Battle of Vitoria

Background

Wellington's 1812 campaign had ended in failure before Burgos and a hard retreat to Portugal. But Napoleon's disaster in Russia changed the balance. No more reinforcements would come to Spain; instead the armies there sent drafts to Germany. Wellington was now Generalissimo of the Spanish armies as well as commander of the Anglo-Portuguese. Over the winter he prepared a siege train, rebuilt his army, and resolved to keep it in one mass.

In late May 1813 he advanced from Portugal. Hill's column marched on Salamanca, while Graham led the larger part of the army through the rough Tras-os-Montes to come down on the north bank of the Douro, turning the French line on that river. King Joseph abandoned Madrid and fell back towards Burgos. On 13 June the French blew up the castle there and retreated again. Wellington did not follow along the high road. He swung north-west, crossed the upper Ebro on 14-15 June far beyond the French right, and marched east through country the French had neglected, aiming at Vitoria and the road to Bayonne.

By 19 June Joseph's three armies had gathered in the plain of Vitoria. Clausel's Army of the North was still away chasing guerrillas, and Foy was in Biscay. Joseph decided to stand behind the Zadorra. Waiting for Clausel was one motive, but saving his enormous convoys of treasure, stores, ministers and refugees was another. Jourdan, his chief of staff, did not expect an attack before the 22nd.

The armies

Wellington's army was the largest he had yet led. His morning state of 25 May shows 81,276 Anglo-Portuguese, about a third of them Portuguese, with 8,317 cavalry. Pakenham's 6th Division was left behind, so about 75,000 men fought, including two Spanish divisions: Morillo's Estremadurans with Hill and Longa's Cantabrians with Graham. Giron's Galicians arrived too late. Most Portuguese served as brigades inside the British divisions, with Silveira's division and Pack's and Bradford's independent brigades. In the main bombardment Dickson brought up about 75 guns: 54 British, 18 Portuguese and three Spanish.

The French had about 57,000 fighting men. Gazan's Army of the South (the divisions of Leval, Conroux, Daricau and Villatte, and Maransin's brigade) held the front line. D'Erlon's Army of the Centre (Darmagnac and Cassagne) stood behind it. Reille's Army of Portugal had only Sarrut's and Lamartinière's divisions, because Maucune's had marched off as a convoy escort. There were also about 2,500 men of the King's Guard and fewer than 2,000 Spanish afrancesados under Casapalacios. The French had about 9,000 cavalry and far more artillery: 151 guns were later captured, 104 of them field guns used in the battle. Their weakness was command. Three armies answered to a king and an ailing marshal, and the position faced south-west while Graham came from the north.

The battle

Plan and position. The Zadorra loops across the plain west of Vitoria. Not one of its eleven bridges between Nanclares and Durana had been blown up. Gazan's army held a line from the heights of La Puebla past Subijana to the hill in front of Ariñez, with D'Erlon behind and Reille guarding the northern bridges. Wellington's plan was to bring four columns in at once: Hill (about 20,000) on the right through the Puebla defile; the 4th and Light Divisions and most of the cavalry at the Nanclares bridges; the 3rd and 7th Divisions under Dalhousie over Monte Arrato to the Mendoza bridge; and Graham (about 20,000) from the north against the bridges and the Bayonne road.

8 am-noon: the Puebla heights. On a clear, bright morning Hill crossed the Zadorra below the defile. Morillo's Spaniards climbed the steep Puebla heights and took the first summit. Cadogan's 71st and the light companies helped them win the second, where Morillo was badly wounded; in a later fight on the crest Cadogan was mortally wounded. O'Callaghan's brigade took Subijana. Jourdan, believing his left was the real danger, fed in brigade after brigade, then Villatte's reserve division, and sent Cassagne's division and Tilly's dragoons off towards the Trevino road. Villatte broke the 71st, but then lost two attacks of his own against the 50th and 92nd.

Midday-3 pm: the river crossed. At about 11.30 a peasant told Wellington that the Tres Puentes bridge, at the tip of a hairpin bend, was unguarded. Kempt's brigade of the Light Division crossed it at a run and formed behind a knoll inside the French position. A roundshot killed their guide. Dalhousie's column was late, and two of his brigades never arrived. Picton would not wait for him. Shouting 'Come on, ye rascals! Come on, ye fighting villains!', he took the 3rd Division across at Mendoza and a nearby ford between 2 and 3 pm. Vandeleur crossed at Villodas, and the 4th Division at Nanclares.

Afternoon: Ariñez and the second line. Picton struck Leval's division on the hill above Ariñez. The 74th carried the village and the 88th broke the regiment that came down to meet them. Darmagnac was pushed out of Margarita, and Vandeleur's charge took La Hermandad from D'Erlon's German brigade. Jourdan formed a second line from Crispijana through Zuazo to Gomecha. At about 4 pm Wellington renewed the attack. About 76 French guns faced Dickson's 75 in what Oman calls the fiercest cannonade ever seen in the Peninsula. Then Gazan's army drifted south-east without orders, opening a gap along the high road.

North of the river. Graham reached the Zadorra around midday but attacked in earnest at only one point. Robinson's brigade of the 5th Division stormed Gamarra Mayor, but the bridge behind it stayed deadlocked until nearly 5 pm, each side losing over 550 men. Longa took Gamarra Menor and, in the afternoon, Durana bridge, cutting the Bayonne road. When Colville and Grant appeared behind Reille by Ali, he fell back on Betoño and then the woods of Zurbano. The 36th Line, in square, repulsed the light dragoons there and kept the army's rearguard together.

Evening: the rout. The only way out was the narrow road to Salvatierra and Pamplona, and the order to retreat came too late. About 3,000 vehicles jammed the tracks east of Vitoria. Grant's hussars charged into the crowd, Joseph fled, and the pursuit ended about five miles beyond the town.

Aftermath

The French lost about 8,000 men, but only about 2,000 were prisoners. They also lost 151 guns, 415 caissons and almost their entire train: Oman knew of no other army that had left all its artillery but two pieces to the enemy. The Allies lost about 5,150, mostly in the 2nd and 3rd Divisions. Some 55,000 French escaped across the Pyrenees.

The baggage stopped the pursuit. Thousands of camp followers and hundreds of soldiers looted the wagons, which held church plate, the royal pictures of Madrid and the army's pay chest. Wellington hoped to recover five million francs of subsidy, but only a twentieth of it was found. One estimate puts the total booty at over £1 million. Wellington wrote to Bathurst that the army had 'the scum of the earth as common soldiers', and he singled out the 18th Hussars. Jourdan's marshal's baton was sent to the Prince Regent, who sent back the baton of a British field marshal.

Napoleon replaced Joseph with Soult in July. Joseph retired in disgrace. Pamplona and San Sebastián fell, and by December Wellington was in France. Beethoven's Wellington's Victory, written for Maelzel's mechanical orchestra and premiered in Vienna on 8 December 1813, celebrated the battle. Historians still argue over Graham's caution, Dalhousie's delay, and the idle Allied cavalry that let the French army escape.

Wargaming it

Vitoria is large but not too large to fight whole. The field is about twelve miles long, and the four Allied columns are almost separate battles. A brigade-level game with 20- or 30-minute turns covers the whole day. Hill on the Puebla heights, Picton against Ariñez, and Gamarra Mayor make good battalion-level scenarios, the last a bloody fight for a single bridge.

The key terrain is the Zadorra and its bridges, few of them guarded; the Puebla heights, which command the French left; the hairpin bend at Tres Puentes; Monte Arrato, which slowed Dalhousie; and the villages of Ariñez, Margarita, La Hermandad, Gamarra Mayor and Durana.

The game is about timing. Wellington's plan depends on four columns arriving together, so randomised or umpired arrival times for Dalhousie and Graham reproduce the real delays. The French player should not know where Graham is, and should face the temptation, as Jourdan did, to reinforce the left against Hill. Command friction matters on both sides: Gazan drifting off without orders, Graham obeying too literally.

The baggage park is ideal for victory points: the French need to get wagons away down a single bad road, and Allied units that reach the park may stop to loot.

What-ifs: Maucune's division stays, or Clausel arrives on the 21st; Dalhousie arrives on time, before Villatte and Cassagne are drawn away; Graham forces the Arriaga bridge early and traps the French army in the plain.

Maps and pictures