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At the head of forces always numerically far inferior to the armies with which Napoleon deluged the Peninsula; thwarted by jealous and incompetent allies; ill-supported by friends, and assailed by factious enemies at home; Wellington maintained the war for several years, unstained by any serious reverse, and marked by victory in thirteen pitched battles, at Vimiera, the Douro, Talavera, Busaco, Fuentes d'Onore, Salamanca, Vittoria, the Pyrenees, the Bidassoa, the Nive, the Nivelle, Orthes, and Toulouse.
A month later Wellington became anxious to establish his winter-cantonments between the Nive and the Adour, partly for strategical reasons, and partly in order to command a larger and more fertile area for his supplies. On December 9, therefore, Hill with the right wing forded the Nive and drove back the French left upon their camp in front of Bayonne.
Soult expected, by bringing his whole force to bear on our centre and left wing, that he would have succeeded in forcing it, or, at all events, of obliging Lord Wellington to withdraw Sir Rowland Hill from beyond the Nive; but he effected neither, and darkness left the two armies on the ground which they had fought on.
The loss of the allies since crossing the Nive had exceeded 5,000; that of the French was 6,000, besides 2,400 Germans who deserted to the British during the night of the 9th in obedience to orders from home. Ever since he assumed the command Soult had shown military ability of a rare order. Bayonne, the base of all his operations, was indefensible before he fortified it.
They were equipped for rapid travelling, taking with them only pack horses to carry their provisions. The leader followed the now well-known track to the Warrego, and crossing the head of the Nive, reached the Barcoo waters on the 16th April.
From our elevated position, immediately in front, we commanded a wide and extensive plain, intersected by two important rivers, the Nive and the Nivelle. On the right, the lofty Pyrenees, with their grand and varied outline, stood forth conspicuously in a blue, cloudless sky; on our left was the Bay of Biscay, with our cruisers perpetually on the move.
He now stood at bay in the south of France, as Wellington had so long stood at bay in Portugal, and continued there during the early part of 1814 a defensive campaign not unworthy of comparison with the prodigious exploits of Napoleon himself against the invaders of his eastern provinces. A respite of two months succeeded the battles on the Nive.
Seated there, one can look off over miles of richly-timbered country, dotted with white-walled villages, and traversed by the Nive and the Adour, to the wry masses of the Pyrenees, purple curtains hiding Spain. Here, under an awning, the table was set, gay with white linen and glistening glass and silver, a centrepiece of flowers and jugs of red and yellow wine.
He then with the Anglo-Portuguese army moved on towards Bayonne, and took up a position on both sides of the river Nive, driving the French from their position on the right bank on December 9th. On the 13th, however, Soult attacked that portion of the army on the right of the river, and one of the most desperate conflicts of the war took place, known as the battle of St. Pierre.
Lord Wellington had the double object, in this movement, of reconnoitring their works, and effecting the passage of the Nive with his right wing.
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