by Peter Snow
The great frontier chain of the Pyrenees and France itself were only eighty miles ahead. Wellington’s staff, and even the loyal General ‘Daddy’ Hill, now urged him to stop. Napoleon had won two major victories in Germany in May, and Britain’s hard-pressed allies Prussia, Austria and Russia had agreed to an armistice. ‘All my staff’, Wellington told a friend much later, ‘[said] we ought not to risk the army and what we had obtained, and that this armistice would enable Buonaparte * to reinforce his army in Spain, and we therefore should look to a defensive system. I thought differently.’ Wellington wanted to press forward in an effort to throw Napoleon’s army out of Spain before he could reinforce it. He also reckoned that if Britain could score a victory it might encourage its allies to scrap the armistice and fight on in central Europe. So the order went out: ‘We move on.’
Wellington’s men had tramped 200 miles from where they had set off – first through the cork and olive trees of the western hills and then through the cornfields of León. In village after village they were greeted with delight by cheering crowds and pealing church bells. ‘What then was our excessive delight’, wrote Jonathan Leach, ‘on suddenly and unexpectedly beholding an extensive valley at our feet, through which flowed the rapid Ebro, and that valley as well as the country for miles beyond teeming with fresh woods, fruit trees, beautiful villages, gardens and everything which could delight the sight … we procured fresh bread, fruit and vegetables – luxuries of which we had but little known for many weeks …’ Another rifleman was struck by the colourful crowd of women who followed the army, selling butter and cheese. ‘They had on generally yellow stockings, with abundance of petticoats of red, yellow and green etc etc and were all very stout made.’ From then on the men were rarely short of supplies or the horses of fodder. Once beyond the Ebro the men were allowed to stuff their haversacks with fresh vegetables from fields by the roadside.
So swift was the advance and so decisively were the French outmanoeuvred that few of the men saw much action. But that was about to change. Just fifteen miles beyond the Ebro, in a great open plain surrounded by mountains, is the town of Vitoria. Joseph Bonaparte had ordered his generals, bewildered by the pace of the British advance, to gather at Vitoria for a decisive stand. Joseph had already abandoned Madrid, and then Valladolid, his next choice of capital, in a headlong retreat. He had with him a great horde of personal possessions and plundered treasures. He had to stop Wellington at Vitoria. If he failed, Wellington would be in the Pyrenees, the gateway to France.
Vitoria stands at the eastern end of a roughly rectangular patch of low country six miles wide by ten miles long – surrounded by mountains. The River Zadorra flows from east to west past the town, winds along the northern edge of the plain, and then curves sharply down the western side. The heights of Puebla overlook the southern side of the plain and there are mountains rising up beyond the Zadorra on the western and northern sides. Wellington arrived in the uplands to the west of the Zadorra on 20 June with just over 75,000 troops. His intelligence sources, now honed to near perfection thanks to the help of the Spanish resistance, told him that the French had around 60,000 troops, with another large force under General Clausel likely to join them soon from the south. Wellington, determined to pre-empt Clausel’s arrival, conceived a bold plan of attack.
The Battle of Vitoria
He assumed – rightly as it turned out – that the French would expect his attack to come from the west. Joseph’s French forces were concentrated on the ground west of Vitoria. Wellington would attempt to strike them from no fewer than four directions. First, Lieutenant General Sir Rowland Hill, who had never let him down, would lead his men up the heights of Puebla and then sweep down on the French lines from the south-west. Sir Thomas Graham would then attack from precisely the opposite direction – way up in the north-east corner of the plain across the Zadorra to strike at Vitoria itself and cut off the French line of retreat to the east. Sir Thomas Picton’s and Lord Dalhousie’s divisions would cross the Zadorra from the mountains to the north-west, and Wellington himself would attack across the river directly from the west. For a commander who had often been accused of being over-cautious and inclined to fight only defensive battles, these were highly ambitious tactics. Four such widely separated axes of attack would be very hard to co-ordinate. Timing would be everything, and Wellington’s passion for speeding round the battlefield and attempting to be everywhere at once would be severely tested.
‘It was a heavenly morning, bright and sunny,’ observed young August Schaumann, the commissary officer, who enjoyed the luxury during battles of being able to observe rather than fight. He watched the infantry striking their flints and preparing their cartridge boxes and ADCs galloping ‘in all directions carrying … orders to the heads of the columns that are forming. Every heart … stirred by the thought that for the first time we should be equal in numbers to the French.’
Early that morning Fred Ponsonby asked one of his captains, William Hay, to accompany him to a vantage point, where he could scan the French position and size up the best approach for his light dragoons. Hay had to prop up his ailing commander who was racked by fever and vomiting. Ponsonby was deeply ashamed. ‘Hay, I am very ill,’ he said, plunging into the undergrowth by the roadside. ‘I must lie down here till the fit is over: take my orderly with you and keep a sharp look out, and if, from any movement of the enemy, we are to have anything to do, send me word immediately: but do not tell anyone I am unwell.’
Hill began the battle by assaulting the heights. ‘The bright morning sunshine,’ said Schaumann, ‘the gloomy wooded hills, the flash of the muskets, the rolling thunder of the fire, and the wonderful shapes formed by the smoke in and out of the groups of trees covering the hills lent a picturesque grandeur to the scene.’ Thomas Todd was with the Highland Light Infantry – the 71st – assaulting the heights under Hill. ‘Immediately we marched up the hill, the piper playing “Hey Johnny Cope”. The French had possession of the top, but we soon forced them back … A French officer … was pricking and forcing his men to stand. They heeded him not – he was very harsh – “Down with him” cried one near me; and down he fell pierced by more than one ball.’ Todd and his mates got very thirsty fighting on the heights. Todd remembered one of the men finding a small spring and calling out ‘that he would have a drink, let the world go as it would. He stooped to drink: a ball pierced his head: he fell with it in the well, which was discoloured by brains and blood. Thirsty as we were, we could not taste it.’
The battle on the heights swung this way and that until finally the French gave way and the badly depleted British regiments burst on to the plain and into the main French positions. Time and again they had to go through the laborious task of loading and priming their muskets. Sometimes they failed to fire. Bell watched some of his comrades trying to get ‘the wretched old firelocks’ to ‘burn powder’. A man with a misfiring musket had to take from his pocket ‘a triangle screw, to knock life into his old flint, and then clear the touchhole with a long brass picker that hung from his belt. Many a fellow was killed while performing this operation.’ While Hill’s force was fighting its way down the heights from the right, Wellington ordered his men in on all the other fronts. Incredibly the French had destroyed none of the bridges across the Zadorra, so there were no fewer than eleven places where the British could cross the river.
With Hill’s men heavily engaged on the Heights, Wellington was among his Light Division troops at Villodas on the west side of the river. Massed around him were the crack riflemen of the 95th in their dark-green uniforms, and a bit further on the redcoats of the other light infantry, the 43rd. John Cooke stole down through the trees to look across the river at the French the other side of the bridge. ‘I found myself at the edge of the wood, and within a very short distance of the enemy’s guns, planted with lighted matches ready to apply them.’ Cooke noticed that Wellington was glancing anxiously over towards his left where he hoped to see signs that Picton and Dalhousie
were attacking across the Zadorra. The Commander in Chief knew that Hill was now fully engaged; he wanted to be sure that the other attacks were going in before he ordered the troops on his front to attack.
Minutes later a couple of miles up the Zadorra Thomas Picton emerged from the hills with his division to meet one of Wellington’s ADCs galloping up. The man skidded to a halt beside the doughty Welsh general, who was dressed as usual in civilian clothes with a wide-brimmed hat, and asked if he knew where Lord Dalhousie was. Picton was taken aback that the man was looking for a general whose division hadn’t even appeared when his own division was eager to engage the enemy. ‘No, sir!’ said Picton. ‘I have not seen his Lordship: but have you any orders for me, sir?’ ‘None,’ came the reply. ‘Then pray, sir,’ asked Picton, ‘what are the orders you do bring?’ ‘That as soon as Lord Dalhousie … shall commence an attack upon that bridge, the fourth and sixth are to support him.’ Picton exploded with indignation that another division which wasn’t even ready yet should precede his in an attack. He looked the astonished ADC in the eye and said, ‘You may tell Lord Wellington from me, sir, that the third division under my command shall … attack the bridge and carry it, and the fourth and sixth divisions may support if they choose.’ And then without waiting for Dalhousie, Picton roared, ‘Come on, ye rascals, come on, ye fighting villains!’ and led his men down the hill and across the Zadorra.
Back at Villodas, seeing the dust kicked up by Picton’s 3rd Division, and probably before he was told about Picton’s magnificent piece of insubordination, Wellington ordered the Light Division across the river. And when a local peasant offered to guide them to the bridge of Tres Puentes, undefended by the French, just around the corner, Wellington readily agreed. By lunchtime the French were being assaulted from three sides. They resisted fiercely, using their guns along their front line to fire ball and grapeshot at the advancing British. The peasant guiding the riflemen was one of the first to die, his head completely removed by a cannon ball. John Dobbs heard the sergeants behind him shouting ‘Who got that?’ each time a ball ploughed through a file of light infantrymen. They would then enter the names on their lists of casualties. Ned Costello was with the Rifles right at the front of the Light Division’s attack. They managed to capture one enemy gun but were severely outnumbered by the French. ‘A whole regiment came charging upon us, and our force … had to retreat with precipitation. When turning around … we beheld our favourite 3rd Division coming double quick down the main road to our assistance – with Picton, who was never absent in time of need, at their head.’ Harry Smith was galloping from one unit to another carrying orders when his friends saw his horse collapse under him. The rumour soon got around that he was dead, and Juana was soon scouring the battlefield, not for the first time, for her husband’s body. It turned out that neither Smith nor his horse was even scratched. A few moments after his horse had fallen Smith had given it a kick on the nose and it jumped up and was soon back in action.
The French forces had been deployed in three main defensive lines to protect the town of Vitoria. Their position would have been a strong one if they had faced a frontal attack from the west and had destroyed the bridges across the Zadorra to protect their flanks. But the British were now descending on them from the south off the Heights of Puebla and across the river from the north and west, with Wellington right in the middle of the fray. The Commander in Chief led a combined attack on the village of Ariñez by Picton’s men, by Dalhousie’s division, which had finally turned up, and by the riflemen and light infantrymen who had found their way across the undefended bridge. Costello remembered Wellington shouting, ‘That’s right, my lads, keep up a good fire.’ John Kincaid saw Picton rampaging about swearing roundly, and at one stage heard a voice behind him, ‘which I knew to be Wellington’s, calling out in a tone of reproof, “Look to keeping your men together, Sir.”’ In the fight for the village, Kincaid reported, ‘At one period, we held one side of a wall, while the French were on the other, so that any person who chose to put his head over from the other side was sure of getting a sword or a bayonet up his nostrils.’ Wellington was among the riflemen when they were being hard pressed by the enemy, and he spotted the 88th, the normally fearsome Connaught Rangers, in ‘extreme disorder’. So he ‘halted them and made them form under the brow of the hill, the 95th [Rifles] being stopped by the fire of one or two battalions of the enemy … As soon as formed, the 88th advanced in good order, and attacked and drove in this body into and … through Arinez.’
George Bell led his men into Ariñez, where the ‘clamour, the flashing of firearms, the shouts and cries of the combatants mixed with the thundering of the guns was terrible’. He heard the ‘piteous cries of the wounded for water’ and witnessed a sickening sight he hoped never to see again: ‘The horses, distracted and torn with cannon shot, were hobbling about in painful torment, some with broken legs and others dragging their entrails after them in mad career.’ Picton boasted later that his 3rd Division had ‘the principal part of the action, and I may say, covered itself with glory, having contended during the whole day against five times our numbers … I was very fortunate, having escaped with only one shothole in my greatcoat.’ William Lawrence came across a wounded Frenchman, who clearly had not more than two hours to live as a cannon ball had cut off both his thighs. He pleaded with Lawrence not to leave him to the Spanish, who would murder him. Lawrence searched him, found some food on him, which he shared, and asked if he had any money on him. ‘He replied no, but not feeling quite satisfied at that, I again went through his pockets … I found his purse at last, which contained seven Spanish dollars and seven shillings, all of which I put in my pocket except one shilling which I returned to the poor dying man and continued on my way up the hill.’
Five miles to the north-east, way behind the main French lines, Graham’s force was now trying to cross the river just north of Vitoria. Graham, at sixty-four, was a generation older than most of Wellington’s senior officers, and he was not the man to hurl his force across the river like the fiery and impulsive Picton. His attack went in later than Wellington had hoped, and ran into stiff French opposition. John Aitchison, a guardsman whose letters home had been so critical of Wellington at Burgos, didn’t spare Graham at Vitoria. He was a ‘good deal too old … he displays little science and still less decision’. Fred Ponsonby, still struggling with his rebellious stomach and bowels, led his light dragoons in the fierce battle for the village of Gamarra Mayor which controlled one crossing. With all the fire and brimstone flying about, the men were quick to christen the place ‘Gomorrah’. French resistance was strong and it was only after a long fight that Graham managed to get enough men across the river to cut off the main road from Vitoria to the French border.
It was 6 p.m. before Ponsonby’s 12th Light Dragoons were the other side of the river. They crossed the bridge, advanced at a trot and then at a canter, and soon came within sight of what they thought were French cavalry. ‘Our trumpet sounded charge,’ William Hay, one of Ponsonby’s officers, remembered. But as they galloped forward, they suddenly found themselves facing about 3,000 French infantry standing in squares. ‘These opened such a close and well directed fire on our advance squadrons, that not only were we brought to a standstill but the ranks were broken and the leading squadrons went about.’ Ponsonby’s men managed to rally only when a troop of horse artillery arrived on their flanks and ‘within about a hundred yards, opened such a fire of grape shot on the French infantry, that at the first round I saw the men fall like a pack of cards’.
The news of Graham’s attack on the French rear had exactly the effect that Wellington had hoped for. The French swiftly withdrew some of their units facing west and weakened their lines. Word began to spread that the British were sweeping across the Zadorra and around behind Vitoria. Kincaid could see that the battle was won. The French were now fleeing ‘in one confused mass’. He observed that the British cavalry had missed a golden opportunity. ‘Had a single regiment
of our dragoons been at hand … we must have taken from ten to twenty thousand prisoners … I have no doubt our mounted gentlemen were doing their duty … in another part of the field, yet it was impossible to deny ourselves the satisfaction of cursing them all, because a portion had not been there.’