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viands were picked up in profusion. "The wives and mistresses of the officers had gathered together in one house, where they were safe, and from whence they were sent in their own carriages with a flag of truce to Pamplona. Poodles, parrots, and monkeys were among the prisoners. Seldom has such a scene of confusion been witnessed as that which the roads leading from the field of battle presented; broken-down waggons stocked with claret and champagne, others laden with eatables dressed and undressed, casks of brandy, apparel of every kind, barrels of money, books, papers, sheep, cattle, horses, and mules, abandoned in the flight. The baggage was presently rifled, and the followers of the camp attired themselves in the gala-dresses of the flying enemy. Portguuese boys figured about in the dress-coats of French general officers; and they who happened to draw a woman's wardrobe in the lottery converted silks, satins, and embroidered muslins into scarfs and sashes for their masquerade triumph. Some of the more fortunate soldiers got possession of the army chest, and loaded themselves with money.

The camp of every division was like a fair; benches were laid from waggon to waggon, and there the soldiers held an auction through the night, and disposed of such plunder as had fallen to their share, to any one who would purchase it."* "The soldiers of the army," said Lord Wellington, "have got among them about a million sterling in money, with the exception of about 100,000 dollars which were got for the military chest."+ Among the innumerable trophies of the field was the baton or marshal's staff of Jourdan. Lord Wellington sent it to the prince-regent, who gave him in return the baton of a field-marshal of Great Britain. Of arms and materials of war there were taken 151 pieces of brass ordnance, 415 caissons, more than 14,000 round of ammunition, nearly 2,000,000 of musket-ball cartridges, 40,668 lbs. of gunpowder, 56 forage-waggons, and 44 forgewaggons. When the battle began the numerical strength of the two armies was about equal. on the side of the allies the Spaniards, though they behaved better than they had hitherto done, were not to be compared with the French soldiery. The French had in many actions made greater slaughter of a Spanish army, but they had never in any one instance reduced an army, even of raw volunteers, to such a state of total wreck.§ They saved themselves from destruction or from captivity by abandoning the whole matériel of the army, and by running like a mob. Only about 1000 of them were taken, for, lightened of their usual burthens,

* Southey.

But

+ Dispatches. "Even dollars became an article of sale, for they were too heavy to be carried in any great numbers: eight were offered for a guinea-English_guineas, which had been struck for the payment of the troops in Portugal, and made current there by a decree of the regency, being the gold currency. The people of Vittoria had their share in the spoils, and some of them indemnified themselves thus for what they had suffered in their property by the enemy's exactions. The city sustained no injury, though the French were driven through it, and though great part of the battle might be seen from every window."-Southey, Hist. of Peninsular War.

Wellington Dispatches. Southey..

they ran with wonderful alacrity; the country was too much intersected with canals and ditches for our cavalry to act with effect in pursuit; and our infantry, who moved in military order, could not be expected to keep up with a rout of fugitives. Moreover-as Wellington deeply regretted-the spoils of the field occupied and detained his troops; and the money, the wine, and the other luxuries they obtained induced some degree of sluggishness. This has happened in all similar cases. And there still remains to be added that the troops in their long march from the Portuguese frontier had worn out their shoes, and were in good part barefooted; while, owing to the slowness with which his supplies had been sent up, Wellington had no new shoes to give them. The French acknowledged a loss, in killed and wounded, of 8000 men; but their loss was unquestionably much greater. The total loss of the allies was 740 killed and 4174 wounded.* Lord Wellington was liberal and even enthusiastic in his praise of all engaged-of officers and men. He particularly acknowledged his obligations to Generals Graham and Hill, General Morillo, and General the Hon. W. Stewart, Generals the Earl of Dalhousie, Sir Thomas Picton, Sir Lowry Cole; to his quartermaster-general, Sir George Murray, who had again given the greatest assistance; to Lord Aylmer, the deputy-adjutantgeneral; and to many others, including Sir Richard Fletcher and the officers of the royal engineers. All the more scientific parts of the army had indeed been vastly improved since the time when Wellington first took the command of our forces in the Peninsula; and the department of the quartermaster-general, upon which so much depends, and the service of the engineers, had been brought from a very defective to an all but perfect condition, by Sir George Murray, Aylmer, Fletcher, and other able and painstaking men. other able and painstaking men. Wellington also mentioned in his dispatch that his serene highness the Hereditary Prince of Orange (now King of Holland) was in the field as his aide-de-camp, and conducted himself with his usual gallantry and intelligence.

The news of this decisive battle of Vittoria gave strength, spirit, and union to the allied armies acting against Bonaparte in Germany, dissipated the last misgivings and indecisions of Austria, broke

up the congress assembled at Prague, in Bohemia, which before would have treated with the French, and have left them in possession of many of their conquests; and it gave to the voice of the British government and its envoys a vast increase of consideration and influence. Without this battle of Vittoria and its glorious results in June, there would have been no battle of Leipzig in October.

King Joseph hardly once looked back until he had reached the strong walls of Pamplona, in Navarre, among lofty mountains, the offshoots of the Pyrenean chain. The garrison, which had

Out of this number the British had 501 killed, the Portuguese 150, the Spaniards only 89; while in wounded the British had 2807, the Portuguese 899, and the Spaniards 464,-Wellington Dispatches.

[graphic][merged small]

been reinforced and well supplied, and which had orders to husband its provisions and stores, in case of a siege or blockade (and a blockade or siege seemed now inevitable), admitted the runagate king or pretender, but would not open the gates to the flying, disorganised soldiers, who had lost all signs of discipline, and who were starving. The fugitives from Vittoria attempted to force an entrance over the walls of Pamplona; they attacked their countrymen in garrison as if they had been mortal foes, or English, or Spaniards; but they were repulsed by a fire of musketry. After this they continued their flight across the Pyrenees towards France; but, meeting with some supplies, they rallied in the fastnesses of those mountains, and waited there for reinforcements. General Clausel, who was coming up fast from Logroño with about 15,000 men, and would have been on the field of Vittoria if Wellington had lost any time or had delayed his attack, upon learning the issue of that battle, turned hastily back to Zaragoza, and fled rather than retreated thence, by Jaca and the central Pyrenees into France, losing all his artillery and most of his baggage on the road. General Foy, who was with another French corps d'armée at Bilbao when the great battle was fought, fell back rapidly upon French territory and the fortress of Bayonne, being warmly pursued by General Graham. A French garrison was left at San Sebastian, which place, as well as Pamplona, was very soon invested by the allies. Except on the eastern coast, where Suchet kept his ground with about 40,000 men, there was not a spot in all Spain where the French could move or show themselves.

Having established the blockade of Pamplona, and directed Graham to invest San Sebastian, Lord Wellington advanced with the main body of

*

his army to occupy the passes of the Pyrences, from Roncesvalles, so famed in war and poetry, to Irun, at the mouth of the Bidasoa. His lordship's movements were rapid, and would have been much more so if it had not been for Spanish procrastination and poverty, and for his want of proper ammunition and magazines. By the 25th of June he was near Pamplona, directing the Spaniards how they ought to proceed with the blockade; on the 28th he was at Caseda, on the river Aragon, where he was compelled to remain some days. spite of his recent triumph, he found the Spanish people and government still torpid-still waiting for everything to be done for them by others, and by the outlay of English money. The conscript fathers at Cadiz, preluding to what has taken place in more recent days, had begun a hot war against the wealthy clergy and monastic orders; and so

In

Through some mismanagement, our convoying ships on the coasts of the Peninsula had been diminished. What our government did with this withdrawn force we can scarcely discover, unless they sent the frigates-where our old frigates ought never to have been sent-to the shores and waters of the United States, to run the risk of encountering President Madison's leviathans. Many of our transports and store-ships were taken by French frigates and privateers on the coast of Portugal. In a dispatch to Earl Bathurst, dated the 24th of June, Lord Wellington alludes to his embarrassments, and says, " Ammunition required for the army has lately been delayed at Lisbon for want of convoy; and it is not yet arrived at Santander, and I am obliged to use the French ammunition, of a smaller calibre than our muskets, to make good our expenditure in the late action. The army cannot remain in this part of the country without magazines, notwithstanding its successes: and these magazines must be brought by sea, or they must be purchased with ready money. For the first time, I believe, it has happened to any British army that its communication by sea is insecure. Certainly we have not money to purchase in the country all we want. The increase of the naval force on the Lisbon station is likewise necessary, because our money must be transported from Lisbon by sea once a fortnight. We are too far from Lisbon to transport it by land; and the expense would be enormous."-Colonel Gurwood, Wellington Dispatches.

From the beginning of this war down to its termination, the marching, manoeuvring, and fighting parts of the business were what gave the commander in chief the least trouble; but he was obliged to attend to everything himself, and through the negligence or mistakes of others he was often left in very embarrassing and critical predica

ments.

viands were picked up in profusion. "The wives and mistresses of the officers had gathered together in one house, where they were safe, and from whence they were sent in their own carriages with a flag of truce to Pamplona. Poodles, parrots, and monkeys were among the prisoners. Seldom has such a scene of confusion been witnessed as that which the roads leading from the field of battle presented; broken-down waggons stocked with claret and champagne, others laden with eatables dressed and undressed, casks of brandy, apparel of every kind, barrels of money, books, papers, sheep, cattle, horses, and mules, abandoned in the flight. The baggage was presently rifled, and the followers of the camp attired themselves in the gala-dresses of the flying enemy. Portguuese boys figured about in the dress-coats of French general officers; and they who happened to draw a woman's wardrobe in the lottery converted silks, satins, and embroidered muslins into scarfs and sashes for their masquerade triumph. Some of the more fortunate soldiers got possession of the army chest, and loaded themselves with money.

The camp of every division was like a fair; benches were laid from waggon to waggon, and there the soldiers held an auction through the night, and disposed of such plunder as had fallen to their share, to any one who would purchase it."* "The soldiers of the army," said Lord Wellington, "have got among them about a million sterling in money, with the exception of about 100,000 dollars which were got for the military chest."† Among the innumerable trophies of the field was the baton or marshal's staff of Jourdan. Lord Wellington sent it to the prince-regent, who gave him in return the baton of a field-marshal of Great Britain. Of arms and materials of war there were taken 151 pieces of brass ordnance, 415 caissons, more than 14,000 round of ammunition, nearly 2,000,000 of musket-ball cartridges, 40,668 lbs. of gunpowder, 56 forage-waggons, and 44 forgewaggons. When the battle began the numerical strength of the two armies was about equal. But on the side of the allies the Spaniards, though they behaved better than they had hitherto done, were not to be compared with the French soldiery. The French had in many actions made greater slaughter of a Spanish army, but they had never in any one instance reduced an army, even of raw volunteers, to such a state of total wreck.§ They saved themselves from destruction or from captivity by abandoning the whole matériel of the army, and by running like a mob. Only about 1000 of them were taken, for, lightened of their usual burthens,

• Southey.

+ Dispatches. "Even dollars became an article of sale, for they were too heavy to be carried in any great numbers: eight were offered for a guinea-English guineas, which had been struck for the payment of the troops in Portugal, and made current there by a decree of the regency, being the gold currency. The people of Vittoria had their share in the spoils, and some of them indemnified themselves thus for what they had suffered in their property by the enemy's exactions. The city sustained no injury, though the French were driven through it, and though great part of the battle might be seen from every window."-Southey, Hist. of Peninsular War.

Wellington Dispatches. Southey..

they ran with wonderful alacrity; the country was too much intersected with canals and ditches for our cavalry to act with effect in pursuit; and our infantry, who moved in military order, could not be expected to keep up with a rout of fugitives. Moreover-as Wellington deeply regretted-the spoils of the field occupied and detained his troops; and the money, the wine, and the other luxuries they obtained induced some degree of sluggishness. This has happened in all similar cases. And there still remains to be added that the troops in their long march from the Portuguese frontier had worn out their shoes, and were in good part barefooted; while, owing to the slowness with which his supplies had been sent up, Wellington had no new shoes to give them. The French acknowledged a loss, in killed and wounded, of 8000 men; but their loss was unquestionably much greater. The total loss of the allies was 740 killed and 4174 wounded.* Lord Wellington was liberal and even enthusiastic in his praise of all engaged-of officers and men. He particularly acknowledged his obligations to Generals Graham and Hill, General Morillo, and General the Hon. W. Stewart, Generals the Earl of Dalhousie, Sir Thomas Picton, Sir Lowry Cole; to his quartermaster-general, Sir George Murray, who had again given the greatest assistance; to Lord Aylmer, the deputy-adjutantgeneral; and to many others, including Sir Richard Fletcher and the officers of the royal engineers. All the more scientific parts of the army had indeed been vastly improved since the time when Wellington first took the command of our forces in the Peninsula; and the department of the quartermaster-general, upon which so much depends, and the service of the engineers, had been brought from a very defective to an all but perfect condition, by Sir George Murray, Aylmer, Fletcher, and other able and painstaking men. Wellington also mentioned in his dispatch that his serene highness the Hereditary Prince of Orange (now King of Holland) was in the field as his aide-de-camp, and conducted himself with his usual gallantry and intelligence.

The news of this decisive battle of Vittoria gave strength, spirit, and union to the allied armies acting against Bonaparte in Germany, dissipated the last misgivings and indecisions of Austria, broke up the congress assembled at Prague, in Bohemia, which before would have treated with the French, and have left them in possession of many of their conquests; and it gave to the voice of the British government and its envoys a vast increase of consideration and influence. Without this battle of Vittoria and its glorious results in June, there would have been no battle of Leipzig in October.

King Joseph hardly once looked back until he had reached the strong walls of Pamplona, in Navarre, among lofty mountains, the offshoots of the Pyrenean chain." The garrison, which had

Out of this number the British had 501 killed, the Portuguese 150, the Spaniards only 89; while in wounded the British had 2807, the Portuguese 899, and the Spaniards 464.-Wellington Dispatches.

[graphic][merged small]

been reinforced and well supplied, and which had orders to husband its provisions and stores, in case of a siege or blockade (and a blockade or siege seemed now inevitable), admitted the runagate king or pretender, but would not open the gates to the flying, disorganised soldiers, who had lost all signs of discipline, and who were starving. The fugitives from Vittoria attempted to force an entrance over the walls of Pamplona; they attacked their countrymen in garrison as if they had been mortal foes, or English, or Spaniards; but they were repulsed by a fire of musketry. After this they continued their flight across the Pyrenees towards France; but, meeting with some supplies, they rallied in the fastnesses of those mountains, and waited there for reinforcements. General Clausel, who was coming up fast from Logroño with about 15,000 men, and would have been on the field of Vittoria if Wellington had lost any time or had delayed his attack, upon learning the issue of that battle, turned hastily back to Zaragoza, and fled rather than retreated thence, by Jaca and the central Pyrenees into France, losing all his artillery and most of his baggage on the road. General Foy, who was with another French corps d'armée at Bilbao when the great battle was fought, fell back rapidly upon French territory and the fortress of Bayonne, being warmly pursued by General Graham. A French garrison was left at San Sebastian, which place, as well as Pamplona, was very soon invested by the allies. Except on the eastern coast, where Suchet kept his ground with about 40,000 men, there was not a spot in all Spain where the French could move or show themselves.

Having established the blockade of Pamplona, and directed Graham to invest San Sebastian, Lord Wellington advanced with the main body of

*

his army to occupy the passes of the Pyrences, from Roncesvalles, so famed in war and poetry, to Irun, at the mouth of the Bidasoa. His lordship's movements were rapid, and would have been much more so if it had not been for Spanish procrastination and poverty, and for his want of proper ammunition and magazines. By the 25th of June he was near Pamplona, directing the Spaniards how they ought to proceed with the blockade; on the 28th he was at Caseda, on the river Aragon, where he was compelled to remain some days. In spite of his recent triumph, he found the Spanish people and government still torpid-still waiting for everything to be done for them by others, and by the outlay of English money. The conscript fathers at Cadiz, preluding to what has taken place in more recent days, had begun a hot war against the wealthy clergy and monastic orders; and so

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Through some mismanagement, our convoying ships on the coasts of the Peninsula had been diminished. What our government did with this withdrawn force we can scarcely discover, unless they sent the frigates-where our old frigates ought never to have been sent-to the shores and waters of the United States, to run the risk of encountering President Madison's leviathans. Many of our transports and store-ships were taken by French frigates and privateers on the coast of Portugal. In a dispatch to Earl Bathurst, dated the 24th of June, Lord Wellington alludes to his embarrassments, and says, Ammunition required for the army has lately been delayed at Lisbon for want of convoy; and it is not yet arrived at Santander, and I am obliged to use the French ammunition, of a smaller calibre than our muskets, to make good our expenditure in the late action. The army cannot remain in this part of the country without magazines, notwithstanding its successes; and these magazines must be brought by sea, or they must be purchased with ready money. For the first time, I believe, it has happened to any British army that its communication by sea is insecure. Certainly we have not money to purchase in the country all we want. The increase of the naval force on the Lisbon station is likewise necessary, because our money must be transported from Lisbon by sea once a fortnight. We are too far from Lisbon to transport it by land; and the expense would be enormous."-Colonel Gurwood, Wellington Dispatches.

From the beginning of this war down to its termination, the marching, manoeuvring, and fighting parts of the business were what gave the commander in chief the least trouble; but he was obliged to attend to everything himself, and through the negligence or mistakes of others he was often left in very embarrassing and critical predica

ments.

66

absorbed were they by these hostilities, that they seemed to have forgotten that there existed such men as Wellington and Bonaparte. In writing to his brother, Sir Henry Wellesley, his lordship complained bitterly of these things. "The people of the country," said he, never think of what passes. ... The people think of nothing but getting rid of the French, and avoiding to contribute anything towards the support of any army. And, if they can accomplish these two objects, they do not care much about others. If the government or the Cortes cared about the opinion of their ally, or about carrying on this war, I should acquiesce in their measures; but it is heart-breaking to see that they care about neither the one nor the other, and that there is no tie over them. All they appear to care about is the war against the clergy; and it appears as if the measures for carrying on the war against the enemy were incompatible with those for the prosecution of the more favourite hostilities against the priests.'

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On the 27th of June Lord Wellington had marched with a detachment from the neighbourhood of Pamplona, to endeavour to cut off the retreat of Clausel; but that general had fled so rapidly, that he arrived at Tudela de Ebro before the English could reach him, and his lordship had then returned and resumed his march towards the Pyrenees frontier, to superintend the operations of the whole allied army. His pursuit had, however, prevented Clausel from marching off to the east to join Suchet. On the 1st of July his lordship was at Huarte; and here he was again obliged to halt for two or three days, by want of magazines of provisions and military stores, and money. In the meanwhile the Spanish general O'Donnel reduced the castle of Pancorbo, on the great line of communication between Vittoria and Burgos, and took the garrison of 700 French prisoners. From Huarte his lordship moved to Ostiz, and began to divide and dispose his troops so as to secure the passes of the Pyrenees and keep open those roads into France. This was no easy operation, for the mountain range to be guarded was not less than sixty English miles in length, the practicable passes were not two or three, but six or eight, and there were other rough roads or paths across the Pyrenees, and running between or turning the greater passes, which might be traversed by an enemy so light and active and so accustomed to mountain warfare as the French. Lord Wellington estimated all the passes, good and bad, at not less than seventy. It should seem as if the government at home fancied that he might defend the Pyrenees as he had done the heights of Torres Vedras, without allowing the French to penetrate anywhere; but he showed them

Letter dated Caseda, 29th July, in Colonel Gurwood, Wellington Dispatches.

Even at this moment, this quick and far sighted man, whose sagacity was hardly ever at fault either in politics or in war, discovered and explained not only his own present embarrassments caused by the mad reformers of Spain, but also the future confusion and anarchy which must result from them. The result we see at the present day, and we have been witnessing it for the last ten years, which have been for Spain years of blood, crime, horror! Nor is there even now any clear prospect of a tranquil settlement.

beforehand that this was impossible.

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A change

was now indeed about to take place in the character of the contest. It had already been proved that in a rase campagne, or in any situation approaching to an open country, the veterans of France were not a match for the British infantry; but now the allied army was to defend a series of mountain defiles, in a country where neither cavalry nor artillery could be employed; our troops were about to enter into a struggle for which they were unprepared by any former experience; while the system of mountain warfare was one for which the lightness and activity of the French troops peculiarly fitted them, and in which they had hitherto been considered unrivalled.†

Some portions of the allied army went right through the mountain passes in pursuit of the French; and upon the 7th of July the last divisions of the army of Joseph Bonaparte, after being driven from the very defensible valley of San Estevan, descended the reverse of the Pyrenees and entered France. Lord Wellington then became master of the passes of San Estevan, Donna Maria, Maya, and the renowned Roncesvalles; and his sentinels looked down from the rugged frontier of Spain upon the level and fertile plains of France, which lay in sunshine at their feet as if inviting their approach. Thus, in five-and-forty days from the opening of this memorable campaign, Wellington had conducted the allied army from the frontiers of Portugal to the confines of France; he had marched 400 miles, had gained one of the completest of victories, had driven the French through a country abounding in strong positions, had put the intrusive king to a flight which was to know of no return, had liberated Spain from everything but the evil consequences of Spanish folly, impatience, vanity, and presumption; and he now stood as a conqueror upon the skirts of France. We have seen the way in which Bonaparte treated his failing or unfortunate generals. Marshal Jourdan, a soldier of the early Revolution, who had acquired fame when Bonaparte was little more than a schoolboy, was now rated as an old-fashioned pedant, as a follower of worn-out and exploded systems of warfare-as if Massena, and Marmont, and Ney, and any of the men of the new school, had been more successful in their struggles with Wellington. Soult, the best of them all, had repeatedly and notoriously failed; but it was Soult that was now chosen to succeed Jourdan, and to head back the torrent of war which now threatened "the holy territory of France." Bonaparte felt the need of Soult's services in Germany; but, seriously alarmed for the safety of his own southern frontiers, he sent away that marshal from the Grand Army with very extraordinary powers, with a sort of Alter Ego character, and with the title of "Lieutenant of the Emperor." Soult was to take the entire command of the defeated troops, to re-equip them, to gather Letter to the Earl of Liverpool, dated Lezaca, 25th July, in Dispatches. +Captain Hamilton, Annals of the Peninsular Campaigns.

Major M. Sherer, Military Memoirs of the Duke of Wellington.,

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