with the left column of the British, made a circuit in the direction of Bilbao, working round to cut off the French rear on the Bayonne road. Hill, with the right column, forced the pass of Puebla, in the latter direction, carried the ridge above it after much hard fighting, and made good his position on the left flank of the French. Wellington himself, in the centre, under the guidance of a Spanish peasant, pushed a brigade across one of the bridges in his front, weakly guarded, and thus mastered the others; his force then expanded itself on the plain and bore down all opposition. Graham had met with a more obstinate resistance from the French right, under Reille, but at last got possession of the great Bayonne road. Thenceforward a retreat of the French army, partly encircled, became inevitable, but it was conducted at first in good order and with frequent halts at defensible points. The only outlet left open was the mountain road to Pamplona, and this was not only impracticable for heavy traffic but obstructed by an overturned waggon. The orderly retreat was soon converted into a rout; the flying throng made its way across country and over mountains towards Pamplona, leaving all the artillery, military stores, and accumulated spoils as trophies of the British victory.
The value of these was prodigious, but the great mass of booty, except munitions of war, fell into the hands of private soldiers and camp-followers. Wellington reported to Bathurst that nearly a million sterling in money had been appropriated by the rank and file of the army, and, still worse, that so dazzling a triumph had "totally annihilated all order and discipline".51 The loss in the battle had been about 5,000, but Wellington stated that on July 8 "we had 12,500 men less under arms than we had on the day before the battle". He supposed the missing 7,500, nearly half of whom were British, to be mostly concealed in the mountain villages.52 A large number of stragglers afterwards rejoined their colours, but too late to aid in an effectual pursuit of the enemy. The immediate consequence of this great victory was the evacuation by the French of all Spain south of the Ebro. Even Suchet abandoned Valencia and distributed his forces between Tarragona and Tortosa. To his great credit, Wellington addressed to the cortes an earnest protest against wreaking vengeance on the French party in Spain, many of whom might have been driven into acceptance of a foreign yoke "by terror, by distress, or by despair". At the same time, he vigorously followed up his success by chasing and nearly surrounding Clausel's division, while Hill invested Pamplona, and Graham drove Foy across the Bidassoa, in his advance upon the fortress of St. Sebastian.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
