Chapter I
[Sidenote: 1814. January.]
Lord Wellington’s difficulties have been described. Those of his adversary were even more embarrassing because the evil was at the root; it was not misapplication of power but the want of power itself which paralyzed Soult’s operations. Napoleon trusted much to the effect of his treaty with Ferdinand who, following his intentions, should have entered Spain in November, but the intrigues to retard his journey continued, and though Napoleon, when the refusal of the treaty by the Spanish government became known, permitted him to return without any conditions, as thinking his presence would alone embarrass and perhaps break the English alliance with Spain, he did not as we have seen arrive until March. How the emperor’s views were frustrated by his secret enemies is one of the obscure parts of French history, at this period, which time may possibly clear but probably only with a feeble and uncertain light. For truth can never be expected in the memoirs, if any should appear, of such men as Talleyrand, Fouché, and other politicians of their stamp, whose plots rendered his supernatural efforts to rescue France from her invaders abortive. Meanwhile there is nothing to check and expose the political and literary empirics who never fail on such occasions to poison the sources of history.
[Sidenote: Soult’s Despatches, MSS.]
Relying upon the effect which the expected journey of Ferdinand would produce, and pressed by the necessity of augmenting his own weak army, Napoleon gave notice to Soult that he must ultimately take from him, two divisions of infantry and one of cavalry. The undecided nature of his first battle at Brienne caused him to enforce this notice in the beginning of February, but he had previously sent imperial commissaries to the different departments of France, with instructions to hasten the new conscription, to form national and urban guards, to draw forth all the resources of the country, and to aid the operations of the armies by the action of the people. These measures however failed generally in the south. The urban cohorts were indeed readily formed as a means of police, and the conscription was successful, but the people remained sullen and apathetic; and the civil commissaries are said to have been, with some exceptions, pompous, declamatory, and affecting great state and dignity without energy and activity. Ill-will was also produced by the vexatious and corrupt conduct of the subordinate government agents, who seeing in the general distress and confusion a good opportunity to forward their personal interests, oppressed the people for their own profit. This it was easy to do, because the extreme want of money rendered requisitions unavoidable, and under the confused direction of civilians, partly ignorant and unused to difficult times, partly corrupt, and partly disaffected to the emperor, the abuses inevitably attendant upon such a system were numerous; and to the people so offensive, that numbers to avoid them passed with their carts and utensils into the lines of the allies. An official letter written from Bayonne at this period run thus: “The English general’s policy and the good discipline he maintains does us more harm than ten battles. Every peasant wishes to be under his protection.”
Another source of anger was Soult’s works near Bayonne, where the richer inhabitants could not bear to have their country villas and gardens destroyed by the engineer, he who spares not for beauty or for pleasure where his military traces are crossed. The merchants, a class nearly alike in all nations, with whom profit stands for country, had been with a few exceptions long averse to Napoleon’s policy which from necessity interfered with their commerce. And this feeling must have been very strong in Bayonne and Bordeaux, for one Batbedat, a banker of the former place, having obtained leave to go to St. Jean de Luz under pretence of settling the accounts of English officers, prisoners of war, to whom he had advanced money, offered lord Wellington to supply his army with various commodities and even provide money for bills on the English treasury. In return he demanded licenses for twenty vessels to go from Bordeaux, Rochelle and Mants, to St. Jean de Luz, and they were given on condition that he should not carry back colonial produce. The English navy however shewed so little inclination to respect them that the banker and his coadjutors hesitated to risk their vessels, and thus saved them, for the English ministers refused to sanction the licenses and rebuked their general.
[Sidenote: February.]
During these events the partizans of the Bourbons, coming from Brittany and La Vendée, spread themselves all over the south of France and entered into direct communication with lord Wellington. One of the celebrated family of La Roche Jacquelin arrived at his head-quarters, Bernadotte sent an agent to those parts, and the count of Grammont, then serving as a captain in the British cavalry, was at the desire of the marquis de Mailhos, another of the malcontents, sent to England to call the princes of the house of Bourbon forward. Finally the duke of Angoulême arrived suddenly at the head-quarters, and he was received with respect in private though not suffered to attend the movements of the army. The English general indeed, being persuaded that the great body of the French people especially in the south, were inimical to Napoleon’s government, was sanguine as to the utility of encouraging a Bourbon party. Yet he held his judgment in abeyance, sagaciously observing that he could not come to a safe conclusion merely from the feelings of some people in one corner of France; and as the allied sovereigns seemed backward to take the matter in hand unless some positive general movement in favour of the Bourbons was made, and there were negociations for peace actually going on, it would be, he observed, unwise and ungenerous to precipitate the partizans of the fallen house into a premature outbreak and then leave them to the vengeance of the enemy.
That lord Wellington should have been convinced the prevailing opinion was against Napoleon is not surprising, because every appearance at the time would seem to prove it so; and certain it is that a very strong Bourbon party and one still stronger averse to the continuation of war existed. But in civil commotions nothing is more dangerous, nothing more deceitful, than the outward show and declarations on such occasions. The great mass of men in all nations are only endowed with moderate capacity and spirit, and as their thoughts are intent upon the preservation of their families and property they must bend to circumstances; thus fear and suspicion, ignorance baseness and good feeling, all combine to urge men in troubled times to put on the mask of enthusiasm for the most powerful, while selfish knaves ever shout with the loudest. Let the scene change and the multitude will turn with the facility of a weathercock. Lord Wellington soon discovered that the count of Viel Chastel, Bernadotte’s agent, while pretending to aid the Bourbons was playing a double part, and only one year after this period Napoleon returned from Elba, and neither the presence of the duke of Angoulême, nor the energy of the duchess, nor all the activity of their partizans, could raise in this very country more than the semblance of an opposition to him. The tricolor was every where hoisted and the Bourbon party vanished. And this was the true test of national feeling, because in 1814 the white colours were supported by foreign armies, and misfortune had bowed the great democratic chief to the earth; but when rising again in his wondrous might he came back alone from Elba, the poorer people, with whom only patriotism is ever really to be found, and that because they are poor and therefore unsophisticated, crowded to meet and hail him as a father. Not because they held him entirely blameless. Who born of woman is? They demanded redress of grievances even while they clung instinctively to him as their stay and protection against the locust tyranny of aristocracy.
[Sidenote: January.]
There was however at this period in France enough of discontent passion and intrigue, enough of treason, and enough of grovelling spirit in adversity, added to the natural desire of escaping the ravages of war, a desire so carefully fostered by the admirable policy of the English general, as to render the French general’s position extremely difficult and dangerous. Nor is it the least remarkable circumstance of this remarkable period, that while Soult expected relief by the Spaniards falling away from the English alliance, lord Wellington received from the French secret and earnest warnings to beware of some great act of treachery meditated by the Spaniards. It was at this period also that Morillo and other generals encouraged their soldiers’ licentiousness, and displayed their own ill-will by sullen discontent and captious complaints, while the civil authorities disturbed the communications and made war in their fashion against the hospitals and magazines.
His apprehensions and vigilance are plainly to be traced in his correspondence. Writing about general Copons he says, “his conduct is quite unjustifiable both in concealing what he knew of the duke de San Carlos’ arrival and the nature of his mission.” In another letter he observes, that the Spanish military people about himself desired peace with Napoleon according to the treaty of Valençay; that they all had some notion of what had occurred and yet had been quite silent about it; that he had repeated intelligence from the French of some act of treachery meditated by the Spaniards; that several persons of that nation had come from Bayonne to circulate reports of peace, and charges against the British which he knew would be well received on that frontier; that he had arrested a man calling himself an agent of and actually bearing a letter of credence from Ferdinand.
But the most striking proof of the alarm he felt was his great satisfaction at the conduct of the Spanish government in rejecting the treaty brought by San Carlos and Palafox. Sacrificing all his former great and just resentment he changed at once from an enemy to a friend of the regency, supported the members of it even against the serviles, spoke of the matter as being the most important concern of all that had engaged his attention, and when the count of La Bispal, the deadly enemy of the regency, proposed some violent and decided action of hostility which a few weeks before would have been received with pleasure, he checked and softened him, observing, that the conduct of the government about the treaty should content every Spaniard, that it was not possible to act with more frankness and loyalty, and that they had procured honour for themselves and for their nation not only in England but all over Europe. Such is the light mode in which words are applied by public men, even by the noblest and greatest, when their wishes are fulfilled. This glorious and honourable conduct of the regency was simply a resolution to uphold their personal power and that of their faction, both of which would have been destroyed by the arrival of the king.
Napoleon hoping much from the effect of these machinations not only intimated to Soult, as I have already shewn, that he would require ten thousand of his infantry immediately, but that twice that number with a division of cavalry would be called away if the Spaniards fell off from the English alliance. The duke of Dalmatia then foreseeing the ultimate result of his own operations against Wellington, conceived a vast general plan of action which showed how capable a man he was to treat the greatest questions of military policy.
“Neither his numbers nor means of supply after Wellington had gained the banks of the Adour above Bayonne would, he said, suffice to maintain his positions covering that fortress and menacing the allies’ right flank; the time therefore approached when he must, even without a reduction of force, abandon Bayonne to its own resources and fight his battles on the numerous rivers which run with concentric courses from the Pyrenees to the Adour. Leval’s and Boyer’s divisions of infantry were to join the grand army on the eastern frontier, Abbé’s division was to reinforce the garrison of Bayonne and its camp to fourteen thousand men, but he considered this force too great for a simple general of division and wished to give it to general Reille whose corps would be broken up by the departure of the detachments. That officer was however altogether averse, and as an unwilling commander would be half beaten before the battle commenced he desired that count D’Erlon should be appointed in Reille’s place.
“The active army remaining could not then be expected to fight the allies in pitched battles, and he therefore recommended the throwing it as a great partizan corps on the left, touching always upon the Pyrenees and ready to fall upon lord Wellington’s flank and rear if he should penetrate into France. Clauzel a native of those parts and speaking the country language was by his military qualities and knowledge the most suitable person to command. General Reille could then march with the troops called to the great army, and as there would be nothing left for him, Soult, to do in these parts he desired to be employed where he could aid the emperor with more effect. This he pressed urgently because, notwithstanding the refusal of the Cortez to receive the treaty of Valençay, it was probable the war on the eastern frontier would oblige the emperor to recall all the troops designated. It would then become imperative to change from a regular to an irregular warfare, in which a numerous corps of partizans would be more valuable than the shadow of a regular army without value or confidence, and likely to be destroyed in the first great battle. For these partizans it was necessary to have a central power and director. Clauzel was the man most fitted for the task. He ought to have under his orders all the generals who were in command in the military departments between the Garonne and the Pyrenees, with power to force all the inhabitants to take arms and act under his directions.
“I am sensible,” he continued, “that this system, one of the least unhappy consequences of which would be to leave the enemy apparently master of all the country between the mountains and the Garonne, can only be justified by the necessity of forming an army in the centre of France sufficiently powerful to fend off the multitude of our enemies from the capital; but if Paris falls all will be lost, whereas if it be saved the loss of a few large towns in the south can be repaired. I propose then to form a great army in front of Paris by a union of all the disposable troops of the armies on the different frontiers, and at the same time to spread what remains of the latter as partizans wherever the enemy penetrates or threatens to penetrate. All the marshals of France the generals and other officers, either in activity or in retirement, who shall not be attached to the great central army, should then repair to their departments to organize the partizan corps and bring those not actively useful as such up to the great point of union, and they should have military power to make all men able to bear arms, find them at their own expense.” “This measure is revolutionary but will infallibly produce important results, while none or at least a very feeble effect will be caused by the majority of the imperial commissioners already sent to the military divisions. They are grand persons, they temporize, make proclamations and treat every thing as civilians instead of acting with vigour to obtain promptly a result which would astonish the world; for notwithstanding the cry to the contrary, the resources of France are not exhausted, what is wanted is to make those who possess resources use them for the defence of the throne and the emperor.”
Having thus explained his views, he again requested to be recalled to Paris to serve near the emperor, but declared that he was ready to obey any order and serve in any manner; all he demanded was clear instructions with reference to the events that might occur. 1º. What he should do if the treaty arrangements with Ferdinand had no effect and the Spanish troops remained with lord Wellington. 2º. If those troops retired and the British seeing the French weakened by detachments should alone penetrate into France. 3º. If the changes in Spain should cause the allies to retire altogether.
Such was Soult’s plan of action but his great project was not adopted and the emperor’s reasons for neglecting it have not been made known. Nor can the workings of that capacious mind be judged of without a knowledge of all the objects and conditions of his combinations. Yet it is not improbable that at this period he did not despair of rejecting the allies beyond the Rhine either by force of arms, by negociation, or by working upon the family pride of the emperor of Austria. With this hope he would be naturally averse to incur the risk of a civil war by placing France under martial law, or of reviving the devouring fire of revolution which it had been his object for so many years to quell; and this is the more probable because it seems nearly certain, that one of his reasons for replacing Ferdinand on the Spanish throne was his fear lest the republican doctrines which had gained ground in Spain should spread to France. Was he wrong? The fierce democrat will answer Yes! But the man who thinks that real liberty was never attained under a single unmixed form of government giving no natural vent to the swelling pride of honour birth or riches; those who measure the weakness of pure republicanism by the miserable state of France at home and abroad when Napoleon by assuming power saved her; those who saw America with all her militia and her licentious liberty unable to prevent three thousand British soldiers from passing three thousand miles of ocean and burning her capital, will hesitate to condemn him. And this without detriment to the democratic principle which in substance may and should always govern under judicious forms. Napoleon early judged, and the event has proved he judged truly, that the democratic spirit of France however violent was unable to overbear the aristocratic and monarchic tendencies of Europe; wisely therefore while he preserved the essence of the first by fostering equality, he endeavoured to blend it with the other two; thus satisfying as far as the nature of human institutions would permit the conditions of the great problem he had undertaken to solve. His object was the reconstruction of the social fabric which had been shattered by the French revolution, mixing with the new materials all that remained of the old sufficiently unbroken to build with again. If he failed to render his structure stable it was because his design was misunderstood, and the terrible passions let loose by the previous stupendous explosion were too mighty even for him to compress.
To have accepted Soult’s project would have been to endanger his work, to save himself at the expense of his system, and probably to plunge France again into the anarchy from which he had with so much care and labour drawn her. But as I have before said, and it is true, Napoleon’s ambition was for the greatness and prosperity of France, for the regeneration of Europe, for the stability of the system which he had formed with that end, never for himself personally; and hence it is that the multitudes of many nations instinctively revere his memory. And neither the monarch nor the aristocrat, dominant though they be by his fall, feel themselves so easy in their high places as to rejoice much in their victory.
Whatever Napoleon’s motive was he did not adopt Soult’s project, and in February two divisions of infantry and Trielhard’s cavalry with many batteries were withdrawn. Two thousand of the best soldiers were also selected to join the imperial guards, and all the gensd’armes were sent to the interior. The total number of old soldiers left, did not, including the division of General Paris, exceed forty thousand exclusive of the garrison of Bayonne and other posts, and the conscripts, beardless youths, were for the most part unfit to enter the line nor were there enough of musquets in the arsenals to arm them. It is remarkable also, as shewing how easily military operations may be affected by distant operations, that Soult expected and dreaded at this time the descent of a great English army upon the coast of La Vendée, led thereto by intelligence of an expedition preparing in England, under sir Thomas Graham, really to aid the Dutch revolt.
While the French general’s power was thus diminished, lord Wellington’s situation was as suddenly ameliorated. First by the arrival of reinforcements, next by the security he felt from the rejection of the treaty of Valençay, lastly by the approach of better weather, and the acquisition of a very large sum in gold which enabled him not only to put his Anglo-Portuguese in activity but also to bring the Spaniards again into line with less danger of their plundering the country. During the forced cessation of operations he had been actively engaged preparing the means to enter France with power and security, sending before him the fame of a just discipline and a wise consideration for the people who were likely to fall under his power, for there was nothing he so much dreaded as the partizan and insurgent warfare proposed by Soult. The peasants of Baygorry and Bidarray had done him more mischief than the French army, and his terrible menace of destroying their villages, and hanging all the population he could lay his hands upon if they ceased not their hostility, marks his apprehensions in the strongest manner. Yet he left all the local authorities free to carry on the internal government, to draw their salaries, and raise the necessary taxes in the same mode and with as much tranquillity as if perfect peace prevailed; he opened the ports and drew a large commerce which served to support his own army and engage the mercantile interests in his favour; he established many sure channels for intelligence political and military, and would have extended his policy further and to more advantage if the English ministers had not so abruptly and ignorantly interfered with his proceedings. Finally foreseeing that the money he might receive would, being in foreign coin, create embarrassment, he adopted an expedient which he had before practised in India to obviate this. Knowing that in a British army a wonderful variety of knowledge and vocations good and bad may be found, he secretly caused the coiners and die-sinkers amongst the soldiers to be sought out, and once assured that no mischief was intended them, it was not difficult to persuade them to acknowledge their peculiar talents. With these men he established a secret mint at which he coined gold Napoleons, marking them with a private stamp and carefully preserving their just fineness and weight with a view of enabling the French government when peace should be established to call them in again. He thus avoided all the difficulties of exchange, and removed a very fruitful source of quarrels and ill-will between the troops and the country people and shopkeepers; for the latter are always fastidious in taking and desirous of abating the current worth of strange coin, and the former attribute to fraud any declination from the value at which they receive their money. This sudden increase of the current coin tended also to diminish the pressure necessarily attendant upon troubled times.
Nor was his provident sagacity less eminently displayed in purely military matters than in his administrative and political operations. During the bad weather he had formed large magazines at the ports, examined the course of the Adour, and carefully meditated upon his future plans. To penetrate into France and rally a great Bourbon party under the protection of his army was the system he desired to follow; and though the last point depended upon the political proceedings and successes of the allied sovereigns the military operations most suitable at the moment did not clash with it. To drive the French army from Bayonne and either blockade or besiege that place were the first steps in either case. But this required extensive and daring combinations. For the fortress and its citadel, comprising in their circuit the confluence of the Nive and the Adour, could not be safely invested with less than three times the number necessary to resist the garrison at any one point, because the communications of the invested being short internal and secure, those of the investers external difficult and unsafe, it behoved that each division should be able to resist a sally of the whole garrison. Hence, though reduced to the lowest point, the whole must be so numerous as seriously to weaken the forces operating towards the interior.
How and where to cross the Adour with a view to the investment was also a subject of solicitude. It was a great river with a strong current and well guarded by troops and gun-boats above Bayonne; still greater was it below the town; there the ebb tide run seven miles an hour, there also there were gun-boats, a sloop of war, and several merchant-vessels which could be armed and employed to interrupt the passage. The number of pontoons or other boats required to bridge the stream across either above or below, and the carriage of them, an immense operation in itself, would inevitably give notice of the design and render it abortive, unless the French army were first driven away, and even then the garrison of Bayonne nearly fifteen thousand strong might be sufficient to baffle the attempt. Nevertheless in the face of these difficulties he resolved to pass, the means adopted being proportionate to the greatness of the design.
He considered, that, besides the difficulty of bringing the materials across the Nive and through the deep country on each side of that river, he could not throw his bridge above Bayonne without first driving Soult entirely from the confluents of the Adour and from the Adour itself; that when he had effected this his own communications between the bridge and his magazines at the sea-ports would still be difficult and unsafe, because his convoys would have a flank march, passing the Nive as well as the Adour and liable to interruption from the overflowing of those rivers; finally, that his means of transport would be unequal to the wear and tear of the deep roads and be interrupted by rain. But throwing his bridge below the town he would have the Adour itself as a harbour, while his land convoys used the royal causeway leading close to the river and not liable to be interrupted by weather. His line of retreat also would then be more secure if any unforeseen misfortune should render it necessary to break up the investment. He had no fear that Soult, while retiring before the active force he intended to employ against him on the upper parts of the rivers, would take his line of retreat by the great Bordeaux road and fall upon the investing force: that road led behind Bayonne through the sandy wilderness called the Landes, into which the French general would not care to throw himself, lest his opponent’s operations along the edge of the desert should prevent him from ever getting out. To draw the attention of the French army by an attack on their left near the roots of the Pyrenees would be sure to keep the lower Adour free from any formidable defensive force, because the rapidity and breadth of the stream there denied the use of common pontoons, and the mouth, about six miles below Bayonne, was so barred with sand, so beaten by surges, and so difficult of navigation even with the help of the landmarks, some of which had been removed, that the French would never expect small vessels fit for constructing a bridge could enter that way. Yet it was thus lord Wellington designed to achieve his object. He had collected forty large sailing boats of from fifteen to thirty tons burthen, called chasse marées, as if for the commissariat service, but he secretly loaded them with planks and other materials for his bridge. These and some gun-boats he designed, with the aid of the navy, to run up the Adour to a certain point upon which he meant also to direct the troops and artillery, and then with hawsers, and pontoons formed into rafts, to throw over a covering body and destroy a small battery near the mouth of the river. He trusted to the greatness and danger of the attempt for success and in this he was favoured by fortune.
The French trading vessels in the Adour had offered secretly to come out upon licenses and enter the service of his commissariat, but he was obliged to forego the advantage because of the former interference and dissent of the English ministers about the passports he had previously granted. This added greatly to the difficulty of the enterprize. He was thus forced to maltreat men willing to be friends, to prepare grates for heating shot, and a battery of Congreve rockets with which to burn their vessels and the sloop of war, or at least to drive them up the river, after which he proposed to protect his bridge with the gun-boats and a boom.
While he was thus preparing for offensive operations the French general was active in defensive measures. He had fortified all the main passes of the rivers by the great roads leading against his left, but the diminution of his force in January obliged him to withdraw his outposts from Anglet, which enabled lord Wellington to examine the whole course of the Adour below Bayonne and arrange for the passage with more facility. Soult then in pursuance of Napoleon’s system of warfare, which always prescribed a recourse to moral force to cover physical weakness, immediately concentrated his left wing against the allies’ right beyond the Nive, and redoubled that harassing partizan warfare which I have already noticed, endeavouring to throw his adversary entirely upon the defensive. Thus on the 26th of January, Morillo having taken possession of an advanced post near Mendionde not properly belonging to him, Soult, who desired to ascertain the feelings of the Spaniards about the English alliance, caused Harispe under pretence of remonstrating to sound him; he did not respond and Harispe then drove him, not without a vigorous resistance, from the post.
The French marshal had however no hope of checking the allies long by these means. He judged justly that Wellington was resolved to obtain Bordeaux and the line of the Garonne, and foreseeing that his own line of retreat must ultimately be in a parallel direction with the Pyrenees, he desired to organize in time a strong defensive system in the country behind him and to cover Bordeaux if possible. In this view he sent general Darricau a native of the Landes to prepare an insurgent levy in that wilderness, and directed Maransin to the High Pyrenees to extend the insurrection of the mountaineers already commenced in the Lower Pyrenees by Harispe. The castle of Jaca was still held by eight hundred men but they were starving, and a convoy collected at Navarrens being stopped by the snow in the mountain-passes made a surrender inevitable. Better would it have been to have withdrawn the troops at an early period; for though the Spaniards would thus have gained access to the rear of the French army and perhaps ravaged a part of the frontier, they could have done no essential mischief to the army; and their excesses would have disposed the people of those parts who had not yet felt the benefit of lord Wellington’s politic discipline to insurrection.
[Sidenote: February.]
At Bordeaux there was a small reserve commanded by general La Huillier, Soult urged the minister of war to increase it with conscripts from the interior. Meanwhile he sent artillery-men from Bayonne, ordered fifteen hundred national guards to be selected as a garrison for the citadel of Blaye, and desired that the Médoc and Paté forts and the batteries along the banks of the Garonne should be put in a state of defence. The vessels in that river fit for the purpose he desired might be armed, and a flotilla of fifty gun-boats established below Bordeaux, with a like number to navigate that river above the city as far as Toulouse. But these orders were feebly carried into execution or entirely neglected, for there was no public spirit, and treason and disaffection were rife in the city.
On the side of the Lower Pyrenees Soult enlarged and improved the works of Navarrens and designed to commence an entrenched camp in front of it. The castle of Lourdes in the High Pyrenees was already defensible, and he gave orders to fortify the castle of Pau, thus providing a number of supporting points for the retreat which he foresaw. At Mauleon he put on foot some partizan corps, and the imperial commissary Caffarelli gave him hopes of being able to form a reserve of seven or eight thousand national guards, gensd’armes, and artillery-men, at Tarbes. Dax containing his principal depôts was already being fortified, and the communication with it was maintained across the rivers by the bridges and bridge-heads at Port de Lannes, Hastingues, Pereyhorade, and Sauveterre; but the floods in the beginning of February carried away his bridge at the Port de Lannes, and the communication between Bayonne and the left of the army was thus interrupted until he established a flying bridge in place of the one carried away.
Such was the situation of the French general when lord Wellington advanced, and as the former supposed with one hundred and twenty thousand infantry and fifteen thousand cavalry, for he knew nothing of the various political and financial difficulties which had reduced the English general’s power and prevented all the reinforcements he expected from joining him. His emissaries told him that Clinton’s force was actually broken up, and the British part in march to join Wellington; that the garrisons of Carthagena Cadiz and Ceuta were on the point of arriving and that reinforcements were coming from England and Portugal. This information made him conclude that there was no intention of pressing the war in Catalonia and that all the allied troops would be united and march against him; wherefore with more earnestness than before he urged that Suchet should be ordered to join him that their united forces might form a “dike against the torrent” which threatened to overwhelm the south of France. The real power opposed to him was however very much below his calculations. The twenty thousand British and Portuguese reinforcements promised had not arrived, Clinton’s army was still in Catalonia; and though it is impossible to fix the exact numbers of the Spaniards, their regular forces available, and that only partially and with great caution on account of their licentious conduct, did not exceed the following approximation.
Twelve thousand Gallicians under Freyre including Carlos D’España’s division; four thousand under Morillo; six thousand Andalusians under O’Donnel; eight thousand of Del Parque’s troops under the prince of Anglona. In all thirty thousand. The Anglo-Portuguese present under arms were by the morning states on the 13th of February, the day on which the advance commenced, about seventy thousand men and officers of all arms, nearly ten thousand being cavalry. The whole force, exclusive of Mina’s bands which were spread as we have seen from Navarre to the borders of Catalonia, was therefore, one hundred thousand men and officers, with one hundred pieces of field-artillery of which ninety-five were Anglo-Portuguese.
It is difficult to fix with precision the number of the French army at this period, because the imperial muster-rolls, owing to the troubled state of the emperor’s affairs were either not continued beyond December 1813 or have been lost. But from Soult’s correspondence and other documents it would appear, that exclusive of his garrisons, his reserves and detachments at Bordeaux and in the department of the High Pyrenees, exclusive also of the conscripts of the second levy which were now beginning to arrive, he could place in line of battle about thirty-five thousand soldiers of all arms, three thousand being cavalry, with forty pieces of artillery. But Bayonne alone without reckoning the fortresses of St. Jean Pied de Port and Navarrens occupied twenty-eight thousand of the allies; and by this and other drains lord Wellington’s superiority in the field was so reduced, that his penetrating into France, that France which had made all Europe tremble at her arms, must be viewed as a surprising example of courage and fine conduct, military and political.
PASSAGE OF THE GAVES.
In the second week of February the weather set in with a strong frost, the roads became practicable and the English general, eagerly seizing the long-expected opportunity, advanced at the moment when general Paris had again marched with the convoy from Navarrens to make a last effort for the relief of Jaca. But the troops were at this time receiving the clothing which had been so long delayed in England, and the regiments wanting the means of carriage, marched to the stores; the English general’s first design was therefore merely to threaten the French left and turn it by the sources of the rivers with Hill’s corps, which was to march by the roots of the Pyrenees, while Beresford kept the centre in check upon the lower parts of the same rivers. Soult’s attention would thus he hoped be drawn to that side while the passage of the Adour was being made below Bayonne. And it would seem that uncertain if he should be able to force the passage of the tributary rivers with his right, he intended, if his bridge was happily thrown, to push his main operations on that side and thus turn the Gaves by the right bank of the Adour: a fine conception by which his superiority of numbers would have best availed him to seize Dax and the Port de Landes and cut Soult off from Bordeaux.
[Sidenote: Plan 9.]
On the 12th and 13th Hill’s corps, which including Picton’s division and five regiments of cavalry furnished twenty thousand combatants with sixteen guns, being relieved by the sixth and seventh divisions in front of Mousseroles and on the Adour, was concentrated about Urcurray and Hasparen. The 14th it marched in two columns. One by Bonloc to drive the French posts beyond the Joyeuse; another by the great road of St. Jean Pied de Port against Harispe who was at Hellette. This second column had the Ursouia mountain on the right, and a third, composed of Morillo’s Spaniards, having that mountain on its left marched from La Houssoa against the same point. Harispe who had only three brigades, principally conscripts, retired skirmishing in the direction of St. Palais and took a position for the night at Meharin. Not more than thirty men on each side were hurt but the line of the Joyeuse was turned by the allies, the direct communication with St. Jean Pied de Port cut, and that place was immediately invested by Mina’s battalions.
On the 15th Hill, leaving the fifty-seventh regiment at Hellette to observe the road to St. Jean Pied de Port, marched through Meharin upon Garris, eleven miles distant, but that road being impracticable for artillery the guns moved by Armendaritz more to the right. Harispe’s rear-guard was overtaken and pushed back fighting, and meanwhile lord Wellington directed Beresford to send a brigade of the seventh division from the heights of La Costa across the Gamboury to the Bastide de Clerence. The front being thus extended from Urt by Briscons, the Bastide and Isturitz, towards Garris, a distance of more than twenty miles, was too attenuated; wherefore he caused the fourth division to occupy La Costa in support of the troops at the Bastide. At the same time learning that the French had weakened their force at Mousseroles, and thinking that might be to concentrate on the heights of Anglet, which would have frustrated his plan for throwing a bridge over the Adour, he directed Hope secretly to occupy the back of those heights in force and prevent any intercourse between Bayonne and the country.
[Sidenote: Soult’s Official Reports, MSS.]
Soult knew of the intended operations against his left on the 12th, but hearing the allies had collected boats and constructed a fresh battery near Urt on the Upper Adour, and that the pontoons had reached Urcurray, he thought lord Wellington designed to turn his left with Hill’s corps, to press him on the Bidouze with Beresford’s, and to keep the garrison of Bayonne in check with the Spaniards while Hope crossed the Adour above that fortress. Wherefore, on the 14th, when Hill’s movement commenced, he repaired to Passarou near the Bastide de Clerence and made his dispositions to dispute the passage, first of the Bidouze and the Soissons or Gave of Mauleon, and then of the Gave of Oleron. He had four divisions in hand with which he occupied a position on the 15th along the Bidouze; and he recalled general Paris, posting him on the road between St. Palais and St. Jean Pied de Port, with a view to watch Mina’s battalions which he supposed to be more numerous than they really were. Jaca thus abandoned capitulated on the 17th, the garrison returning to France on condition of not serving until exchanged. This part of the capitulation it appears was broken by the French, but the recent violation by the Spaniards of the convention made with the deluded garrisons of Lerida, Mequinenza, and Monzon, furnished a reply.
Harispe, having Paris under his command and being supported by Pierre Soult with a brigade of light cavalry, now covered the road from St. Jean Pied de Port with his left, and the upper line of the Bidouze with his right. Lower down that river, Villatte occupied Ilharre, Taupin was on the heights of Bergoney below Villatte, and Foy guarded the banks of the river from Came to its confluence with the Adour. The rest of the army remained under D’Erlon on the right of the latter river.
Combat of Garris.—Harispe had just taken a position in advance of the Bidouze, on a height called the Garris mountain which stretched to St. Palais, when his rear-guard came plunging into a deep ravine in his front closely followed by the light troops of the second division. Upon the parallel counter-ridge thus gained by the allies general Hill’s corps was immediately established, and though the evening was beginning to close the skirmishers descended into the ravine, and two guns played over it upon Harispe’s troops. These last to the number of four thousand were drawn up on the opposite mountain, and in this state of affairs Wellington arrived. He was anxious to turn the line of the Bidouze before Soult could strengthen himself there, and seeing that the communication with general Paris by St. Palais was not well maintained, sent Morillo by a flank march along the ridge now occupied by the allies towards that place; then menacing the enemy’s centre with Le Cor’s Portuguese division he at the same time directed the thirty-ninth and twenty-eighth regiments forming Pringle’s brigade to attack, observing with a concise energy, “you must take the hill before dark.”
[Sidenote: Memoir of the action published in the United Service Journal.]
[Sidenote: See Plan 9.]
The expression caught the attention of the troops, and it was repeated by colonel O’Callaghan as he and general Pringle placed themselves at the head of the thirty-ninth, which, followed by the twenty-eighth, rushed with loud and prolonged shouts into the ravine. The French fire was violent, Pringle fell wounded and most of the mounted officers had their horses killed, but the troops covered by the thick wood gained with little loss the summit of the Garris mountain, on the right of the enemy who thought from the shouting that a larger force was coming against them and retreated. The thirty-ninth then wheeled to their own right intending to sweep the summit, but soon the French discovering their error came back at a charging pace, and receiving a volley without flinching tried the bayonet. Colonel O’Callaghan distinguished by his strength and courage received two strokes of that weapon but repaid them with fatal power in each instance, and the French, nearly all conscripts, were beaten off. Twice however they came back and fought until the fire of the twenty-eighth was beginning to be felt, when Harispe seeing the remainder of the second division ready to support the attack, Le Cor’s Portuguese advancing against the centre, and the Spaniards in march towards St. Palais, retreated to that town and calling in Paris from the side of Mauleon immediately broke down the bridges over the Bidouze. He lost on this day nearly five hundred men, of whom two hundred were prisoners, and he would hardly have escaped if Morillo had not been slow. The allies lost only one hundred and sixty of whom not more than fifty fell at Garris, and these chiefly in the bayonet contest, for the trees and the darkness screened them at first.
During these operations at Garris Picton moved from Bonloc to Oreque, on Hill’s left, menacing Villatte, but though Beresford’s scouting parties, acting on the left of Picton, approached the Bidouze facing Taupin and Foy, his principal force remained on the Gamboury, the pivot upon which Wellington’s line hinged while the right sweeping forward turned the French positions. Foy however though in retreat observed the movement of the fourth and seventh divisions on the heights between the Nive and the Adour, pointing their march as he thought towards the French left, and his reports to that effect reached Soult at the moment that general Blondeau gave notice of the investment of St. Jean Pied de Port. The French general being thus convinced that lord Wellington’s design was not to pass the Adour above Bayonne, but to gain the line of that river by constantly turning the French left, made new dispositions.
[Sidenote: Soult’s Official Report.]
The line of the Bidouze was strong, if he could have supported Harispe at St. Palais, and guarded at the same time the passage of the Soissons at Mauleon; but this would have extended his front, already too wide, wherefore he resolved to abandon both the Bidouze and the Soissons and take the line of the Gave d’Oleron, placing his right at Peyrehorade and his left at Navarrens. In this view D’Erlon was ordered to pass the Adour by the flying bridge at the Port de Landes and take post on the left bank of that river, while Harispe, having Paris’ infantry still attached to his division, defended the Gave de Mauleon and pushed parties on his left towards the town of that name. Villatte occupied Sauveterre, where the bridge was fortified with a head on the left bank, and from thence Taupin lined the right bank to Sordes near the confluence of the Gave de Pau. Foy occupied the works of the bridge-head at Peyrehorade and Hastingues guarding that river to its confluence with the Adour; this line was prolonged by D’Erlon towards Dax, but Soult still kept advanced parties on the lower Bidouze at the different entrenched passages of that river. One brigade of cavalry was in reserve at Sauveterre, another distributed along the line. Head-quarters were transported to Orthes, and the parc of artillery to Aire. The principal magazines of ammunition were however at Bayonne, Navarrens, and Dax, and the French general seeing that his communications with all these places were likely to be intercepted before he could remove his stores, anticipated distress and wrote to the minister of war to form new depôts.
On the 16th lord Wellington repaired the broken bridges of St. Palais, after a skirmish in which a few men were wounded. Hill then crossed the Bidouze, the cavalry and artillery by the repaired bridge, the infantry by the fords, but the day being spent in the operation the head of the column only marched beyond St. Palais. Meanwhile the fourth and part of the seventh divisions occupied the Bastide de Clerence on the right of the Joyeuse, and the light division came up in support to the heights of La Costa on the left bank of that river.
The 17th Hill, marching at eight o’clock, passed through Domenzain towards the Soissons, while the third division advancing from Oreque on his left passed by Masparraute to the heights of Somberraute, both corps converging upon general Paris, who was in position at Arriveriete to defend the Soissons above its confluence with the Gave d’Oleron. The French outposts were immediately driven across the Gave. General Paris attempted to destroy the bridge of Arriveriete but lord Wellington was too quick; the ninety-second regiment covered by the fire of some guns crossed at a ford above the bridge, and beating two French battalions from the village secured the passage. The allies then halted for the day near Arriveriete having marched only five miles and lost one man killed with twenty-three wounded. Paris relinquished the Soissons but remained between the two rivers during the night and retired on the morning of the 18th. The allies then seized the great road, which here runs from Sauveterre to Navarrens up the left bank of the Oleron Gave.
[Sidenote: Soult’s Official Correspondence, MSS.]
Harispe, Villatte, and Paris, supported by a brigade of cavalry were now at Sauveterre occupying the bridge-head on the left bank, Taupin’s division was opposite the Bastide de Bearn lower down on the right, Foy on the right of Taupin, and D’Erlon on the left of the Adour above its confluence with the Gave de Pau. Meanwhile the fourth division advanced to Bidache on the Bidouze, and the light division followed in support to the Bastide de Clerence, the seventh division remaining as before, partly in that vicinity partly extended on the left to the Adour. The cavalry of the centre, under sir Stapleton Cotton, arrived also on the banks of the Bidouze connecting the fourth with the third division at Somberraute. In this state of affairs Hill sent Morillo up the Soissons to guard the fords as high as Nabas, then spreading Fane’s cavalry and the British and Portuguese infantry between that river and the Gave d’Oleron, he occupied all the villages along the road to Navarrens and at the same time cannonaded the bridge-head of Sauveterre.
Soult thrown from the commencement of the operations entirely upon the defensive was now at a loss to discover his adversary’s object. The situation of the seventh division, and the march of the fourth and light divisions, led him to think his works at Hastingues and Peyrehorade would be assailed. The weakness of his line, he having only Taupin’s division to guard the river between Sauveterre and Sordes a distance of ten miles, made him fear the passage of the Gave would be forced near the Bastide de Bearn, to which post there was a good road from Came and Bidache. On the other hand the prolongation of Hill’s line up the Gave towards Navarrens indicated a design to march on Pau, or it might be to keep him in check on the Gaves while the camp at Bayonne was assaulted. In this uncertainty he sent Pierre Soult, with a cavalry brigade and two battalions of infantry to act between Oleron and Pau, and keep open a communication with the partizan corps forming at Mauleon. That done he decided to hold the Gaves as long as he could, and when they were forced, to abandon the defensive concentrate his whole force at Orthes and fall suddenly upon the first of the allies’ converging columns that approached him.
Chapter II
[Sidenote: 1814. February.]
The French general’s various conjectures embraced every project but the true one of the English general. The latter did indeed design to keep him in check upon the rivers, not to obtain an opportunity of assaulting the camp of Bayonne but to throw his stupendous bridge over the Adour; yet were his combinations so made that failing in that he could still pursue his operations on the Gaves. When therefore he had established his offensive line strongly beyond the Soissons and the Bidouze, and knew that his pontoon train was well advanced towards Garris, he on the 19th returned rapidly to St. Jean de Luz. Everything there depending on man was ready, but the weather was boisterous with snow for two days, and Wellington, fearful of letting Soult strengthen himself on the Gave of Oleron, returned on the 21st to Garris, having decided to press his operations on that side in person and leave to sir John Hope and admiral Penrose the charge of effecting
THE PASSAGE OF THE ADOUR.
[Sidenote: Original Morning States, MSS.]
The heights of Anglet had been occupied since the 15th by the guards and Germans, small parties were cautiously pushed towards the river through the pine-forest called the wood of Bayonne, and the fifth division, now commanded by general Colville, occupied Bussussary and the bridge of Urdains. On the 21st Colville relieved the sixth division in the blockade of Mousseroles on the right of the Nive. To replace these troops at Bussussary, Freyre’s Spaniards passed the Bidassoa, but the Andalusians and Del Parque’s troops and the heavy British and Portuguese cavalry were still retained within the frontiers of Spain. Sir John Hope had therefore only two British and two Spanish divisions, three independent brigades of Anglo-Portuguese infantry and Vandeleur’s brigade of cavalry, furnishing altogether about twenty-eight thousand men and officers with twenty pieces of artillery. There were however two regiments which had been sent to the rear sick and several others expected from England destined to join him.
[Sidenote: Plan 7.]
In the night of the 22d the first division, six eighteen pounders, and the rocket battery, were cautiously filed from the causeway near Anglet towards the Adour, but the road was deep and heavy and one of the guns falling into a ditch delayed the march. Nevertheless at daybreak the whole reached some sand-downs which extended behind the pine-forest to the river. The French picquets were then driven into the entrenched camp at Beyris, the pontoon train and the field-artillery were brought down to the Adour opposite to the village of Boucaut, and the eighteen-pounders were placed in battery on the bank. The light troops meanwhile closed to the edge of the marsh which covered the right of the French camp, and Carlos España’s division taking post on the heights of Anglet, in concert with the independent brigades, which were at Arcangues and the bridge of Urdains, attracted the enemy’s attention by false attacks which were prolonged beyond the Nive by the fifth division.
It was intended that the arrival of the gun-boats and chasse-marées at the mouth of the Adour should have been simultaneous with that of the troops, but the wind having continued contrary none were to be seen, and sir John Hope whose firmness no untoward event could ever shake resolved to attempt the passage with the army alone. The French flotilla opened its fire on his columns about nine o’clock, his artillery and rockets retorted upon the French gun-boats and the sloop of war so fiercely, that three of the former were destroyed and the sloop so hardly handled that about one o’clock the whole took refuge higher up the river. Meanwhile sixty men of the guards were rowed in a pontoon across the mouth of the river in the face of a French picquet, which, seemingly bewildered, retired without firing. A raft was then formed with the remainder of the pontoons and a hawser being stretched across, six hundred of the guards and the sixtieth regiment, with a part of the rocket battery, the whole under colonel Stopford, passed, yet slowly, and at slack water only, for the tide run strongly and the waters were wide.
[Sidenote: Thouvenot’s Official Report]
During this operation general Thouvenot deceived by spies and prisoners thought that the light division was with Hope as well as the first division, and that fifteen thousand men were embarked at St. Jean de Luz to land between Cape Breton and the Adour. Wherefore fearing to endanger his garrison by sending a strong force to any distance down the river, when he heard Stopford’s detachment was on the right bank, he detached only two battalions under general Macomble to ascertain the state of affairs, for the pine-forest and a great bending of the river prevented him from obtaining any view from Bayonne. Macomble made a show of attacking Stopford, but the latter, flanked by the field-artillery from the left bank, received him with a discharge of rockets, projectiles which like the elephants in ancient warfare often turn upon their own side. This time however, amenable to their directors they smote the French column and it fled, amazed, and with a loss of thirty wounded. It is nevertheless obvious that if Thouvenot had kept strong guards, with a field-battery, on the right bank of the Adour, sir John Hope could not have passed over the troops in pontoons, nor could any vessels have crossed the bar; no resource save that of disembarking troops between the river and Cape Breton would then have remained. This error was fatal to the French. The British continued to pass all night, and until twelve o’clock on the 24th, when the flotilla was seen under a press of sail making with a strong breeze for the mouth of the river.
To enter the Adour is from the flatness of the coast never an easy task, it was now most difficult, because the high winds of the preceding days had raised a great sea and the enemy had removed one of the guiding flag-staves by which the navigation was ordinarily directed. In front of the flotilla came the boats of the men-of-war, and ahead of all, the naval captain, O’Reilly, run his craft, a chosen Spanish vessel, into the midst of the breakers, which rolling in a frightful manner over the bar dashed her on to the beach. That brave officer stretched senseless on the shore would have perished with his crew but for the ready succour of the soldiers, however a few only were drowned and the remainder with an intrepid spirit launched their boat again to aid the passage of the troops which was still going on. O’Reilly was followed and successfully by lieutenant Debenham in a six-oared cutter, but the tide was falling, wherefore the remainder of the boats, the impossibility of passing until high water being evident drew off, and a pilot was landed to direct the line of navigation by concerted signals.
When the water rose again the crews were promised rewards in proportion to their successful daring and the whole flotilla approached in close order, but with it came black clouds and a driving gale which covered the whole line of coast with a rough tumbling sea, dashing and foaming without an interval of dark water to mark the entrance of the river. The men-of-war’s boats first drew near this terrible line of surge and Mr. Bloye of the Lyra, having the chief pilot with him, heroically led into it, but in an instant his barge was engulphed and he and all with him were drowned. The Lyra’s boat thus swallowed up the following vessels swerved in their course, and shooting up to the right and left kept hovering undecided on the edge of the tormented waters. Suddenly lieutenant Cheyne of the Woodlark pulled ahead, and striking the right line, with courage and fortune combined safely passed the bar. The wind then lulled, the waves as if conquered abated somewhat of their rage, and the chasse-marées, manned with Spanish seamen but having an engineer officer with a party of sappers in each who compelled them to follow the men-of-war’s boats, came plunging one after another through the huge breakers and reached the point designed for the bridge. Thus was achieved this perilous and glorious exploit, but captain Elliot of the Martial with his launch and crew and three transports’ boats, perished close to the shore in despite of the most violent efforts made by the troops to save them; three other vessels cast on the beach lost part of their crews; and one large chasse-marée, full of men, after passing the line of surf safely was overtaken by a swift bellying wave which breaking on her deck dashed her to pieces.
The whole of the first division and Bradford’s Portuguese, in all eight thousand men, being now on the right bank took post on the sand-hills for the night. The next morning, sweeping in a half circle round the citadel and its entrenchments, they placed their left on the Adour above the fortress, and their right on the same river below the place; for the water here made such a bend in their favour that their front was little more than two miles wide, and for the most part covered by a marshy ravine. This nice operation was effected without opposition because the entrenched camps, menaced by the troops on the other side of the Adour, were so enormous that Thouvenot’s force was scarcely sufficient to maintain them. Meanwhile the bridge was constructed, about three miles below Bayonne, at a place where the river was contracted to eight hundred feet by strong retaining walls, built with the view of sweeping away the bar by increasing the force of the current. The plan of the bridge and boom were the conception of colonel Sturgeon and major Todd, but the execution was confided entirely to the latter, who, with a mind less brilliant than Sturgeon’s but more indefatigable, very ably and usefully served his country throughout this war.
Twenty-six of the chasse-marées moored head and stern at distances of forty feet, reckoning from centre to centre, were bound together with ropes, two thick cables were then carried loosely across their decks, and the ends being cast over the walls on each bank were strained and fastened in various modes to the sands. They were sufficiently slack to meet the spring-tides which rose fourteen feet, and planks were laid upon them without any supporting beams. The boom, moored with anchors above and below, was a double line of masts connected with chains and cables, so as to form a succession of squares, in the design that if a vessel broke through the outside, it should by the shock turn round in the square and become entangled with the floating wrecks of the line through which it had broken. Gun-boats, with aiding batteries on the banks, were then stationed to protect the boom, and to keep off fire-vessels, many row-boats were furnished with grappling irons. The whole was by the united labour of seamen and soldiers finished on the 26th. And contrary to the general opinion on such matters, major Todd assured the Author of this History that he found the soldiers, with minds quickened by the wider range and variety of knowledge attendant on their service, more ready of resource and their efforts, combined by a more regular discipline, of more avail, with less loss of time, than the irregular activity of the seamen.
The agitation of the water in the river from the force of the tides was generally so great that to maintain a pontoon bridge on it was impossible. A knowledge of this had rendered the French officers too careless of watch and defence, and this year the shifting sands had given the course of the Adour such a slanting direction towards the west that it run for some distance almost parallel to the shore; the outer bank thus acting as a breakwater lessened the agitation within and enabled the large two-masted boats employed, to ride safely and support the heaviest artillery and carriages. Nevertheless this fortune, the errors of the enemy, the matchless skill and daring of the British seamen, and the discipline and intrepidity of the British soldiers, all combined by the genius of Wellington, were necessary to the success of this stupendous undertaking which must always rank amongst the prodigies of war.
When the bridge was finished sir John Hope resolved to contract his line of investment round the citadel. This was a serious affair. The position of the French outside that fort was exceedingly strong, for the flanks were protected by ravines the sides of which were covered with fortified villas; and in the centre a ridge, along which the great roads from Bordeaux and Peyrehorade led into Bayonne, was occupied by the village and church of St. Etienne, both situated on rising points of ground strongly entrenched and under the fire of the citadel guns. The allies advanced in three converging columns covered by skirmishers. Their wings easily attained the edges of the ravines at either side, resting their flanks on the Adour above and below the town, at about nine hundred yards from the enemy’s works. But a severe action took place in the centre. The assailing body composed of Germans and a brigade of guards was divided into three parts which should have attacked simultaneously, the guards on the left, the light battalions of Germans on the right, and their heavy infantry in the centre. The flanks were retarded by some accident and the centre first attacked the heights of St. Etienne. The French guns immediately opened from the citadel and the skirmishing fire became heavy, but the Germans stormed church and village, forced the entrenched line of houses, and took a gun, which however they could not carry off under the close fire from the citadel. The wings then gained their positions and the action ceased for a time, but the people of Bayonne were in such consternation that Thouvenot to re-assure them sallied at the head of the troops. He charged the Germans twice and fought well but was wounded and finally lost his gun and the position of St. Etienne. There is no return of the allies’ loss, it could not have been less than five hundred men and officers of which four hundred were Germans, and the latter were dissatisfied that their conduct was unnoticed in the despatch: an omission somewhat remarkable because their conduct was by sir John Hope always spoken of with great commendation.
The new position thus gained was defended by ravines on each flank, and the centre being close to the enemy’s works on the ridge of St. Etienne was entrenched. Preparations for besieging the citadel were then commenced under the direction of the German colonel Hartmann, a code of signals was established, and infinite pains taken to protect the bridge and to secure a unity of action between the three investing bodies. The communications however required complicated arrangements, for the ground on the right bank of the river being low was overflowed every tide, and would have occasioned great difficulty but for the retaining wall which being four feet thick was made use of as a carriage road.
[Sidenote: French Official Correspondence, MSS.]
While these events were in progress at Bayonne lord Wellington pushed his operations on the Gaves with great vigour. On the 21st he returned as we have seen to Garris, the pontoons had already reached that place and on the 23d they were carried beyond the Gave de Mauleon. During his absence the sixth and light divisions had come up, and thus six divisions of infantry and two brigades of cavalry were concentrated beyond that river on the Gave d’Oleron, between Sauveterre and Navarrens. Beresford meanwhile held the line of the Bidouze down to its confluence with the Adour, and apparently to distract the enemy threw a battalion over the latter river near Urt, and collected boats as if to form a bridge there. In the evening he recalled this detachment, yet continued the appearance of preparations for a bridge until late in the 23d, when he moved forward and drove Foy’s posts from the works at Oeyergave and Hastingues, on the lower parts of the Oleron Gave, into the entrenchments of the bridge-head at Peyrehorade. The allies lost fifty men, principally Portuguese, but Soult’s right and centre were thus held in check, for Beresford having the fourth and seventh divisions and Vivian’s cavalry was strong enough for Foy at Peyrehorade and Taupin at the Bastide of Beam. The rest of the French army was distributed at Orthes and Sauveterre, feeling towards Navarrens, and on the 24th Wellington put his troops in motion to pass the Gave d’Oleron.
During the previous days his movements and the arrival of his reinforcements had again deceived the French general, who seems to have known nothing of the presence of the light division, and imagined the first division was at Came on the 22d as well as the fourth and seventh divisions. However his dispositions remained the same, he did not expect to hold the Gave and looked to a final concentration at Orthes.
On the 24th Morillo reinforced with a strong detachment of cavalry moved to the Laussette, a small river running in front of Navarrens, where rough ground concealed his real force, while his scouters beat back the French outposts, and a battalion marching higher up menaced the fords of the Gave at Doguen, with a view to draw the attention of the garrison of Navarrens from the ford of Ville Nave. This ford about three miles below Doguen was the point where lord Wellington designed really to pass, and a great concentric movement was now in progress towards it. Le Cor’s Portuguese division marched from Gestas, the light division from Aroue crossing the Soissons at Nabas; the second division, three batteries of artillery, the pontoons, and four regiments of cavalry moved from other points. Favoured by the hilly nature of the country the columns were well concealed from the enemy, and at the same time the sixth division advanced towards the fords of Montfort about three miles below that of Ville Nave. A battalion of the second division was sent to menace the ford of Barraute below Monfort, while the third division, reinforced with a brigade of hussars and the batteries of the second division, marched by Osserain and Arriveriette against the bridge-head of Sauveterre, with orders to make a feint of forcing a passage there. The bulk of the light cavalry remained in reserve under Cotton, but Vivian’s hussars coming up from Beresford’s right, threatened all the fords between Picton’s left and the Bastide of Beam; and below this Bastide some detachments were directed upon the fords of Sindos Castagnhede and Hauterive. During this movement Beresford keeping Foy in check at Peyrehorade with the seventh division, sent the fourth towards Sordes and Leren above the confluence of the Gaves to seek a fit place to throw a bridge. Thus the whole of the French front was menaced on a line of twenty-five miles, but the great force was above Sauveterre.
The first operations were not happily executed. The columns directed on the side of Sindos missed the fords. Picton opened a cannonade against the bridge-head of Sauveterre and made four companies of Keane’s brigade and some cavalry pass the Gave in the vicinity of the bridge; they were immediately assailed by a French regiment and driven across the river again with a loss of ninety men and officers, of whom some were drowned and thirty were made prisoners, whereupon the cavalry returned to the left bank and the cannonade ceased. Nevertheless the diversion was complete and the general operations were successful. Soult on the first alarm drew Harispe from Sauveterre and placed him on the road to Orthes at Monstrueig, where a range of hills running parallel to the Gave of Oleron separates it from that of Pau; thus only a division of infantry and Berton’s cavalry remained under Villatte at Sauveterre, and that general, notwithstanding his success against the four companies, alarmed by the vigour of Picton’s demonstrations, abandoned his works on the left bank and destroyed the bridge. Meanwhile the sixth division passed without opposition at Montfort above Sauveterre, and at the same time the great body of the other troops coming down upon the ford of Villenave met only with a small cavalry picquet and crossed with no more loss than two men drowned: a happy circumstance for the waters were deep and rapid, the cold intense, and the ford so narrow that the passage was not completed before dark. To have forced it in face of an enemy would have been exceedingly difficult and dangerous, and it is remarkable that Soult who was with Harispe, only five miles from Montfort and about seven from Villenave, should not have sent that general down to oppose the passage. The heads of the allies’ columns immediately pushed forward to the range of hills before spoken of, the right being established near Loubeing, the left towards Sauveterre, from whence Villatte and Berton had been withdrawn by Clauzel, who commanding at this part seems to have kept a bad watch when Clinton passed at Montfort.
The French divisions now took a position to give time for Taupin to retire from the lower parts of the Gave of Oleron, towards the bridge of Berenx on the Gave of Pau, for both he and Foy had received orders to march upon Orthes and break down all the bridges as they passed. When the night fell Soult sent Harispe’s division also over the bridge of Orthes and D’Erlon was already established in that town, but general Clauzel remained until the morning at Orion to cover the movement. Meanwhile Pierre Soult, posted beyond Navarrens with his cavalry and two battalions of infantry to watch the road to Pau, was pressed by Morillo, and being cut off from the army by the passage of the allies at Villenave was forced to retreat by Monein.
On the 25th at daylight, lord Wellington with some cavalry and guns pushed Clauzel’s rear-guard from Magret into the suburb of Orthes, which covered the bridge of that place on the left bank. He also cannonaded the French troops beyond the river, and the Portuguese of the light division, skirmishing with the French in the houses to prevent the destruction of the bridge, lost twenty-five men.
The second sixth and light divisions, Hamilton’s Portuguese, five regiments of cavalry, and three batteries were now massed in front of Orthes; the third division and a brigade of cavalry was in front of the broken bridge of Berenx about five miles lower down the Gave; the fourth and seventh divisions with Vivian’s cavalry were in front of Peyrehorade, from whence Foy retired by the great Bayonne road to Orthes. Affairs being in this state Morillo was directed to invest Navarrens. And as Mina’s battalions were no sure guarantee against the combined efforts of the garrison of St. Jean Pied de Port and the warlike inhabitants of Baygorry, five British regiments, which had gone to the rear for clothing and were now coming up separately, were ordered to halt at St. Palais in observation, relieving each other in succession as they arrived at that place.
[Sidenote: Memoir by colonel Hughes, eighteenth hussars, MSS.]
On the morning of the 26th, Beresford, finding that Foy had abandoned the French works at Peyrehorade, passed the Gave, partly by a pontoon bridge partly by a ford, where the current ran so strong that a column of the seventh division was like to have been carried away bodily. He had previously detached the eighteenth hussars to find another ford higher up, and this being effected under the guidance of a miller, the hussars gained the high road about half-way between Peyrehorade and Orthes, and drove some French cavalry through Puyoo and Ramous. The French rallying upon their reserves turned and beat back the foremost of the pursuers, but they would not await the shock of the main body now reinforced by Vivian’s brigade and commanded by Beresford in person. In this affair major Sewell, an officer of the staff, who had frequently distinguished himself by his personal prowess, happening to be without a sword, pulled a large stake from a hedge and with that weapon overthrew two hussars in succession, and only relinquished the combat when a third had cut his club in twain.
Beresford now threw out a detachment to Habas on his left to intercept the enemy’s communication with Dax, and lord Wellington immediately ordered lord Edward Somerset’s cavalry and the third division to cross the Gave by fords below the broken bridge of Berenx. Then directing Beresford to take a position for the night on some heights near the village of Baïghts he proceeded to throw a pontoon bridge at Berenx, and thus after a circuitous march of more than fifty miles with his right wing he again united it with his centre and secured a direct communication with Hope.
During the 25th and 26th he had carefully examined Soult’s position. The bridge of Orthes could not be easily forced. That ancient and beautiful structure consisted of several irregular arches, with a high tower in the centre the gateway of which was built up by the French, the principal arch in front of the tower was mined, and the houses on both sides contributed to the defence. The river above and below was deep and full of tall pointed rocks, but above the town the water spreading wide with flat banks presented the means of crossing. Lord Wellington’s first design was to pass there with Hill’s troops and the light division, but when he heard that Beresford had crossed the Gave he suddenly changed his design, and as we have seen passed the third division over and threw his bridge at Berenx. This operation was covered by Beresford, while Soult’s attention was diverted by the continual skirmish at the suburbs of Orthes, by the appearance of Hill’s columns above, and by Wellington’s taking cognizance of the position near the bridge so openly as to draw a cannonade.
The English general did not expect Soult would, when he found Beresford and Picton were over the Gave, await a battle, and his emissaries reported that the French army was already in retreat, a circumstance to be borne in mind because the next day’s operation required success to justify it. Hope’s happy passage of the Adour being now known that officer was instructed to establish a line of communication to the port of Lannes, where a permanent bridge was to be formed with boats brought up from Urt. A direct line of intercourse was thus secured with the army at Bayonne. But lord Wellington felt that he was pushing his operations beyond his strength if Suchet should send reinforcements to Soult; wherefore he called up Freyre’s Spaniards, ordering that general to cross the Adour below Bayonne, with two of his divisions and a brigade of Portuguese nine-pounders, and join him by the port of Lannes. O’Donnel’s Andalusians and the prince of Anglona’s troops were also directed to be in readiness to enter France.
These orders were given with the greatest reluctance.
The feeble resistance made by the French in the difficult country already passed, left him without much uneasiness as to the power of Soult’s army in the field, but his disquietude was extreme about the danger of an insurgent warfare. “Maintain the strictest discipline, without that we are lost,” was his expression to general Freyre, and he issued a proclamation authorizing the people of the districts he had overrun to arm themselves for the preservation of order under the direction of their mayors. He invited them to arrest all straggling soldiers and followers of the army, and all plunderers and evil-doers and convey them to head-quarters with proof of their crimes, promising to punish the culpable and to pay for all damages. At the same time he confirmed all the local authorities who chose to retain their offices, on the sole condition of having no political or military intercourse with the countries still possessed by the French army. Nor was his proclamation a dead letter, for in the night of the 25th the inhabitants of a village, situated near the road leading from Sauveterre to Orthes, shot one English soldier dead and wounded a second who had come with others to plunder. Lord Wellington caused the wounded man to be hung as an example, and he also forced an English colonel to quit the army for suffering his soldiers to destroy the municipal archives of a small town.
[Sidenote: Official Report, MSS.]
[Sidenote: Memoir by general Berton, MSS.]
[Sidenote: Canevas de faits par general Reille et colonel de la Chasse, MS.]
Soult had no thought of retreating. His previous retrograde movements had been effected with order, his army was concentrated with its front to the Gave, and every bridge, except the noble structure at Orthes the ancient masonry of which resisted his mines, had been destroyed. One regiment of cavalry was detached on the right to watch the fords as far as Peyrehorade, three others with two battalions of infantry under Pierre Soult watched those between Orthes and Pau, and a body of horsemen and gensd’armes covered the latter town from Morillo’s incursions. Two regiments of cavalry remained with the army, and the French general’s intention was to fall upon the head of the first column which should cross the Gave. But the negligence of the officer stationed at Puyoo, who had suffered Vivian’s hussars, as we have seen, to pass on the 26th without opposition and without making any report of the event, enabled Beresford to make his movement in safety when otherwise he would have been assailed by at least two-thirds of the French army. It was not until three o’clock in the evening that Soult received intelligence of his march, and his columns were then close to Baïghts on the right flank of the French army, his scouters were on the Dax road in its rear, and at the same time the sixth and light divisions were seen descending by different roads from the heights beyond the river pointing towards Berenx.
[Sidenote: Soult’s Official Report, MSS.]
In this crisis the French marshal hesitated whether to fall upon Beresford and Picton while the latter was still passing the river, or take a defensive position, but finally judging that he had not time to form his columns of attack he decided upon the latter. Wherefore under cover of a skirmish, sustained near Baïghts by a battalion of infantry which coming from the bridge of Berenx was joined by the light cavalry from Puyoo, he hastily threw D’Erlon’s and Reille’s divisions on a new line across the road from Peyrehorade. The right extended to the heights of San Boës along which run the road from Orthes to Dax, and this line was prolonged by Clauzel’s troops to Castetarbe a village close to the Gave. Having thus opposed a temporary front to Beresford he made his dispositions to receive battle the next morning, bringing Villatte’s infantry and Pierre Soult’s cavalry from the other side of Orthes through that town, and it was this movement that led lord Wellington’s emissaries to report that the army was retiring.
Soult’s new line was on a ridge of hills partly wooded partly naked.
In the centre was an open rounded hill from whence long narrow tongues were pushed out, on the French left towards the high road of Peyrehorade, on their right by St. Boës towards the high church of Baïghts, the whole presenting a concave to the allies.
The front was generally covered by a deep and marshy ravine broken by two short tongues of land which jutted out from the principal hill.
The road from Orthes to Dax passed behind the front to the village of St. Boës and thence along the ridge forming the right flank.
Behind the centre a succession of undulating bare heathy hills trended for several miles to the rear, but behind the right the country was low and deep.
The town of Orthes, receding from the river up the slope of a steep hill and terminating with an ancient tower, was behind the left wing.
General Reille, having Taupin’s, Roguet’s, and Paris’s divisions under him, commanded on the right, and occupied all the ground from the village of St. Boës to the centre of the position.
[Sidenote: Soult’s Official Report, MSS.]
Count D’Erlon, commanding Foy’s and D’Armagnac’s divisions, was on the left of Reille. He placed the first along a ridge extending towards the road of Peyrehorade, the second in reserve. In rear of this last Villatte’s division and the cavalry were posted above the village of Rontun, that is to say, on the open hills behind the main position. In this situation with the right overlooking the low country beyond St. Boës, and the left extended towards Orthes this division furnished a reserve to both D’Erlon and Reille.
Harispe, whose troops as well as Villatte’s were under Clauzel, occupied Orthes and the bridge, having a regiment near the ford of Souars above the town. Thus the French army extended from St. Boës to Orthes, but the great mass was disposed towards the centre. Twelve guns were attached to general Harispe’s troops, twelve were upon the round hill in the centre, sweeping in their range the ground beyond St. Boës, and sixteen were in reserve on the Dax road.
The 27th at day-break the sixth and light divisions, having passed the Gave near Berenx by the pontoon bridge thrown in the night, wound up a narrow way between high rocks to the great road of Peyrehorade. The third division and lord Edward Somerset’s cavalry were already established there in columns of march with skirmishers pushed forwards to the edge of the wooded height occupied by D’Erlon’s left, and Beresford with the fourth and seventh divisions and Vivian’s cavalry had meanwhile gained the ridge of St. Boës and approached the Dax road beyond. Hill remained with the second British, and Le Cor’s Portuguese divisions menacing the bridge of Orthes and the ford of Souars. Between Beresford and Picton, a distance of a mile and a half, there were no troops; but about half-way, exactly in front of the French centre, was a Roman camp crowning an isolated peering hill of singular appearance and nearly as lofty as the centre of Soult’s position.
On this camp, now covered with vineyards, but then open and grassy with a few trees, lord Wellington, after viewing the country on Beresford’s left, stopped for an hour or more to examine the enemy’s disposition for battle. During this time the two divisions were coming up from the river, but so hemmed in by rocks that only a few men could march abreast, and their point of union with the third division was little more than cannon-shot from the enemy’s position. The moment was critical, Picton did not conceal his disquietude, but Wellington undisturbed as the deep sea continued his observations without seeming to notice the dangerous position of his troops. When they had reached the main road he reinforced Picton with the sixth, and drew the light division by cross roads behind the Roman camp, thus connecting his wings and forming a central reserve. From this point bye-ways led, on the left to the high church of Baïghts and the Dax road, on the right to the Peyrehorade road; and two others led straight across the marsh to the French position.
This marsh, the open hill about which Soult’s guns and reserves were principally gathered, the form and nature of the ridges on the flanks, all combined to forbid an attack in front, and the flanks were scarcely more promising. The extremity of the French left sunk indeed to a gentle undulation in crossing the Peyrehorade road, yet it would have been useless to push troops on that line towards Orthes, between D’Erlon and Caste Tarbe, for the town was strongly occupied by Harispe and was there covered by an ancient wall and the bed of a torrent. It was equally difficult to turn the St. Boës flank because of the low marshy country into which the troops must have descended beyond the Dax road; and the brows of the hills trending backwards from the centre of the French position would have enabled Soult to oppose a new and formidable front at right angles to his actual position. The whole of the allied army must therefore have made a circuitous flank movement within gun-shot and through a most difficult country, or Beresford’s left must have been dangerously extended and the whole line weakened. Nor could the movement be hidden, because the hills although only moderately high were abrupt on that side, affording a full view of the low country, and Soult’s cavalry detachments were in observation on every brow.
It only remained to assail the French flanks along the ridges, making the principal efforts on the side of St. Boës, with intent if successful to overlap the French right beyond, and seize the road of St. Sever while Hill passed the Gave at Souars and cut off the road to Pau, thus enclosing the beaten army in Orthes. This was however no slight affair. On Picton’s side it was easy to obtain a footing on the flank ridge near the high road, but beyond that the ground rose rapidly and the French were gathered thickly with a narrow front and plenty of guns. On Beresford’s side they could only be assailed along the summit of the St. Boës ridge, advancing from the high church of Baïghts and the Dax road. But the village of St. Boës was strongly occupied, the ground immediately behind it was strangled to a narrow pass by the ravine, and the French reserve of sixteen guns, placed on the Dax road, behind the hill in the centre of Soult’s line, and well covered from counter-fire, was in readiness to crush the head of any column which should emerge from the gorge of St. Boës.
BATTLE OF ORTHES.
During the whole morning a slight skirmish with now and then a cannon-shot had been going on with the third division on the right, and the French cavalry at times pushed parties forward on each flank, but at nine o’clock Wellington commenced the real attack. The third and sixth divisions won without difficulty the lower part of the ridges opposed to them, and endeavoured to extend their left along the French front with a sharp fire of musquetry; but the main battle was on the other flank. There general Cole, keeping Anson’s brigade of the fourth division in reserve, assailed St. Boës with Ross’s British brigade and Vasconcellos’ Portuguese; his object was to get on to the open ground beyond it, but fierce and slaughtering was the struggle. Five times breaking through the scattered houses did Ross carry his battle into the wider space beyond; yet ever as the troops issued forth the French guns from the open hill smote them in front, and the reserved battery on the Dax road swept through them with grape from flank to flank. And then Taupin’s supporting masses rushed forwards with a wasting fire, and lapping the flanks with skirmishers, which poured along the ravines on either hand, forced the shattered columns back into the village. It was in vain that with desperate valour the allies time after time broke through the narrow way and struggled to spread a front beyond, Ross fell dangerously wounded, and Taupin, whose troops were clustered thickly and well supported defied their utmost efforts. Nor was Soult less happy on the other side. The nature of the ground would not permit the third and sixth divisions to engage many men at once, so that no progress was made; and one small detachment which Picton extended to his left, having made an attempt to gain the smaller tongue jutting out from the central hill, was suddenly charged, as it neared the summit, by Foy, and driven down again in confusion, losing several prisoners.
When the combat had thus continued with unabated fury on the side of St. Boës for about three hours, lord Wellington sent a caçadore regiment of the light division from the Roman camp to protect the right flank of Ross’s brigade against the French skirmishers; but this was of no avail, for Vasconcellos’ Portuguese, unable to sustain the violence of the enemy any longer, gave way in disorder, and the French pouring on, the British troops retreated through St. Boës with difficulty. As this happened at the moment when the detachment on Picton’s left was repulsed, victory seemed to declare for the French, and Soult, conspicuous on his commanding open hill, the knot of all his combinations, seeing his enemies thus broken and thrown backwards on each side put all his reserves in movement to complete the success. It is said that in the exultation of the moment he smote his thigh exclaiming, “At last I have him.” Whether this be so or not it was no vain-glorious speech, for the moment was most dangerous. There was however a small black cloud rising just beneath him, unheeded at first amidst the thundering din and tumult that now shook the field of battle, but which soon burst with irresistible violence. Wellington seeing that St. Boës was inexpugnable had suddenly changed his plan of battle. Supporting Ross with Anson’s brigade which had not hitherto been engaged, he backed both with the seventh division and Vivian’s cavalry now forming one heavy body towards the Dax road. Then he ordered the third and sixth divisions to be thrown in mass upon Foy’s left flank, and at the same time sent the fifty-second regiment down from the Roman camp with instructions to cross the marsh in front, to mount the French ridge beyond, and to assail the flank and rear of the troops engaged with the fourth division at St. Boës.
[Sidenote: Soult’s Official Reports, MSS.]
Colonel Colborne, so often distinguished in this war, immediately led the fifty-second down and crossed the marsh under fire, the men sinking at every step above the knees, in some places to the middle, but still pressing forwards with that stern resolution and order to be expected from the veterans of the light division, soldiers who had never yet met their match in the field. They soon obtained footing on firm land and ascended the heights in line at the moment that Taupin was pushing vigorously through St. Boës, Foy and D’Armagnac, hitherto more than masters of their positions, being at the same time seriously assailed on the other flank by the third and sixth divisions. With a mighty shout and a rolling fire the fifty-second soldiers dashed forwards between Foy and Taupin, beating down a French battalion in their course and throwing everything before them into disorder. General Bechaud was killed in Taupin’s division, Foy was dangerously wounded, and his troops, discouraged by his fall and by this sudden burst from a quarter where no enemy was expected, for the march of the fifty-second had been hardly perceived save by the skirmishers, got into confusion, and the disorder spreading to Reille’s wing he also was forced to fall back and take a new position to restore his line of battle. The narrow pass behind St. Boës was thus opened, and Wellington seizing the critical moment thrust the fourth and seventh divisions, Vivian’s cavalry, and two batteries of artillery through, and spread a front beyond.
The victory was thus secured. For the third and sixth divisions had now won D’Armagnac’s position and established a battery of guns on a knoll, from whence their shot ploughed through the French masses from one flank to another. Suddenly a squadron of French chasseurs came at a hard gallop down the main road of Orthes to charge these guns, and sweeping to their right they rode over some of the sixth division which had advanced too far; but pushing this charge too madly got into a hollow lane and were nearly all destroyed. The third and seventh divisions then continued to advance and the wings of the army were united. The French general rallied all his forces on the open hills beyond the Dax road, and with Taupin’s, Roguet’s, Paris’, and D’Armagnac’s divisions made strong battle to cover the reformation of Foy’s disordered troops, but his foes were not all in front. This part of the battle was fought with only two-thirds of the allied army. Hill who had remained with twelve thousand combatants, cavalry and infantry, before the bridge of Orthes, received orders, when Wellington changed his plan of attack, to force the passage of the Gave, partly in the view of preventing Harispe from falling upon the flank of the sixth division, partly in the hope of a successful issue to the attempt: and so it happened. Hill though unable to force the bridge, forded the river above at Souars, and driving back the troops posted there seized the heights above, cut off the French from the road to Pau, and turned the town of Orthes. He thus menaced Soult’s only line of retreat by Salespice, on the road to St. Sever, at the very moment when the fifty-second having opened the defile of St. Boës the junction of the allies’ wings was effected on the French position.
Clauzel immediately ordered Harispe to abandon Orthes and close towards Villatte on the heights above Rontun, leaving however some conscript battalions on a rising point beyond the road of St. Sever called the “Motte de Turenne.” Meanwhile in person he endeavoured to keep general Hill in check by the menacing action of two cavalry regiments and a brigade of infantry; but Soult arrived at the moment and seeing that the loss of Souars had rendered his whole position untenable, gave orders for a general retreat.
This was a perilous matter. The heathy hills upon which he was now fighting, although for a short distance they furnished a succession of parallel positions favourable enough for defence, soon resolved themselves into a low ridge running to the rear on a line parallel with the road to St. Sever; and on the opposite side of that road about cannon-shot distance was a corresponding ridge along which general Hill, judging by the firing how matters went, was now rapidly advancing. Five miles distant was the Luy de Bearn, and four miles beyond that the Luy de France, two rivers deep and with difficult banks. Behind these the Lutz, the Gabas, and the Adour, crossed the line, and though once beyond the wooden bridge of Sault de Navailles on the Luy de Bearn, these streams would necessarily cover the retreat, to carry off by one road and one bridge a defeated army still closely engaged in front seemed impossible. Nevertheless Soult did so. For Paris sustained the fight on his right until Foy and Taupin’s troops rallied, and when the impetuous assault of the fifty-second and the rush of the fourth and seventh divisions drove Paris back, D’Armagnac interposed to cover him until the union of the allies’ wings was completed, then both retired, being covered in turn by Villatte. In this manner the French yielded, step by step and without confusion, the allies advancing with an incessant deafening musketry and cannonade, yet losing many men especially on the right where the third division were very strongly opposed. However as the danger of being cut off at Salespice by Hill became more imminent the retrograde movements were more hurried and confused; Hill seeing this, quickened his pace until at last both sides began to run violently, and so many men broke from the French ranks making across the fields towards the fords, and such a rush was necessarily made by the rest to gain the bridge of Sault de Navailles, that the whole country was covered with scattered bands. Sir Stapleton Cotton then breaking with lord Edward Somerset’s hussars through a small covering body opposed to him by Harispe sabred two or three hundred men, and the seventh hussars cut off about two thousand who threw down their arms in an enclosed field; yet some confusion or mismanagement occurring the greatest part recovering their weapons escaped, and the pursuit ceased at the Luy of Bearn.
The French army appeared to be entirely dispersed, but it was more disordered in appearance than reality, for Soult passed the Luy of Bearn and destroyed the bridge with the loss of only six guns and less than four thousand men killed wounded and prisoners. Many thousands of conscripts however threw away their arms, and we shall find one month afterwards the stragglers still amounting to three thousand. Nor would the passage of the river have been effected so happily if lord Wellington had not been struck by a musket-ball just above the thigh, which caused him to ride with difficulty, whereby the vigour and unity of the pursuit was necessarily abated. The loss of the allies was two thousand three hundred, of which fifty with three officers were taken, but among the wounded were lord Wellington, general Walker, general Ross, and the duke of Richmond, then lord March. He had served on lord Wellington’s personal staff during the whole war without a hurt, but being made a captain in the fifty-second, like a good soldier joined his regiment the night before the battle. He was shot through the chest a few hours afterwards, thus learning by experience, the difference between the labours and dangers of staff and regimental officers, which are generally in the inverse ratio to their promotions.
[Sidenote: Memoir by general Berton, MSS.]
General Berton, stationed between Pau and Orthes during the battle, had been cut off by Hill’s movement, yet skirting that general’s march he retreated by Mant and Samadet with his cavalry, picking up two battalions of conscripts on the road. Meanwhile Soult having no position to rally upon, continued his retreat in the night to St. Sever, breaking down all the bridges behind him. Lord Wellington pursued at daylight in three columns, the right by Lacadée and St. Medard to Samadet, the centre by the main road, the left by St. Cricq. At St. Sever he hoped to find the enemy still in confusion, but he was too late; the French were across the river, the bridge was broken, and the army halted. The result of the battle was however soon made known far and wide, and Darricau who with a few hundred soldiers was endeavouring to form an insurgent levy at Dax, the works of which were incomplete and still unarmed, immediately destroyed part of the stores, the rest had been removed to Mont Marsan, and retreated through the Landes to Langon on the Garonne.
From St. Sever which offered no position Soult turned short to the right and moved upon Barcelona higher up the Adour; but he left D’Erlon with two divisions of infantry some cavalry and four guns at Caceres on the right bank, and sent Clauzel to occupy Aire on the other side of the river. He thus abandoned his magazines at Mont Marsan and left open the direct road to Bordeaux, but holding Caceres with his right he commanded another road by Rocquefort to that city, while his left being at Aire protected the magazines and artillery parc at that place and covered the road to Pau. Meanwhile the main body at Barcelona equally supported Clauzel and D’Erlon, and covered the great roads leading to Agen and Toulouse on the Garonne, and to the mountains by Tarbes.
In this situation it was difficult to judge what line of operations he meant to adopt. Wellington however passed the Adour about one o’clock, partly by the repaired bridge of St. Sever partly by a deep ford below, and immediately detached Beresford with the light division and Vivian’s cavalry to seize the magazines at Mont Marsan; at the same time he pushed the head of a column towards Caceres where a cannonade and charge of cavalry had place, and a few men and officers were hurt on both sides. The next day Hill’s corps marching from Samadet reached the Adour between St. Sever and Aire, and D’Erlon was again assailed on the right bank and driven back skirmishing to Barcelona. This event proved that Soult had abandoned Bordeaux, but the English general could not push the pursuit more vigorously, because every bridge was broken and a violent storm on the evening of the 1st had filled the smaller rivers and torrents, carried away the pontoon bridges, and cut off all communication between the troops and the supplies.
[Sidenote: March.]
The bulk of the army was now necessarily halted on the right bank of the Adour until the bridges could be repaired, but Hill who was on the left bank marched to seize the magazines at Aire. Moving in two columns from St. Savin and St. Gillies on the 2d, he reached his destination about three o’clock with two divisions of infantry a brigade of cavalry and a battery of horse-artillery; he expected no serious opposition, but general Clauzel had arrived a few hours before and was in order of battle covering the town with Villatte’s and Harispe’s divisions and some guns. The French occupied a steep ridge in front of Aire, high and wooded on the right where it overlooked the river, but merging on the left into a wide table-land over which the great road led to Pau. The position was strong for battle yet it could be readily outflanked on the left by the table-land, and was an uneasy one for retreat on the right where the ridge was narrow, the ravine behind steep and rugged with a mill-stream at the bottom between it and the town. A branch of the Adour also flowing behind Aire cut it off from Barcelona, while behind the left wing was the greater Lees a river with steep banks and only one bridge.
COMBAT OF AIRE.
General Hill arriving about two o’clock attacked without hesitation. General Stewart with two British brigades fell on the French right, a Portuguese brigade assailed their centre, and the other brigades followed in columns of march. The action was however very sudden, the Portuguese were pushed forward in a slovenly manner by general Da Costa, a man of no ability, and the French under Harispe met them on the flat summit of the height with so rough a charge that they gave way in flight. The rear of the allies’ column being still in march the battle was like to be lost, but general Stewart having by this time won the heights on the French right, where Villatte, fearing to be enclosed made but a feeble resistance, immediately detached general Barnes with the fiftieth and ninety-second regiments to the aid of the Portuguese. The vehement charge of these troops turned the stream of battle, the French were broken in turn and thrown back on their reserves, yet they rallied and renewed the action with great courage, fighting obstinately until General Byng’s British brigade came up, when Harispe was driven towards the river Lees, and Villate quite through the town of Aire into the space between the two branches of the Adour behind.
General Reille who was at Barcelona when the action began, brought up Roguet’s division to support Villatte, the combat was thus continued until night at that point, meanwhile Harispe crossed the Lees and broke the bridge, but the French lost many men. Two generals, Dauture and Gasquet, were wounded, a colonel of engineers was killed, a hundred prisoners were taken, many of Harispe’s conscripts threw away their arms and fled to their homes, and the magazines fell into the conqueror’s hands. The loss of the British troops was one hundred and fifty, general Barnes was wounded and colonel Hood killed. The loss of the Portuguese was never officially stated, yet it could not have been less than that of the British, and the vigour of the action proved that the French courage was very little abated by the battle of Orthes. Soult immediately retreated up the Adour by both banks towards Maubourget and Marciac, and he was not followed for new combinations were now opened to the generals on both sides.
OBSERVATIONS.
1º. On the 14th of February the passage of the Gaves was commenced, by Hill’s attack on Harispe at Hellette. On the 2d of March the first series of operations was terminated by the combat at Aire. In these sixteen days lord Wellington traversed with his right wing eighty miles, passed five large and several small rivers, forced the enemy to abandon two fortified bridge-heads and many minor works, gained one great battle and two combats, captured six guns and about a thousand prisoners, seized the magazines at Dax, Mont Marsan, and Aire, forced Soult to abandon Bayonne and cut him off from Bordeaux. And in this time he also threw his stupendous bridge below Bayonne and closely invested that fortress after a sharp and bloody action. Success in war like charity in religion covers a multitude of sins; but success often belongs to fortune as much as skill, and the combinations of Wellington, profound and sagacious, might in this manner be confounded with the lucky operations of the allies on the other side of France, where the presumption and the vacillation of ignorance alternately predominated.
[Sidenote: Official Correspondence, MSS.]
2º. Soult attributed the loss of his positions to the superior forces of the allies. Is this well-founded? The French general’s numbers cannot be determined exactly, but after all his losses in December, after the detachments made by the emperor’s order in January, and after completing the garrison of Bayonne to fourteen thousand men, he informed the minister of war that thirty thousand infantry, three thousand cavalry and forty pieces of artillery were in line. This did not include the conscripts of the new levy, all youths indeed and hastily sent to the army by battalions as they could be armed, but brave and about eight thousand of them might have joined before the battle of Orthes. Wherefore deducting the detachments of cavalry and infantry under Berton on the side of Pau, and under Daricau on the side of Dax, it may be said that forty thousand combatants of all arms were engaged in that action. Thirty-five thousand were very excellent soldiers, for the conscripts of the old levy who joined before the battle of the Nivelle were stout men; their vigorous fighting at Garris and Aire proved it, for of them was Harispe’s division composed.
Now lord Wellington commenced his operations with the second third fourth and seventh British divisions, the independent Portuguese division under Le Cor, Morillo’s Spaniards, forty-eight pieces of artillery, and only four brigades of light cavalry, for Vandaleur’s brigade remained with Hope and all the heavy cavalry and the Portuguese were left in Spain. Following the morning states of the army, this would furnish, exclusive of Morillo’s Spaniards, something more than forty thousand fighting men and officers of all arms, of which four thousand were horsemen. But five regiments of infantry, and amongst them two of the strongest British regiments of the light division, were absent to receive their clothing; deduct these and we have about thirty-seven thousand Anglo-Portuguese combatants. It is true that Mina’s battalions and Morillo’s aided in the commencement of the operations, but the first immediately invested St. Jean Pied de Port and the latter invested Navarrens. Lord Wellington was therefore in the battle superior by a thousand horsemen and eight guns, but Soult outnumbered him in infantry by four or five thousand, conscripts it is true, yet useful. Why then was the passage of the Gaves so feebly disputed? Because the French general remained entirely on the defensive in positions too extended for his numbers.
3º. Offensive operations must be the basis of a good defensive system. Let Soult’s operations be tried by this rule. On the 12th he knew that the allies were in motion for some great operation and he judged rightly that it was to drive him from the Gaves. From the 14th to the 18th his left was continually assailed by very superior numbers, but during part of that time Beresford could only oppose to his right and centre, the fourth and a portion of the seventh divisions with some cavalry; and those not in a body and at once but parcelled and extended, for it was not until the 16th that the fourth seventh and light divisions were so closed towards the Bidouze as to act in one mass. On the 15th lord Wellington admitted that his troops were too extended, Villatte’s, Taupin’s, and Foy’s divisions, were never menaced until the 18th, and there was nothing to prevent D’Erlon’s divisions which only crossed the Adour on the 17th from being on the Bidouze the 15th. Soult might therefore by rapid and well-digested combinations have united four divisions of infantry and a brigade of cavalry to attack Beresford on the 15th or 16th between the Nive and the Adour. If successful the defeated troops, pushed back upon the sixth division, must have fought for life with the rivers on their flanks, Soult in front, and the garrison of Bayonne issuing from the works of Mousseroles on their rear. If unsuccessful the French retreat behind the Gave of Oleron could not have been prevented.
[Sidenote: Soult’s Official Reports, MSS.]
It is however to be pleaded that Soult was not exactly informed of the numbers and situation of his opponents. He thought Beresford had the first division also on the Lower Bidouze; he knew that Wellington had large reserves to employ, and, that general’s design of passing the Adour below Bayonne being unknown to him, he naturally supposed they would be used to support the operations on the Gaves: he therefore remained on the defensive. It might possibly also have been difficult to bring D’Erlon’s division across the Adour by the Port de Lannes before the 17th, because the regular bridge had been carried away and the communications interrupted a few days before by the floods. In fine there are many matters of detail in war known only to a general-in-chief which forbid the best combinations, and this it is that makes the art so difficult and uncertain. Great captains worship Fortune.
On the 24th the passage of the Gave d’Oleron was effected. Soult then recognised his error and concentrated his troops at Orthes to retake the offensive. It was a fine movement and effected with ability, but he suffered another favourable opportunity of giving a counter-blow to escape him. The infantry under Villatte, Harispe, and Paris, supported by a brigade of cavalry, were about Sauveterre, that is to say, four miles from Montfort and only seven from Villenave, where the principal passage was effected, where the ford was deep, the stream rapid, and the left bank although favourable for the passage not entirely commanding the right bank. How then did it happen that the operation was effected without opposition? Amongst the allies it was rumoured at the time that Soult complained of the negligence of a general who had orders to march against the passing troops. The position of Harispe’s division at Monstrueig, forming a reserve at equal distances from Sauveterre and Villenave, would seem to have been adopted with that view, but I find no confirmation of the report in Soult’s correspondence, and it is certain he thought Picton’s demonstrations at Sauveterre was a real attack.
[Sidenote: Official Correspondence, MSS.]
[Sidenote: Notes by general Reille and colonel De la Chasse, MSS.]
4º. The position adopted by the French general at Orthes was excellent for offence. It was not so for defence, when Beresford and Picton had crossed the Gave below in force. Lord Wellington could then throw his whole army on that side, and secure his communication with Hope, after which outflanking the right of the French he could seize the defile of Sault de Navailles, cut them off from their magazines at Dax, Mont Marsan and Aire, and force them to retreat by the Pau road leaving open the way to Bordeaux. To await this attack was therefore an error, but Soult’s original design was to assail the head of the first column which should come near him and Beresford’s approach to Baïghts on the 26th furnished the opportunity. It is true that the French light cavalry gave intelligence of that general’s march too late and marred the combination, but there was still time to fall on the head of the column while the third division was in the act of passing the river and entangled in the narrow way leading from the ford to the Peyrehorade road: it is said the French marshal appeared disposed to do this at first, but finally took a defensive position in which to receive battle.
However when the morning came he neglected another opportunity. For two hours the third division and the hussars remained close to him, covering the march of the sixth and light divisions through the narrow ways leading from the bridge of Berenx up to the main road; the infantry had no defined position, the cavalry had no room to extend, and there were no troops between them and Beresford who was then in march by the heights of Baïghts to the Dax road. If the French general had pushed a column across the marsh to seize the Roman camp he would have separated the wings of the allies; then pouring down the Peyrehorade road with Foy’s, D’Armagnac’s and Villatte’s divisions he would probably have overwhelmed the third division before the other two could have extricated themselves from the defiles. Picton therefore had grounds for uneasiness.
With a subtle skill did Soult take his ground of battle at Orthes, fiercely and strongly did he fight, and wonderfully did he effect his retreat across the Luy of Bearn, but twice in twenty-four hours he had neglected those happy occasions which in war take birth and flight at the same instant; and as the value of his position, essentially an offensive one, was thereby lost, a slowness to strike may be objected to his generalship. Yet there is no commander, unless a Hannibal or a Napoleon surpassing the human proportions, but will abate something of his confidence and hesitate after repeated defeats, Soult in this campaign as in many others proved himself a hardy captain full of resources.
5º. Lord Wellington with a vastness of conception and a capacity for arrangement and combination equal to his opponent, possessed in a high degree that daring promptness of action, that faculty of inspiration for suddenly deciding the fate of whole campaigns with which Napoleon was endowed beyond all mankind. It is this which especially constitutes military genius. For so vast so complicated are the combinations of war, so easily and by such slight causes are they affected, that the best generals do but grope in the dark, and they acknowledge the humiliating truth. By the number and extent of their fine dispositions then, and not by their errors, the merit of commanders is to be measured.
In this campaign lord Wellington designed to penetrate France, not with a hasty incursion but solidly, to force Soult over the Garonne, and if possible in the direction of Bordeaux, because it was the direct line, because the citizens were inimical to the emperor, and the town, lying on the left bank of the river, could not be defended; because a junction with Suchet would thus be prevented. Finally if by operating against Soult’s left he could throw the French army into the Landes, where his own superior cavalry could act, it would probably be destroyed.
To operate against Soult’s left in the direction of Pau was the most obvious method of preventing a junction with Suchet, and rendering the positions which the French general had fortified on the Gaves useless. But the investment of Bayonne required a large force, which was yet weak against an outer attack because separated in three parts by the rivers; hence if lord Wellington had made a wide movement on Pau, Soult might have placed the Adour between him and the main army and then fallen upon Hope’s troops on the right side of that river. The English general was thus reduced to act upon a more contracted line, and to cross all the Gaves. To effect this he collected his principal mass on his right by the help of the great road leading to St. Jean Pied de Port, then by rapid marches and reiterated attacks he forced the passage of the rivers above the points which Soult had fortified for defence, and so turned that general’s left with the view of finally cutting him off from Suchet and driving him into the wilderness of the Landes. During these marches he left Beresford on the lower parts of the rivers to occupy the enemy’s attention and cover the troops blockading Mousseroles. Meanwhile by the collection of boats at Urt and other demonstrations indicating a design of throwing a bridge over the Adour above Bayonne, he diverted attention from the point chosen below the fortress for that operation, and at the same time provided the means of throwing another bridge at the Port de Lannes to secure the communication with Hope by the right bank whenever Soult should be forced to abandon the Gaves. These were fine combinations.
I have shown that Beresford’s corps was so weak at first that Soult might have struck a counter-blow. Lord Wellington admitted the error. Writing on the 15th he says, “If the enemy stand upon the Bidouze I am not so strong as I ought to be,” and he ordered up the fourth and light divisions; but this excepted, his movements were conformable to the principles of war. He chose the best strategic line of operations, his main attack was made with heavy masses against the enemy’s weakest points, and in execution he was prompt and daring. His conduct was conformable also to his peculiar situation. He had two distinct operations in hand, namely to throw his bridge below Bayonne and to force the Gaves. He had the numbers required to obtain these objects but dared not use them lest he should put the Spanish troops into contact with the French people; yet he could not entirely dispense with them; wherefore bringing Freyre up to Bayonne, Morillo to Navarrens, and Mina to St. Jean Pied de Port, he seemed to put his whole army in motion, thus gaining the appearance of military strength with as little political danger as possible. Nevertheless so terrible had the Spaniards already made themselves by their cruel lawless habits that their mere return across the frontier threw the whole country into consternation.
6º. When in front of Orthes it would at first sight appear as if lord Wellington had changed his plan of driving the enemy upon the Landes, but it was not so. He did not expect a battle on the 27th. This is proved by his letter to sir John Hope in which he tells that general that he anticipated no difficulty in passing the Gave of Pau, that on the evening of the 26th the enemy were retiring, and that he designed to visit the position at Bayonne. To pass the Gave in the quickest and surest manner, to re-establish the direct communications with Hope and to unite with Beresford, were his immediate objects; if he finally worked by his left it was a sudden act and extraneous to the general design, which was certainly to operate with Hill’s corps and the light division by the right.
It was after passing the Gave at Berenx on the morning of the 27th lord Wellington first discovered Soult’s intention to fight, and that consequently he was himself in a false position. Had he shewn any hesitation, any uneasiness, had he endeavoured to take a defensive position with either Beresford’s or Picton’s troops, he would inevitably have drawn the attention of the enemy to his dangerous situation. Instead of this, judging that Soult would not on the instant change from the defensive to the offensive, he confidently pushed Picton’s skirmishers forward as if to assail the left of the French position, and put Beresford in movement against their right, and this with all the coolness imaginable. The success was complete. Soult who supposed the allies stronger than they really were, naturally imagined the wings would not be so bold unless well supported in the centre where the Roman camp could hide a multitude. He therefore held fast to his position until the movement was more developed, and in two hours the sixth and light divisions were up and the battle commenced. It was well fought on both sides but the crisis was decided by the fifty-second, and when that regiment was put in movement only a single Portuguese battalion was in reserve behind the Roman camp: upon such nice combinations of time and place does the fate of battles turn.
[Sidenote: Soult’s Official Correspondence, MSS.]
7º. Soult certainly committed an error in receiving battle at Orthes, and it has been said that lord Wellington’s wound at the most critical period of the retreat alone saved the hostile army. Nevertheless the clear manner in which the French general carried his troops away, his prompt judgement, shown in the sudden change of his line of retreat at St. Sever, the resolute manner in which he halted and showed front again at Caceres, Barcelonne, and Aire, were all proofs of no common ability. It was Wellington’s aim to drive the French on to the Landes, Soult’s to avoid this, he therefore shifted from the Bordeaux line to that of Toulouse, not in confusion but with the resolution of a man ready to dispute every foot of ground. The loss of the magazines at Mont Marsan was no fault of his; he had given orders for transporting them towards the Toulouse side fifteen days before, but the matter depending upon the civil authorities was neglected. He was blamed by some of his officers for fighting at Aire, yet it was necessary to cover the magazines there, and essential to his design of keeping up the courage of the soldiers under the adverse circumstances which he anticipated. And here the palm of generalship remained with him, for certainly the battle of Orthes was less decisive than it should have been. I speak not of the pursuit to Sault de Navailles, nor of the next day’s march upon St. Sever, but of Hill’s march on the right. That general halted near Samade the 28th, reached St. Savin on the Adour the 1st and fought the battle of Aire on the evening of the 2d of March. But from Samadet to Aire is not longer than from Samadet to St. Savin where he was on the 1st. He could therefore, if his orders had prescribed it so, have seized Aire on the 1st before Clauzel arrived, and thus spared the obstinate combat at that place. It may also be observed that his attack did not receive a right direction. It should have been towards the French left, because they were more weakly posted there, and the ridge held by their right was so difficult to retire from, that no troops would stay on it if any progress was made on the left. This was however an accident of war, general Hill had no time to examine the ground, his orders were to attack, and to fall without hesitation upon a retiring enemy after such a defeat as Orthes was undoubtedly the right thing to do; but it cannot be said that lord Wellington pushed the pursuit with vigour. Notwithstanding the storm on the evening of the 1st he could have reinforced Hill and should not have given the French army time to recover from their recent defeat. “The secret of war,” says Napoleon, “is to march twelve leagues, fight a battle and march twelve more in pursuit.”
Chapter III
[Sidenote: 1814. March.]
[Sidenote: Soult’s Official Correspondence, MSS.]
Extremely perilous and disheartening was the situation of the French general. His army was greatly reduced by his losses in battle and by the desertion of the conscripts, and three thousand stragglers, old soldiers who ought to have rejoined their eagles, were collected by different generals, into whose districts they had wandered, and employed to strengthen detached corps instead of being restored to the army. All his magazines were taken, discontent the natural offspring of misfortune prevailed amongst his officers, a powerful enemy was in front, no certain resources of men or money behind, and his efforts were ill-seconded by the civil authorities. The troops indignant at the people’s apathy behaved with so much violence and insolence, especially during the retreat from St. Sever, that Soult, who wanted officers very badly, proposed to fill the vacancies from the national guards that he might have “men who would respect property.” On the other hand the people comparing the conduct of their own army with the discipline of the Anglo-Portuguese, and contrasting the requisitions necessarily imposed by their countrymen with the ready and copious disbursements in gold made by their enemies, for now one commissary preceded each division to order rations for the troops and another followed to arrange and pay on the spot, were become so absolutely averse to the French army that Soult writing to the minister of war thus expressed himself. “If the population of the departments of the Landes of Gers, and the Lower Pyrenees, were animated with a good spirit, this is the moment to make the enemy suffer by carrying off his convoys and prisoners, but they appear more disposed to favour the invaders than to second the army. It is scarcely possible to obtain a carriage for transport and I shall not be surprised to find in a short time these inhabitants taking arms against us.” Soult was however a man formed by nature and by experience to struggle against difficulties, always appearing greater when in a desperate condition than when more happily circumstanced. At Genoa under Massena, at Oporto, and in Andalusia, he had been inured to military distress, and probably for that reason the emperor selected him to sustain this dangerous contest in preference to others accounted more ready tacticians on a field of battle.
On the 3d and 4th he retreated by Plaissance and Madiran to Rabastens, Marciac, and Maubourget where he halted, covering Tarbes, for his design was to keep in mass and await the development of the allies’ plans. In this view he called in the detachments of cavalry and infantry which had been left on the side of Pau before the battle of Orthes, and hearing that Darricau was at Langon with a thousand men he ordered him to march by Agen and join the army immediately. He likewise put the national guards and gensd’armes in activity on the side of the Pyrenees, and directed the commanders of the military districts in his rear to keep their old soldiers, of which there were many scattered through the country, in readiness to aid the army.
While thus acting he received from the minister of war a note dictated by the emperor.
“Fortresses,” said Napoleon, “are nothing in themselves when the enemy having the command of the sea can collect as many shells and bullets and guns as he pleases to crush them. Leave therefore only a few troops in Bayonne, the way to prevent the siege is to keep the army close to the place. Resume the offensive, fall upon one or other of the enemy’s wings, and though you should have but twenty thousand men if you seize the proper moment and attack hardily you ought to gain some advantage. You have enough talent to understand my meaning.”
This note came fourteen days too late. But what if it had come before? Lord Wellington after winning the battle of St. Pierre the 13th of December was firmly established on the Adour above Bayonne, and able to interrupt the French convoys as they descended from the Port de Landes. It was evident then that when dry weather enabled the allies to move Soult must abandon Bayonne to defend the passage of the Gaves, or risk being turned and driven upon the Landes from whence it would be difficult for him to escape. Napoleon however desired him to leave only a few men in Bayonne, another division would thus have been added to his field army, and this diminution of the garrison would not have increased lord Wellington’s active forces, because the investment of Bayonne would still have required three separate corps: moreover until the bridge-head at Peyrehorade was abandoned to concentrate at Orthes, Bayonne was not rigorously speaking left to its own defence.
To the emperor’s observations Soult therefore replied, that several months before, he had told the minister of war Bayonne was incapable of sustaining fifteen days open trenches unless the entrenched camp was well occupied, and he had been by the minister authorised so to occupy it. Taking that as his base he had left a garrison of thirteen thousand five hundred men, and now that he knew the emperor’s wishes it was no longer in his power to withdraw them. With respect to keeping close to the place he had done so as long as he could without endangering the safety of the army; but lord Wellington’s operations had forced him to abandon it, and he had only changed his line of operations at St. Sever when he was being pushed back upon Bordeaux with little prospect of being able to pass the Garonne in time. He had for several months thought of establishing a pivot of support for his movements at Dax, in the design of still holding by Bayonne, and with that view had ordered the old works of the former place to be repaired and a camp to be fortified; but from poverty of means even the body of the place was not completed or armed at the moment when the battle of Orthes forced him to relinquish it. Moreover the insurgent levy of the Landes upon which he depended to man the works had failed, not more than two hundred men had come forward. Neither was he very confident of the advantage of such a position, because Wellington with superior numbers would probably have turned his left and forced him to retire precipitately towards Bordeaux by the desert of the greater Landes.
The emperor ordered him to take the offensive were it only with twenty thousand men. He would obey with this observation, that from the 14th of February to that moment he had had no power to take the initiatory movement, having been constantly attacked by infinitely superior numbers. He had defended himself as he could, but had not expected to succeed against the enormous disproportion of force. It being thus impossible, even though he sacrificed his last man in the attempt, to stop the enemy, he now sought to prolong the war as much as possible on the frontier, and by defending every position to keep the invaders in check and prevent them from attacking Bordeaux or Toulouse, save by detachments. He had taken his line of operations by the road of Tarbes, St. Gaudens, and Toulouse, that is to say, by the roots of the Pyrenees, calculating that if lord Wellington sent small detachments against Bordeaux or Toulouse, the generals commanding at those places would be able if the national guards would fight for their country to defend them.
If the enemy made large detachments, an attack in front while he was thus weakened would bring them back again. If he marched with his whole army upon Bordeaux he could be followed and forced to face about. If he attempted to march by Auch against Toulouse he might be stopped by an attack in flank. If he remained stationary he should be provoked by an advance to develop his objects. But if, as was to be expected, the French army was itself attacked it would defend its position vigorously, and then retreating by St. Gaudens draw the allies into a difficult mountain country, where the ground might be disputed step by step the war be kept still on the frontier and the passage of the Garonne be delayed. He had meditated deeply upon his task and could find no better mode. But his army was weakened by combats, still more by desertion; the conscripts went off so fast that of five battalions lately called up from Toulouse two-thirds were already gone without having seen an enemy.
Soult was mistaken as to the real force of the allies in the recent operations. In other respects he displayed clear views and great activity. He reorganized his army in six divisions, called in his detachments, urged the imperial commissioners and local authorities to hasten the levies and restore deserters, and he prepared a plan of action for the partizans which had been organized towards the mountains. Nevertheless his difficulties increased. The conscripts who did arrive were for the most part unarmed and he had none to spare. The imperial commissary Cornudet, and the prefect of the Gironde, quitted Bordeaux, and when general L’Huillier attempted to remove the military stores belonging to the army from Langon, Podensac, and Bordeaux, the inferior authorities opposed him. There was no money they said to pay the expense, but in truth Bordeaux was the focus of Bourbon conspiracy, and the mayor, count Lynch, was eager to betray his sovereign.
Nor was Wellington without embarrassments. The storms prevented him following up his victory while the French army was in confusion. Now it was reorganized on a new line and could retreat for many days in a direction parallel to the Pyrenees with strong defensive positions. Should he press it closely? His army weakened at every step would have to move between the mountains and the Garonne exposing its flanks and rear to the operations of any force which the French might be able to collect on those boundaries; that is to say all the power of France beyond the Garonne. It was essential to find some counterpoise, and to increase his field army. To establish a Bourbon party at Bordeaux was an obvious mode of attaining the first object. Should he then seize that city by a detachment? He must employ twelve thousand men and remain with twenty-six thousand to oppose Soult, who he erroneously believed was being joined by the ten thousand men which Suchet had sent to Lyons. The five regiments detached for their clothing had rejoined the army and all the reserves of cavalry and artillery were now called up, but the reinforcements from England and Portugal, amounting to twenty thousand men, upon which he had calculated were detained by the respective governments. Wherefore, driven by necessity he directed Freyre to join him by the Port de Landes with two divisions of the Gallician army, a measure which was instantly followed by innumerable complaints of outrages and excesses, although the Spaniards were entirely provided from the English military chest. Now also Clinton was ordered to send the British and Germans of the Anglo-Sicilian army to St. Jean de Luz. This done he determined to seize Bordeaux. Meanwhile he repaired the destroyed bridges, brought up one of Morillo’s brigades from Navarrens to the vicinity of Aire, sent Campbell’s Portuguese dragoons to Rocquefort, general Fane with two regiments of cavalry and a brigade of infantry to Pau, and pushed posts towards Tarbes and Vic Bigorre.
Soult, now fearing the general apathy and ill-will of the people would become fatal to him, endeavoured to arouse the energies of the people and the army by the following proclamation which has been unreasonably railed at by several English writers, for it was a judicious well-timed and powerful address.
“Soldiers, at the battle of Orthes you did your duty, the enemy’s losses surpassed yours, his blood moistened all the ground he gained. You may consider that feat of arms as an advantage. Other combats are at hand, no repose for us until his army, formed of such extraordinary elements, shall evacuate the French territory or be annihilated. Its numbers and progress may be great, but at hand are unexpected perils. Time will teach the enemy’s general that French honour is not to be outraged with impunity.
“Soldiers, he has had the indecency to provoke you and your countrymen to revolt and sedition, he speaks of peace but firebrands of discord follow him! He speaks of peace and excites the French to a civil war! Thanks be to him for making known his projects, our forces are thereby centupled; and he himself rallies round the imperial eagles all those who deceived by appearances believed our enemies would make a loyal war. No peace with the disloyal and perfidious nation! no peace with the English and their auxiliaries until they quit the French territory! they have dared to insult the national honour, the infamy to incite Frenchmen to become perjured towards the emperor. Revenge the offence in blood. To arms! Let this cry resound through the south of France, the Frenchman that hesitates abjures his country and belongs to her enemies.
“Yet a few days and those who believe in English delicacy and sincerity will learn to their cost that cunning promises are made to abate their courage and subjugate them. They will learn also that if the English pay to-day and are generous, they will to-morrow retake and with interest in contributions what they disburse. Let the pusillanimous beings who calculate the cost of saving their country remember that the English have in view to reduce Frenchmen to the same servitude as the Spaniards Portuguese and Sicilians who groan under their domination. Past history will recall to those unworthy Frenchmen who prefer momentary enjoyment to the safety of the great family, the English making Frenchmen kill Frenchmen at Quiberon; it will show them at the head of all conspiracies, all odious political intrigues plots and assassinations, aiming to overthrow all principles, to destroy all grand establishments of trade to satisfy their immeasurable ambition, their insatiable cupidity. Does there exist upon the face of the globe a point known to the English where they have not destroyed by seditions and violence all manufactures which could rival their own? Thus they will do to the French establishments if they prevail.
“Devote then to opprobrium and execration all Frenchmen who favour their insidious projects, aye! even those who are under his power if they seek not to hurt him. Devote to opprobrium and reject as Frenchmen those who think under specious pretexts to avoid serving their country; and those also who from corruption or indolence hide deserters instead of driving them back to their colours. With such men we have nothing in common, and history will pass their names with execrations to posterity. As to us soldiers our duty is clear. Honour and fidelity. This is our motto and we will fight to the last the enemies of our emperor and France. Respect persons and property. Grieve for those who have momentarily fallen under the enemy’s yoke, and hasten the moment of their deliverance. Be obedient and disciplined, and bear implacable hatred towards traitors and enemies of the French name! War to death against those who would divide us to destroy us; and to those cowards who desert the imperial eagles to range themselves under another banner. Remember always that fifteen ages of glory, triumphs innumerable, have illustrated our country. Contemplate the prodigious efforts of our great sovereign, his signal victories which immortalize the French name. Let us be worthy of him and we can then bequeath without a taint to our posterity the inheritance we hold from our fathers. Be in fine Frenchmen and die arms in hand sooner than survive dishonour.”
Let the time and the occasion of this proclamation be considered. Let it be remembered that no English writer orator or politician, had for many years used milder terms than robbers, murderers, atheists, and tyrant, when speaking of Frenchmen and their sovereign, that lord Wellington even at this time refused that sovereign his title of emperor, calling him Buonaparte; that on entering France he had published an order of the day accusing the French commanders of authorising and encouraging the cruelties of their soldiers in Spain; finally that for six years the Spanish Portuguese and English state papers were filled with most offensive ribald abuse of Napoleon his ministers and commanders. Let all this be remembered and the acrimony of Soult’s proclamation cannot be justly blamed, while the noble energy, the loyalty of the sentiments, the exciting passionate feeling of patriotism which pervades it must be admired. Was he, sprung from the ranks, a soldier of the republic, a general of the empire, after fighting thirty years under the tri-colour, to be tame and measured to squeamishness in his phrases when he saw his country invaded by foreigners, and a pretender to the throne stalking behind their bayonets beckoning his soldiers to desert their eagles, inviting his countrymen to betray their sovereign and dishonour their nation! Why the man was surrounded by traitors, and proud and scornful of danger was his spirit to strive so mightily against defeat and treason combined.
It has been said in condemnation of him that the English general did not encourage the Bourbon party. Is that true? Did it so appear to the French general? Had not the duke of Angoulême come to the English head-quarters with mystery, and following the invading army and protected by its arms assemble round him all the ancient partizans of his house, sending forth agents, scattering proclamations even in Soult’s camp, endeavouring to debauch his soldiers and to aid strangers to subjugate France. Soult not only knew this but was suffering under the effects. On every side he met with opposition and discontent from the civil authorities, his movements were made known to the enemy and his measures thwarted in all directions. At Bordeaux a party were calling aloud with open arms to the invaders. At Tarbes the fear of provoking an action near the town had caused the dispersion of the insurrectional levy organized by the imperial commissioner Caffarelli. At Pau the aristocracy had secretly assembled to offer homage to the duke of Angoulême, and there was a rumour that he was to be crowned at the castle of Henry IV. Was the French general to disregard these facts and symptoms because his opponent had avoided any public declaration in favour of the Bourbon family? Lord Wellington would have been the first to laugh at his simplicity if he had.
[Sidenote: Secret instructions from Lord Bathurst, MSS.]
[Sidenote: Published Despatches.]
And what was the reason that the English general did not openly call upon the Bourbon partizans to raise the standard of revolt? Simply that Napoleon’s astounding genius had so baffled the banded sovereigns and their innumerable hordes that a peace seemed inevitable to avoid fatal disasters; and therefore lord Wellington, who had instructions from his government not to embarrass any negociation for peace by pledges to a Bourbon party, acting as an honest statesman and commander, would not excite men to their own ruin for a momentary advantage. But so far from discouraging treason to Napoleon on any other ground he avowed his anxious desire for it, and his readiness to encourage every enemy of that monarch. He had seen and consulted with La Roche Jacquelin, with de Mailhos and other vehement partizans for an immediate insurrection; and also with Viel Castel an agent of Bernadotte’s until he found him intriguing against the Bourbons. He advised the duke of Angoulême to form regular battalions, promised him arms and actually collected eighty thousand stand, to arm the insurgents. Finally he rebuked the timid policy of the English ministers who having such an opportunity of assailing Napoleon refrained from doing it. Before Soult’s proclamation appeared he thus wrote to lord Bathurst.
“I find the sentiment as we advance in the country still more strong against the Buonaparte dynasty and in favour of the Bourbons, but I am quite certain there will be no declaration on the part of the people if the allies do not in some manner declare themselves.” “I cannot discover the policy of not hitting one’s enemy as hard as one can and in the most vulnerable place. I am certain that he would not so act by us, he would certainly overturn the British authority in Ireland if it were in his power.”
Soult and Wellington acted and wrote, each in the manner most suitable to their situation, but it was not a little remarkable that Ireland should so readily occur to the latter as a parallel case.
It was in this state of affairs that the English general detached Beresford with twelve thousand men against Bordeaux, giving him instructions to occupy that city and acquire the Garonne as a port for the allies, but to make the French authorities declare whether they would or would not continue to exercise their functions under the conditions announced by proclamation. For hitherto lord Wellington had governed the country as he advanced in this public manner, thus nullifying the misrepresentations of political intriguers, obviating the dangers of false reports and rumours of his projects, making his justice and moderation known to the poorest peasant, and securing the French local authorities who continued to act under him from any false and unjust representation of their conduct to the imperial government if peace should be made with Napoleon. This expedition against Bordeaux however involved political as well as military interests. Beresford was instructed that there were many partizans of the Bourbons in that city who might propose to hoist the white standard and proclaim Louis the Eighteenth under protection of the troops. They were to be told that the British nation and its allies wished well to their cause, and while public tranquillity was maintained in the districts occupied by the troops there would be no hindrance to their political proceedings: they or any party opposed to Napoleon would receive assistance. Nevertheless, as the allied sovereigns were negociating with the French emperor, however well inclined the English general might be to support a party against the latter during war, he could give no help if peace were concluded, and this they must weigh well before they revolted. Beresford was therefore not to meddle with any declaration in favour of Louis the Eighteenth; but he was not to oppose it, and if revolt took place he was to supply the revolters with the arms and ammunition collected at Dax.
On the 8th Beresford marched towards Langon with the fourth and seventh divisions, Vivian’s horsemen, and some guns; he was joined on the road by some of Vandeleur’s cavalry from Bayonne, and he had orders to observe the enemy’s movements towards Agen, for it was still in Soult’s power by a forced march on that side to cross the Garonne and enter Bordeaux before him. La Roche Jacquelin preceded the troops and the duke of Angoulême followed closely, but his partizans in the city frightened at the danger of their enterprize now besought Beresford to delay his march. La Roche Jacquelin vehemently condemned their hesitation, and his influence supported by the consternation which the battle of Orthes had created amongst the Napoleonists decided the question in favour of revolt.
Long before this epoch, Soult, foreseeing that the probable course of the war would endanger Bordeaux, had given orders to place the forts in a state of defence, to arm the flotilla and to organize the national guards and the urban legions; he had urged these measures again when the imperial commissioner Cornudet first arrived, but according to the usual habits of civilians who have to meddle with military affairs every thing was promised and nothing done. Cornudet and the prefect quitted the city as early as the 4th, first burning with a silly affectation of vigour some ships of war upon the stocks; general L’Huillier, unable to oppose the allies, then destroyed the fort of Médoc on the left bank of the Garonne, disarmed some of the river batteries, and passing in the night of the 11th to the right bank occupied the fortress of Blaye, the Paté and other points. Meanwhile Beresford who reached Langon the 10th, left lord Dalhousie there with the bulk of the forces and advanced with eight hundred cavalry.
Entering Bordeaux the 12th, he met the municipality and a great body of Bourbonists, at the head of whom was the mayor count Lynch, decorated with the scarf of his office and the legion of honour, both conferred upon him, and probably at his own solicitation, by the sovereign he was then going to betray. After some formal discourse in which Beresford explicitly made known his instructions Lynch very justly tore the tricolor, the emblem of his country’s glory, from his own shoulders, the white flag was then displayed and the allies took peaceable possession of the city. The duke of Angoulême arrived on the same day and Louis the Eighteenth was formally proclaimed. This event, the act of a party, was not generally approved, and the mayor conscious of weakness immediately issued with the connivance of the duke of Angoulême a proclamation, in which he asserted, that “the British Portuguese and Spanish armies were united in the south, as the other nations were united in the north, solely to destroy Napoleon and replace him by a Bourbon king who was conducted thither by these generous allies, and only by accepting that king could the French appease the resentment of the Spaniards.” At the same time the duke of Angoulême, as if quite master of the country, appointed prefects and other authorities in districts beyond the limits of Bordeaux.
Both the duke and the mayor soon repented of their precipitancy. The English fleet which should have acted simultaneously with the troops had not arrived; the Regulus a French seventy-four with several inferior vessels of war were anchored below Blaye, and Beresford was recalled with the fourth division and Vivian’s cavalry. Lord Dalhousie remained with only the seventh division and three squadrons to oppose L’Huillier’s troops and other French corps which were now on the Garonne. He could not guard the river below Bordeaux, and some French troops recrossing again took possession of the fort of Grave near the mouth; a new army was forming under general Decaen beyond the Garonne, the Napoleonists recovering from their first stupor began to stir themselves, and a partizan officer coming down to St. Macaire on the 18th surprised fifty men which lord Dalhousie had sent across the Garonne from Langon to take possession of a French magazine. In the Landes the peasants forming bands burned the houses of the gentlemen who had joined the white standard, and in Bordeaux itself a counter-insurrection was preparing whenever Decaen should be ready to advance.
The prince frightened at these symptoms of reaction desired lord Dalhousie to bring his troops into Bordeaux to awe the Napoleonists, and meanwhile each party strove to outvie the other in idle rumours and falsehoods relating to the emperor. Victories and defeats were invented or exaggerated, Napoleon was dead from illness, had committed suicide, was poisoned, stabbed; and all these things were related as certain with most circumstantial details. Meanwhile Wellington, writing to the duke of Angoulême, denied the veracity of the mayor’s proclamation and expressed his trust that the prince was not a party to such a mendacious document. The latter however with some excuses about hurry and confusion avowed his participation in its publication, and defended the mayor’s conduct. He also forwarded a statement of the danger his party was exposed to and demanded aid of men and money, supporting his application by a note of council in which with more ingenuity than justice, it was argued, that as civil government could not be conducted without executive power, and as lord Wellington had suffered the duke of Angoulême to assume the civil government at Bordeaux without an adequate executive force, he was bound to supply the deficiency from his army, and even to furnish money until taxes could be levied under the protection of the soldiers.
The English general was not a man to bear with such sophistry in excuse for a breach of faith. Sorry he was he said to find that the principle by which he regulated his conduct towards the Bourbon party, though often stated, had made so little impression that the duke could not perceive how inconsistent it was with the mayor’s proclamation. Most cautious therefore must be his future conduct, seeing that as the chief of an army and the confidential agent of three independent nations, he could not permit his views to be misrepresented upon such an important question. He had occupied Bordeaux as a military point, but certain persons contrary to his advice and opinion thought proper to proclaim Louis the Eighteenth. Those persons made no exertions, subscribed not a shilling, raised not a soldier, yet because he would not extend the posts of his army beyond what was proper and convenient, merely to protect their families and property, exposed to danger, not on account of their exertions for they had made none, but on account of their premature declaration contrary to his advice, they took him to task in a document delivered to lord Dalhousie by the prince himself. The writer of that paper and all such persons however might be assured that nothing should make him swerve from what he thought his duty to the sovereigns who employed him, he would not risk even a company of infantry to save properties and families placed in a state of danger contrary to his advice. The duke had better then conduct his policy and compose his manifestos in such a manner as not to force a public contradiction of them. His royal highness was free to act as he pleased for himself, but he was not free to adduce the name and authority of the allied governments in support of his measures when they had not been consulted, nor of their general when he had been consulted but had given his opinion against those measures.
He had told him that if any great town or extensive district declared in favour of the Bourbons he would not interfere with the government of that town or district, and if there was a general declaration in favour of his house he would deliver the civil government of all the country overrun by the army into his hands, but the fact was that even at Bordeaux the movement in favour of the Bourbons was not unanimous. The spirit had not spread elsewhere, not even to La Vendée, nor in any part occupied by the army. The events contemplated had not therefore occurred, and it would be a great breach of duty towards the allied sovereigns and cruel to the inhabitants if he were to deliver them over to his royal highness prematurely or against their inclinations. He advised him therefore to withdraw his prefects and confine his government to Bordeaux. He could give him no money and after what had passed he was doubtful if he should afford him any countenance or protection. The argument of the note of council, affirming that he was bound to support the civil government of his royal highness, only rendered it more incumbent upon him to beware how he gave farther encouragement, or to speak plainly, permission to the Bourbonists to declare themselves. It was disagreeable to take any step which should publicly mark a want of good understanding between himself and the duke, but count Lynch had not treated him with common fairness or with truth, wherefore as he could not allow the character of the allied sovereigns or his own to be doubted, if his royal highness did not within ten days contradict the objectionable parts of the mayor’s proclamation he would do so himself.
Thus it appeared that with the French as with the Spaniards and Portuguese neither enthusiastic declarations nor actual insurrection offered any guarantee for sense truth or exertion; and most surely all generals and politicians of every country who trust to sudden popular commotions will find that noisy declamations, vehement demonstrations of feeling, idle rumours and boasting, the life-blood of such affairs, are essentially opposed to useful public exertions.
[Sidenote: Official Reports and Correspondence of general Decaen upon the formation of the army of the Gironde, 1814, MSS.]
When Beresford marched to rejoin the army the line of occupation was too extensive for lord Dalhousie and lord Wellington ordered him to keep clear of the city and hold his troops together, observing that his own projected operations on the Upper Garonne would keep matters quiet on the lower part of that river. Nevertheless if the war had continued for a month that officer’s situation would have been critical. For when Napoleon knew that Bordeaux had fallen he sent Decaen by post to Libourne to form the “army of the Gironde.” For this object general Despeaux acting under Soult’s orders collected a body of gensd’armes custom-house officers and national guards on the Upper Garonne, between Agen and La Reolle, and it was one of his detachments that surprised lord Dalhousie’s men at St. Macaire on the 18th. A battery of eight guns was sent down from Narbonne, other batteries were despatched from Paris to arrive at Perigueux on the 11th of April, and three or four hundred cavalry coming from the side of Rochelle joined Le Huillier who with a thousand infantry was in position at St. André de Cubsac beyond the Dordogne. Behind these troops all the national guards custom-house officers and gensd’armes of five departments were ordered to assemble, and march to the Dordogne; but the formidable part of the intended army was a body of Suchet’s veterans, six thousand in number under general Beurman, who had been turned from the road of Lyons and directed upon Libourne.
[Sidenote: Published despatches.]
[Sidenote: Official Report by Mr. Ogilvie, MSS.]
Decaen entered Mucidan on the 1st of April but Beurman’s troops had not then reached Perigeaux, and lord Dalhousie’s cavalry were in Libourne between him and L’Huillier. The power of concentration was thus denied to the French and meanwhile admiral Penrose had secured the command of the Garonne. It appears lord Wellington thought this officer dilatory, but on the 27th he arrived with a seventy-four and two frigates, whereupon the Regulus, and other French vessels then at Royan, made sail up the river and were chased to the shoal of Talmont, but they escaped through the narrow channel on the north side and cast anchor under some batteries. Previous to this event Mr. Ogilvie a commissary, being on the river in a boat manned with Frenchmen, discovered the Requin sloop, half French half American, pierced for twenty-two guns, lying at anchor not far below Bordeaux, at the same time he saw a sailor leap hastily into a boat above him and row for the vessel. This man being taken proved to be the armourer of the Requin, he said there were not many men on board, and Mr. Ogilvie observing his alarm and judging that the crew would also be fearful, with ready resolution bore down upon the Requin, boarded, and took her without any opposition either from her crew or that of his own boat, although she had fourteen guns mounted and eleven men with two officers on board.
[Sidenote: April.]
The naval co-operation being thus assured lord Dalhousie crossed the Garonne above the city, drove the French posts beyond the Dordogne, pushed scouring parties to La Reolle and Marmande, and sending his cavalry over the Dordogne intercepted Decaen’s and La Huilhier’s communications; the former was thus forced to remain at Mucidan with two hundred and fifty gensd’armes awaiting the arrival of Beurman, and he found neither arms nor ammunition nor a willing spirit to enable him to organize the national guards.
The English horsemen repassed the Dordogne on the 2d of April, but on the 4th lord Dalhousie crossed it again lower down, near St. André de Cubzac, with about three thousand men, intending to march upon Blaye, but hearing that L’Huillier had halted at Etauliers he turned suddenly upon him. The French general formed his line on an open common occupying some woods in front with his detachments. Overmatched in infantry he had three hundred cavalry opposed to one weak squadron, and yet his troops would not stand the shock of the battle. The allied infantry cleared the woods in a moment, the artillery then opened upon the main body which retired in disorder, horsemen and infantry together, through Etauliers, leaving behind several scattered bodies upon whom the British cavalry galloped and made two or three hundred men and thirty officers prisoners.
If the six thousand old troops under Beurman had, according to Napoleon’s orders, arrived at this time in lord Dalhousie’s rear, his position would have been embarrassing but they were delayed on the road until the 10th. Meanwhile admiral Penrose, having on the 2d observed the French flotilla, consisting of fifteen armed vessels and gun-boats, coming down from Blaye to join the Regulus at Talmont sent the boats of his fleet to attack them, whereupon the French vessels run on shore and the crews aided by two hundred soldiers from Blaye lined the beach to protect them. Lieutenant Dunlop who commanded the English boats landing all his seamen and marines, beat these troops and carried off or destroyed the whole flotilla with a loss to himself of only six men wounded and missing. This operation completed and the action at Etauliers known, the admiral, now reinforced with a second ship of the line, resolved to attack the French squadron and the shore batteries, but in the night of the 6th the enemy set fire to their vessels. Captain Harris of the Belle Poule frigate then landed with six hundred seamen and marines and destroyed the batteries and forts on the right bank from Talmont to the Courbe point. Blaye still held out, but at Paris treason had done its work and Napoleon, the man of mightiest capacity known for good, was overthrown to make room for despots, who with minds enlarged only to cruelty avarice and dissoluteness, were at the very moment of triumph intent to defraud the people, by whose strength and suffering they had conquered, of the only reward they demanded, just government. The war was virtually over, but on the side of Toulouse, Bayonne, and Barcelona, the armies ignorant of this great event were still battling with unabated fury.
Chapter IV
[Sidenote: 1814. March.]
[Sidenote: Official Report, MSS.]
While Beresford was moving upon Bordeaux Soult and Wellington remained in observation, each thinking the other stronger than himself. For the English general having intelligence of Beurman’s march, believed that his troops were intended to reinforce and had actually joined Soult. On the other hand that marshal, who knew not of Beresford’s march until the 13th, concluded Wellington still had the twelve thousand men detached to Bordeaux. The numbers on each side were however nearly equal. The French army was thirty-one thousand, infantry and cavalry, yet three thousand being stragglers detained by the generals of the military districts, Soult could only put into line, exclusive of conscripts without arms, twenty-eight thousand sabres and bayonets with thirty-eight pieces of artillery. On the allies’ side twenty-seven thousand sabres and bayonets were under arms, with forty-two guns, but from this number detachments had been sent to Pau on one side, Roquefort on the other, and the cavalry scouts were pushed into the Landes and to the Upper Garonne.
[Sidenote: April.]
[Sidenote: See Chap. VI., Book XXIII.]
Lord Wellington expecting Soult would retreat upon Auch and designing to follow him, had caused Beresford to keep the bulk of his troops towards the Upper Garonne that he might the sooner rejoin the army; but the French general having early fixed his line of retreat by St. Guadens was only prevented from retaking the offensive on the 9th or 10th by the loss of his magazines, which forced him first to organize a system of requisition for the subsistence of his army. Meanwhile his equality of force passed away, for on the 13th Freyre came up with eight thousand Spanish infantry, and the next day Ponsonby’s heavy cavalry arrived. Lord Wellington was then the strongest, yet he still awaited Beresford’s troops, and was uneasy about his own situation. He dreaded the junction of Suchet’s army, for it was at this time the Spanish regency referred the convention, proposed by that marshal for the evacuation of the fortresses, to his decision. He gave a peremptory negative, observing that it would furnish twenty thousand veterans for Soult while the retention of Rosas and Figueras would bar the action of the Spanish armies of Catalonia in his favour. But his anxiety was great because he foresaw that Ferdinand’s return and his engagement with Suchet, already related, together with the evident desire of Copons that the garrisons should be admitted to a convention would finally render that measure inevitable. Meanwhile the number of his own army was likely to decrease. The English cabinet, less considerate even than the Spanish government, had sent the militia, permitted by the recent act of parliament to volunteer for foreign service, to Holland, and with them the other reinforcements originally promised for the army in France: two or three regiments of militia only came to the Garonne when the war was over. To make amends the ministers proposed that lord William Bentinck should send four thousand men from Sicily to land at Rosas, or some point in France, and so join lord Wellington, who was thus expected to extend his weakened force from the Bay of Biscay to the Mediterranean in order to cover the junction of this uncertain reinforcement. In fine experience had taught the English statesmen so little that we find their general thus addressing them only one week previous to the termination of the war.
Having before declared that he should be, contrary to his wishes, forced to bring more Spaniards into France, he says:—
“There are limits to the numbers with which this army can contend and I am convinced your lordship would not wish to see the safety and honour of this handful of brave men depend upon the doubtful exertions and discipline of an undue proportion of Spanish troops.”—“The service in Holland may doubtless be more important to the national interest than that in this country, but I hope it will be considered that that which is most important of all is not to lose the brave army which has struggled through its difficulties for nearly six years.”
[Sidenote: Soult’s Official Report, MSS.]
The French infantry was now re-organized in six divisions commanded by Darricau, D’Armagnac, Taupin, Maransin, Villatte and Harispe; general Paris’ troops hitherto acting as an unattached body were thus absorbed, the cavalry composed of Berton’s and Vial’s brigades was commanded by Pierre Soult, and there was a reserve division of seven thousand conscripts, infantry under general Travot. The division into wings and a centre, each commanded by a lieutenant-general continued, yet this distinction was not attended to in the movements. Reille though commanding the right wing was at Maubourget on the left of the line of battle; D’Erlon commanding the centre was at Marsiac on the right covering the road to Auch; Clauzel was at Rabastens forming a reserve to both. The advanced guards were towards Plaissance on the right, Madiran in the centre, and Lembege on the left. Soult thus covered Tarbes, and could move on a direct line by good roads either to Auch or Pau.
[Sidenote: March.]
Lord Wellington driven by necessity now sent orders to Giron’s Andalusians and Del Parque’s troops to enter France from the Bastan, although Freyre’s soldiers had by their outrages already created a wide-spread consternation. His head-quarters were fixed at Aire, his army was in position on each side of the Adour, he had repaired all the bridges behind him, restored that over the Lees in his front, and dispersed some small bands which had appeared upon his left flank and rear: Soult had however organized a more powerful system of partizans towards the mountains and only wanted money to put them in activity. The main bodies of the two armies were a long day’s march asunder, but their advanced posts were not very distant, the regular cavalry had frequent encounters and both generals claimed the superiority though neither made any particular report.
On the night of the 7th Soult thinking to find only some weak parties at Pau sent a strong detachment there to arrest the nobles who had assembled to welcome the duke of Angoulême, but general Fane getting there before him with a brigade of infantry and two regiments of cavalry the stroke failed; however the French returning by another road made prisoners of an officer and four or five English dragoons. Meanwhile a second detachment penetrating between Pau and Aire carried off a post of correspondence; and two days after, when Fane had quitted Pau, a French officer accompanied by only four hussars captured there thirty-four Portuguese with their commander and ten loaded mules. The French general having by these excursions obtained exact intelligence of Beresford’s march to Bordeaux resolved to attack the allies, and the more readily that Napoleon had recently sent him instructions to draw the war to the side of Pau keeping his left resting on the Pyrenees, which accorded with his own designs.
[Sidenote: See plan 10.]
Lord Wellington’s main body was now concentrated round Aire and Barcelona, yet divided by the Adour and the advanced guards were pushed to Garlin, Conchez, Viella, Riscle and Pouydraguien, that is to say, on a semicircle to the front and about half a march in advance. Soult therefore thought to strike a good blow, and gathering his divisions on the side of Maubourget the 12th, marched on the 13th, designing to throw himself upon the high tabular land between Pau and Aire, and then act according to circumstances.
[Sidenote: Memoirs by general Berton, MSS.]
[Sidenote: Note by sir John Campbell, MSS.]
The country was suited to the action of all arms, offering a number of long and nearly parallel ridges of moderate height, the sides of which were sometimes covered with vineyards, but the summits commonly so open that troops could move along them without much difficulty, and between these ranges a number of small rivers and muddy fords descended from the Pyrenees to the Adour. This conformation determined the order of the French general’s march which followed the courses of these rivers. Leaving one regiment of cavalry to watch the valley of the Adour he moved with the rest of his army by Lembege upon Conchez down the smaller Lees. Clauzel thus seized the high land of Daisse and pushed troops to Portet; Reille supported him at Conchez; D’Erlon remained behind that place in reserve. In this position the head of the columns, pointing direct upon Aire, separated Viella from Garlin which was the right of general Hill’s position, and menaced that general’s posts on the great Lees. Meanwhile Pierre Soult marching with three regiments of cavalry along the high land between the two Lees, reached Mascaras and the castle of Sault, he thus covered the left flank of the French army and pushed Fane’s cavalry posts back with the loss of two officers taken and a few men wounded. During this movement Berton advancing from Madiran with two regiments of cavalry towards Viella, on the right flank of the French army, endeavoured to cross the Saye river at a difficult muddy ford near the broken bridge. Sir John Campbell leading a squadron of the fourth Portuguese cavalry overthrew the head of his column, but the Portuguese horsemen were too few to dispute the passage and Berton finally getting a regiment over higher up, gained the table-land above, and charging the rear of the retiring troops in a narrow way leading to the Aire road killed several and took some prisoners, amongst them Bernardo de Sà the since well-known count of Bandeira.
This terminated the French operations for the day, and lord Wellington imagining the arrival of Suchet’s troops had made Soult thus bold, resolved to keep on the defensive until his reinforcements and detachments could come up. Hill however passed the greater Lees partly to support his posts partly to make out the force and true direction of the French movement, but he recrossed that river during the night and finally occupied the strong platform between Aire and Garlin which Soult had designed to seize. Lord Wellington immediately brought the third and sixth division and the heavy cavalry over the Adour to his support, leaving the light division with the hussar brigade still on the right bank. The bulk of the army thus occupied a strong position parallel with the Pau road. The right was at Garlin, the left at Aire, the front covered by the greater Lees a river difficult to pass; Fane’s cavalry was extended along the Pau road as far as Boelho, and on the left of the Adour the hussars pushed the French cavalry regiment left there back upon Plaissance.
On the morning of the 14th Soult intending to fall on Hill, whose columns he had seen the evening before on the right of the Lees, drove in the advanced posts which had been left to cover the retrograde movement, and then examined the allies’ new position; but these operations wasted the day, and towards evening he disposed his army on the heights between the two Lees, placing Clauzel and D’Erlon at Castle Pugon opposite Garlin, and Reille in reserve at Portet. Meanwhile Pierre Soult carried three regiments of cavalry to Clarac, on the Pau road, to intercept the communications with that town and to menace the right flank of the allies, against which the whole French army was now pointing. Fane’s outposts being thus assailed retired with some loss at first but they were soon supported and drove the French horsemen in disorder clear off the Pau road to Carere.
[Sidenote: Morning States, MSS.]
Soult now seeing the strength of the position above Aire, and hearing from the peasants that forty or fifty thousand men were concentrated there, feared to attack, but changing his plan resolved to hover about the right flank of the allies in the hopes of enticing them from their vantage-ground. Lord Wellington on the other hand drew his cavalry posts down the valley of the Adour, and keeping close on that side massed his forces on the right in expectation of an attack. In fine each general acting upon false intelligence of the other’s strength was afraid to strike. The English commander’s error as to the junction of Suchet’s troops was encouraged by Soult, who had formed his battalions upon two ranks instead of three to give himself an appearance of strength, and in the same view had caused his reserve of conscripts to move in rear of his line of battle. And he also judged the allies’ strength by what it might have been rather than by what it was; for though Freyre’s Spaniards and Ponsonby’s dragoons were now up, the whole force did not exceed thirty-six thousand men, including the light division and the hussars who were on the right bank of the Adour. This number was however increasing every hour by the arrival of detachments and reserves; and it behoved Soult, who was entangled in a country extremely difficult if rain should fall, to watch that Wellington while holding the French in check with his right wing did not strike with his left by Maubourget and Tarbes, and thus cast them upon the mountains about Lourdes.
This danger, and the intelligence now obtained of the fall of Bordeaux, induced the French general to retire before day on the 16th to Lembege and Simacourbe, where he occupied both sides of the two branches of the Lees and the heights between them; however his outposts remained at Conchez, and Pierre Soult again getting upon the Pau road detached a hundred chosen troopers against the allies’ communication with Orthes. Captain Dania commanding these men making a forced march reached Hagetnau at nightfall, surprised six officers and eight medical men with their baggage, made a number of other prisoners and returned on the evening of the 18th. This enterprize extended to such a distance from the army was supposed to be executed by the bands, and seemed to indicate a disposition for insurrection; wherefore lord Wellington to check it seized the civil authorities at Hagetnau, and declared that he would hang all the peasants caught in arms and burn their villages.
[Sidenote: Morning States, MSS.]
The offensive movement of the French general had now terminated, he sent his conscripts at once to Toulouse and prepared for a rapid retreat on that place. His recent operations had been commenced too late, he should have been on the Lees the 10th or 11th when there were not more than twenty thousand infantry and two thousand five hundred cavalry to oppose him between Aire and Garlin. On the other hand the passive state of Wellington, which had been too much prolonged, was now also at an end, all his reinforcements and detachments were either up or close at hand, and he could put in motion six Anglo-Portuguese and three Spanish divisions of infantry, furnishing forty thousand bayonets, with five brigades of cavalry, furnishing nearly six thousand sabres, and from fifty to sixty pieces of artillery.
On the evening of the 17th, the English general pushed the hussars up the valley of the Adour, towards Plaissance, supporting them with the light division, which was followed at the distance of half a march by the fourth division coming from the side of Roquefort, on its return from Langon.
[Sidenote: Plan 10.]
The 18th at daylight the whole army was in movement, the hussars with the light and the fourth division, forming the left, marched upon Plaissance; Hill’s troops forming the right marched from Garlin upon Conchez, keeping a detachment on the road to Pau in observation of Pierre Soult’s cavalry. The main body moved in the centre, under Wellington in person, to Viella, by the high road leading from Aire to Maubourget. The French right was thus turned by the valley of the Adour, while general Hill with a sharp skirmish, in which about eighty British and Germans were killed and wounded, drove back their outposts upon Lembege.
[Sidenote: Berton’s Memoir, MSS.]
[Sidenote: Soult’s Official Report, MSS.]
Soult retired during the night to a strong ridge having a small river with rugged banks, called the Laiza, in his front, and his right under D’Erlon was extended towards Vic Bigorre on the great road of Tarbes. Meanwhile Berton’s cavalry, one regiment of which retreating from Viella on the 16th disengaged itself with some difficulty and loss, reached Maubourget, and took post in column behind that place, the road being confined on each side by deep and wide ditches. In this situation pressed by Bock’s cavalry, which preceded the centre column of the allies, the French horsemen suddenly charged the Germans, at first with success, taking an officer and some men, but finally they were beaten and retreated through Vic Bigorre. Soult thinking a flanking column only was on this side in the valley of the Adour, resolved to fall upon it with his whole army; but he recognised the skill of his opponent when he found that the whole of the allies’ centre, moving by Madiran, had been thrown on to the Tarbes road while he was retiring from Lembege. This heavy mass was now approaching Vic Bigorre, the light division, coming from Plaissance up the right bank of the Adour, were already near Auriebat, pointing to Rabastens, upon which place the hussars had already driven the French cavalry left in observation when the army first advanced: Vic Bigorre was thus turned, Berton’s horsemen had passed it in retreat and the danger was imminent. The French general immediately ordered Berton to support the cavalry regiment at Rabastens and cover that road to Tarbes. Then directing D’Erlon to take post at Vic Bigorre and check the allies on the main road, he marched, in person and in all haste, with Clauzel’s and Reille’s divisions to Tarbes by a circuitous road leading through Ger-sur-landes.
D’Erlon not seeming to comprehend the crisis moved slowly, with his baggage in front, and having the river Lechez to cross, rode on before his troops expecting to find Berton at Vic Bigorre, but he met the German cavalry there. Then indeed he hurried his march yet he had only time to place Darricau’s division, now under general Paris, amongst some vineyards, two miles in front of Vic Bigorre, when hither came Picton to the support of the cavalry and fell upon him.
Combat of Vic Bigorre.—The French left flank was secured by the Lechez river, but their right, extending towards the Adour, being loose was menaced by the German cavalry while the front was attacked by Picton. The action commenced about two o’clock, and Paris was soon driven back in disorder, but then D’Armagnac’s division entered the line and extending to the Adour renewed the fight, which lasted until D’Erlon, after losing many men, saw his right turned, beyond the Adour, by the light division and by the hussars who were now close to Rabastens, whereupon he likewise fell back behind Vic Bigorre, and took post for the night. The action was vigorous. About two hundred and fifty Anglo-Portuguese, men and officers, fell, and amongst them died colonel Henry Sturgeon so often mentioned in this history. Skilled to excellence in almost every branch of war and possessing a variety of accomplishments, he used his gifts so gently for himself and so usefully for the service that envy offered no bar to admiration, and the whole army felt painfully mortified that his merits were passed unnoticed in the public despatches.
Soult’s march through the deep sandy plain of Ger was harassing, and would have been dangerous if lord Wellington had sent Hill’s cavalry, now reinforced by two regiments of heavy dragoons, in pursuit; but the country was unfavorable for quick observation and the French covered their movements with rear-guards whose real numbers it was difficult to ascertain. One of these bodies was posted on a hill the end of which abutted on the high road, the slope being clothed with trees and defended by skirmishers. Lord Wellington was desirous to know whether a small or a large force thus barred his way, but all who endeavoured to ascertain the fact were stopped by the fire of the enemy. At last captain William Light, distinguished by the variety of his attainments, an artist, musician, mechanist, seaman, and soldier, made the trial. He rode forward as if he would force his way through the French skirmishers, but when in the wood dropt his reins and leaned back as if badly wounded; his horse appeared to canter wildly along the front of the enemy’s light troops, and they thinking him mortally hurt ceased their fire and took no further notice. He thus passed unobserved through the wood to the other side of the hill, where there were no skirmishers, and ascending to the open summit above, put spurs to his horse and galloped along the French main line counting their regiments as he passed. His sudden appearance, his blue undress, his daring confidence and his speed, made the French doubt if he was an enemy, and a few shots only were discharged, while he, dashing down the opposite declivity, broke from the rear through the very skirmishers whose fire he had first essayed in front. Reaching the spot where lord Wellington stood he told him there were but five battalions on the hill.
Soult now felt that a rapid retreat upon Toulouse by St. Gaudens was inevitable, yet determined to dispute every position which offered the least advantage, his army was on the morning of the 20th again in line of battle on the heights of Oleac, two or three miles behind Tarbes, and covering Tournay on the road to St. Gaudens: however he still held Tarbes with Clauzel’s corps, which was extended on the right towards Trie, as if to retain a power of retreat by that road to Toulouse. The plain of Tarbes although apparently open was full of deep ditches which forbad the action of horsemen, wherefore he sent his brother with five regiments of cavalry to the Trie road, with orders to cover the right flank and observe the route to Auch, for he feared lest Wellington should intercept his retreat by that line.
At day-break the allies again advanced in two columns. The right under Hill moved along the high road. The left under Wellington in person was composed of the light division and hussars, Ponsonby’s heavy cavalry, the sixth division and Freyre’s Spaniards. It marched by the road from Rabastens, and general Cole still making forced marches with the fourth division and Vivian’s cavalry, followed from Beaumarchez and La Deveze, sending detachments through Marciac to watch Pierre Soult on the side of Trie.
[Sidenote: Plan 10.]
Combat of Tarbes.—The Adour separated Wellington’s columns, but when the left approached Tarbes, the light division and the hussars bringing up their right shoulders attacked the centre of Harispe’s division, which occupied the heights of Orliex and commanded the road from Rabastens with two guns. Under cover of this attack general Clinton made a flank movement to his left through the village of Dours, and opening a cannonade against Harispe’s right endeavoured to get between that general and Soult’s main position at Oleac. Meanwhile general Hill moving by the other bank of the Adour assailed the town and bridge of Tarbes, which was defended by Villatte’s division. These operations were designed to envelope and crush Clauzel’s two divisions, which seemed the more easy because there appeared to be only a fine plain, fit for the action of all the cavalry, between him and Soult. The latter however, having sent his baggage and encumbrances off during the night, saw the movement without alarm, he was better acquainted with the nature of the plain behind Harispe and had made roads to enable him to retreat upon the second position without passing through Tarbes. Nevertheless Clauzel was in some danger, for while Hill menaced his left at Tarbes, the light division supported with cavalry and guns fell upon his centre at Orleix, and general Clinton opening a brisk cannonade passed through the villages of Oleat and Boulin, penetrated between Harispe and Pierre Soult, and cut the latter off from the army.
The action was begun about twelve o’clock. Hill’s artillery thundered on the right, Clinton’s answered it on the left, and Alten threw the light division in mass upon the centre where Harispe’s left brigade posted on a strong hill was suddenly assailed by the three rifle battalions. Here the fight was short yet wonderfully fierce and violent, for the French, probably thinking their opponents to be Portuguese on account of their green dress, charged with great hardiness, and being encountered by men not accustomed to yield, they fought muzzle to muzzle, and it was difficult to judge at first who would win. At last the French gave way, and Harispe’s centre being thus suddenly overthrown he retired rapidly through the fields, by the ways previously opened, before Clinton could get into his rear. Meanwhile Hill forced the passage of the Adour at Tarbes and Villatte also retreated along the high road to Tournay, but under a continued cannonade. The flat country was now covered with confused masses of pursuers and pursued, all moving precipitately with an eager musquetry, the French guns also replying as they could to the allies’ artillery. The situation of the retreating troops seemed desperate, but as Soult had foreseen, the deep ditches and enclosures and the small copses, villages, and farm-houses, prevented the British cavalry from acting; Clauzel therefore extricating his troops with great ability from their dangerous situation, finally gained the main position, where four fresh divisions were drawn up in order of battle and immediately opened all their batteries on the allies. The pursuit was thus checked, and before lord Wellington could make arrangements for a new attack darkness came on and the army halted on the banks of the Larret and Larros rivers. The loss of the French is unknown, that of the allies did not exceed one hundred and twenty, but of that number twelve officers and eighty men were of the rifle battalions.
[Sidenote: Official Report, MSS.]
[Sidenote: Clauzel’s Orders, MSS.]
During the night Soult retreated in two columns, one by the main road, the other on the left of it, guided by fires lighted on different hills as points of direction. The next day he reached St. Gaudens with D’Erlon’s and Reille’s corps, while Clauzel, who had retreated across the fields, halted at Monrejean and was there rejoined by Pierre Soult’s cavalry. This march of more than thirty miles was made with a view to gain Toulouse in the most rapid manner. For the French general, having now seen nearly all Wellington’s infantry and his five thousand horsemen, and hearing from his brother that the fourth division and Vivian’s cavalry were pointing towards Mielan on his right, feared that the allies would by Trie and Castlenau suddenly gain the plains of Muret and intercept his retreat upon Toulouse, which was his great depôt, the knot of all his future combinations, and the only position where he could hope to make a successful stand with his small army.
The allies pursued in three columns by St. Gaudens, Galan, and Trie, but their marches were short.
On the 21st Beresford who had assumed the command of the left column was at Castlenau, Hill in the vicinity of Lannemezan, Wellington at Tournay.
The 22d Beresford was at Castlenau, Wellington at Galan, Hill at Monrejean, and Fane’s horsemen pushed forwards to St. Gaudens. Here four squadrons of French cavalry were drawn up in front of the town. Overthrown by two squadrons of the thirteenth dragoons at the first shock, they galloped in disorder through St. Gaudens, yet rallied on the other side and were again broken and pursued for two miles, many being sabred and above a hundred taken prisoners. In this action the veteran major Dogherty of the thirteenth was seen charging between his two sons at the head of the leading squadron.
On the 23d Hill was at St. Gaudens, Beresford at Puymauren, Wellington at Boulogne.
The 24th Hill was in St. Martory, Beresford in Lombez, Wellington at Isle en Dodon.
The 25th Hill entered Caceres, Beresford reached St. Foy, and Wellington was at Samatan.
The 26th Beresford entered St. Lys and marching in order of battle by his left, while his cavalry skirmished on the right, took post on the Auch road behind the Aussonnelle stream, facing the French army, which was on the Touch covering Toulouse. The allies thus took seven days to march what Soult had done in four.
This tardiness, idly characterized by French military writers as the sign of timidity and indecision of character, has been by English writers excused on the score of wet weather and the encumbrance of a large train of artillery and pontoons; yet the rain equally affected the French, and the pontoons might have been as usefully waited for on the Garonne after the French army had been pressed in its retreat of ninety miles. It is more probable that the English general, not exactly informed of Soult’s real numbers nor of his true line of retreat, nor perfectly acquainted with the country, was cautious; because being then acrimoniously disputing with the duke of Angoulême he was also uneasy as to the state of the country behind him and on his flanks. The partizans were beginning to stir, his reinforcements from England and Portugal were stopped, and admiral Penrose had not yet entered the Garonne. On the other hand Ferdinand had entered Spain and formed that engagement with Suchet about the garrisons already mentioned. In fine, lord Wellington found himself with about forty-five thousand men composed of different nations, the Spaniards being almost as dangerous as useful to him, opposed to an able and obstinate enemy, and engaged on a line of operations running more than a hundred and fifty miles along the French frontier. His right flank was likely to be vexed by the partizans forming in the Pyrenees, his left flank by those behind the Garonne on the right bank of which a considerable regular force was also collecting, while the generals commanding the military districts beyond Toulouse were forming corps of volunteers national guards and old soldiers of the regular depôts: and ever he expected Suchet to arrive on his front and overmatch him in numbers. He was careful therefore to keep his troops well in hand, and to spare them fatigue that the hospitals might not increase. In battle their bravery would he knew bring him through any crisis, but if wearing down their numbers by forced marches he should cover the country with small posts and hospital stations, the French people would be tempted to rise against him. So little therefore was his caution allied to timidity that it was no slight indication of daring to have advanced at all.
It does seem however that with an overwhelming cavalry, and great superiority of artillery he should not have suffered the French general so to escape his hands. It must be admitted also that Soult proved himself a very able commander. His halting on the Adour, his success in reviving the courage of his army, and the front he shewed in hopes to prevent his adversary from detaching troops against Bordeaux, were proofs not only of a firm unyielding temper but of a clear and ready judgment. For though, contrary to his hopes, lord Wellington did send Beresford against Bordeaux, it was not on military grounds but because treason was there to aid him. Meanwhile he was forced to keep his army for fifteen days passive within a few miles of an army he had just defeated, permitting his adversary to reorganize and restore the discipline and courage of the old troops, to rally the dispersed conscripts, to prepare the means of a partizan warfare, to send off all his encumbrances and sick to Toulouse, and to begin fortifying that city as a final and secure retreat: for the works there were commenced on the 3d or 4th of March, and at this time the entrenchments covering the bridge and suburb of St. Cyprien were nearly completed. The French general was even the first to retake the offensive after Orthes, too late indeed, and he struck no important blow, and twice placed his army in dangerous situations; but his delay was a matter of necessity arising from the loss of his magazines, and if he got into difficulties they were inseparable from his operations and he extricated himself again.
That he gained no advantages in fight is rather argument for lord Wellington than against Soult. The latter sought but did not find a favourable opportunity to strike, and it would have been unwise, because his adversary gave him no opening, to have fallen desperately upon superior numbers in a strong position with an army so recently defeated, and whose restored confidence it was so essential not to shake again by a repulse. He increased that confidence by appearing to insult the allied army with an inferior force, and in combination with his energetic proclamation encouraged the Napoleonists and alarmed the Bourbonists; lastly, by his rapid retreat from Tarbes he gained two days to establish and strengthen himself on his grand position at Toulouse. And certainly he deceived his adversary, no common general and at the head of no common army; for so little did Wellington expect him to make a determined stand there, that in a letter written on the 26th to sir John Hope, he says, “I fear the Garonne is too full and large for our bridge, if not we shall be in that town (Toulouse) I hope immediately.”
[Sidenote: Choumara.]
The French general’s firmness and the extent of his views cannot however be fairly judged by merely considering his movements in the field. Having early proved the power of his adversary, he had never deceived himself about the ultimate course of the campaign and therefore struggled without hope, a hard and distressing task; yet he showed no faintness, fighting continually, and always for delay as thinking Suchet would finally cast personal feelings aside and strike for his country. Nor did he forbear importuning that marshal to do so. Notwithstanding his previous disappointments he wrote to him again on the 9th of February, urging the danger of the crisis, the certainty that the allies would make the greatest effort on the western frontier, and praying him to abandon Catalonia and come with the bulk of his troops to Bearn: in the same strain he wrote to the minister of war, and his letters reached their destinations on the 13th. Suchet, having no orders to the contrary, could therefore have joined him with thirteen thousand men before the battle of Orthes; but that marshal giving a deceptive statement of his forces in reply, coldly observed, that if he marched anywhere it would be to join the emperor and not the duke of Dalmatia. The latter continued notwithstanding to inform him of all his battles and his movements, and his accumulating distresses, yet in vain, and Suchet’s apathy would be incredible but for the unequivocal proofs of it furnished in the work of the French engineer Choumara.