CHAPTER XVIII.

THE BATTLES OF THE PYRENEES.

PART FIRST.

1813.

Wellington was now in possession of the passes of the Pyrenees; and in the short space of two months had moved his victorious army across the kingdom of Spain, and changed his cantonments from the frontier of Portugal to a position in the Pyrenees, from which he looked down upon the southern provinces of France.

Napoleon received intelligence of Lord Wellington’s success with feelings of undissembled anger and surprise. To recover the line of the Ebro was his instant determination, for he knew the dangerous effect the presence of a British army on the frontier of “beautiful France” must of necessity produce.

Like the tidings of Marmont’s disaster at Salamanca, the news of Joseph’s defeat reached Napoleon at a crisis, when a lost battle was a calamity indeed. With him, every previous armistice had obtained concessions; and, had Vitoria terminated differently, battles, in no way decisive, might from a fortunate success in Spain, have produced results similar to those of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Jena. With ominous rapidity, the intelligence reached every European court that Joseph had been driven from his throne, and Wellington overlooked the fields of France--and none could gainsay it--a conqueror. With what astonishment these tidings were received, those immediately round the person of Napoleon have since narrated. Nothing could be more humiliating--nothing, the time considered, more ruinous. His brother no longer prosecuted the war in Spain, but, defeated and shaken in confidence, had sought shelter in the plains of Gascony.

Accustomed as he had been to receive reports from the Peninsula little calculated to give satisfaction, or to confirm his impression of the invincible qualities of those troops which he had personally ever led to certain victory, so extensive and alarming a reverse as that now made must have been as unexpected as it was disastrous; but with all the promptitude of a person born to command, instead of yielding to gloomy circumstances, he issued orders for a bold effort to counteract the tide of war, to recover the ground lost by Vitoria, and to awaken to energy, as he conceived, the dormant spirit of his soldiers.

Marshal Soult was, therefore, specially despatched from Germany to assume the chief command of the beaten army, and, if possible, restore its fallen fortunes.

Wellington foresaw the coming storm, and turned his immediate attention to the reduction of Pamplona and San Sebastian. From the strength of the former, and the excellent condition of its defences, the allied commander decided on a blockade; and it was accordingly closely invested by General Hill. Redoubts were thrown up within fifteen hundred yards of the place, armed with the cannon taken at Vitoria, and to the Spanish army under O’Donel the conduct of the blockade was entrusted.

Graham, with his corps augmented to ten thousand men, was directed to besiege San Sebastian; and on the 11th of July he sat down before the place.

San Sebastian is built on a peninsula, its western defences washed by the sea, and its eastern by the river Urumea, which at high water rises several feet above the base of the escarp wall. A bold and rocky height, called Monte Orgullo, rises at the extreme point of a narrow neck of land, and on its summit stands the citadel of La Mota.

Eight hundred yards distant from the land-front, the convent of San Bartolemeo, with a redoubt and circular fieldwork, were garrisoned. These advanced posts were strongly fortified, and, as it was determined to breach the eastern wall and storm it afterwards at low water, when the receding tide should permit an advance by the left of the Urumea, it became necessary, as a preliminary step, to dislodge the enemy from the convent.

On the 14th of July, the guns in battery opened a heavy fire on San Bartolemeo; and by the next day the walls of the building were injured considerably. Another battery, erected beyond the Urumea, fired with equal success upon the bastion; and on the 17th both works were carried by assault. Batteries, armed with thirty-two siege guns and howitzers, opened on the town wall from the sandhills; and on the 25th two breaches were effected, one of thirty yards extent, and the other of ten. A mine was also driven under the glacis, and at its explosion was the appointed signal for an assault upon the breaches.

At first the astounding noise distracted the garrison, and enabled the advance of both storming parties to gain the breaches; but the French recovered from their panic, and poured such a fire of grape and musketry on the assailants, that the breach was heaped with dead and dying, and the allies were driven back to the trenches with a loss of above six hundred men. The loss of the British, from the 7th to the 27th of July, amounted to two hundred and four killed, seven hundred and seventy-four wounded, and three hundred missing.

This severe repulse, added to the certain intelligence that Soult was preparing to strike a grand blow, induced Lord Wellington to issue immediate orders to raise the siege.

Circumstances, indeed, rendered that step unavoidable. The French were already in motion; Soult had forced the passes on the right, penetrated the valleys of the Pyrenees, and was marching to relieve Pamplona.

Lord Wellington had a most extensive, and, consequently, a very difficult position to defend, his _corps d’armée_ covering an extent of country extending, from flank to flank, over sixty miles of mountains, without lateral communications, or the means of holding a disposable reserve in the rear of the passes, all of which must be defended, as the loss of one would render the defence of the others unavailing.

After issuing a spirited proclamation to his army, Soult lost no time in commencing operations. His corps had been organised anew, strongly reinforced, and strengthened in every arm, and more particularly in artillery. To relieve Pamplona, it would be necessary to carry the passes of Maya and Roncesvalles; and accordingly, the French marshal suddenly assembled the wings of his army and a division of the centre, at St. Jean Pied de Port; while D’Erlon, with the remainder of the corps, concentrated at Espaletta.

By feints upon the smaller passes of Espagne and Lereta, D’Erlon masked his real attempt, which was to be made upon that of Maya, by a mountain path from Espaletta. From several suspicious appearances an attack was dreaded by the allies, and some light companies had been ordered up, and, with the pickets, they were assailed at noon in such force that, though supported by the 34th, 50th, and 92nd, they were driven back on a height communicating with Echalar when, reinforced by Barnes’s brigade of the seventh division, they succeeded in repulsing the attack and holding their ground again.

The affair was very sanguinary. One wing of the 92nd was nearly cut to pieces. All the regiments engaged highly distinguished themselves, and the 82nd in particular. The allies lost nearly two thousand men, and four pieces of artillery.

Soult’s advance on Roncesvalles was made in imposing force, but his movements were foreseen, and necessary dispositions had been made for defeating them. General Byng, who commanded, sent Morillo’s Spanish division to observe the road of Arbaicete, by which the pass of Maya might have been turned on the right; and descending the heights, placed his own brigade in a position by which that important road might be covered more effectually. Soult, however, directed his true attack upon the left. Cole was overpowered and driven back; but the fusilier brigade sustained him, and the attack throughout being met with steady gallantry, was eventually defeated.

On Byng’s division the French marshal directed his next effort; and with a force so superior, that, though obstinately resisted, it proved successful, so far as it obliged the weak brigades of the British general to fall back upon the mountains, and abandon the Arbaicete road, while Morillo’s Spaniards were driven on the fourth division. Necessarily the whole fell back at nightfall, and took a position in front of Zubiri.

Picton’s division united with the fourth next morning, and both fell leisurely back as the Duke of Dalmatia advanced. Picton continued retiring on the 27th July, and that evening took a position in front of Pamplona to cover the blockade, General Hill having already fallen back on Irurita.

Nearly at this time Lord Wellington had come up; putting in motion the several corps which lay in his route to the scene of action, and at one end of a mountain village he pencilled a despatch, as a French detachment had entered by the other.

Riding at full speed, he reached the village of Sorauren, and his eagle glance detected Clausel’s column in march along the ridge of Zabaldica. Convinced that the troops in the valley of the Lanz must be intercepted by this movement, he sprang from his saddle, and pencilled a note on the parapet of the bridge, directing the troops to take the road to Oricain, and gain the rear of Cole’s position. The scene that followed was highly interesting. Lord Fitzroy Somerset, the only staff-officer who had kept up with him, galloped with these orders out of Sorauren by one road, the French light cavalry dashed in by another, and the British general rode alone up the mountain to reach his troops. One of Campbell’s Portuguese battalions first descried him, and raised a cry of joy, and the shrill clamour caught up by the next regiments swelled as it run along the line into that stern and appalling shout which the British soldier is wont to give upon the edge of battle, and which no enemy ever heard unmoved. Lord Wellington suddenly stopped in a conspicuous place; he desired that both armies should know he was there; and a double spy who was present pointed out Soult, then so near that his features could be plainly distinguished.

The British general, it is said, fixed his eyes attentively upon this formidable man, and speaking as if to himself, said, “Yonder is a great commander, but he is a cautious one, and will delay his attack to ascertain the cause of these cheers; that will give time for the 6th division to arrive, and I shall beat him.” And certain it is that the French general made no serious attack that day.

Twelve British regiments were embattled on the Pyrenees who had fought at Talavera; and there were present not a few who might recall an incident to memory, that would present a striking but amusing contrast. Cuesta, examining his battleground four years before in lumbering state, seated in an unwieldy coach, and drawn by eight pampered mules; Wellington, on an English hunter, dashing from post to post at headlong speed, and at a pace that distanced the best mounted of his staff.

Having despatched the order, he galloped to the place where Picton’s divisions were drawn up--the third, on the right, in front of Huarte, and extending to the heights of Olaz, and the fourth, with Byng’s and Campbell’s brigades, formed on the left; their right on the road from Roncesvalles to Zubiri, and the left commanding that from Ostiz to Pamplona. The reserve was formed of the corps of Morillo and O’Donel, while, on the only ground on which cavalry could act, the British dragoons were formed under Sir Stapleton Cotton.

Soult had occupied the high grounds in the front of those held by the allies, and in the evening he made an effort to possess a hill occupied by a Portuguese and Spanish brigade on the right of the fourth division. These troops steadily resisted the attack, and, supported by a British and Spanish regiment, repulsed the French, until darkness ended the firing on both sides.

Pack’s division came up on the 28th, and took a position in the rear of the fourth division, covering the valley of the Lanz. The village of Sorauren in their front was held by the French; from which, in considerable force, they moved forward, and attacked the sixth division. But this movement was exposed to a flanking fire, that obliged the enemy to retire after suffering a serious loss. On the left of the division, a regiment of Portuguese caçadores was driven back by a simultaneous attack, but Ross’s brigade came rapidly forward, and completely repulsed the French. On the right, a renewed effort partially succeeded, as the Spanish regiments were deforced; but the 40th came to the charge, and cleared the hill of the enemy.

The French marshal’s efforts had been directed against the whole of the height held by the fourth division. In almost all he was repelled; but on the right of the brigade of Ross, Soult was for a time successful, and Campbell’s Portuguese regiments, unable to bear the furious and sustained attack, lost ground, and allowed the enemy to establish a strong body of troops within the allied position. Of necessity, General Ross, having his flank turned, immediately fell back. Wellington saw the crisis, and the 27th and 48th were directed to recover the ground with the bayonet. Ross moved forward in support, a brilliant and bloody struggle terminated in the total repulse of the French division, which with severe loss, was precipitately driven from the height it had with such difficulty gained. At this period of the fight, Pack’s brigade advanced up the hill. The French gave up further efforts on the position, and a long, sanguinary, and determined contest terminated.

The fourth division in this affair had been most gloriously distinguished. The bayonet, in every trying exigency, was resorted to; the charges were frequent, and some regiments, the fusiliers (7th and 23rd), with the 20th and 40th, repeatedly checked an advance, or recovered lost ground, by “steel alone.”

Hill’s division had marched by Lanz, and Lord Dalhousie from San Estevan on Lizasso, and reached it on the 28th, while the seventh division moved to Marcelain, and covered the Pamplona road. Soult, failing in his efforts on the front of the position, determined to attack Hill’s corps, turn the left of the allies, and thus relieve Pamplona.

D’Erlon had reached Ostiz on the 29th, and Soult detached a division from his own position to strengthen him. During the night of the 29th, he crossed the Lanz, and occupied the heights in front of the sixth and seventh divisions, and withdrawing the corps hitherto posted opposite the third British division, his left wing closed in on the main position of the mountain, directly in front of the fourth division. D’Erlon’s corps, now considerably strengthened, communicated by the right of the Lanz with the heights occupied by their left.

These dispositions of the French marshal were at once penetrated by Lord Wellington, and he decided on driving the enemy from the main position, which, from its importance, was very strongly occupied.

Picton, crossing the heights from which the French corps had been recently withdrawn, turned the left of their position on the road to Roncesvalles, while Lord Dalhousie advanced against the heights in front of the seventh division, and gained their right flank. Packenham, with the sixth division, turned the village of Sorauren, and, assisted by Byng’s brigade, carried that of Ostiz. These flank movements were executed with admirable rapidity, and enabled Cole, with part of the fourth division, to assault the front of the enemy’s position. His attack succeeded. The French gave way, a noble chain of posts was forced on every side, as well by the dashing gallantry of the troops as the excellent dispositions of their leader.

The French had endeavoured to outflank General Hill; but Pringle’s brigade manœuvred on the heights above the La Zarza road, and as the enemy extended by the right, they observed a parallel direction, During these movements front attacks were frequently and furiously made, and always repulsed by the bayonet. Sir Rowland steadily maintained his position behind Lizasso, until a strong corps, detached by D’Erlon, succeeded in filing round the left flank of the British brigades. No result of any importance ensued, for Hill leisurely retired on a mountain position at Eguarras, a mile in the rear, and every attempt made by D’Erlon to dislodge him proved a failure.

That night, Soult, discomfited in his numerous and well-sustained attacks on every position of the allied lines, fell back, and was vigorously pursued by his opponent. Two divisions were overtaken at the pass of Donna Maria, and brought to action. Although most formidably posted, they were driven from their ground by the second and seventh divisions, while at another point, Barnes’s brigade made a daring and successful attack on a corps of much superior strength, formed in a difficult position.

Wellington continued the pursuit to Irurita, the French retiring rapidly towards the frontier, from whence they had so confidently advanced, and on which they were as promptly obliged to recede. In their retreat through the valley of the Bidassao, the enemy’s loss in prisoners and baggage was considerable. A large convoy was taken at Elizondo, and on the night of the 1st of August, the entire of the French corps were driven from the Spanish territory, and the British bivouacs once more established on the same ground which they had occupied previous to the advance of the Duke of Dalmatia.

During the continued series of bold operations, and constant and sustained attacks, the loss on both sides could not but be immense. Soult’s amounted to at least eight thousand, and Wellington’s to eight hundred and eighty-one killed, five thousand five hundred and ten wounded, and seven hundred and five missing. That the French marshal was perfectly confident of succeeding, could be inferred from the tone of his address to the army, and the mass of cavalry and immense parc of guns, with which he had provided himself, and which, as they could not be employed in mountain combats, were evidently designed to assist in future operations that should succeed his deforcement of the allies from the Pyrenees, and the raising of the blockade of Pamplona.

Nothing could have been more annoying to the French marshal, than that he should have actually reached within one league of the blockaded fortress, and never be permitted afterwards to open the slightest communication with its garrison.