Part 58

Between the following day and the 4th of October, another mine was conducted near to the same point, and the former breach was improved by fire from the batteries. This mine was exploded in the afternoon of the 4th, and the result was a second practicable breach. These two breaches were immediately stormed by the second battalion of the twenty-fourth, divided into two parties, under Captain Hedderwick and Lieutenants Holmes and Fraser. This assault was completely successful, and the allies were thus established within the exterior line of the castle. The loss was severe, but not beyond the value of the service.

The enemy, however, did not leave the allies in tranquil possession of this position: they made two vigorous sallies to interrupt the works against the second line, and continued their operations for the same purpose with very little intermission. A breach was effected, and a mine was in progress; but from want of siege materials, particularly of a battering-train, the advances were slow, and it became obvious that success was doubtful. There were only three eighteen-pounders, and no materials or instruments but what were made upon the spot. We must in candour admit that no blame could be justly attached to any one, as these privations were necessary circumstances of the enterprise. The siege of Burgos was an expeditionary operation, and at no point, either of the march of the army towards it or during the time occupied in the siege, could the marquis of Wellington have taken a train with him, or have sent for it and waited for its arrival. There were in fact two trains on the Spanish frontier,--the one at Ciudad Rodrigo, and another at Badajos; but the nature of the operations, the distance, and the roads, rendered them totally immoveable. A question has here been put--why, then, did the marquis undertake this siege; and did not the result disappoint his calculations? To this there are several answers. First. Upon the forward march and assembling of the enemy on the Douro, it became necessary for him to repel them; and his march and pursuit for this purpose brought him in front of Burgos. Second. There was nothing in the external character of the castle and works of Burgos to justify the expectation of a long defence: the body of the castle, as reported by the engineers, was a repaired ruin, and the outworks were fieldworks of earth. If the apparatus of attack was incomplete, so likewise was that of defence. In a word, both the attack and defence were of the same expeditionary character and means. Third. The language of the private correspondence of the army was substantially as follows, and contains a full answer to this and all similar objections:--That the value of the place and the army being there, rendered it indispensable to make an effort to acquire it; that the marquis had hopes of effecting this acquisition, but certainly no assured expectation; that the event might therefore disappoint his wishes, but not deceive him; that the very character of the defence, gallant as it was, was such as to encourage the continuance of the attack; such advantage being so _nearly_ gained and so narrowly eluded, as if gained, would have been necessarily followed by the capture of the place. The garrison, moreover, were without water, and suffered great severities by having to bivouac in narrow quarters.[20]

On the morning of the 18th of October, a breach having been effected and a mine having been prepared under the church of St. Roman, it was resolved that the mine should be exploded the same evening, and that upon such explosion, the breach should be stormed and the line (the second line) escaladed. Accordingly, at the appointed time in the evening, the attacking party was divided into three columns: the one under Lieutenant-Colonel Browne, composed of Spanish and Portuguese, were to attack the church; the second party, composed of a detachment of the German legion, under Major Wurmb, were to storm the breach; whilst the third party, composed of the guards, were to escalade the line. At this moment the mine blew up, and, being the appointed signal, the parties at once rushed forward to their assigned points.

The explosion of the mine carried away the whole of the wall which defended that point, and Lieutenant-Colonel Browne succeeded in lodging his party on the ruins and outworks. The enemy retreated to a second parapet behind the church, over the heads of the advancing assailants. This occasioned much loss and confusion; and a flank fire of the enemy coming in aid, compelled the lieutenant-colonel to suffer the retreat of his men, and to content himself with saving them from disorder.

In the mean time, Major Wurmb had directed his party against the breach. The distinguished gallantry of this assault merited a more successful result. The breach was carried in an instant, and a considerable number of the party in the same moment got into the body of the place. But here began the conflict. The enemy opened upon them such a destructive fire, both from the third line and the body of the castle, and brought down upon them such superior numbers, that, after the loss of their gallant leader and a great proportion of their force, they were compelled to retire, and almost in the moment of victory to evacuate what they had so bravely gained.

The third party, the guards, experienced a similar success in the commencement, and a similar disappointment in the result. They succeeded in escalading the line, but were compelled to retire before the superiority of numbers and the fire of the enemy. In his official despatch, dated Cabeçon, 26th of October, 1812, the marquis of Wellington thus writes:--

“It is impossible to represent in adequate terms my sense of the conduct of the guards and German legion upon this occasion; and I am quite satisfied, that if it had been possible to maintain the posts which they had gained with so much gallantry, these troops would have maintained them. Some of the men stormed even the third line, and even one of them was killed in one of the embrasures of the parapet.”

The army of Portugal and the army of the North, for they were so near each other as to constitute one army, had not suffered this siege to go on without some attempts to interrupt it; they had now, however, attained a strength and importance that demand our attention.

These two armies were stationed on the high road from Burgos to Miranda on the Ebro, a continuance of the great French road from Madrid, through Burgos to Bayonne. From Burgos to Miranda on the Ebro is forty English miles. Above the village of Monasterio, on that side of it furthest from Burgos, was a range of hills, which was the position of the British outposts. The army of Portugal was in the neighbourhood of Bribiesca; and the army of the North, under General Cafferilli, had its head-quarters at Pancorvo.

The principal attempts of these armies were on the 13th and 18th of October. On the former of these days, General Macune, who was in command of the French at Bribiesca, moved forward a considerable body of infantry and cavalry against the posts of the allies at Monasterio, but was repulsed as well by the posts themselves as by a detachment of the German legion.

On the 18th, the army of Portugal, having been previously strongly reinforced by the arrival of levies from France, re-advanced against the said posts, and possessed themselves of the hills and town. It now, therefore, became necessary to lead the army against them, and accordingly, with the exception of that portion of it required for the siege, the marquis assembled the troops, and placed the allied army on some heights between Burgos and Quentana. This movement was made on the 19th of October. The enemy assembled their army at Monasterio on the same day. On the following evening, the 20th, they moved a force of nearly ten thousand men to drive in the outposts at Quentana, and which, according to order, withdrew as they approached. The marquis had now recourse to a flank movement; the result gave him an advantage; upon seeing which, the enemy again fell back upon Monasterio.

And this manœuvre, indeed, was the last operation of the siege of Burgos, for on the following day, the 21st, a letter from Sir R. Hill reported such a state of affairs upon the Tagus, that the marquis found it to be an act of necessity immediately to raise the siege, and to fall back upon the Douro. Accordingly, the siege was raised the same night, and the army was in march on the following morning.

ST. SEBASTIAN.

A.D. 1813.

On the retreat of the French army after its defeat at Vittoria, Marshal Jourdan threw a garrison into St. Sebastian of between three and four thousand men, and the place was immediately afterwards invested by the Spaniards. In the beginning of July, the fifth division of the army, with two Portuguese brigades, making a force of from 9,000 to 10,000 men, arrived before it to form the siege, which was intrusted to Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Graham.

A proportion of artillery, consisting of twenty-four pounders, with 1,500 rounds of ammunition per gun, six eight-inch howitzers, with 1,000, and four ten-inch mortars, with 500 rounds, and four sixty-eight-pounders, with a proportion of shells, were in ships at Los Passages; and with the army there were six eighteen-pounders: this quantity of artillery was deemed adequate to the attack of the place.

The town of St. Sebastian is built on a peninsula running nearly east and west; the northern side being washed by the river Urumea, the southern by the sea. The front defences, which cross the isthmus towards the land, are a double line of works, with the usual counterscarp, covered way, and glacis; but the works running lengthwise of the peninsula are only a single line, and, trusting to the water in their front to render them inaccessible, they are built without any cover; and the northern line is quite exposed, from the top to the bottom, to a range of hills on the right bank of the river, at a distance of six or seven hundred yards from it. These walls being uncovered, appears an unaccountable oversight, as the Urumea, for some hours before and after low water, is fordable, and the tide recedes so much, that for the same period there is a considerable dry space along the left bank of the river, by which troops can march to the foot of the wall.

Marshal Berwick, when he attacked St. Sebastian in 1719, aware of this circumstance, threw up batteries on those hills to break the town wall, and, whilst that was being effected, he pushed on approaches along the isthmus, and established himself on the covered way of the land front: as is but too frequently the case, as soon as the breach was practicable, the governor capitulated for the town, and the duke obliged him and the garrison to retire into the castle. It was now proposed to follow the same mode of attack, and as a preliminary, the garrison were to be driven from a post they occupied about seven or eight hundred yards in advance of the town, formed by the convent of St. Bartolomeo and a redoubt then in progress; and from a small circular work, which they made with casks on the causeway, four eighteen-pounders and two howitzers were put in battery for that purpose.

The operations against the town were commenced by the erection of batteries on the hills to the north of the Urumea, for twenty twenty-four-pounders, four eight-inch howitzers, four ten-inch mortars, and four sixty-eight-pounder carronades; the guns to breach the sea-wall between the two towers, the carronades to be used with shells only, and the mortars to be directed against the land front and castle.

On the 14th of July, the first two batteries opened on the convent of St. Bartolomeo.

15th of July.--A false attack was made on the convent of St. Bartolomeo, to ascertain if the enemy intended obstinately to defend it, which the troops carrying farther than was ordered, they were obliged to retire with some loss.

17th of July.--The end of the convent having been entirely beaten down, the ninth regiment and a Portuguese brigade assaulted and carried it with little difficulty.

Two more batteries for the eighteen-pounders and the two howitzers were thrown up in the night, in a situation to enfilade and take in reverse the defences of the town.

On the night of the 18th of July the suburbs of St. Martin, which the enemy had burned, were occupied: they, however, continued to hold the circular redoubt.

Night between the 19th and 20th of July.--Approaches were struck out to the right and left of St. Martin.

On the 20th of July all the batteries opened.

In the night between the 20th and 21st of July, early in the evening, the enemy abandoned the circular redoubt: a working party of seven hundred men had been prepared to open a parallel across the isthmus, but the night proving extremely dark, tempestuous, and rainy, the men dispersed among the ruined buildings of St. Martin, and not more than two hundred could be collected together; therefore only about one-third of the parallel and the right approach to it were opened.

On the 21st of July, Sir Thomas Graham sent a flag of truce with a summons to the governor, but he would not receive it.

In the night between the 21st and 22nd of July, the left communication and the remainder of the parallel across the isthmus were opened; the parallel near its left crossed a drain level with the ground, four feet high and three feet wide, through which ran a pipe to convey water into the town. Lieutenant Reid ventured to explore it, and at the end of 230 yards, he found it closed by a door in the counterscarp, opposite to the face of the right demi-bastion of the hornwork; as the ditch was narrow, it was thought that by forming a mine at this extremity of the drain, the explosion would throw earth sufficient against the escarpe, only twenty-four feet high, to form a road over it; eight feet at the end of the aqueduct was therefore stopped with filled sand-bags, and thirty barrels of powder, of ninety pounds each, were lodged against it, and a _saucisson_ led to the mouth of the drain.

On the 23rd of July the breach between the two towers, about one hundred feet in length, being considered practicable, the fire of all the guns was concentrated on a part of the wall to its left to effect a second breach, and by evening, that also was considered practicable on a front of thirty feet. At the same time, the four ten-inch mortars and the sixty-eight-pounder carronades were turned on the defences and on the houses in rear of the breach, to prevent the enemy working to form an obstacle to them.

The breaches were to have been stormed at daylight on the 24th, at which time the tide was out, and the troops were formed in readiness; but the houses at the back of the breach being on fire, it was supposed they would prevent the advance of the troops when they had gained the summit, and in consequence the order was countermanded.

The next night a trench was opened in advance of the parallel, to contain a firing party on the hornwork, during the assault.

The assault was ordered to take place at daylight on the 25th; the storming party, about 2,000 men, were to assemble in the trenches, and the explosion of the mine was to be the signal to advance.

The distance of the uncovered approach, from the trenches to the breach, was about three hundred yards, in face of an extensive front of works, over very difficult ground, consisting of rocks covered with sea-weed, and intermediate pools of water; the fire of the place was yet entire, and the breach was flanked by two towers, which, though considerably injured, were still occupied.

At five A.M. the mine was sprung, and destroyed a considerable length of the counterscarp and glacis, and created so much astonishment in the enemy posted on the works near to it, that they abandoned them for the moment, and the advance of the storming party reached the breach before any great fire was brought to bear on them: on their attempting to ascend the breach, the enemy opened so heavy a fire, and threw down such a number of shells, &c., from the towers on the flanks, and from the summit of the breaches, that the men began to waver, and in a short time the assaulting party had returned into the trenches, with the loss of nearly one hundred killed and four hundred wounded.

The advanced guard, with Lieutenant Jones, who led them, were made prisoners on the breach; of the other engineers, Captain Lewis was severely wounded, and Lieutenant Machell was killed. Lieutenant-Colonel Sir R. Fletcher was wounded at the same time in the trenches.

This assault does not appear to have failed from want of exertion, but from the fire of the place being left entire, and from the great distance at which the covered approaches were from the breach; the troops were stated in the _Gazette_ to have done their duty, but that it was beyond the power of gallantry to overcome the difficulties opposed to them.

On this failure being reported to Lord Wellington, he came over from Lesaca, and decided upon renewing the same mode of attack, but on a much more extended scale, as soon as sufficient guns and ammunition should arrive from England; the augmentation to the attack was to extend the breach on the left to the salient angle of the demi-bastion of the main front, and from batteries to be established on the left of the attack, to continue it round the whole of its face, and to the end of the high curtain above it.

On the 27th of July, at seven A.M., the enemy made a sortie, to feel the guard of the trenches; they surprised it, and entering the parallel at the left, swept it to the right, carrying into the place two hundred prisoners. In consequence of this loss, the guard was concentrated in a small portion of the left of the parallel, and the right of the trenches was only occasionally patrolled.

On the 28th of July, Marshal Soult attacked Lord Wellington, in the hope of relieving Pampeluna, and the result of the action not being known to Sir Thomas Graham, he, on the 29th, embarked all the artillery and stores at Los Passages, and sent the transports to sea; the siege was therefore converted into a blockade, the guard continuing to hold the trenches.

August 3rd, the enemy surprised a patrol in the parallel, and made it prisoners.

On the 6th the guns and stores were re-landed at Los Passages, and on the 18th the additional artillery and ammunition arrived from England.

On the 24th the entire of the trenches was again occupied, and the siege recommenced.

On the left, two additional batteries for thirteen guns, to breach the face of the left demi-bastion and the curtain above it, at seven hundred yards’ distance, were commenced, and on the right, cover was begun for seven additional howitzers, four sixty-eight-pounder carronades, twenty-one twenty-four-pounders, and sixteen mortars, being forty-eight pieces of ordnance, in addition to the thirty-two put in battery for the previous operation.

At midnight the enemy made a sortie, entered the advanced part of the trenches, and carried confusion into the parallel; in attempting, however, to sweep along its right, they were checked by a part of the guard of the trenches, and obliged to retire, carrying off with them about twelve prisoners.

At eight A.M. of the 26th of August, the batteries opened. On the isthmus, the thirteen guns were directed to breach the left demi-bastion of the main front, and the end of the curtain in continuation of the old breach, and the face of the left demi-bastion of the hornwork, which were all seen in a line, one above the other.

The fire of the batteries on the right was directed to breach the two towers, one on each flank of the old breach, and to continue that breach to the salient angle of the demi-bastion, and to breach the end of the curtain above it.

Two shafts were sunk to form galleries, to prevent the enemy mining under the advanced part of the trenches. In the night between the 26th and the 27th, the two last-erected batteries being at a long distance to breach, and not seeing the foot of the escarpes, cover was made for four of the guns in a preferable situation.

A party of two hundred men was landed this night on the high rocky island of Sta Clara, and made prisoners of the enemy’s guard on it, consisting of an officer and twenty-four men.

In the night between the 27th and 28th of August, the enemy made a sortie; but, profiting by past experience, such precautions had been taken of posting sentinels, &c., and the men were so prepared to stand to their arms, that they were immediately repulsed, without effecting the slightest mischief.

On the 29th of August a battery opened on the face of the demi-bastion of the main front; the eighteen-pounders and the howitzers were turned on the enemy’s batteries, and several mortars and the carronades at the right attack were directed to the same object, and in the course of the day the enemy’s fire was nearly subdued. It was afterwards ascertained that they lost many men, particularly by the spherical case-shot, which they endeavoured to imitate, by firing common shells filled with small balls, and bursting them over the heads of the troops, but without any effect.

The breaches appearing good and practicable on the 30th, it was deemed time to prepare the necessary debouches for the troops: at the advanced sap on the right, to break through the sea-wall, which was of masonry, four feet thick and ten feet above the level of high water, three shafts were commenced, the first close at the back of the wall, the second twenty-five feet from the wall, and the third forty feet from the second: they were sunk eight feet below the surface of the ground, and a small return made to contain the powder; they were then each loaded with five hundred and forty pounds of powder.

At two A.M. the next morning, the three mines were sprung, and blew the wall completely down. The diameters of the entonnoirs were about thirty feet; they were immediately connected, and by ten A.M. formed a good passage out for troops, and accomplished the original object of securing all the works in their rear from the effects of any galleries the enemy might have run out to form mines in that direction. At the time of low water, about eleven A.M., the columns for the assault moved out of the trenches by the openings in front of the battery, and in a few minutes after the advance of the forlorn hope, the enemy exploded two mines, which blew down part of the sea-line wall; but as the troops were not in very close order, nor very near the wall, their loss was not great.

From the Mirador and Battery del Principe, on the castle, a fire of grape and shells was opened on the column, and continued during the time they were disputing the breach. The main curtain, even to the end breached, was strongly occupied by grenadiers, and the left branch of the hornwork was well manned, and from thence a heavy fire was maintained on the breach, a great part of which was exposed to it; but the tower of Amozquita, on the left of the breach, fortunately for the besieged, was not manned.

Up the end of the curtain, the breach was accessible quite to the _terreplein_; but the enemy’s situation there was commanding, and the ascent was much exposed to the fire of the hornwork.

At the back of the whole of the rest of the breach was a perpendicular fall, from fifteen to twenty-five feet in depth, under which were the ruins of the houses which joined on to the back of the breach; and here and there was left an end wall of the houses, by which alone it was possible to descend. A line of retrenchment carried along the nearest standing parallel walls, was strongly occupied by the enemy, and which entirely swept the confined summit of the breach.