Sorauren and Roncesvalles

Sadly, we left the hotel at Akkaretta  today.

The chronology of this next bit is all wrong, but we first went to see the battlefield of Sorauren. After Vitoria, Wellington dispatched a Spanish army to guard Pamplona, another detachment to besiege San Sebastian, and two separate detachments to guard the passes of Maya and Roncesvalles.  But Soult did an amazing job of assembling and arming a “new” army and counterattacked before anyone expected.

The Maya pass was defended by 6,000 men under Stewart, who faced 21,000 men under D’Erlon. After 10 hours of fighting, the French had not broken through, but Stewart had lost a quarter of his men and four guns, the only guns ever lost by Wellington. Hill ordered Stewart to retire back down the pass.

Roncesvalle was held by 13,000 men under Sir Lowry Cole, who faced 40,000 men under Soult himself. The fighting started at 6 a.m. and ended about 4 p.m. when a thick mist descended. We have experience of this thick, clinging sea fret sort of mist in the mountains! The men found it extremely difficult to keep their powder dry, and in any case some regiments were out of ammunition. So Cole retreated.

Cole took up a position along a ridge close to Sorauren, blocking the road to Pamplona. Wellington was at San Sebastian, but on hearing the news, he rode immediately for Sorauren. By the time he got there, the only member of staff still with him was Lord Fitzroy Somerset – he who lost his right arm at Waterloo, and became famous, or infamous, as the Crimean commander Lord Raglan. Wellington was a bruising rider and seems to have had infinite stamina.

On reaching Sorauren, he realised that Pack’s division was going to walk straight into the French, so stopped on the bridge to write an order changing the direction of their advance, and then, with the French in hot pursuit, galloped into the British lines. 

The bridge where Wellington was nearly captured

The first troops he met were Portuguese, who raised a terrific cheer of “Duoro! Duoro!” (his Portuguese title) and the news and cheering soon spread through the army. Wellington rode to the most prominent spot he could find and showed himself off, and this caused Soult to pause, long enough for more British troops to come up. By this time, it seems that some of the French marshals were beginning to realise that fighting Wellington was not as easy as they had believed originally. But for some reason they continued to attack in column, right up to Waterloo, so that the British, in lines, had a four to one superiority in fire power. In addition, the riflemen, with their accurate fire arms, deliberately targeted officers and standard bearers.

During the night there was a fierce rainstorm, which the British troops took as a good omen. There were rainstorms before Salamanca, Vitoria, Sorauren, and later, Waterloo.

So first we went to Zalbadica, at the other end of the lines from Sorauren. This was held by Spanish troops, who started bravely but then broke. Wellington had added a stiffening of the 40^th foot, and 400 of them drove off 2,000 French.

Zalbadica. Allies (mainly Spanish here, with 40th Foot) on the left ridge,
French on the right, but a "land bridge" between the ridges. 

Zalbadica has a very ancient church, built as they all seem to be around here, like a fortress, with almost no windows. It’s on the pilgrim route, and we were waylaid by a lovely nun, whose job is to minister to the pilgrims, so it was a bit embarrassing to admit we were there for a battle. Apparently, the tradition is for pilgrims reaching Zalbadica to give the church bell, which is very old, a single dong. But the local authorities are trying to get people off the traditional route and on to main routes. They do seem to direct pilgrims along roads, which doesn’t look a pleasurable way to walk. The sister had information in every conceivable language, Croat to Korean. She said she’d met all nationalities doing the Camino.

At Sorauren you can see the very bridge where Wellington wrote his orders, with the French advancing rapidly. You can see the British, Cole’s, ridge, and the French ridge. After the first day’s fighting on the 28^th July, there was a pause, with both sides in their original positions. But on the 30^th, Wellington launched an attack, which drove the French back into over the border into France. He had managed to get guns up onto Cole's ridge. I do see the point of the Royal Navy Field gun races, because certainly here and at Salamanca, they gunners obviously did dismantle, manhandle and then reassemble the guns. 

So then we drove up the pass of Roncesvalles. It’s very beautiful, but much more heavily wooded and less bleak than I pictured. There are villages full of large prosperous looking farm houses, which look a little Swiss, very attractive. There are horses, or ponies, which seem to be wild. They are often palomino and apparently called “pottoks” in Basque.

 At the top there’s a Monastery, where Sancho the Strong is buried, a pilgrim’s dormitory, and a chapel, supposedly built over Roland’s tomb, but much later, which has a charnel house for the pilgrims who die on the road, which is a cheery thought, but maybe dying on pilgrimage earns you days off purgatory.  At the very top of the pass there’s a monument to Roland, who was killed by Basques, not by Moors, as I always thought, although they were vassals of the Moors.

Tho top of the pass, with monument to Roland

Roncesvalles

Roncesvalles is a bit like Little Big Horn – a legendary place, not a real one, so we were very excited to have actually been there. Of course, the modern road is different. The old pilgrims, the Black Prince, Charlemagne and Marshal Soult used the old Roman road. You can still find it, apparently, but it was raining and freezing  cold, so we decided we could live without seeing it.

The ancient pilgrim hostel at Roncesvalles - no windows and an outside
tap, but still in use.

Then we descended the valley to St Jean Pied de Port, a pilgrim heavy town, where traditionally, various routes converged before the pilgrims made the journey across the Pyrenees. It’s a pretty walled town on the river Nive with lots of interesting buildings, but more touristy than anywhere we’ve been so far. It was an important trading and craft centre, and used to be part of the kingdom of Navarre. I'm not sure when it became part of France, but when I've got an easier internet connection, I'm going to research Navarre.