper
posts on the Nive, while Wellington, fixed in the swamps, could only
make the ineffectual demonstration at Ustaritz and Cambo, already
noticed. On the 16th, uneasy for his right flank, he directed Hill to
menace Cambo again, where Foy had orders to preserve the bridge-head
on the right bank in any circumstances, and only abandon the left bank
in the event of a general attack; but the officer at the bridge now
destroyed in a panic all the works and the bridge itself. This was a
great loss to Soult, and enabled Wellington to take cantonments.
Bad weather was not the only obstacle to the British operations.
During the battle of the 10th Freyre’s and Longa’s soldiers had
pillaged Ascain and murdered several persons; and next day all the
Spanish troops committed excesses in various places. On the right,
Mina’s battalions, who were mutinous, made a plundering and murdering
incursion towards Hellette; the Portuguese and British soldiers
commenced like outrages, killing two persons in one town, but General
Pakenham, arriving at the moment, put the perpetrators to death,
nipping this wickedness in the bud at his own risk, for legally he had
not that power. He was a man whose generosity, humanity and chivalric
spirit, excited the admiration of every honourable person; yet is he
the officer who, falling at New Orleans, has been so foully traduced
by American writers. Pre-eminently distinguished by his detestation
of inhumanity and outrage, he has been with astounding falsehood
represented as instigating his troops there to infamous excesses; but
from a people holding millions of their fellow-beings in the most
horrible slavery, while they prate and vaunt of liberty until men turn
with loathing from the sickening folly, what can be expected?
Terrified by these excesses the French fled even from the large towns.
Wellington soon dissipated their fears. On the 12th, although expecting
a battle, he put to death all the Spanish marauders he could take in
the act, and then with many reproaches, and despite of the discontent
of their generals, forced the whole to withdraw into their own country.
He disarmed the mutinous battalions under Mina, placed Giron’s
Andalusians in the Bastan under O’Donnel, quartered Freyre’s Gallicians
between Irun and Ernani, and sent Longa over the Ebro. Morillo’s
division alone remained with the army. These decisive proceedings,
marking the lofty character of the man, proved not less politic
than resolute; the people returned, and, finding strict discipline
preserved, adopted an amicable intercourse with the invaders. However
the loss of such a mass of troops, and the weather, reduced the army
for a moment to a state of inactivity, the head-quarters were fixed at
St. Jean de Luz and the troops took permanent cantonments.
The left wing extended from Bidart on the sea-coast to the Nive, on
an opening of six miles. The right wing, thrown back at right angles,
lined the bank of that river for eight miles. In front of Bidart, the
broad ridge of Barrouilhet crossing the great coast-road was occupied,
the principal post being the mayor’s house, which was covered by tanks
and pools, between which the road led. The centre of the left wing was
on a continuation of this ridge near the village of Arcangues; the
right was on the hill of San Barbe, close to Ustaritz on the Nive.
These posts were not established without combats. On the 18th the
generals, John Wilson and Vandeleur, were wounded, and next day
Beresford, who had seized the small bridge of Urdains at the junction
of some roads, was attacked in force, yet maintained the bridge. This
acquisition covered the right flank of the troops at Arcangues, but on
the 23rd the light division had an action there, very ill managed by
the divisional generals, and lost ninety men, of which eighty fell in
the 43rd Regiment.
Wellington, having nearly nine thousand cavalry and a hundred guns,
fretted on the curb in his contracted position until December, when
the weather cleared and he resolved to force the line of the Nive and
extend to his right, a resolution which led to sanguinary battles,
for Soult’s positions were then strong and well-chosen. Bayonne, his
base, being situated at the confluence of the Nive and the Adour rivers
furnished bridges for the passage of both; and though weak in itself,
was covered by Vauban’s entrenched camp, which was exceedingly strong
and not to be lightly attacked. In this camp Soult’s right, under
Reille, three divisions including Villatte’s reserve, touched on the
lower Adour, where there was a flotilla. His front was protected by
inundations and a swamp, through which the royal coast-road led to St.
Jean de Luz, and along which fortified outposts extended to Anglet.
On his left Clausel’s three divisions extended to the Nive, being
partly covered by the swamp, partly by a fortified house, partly by an
artificial inundation spreading from the small bridge of Urdains to the
Nive; and beyond these defences the country held by the allies was a
deep clay, covered with small farm-houses and woods, very unfavourable
for movement.
On the right of the Nive, Vauban’s camp being continued to the upper
Adour under the name of the “_Front of Mousserolles_,” was held by
D’Erlon’s four divisions, with posts extending up the right bank of
the Nive; that is to say, D’Armagnac fronted Ustaritz, and Foy was at
Cambo. The communication with the left bank of the Nive was double;
circuitous through Bayonne, direct by a bridge of boats. Moreover,
after the battle of the Nivelle, Soult brought General Paris’s division
from St. Jean Pied de Port to Lahoussoa close under the Ursouia
mountain, whence it communicated with Foy’s left by the great road of
St. Jean Pied de Port.
The Nive, the Adour, and the Gave de Pau, which falls into the
latter many miles above Bayonne, were all navigable; the first as
far as Ustaritz, the second to Dax, the third to Peyrehorade, and
the French had magazines at the two latter places; yet they were fed
with difficulty, and to restrain Soult from the country beyond the
Nive, to intercept his communications with St. Jean Pied de Port, to
bring a powerful cavalry into activity and obtain secret intelligence
from the interior, were Wellington’s inducements to force a passage
over the Nive. But to place an army on both sides of a navigable
river, with communications bad at all times and subject to entire
interruptions from rain; to do this in face of an army possessing short
communications, good roads, and entrenched camps for retreat, was a
delicate and dangerous operation.
Hope and Alten, having twenty-four thousand combatants and twelve guns,
were ordered to drive back all the French advanced posts in front of
their camp, between the Nive and the sea, on the 9th, and thus keep
Soult in check while Beresford and Hill crossed the Nive--Beresford at
Ustaritz with pontoons, Hill at Cambo and Larressore by fords. Both,
generals were then to repair the bridges at those points with materials
prepared beforehand. To cover Hill’s movement on the right and protect
the valley of the Nive from General Paris, who being at Lahoussoa
might have penetrated to the rear of the army during the operations,
Morillo’s Spaniards were to cross at Itzassu. At this time D’Armagnac
was opposite Ustaritz, Foy’s division extended from Halzou, in front
of Larressore to the fords above Cambo, having the Ursouia mountain
between its left and Paris: the rest of D’Erlon’s troops occupied some
heights in advance of Mousserolles.
PASSAGE OF THE NIVE. (Dec. 1813.)
At Ustaritz the double bridge was broken, but an island connecting them
was in possession of the British. Beresford laid his pontoons down on
the hither side in the night, and, on the morning of the 9th, a beacon
lighted on the heights above Cambo gave the signal of action; the
passage was soon forced, the second bridge laid, and D’Armagnac driven
back; but the swampy nature of the country between the river and the
high road by retarding the attack gave him time to retreat. Hill also
forced his passage in three columns above and below Cambo with slight
resistance, though the fords were so deep that several horsemen were
drowned, and the French very strongly posted, especially at Halzou,
where a deep strong mill-race had to be crossed as well as the river.
Foy, seeing by the direction of Beresford’s fire that his own retreat
was endangered, went off hastily with his left, leaving his right wing
under General Berlier at Halzou, without orders; hence, when General
Pringle attacked the latter from Larressore the sixth division was
already on the high road between Foy and Berlier, and though the latter
escaped by cross roads he did not rejoin his division until two o’clock
in the afternoon. Meanwhile Morillo passed at Itzassu, and Paris
retired to Hellette, where he was joined by a regiment of light cavalry
from the Bidouse river: Morillo followed, and in one village his troops
murdered fifteen peasants, amongst them several women and children.
Hill placed a brigade of infantry at Urcurray to cover the bridge of
Cambo, and to support the cavalry, which he despatched to scour the
roads and watch Paris and Pierre Soult. With the rest of his troops he
marched against the heights of Mousserolles in front, and was there
joined by the sixth division, the third remaining to cover the bridge
of Ustaritz.
It was now one o’clock, Soult came from Bayonne, approved of D’Erlon’s
dispositions, and offered battle. His line crossed the high road,
and D’Armagnac’s brigade, coming from Ustaritz, was in advance at
Villefranque. A heavy cannonade and skirmish ensued along the front,
but no general fight took place because the deep roads retarded the
rear of Hill’s columns; however the Portuguese of the sixth division
drove D’Armagnac with sharp fighting out of Villefranque about three
o’clock, and a brigade of the second division was established in
advance to connect Hill with Beresford.
Three divisions of infantry, wanting the brigade left at Urcurray, now
hemmed up four French divisions; and as the latter, notwithstanding
their superiority of numbers, made no advantage of the broken movements
caused by the deep roads, the passage of the Nive may be judged a
surprise, and Wellington had so far overreached his able adversary. Yet
he had not trusted an uncertain chance. The French masses by falling
upon the heads of his columns while the rear was still labouring in
the deep roads might have caused disorder; but they could not have
driven either Hill or Beresford over the river again, because the third
division was close at hand, and a brigade of the seventh could from
San Barbe have followed by the bridge of Ustaritz. The greatest danger
was, that Paris, reinforced by Pierre Soult’s cavalry, should have
fallen upon Morillo, or the brigade left at Urcurray in the rear, while
Soult, reinforcing D’Erlon with fresh divisions from the other side of
the Nive, attacked Hill and Beresford in front: but it was to prevent
that, Hope and Alten, whose operations are now to be related, had been
ordered to act on the left bank.
Hope, having twelve miles to march from St. Jean de Luz before he could
reach the French works, put his troops in motion during the night, and
about eight o’clock passed between the tanks with his right, while his
left descended from the platform of Bidart towards Biaritz. The French
outposts retired fighting, and Hope, sweeping with a half circle to his
right, preceded by the fire of his guns and many skirmishers, faced the
entrenched camp about one o’clock. His left rested on the Lower Adour;
his centre menaced an advanced work on the ridge of Beyris: his right
was in communication with Alten, who had halted about Bussussary and
Arcangues until Hope’s fiery crescent closed on the French camp; then
he also advanced, but with the exception of a slight skirmish at the
fortified house met no resistance. Three divisions, some cavalry and
the unattached brigades, equal to a fourth division, sufficed therefore
to keep six French divisions in check on this side, and when evening
closed fell back towards their original positions, yet under heavy rain
and with great fatigue to Hope’s troops, for even the royal road was
knee-deep of mud, and they were twenty-four hours under arms. The whole
day’s fighting cost eight hundred men of a side, the loss of the allies
being rather greater on the left of the Nive than on the right.
BATTLES IN FRONT OF BAYONNE. (Dec. 1813.)
Wellington’s wings were now divided by the Nive, and Soult resolved to
fall upon one with all his forces united. The prisoners assured him
the third and fourth divisions were both in front of Mousserolles, he
was able to assemble troops with greatest facility on the left of the
river, and as the allies’ front there was most extended, he chose that
side for his counter-stroke. In Bayonne itself were eight thousand
men, troops of the line and national guards, with which he occupied
the entrenched camp of Mousserolles; then placing ten gun-boats on
the Upper Adour, to guard it as high as the confluence of the Gave de
Pau, he made D’Erlon file four divisions over the boat-bridge on the
Nive, to take post behind Clausel’s corps on the other side. He thus
concentrated nine divisions of infantry and Villatte’s reserve, with
a body of cavalry and forty guns, in all sixty thousand combatants,
including conscripts, to assail a quarter where the allies, although
stronger by one division than he imagined, had yet only thirty thousand
infantry with twenty-four guns.
His first design was to pour on to the table-land of Bussussary and
Arcangues, and act as circumstances should dictate, and judged so well
of his position that he warned the Minister of War to expect good news
for the next day: indeed his enemy’s situation, though better than
he knew of, gave him a right to anticipate success, for on no point
was this formidable counter-attack anticipated. Wellington was on
the right of the Nive, awaiting daylight to assail the heights where
he had last seen the French. Hope’s troops, with exception of the
Portuguese under General Campbell, who were at Barrouilhet, slept in
their cantonments--the first division at St. Jean de Luz six miles from
the outposts, the fifth division between that place and Bidart, and
all exceedingly fatigued. The light division had orders to retire from
Bussussary to Arbonne, four miles; a part had marched before dawn, but
Kempt, suspicious of the enemy’s movements, delayed the rest until he
could see well to his front: he thus saved the position.
The extraordinary difficulty of moving through the country, the
numerous inclosures and copses which intercepted the view, the
recent easy success on the Nive, and a certain haughty confidence,
sure attendant of a long course of victory, had rendered the English
general somewhat negligent, and the troops were not prepared for a
battle. His general position was, however, strong. Barrouilhet could
only be attacked along the royal road on a narrow front between the
tanks, where he had directed entrenchments to be made; but there
was only one brigade there, and a road, made with difficulty by the
engineers, supplied a bad flank communication with the light division.
The Barrouilhet ridge was prolonged to the platform of Bussussary,
but bulged there too near the enemy to be safely occupied in force,
wherefore the ridge of Arcangues, behind it, was the real position of
battle on that side.
From the Bussussary platform three tongues of land shot out, and the
valleys between them, as well as their slopes, were covered with
copse-woods. The left-hand tongue was held by the 52nd Regiment; the
central tongue by the picquets of the 43rd, with supporting companies
in succession towards an open common, across which the troops had to
pass to the church of Arcangues. The third tongue was guarded, partly
by the 43rd, partly by riflemen, but the valley there was not occupied.
One brigade of the seventh division, covered by the inundation and
holding the bridge of Urdains, continued this line of posts to the
Nive; the other brigades being behind San Barbe and belonging rather
to Ustaritz than to this front: the fourth division was several miles
behind the right of the light division.
If Soult had, as he first designed, burst with his whole army upon
Bussussary and Arcangues, it would have been impossible for the light
division, scattered over difficult ground, to have stopped him for half
an hour; and there was no support within several miles, no superior
officer to direct the concentration of the different divisions.
Wellington had ordered all the line to be entrenched, but the works
were commenced on a great scale, and, as is usual when danger does not
spur, the soldiers had laboured so carelessly, that a few abbatis,
the tracing of some lines and redoubts, and the opening of a road of
communication were all the results. The French could thus have gained
the broad open hills beyond Arcangues, separated the fourth and seventh
from the light division, and cut all off from Hope. Soult, however,
in the course of the night, for reasons which have not been stated,
changed his project, and at day-break Reille marched with Boyer’s and
Maucune’s divisions, Sparre’s cavalry, and from twenty to thirty guns
against Hope by the main road on the right. He was followed by Foy and
Villatte, but Clausel assembled his troops near the fortified house
in front of Bussussary, and one of D’Erlon’s divisions approached the
bridge of Urdains.
COMBAT OF ARCANGUES. (Dec. 1813.)
Heavy rain fell in the night, but the morning broke fair, and at dawn
French soldiers were observed close to the most advanced picquet of the
43rd on the left, pushing each other about as if at gambols, yet lining
by degrees the nearest ditches; a general officer was also seen behind
a farmhouse within pistol-shot, and the heads of columns could be
perceived in the rear. Thus warned, some companies were thrown on the
right into the basin, to prevent the enemy from penetrating that way
to the small common between Bussussary and Arcangues. Kempt’s foresight
in delaying his march to Arbonne was now manifest, and he immediately
placed the reserves of his brigade in the church and mansion-house of
Arcangues. Meanwhile the French, breaking forth with loud cries and
a rattling musketry, had fallen at a running pace upon the 43rd at
the tongue and in the basin, while a cloud of skirmishers, descending
on their left, penetrated between them and the 52nd, seeking to turn
both. The right tongue was in like manner assailed, and the assault was
so strong and rapid, the enemy so numerous, the ground so extensive,
that to cross the common and reach the church of Arcangues would have
been impossible if serious resistance had been attempted at first.
Wherefore, delivering their fire at pistol-shot distance, the picquets
fell back in succession, with eminent coolness and intelligence. For
though they had to run at full speed to gain the common before the
enemy, who was constantly outflanking them by the basin; though the
ways were so deep and narrow no formation could be preserved; though
the fire of the French was thick and close, and their cries vehement in
pursuit, the instant the open ground was attained, the crowd of seeming
fugitives turned and presented a compact and well-formed body, defying
and deriding the efforts of their adversaries.
The 52nd, which was half a mile to the left, was but slightly assailed,
yet fell back also to the main ridge; for though the ground did not
permit Colonel Colborne to see the enemy’s strength, the rapid retreat
of the 43rd told him the affair was serious. Well did the regiments
of the light division understand each other’s qualities, and in good
time he withdrew to the main position. On the right-hand tongue the
troops were not so fortunate; the enemy, moving by the basin, reached
the common before them, and about a hundred of the 43rd and riflemen
were intercepted. The French were in a hollow road and careless,
never doubting that the officer of the 43rd, Ensign Campbell, a youth
scarcely eighteen years of age, would surrender; but with a shout he
broke into their column sword in hand, and though the struggle was
severe and twenty of the 43rd and thirty of the riflemen with their
officer remained prisoners, he reached the church with the rest.
D’Armagnac’s division of D’Erlon’s corps now pushed close up to the
bridge of Urdains, and Clausel assembling his three divisions by
degrees at Bussussary, opened a sharp fire of musketry. The position
was however safe. A mansion-house on the right, covered by abbatis
and not easily accessible, was defended by a rifle battalion and the
Portuguese. The church and churchyard were occupied by the 43rd,
supported with two mountain-guns, their front being covered by a
declivity of thick copse-wood filled with riflemen, and only to be
turned by narrow hollow roads leading on each side to the church. On
the left, the 52nd, supported by the remainder of the division, spread
as far as the great basin which separated this position from the ridge
of Barrouilhet, towards which some small posts were pushed: yet there
was still a great interval between Alten and Hope.
As the skirmishing grew hot, Clausel brought up twelve guns with which
he threw shot and shells into the churchyard of Arcangues, and four or
five hundred infantry made a rush forwards, but a heavy fire from the
43rd sent them back over the ridge where their guns were posted. Yet
their cannonade would have been murderous, if this musketry had not
made the gunners withdraw their pieces a little behind the ridge, and
caused their shot to fly wild and high. Kempt, thinking the distance
too great, was at first inclined to stop the fire, but the moment it
lulled the French pushed their pieces forwards again, and their shells
knocked down eight men in an instant: the muskets then recommenced and
the shells again flew high. The village and mansion-house on the right
were defended by the riflemen, and the action, hottest where the 52nd
fought, continued all day. It was not very severe, yet both French and
English writers, misled perhaps by an inaccurate phrase in the public
dispatch, have represented it as a desperate attack by which the light
division was driven into its entrenchments; whereas the picquets only
were forced back, and there were no entrenchments, save those made on
the spur of the moment by the soldiers in the churchyard.
FIRST BATTLE OF BARROUILHET. (Dec. 1813.)
On that side Reille, having two divisions, drove Campbell’s Portuguese
from Anglet about nine o’clock, and Sparre’s cavalry cut down a
great many men. The French infantry then assailed the position of
Barrouilhet, but moving along a narrow ridge, confined on each flank
by tanks, only two brigades could get into action by the main road,
and the rain had rendered all the bye-roads so deep that it was midday
before their line of battle was filled. This delay saved the allies,
for the attack here also was so unexpected that the first division and
Lord Aylmer’s brigade were at rest in St. Jean de Luz and Bidart when
the action commenced, and the latter did not reach the position before
eleven o’clock; the foot-guards did not march until after twelve, and
only arrived at three o’clock when the fight was done; all the troops
were exceedingly fatigued, only ten guns could be brought into play,
and from some negligence part of the infantry were without ammunition.
Robinson’s brigade of the fifth division first arrived to support
Campbell and fight the battle. The French skirmishers had then spread
along the whole valley, while their columns moved by the great road
against the mayor’s house on the platform of Barrouilhet, where the
ground was thick of hedges and coppice-wood. A most confused fight took
place. The assailants, cutting ways through the hedges, poured on in
smaller or larger bodies as the openings allowed, and were immediately
engaged, at some points successfully, at others beaten, and few knew
what was going on to the right or left of where they stood. By degrees
Reille engaged both his divisions, and some of Villatte’s reserve also
entered the fight, but then Bradford’s Portuguese and Aylmer’s brigade
arrived on the allies’ side, which enabled Greville’s brigade of the
fifth division, hitherto in reserve, to relieve Robinson’s troops who
had suffered severely, and he himself was dangerously wounded.
A notable action now happened with the 9th Regiment under Colonel
Cameron. Posted on the extreme left of Greville’s brigade, there was
between it and Bradford’s brigade a Portuguese battalion. Opposite
the 9th was a coppice-wood possessed by the enemy, whose skirmishers
were continually gathering in masses and rushing out as if to assail
the regiment, and were as often driven back; but the ground was so
broken that nothing could be seen on the flanks, and after some time
Cameron, who had received no orders, heard a sudden firing along the
main road close to his left. His adjutant, sent to look out, returned
quickly to say a French regiment, which must have passed unseen in
small bodies between the Portuguese battalion and the 9th, was rapidly
filing into line on the rear. The 4th British Regiment was in column
at a short distance, and its commander, Colonel Piper, was directed
by Cameron to face about and fall on the French regiment; but he took
a wrong direction, no firing followed, and the adjutant again hurried
to the rear in observation. The 4th Regiment was not to be seen, and
the enemy’s line was then nearly formed, whereupon Cameron, leaving
fifty men to answer the skirmishing fire, which now increased from the
copse, faced about and marched against the new enemy, who was about his
own strength. The French opened fire, slowly at first, but increasing
vehemently as the distance lessened, until the 9th sprung forwards
to charge; then the adverse line broke and fled by their flanks in
disorder, those who made for their own right brushing the left of
Greville’s brigade and carrying off an officer of the Royals in their
rush: yet the greatest number were made prisoners and Cameron having
lost eighty men and officers resumed his old ground.
Reille’s divisions were now all repulsed, but Villatte still menaced
the right flank, and Foy, taking possession of the narrow ridge
connecting Bussussary with the platform of Barrouilhet, threw his
skirmishers into the great basin leading to Arbonne and menaced Hope’s
right flank. It was now two o’clock, and Soult, his columns being
then all in hand, gave orders to renew the battle, and his masses
were beginning to move, when Clausel reported that a large body of
troops, coming from the right of the Nive, was menacing D’Armagnac near
Urdains. Unable to account for this, Soult, who saw the Guards and
Germans coming up from St. Jean de Luz, and the unattached brigades
already in line, suspended his attack, and ordered D’Erlon, who had two
divisions in reserve, to detach one to the support of D’Armagnac: ere
that could be done the night fell.
The troops seen by Clausel were the third, fourth, sixth, and seventh
divisions, whose movements during the battle it is time to notice. When
Wellington discovered that the heights in Hill’s front were abandoned,
he directed that officer to push parties close up to the front of
Mousserolles; but then hearing the cannonade on the left bank of the
Nive repaired there. In passing he made the third and sixth divisions
recross that river, and ordered Beresford to lay another bridge of
communication lower down the Nive at Villefranque, to shorten the line
of movement. When he saw how the battle stood with Hope and Alten, he
made the seventh division close in from the hill of San Barbe, placed
the third division at Urdains, and brought up Cole’s division to an
open heathy ridge a mile behind the church of Arcangues, from thence a
brigade moved into the basin on the left of Colborne to cover Arbonne,
and the whole division was ready to oppose any attempt to penetrate
between Hope and Alten. It was these dispositions which checked Clausel
and prevented Soult’s attack at Barrouilhet.
In this battle two generals and twelve hundred Anglo-Portuguese had
been killed and wounded, three hundred made prisoners. The French had
one general, Villatte, wounded, and lost two thousand men; and when the
action terminated two regiments of Nassau with one of Frankfort came
over to the allies. These men were not deserters. Their prince having
abandoned Napoleon in Germany sent secret instructions to his troops to
do so likewise, and in good time, for Napoleon’s orders to disarm them
reached Soult the next morning.
SECOND BATTLE OF BARROUILHET. (Dec. 1813.)
In the night of the 10th Reille withdrew behind the tanks, while Foy
and Villatte moved along the connecting ridge towards Bussussary, to
unite with Clausel’s left and D’Erlon’s reserve; hence on the morning
of the 11th the French army, D’Armagnac’s division which remained at
Urdains excepted, was concentrated, for Soult feared a counter-attack.
The French deserters indeed declared that Clausel had formed a body
of two thousand choice grenadiers to assault the village and church
of Arcangues, yet the day passed there with only a slight skirmish.
Not so at Barrouilhet. There was a thick fog, and at ten o’clock Lord
Wellington, desirous to ascertain what Soult was doing, directed the
9th Regiment to skirmish beyond the tanks, but not to push the action
if the French augmented their force. Cameron did so and the fight was
becoming warm, when Colonel Delaney, a staff-officer, rashly directed
the 9th to enter the village: an error sharply corrected. For the fog
cleared up, and Soult, who had twenty-four thousand men at that point,
seeing the 9th unsupported, made a counter-attack so strong and sudden
that Cameron only saved his regiment with the aid of some Portuguese
troops hastily brought up by Hope. The fighting then ceased and
Wellington went to the right, leaving Hope with orders to drive back
the French picquets and re-establish his own outposts.
Soult, hitherto seemingly undecided, was roused by this second insult.
He ordered Daricau’s division to attack the right of Barrouilhet in
reply, while Boyer’s division fell on by the main road between the
tanks. The allies, unexpectant of battle, had dispersed to gather fuel,
for the time was wet and cold, wherefore the French penetrated in all
directions; they outflanked the right, they passed the tanks, seized
the outhouses of the mayor’s house and occupied the coppice in front of
it; and though driven from the outbuildings by the Royals, the tumult
was great and the coppice was filled with men of all nations intermixed
and fighting in a perilous manner. Robinson’s brigade was very hardly
handled, the officer commanding it was wounded, a squadron of French
cavalry again cut down some Portuguese near the wood; and on the right
the colonel of the 84th having unwisely entered a hollow road, the
French, having the banks, killed him and a great number of his men.
However the 9th Regiment, posted on the main road, plied Boyer’s flank
with fire, the 85th Regiment came into action, and Hope, conspicuous
from his gigantic stature and heroic courage, was seen wherever danger
pressed, encouraging the troops: at one time he was in the midst of
the enemy, his clothes were pierced with bullets and he was severely
wounded in the ankle, yet he would not quit the field, and thus by his
calm intrepidity restored the battle; the French were beaten from
Barrouilhet, but they had recovered their original posts and continued
to gall the allies with a fire of shot and shells until the fall of
night.
In this fight six hundred men of a side fell, and as the fifth division
was very much reduced the first division took its place in the line.
Meanwhile Soult sent his cavalry over the Nive to Mousserolles to check
the incursions of Hill’s horsemen.
THIRD COMBAT OF BARROUILHET. (Dec. 1813.)
Rain again fell heavily in the night, and, though the morning broke
fair, neither side seemed inclined to recommence hostilities; but the
advanced posts being very close to each other at ten o’clock a quarrel
arose. For Soult observing the fresh regiments of the first division
close to his posts, imagined the allies were going to attack him, and
reinforced his front; this caused an English battery to fall into a
like error, it opened on the advancing troops and in an instant the
whole line of posts was engaged. Soult then brought up a number of
guns, the firing continued without object for many hours, and four
hundred men of a side were killed or wounded, although the great body
of the French army remained concentrated and quiet on the ridge between
Barrouilhet and Bussussary.
Wellington, expecting Soult would finally abandon his attack to fall on
Hill, had sent Beresford orders to reinforce the latter with the sixth
division by the new bridge if necessary; and also with the seventh
division by Ustaritz without waiting for further instructions; yet now,
seeing Soult’s tenacity, he drew the seventh division again towards
Arbonne. Beresford had however made a movement towards the Nive, and
this, with the march of the seventh and some changes in the position of
the fourth division, caused Soult to believe the allies were gathering
with a view to attack his centre on the morning of the 13th; and it
is remarkable that the deserters, at this early period, told him the
Spaniards had re-entered France, although orders to that effect were
not, as we shall find, given until the next day. Convinced then that
his bolt was shot on that side of the Nive, he left two divisions and
Villatte’s reserve in the entrenched camp, and marched with the other
seven to Mousserolles, intending to fall upon Hill.
That general had pushed his scouting parties far abroad, and when
Sparre’s horsemen arrived at Mousserolles on the 12th, Pierre Soult
advanced from the Bidouze river with all his light cavalry, and being
supported by General Paris drove the allies’ posts from Hasparen.
Colonel Vivian, who commanded there, ordered Major Brotherton to
charge with the 14th Dragoons across the bridge. It was an ill-judged
order, and the impossibility of succeeding was so manifest, that when
Brotherton, noted throughout the army for his daring, galloped forward,
only two men and one subaltern, Lieutenant Southwell, passed the narrow
bridge with him and they were all taken except one man who was killed.
Vivian charged with his whole brigade to rescue them, but in vain, and
he fell back to Urcurray upon Morillo’s Spaniards; Hill then put a
British brigade in march to support him on the 12th, yet recalled it at
sunset, because he had then discovered Soult’s columns passing the Nive
by the boat-bridge above Bayonne.
Wellington, feeling the want of numbers, now brought forward a division
of Gallicians to St. Jean de Luz, and one of Andalusians from the
Bastan to Itzassu, and to prevent plunder fed them from the British
magazines. The Gallicians were to support Hope, the Andalusians to
protect the rear of the army from General Paris and Pierre Soult.
Hill now took a position of battle on a front of two miles.
His left, composed of the 28th, 34th and 39th Regiments under
General Pringle, occupied a wooded ridge crowned by the château of
Villefranque, where it covered the new pontoon bridge of communication,
but was separated from the centre by a small stream forming a chain of
ponds in a deep marshy valley.
His centre was on both sides of the high road, near the hamlet of
St. Pierre, on a crescent-shaped height, broken with rocks and close
brushwood on the left hand; on the right hand inclosed with high and
thick hedges, one of which, at the distance of a hundred yards, covered
part of the line and was nearly impassable. Here Barnes’s British
brigade of the second division were posted, the 71st Regiment being on
the left, the 50th in the centre, the 92nd on the right. Ashworth’s
Portuguese were posted in advance immediately in front of St. Pierre,
with skirmishers occupying a small wood covering their right. Twelve
guns under Ross and Tullock were in the centre, looking down the great
road; and half a mile in rear Lecor’s Portuguese and two guns were in
reserve.
The right, under Byng, was composed of the 3rd, 57th, 31st, and 66th.
The first-named was posted on a height running parallel with the Adour,
called the ridge of Old Moguerre because a village of that name was on
the summit; pushed in advance, this regiment could only be assailed by
crossing a narrow swampy valley, the upper part of which was held by
Byng with the remainder of the brigade, his post being also covered by
a great mill-pond.
One mile in front of St. Pierre a range of counter heights were held
by the French, but the basin between was broad, open, and commanded
by the fire of the allies. All parts were too heavy and enclosed for
the action of cavalry, and the French infantry could only approach in
force on one narrow front of battle along the high road, until within
cannon-shot, but then two narrow difficult lanes branched off to the
right and left, crossing the swampy valleys on each side, and leading,
the one against the allies’ right, where the 3rd Regiment was posted;
the other against their left.
In the night of the 12th rain swelled the Nive and carried away the
bridge of communication; it was soon restored, but for the time Hill
was cut off from the rest of the army; and while seven French divisions
of infantry, furnishing thirty-five thousand combatants, approached
him in front, an eighth under General Paris, and the cavalry of Pierre
Soult, menaced him in rear. To meet those in his front he had only
fourteen guns and fourteen thousand men in position; to check those on
his rear but four thousand Spaniards and Vivian’s cavalry at Urcurray.
BATTLE OF ST. PIERRE. (Dec. 1813.)
Morning broke with a heavy mist, under cover of which Soult formed his
order of battle. D’Erlon, having D’Armagnac’s, Abbé’s, and Daricau’s
divisions of infantry, Sparre’s cavalry, and twenty-two guns, marched
in front; Foy and Maransin followed, but the remainder of the army was
in reserve, for the roads would not allow of any other order. The mist
hung heavily, and the French masses, at one moment quite shrouded in
vapour, at another dimly seen or looming sudden and large, and dark,
at different points, appeared like thunder-clouds gathering before the
storm; but at half-past eight Soult pushed back the British picquets
in the centre, the sun burst out, and the sparkling fire of the light
troops spread wide in the valley and crept up the hills on either
flank, while the bellowing of forty pieces of artillery shook the banks
of the Nive and the Adour.
Daricau, marching on the French right, was directed against Pringle.
D’Armagnac, moving on the left, took Old Moguerre as his point of
direction, and sought to force Byng’s right. Abbé assailed the centre
at St. Pierre, where General Stewart commanded. Hill took his station
on a commanding mount in the rear, from whence he could see the whole
battle and direct the movements.
Abbé, a man noted for vigour, pushed his attack with great violence
and gained ground so rapidly with his light troops on the left of
Ashworth’s Portuguese, that Stewart sent the 71st Regiment and two guns
from St. Pierre to the latter’s aid; then the French won the small wood
on Ashworth’s right, and half of the 50th Regiment was detached to
that quarter. The wood was thus retaken, and the flanks of Stewart’s
position secured, but his centre was weakened, the fire of the French
artillery was concentrated against it, and Abbé pushed on there with
such a power that, despite of the play of musketry on his flanks and a
crushing cannonade in his front, he gained the top of the position, and
drove back the remainder of Ashworth’s Portuguese, together with the
other half of the 50th Regiment, which had remained in reserve.
General Barnes now brought the 92nd Regiment from behind St. Pierre
with so furious a counter-attack that the French skirmishers fell back
in disorder on each side, leaving their column to meet the charge,
which was so roughly pushed that the French mass wavered and gave way:
Abbé immediately replaced it with another, and Soult, redoubling the
heavy play of his heavy guns from the heights, sent a battery of horse
artillery galloping down into the valley, where it opened fire close
to the allies with destructive activity. The cannonade and musketry
then rolled like a prolonged peal of thunder, and Abbé’s second column,
regardless of Ross’s guns, though they tore the ranks in a horrible
manner, advanced so steadily up the high road, that the 92nd was
compelled to take shelter behind St. Pierre. The Portuguese guns, their
British commanding officer having fallen wounded, then limbered up to
retire, and the French skirmishers reached the thick hedge in front of
Ashworth’s right.
Barnes, seeing that hard fighting only could save the position, now
made the Portuguese guns resume fire, while the wing of the 50th and
the Caçadores gallantly held the small wood on the right; but he was
soon wounded, the greatest part of his and Stewart’s staff were hurt,
and the matter seemed desperate. For the light troops, overpowered by
numbers, were all driven in, except those in the wood, the artillerymen
were falling at the guns, Ashworth’s line crumbled rapidly before the
musketry and cannonade, the ground was strewed with the dead in front,
and the wounded crawling to the rear were many. If the French light
troops could then have penetrated through the thick hedge, defeat would
have been inevitable. For the column of attack was steadily advancing
up the main road, and a second column launched on its right was already
victorious, because the colonel of the 71st shamefully withdrew that
gallant regiment and abandoned the Portuguese. Pringle was still
fighting strongly against Daricau’s superior numbers on the hill of
Villefranque; but on the extreme right, the colonel of the 3rd regiment
also shamefully abandoned his strong post to D’Armagnac, whose leading
brigade then rapidly turned Byng’s other regiments on that side.
Foy’s and Maransin’s divisions, hitherto retarded by the deep roads,
were now coming into line to support Abbé, and at a moment when the
troops opposed to him were deprived of their reserve, because Hill,
beholding the retreat of the 3rd and 71st Regiments, descended in haste
from his mount, turned the latter back, renewed the fight in person,
and bringing one brigade of Lecor’s reserve to the same quarter sent
the other against D’Armagnac at Old Moguerre. Thus at the decisive
moment of the battle the French reserve was augmenting, while that
of the allies was thrown as a last resource into action. However the
right wing of the 50th and Ashworth’s Caçadores never lost the small
wood in front, upholding the fight there and towards the high road with
unflinching courage: this gave the 92nd Regiment time to reform behind
the hamlet of St. Pierre, and its gallant colonel, Cameron, once more
led it down the road with colours flying and music playing, resolved to
give the shock to whatever stood in the way. At this sight the British
skirmishers on the flanks, suddenly changing from retreat to attack,
rushed forward and drove those of the enemy back on each side; yet the
battle seemed hopeless, for Ashworth was badly wounded, his line was
shattered, and Barnes, who had not quitted the field for his former
hurt, was now shot through the body.
The 92nd was but a small clump compared with the heavy mass in its
front, and the French soldiers seemed willing enough to close with
the bayonet, until an officer riding at their head suddenly turned
his horse, waved his sword and appeared to order a retreat: then they
faced about and retired across the valley to their original position,
in good order however, and scarcely pursued by the allies, so exhausted
were the victors. This retrograde movement, for there was no panic
or disorder, was produced partly by the gallant advance of the 92nd
and the returning rush of the skirmishers; partly by the state of
affairs immediately on the right of the French column, where the 71st,
indignant at their colonel’s conduct, had returned to the fight with
such fierceness, and were so well aided by Lecor’s Portuguese, Hill
and Stewart in person leading the attack, that the hitherto victorious
French were overthrown there also, at the very moment when the 92nd
came with that brave show down the main road. Many men fell and Lecor
was wounded, but the double action in the centre being seen from the
hill of Villefranque, Daricau’s division, already roughly handled by
Pringle, also fell back in confusion; while on the extreme right,
Buchan’s Portuguese, detached by Hill to recover the Moguerre ridge,
ascended under a flank fire from Soult’s guns, and rallied the 3rd
Regiment: in happy time, for D’Armagnac’s first brigade had passed
Byng’s flank at the mill-pond and was in rear of his line.
It was now twelve o’clock, and while the fire of the light troops and
cannonade in the centre continued, the contending generals restored
their respective orders of battle. Soult’s right wing had been quite
repulsed by Pringle, his left was giving way before Buchan, and the
difficult ground forbad his sending immediate succour to either;
moreover in the exigency of the moment he had called D’Armagnac’s
reserve brigade to sustain Abbé’s retiring columns. However that
brigade, and Foy’s and Maransin’s divisions, were in hand to renew
the fight in the centre, and the allies could not, unsuccoured, have
sustained a fresh assault, their ranks being wasted with fire, nearly
all the staff killed or wounded, and three generals badly hurt.
In this crisis Hill, seeing Buchan well engaged on Old Moguerre and
Byng master of his ground in the valley of the mill-pond, drew the 57th
Regiment from the latter place to reinforce his centre; at the same
time the bridge of boats having been restored, the sixth division,
which had been marching since daybreak, appeared in order of battle
on the mount below St. Pierre. It was soon followed by the fourth and
third divisions, and two brigades of the seventh division were likewise
in march. With the first of these troops came Wellington. He had
hurried from Barrouilhet when the first sound of cannon reached him,
yet he arrived only to witness the close of the battle--the crisis was
past. Hill’s day of glory was complete.
Soult, according to the French method, now made another attack, or
rather demonstration against the centre to cover his new dispositions,
but he was easily repulsed, and at the same moment Buchan drove
D’Armagnac headlong off the Moguerre ridge. The French masses continued
to maintain a menacing position on the high road, and on a hillock
rising between the road and the mill-pond, but were soon dispossessed
by Wellington, who sent Byng with two battalions against the hillock,
and some troops from the centre against those on the high road. At
this last point however the generals and staff had been so cut down,
that Colonel Currie, the aide-de-camp, could find no superior officer
to deliver the order to and led the troops himself to the attack.
Both charges were successful, and two of the light guns, sent down in
the early part of the fight by Soult and which, had played without
ceasing, were taken.
The battle now abated to a skirmish, under cover of which the French
endeavoured to carry off their wounded and rally their stragglers, but
at two o’clock Wellington commanded a general advance of the whole
line. Then the French retreated fighting, and the allies, following
close on the side of the Nive, plied them with musketry until dark;
yet they maintained their line towards the Adour, and Sparre’s cavalry
passing out that way rejoined Pierre Soult. This last general and Paris
had during the day skirmished with Morillo and Vivian’s cavalry at
Ureurray, until the ill-success at St. Pierre became known, when they
retired.
In this bloody action Soult had designed to employ seven divisions of
infantry with one brigade of cavalry on the front, and one brigade of
infantry with a division of cavalry on the rear; but the state of the
roads and the narrow front did not permit more than five divisions
to act, and only half of those were seriously engaged. His loss was
certainly three thousand, making a total, on the five days’ fighting,
of six thousand men with two generals, Villatte and Maucomble, wounded.
Hill had three generals and fifteen hundred men killed or wounded,
and Wellington’s loss on the five days’ fighting was five thousand,
including five hundred prisoners. Five generals, Hope, Robinson,
Barnes, Lecor and Ashworth, were wounded.
OPERATIONS BEYOND THE NIVE. (Dec. 1813.)
When Soult lost the battle of St. Pierre, he left three divisions on
the Mousserolles camp, sent two over the Nive to reinforce Reille,
and passing the Adour in the night with Foy’s division, extended it
up the right bank of that river to the confluence of the Gave de Pau,
to protect the navigation, on which his supplies now depended. To
intercept those supplies, to cut the French communication with St. Jean
Pied de Port, and open a fertile tract of country for the subsistence
and action of his powerful cavalry, had been Wellington’s object in
forcing the passage of the Nive; for Bayonne could not be assailed with
success until the army occupying the entrenched camp in its front was
drawn away by want. Soult was resolved to hold his position around
that fortress, and the country beyond the Nive favoured that object,
being deep, traversed by many rivers, which flooding with every shower
in the mountains furnished in their concentric courses to the Adour
barriers not easy to break through without great loss: and to turn them
by their sources near the mountains required wide movements, and fine
weather to harden the roads. But the winter of 1813 was peculiarly
wet. Still Soult’s security depended on the weather, and three fine
days made him tremble. He was now also dependent on water-carriage
for his supplies, his chief magazines being at Dax on the Adour, and
Peyrehorade on the Gave de Pau; the latter only twenty-four miles from
Bayonne, and both so exposed to sudden incursions that he was compelled
to entrench them.
While thus watching clouds and skies for the signal of great
operations, the two commanders carried on a minor warfare of posts and
surprises. Soult, finding the navigation of the Adour most endangered
near Urt, where the river narrowed, sent Foy across to cast a bridge
and fortify a head to it; but Wellington, forestalling the attempt,
drove him back again, and the supplies were then only brought down at
night by stealth or with a guard of gunboats under fire: indeed the
French army could not have been thus supplied if the coasting trade
from Bordeaux to Bayonne had been interrupted by the English navy, but
Wellington’s remonstrances on that head were still unheeded by the
Admiralty. However Soult was so embarrassed, that leaving Reille with
but four divisions in Vauban’s camp, he transferred his head-quarters
to Peyrehorade, and sent Clausel with two divisions, all the light
cavalry and Trielhard’s heavy dragoons beyond the Adour to take post
on the Bidouze, one of the many rivers descending concentrically from
the Pyrenees to the Adour. His advanced posts were then pushed to the
Joyeuse and Aran rivers, close to Wellington, who immediately made
counter dispositions, and thus the principal fronts of opposition were
placed on a line perpendicular to that against Bayonne, which thus
became secondary.
This did not prevent the minor warfare for the command of the
navigation of the Adour being continued. Hill seized the island of
Holriague in the Adour; those of Berens and Broc above it, were taken
by Foy, and the allies were momentarily embarrassed by the loss of
their boat-bridge on the Nive, which was carried away by a flood.
On their extreme right Morillo, having without authority taken two
squadrons of the 18th Hussars to aid one of his foraging incursions,
abandoned them at a critical moment, whereby their major, Hughes, two
captains and a lieutenant were wounded and many men lost. Mina also
invaded the valleys of Baygorry, plundering, burning, and murdering
men, women, and children; whereupon the people there took arms, and
being reinforced with two hundred regulars from St. Jean Pied de Port
surprised one of his battalions and pressed the others with vigour.
This gave Soult hopes of exciting the Basques to an insurgent warfare;
and General Harispe, a Basque by birth and of great reputation, who had
been long expected from Suchet’s army, now arrived to aid this plan.
If Harispe had come in November, Wellington’s strict discipline being
then unknown, a formidable warfare would have been raised. It was now
too late for a general rising, yet his presence, and Mina’s incursions,
with the licentious conduct of Morillo, had so awakened the warlike
propensities of the Baygorry Basques, that Harispe soon made a levy and
commenced active operations. To aid him Soult extended and strengthened
his own left, and made the light cavalry menace all the outposts,
whereupon Wellington, thinking he sought a general battle, resolved
to fall on him at once, but was stopped by the sudden swelling of the
rivers. When they subsided, he marched to attack Clausel in the centre,
and as Soult was there in person a general battle seemed inevitable;
but the movements on both sides were founded on mistakes, and the
matter ended with a slight skirmish.
Harispe reinforced with Paris’s division and Dauture’s brigade then
drove Mina with loss into the high mountains, surprised Morillo’s
foragers, and captured some English dragoons. Lord Wellington, fearing
this warfare, put forth his authority in a vigorous manner to check
the Spanish generals, and a sullen obedience followed, yet the Basque
insurrection spread, and he therefore published a manifesto calling
on the people to declare for war or peace, announcing his intention
to burn their villages and put them to death if they continued
insurgent--in fine, to treat them as the French generals had treated
the insurgents in Spain. This stopped Harispe’s efforts, and Soult,
who now expected reinforcements and was desirous to resume the
offensive with his whole army, ordered him to abandon his Peasant war,
to concentrate his regular force and hem in the allies’ right. Then
Harispe, always daring and active, drove back all Morillo’s foragers,
and with them a body of English cavalry: at the same time one of Hill’s
cavalry posts on the left was cut off in retaliation for a French post
which had been surprised by the sixth division, with circumstances
entirely opposed to good feeling and to the generous habits long
established between the light division and the French soldiers, of
which the following are fine illustrations.
On the 9th of December, the 43rd was assembled within twenty yards of
a French out-sentry, yet he continued his beat for an hour without
concern, relying so confidently on the customary system as to place
his knapsack on the ground. When the order to advance was given, one
of the British soldiers told him to go away and helped him to replace
his pack before the firing commenced. Next morning the French in like
manner warned a 43rd sentry to retire. At another time Lord Wellington,
desirous to gain the top of a hill occupied by the enemy near Bayonne,
ordered his escort of riflemen to drive the French away, and seeing the
soldiers stealing up too close, as he thought, called out to fire, but
with a loud voice one of those veterans replied, _No firing!_ Holding
up the butt of his rifle towards the French, he tapped it in a peculiar
way, and at the private signal, which meaned, _We must have the hill
for a short time_, the French, who could not maintain yet would not
have relinquished it without a fight if they had been fired upon,
quietly retired: yet this signal would never have been made if the post
had been one capable of a permanent defence, so well did those veterans
understand war and its proprieties.
Soult’s conscripts were now deserting fast, and the inclemency of the
weather filled his hospitals, while Wellington’s bronzed soldiers,
impassive to fatigue, patient to endure, fierce in execution, were free
from serious maladies, ready and able to plant their colours wherever
their general listed. The country was however a vast quagmire; neither
provisions nor orders could be conveyed to the different quarters; a
Portuguese brigade was several days without food from the swelling of
the rivulets, which stopped the commissariat mules. At the sea-side the
troops were better off, yet with a horrible counterpoise; for on that
iron-bound coast, storms and shipwrecks were so frequent, that scarcely
a day passed without some vessel, sometimes many together, being seen
embayed and drifting towards the reefs, which shoot out like needles
for several miles. Once in that situation there was no human help!
A faint cry might be heard at intervals, but the tall ship floated
solemnly onwards until the first rock arrested her, when a roaring
surge would dash her to pieces and the shore was strewed with broken
timbers and dead bodies. January was thus passed by the allies, but
February saw Wellington break into France, the successful invader of
that mighty country.