Book 21 — CHAPTER V. (continued 2)

“The soldiers, instead of preparing food and restingWellington’s Dispatches. themselves after the battle dispersed in the night to plunder, and were so fatigued that when the rain came on the next day they were incapable of marching and had more stragglers than the beaten enemy. Eighteen days after the victory twelve thousand five hundred men, chiefly British, were absent, most of them marauding in the mountains.”

Such were the reasons assigned by the English general for his slack pursuit after the battle of Vittoria, yet he had commanded that army for six years! Was he then deficient in the first qualification of a general, the art of disciplining and inspiring troops, or was the English military system defective? It is certain that he always exacted the confidence of his soldiers as a leader. It is not so certain that he ever gained their affections. The barbarity of the English military code excited public horror, the inequality of promotion created public discontent; yet the general complained he had no adequate power to reward or punish, and he condemned alike the system and the soldiers it produced. The latter “were detestable for every thing but fighting, and the officers as culpable as the men.” The vehemence of these censures is inconsistent with his celebrated observation, subsequently made, namely, “that he thought he could go any where and do any thing with the army that fought on the Pyrenees,” and although it cannot be denied that his complaints were generally too well-founded, there were thousands of true and noble soldiers, and zealous worthy officers, who served their country honestly and merited no reproaches. It is enough that they have been since neglected, exactly in proportion to their want of that corrupt aristocratic influence which produced the evils complained of.

2º. When the misconduct of the troops had thus weakened the effect of victory, the question of following Joseph at once into France assumed a new aspect. Wellington’s system of warfare had never varied after the battle of Talavera. Rejecting dangerous enterprize, it rested on profound calculation both as to time and resources for the accomplishment of a particular object, namely, the gradual liberation of Spain by the Anglo-Portuguese army. Not that he held it impossible to attain that object suddenly, and his battles in India, the passage of the Douro, the advance to Talavera, prove that by nature he was inclined to daring operations; but such efforts, however glorious, could not be adopted by a commander who feared even the loss of a brigade lest the government he served should put an end to the war. Neither was it suitable to the state of his relations with the Portuguese and Spaniards; their ignorance jealousy and passionate pride, fierce in proportion to their weakness and improvidence, would have enhanced every danger.

No man could have anticipated the extraordinary errors of the French in 1813. Wellington did not expect to cross the Ebro before the end of the campaign, and his battering train was prepared for the siege of Burgos not for that of Bayonne. A sudden invasion of France her military reputation considered, was therefore quite out of the pale of his methodized system of warfare, which was founded upon political as well as military considerations; and of the most complicated nature, seeing that he had at all times to deal with the personal and factious interests and passions, as well as the great state interests of three distinct nations two of which abhorred each other. At this moment also, the uncertain state of affairs in Germany strongly influenced his views. An armistice which might end in a separate peace excluding England, would have brought Napoleon’s whole force to the Pyrenees, and Wellington held cheap both the military and political proceedings of the coalesced powers. “I would not move a corporal’s guard in reliance upon such a system,” was the significant phrase he employed to express his contempt.

These considerations justified his caution as to invading France, but there were local military reasons equally cogent. 1º. He could not dispense with a secure harbour, because the fortresses still in possession of the French, namely, Santona, Pancorbo, Pampeluna, and St. Sebastian, interrupted his communications with the interior of Spain; hence the siege of the latter place. 2º. He had to guard against the union of Suchet and Clauzel on his right flank; hence his efforts to cut off the last-named general; hence also the blockade of Pampeluna in preference to siege and the launching of Mina and the bands on the side of Zaragoza.

3º. After Vittoria the nature of the campaign depended upon Suchet’s operations, which were rendered more important by Murray’s misconduct. The allied force on the eastern coast was badly organized, it did not advance from Valencia as we have seen until the 16th, and then only partially and by the coast, whereas Suchet had assembled more than twenty thousand excellent troops on the Ebro as early as the 12th of July; and had he continued his march upon Zaragoza he would have saved the castle of that place with its stores. Then rallying Paris’ division, he could have menaced Wellington’s flank with twenty-five thousand men exclusive of Clauzel’s force, and if that general joined him with forty thousand.

On the 16th, the day lord William Bentinck quitted Valencia, Suchet might have marched from Zaragoza on Tudela or Sanguessa, and Soult’s preparations originally made as we have seen to attack on the 23d instead of the 25th, would have naturally been hastened. How difficult it would then have been for the allies to maintain themselves beyond the Ebro is evident, much more so to hold a forward position in France. That Wellington feared an operation of this nature is clear from his instructions to lord William Bentinck and to Mina; and because Picton’s and Cole’s divisions instead of occupying the passes were kept behind the mountains solely to watch Clauzel; when the latter had regained the frontier of France Cole was permitted to join Byng and Morillo. It follows that the operations after the battle of Vittoria were well considered and consonant to lord Wellington’s general system. Their wisdom would have been proved if Suchet had seized the advantages within his reach.

4º. A general’s capacity is sometimes more taxed to profit from a victory than to gain one. Wellington, master of all Spain, Catalonia excepted, desired to establish himself solidly in the Pyrenees, lest a separate peace in Germany should enable Napoleon to turn his whole force against the allies. In this expectation, with astonishing exertion of body and mind, he had in three days achieved a rigorous examination of the whole mass of the Western Pyrenees, and concluded that if Pampeluna and San Sebastian fell, a defensive position as strong as that of Portugal, and a much stronger one than could be found behind the Ebro, might be established. But to invest those places and maintain so difficult a covering line was a greater task than to win the battle of Vittoria. However, the early fall of San Sebastian he expected, because the errors of execution in that siege could not be foreseen, and also for gain of time he counted upon the disorganized state of the French army, upon Joseph’s want of military capacity, and upon the moral ascendancy which his own troops had acquired over the enemy by their victories. He could not anticipate the expeditious journey, the sudden arrival of Soult, whose rapid reorganization of the French army, and whose vigorous operations contrasted with Joseph’s abandonment of Spain, illustrated the old Greek saying, that a herd of deer led by a lion are more dangerous than a herd of lions led by a deer.

5º. The duke of Dalmatia was little beholden to fortune at the commencement of his movements. Her first contradiction was the bad weather, which breaking up the roads delayed the concentration of his army at St. Jean Pied de Port for two days; all officers know the effect which heavy rain and hard marches have upon the vigour and confidence of soldiers who are going to attack. If Soult had commenced on the 23d instead of the 25th the surprise would have been more complete his army more brisk; and as no conscript battalions would have arrived to delay Reille, that general would probably have been more ready in his attack, and might possibly have escaped the fog which on the 26th stopped his march along the superior crest of the mountain towards Vellate. On the other hand the allies would have been spared the unsuccessful assault on San Sebastian, and the pass of Maya might have been better furnished with troops. However Soult’s combinations were so well knit that more than one error in execution, and more than one accident of fortune, were necessary to baffle him. Had count D’Erlon followed his instructions even on the 26th general Hill would probably have been shouldered off the valley of Lanz, and Soult would have had twenty thousand additional troops in the combats of the 27th and 28th. Such failures however generally attend extensively combined movements, and it is by no means certain that the count would have been able to carry the position of the Col de Maya on the 25th, if all general Stewart’s forces had been posted there. It would therefore perhaps have been more strictly within the rules of art, if D’Erlon had been directed to leave one of his three divisions to menace the Col de Maya while he marched with the other two by St. Etienne de Baygorry up the Alduides. This movement, covered by the national guards who occupied the mountain of La Houssa, could not have been stopped by Campbell’s Portuguese brigade, and would have dislodged Hill from the Bastan while it secured the junction of D’Erlon with Soult on the crest of the superior chain.

6º. The intrepid constancy with which Byng and Ross defended their several positions on the 25th, the able and clean retreat made by general Cole as far as the heights of Linzoain, gave full effect to the errors of Reille and D’Erlon, and would probably have baffled Soult at an early period if general Picton had truly comprehended the importance of his position. Lord Wellington says that the concentration of the army would have been effected on the 27th if that officer and general Cole had not agreed in thinking it impossible to make a stand behind Linzoain; and surely the necessity of retreating on that day may be questioned. For if Cole with ten thousand men maintained the position in front of Altobiscar, Ibañeta, and Atalosti, Picton might have maintained the more contracted one behind Linzoain and Erro with twenty thousand. And that number he could have assembled, because Campbell’s Portuguese reached Eugui long before the evening of the 26th, and lord Wellington had directed O’Donnel to keep three thousand five hundred of the blockading troops in readiness to act in advance, of which Picton could not have been ignorant. It was impossible to turn him by the valley of Urroz that line being too rugged for the march of an army and not leading directly upon Pampeluna. The only roads into the Val de Zubiri were by Erro and Linzoain, lying close together and both leading upon the village of Zubiri over the ridges which Picton occupied, and the strength of which was evident from Soult’s declining an attack on the evening of the 26th when Cole only was before him. To abandon this ground so hastily when the concentration of the army depended upon keeping it, appears therefore an error, aggravated by the neglect of sending timely information to the commander-in-chief,Original Note by the Duke of Wellington, MSS. for lord Wellington did not know of the retreat until the morning of the 27th and then only from general Long. It might be that Picton’s messenger failed, but many should have been sent when a retrograde movement involving the fate of Pampeluna was contemplated.

It has been said that general Cole was the adviser of this retreat which if completed would have ruined lord Wellington’s campaign. This is incorrect, Picton was not a man to be guided by others. General Cole indeed gave him a report, drawn up by colonel Bell one of the ablest staff-officers of the army, which stated that no position suitable for aNote by General Cole, MSS. very inferior force existed between Zubiri and Pampeluna, and this was true in the sense of the report, which had reference only to a division not to an army; moreover, although the actual battle of Sauroren was fought by inferior numbers, the whole position, including the ridges of the second line occupied by Picton and the Spaniards, was only maintained by equal numbers; and if Soult had made the attack of the 28th on the evening of the 27th before the sixth division arrived, the position would have been carried. However there is no doubt thatIbid. colonel Bell’s report influenced Picton, and it was only when his troops had reached Huarte and Villalba that he suddenly resolved on battle. That was a military resolution, vigorous and prompt; and not the less worthy of praise that he so readily adopted Cole’s saving proposition to regain the more forward heights above Zabaldica.

7º. Marshal Soult appeared unwilling to attack on the evenings of the 26th and 27th. Yet success depended upon forestalling the allies at their point of concentration; and it is somewhat inexplicable that on the 28th, having possession of the ridge beyond the Lanz river and plenty of cavalry, he should have known so little of the sixth division’s movements. The general conception of his scheme on the 30th has also been blamed by some of his own countrymen, apparently from ignorance of the facts and because it failed. Crowned with success it would have been cited as a fine illustration of the art of war. To have retired at once by the two valleys of Zubiri and Lanz after being reinforced with twenty thousand men would have given great importance to his repulse on the 28th; his reputation as a general capable of restoring the French affairs would have vanished, and mischief only have accrued, even though he should have effected his retreat safely, which, regard being had to the narrowness of the valleys the position of general Hill on his right and the boldness of his adversary, was not certain. To abandon the valley of Zubiri and secure that of Lanz; to obtain another and shorter line of retreat by the Doña Maria pass; to crush general Hill with superior numbers, and thus gaining the Irurzun road to succour San Sebastian, or failing of that, to secure the union of the whole army and give to his retreat the appearance of an able offensive movement; to combine all these chances by one operation immediately after a severe check was Soult’s plan, it was not impracticable and was surely the conception of a great commander.

To succeed however it was essential either to beat general Hill off-hand and thus draw Wellington to that side by the way of Marcalain, or to secure the defence of the French left in such a solid manner that no efforts against it should prevail to the detriment of the offensive movement on the right: neither was effected. The French general indeed brought an overwhelming force to bear upon Hill, and drove him from the road of Irurzun, but he did not crush him, because that general fought so strongly and retired with such good order, that beyond the loss of the position no injury was sustained. Meanwhile the left wing of the French was completely beaten, and thus the advantage gained on the right was more than nullified. Soult trusted to the remarkable defensive strength of the ground occupied by his left, and he had reason to do so, for it was nearly impregnable. Lord Wellington turned it on both flanks at the same time, but neither Picton’s advance into the valley of Zubiri on Foy’s left, nor Cole’s front attack on that general, nor Byng’s assault upon the village of Sauroren, would have seriously damaged the French without the sudden and complete success of general Inglis beyond the Lanz. The other attacks would indeed have forced the French to retire somewhat hastily up the valley of the Lanz, yet they could have held together in mass secure of their junction with Soult. But when the ridges running between them and the right wing of the French army were carried by Inglis, and the whole of the seventh division was thrown upon their flank and rear, the front attack became decisive. It is clear therefore that the key of the defence was on the ridge beyond the Lanz, and instead of two regiments Clauzel should have placed two divisions there.

8º. Lord Wellington’s quick perception and vigorous stroke on the 30th were to be expected from such a consummate commander, yet he certainly was not master of all the bearings of the French general’s operations; he knew neither the extent of Hill’s danger nor the difficulties of Soult, otherwise it is probable that he would have put stronger columns in motion, and at an earlier hour, towards the pass of Doña Maria on the morning of the 31st. Hill did not commence his march that day until 8 o’clock, and it has been shewn that even with the help of the seventh division he was too weak against the heavy mass of the retreating French army. The faults and accidents which baffled Wellington’s after operations have been sufficiently touched upon in the narrative, but he halted in the midst of his victorious career, when Soult’s army was broken and flying, when Suchet had retired into Catalonia, and all things seemed favourable for the invasion of France.

His motives for this were strong. He knew the armistice in Germany had been renewed with a view to peace, and he had therefore reason to expect Soult would be reinforced. A forward position in France would have lent his right to the enemy who pivotted upon St. Jean Pied de Port could operate against his flank. His arrangements for supply, and intercourse with his depôts and hospitals, would have been more difficult and complicated, and as the enemy possessed all the French and Spanish fortresses commanding the great roads, his need to gain one, at least, before the season closed, was absolute if he would not resign his communications with the interior of Spain. Then long marches and frequent combats had fatigued his troops destroyed their shoes and used up their musquet ammunition; and the loss of men had been great, especially of British in the second division where their proportion to foreign troops was become too small. The difficulty of re-equipping the troops would have been increased by entering an enemy’s state, because the English system did not make war support war and his communications would have been lengthened. Finally it was France that was to be invaded, France in which every person was a soldier, where the whole population was armed and organised under men, not as in other countries inexperienced in war but who had all served more or less. Beyond the Adour the army could not advance, and if a separate peace was made by the northern powers, if any misfortune befel the allies in Catalonia so as to leave Suchet at liberty to operate towards Pampeluna, or if Soult profiting from the possession of San Jean Pied de Port should turn the right flank of the new position, a retreat into Spain would become necessary, and however short would be dangerous from the hostility and warlike disposition of the people directed in a military manner.

These reasons joined to the fact, that a forward position, although offering better communications from right to left, would have given the enemy greater facilities for operating against an army which must until the fortresses fell hold a defensive and somewhat extended line, were conclusive as to the rashness of an invasion; but they do not appear so conclusive as to the necessity of stopping short after the action of the 2d of August. The questions were distinct. The one was a great measure involving vast political and military conditions, the other was simply whether Wellington should profit of his own victory and the enemy’s distresses; and in this view the objections above-mentioned, save the want of shoes the scarcity of ammunition and the fatigue of the troops, are inapplicable. But in the two last particulars the allies were not so badly off as the enemy, and in the first not so deficient as to cripple the army, wherefore if the advantage to be gained was worth the effort it was an error to halt.

The solution of this problem is to be found in the comparative condition of the armies. Soult had recovered his reserve his cavalry and artillery, but Wellington was reinforced by general Graham’s corps which was more numerous and powerful than Villate’s reserve. The new chances then were for the allies, and the action of the 2d of August demonstrated that their opponents however strongly posted could not stand before them; one more victory would have gone nigh to destroy the French force altogether; for such was the disorder that Maucune’s division had on the 2d only one thousandSoult’s Official Report, MSS. men left out of more than five thousand, and on the 6th it had still a thousand stragglers besides killed and wounded: Conroux’s and La Martinière’s divisions were scarcely in better plight, and the losses of the other divisions although less remarkable were great. It must also be remembered that general Foy with eight thousand men was cut off from the main body; and the Nivelle, the sources of which were in the allies’ power, was behind the French. With their left pressed from the pass of Maya, and their front vigorously assailed by the main body of the allies, they could hardly have keptSoult’s Official Report, MSS. together, since more than twenty-one thousand men exclusive of Foy’s troops were then absent from their colours. And as late as the 12th of August Soult warned the minister of war that he was indeed preparing to assail his enemy again, but he had not the means of resisting a counter-attack, although he held a different language to his armyAppendix, 4. and to the people of the country.

Had Cæsar halted because his soldiers were fatigued, Pharsalia would have been but a common battle.