Robert Batty

With the Guards Across the Pyrenees: the Experiences of a British Officer of Wellington's Army During the Battles for the Fall of Napoleonic France, 1813 Robert Batty

From Spain across the mountains into Southern France The author of this account, a young subaltern of the British First Foot Guards, joined Wellingtons Army in the closing stages of the war with Napoleon's French Army in the Iberian peninsula. Now the fighting would take place in the mountains and passes of the great mountain barrier that stood between the allies and the homelands of their enemy Batty's narrative concerns the campaign in the western Pyrenees from the perspective of the left wing of the army in which he served. The investment of San Sebastian is followed by the crossings of the Bidassoa and the Nivelle as Wellington's force begins its inexorable advance and the French plan their stubborn retreat and defence against the coming invasion of the southern provinces of their own nation. Batty describes the broad disposition of the opposing armies, the detail of that which affects his own brigade and his personal experiences together with characterisations of familiar figures such as Maitland of the Guards, Colborne, Alten and many others. The narrative concludes with the battles for Bayonne and Toulouse which led to Napoleon's abdication and the First Restoration of the Bourbon monarchy.