The French deployed in a potentially good position. The Zadorra flowed west through Vittoria then turned south to join the Ebro. Parallel between the Ebro and the Zadorra were the Heights of Puebla. All around the city of Vittoria were multiple villages with thirty to forty houses each, all of which could be fortified. The Zadorra River ran along the northern and western approaches to the town while hills covered northern and southern flanks. Jourdan correctly saw that an attack could only come from the west, so he directed the establishment of three successive lines deployed northward from the Heights of Puebla on the southern flank.66 If Wellington attacked as presumed, Joseph was well positioned with 57,000 men, including 9,000 cavalry and 104 guns. His hand would be considerably stronger when the Army of the North under Lieutenant General Baron Bertrand Clausel arrived with a further 15,000–30,000 men; he was due on the scene no later than 21 June. The position deteriorated, however, when intelligence came in reporting some British movement to the north, although this was not taken too seriously at first. In spite of the fact that they had been victims of Wellington moving across supposedly impassable terrain, Jourdan and Joseph still believed the hills north and northwest of Vittoria were too difficult for troops to pass. When they learned of troops movements to the north, they first thought the British might be flanking them and heading for Bilbao. Just to be on the safe side, Jourdan withdrew his third line of defense from the western plateau and placed it along the Zamorra River running east-west above Vittoria.67 Unfortunately, this left a five-mile gap between the troops under Rielle near Vittoria and those of Honoré Gazan and Jean-Baptiste d’Erlon to the west.
Wellington, outnumbering the French by about 15,000 men, also had the advantage that Joseph and Jourdan were not sure just where he was. Thus, he was able to divide his forces into four parts and strike from the southwest, west, northwest, and north. The initial force of 30,000 men under Hill was to proceed up the Zadorra through the pass at Puebla and move along the slopes of the Heights of Puebla to strike Gazan’s line on its left flank. Once they were engaged, Wellington would push forward the 4th Division—3,000 infantry and 4,500 cavalry—from the west across the Zadorra from Nanclares against Gazan’s right, while the Light Division would cross upriver at Tres Puentes. The Earl of Dalhousie, with Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Picton as second in command, led just over 14,000 men across the Monte Arato to cross the river to the east of Tres Puentes. Finally, Graham and a mixed force of British, Portuguese, and Spanish troops would swing farther east and try to cut off the road from Vittoria northeast toward Bilbao and Bayonne. All these forces were aided by the fact that the French had not destroyed a single one of the ten bridges across the Zadorra.
Early in the morning of 21 June Wellington looked across the Zadorra from high ground overlooking Nanclares. He saw Joseph and Jourdan, completely unaware of the impending threat, inspecting their lines. Hill, after clearing away some skirmishers along the east bank of the Zadorra, began his attack on the French far left flank about 8:00. This caught Joseph’s attention, but he did not send any reinforcements as Wellington had hoped. Dalhousie’s attack was slow in starting, his force having crossed some very rough terrain. Picton’s division was in front and ready to go, but Dalhousie’s division was still coming up. Wellington decided to launch his attack from Nanclares to keep the French focused to the west, when a Spanish informant alerted him to the unguarded bridge at Tres Puentes. The Light Infantry Division was quickly dispatched and established an unopposed bridgehead across the river with a hussar regiment right behind it. Seeing the taking of the Tres Puentes bridge and tired of waiting for Dalhousie to arrive, Picton led his division across the river on his own initiative, leaving his superior to go into action when he arrived on the scene.
Graham’s force, with a twelve-mile march to reach its jumping-off point, was in position by 10:00. His instructions were to interdict the road northeast out of Vittoria toward France and, if the opposition was not too great, to flank Rielle’s lines along the Zadorra.68 He appeared on the heights overlooking Vittoria, and Jourdan completely misinterpreted his arrival. Jourdan was convinced this was a feint to draw off reserves from the “real” attack in the west. Rielle, commanding the force facing Graham, knew better and withdrew most of his picket forces back from the north side of the river, leaving only a brigade to defend the village of Abechuco. Rielle would thus be left to his own devices as Jourdan decided to draw off more troops from the center to combat Hill’s attack along the heights.
On the front lines, Gazan was thinning his line to move manpower to contest the heights. This so weakened his center that the village of Subjiana de Alava fell to Hill without a fight. Joseph and Jourdan were in the center of the French army. Gazan, seeing the British 4th and Light Divisions poised to cross the river, surmised Wellington’s plan, but Jourdan would have none of it, convinced that everything but Hill’s assault was a diversion. Jourdan shifted units from d’Erlon’s force to the heights as well, while ordering Gazan’s right wing units to recapture Subjiana. Thus, when Wellington sent his two divisions across the river at Tres Puentes and Villodas, they were approaching d’Erlon’s right flank and were positioned to strike Gazan’s right rear. D’Erlon could not respond, having sent units to the south to aid on the heights; plus, Picton’s division had crossed the river at noon and was now on d’Erlon’s flank.
Graham, finally seeing Picton’s troops going into action, began his own advance. The French unit left at Abechuco put up little resistance, but his Anglo-Portuguese troops could not cross the river against Rielle’s stiff resistance and superior cannonade. A Portuguese division moved east to try its hand at Gamarra Mayor but met the same heavy fire. A Spanish brigade under General Francisco Longa swung even further east to attack Durana, held by a Spanish brigade in Joseph’s service. Again, French artillery kept the attackers at bay until late in the day, when Longa’s men finally forced their way across the bridge and secured the road. Had Graham not held back some reserves he might have sent men downstream to Yurre and turned Rielle’s left.
As Picton and Dalhousie drove east along the river against stout resistance, the Light and 4th Divisions continued to press forward. Wellington wrote in a dispatch after the battle, “The troops advanced in echelons of regiments in two, and occasionally three lines; and the Portuguese troops in the 3rd and 4th divisions, under the command of Brigadier General Power and Colonel Stubbs, led the march with steadiness and gallantry never surpassed on any occasion.”69 The French fought impressively as well. They tried to form a new line of defense based on Lermande and Gomecha, but they were too hard-pressed on both their front and their left flank, as Hill began a steady advance along the Heights.70 Jourdan finally realized he had been mistaken in his analysis of Wellington’s intent. At 1:00 he ordered Gazan to withdraw to a line just in front of Vittoria. Although his men were engaged, Gazan followed orders, beginning a phased withdrawal, pulling back one brigade through another, but the pressure was too much to allow a stand.71 Not until 6:00 that afternoon was the last line of defense reached, roughly a mile from Vittoria. With all his army across the river and the French in retreat, Wellington finally brought up his artillery and began constant harassing fire. Within an hour of the general advance the French army was broken and in full rout. Escape to the northeast was cut off by Graham’s forces, so the only route to run was the road east to Pamplona, which was little better than a cart path.
The French lost some 6,000 killed and wounded, with 2,000 taken as prisoners, but the high command managed to escape. The French army was not just routed, but lost almost all its equipment, including virtually all of its 150 cannons. The pursuit could have been long and deadly but for the amazing loot available to the British troops, who could not resist. (They had not been paid in months.) As a result, the allied pursuit was haphazard. Although some of Wellington’s infantry chased their opponents for several miles, the cavalry seems to have been conspicuous by its absence.72 Joseph’s army had a large number of noncombata
nts retreating with him to France, and they left behind “stores as well as baggage, wagons, three thousand carriages, chests full of money, eagles, standards, horses, mules, pet monkeys and parrots.”73 The loot included the payroll for the French army, 5 million francs, plus Spanish and French gold coins and at least 500 French prostitutes. The Spanish royal art collection was captured as well, much of which went to England, where it remains. Wellington offered to return it to the Spanish monarch when Joseph was dethroned, but Ferdinand awarded it to him as a gift from a grateful nation.74
Although Wellington lost some 5,000 men killed and wounded, the battle at Vittoria could hardly have been a more complete strategic victory. Glover describes the international response: “The victory at Vittoria irrevocably broke the French kingdom in Spain.… On hearing of the victory the Russian army sang a Te Deum, the only occasion on which this was done for the victory of a foreign army. In Germany, Beethoven composed a ‘Battle Symphony’ [Wellington’s Victory, op. 91] to commemorate the occasion.”75 Austria, pondering a Napoleonic offer of truce, decided against it and rejoined the coalition against him.
From a tactical point of view, Vittoria had its high points and lows. There was insufficient coordination between columns, and on the battlefield there was often confusion among the attacking regiments, which caused some opportunities to be missed. On the positive side, the British troops proved their prowess was not limited to a single division or regiment. Picton’s advance on his own initiative was key to the early breakthrough, and the final cannonade proved sufficiently powerful to turn defeat into rout. Additionally, the terrain had much to do with whatever difficulties were encountered.76
Wellington, by dividing his forces and timing their respective actions, engaged in a deliberate attack with all of his army; he held back nothing in reserve but his artillery, which came forward as the tide turned. Although Joseph and Jourdan deployed around Vittoria in order to fight, Wellington’s appearance was a surprise. By convincing Jourdan that Hill’s attack was the main thrust, he managed to concentrate the French forces in the wrong area of the battlefield while his virtually equal columns were able to strike in multiple locations. Since the French spent the day playing defense, Wellington controlled the tempo of the action from beginning to end; only on the Heights of Puebla were there setbacks, and they did not matter to the outcome of the battle. Wellington’s plan was not particularly audacious, even though he did divide his forces and have them operate across an area several miles across with little to no communication between units other than visual orientation. The pursuit and exploitation were minimal, owing to roads clogged with noncombatants, nighttime rains, and the inability of his troops to keep from looting.
Wellington gathered together what manpower he could find the following morning in order to begin the pursuit. He was not particularly successful; he would later claim that he had lost more men to plunder than to battle. Still, the French under Joseph were in no mood to do anything other than escape back to France. From Paris, Napoleon sent Marshal Soult to the border to try and salvage something of the debacle. Soult managed to mount strong defenses of San Sebastian and Pamplona, but they finally fell to storm on 31 August and 30 October respectively. By 9 November Wellington had crossed the Pyrenees into France, leaving his Spanish soldiers behind to avoid any vengeance against French civilians. Soult continued trying to halt the advance, but with more room to maneuver Wellington continually outflanked him. A four-day battle at St. Pierre in early December was the last major combat. The British occupied Bordeaux on 12 March 1814, and Soult had no choice but to position himself behind the defenses of Toulouse. Wellington stormed the city and captured it on 10 April, ignorant of the fact that in the wake of the Battle of Leipzig Napoleon had abdicated his throne four days earlier. Wellington received the news with unaccustomed levity, spinning on his heels, snapping his fingers, and crying “Hurrah!” His five years of unremitting hard work had finally paid their dividend. On 11 May 1814 he was accorded the highest honor his country could bestow, the Dukedom of Wellington, following his recently awarded Order of the Garter.77 He had, after Vittoria, also been promoted to field marshal.
Wellington spent the next year being toasted and celebrated wherever he went, even among the foreign ministers of Europe gathered at the Congress of Vienna. All was not over, however, for in late February 1815 Napoleon escaped from his Elba exile and marched on Paris. Every force sent by the new king, Louis XVIII, to stop him turned coat and joined the returning emperor. Luckily the other European powers could react quickly in the political realm, as they were gathered in Vienna. Unfortunately, a quick military reaction was another matter. Russian troops had a long march to rejoin the coalition forces and Austria had to reassemble her army. The two powers in a position to react quickly were Britain and Prussia. Wellington took command of the British and Dutch armies in Brussels while Field Marshal Gebhard von Blücher marched his Prussians west to join them.
The Opponents
THE ONE THING WELLINGTON MOST WANTED, and could not get, was time. He knew that if Napoleon could be kept passive in France, then overwhelming numbers would soon arrive to crush the returning emperor. Wellington had studied Napoleon’s 1814 operations and been deeply impressed. He knew that it would be best to have overwhelming strength as at Leipzig, and hoped he could wait for Prince Karl Schwarzenberg’s 210,000 Austrians, Johann von Frimont’s 75,000 Austrians, and Mikhail Barclay de Tolly’s 150,000 Russians.78 Napoleon, of course, was not foolish enough to allow that to happen, so Wellington had to do the best with what he had.
On 28 March 1815 the British government had named him commander in chief of all British land forces. The army he commanded at Waterloo, however, was not even half British. The British had sent expeditions to the United States to try to successfully finish off the War of 1812, but had made no serious progress and had lost 2,000 veterans at New Orleans. Wellington’s troops in Belgium were primarily recruits, well trained, of course, but unseasoned.79 In June 1815 Wellington commanded just shy of 26,000 British troops.
The remainder of his force was made up of troops from northern Europe. He had the King’s German Legion, which had served with him in the peninsula; its soldiers numbered 3,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry. Hanover, their home province, had since the Congress of Vienna been recognized as a kingdom and was supplying a further 15,000 men, though mainly militia. The largest contingent of 29,500 men came from the United Netherlands, but the Dutch government demanded they remain an independent command under the 22-year-old Prince of Orange. Although he had spent some time with Wellington in the peninsula, the prince was in no way an experienced commander. Wellington must certainly have thought of the same Dutch political constraints placed on Marlborough’s use of Dutch soldiers. The Dutch troops were also, for the most part, new recruits and were officered by former French servicemen. They had received basic training, but their raw state argued against counting on them too heavily.80 The Duke of Brunswick provided 6,700 men in return for a British subsidy, and a further 7,300 came from the twin duchies of Nassau. Wellington’s position was clearly less than ideal; although he had numbers, his troops lacked experience and efficiency. Additionally, most of the army spoke German or Dutch, which he could not. The units from Hanover, Brunswick, Nassau, and the Netherlands, although under his orders, had their own chains of command, supply systems, and training methods. This was not the force one would want with which to face Napoleon.81
The allied Prussian army was in rather better condition, though with its own problems. The Prussian army had been living on Frederick the Great’s reputation for decades, until Napoleon crushed it in the twin battles of Jena and Auerstadt in 1806. Prussia was forced into an alliance with France, and its troops served under Napoleon in a number of campaigns, including the invasion of Russia. However, there had been an underground movement to rebuild and reform the army. After Napoleon’s 1812 disaster, Prussia broke free and began putting its new army together along Napoleonic lines combined
with traditional Prussian militarism. Thus, the army that marched into Belgium in 1815 had a number of veterans but also a number of new soldiers learning a new way of fighting. Luckily, the officer corps was composed of veterans, but the commander was not without his drawbacks. Gebhard von Blücher was in his early seventies, and something of a wild man. He commanded forces in the 1813 and 1814 campaigns against the French, whom he hated with a passion. Not only was he criticized for being too old, he was also known to favor wine, women, and gambling. He was nevertheless a feared commander; in his book on Blücher’s army, Brigadier Peter Young observes, “He alone had the will-power, the drive, the optimism, the sheer guts to carry his raw army forwards. His quickness of decision, his presence of mind under fire, more than made up for his contempt for planning and cartography. With a Chief of Staff like [August von] Gneisenau to work out the details it was a positive advantage to the Prussians that Blücher did not concern himself with the minutiae of military administration.”82 He brought 117,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry, and 296 guns.
Given the multiple weaknesses of the allied forces, Napoleon seemed to have a distinct advantage going into battle in the summer of 1815. His triumphant return from Elba to Paris brought the entire standing army of King Louis into his service, numbering some 180,000. A further 50,000 men, mainly officers, whom Louis had placed on extended leave to avoid paying, also returned. The last contingent of draftees, from 1814, brought in almost 100,000 more. Many more volunteered, perhaps wishing to trade life under the king for a return to the glory days of the emperor.
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