Cassell's History of England, Vol. 5 (of 8): From the Peninsular War to the Death of Sir Robert PeelAnonymous
History
Cassell's History of England, Vol. 5 (of 8): From the Peninsular War to the Death of Sir Robert Peel
Anonymous
Great Britain -- History
Pampeluna and San Sebastian being invested, Lord Wellington proceeded
with his main army to occupy the passes of the Pyrenees. These,
Wellington, in his dispatches, says amounted to about seventy, and,
in the service of securing these, he complains that he was left
very much without the necessary supplies for his army. The British
Government had, from some cause--he supposed to send them against the
Americans--reduced the number of convoys, and many of our store-ships
were taken by the French frigates and privateers. It was, as much as
ever, in vain to expect the Spaniards to do anything to supply the
deficiency, after all that the English had done for them. As fast as
they got rid of the French, they busied themselves in making war on the
clergy and putting them down. Wellington was, therefore, continually
obliged to arrest his marches to wait for provisions. Notwithstanding,
by the 7th of July he had driven Joseph Buonaparte through the
mountains into France, chased Clausel beyond Tudela on the Ebro, and
taken his post on the very edge of France. Buonaparte, alarmed at the
progress of Wellington, displaced Jourdan as incapable, and sent back
Soult to do what neither he, nor Ney, nor Marmont, nor Massena had
been able to do before they were necessarily displaced--that is, arrest
the onward march of Wellington into France.
Soult hurried southward, collecting fresh forces to repel the
conquering invader, and issued a proclamation, telling the French
soldiers that they had at length taught the English to fight, and they
must show them that they were still their superiors. Whilst Wellington
was superintending the sieges of San Sebastian and Pampeluna, Soult
advanced, having gathered an army of nearly seventy thousand men, and,
on the 25th of July, he suddenly attacked our outposts simultaneously
in the passes of Roncesvalles and of Maya. Both these passes converged
into one leading to Pampeluna, where Soult hoped to raise the siege.
He himself led on thirty thousand fresh men up the Roncesvalles pass
against Generals Cole and Picton, who had about ten thousand to oppose
him. He compelled them to retreat to some greater elevations, but with
considerable loss, and he hoped there to have them joined by General
D'Erlon, who had ascended the Maya pass, with thirteen thousand men,
against General Stewart, who had only four or five thousand men to
oppose him. The conflict there had been terrible; the British fighting
and giving way only step by step against the superior force. The awful
struggle went on, five thousand feet above the plains of France, amid
clouds and fogs. Stewart did not fall back till he had sixteen hundred
of his small force killed and wounded, and the defiles were actually
blocked up with the slain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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