Wellington and the Siege of San Sebastian, 1813 by Bruce Collins

Author:Bruce Collins
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: HISTORY / Military / Napoleonic Wars
ISBN: 9781526703705
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2017-11-30T05:00:00+00:00

The Assault

Detonating a British mine at 2.00 a.m. on 31 August announced the impending attack. According to Belmas, the well-armed defenders, responding to their officers’ call ‘They will not enter’, competed to take the most exposed positions from which to inflict the gravest casualties on the attackers.46

Dense fog delayed the start of the British artillery assault on the 31st, with the guns opening up only at about 8.00 a.m. Some of the firing was extremely closely directed. For example, at one point between 10.15 and 10.55, Sir Richard Fletcher on the isthmus sent a message to the main battery, number 15, on the sand-hills. Carried by a soldier who swam the Urumea River, the message requested that seven guns fire upon French working parties re-organizing defences in the battered northern round tower at the main breach. Those working parties could not be seen from the east bank. The battery then laid down a precise barrage which foreshadowed the celebrated and more dramatic firing over the heads of British troops later in the assault. As Frazer remarked of this earlier episode, ‘We are firing delicately, since we are directing our fire over points which our troops are now passing’. Sir Thomas Graham, who later ordered the general bombardment over the British forces in the main breach, was present with 15 battery which delivered this closely targeted bombardment.47

Once the tide had gone out far enough and long enough for the foreshore to be exposed, the advance along the east side of the isthmus began, at about 10.55 a.m. (Rey gave the time as 10.30.48) One danger spot was the stretch of the defensive perimeter which the French had mined and which the British had failed to trick them into exploding the night before. Marching was impeded by very wet surfaces. Even those not washed by the high tide were presumably wet, since there had been ‘violent rain with thunder and lightening’ overnight and the fog had only recently lifted.49

Despite earlier and widely expressed doubts about its fitness for the attack, the 2nd Brigade from the maligned 5th Division led the storming party. The brigade’s three battalions – the 4th, 47th and 59th – each supplied two companies. Lieutenant Colonel Brooke took over command of the brigade when Major General Robinson was wounded in the trenches before the assault began. These men from the 2nd Brigade of the 5th Division were to be followed, and not led as had been mooted a few days earlier, by 750 volunteers. Some 400 volunteers were from the 1st Division, consisting of 200 Guards under Lieutenant Colonel Cooke, 100 men of the light battalion and 100 men from battalions of the King’s German Legion, under Major Robertson. The 4th Division supplied 200 volunteers under Major Rose of the 20th, and the Light Division provided 150 under Major Hunt. The reserves consisted of the two remaining brigades of the 5th Division – the 1st Brigade under Major General Hay, and the Portuguese brigade under Major General Sprye –

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