How England Saved Europe Author:William Henry Fitchett Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Napier's summary, " in twenty minutes 800 soldiers were hustled out of this labyrinth." But the 43rd lost eleven officers and sixty-seven men in those few fierce... more » and stormy minutes. One picturesque incident marked this wild hill fight. The Donjon looked into the rear of a great star-fort beneath it, which was being attacked by the Rifles and the 17th Portuguese, and part of the 43rd, at the very moment when their comrades were storming the Donjon, knelt on the hill crest and opened a deadly fire on the star-fort beneath. Its garrison, attacked by the Rifles in front and smitten by a fire from above, broke and fled. From the lofty summit they had won, the men of the Light Division could look down on the whole landscape of the battle to the sea beyond, a splendid spectacle of war. " On the left," says Napier, " the ships of war, slowly sailing to and fro, were exchanging shots with the fort of Socoa; and Hope, menacing all the French lines in the low ground, sent the sound of a hundred pieces of artillery bellowing up the rocks, to be answered by nearly as many from the tops of the mountains. On the right, the summit of the great Atchubia was just lighted by the rising sun, and 50,000 men, rushing down its enormous slopes with ringing shouts, seemed to chase the receding shadows into the deep valley. The plains of France, so long overlooked from the towering crags of the Pyrenees, were to be the prize THE HON. SIR JOHN HOPE AFTERWARDS FOURTH EARL OF HOPETOUN From a mezzotint after the painting by John Hoppner, R.A. of battle, and the half-famished soldiers in their fury broke through the iron barrier erected by Soult as if it were but a screen of reeds." One redoubt remained on the extreme left of the French, armed with large ship-carronades, which, loaded with gra...« less