Chapter XXXVII: Section XXXVIII: Chapter IV (2)

Far more important than the trifling skirmishes of the afternoon were the arrangements for the morrow--orders and dispatches, which the rival commanders were evolving during the evening hours. Soult felt himself still blocked in the valley of the Arga and wanted to deploy--was it possible to get his long column of guns and cavalry out of the defile--and if so, how? Was there a possibility of extending to the left beyond Foy’s present position, or to the right beyond Sorauren, the limit of Clausel’s occupation? Or must the Oricain heights be captured at all costs before the army could get into a proper order of battle? Could any immediate help be expected from D’Erlon, whose tiresome letter of the 26th had come to hand, showing that he was no farther forward than Elizondo on that night? He was not doing his best to occupy the enemy in his front, and there was a danger that Hill might arrive at Sorauren long before the corps that had been set the task of occupying his attention.

There would appear to have been something like a council of war at the French head-quarters in the evening, in which Clausel, Reille, Gazan, the Chief of the Staff, and probably other officers took part. Clausel wished to extend the line northward up the valley of the Ulzama, and to turn the flank of the whole Oricain position. The objection to this was that the transport and guns could not follow over the mule-tracks which must be used; they were blocked in the Arga valley as long as the Allies held the heights commanding the main road. Moreover, reports had come in that British troops were descending on to Sorauren by the Lanz valley road, who would take in flank any attempt of Clausel to turn the Oricain position. (This seems to refer to the arrival of the 6th Division at Olague, but Long’s cavalry was also visible up the _chaussée_.) And an extension of the French right to the heights westward would make the whole line of battle very long and weak: how could Reille’s three divisions take over the whole ground from Sorauren to Alzuza? After much discussion Soult decided in favour of a concentric attack on the whole Oricain position by five of his six divisions, while only Foy should remain out on the left, observing and containing the British force on the Huarte hills. Clausel’s three divisions should attack Cole’s line from Sorauren to the Col, two of Reille’s divisions should co-operate, by assailing the Col and the Spaniards’ Hill south of it. Some guns should be got to the front if possible, and Foy should be lent some cavalry, who must climb over the hills to cover his flank. Details would have to be settled on the morrow, also the transference of troops, who could not move in the dark over steep and unknown ground. Yet there was an uneasy feeling that too much time had been lost already--Soult notes a rumour that Wellington had announced the approach of four more British divisions. Even the arrival of D’Erlon could not compensate for this, and it did not look as if D’Erlon was likely to appear early on the 28th.

Wellington moved the troops who were on the ground very little that evening--only relieving the Portuguese battalion which was in reserve on the hill above Zabaldica by a British regiment of Anson’s brigade--the 40th Foot--and sending two of O’Donnell’s battalions to Ollocarizqueta, to watch the mountain road west of Sorauren, by which it was conceivable that Clausel might try to turn the hill of Oricain. He had got news that French troops had been seen beyond Sorauren, and did not want to have them prying too close behind this flank, or observing the paths by which he intended to bring up his reserves on that side.

For his main attention that afternoon was devoted to drawing up the orders for the divisions coming from the Bastan, which he had promised to send to Murray, in the note that Fitzroy Somerset bore from the bridge of Sorauren. At 4 o’clock he sent off the all-important dispatch[937]. It will be remembered that his last orders provided for the successive arrival at Lizaso of the 6th and 7th Divisions, of the whole corps of Hill, and of the artillery, and divisional baggage trains of all the troops.

Pack was to start from Lizaso at dawn, and to move as rapidly as possible along the country road by Marcalain to Ollocarizqueta, which goes along the back of the hills that form the right bank of the valley of the Ulzama. At the last-named village (which he would find held by two Spanish battalions) he would be only five miles from Cole’s flank, and in a position to strengthen or cover it. A supplementary note[938] warned Pack that if any French were found anywhere on the way he must not let himself be turned off; even if it came to leaving the road and taking to mountain tracks, the 6th Division _must_ arrive at its destination. The artillery and the reserve of infantry ammunition were to follow Pack, unless serious opposition were offered to him, in which case they must return to Lizaso, and from thence turn on to Yrurzun.

Dalhousie and Hill had already had orders to march on Lizaso, the one by the Puerto de Arraiz, the other by the Velate. Both had a long march, but Wellington hoped that they might reach Lizaso during the night of the 27th-28th. If the men were not over-fatigued, all three divisions should follow Pack to Ollocarizqueta, after being given a suitable time of rest. All impedimenta likely to hinder rapid marching, and the wounded from the Maya fight, were to be directed from Lizaso to Yrurzun. Murray had already, acting on the orders of the Sorauren Bridge dispatch of 11 a.m., sent the route for Lizaso to Hill and Dalhousie, adding some precautions of his own, to the effect that they should leave small rearguards at the passes, to detain D’Erlon if he should come up. Moreover, he had spread out the 1st Hussars of the K.G.L. along the roads, to keep up touch between all the divisions on the move, and also between Lizaso and the Light Division, now at Zubieta. The only addition made by Wellington’s new orders was the all-important one that everything of the fighting sort that came to Lizaso was to march for the main army, but all baggage for Yrurzun.

Of the arrangements thus made, that for Pack worked perfectly--he was at Ollocarizqueta with the 6th Division before 10 a.m. on the morning of the 28th. But Hill and Dalhousie were detained in the passes by the storm of the evening of the 27th, and only reached Lizaso so late on the 28th that they were of no use in the fighting of that day. As Wellington observed to Larpent[939], they could both have got into the battle of Sorauren if they had been given a longer march on the 26th, but ignorance of Cole’s and Picton’s retreat had prevented him from starting them early enough. However, the 6th Division alone sufficed to settle the matter.

The morning of the 28th was fine and bright--the storm of the preceding night seemed to have cleared the clouds from the hills, and the eye could range freely over a very wide landscape. Not only was the battle front of each army visible to the other, but from the high crest on or behind each position, a good deal could be made out of what was going on in the rear. This was more the case with the French line than with the British: Wellington’s usual plan of keeping his main force behind the sky-line had great efficacy on such lofty ground as that of the heights of Oricain.

Soult spent the long hours of the July morning in moving his troops to the positions which had been selected on the previous night. Conroux’s division, abandoning Zabaldica, marched over the hills in the rear of Clausel’s other divisions, and occupied Sorauren village--relieving there some of Taupin’s battalions, which shifted a little to their left. To replace Conroux at Zabaldica Lamartinière came up from Iroz, and deployed one brigade (Gauthier’s) in front of the Spaniards’ Hill, while the other (Menne’s) remained in reserve beside the Arga, with two regiments across the high road and the third on the slopes east of the river. Maucune’s division, starting up the slopes from the rear of Iroz, took post on the heights immediately opposite the Col, with its right touching the left of Vandermaesen. Two regiments were in front line exactly in face of the Col, a third somewhat farther to the left, keeping touch with Lamartinière’s brigade near Zabaldica. The other brigade (Montfort’s) was placed in reserve farther up the mountain[940]. Pierre Soult’s light cavalry regiments disentangled themselves from the long cavalry and artillery column in the rear, and picked their way up the heights southward till they reached Foy’s position, from which they extended themselves to the left, till they reached as far as the village of Elcano. Four howitzers were chosen out of the batteries in the rear, and brought forward to the front of Zabaldica, a position in which it was hoped that their high-trajectory fire might reach effectively the Allies on the Col and the Spanish Hill. These were the only French cannon used that day, except some mule-guns employed by Clausel on the side of Sorauren.

The greater part of these movements were perfectly visible to Wellington, though some of them were intermittently screened from sight when the marching columns dipped into dead ground, or were passing through thickets. They took up so many hours that he wrote to Graham at 10.30 that it looked as if Soult was not inclined to attack. Meanwhile, the only British force on the move was the 6th Division, which had been marching since daylight, and arrived about 10 a.m. at Ollocarizqueta. On getting news of its presence, Wellington ordered it to move by a country road which comes across a crack in the hills west of the Ulzama not far from the village of Oricain, and after reaching that river to keep its Portuguese brigade on the western bank, its two British brigades on the eastern, and so to advance till it should arrive facing Sorauren, prolonging Cole’s left in the lower ground, and covering him from any attempt to turn his flank. About noon Pack’s leading troops began to appear--these were Madden’s Portuguese on the left of the division, working along the hillside west of the Ulzama.

Now the ‘zero’ hour for the general attack on the whole Allied front had been fixed by Soult for 1 o’clock, but long before that hour Clausel was informed by an exploring officer, whom he had sent to the hills on the other side of the Ulzama, beyond his right, that a heavy British column was visible coming from the direction of Marcalain, obviously to join the British left[941]. Now the French general had been thinking of turning Cole’s flank on this side, and had actually got troops some little way up the Ulzama valley beyond Sorauren. But hearing of Pack’s approach and of his strength, he determined that he must now turn his attention to fending off this move against his own flank, and that the effort would absorb no small portion of his troops. Conroux’s division had been originally intended for the attack of the north-west corner of the Oricain heights, to the right (French) of the chapel, while Taupin was to make the chapel itself his objective; Vandermaesen was to strike at the centre of Cole’s position, and Maucune to attack the Col. But Clausel determined that, in order to make the general frontal attack feasible, he must at once stop the forward march of Pack, and keep him at a distance, while the other divisions made their great stroke. Accordingly he called in his right wing detachments, and having concentrated Conroux’s strong division (7,000 bayonets) he ordered it, at 12.30, to deploy across the valley of the Ulzama below Sorauren and advance in two lines of brigades against the approaching British column. This movement--probably a necessary one--brought on the first clash of battle, half an hour before the appointed time for the general movement. Clausel at the same moment sent word to the other divisions to attack at once; but they were not quite ready, the fixed hour not having yet been reached.

But Conroux pushed up the valley farther than was prudent, for when he was some half a mile beyond Sorauren, he found himself encompassed on three sides--Madden’s Portuguese pushing forward along the hill on the other side of the river, turned in on his right flank, some of Ross’s skirmishers on the slopes west of the chapel of San Salvador came down and began to fire upon his left flank, while the main body of the 6th Division--Stirling’s brigade deployed in front line, Lambert’s supporting in column--met him face to face in the low ground. The concentric fire was too heavy to be stood, and Conroux had to give back, fighting fiercely, till he had the support of the village of Sorauren at his back: there the battle stood still, for Pack had orders to cover Cole’s flank, not to attack the enemy’s[942].

Meanwhile, the general frontal attack was being delivered by the other French divisions, starting from the right, as each got forward on receiving Clausel’s orders to anticipate the fixed hour and advance at once. Hence the assault was made in échelon of brigades from the right, Taupin’s two brigades being a little ahead of Vandermaesen’s, and Vandermaesen’s perceptibly earlier on the hill than the brigade of Maucune which attacked at the Col. The separate assault by Lamartinière on the Spaniards’ Hill is definitely stated by that general to have been made at 12 o’clock--earlier, apparently, than the others--but he is contradicted by Reille, in command on this front, who says that it started _vers une heure_. This is much more likely to be correct.

The assault on the hill of Oricain bears a remarkable likeness to the battle of Bussaco, both being attacks by a series of brigade columns on a steep hill, with every disadvantage except numbers to the assailant. Cole’s position was singularly like that of Picton in the battle of 1810, the main differences being that the hillside was not quite so steep or quite so high, and was strewn with clumps of brushwood in its lower slopes, while the Bussaco ground only shows heather and a little gorse. At the Portuguese fight the defenders of the hill had some help from artillery--at the Navarrese fight none. On the other hand, Cole had a shorter line to defend, and more men to hold it. Reynier attacked with 13,000 infantry--Clausel with 20,000--including in each case unengaged reserve brigades. Picton held the slopes of San Antonio de Cantaro with 6,800 men--Cole had about 11,000 at Oricain--the proportional difference therefore between the attacking and the defending force was much the same[943]. By an odd chance no less than four French regiments climbed both these deadly hills (17th Léger, 31st Léger, 47th and 70th Line); but the only officer who has left us his narrative of both fights does not chance to have compared them, though he was a competent observer and a fluent writer[944]. None of Cole’s regiments, on the other hand, had been engaged at Bussaco, though eight of them were present on that field in unattacked sectors of Wellington’s line.

The direction of the attack of the six French brigades which mounted the hill of Oricain was such that in their first advance Taupin’s right brigade (Lecamus) attacked Ross; his left brigade (Béchaud) came in where Ross’s and Campbell’s lines met: both Vandermaesen’s were opposed to Campbell’s centre and right; Maucune’s front brigade tackled Anson at the Col, and Gauthier of Lamartinière’s division assailed the 40th and the Spaniards on the slopes above Zabaldica. The six brigades made 15,000 bayonets in all--the rear brigades of Maucune and Lamartinière not being counted, for they never closed. Conroux was paired off against Pack in the low ground, fighting against numbers not much inferior to his own.

Lecamus’s brigade, starting from a short distance south of Sorauren, made for the north-west corner of the heights,--its four battalion columns screened by their eight _compagnies d’élite_ in a dense swarm[945], much thicker than the usual French skirmishing line. This column, the first up the hill, pushed before it the light companies of the British 20th and 23rd, and the 7th Portuguese Caçadores, and won its way nearly to the crest, when it was charged by Ross with the whole Fusilier Brigade and thrown violently down hill. It was not pursued far, and ultimately rallied, but was for some time out of action. The Fusiliers had hardly resumed their former position and re-formed, when the second French column came up the hill a little way to the left of the last attack, aiming at the Chapel of San Salvador. This was the five battalions of Béchaud’s brigade, which had in front of it the line of the 10th Caçadores, supported by Ross’s right-hand battalion and the left battalion of Campbell’s Portuguese. This column actually reached the summit, driving the Caçadores before it, and established itself by the chapel, but was finally thrown down by a flank attack of Ross’s left-hand battalions, while it was heavily engaged with the 7th Fusiliers and Campbell’s 10th Line in front. It rallied only a short way down the hill, as there was no pursuit.

This fight was still in progress when Vandermaesen’s two brigades came up the hill, each in a single column preceded by a heavy screen of _tirailleurs_. They came into collision with Campbell’s centre and left, drove in his Caçadores[946] and light companies, and forced their way right to the summit, after a very sharp exchange of fire. Cole was obliged to send up Stubbs’s Portuguese to strengthen the line, which held for some time, but finally gave way on its left, where the 10th Line broke, thus exposing the flank of Ross’s 7th Fusiliers, its next neighbours along the crest. At the same time Béchaud’s brigade, now rallied, came up the hill for a second attack on Ross, whose line, or at least the right-hand part of it, lost ground and fell back in some disorder. At the same moment the French column beyond Vandermaesen--Maucune’s front brigade--was attacking the Col. ‘At that instant,’ wrote Clausel to Soult, ‘I had, despite all the difficulties of the enterprise, some hope of success[947].’

The combat seems to have stood still for a perceptible time--the French troops had established themselves on a long strip of the crest, and were slowly pushing back Campbell’s left and Ross’s right, which had suffered severely and were in bad order. But the enemy was also in great confusion--the columns and the skirmishing line had dissolved into irregular crowds. The men were absolutely exhausted by the steep climb which they had just made; and the blasting volleys which they had received before reaching the crest had laid low a very large proportion of the officers, who had led with reckless courage. There was no impetus left in their advance, which was slow and irregular.

The decision of the fight seems to have started on the very highest point of the hill, where Maucune’s front brigade was attacking Anson. Here the French never won the crest, and were thrown back with extreme violence and terrible loss. The laconic report of the division merely says that ‘the advance was a complete failure: the troops were repulsed at every point, and returned to their original position with the loss of 600 to 700 men and a colonel[948].’ The whole strength of the three attacking battalions had been only 2,200 men, and all the casualties coming in ten minutes, the column was too hard hit to rally. Nor did Maucune choose to send in his rear brigade, which was the only intact reserve on the French heights. After watching this complete failure of the central assault from behind Anson’s line, and noting the demoralization of the enemy, Wellington took the very bold step of ordering two of Anson’s three battalions[949], the 3/27th and 1/48th, to descend from their own ground, and fall on the flank of Vandermaesen’s division, which was advancing slowly and in disorder, pushing back Campbell’s and Stubbs’s Portuguese. He left only the 2nd Provisional (2nd and 2/53rd) to hold the high point from which Maucune had just been repulsed. At the same time Byng’s brigade, hitherto kept in reserve a quarter of a mile back, on the centre of the hill, was ordered to advance and support Ross.

The diagonal downhill charge of the 3/27th and 1/48th was swift and irresistible, when falling on the flank of a disordered mass. A French observer on the opposite mountain noted and admired it. ‘The enemy’s reinforcements, which he launched against our divisions, charged at a running pace, but with such order and unity that looking on from a distance one might have thought it was cavalry galloping. Hardly had they repulsed the troops on their right, when they ran in on the centre, and after the centre on to the left.... Our men came back four times to the assault, but what could three divisions do against an army perfectly settled down into its position, which had only to receive the shock of troops already half discomfited by exhaustion and by the obstacles of an inaccessible hillside[950].’ Wellington merely says, ‘I ordered the 27th and 48th to charge first that body of the enemy which had first established itself on the heights (Vandermaesen) and next those on the left (Béchaud): both attacks succeeded, and the enemy was driven down with immense loss.’

Byng’s brigade was in time to give assistance in the last part of the attack, but was only slightly engaged; its three battalions had no more than 70 casualties among them[951], while the 27th and 48th counted no less than 389--a sufficient proof of the sort of resistance which they respectively met.

With the general repulse of the French brigades which had established themselves on the crest, the crisis of the battle was over. But sporadic fighting continued for an hour more, owing to the gallant obstinacy of the French officers, who at several points of the line rallied their battalions and brought them up the hill again for partial and obviously futile attacks. As Wellington had forbidden all pursuit, the enemy had full power to reassemble half-way down the hill and to try his luck again. But since the men were tired out, and quite understood that if a general assault by six brigades had failed, isolated pushes by individual regiments were hopeless, there was no conviction in these later attacks. About four o’clock Soult sent orders that they must cease, and that all troops must return to their original positions.

It remains to speak of three side-shows of the battle, one of which was of great interest and some importance. It will be remembered that when the great advance took place about 1 a.m., Gauthier’s brigade at Zabaldica was told to storm the spur opposite, now held by the British 40th and the Spanish battalions Pravia and Principe. There was some artillery preparation here, the howitzers beside the village having been directed to open a high-trajectory fire on the hill. It had, however, no effect, and the infantry were put in ere long. As to what happened British and French accounts show a satisfactory agreement. Gauthier first sent up the 120th, a strong three-battalion unit, keeping the 122nd (two battalions) in reserve. The attack was frontal, and in one column--possibly the presence of Sympher’s battery to the right rear, sweeping all the slopes above the Arga river, prohibited any flank extension to turn the position.

Reille, who directed this attack in person from Zabaldica, says that the regiment went up the hill with a very strong screen of skirmishers (no doubt all the six _compagnies d’élite_) but in great disorder, the pace having been pressed too much up a very steep ascent, so that the whole arrived at the crest in a mass. The enemy, who had been waiting behind the sky-line, suddenly appeared at the critical moment, and opened such a heavy and effective fire that the 120th crumpled up and rolled down hill. The Allies, contented with the result of their salvo, did not pursue, but stepped back behind the crest. Gauthier rallied the defeated regiment half-way down the slope, and brought up the 122nd to assist: he then repeated the assault over the same ground, and with better success, for the 120th reached the crest, and broke up a Portuguese regiment (it was really two _Spanish_ battalions), and came to a deadly musketry contest with the English regiment posted on the highest ground. There was a fusillade almost muzzle to muzzle, but the French regiment finally gave way ‘whether from the disadvantage of the position or from over-fatigue after twice climbing such steep slopes’. The 122nd, coming up just too late, then delivered a similar attack, and suffered a similar repulse. Both regiments were then rallied half-way down the slope, and kept up from thence a scattering fire, until Soult’s orders came to withdraw all the line, in consequence of the defeat of Clausel’s divisions. This exactly tallies with the narratives of the British officers of the 40th, who also speak of three attacks, the first easily foiled-a mere rush of skirmishers--the second very serious, and rendered almost fatal by the incomprehensible panic of the Spaniards, who, after behaving very well both on the previous day and during the first attack, suddenly broke and fled--‘all attempts to rally them being ineffectual’--over the whole face of the hill behind. The rout was only stopped by a desperate charge against the front of the leading French battalion, which was successful contrary to every expectation and probability. For the 40th, who had suffered considerable loss in the combat of Linzoain two days before, had only 10 officers and 400 men in line, and were attacking a column of nearly 2,000 men. This column had been cast down hill, and the men of the 40th had barely been re-formed--they showed a great wish to pursue and came back reluctantly--when the third French attack, that of the 122nd, was delivered with resolution and steadiness but without success. Even then the fight was not over, for after an interval the enemy came up the hill again, in disorder but with drums beating and eagles carried to the front, the officers making incredible efforts to push the men forward. They did not, however, get to the crest, but, after rolling up to within twenty-five yards of it, stood still under the heavy musketry fire, and then fell back, completely ‘fought out[952].’

Reille’s report declares that Gauthier’s brigade only lost ‘50 killed and several hundred wounded’--say 350 in all--in this combat. The British 40th had 129 casualties--the Spanish battalions on their flanks 192. If a brigade of five battalions and 3,300 bayonets allowed itself to be stopped by a single battalion in the last phases of the combat, after suffering a loss of only one man in nine, there must have been something wrong with it, beside bad guidance. One would suspect that Reille is understating casualties in the most reckless fashion.

While this fight was going on by the banks of the Arga, there was another in progress on the other flank of the hill of Oricain, on the banks of the Ulzama. The 6th Division had been intermittently engaged with Conroux’s troops during the whole time of the French assaults on the heights. When it was seen that Clausel’s men were ‘fought out’ and falling back, Pack made an effort to utilize the moment of the French _débâcle_ by capturing Sorauren. He brought up his divisional guns (Brandreth’s battery) to a position close to the village, and sent forward the light companies of the two British brigades to press in upon its south side, while Madden’s Portuguese, on the other bank of the river, tried to get into it from the rear on the north side. The attack failed, indeed was never pushed home, Sorauren being too strongly held. The guns had to be drawn back, many horses and some gunners having been shot down. Pack himself was severely wounded in the head, and Madden’s brigade lost 300 men. Wellington sent down from the hill to order the attack to cease, for even if Sorauren had been taken, the rest of his front-line troops were in no condition to improve the advantage[953].

While this was going on upon the extreme left, an almost bloodless demonstration was in progress on the extreme right, where Foy, as on the previous day, had been ordered to keep Picton employed. He showed his infantry in front of Alzuza, and pushed forward the considerable body of light cavalry which had been lent him to his left flank by Elcano, till their skirmishers had got into collision with those of the British Hussar Brigade, along the river Egues. There was much _tiraillade_ but few casualties on either side; the 10th Hussars were driven across the river, but were replaced by the 18th, who kept the French in check for the rest of the day. Pierre Soult showed no intention of closing, and Stapleton Cotton had been warned by Wellington that his four brigades were intended for flank-protection not for taking the offensive. The afternoon, therefore, passed away in noisy but almost harmless bickering between lines of vedettes. Foy in his report expressed himself contented with having kept a larger force than his own occupied all day.

Thus ended this second Bussaco, a repetition in its main lines of the first, and a justification of the central theory of Wellington’s tactical system. Once more the line, in a well-chosen position, and with proper precautions taken, had proved itself able to defeat the column. The French made a most gallant attempt to storm a position held by much inferior numbers, but extremely strong. They were beaten partly--as all the critics insisted--by the fact that men who have just scaled a hill of 1,000 feet are inevitably exhausted at the moment when they reach its crest, but much more by the superiority of fire of the line over the column when matters came to the musketry duel. The French generals had learnt one thing at least from previous experience--they tried to sheathe and screen the column by exceptionally heavy skirmishing lines, but even so they could not achieve their purpose. The only risk in Wellington’s game was that the enemy’s numbers might be too overwhelming--if, for example, the 6th Division had not been up in time on July 28th, and Clausel had been able to put in Conroux’s division (7,000 extra bayonets) along with the rest, operating against Ross’s extreme flank, it is not certain that the heights of Oricain could have been held. But Wellington only offered battle, as he did, because he was relying on the arrival of the 6th Division. If he had known on the night of the 27th that it could not possibly come up in time, he would probably have accepted the unsatisfactory alternative policy of which he speaks in several dispatches, that of raising the siege of Pampeluna and falling back on Yrurzun. ‘I hope we should in any case have beaten the French at last, but it must have been further back certainly, and probably on the Tolosa road[954].’

Soult is said to have felt from the 26th onward--his original project of a surprise followed by a very rapid advance having failed--‘_une véritable conviction de non-réussite_[955].’ We could well understand this if he really believed--as he wrote to Clarke on the evening after the battle--that Wellington had 50,000 men already in line. But this was an _ex post facto_ statement, intended to explain his defeat to the Minister; and we may be justified in thinking that if he had really estimated the hostile army at any such a figure, he would never have attacked. His long delay in bringing on the action may be explained by the fact that Reille’s divisions were not on the field before evening on the 27th, and that on the 28th it took many hours to rearrange the troops on a terrain destitute of any roads, rather than by a fear of a defeat by superior numbers. It might have been supposed on the 27th that he was waiting for the possible arrival of D’Erlon, but on the morning of the 28th he had heard overnight from his lieutenant, and knew that he could not reach the battle-front on that day. In his self-exculpatory dispatch to Clarke, Soult complains that D’Erlon told him that he was blocked by British divisions at Irurita, ‘but I have no doubt that these are the same troops which fell upon General Clausel’s flank this afternoon[956].’ In this he was wrong--D’Erlon was speaking of Hill’s and Dalhousie’s divisions, while it was Pack (whom D’Erlon had never seen) that rendered a French success at Sorauren impossible.

The loss of the Allied Army was 2,652--of whom 1,358 were British, 1,102 Portuguese, and 192 Spaniards. The heaviest casualties fell on the 3/27th in Anson’s brigade, who first repulsed Maucune, and then swept away Vandermaesen, and the 1/7th in Ross’s brigade, the regiment whose flank was exposed by the breaking of the 10th Portuguese--which corps also, as was natural, was very hard hit. But all the front-line battalions, both British and Portuguese, had considerable losses. Soult (as at Albuera) made a most mendacious understatement of his casualties, putting them at 1,800 only. As Clausel alone had reported about 2,000, Maucune about 700, and Lamartinière at least 350, it is certain that the Marshal’s total loss was over 3,000--how much over it is impossible to say, since the only accessible regimental casualty-lists include all men killed, wounded, or missing between July 25th and August 2nd. But the chances are that 4,000 would have been nearer the mark than 3,000[957].