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WELLINGTON'S CAREER.-PART II.

THE operations of Suchet's army in the east of Spain, which, had it supported the others, might have changed the aspect of the campaign and the result of the war, produced only an indirect effect on the plans and movements of Wellington. Important in a narrative of the Peninsular War, those operations are, in an account of Wellington's career, to be noticed only as a disturbing cause, and may therefore be but briefly alluded to.

Suchet's army, not based like the others on the western Pyrenees, communicated with France by the eastern extremity of the range. To cover the great coast-road, on which he chiefly depended, he garrisoned numerous fortified places on the east coast, from the Pyrenees to the city of Valencia, behind which his movable columns maintained his authority in Catalonia, Valencia, and Arragon, thus completing the French hold on the country from east to west. Opposed to him were the Spanish armies of Elio and Del Parque, and the Anglo-Sicilian forces assembled at Alicant. The part which Wellington had enjoined these armies to play was by no means to fight pitched battles, but to manoeuvre so as to prevent Suchet from aiding Soult. An expedition against the French communications at Tarragona failed, and Suchet seemed secure of maintaining his grasp on the eastern provinces, when the victory of Vittoria, uncovering his right, obliged him to fall back behind the Ebro. He had now to decide whether, abandoning for a time his present theatre of action, he would co-operate with Soult against Wellington, or whether he would continue to operate independently. He chose the latter course, for the political reason that he wished to influence the general negotiation in Germany by an appearance of extensive authority in Spain. He therefore left garrisons in those provinces, and instead of taking the pressure off Soult by threatening Wellington's right, continued to conduct isolated opera

VOL. LXXXVII.-NO. DXXXV.

tions against the Allies in Catalonia. Thus Wellington's designs against Soult were disturbed only by the necessity of providing for a possible co-operation of Suchet, which never took place.

The Western Pyrenees, whose summits rose like a rampart in front of the Allies, and amid whose sheltering valleys the beaten army of Vittoria was recovering its order and spirit, is thus still the centre of interest. The command of that army had just been transferred to abler hands. Soult, who, at the outset of the campaign, had been removed from Andalucia to Germany, because of the disagreement between him and the King, was sent by Napoleon to retrieve the misfortunes of Joseph and Jourdan, who were recalled to France.

The two advanced posts of this army were at the fortresses of St Sebastian and Pampeluna. It was necessary for Wellington to take those places before advancing into the mountains. He saw, at the political juncture which followed Napoleon's victories at Lutzen and Bautzen, the likelihood of the dispersion of the Peninsular army, and the re-embarkation of the English troops. A convenient har ur was therefore indispensable, and it thus became necessary to take St Sebastian, the only suitable one afforded by the coast. It was also necessary to take it before winter should render that stormy coast precarious of access. He therefore cast the weight of his siege resources upon that fortress, while Pampeluna, which, though also necessary for the security of his right, was not of such urgent importance as St Sebastian, was blockaded by the Spaniards. To cover these operations, Wellington's line was pushed forward between them towards the passes from Fuentarabia to Roncesvalles. A reconnoissance which Wellington had made with great personal exertion, in three days, of the whole breadth of the Western Pyrenees, had satisfied him that, after securing the two fortresses, he might

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take up a defensive position as strong as that which he formerly occupied in Portugal.

Soult, full of vigour and invention, sought to turn the advantages which he possessed in the relative position of the armies to the best account. The Allies were for the present restricted to the defensive; they were widely spread; the communications along their front were difficult and precarious; and the district in their rear afforded no good defensive position. He, on the other hand, having excellent roads, and his movements being screened by the mountains, could easily concentrate on any point. While Wellington expected an attack on his left directed against the force investing St Sebastian, the French marshal, leaving a corps in observation on that side, suddenly concentrated on the allied right. His design was to throw his whole weight on the right wing, isolated from the centre by the main ridge of the Pyrenees to relieve Pampeluna; and, passing along the rear of the Allies, to attack their divisions in detail as they descended the hills; then, finally, in conjunction with the corps of observation advancing by the coast, to assail the English left wing at St Sebastian. He would thus cover the line into France, and connect himself with Suchet, besides the other advantages which he pr mised himself in battle.

Along the deep devious valleys of those great mountains the French columns wound, hidden by a mist, till they touched the English outposts. Then from pinnacle to pinnacle for miles spread the musketry, marking the receding line of the Allies, who, overpowered by numbers, at last fell back, followed by Soult down the long valley leading upon Pampeluna, till Picton, lining a strong position, arrested his march. Wellington was then far away at the centre of his army. Riding at full speed for the point of attack, he marked, as he passed, the changing aspect of affairs, and despatched orders for new combinations, till, alone, he galloped into the ranks of his assailed right wing, where the cheer that hailed his presence swelled along the line from left to right. He reined up on a

lofty ridge, from whence, across the deep narrow valley of Sorauren, he saw, on the opposing height, the French marshal, so near that his features could be distinguishd. "Yonder," said Wellington, "is a great commander, but he is cautious, and will delay his attack to ascertain the cause of these cheers; that will give time for the sixth division to arrive, and I shall beat him." In fact, Soult did suspend his attack, and it was fortunate for the allies that he did, for he was, at the moment, greatly superior; and had he forced his way to Pampeluna, his plan of campaign would have had great chances of success.

During the pause, the divisions of the British centre were descending the passes of the mountains which separated them from the scene of action, and they arrived in time to meet the attack. Soult, after a fierce struggle, was repulsed, and finding his original plan foiled, and his enemies growing stronger in his path, he made a sudden movement to his right to turn the left of the English, and cut them off from their left wing at St Sebastian. But Wellington in a moment perceived and baffled the design. The French force left to cover the movement was attacked by the mass of the Allies, routed with great loss, and driven apart from the main body, while the victorious troops, pushing into the interval, threatened to bar Soult's retreat into France. There was a moment, at this period of the campaign, when Soult, imagining himself beyond immediate pursuit, paused a while to rest his harassed troops in the valley of the Bidassoa, while Wellington, looking down unseen from behind a rock upon their fancied security, directed the march of his divisions upon various points so as to form a network from which there should be no escape. But just then three English soldiers in search of plunder entered the valley; a French cavalry patrol captured and conveyed them to Soult; and in half an hour the marshal resumed his march and broke through the toils, succeeding, indeed, in effecting a retreat, but with immense losses in men and baggage. Such was the

result of the great marshal's well-conceived attempt to outmanoeuvre his bold and wary adversary.

St Sebastian, in spite of another action which Soult ventured for its relief at San Marcial, fell, and Wellington, with his base thus secured, at length agreed to strengthen the combination against Napoleon by invading the French soil. He there fore, in a series of skilful operations, effected the passage of the Bidassoa, the first of the great Pyrenean streams which pour from the mountains into the Bay of Biscay. On the fall of Pampeluna he resumed his advance, passed the Nive, Nivelle, and Adour, and finished the operations of the year by cutting Soult from Bayonne and blockading that fortress.

Notwithstanding the proofs of capacity and judgment, sufficient to satisfy the blindest, which he had given in his previous career, Wellington was, during the campaigns in the Pyrenees and south of France, no less embarrassed by those who should have assisted him than at the outset of the war. The Portuguese still left their troops unpaid and unprovided. The Spaniards, giving way to the envy and jealousy excited by the remarkable contrast which his successes afforded to the proceedings of their own generals, actually placed his hospitals, and the ships on which he depended for his supplies, in quarantine. Immediately on entering France, the Spanish troops, eager for reprisals on the nation that had so long oppressed their own, committed such depredations and outrages that, after vainly trying to restrain them by severity and example, he sent them back into Spain. There is hardly a general named in history who, at such a crisis, would, for such a scruple, so have weakened his force. But besides his sense of justice and his humanity, his far-seeing policy also led him to protect the French population. The result was, that the peasantry, with their cattle and effects, took refuge within his lines from the violence of their own countrymen, supplied him with provisions and information, and were ready to declare for the Bourbons against Buonaparte. French villagers

returned to their homes when they were occupied by the English, from which they had fled when they were occupied by the French. The embarrassments which the feeling of the people occasioned to his adversary in some measure counterbalanced the absence of the Spanish troops, which, however, was of grievous detriment to his plans.

Lastly, Wellington had to contend with obstacles raised by the Government at home. They would not sanction his measures for the subsistence and payment of his army; they interfered with his plan of campaign, hampered him by dividing the command of the naval force on which he depended for supply, and even talked of transferring him and his troops from France, to play a subordinate part with the allied armies in Germany.

It was amid the distractions of re

monstrating with the Spanish and Portuguese governments, advising his own, providing for the supply of all the allied forces, bringing the Spaniards to acknowledge discipline, and conciliating the Basque and Béarnese peasants, that he combined and executed the movements which conducted him to Toulouse. He had been throughout the campaign superior in numbers by a third to the French army opposing him, up to his arrival at Bayonne. But the main body of an advancing army in an enemy's country necessarily grows weaker, because it must place detachments to guard all important exposed points of its communications, and because the forces employed in besieging or blockading places must be much larger than the garrisons. Soult had left thirteen thousand men in Bayonne, and forty thousand were required to blockade them. During the series of critical movements and vigorous attacks, in which Soult was pushed back through Béarn and Gascony into Languedoc, the inequality of numbers was therefore constantly diminishing. Wellington fought at Orthez, gaining a brilliant battle, with nearly equal numbers-and the force with which he attacked at Toulouse was inferior to that with which Soult defended the position. The French were forced

back; Wellington entered the city, where he found the statues of Buona parte overthrown, and the inhabitants clamorous for the Bourbons. The armies were about to close again in fight, when the news, which ought to have arrived before the battle, came that Napoleon had abdicated. Eight thousand men had thus fallen absolutely in vain. Each general has been accused separately of fighting the battle when he knew of the abdication; a piece of sanguinary folly of which each was guiltless and incapable. This was the closing scene of the Peninsular War. Measures were immediately taken to withdraw the army, and Wellington, now raised to a dukedom, was called to Paris to deliberate with the allied sovereigns.

Such is the victorious career which has been depicted in the accurate, trenchant, glowing narrative of the great soldier-historian Napier; in the vivid battle-scenes of Alison; in that remarkable series of writings, not the least of his great public labours, the Despatches of Wellington; and which lastly, after diligent comparison of these as well as authorities on the other side, is now reproduced with excellent effect in the work which we have specially under review. No book with which we are acquainted affords such a clear, impartial, discriminating view of the public and private life of the great soldier in whose fame all Englishmen feel so deep an interest. That interest, we believe, will grow deeper with the lapse of time. Still too near us to be viewed in its just proportion, the career of Wellington will gradually settle into outlines of singular dramatic unity and completeness. It is a common complaint with writers of works of imagination, that the transactions of modern times afford no great themes for epic or dramatic treatment. But hereafter, when ages shall have done their hallowing work, and when the present generations of men shall have become as remote as the early Greeks or the founders of Rome are to us, it may be found that, in the range of poetry, there does not exist an epic the foundations of which are better shaped for artistic purposes than the story of Wellington's struggle with

Napoleon's power. Touched by the finger of time, recast in the brain of a poet, matters not essential suppressed or subdued, its scenes forcibly conceived and forcibly rendered; viewed from such a point, we know not where to look, in fact or fiction, for an historic drama grander in theme, or more distinguished for gradual development, variety, and interest increasing to the close. It commences with the sense of oppression and doom produced by the predominance of Napoleon's dark spirit over the civilised world-landmarks submerged, nations crushed, all trembling before a malign resistless influence, such as the inhabitants of the ancient world used to figure as an inscrutable devouring monster, charged by an offended deity with a mission of vengeance against mankind. Almost unnoticed, he who is to be the deliverer of nations appears on the scene; but he attracts attention by his first feat of arms on the Douro, and fixes it by his victory of Talavera. In him the interest is to centre-he must do his work alone

and the jealousy of the Spaniards, the divided councils of the Portuguese, serve but to show the selfreliance and indomitable nature of the man for whom admiration is presently mingled with respect. No scene in Dante can be deeper in poetic gloom than the devastation of Portugal; a scared and ruined people flying (to use one of Dante's own expressions), "like frogs before a serpent," behind the protecting power which pauses to deal a terrible blow before retiring within its stronghold; while the confusion of the pursuer, as, pressing on, he suddenly sees the barrier in his path, is one of the most striking of dramatic effects. The tide of war that encompassed the ramparts ebbs slowly, and Portugal is free-one step is accomplished- but the chances against the hero's success are still so tremendous that it seems as if all his striving will but gild his destruction. Then, as if rising in blackness against an horizon of dusky fire, appear the scenes of Rodrigo and Badajosthe cannonade, the rush by night, the storm, with its heroism and carnage lit by flashes. Brilliantly contrasting with these scenes are the advance

into Spain, the great victory of Salamanca, and the entry into Madrid. But this is only a promise of successagain the hostile armies close round, and the hero, though victorious, must retire outnumbered. And now from afar come rumours of disaster to the great foe, who, unseen, has been felt throughout like a predominating fate -and there are glimpses of snowy wastes, a ruined host, and a flying chief. The enemy draw together for a last stand in Spain-there is a march against them-a victory; and their headlong flight is followed by the retributive invasion of France, where stroke still follows stroke till the great hostile power is overthrown, and the ovation of the hero brings the drama towards its crowning scene and triumphant close.

In his life of toil and watchfulness there came a brilliant pause between Toulouse and Waterloo, in which he returned to England;-a kind of harvest-home, when, the burden and heat of the day being past, he could rest awhile and wipe his brow and count his sheaves. Five years before, he had left home a young general who had received knighthood for his victories in a remote province. He came back the greatest actor left on the stage by the course of the greatest events of modern times. He heard himself saluted by a succession of titles which, a short time before, would have seemed as fabulous as those with which the witches greeted the victorious thane on the blasted heath. He had run through the whole gamut of the peerage at a breath. In the Lords he was saluted at once as Baron, Viscount, Earl, Marquess, and Duke. The same Commons that had kept so critical and grudging a watch on his career, sent a deputation to wait on him; and when he thanked the House, the Speaker, in reply, uttered a tribute, one of the finest, as it was one of the truest, that ever saluted the ears of a successful mortal. But there was still, after all the achievements and all the rewards, one crowning act in store to complete the romance of his life. The extraordinary being whose power he had striven with and helped to overthrow, had never actually measured strength with him. These preparatory acts

had cleared the lists for the final encounter of the champions.

In the Congress of Vienna, which met on the abdication of Napoleon to settle the confusions of Europe, the Prince Regent of England had at first been represented by Lord Castlereagh. On the return of that plenipotentiary, the Duke succeeded him at the Congress. But before his arrival, the distribution of territory, intended to form an effectual barrier to French encroachments, had been made. Belgium and Holland were cemented into the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and, with the Rhenish provinces of Prussia, closed the open road to the frontier of the Rhine, the possession of which would make France an overmatch for Europe. Austria was secured in Lombardy, and between her and France Sardinia held, with Savoy and Nice, the great passes of the Alps. But the interests of the public had not been the sole topics discussed in their councils. The combatants, still breathless and bleeding from the struggle, snarled over the prey which they had just compelled the common enemy to abandon. Unsoftened by calamity, unappeased by recent success, Prussia extended her clutch towards Saxony, while Russia growled over the wellmumbled bone of Poland. The western powers-England, France, and Austria-were on the point of forming, in self-defence, a league against the two northern monopolists, when a common peril once more united them. Buonaparte had escaped from Elba.

Though the Allies had an immense preponderance of troops, these were not immediately available. The Russian army was in Poland, the Austrian in Lombardy contending with Murat. Long marches lay between them and the French frontier. To meet the first shock, the only troops ready were the army with which Prussia had garrisoned her recently acquired Rhenish provinces, and the motley force of English, Belgians, Dutch, Brunswickers, and Hanoverians, who occupied Belgium. Upon them Napoleon's rush would be made, because he might hope to defeat and scatter them while they were yet unsupported, and then to place between

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