Feminist Framing of Europeanisation:

Gender Equality Policies in Turkey and

the EU 1st Edition Rahime
Süleymano■lu-Kürüm
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/feminist-framing-of-europeanisation-gender-equality-
policies-in-turkey-and-the-eu-1st-edition-rahime-suleymanoglu-kurum/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Mapping the Influencers in EU Policies 1st ed. Edition

Dan Luca

https://ebookmass.com/product/mapping-the-influencers-in-eu-
policies-1st-ed-edition-dan-luca/

Framing Climate Change In The EU And US After The Paris

Agreement 1st Edition Frank Wendler

https://ebookmass.com/product/framing-climate-change-in-the-eu-
and-us-after-the-paris-agreement-1st-edition-frank-wendler/

Feminist Art in Resistance: Aesthetics, Methods and

Politics of Art in Turkey Elif Dastarl■

https://ebookmass.com/product/feminist-art-in-resistance-
aesthetics-methods-and-politics-of-art-in-turkey-elif-dastarli/

EU Equality Law: The First Fundamental Rights Policy of

the EU (Oxford Studies in European Law) Elise Muir

https://ebookmass.com/product/eu-equality-law-the-first-
fundamental-rights-policy-of-the-eu-oxford-studies-in-european-
law-elise-muir/
Turkey and the EU in an Energy Security Society: The
Case of Natural Gas 1st ed. Edition Dicle Korkmaz

https://ebookmass.com/product/turkey-and-the-eu-in-an-energy-
security-society-the-case-of-natural-gas-1st-ed-edition-dicle-
korkmaz/

The Maritime Turn in EU Foreign and Security Policies :

Aims, Actors and Mechanisms of Integration 1st Edition
Marianne Riddervold (Auth.)

https://ebookmass.com/product/the-maritime-turn-in-eu-foreign-
and-security-policies-aims-actors-and-mechanisms-of-
integration-1st-edition-marianne-riddervold-auth/

Couples’ Transitions to Parenthood: Gender, Intimacy

and Equality Charlotte Faircloth

https://ebookmass.com/product/couples-transitions-to-parenthood-
gender-intimacy-and-equality-charlotte-faircloth/

Framing TTIP in the European Public Spheres: Towards an

Empowering Dissensus for EU Integration 1st ed. Edition
Alvaro Oleart

https://ebookmass.com/product/framing-ttip-in-the-european-
public-spheres-towards-an-empowering-dissensus-for-eu-
integration-1st-ed-edition-alvaro-oleart/

Gender Equality in Changing Times: Multidisciplinary

Reflections on Struggles and Progress 1st ed. Edition
Angela Smith

https://ebookmass.com/product/gender-equality-in-changing-times-
multidisciplinary-reflections-on-struggles-and-progress-1st-ed-
edition-angela-smith/
GENDER AND POLITICS
SERIES EDITORS: JOHANNA KANTOLA · SARAH CHILDS

Feminist Framing of
Europeanisation

Gender Equality Policies in Turkey

and the EU

Edited by
Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm · F. Melis Cin
 Gender and Politics

Series Editors
Johanna Kantola
University of Tampere
Tampere, Finland

Sarah Childs
Royal Holloway, University of London
Egham, UK
The Gender and Politics series celebrated its 7th anniversary at the 5th
European Conference on Politics and Gender (ECPG) in June 2017 in
Lausanne, Switzerland having published more than 35 volumes to date.
The original idea for the book series was envisioned by the series editors
Johanna Kantola and Judith Squires at the first ECPG in Belfast in 2009,
and the series was officially launched at the Conference in Budapest in
2011. In 2014, Sarah Childs became the co-editor of the series, together
with Johanna Kantola. Gender and Politics showcases the very best inter-
national writing. It publishes world class monographs and edited collec-
tions from scholars - junior and well established - working in politics,
international relations and public policy, with specific reference to ques-
tions of gender. The titles that have come out over the past years make key
contributions to debates on intersectionality and diversity, gender equal-
ity, social movements, Europeanization and institutionalism, governance
and norms, policies, and political institutions. Set in European, US and
Latin American contexts, these books provide rich new empirical findings
and push forward boundaries of feminist and politics conceptual and theo-
retical research. The editors welcome the highest quality international
research on these topics and beyond, and look for proposals on feminist
political theory; on recent political transformations such as the economic
crisis or the rise of the populist right; as well as proposals on continuing
feminist dilemmas around participation and representation, specific gen-
dered policy fields, and policy making mechanisms. The series can also
include books published as a Palgrave pivot. For further information on
the series and to submit a proposal for consideration, please get in touch
with Senior Editor Ambra Finotello, ambra.finotello@palgrave.com.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14998
 Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm
F. Melis Cin
Editors

Feminist Framing
of Europeanisation
Gender Equality Policies in Turkey and the EU
Editors
Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm F. Melis Cin
Department of Political Science and Department of Educational Research
International Relations Lancaster University
Bahçeşehir University Lancaster, UK
Istanbul, Turkey

ISSN 2662-5814     ISSN 2662-5822 (electronic)

Gender and Politics
ISBN 978-3-030-52769-3    ISBN 978-3-030-52770-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52770-9

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2021
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and
information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication.
Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied,
with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published
maps and institutional affiliations.

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Acknowledgements

This book had its genesis in a ‘Europeanisation of Gender Equality Policies’

workshop, which we organised in Istanbul in April 2018 as a part of the
European Union Jean Monnet Programme under Grant Agreement Number
2017-2764/001-001, project number 587615-EPP-1-TR-EPPJMO-­
MODULE, entitled ‘Women’s Development and Europeanisation of Gender
Policies’. We gratefully thank funding support from the EU for bringing
together a group of young, passionate and established feminists and EU
scholars and academics and thus providing the launchpad for this exciting
book. We would like to thank our contributors for this collective work and
their dedication and patience to go through our endless revisions during the
editing process. We hope that this book will contribute to create a more gen-
der-equal Europe and society in which women can be equal partners to men!
We also extend our special thanks to Istanbul Ticaret University for
hosting this project and mobilising all their resources for its successful
implementation. Within Istanbul Ticaret University, we owe special grati-
tude to the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Mustafa Said
Yazıcıoğlu, and Faculty Secretary, Mine Tan, who have helped us to over-
come numerous bureaucratic hurdles, and also the academic staff at the
Department of Sociology, Ahmet Korkut Tuna, Necmettin Doğan,
Mehmet Bedri Mermutlu, Ahu Paköz Türkeli and Mustafa Poyraz, as well
as the Chair of the Department of Political Science and International
Relations, Uğur Yasin Asal, for supporting our project and encouraging
students to enroll the courses opened as part of the project. We also thank
Ahenk Anbar and Ali Rıfat Kılıç for assisting us throughout the project.
Additionally, we would like to extend our special appreciation to our

v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

students who enrolled in the undergraduate (SOS319) and postgraduate

(SOS514) courses entitled ‘Gender Equality Policies and the EU’ for
enriching our discussions and opening new avenues and lines of thinking
for us. We have learned a lot from them, and without them this book
would not have been possible! We are also deeply indebted to Erhan
̇
Içener, who acted as an academic advisor for quality control and who
monitored our project; his support and encouragement was invaluable in
terms of leading this project to success.
There was a very deeply dialogical, social and relational learning process
throughout the writing of this book. Therefore, we would like to acknowl-
edge our colleagues who challenged us with their critical ideas. In particu-
lar, for their contribution to our thinking and research, we thank Özge
Zihnioğlu, Ebru Turhan, Parvati Raghuram, Faith Mkwananzi, Melanie
Walker, Aikande Kwayu, Ayşegül Akdemir, Ayşe Deniz Ünan Göktan and
Bahar Rumelili. We believe that this book will be beneficial and bring fresh
debate and new feminist perspectives to the field of gender equality policy,
making meaningful changes to women’s lives in the long term. We do
hope that we can ultimately create a feminist society and Europe in the
future through endless endeavours and the commitment of feminist activ-
ists, scholars, bureaucrats and practitioners!
Rahime extends her special gratitude to her husband, Osman Kürüm, for
his endless support to her academic ambitions and for being a perfect father
to their sons that made this feminist work possible. She also thanks her sons,
Arda Batu Kürüm and Doğukan Kürüm, for being the main sources of
motivation and encouragement, dedicates this book to them and hopes that
her research contributes to making a better world for them to live in and
motivates her sons to contribute to a better world for women and girls. She
also thanks to her parents, Osman and Ferize Süleymanoğlu, and her sister-
in-law, Merve, and brother, Oktay Süleymanoğlu, for their emotional sup-
port and the help for taking care of her sons and for being the perfect
grandparents, aunt and uncle at times when she really needed help.
Melis is particularly grateful to her partner, Dimitrios Anagnostakis, for
being supportive, a source of inspiration, and sharing her feminist spirit
and passion for the cause. He has also read several versions of this book
and shared her academic and personal commitments. She would also like
to express her gratitude to her parents, Mesut and Belgin Cin, and her
brother, Melih Cin, who have been amazing mentors throughout her life.
Istanbul and Liverpool
April 2020-Under Lockdown
 Contents

Part I Conceptual Framework   1

1 Introduction: Why Gender and the EU?  3

Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm and F. Melis Cin

2 Enlargement Strategy of the EU: A Framework for

Analysis for the (De)Europeanisation in Turkey 19
Digdem Soyaltin-Colella and Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm

3 EU Foreign Policy and Gender: How Does the EU

Incorporate Gender in Its External Relations? 41
Dimitrios Anagnostakis

4 Alternative Explanations from Feminist Theories:

Towards a Feminist Framework for the Europeanisation
Process 63
F. Melis Cin and Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm

5 Construction of a Gender Equality Regime? The Case of

European Union Assistance in Turkey 85
Büke Boşnak

vii
viii CONTENTS

Part II Empirical Analysis of Gender Policies in Turkey 107

6 Internationalism and Europeanisation in the Struggle

Over Gender Equality: Women’s Rights/Feminist
Movement in Turkey109
Elif Uzgören

7 Cherry-Picking in Policymaking: The EU’s Presumptive

Roles on Gender Policymaking in Turkey131
Burcu Taşkın

8 Turkey’s Legislative Reforms to Address Violence Against

Women, and the EU: Uphill Struggles, Hard-Won
Achievements and a Promising Ally157
Burcu Özdemir Sarıgil

9 Budgetary Impact of Gender Mainstreaming and Its

Implementations in the EU and Turkey181
Gamze Yıldız Şeren Kurular

10 Gender Inequality in Businesses: Woman Managers and

Resilient Gender Norms205
Mine Afacan Findikli, Duygu Acar Erdur, and Ayfer Ustabaş

11 Gender Equality in Basic Education: Feminist

Constructions of the EU229
F. Melis Cin and Ecem Karlıdağ-Dennis
 CONTENTS ix

12 The External Dimension of EU Migration and Refugee

Policies: Gender-Specific Challenges251
Canan Ezel Tabur

13 Conclusion: Can the EU Be a Feminist Actor?271

Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm and F. Melis Cin

Index  283
 Notes on Contributors

Duygu Acar Erdur is an assistant professor in the Business Administration

Department of Beykent University since 2017. Her research interests and
expertise include the institutional theory, dissemination of management
knowledge, and diversity management.
Mine Afacan Findikli is an associate professor in the Business
Administration Department of Beykent University. She is also a visiting
fellow at the Future of Work Research Centre, School of Management,
University of Bath, UK.
Dimitrios Anagnostakis is a lecturer in the Department of Politics and
International Relations at the University of Aberdeen. His research inter-
ests include EU studies and the external policies of the EU. He has written
EU-US Cooperation on Internal Security: Building a Transatlantic Regime
(Routledge, 2017).
Büke Boşnak is an assistant professor of International Relations at
Istanbul Bilgi University. Her research focusses on civil society,
Europeanisation, gender studies, environmental politics and human rights,
and EU-Turkey relations.
F. Melis Cin is a lecturer in Education and Social Justice at Lancaster
University, UK. She is a feminist researcher with a particular interest in
exploring the relationship between education, peace, and international
development. She is the author of Gender Justice, Equality and
Education: Creating Capabilities for Girls’ and Women’s Development
(Palgrave, 2007) and the co-editor of Capabilities, Youth, Gender:

xi
xii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Rethinking Opportunities and Agency from a Human Development

Perspective (Routledge, 2018).
Ecem Karlıdağ-Dennis is a researcher in Social Innovation and Impact,
Institute for Social Innovation and Impact, University of Northampton.
Her research interests include social justice, gender, education policy, and
higher education.
Burcu Özdemir Sarıgil is working as a part-time lecturer at Bilkent
University, Turkey. Her main research interests are EU-Turkey relations,
international organisations, diffusion of international norms, women’s
human rights, gender, gender in foreign policy, violence against women,
and the social movements.
Gamze Yıldız Şeren Kurular is an assistant professor in the Department
of Public Finance at Namık Kemal University, Tekirdag-Turkey. Her main
research fields focus on public finance, environmental economics, budget-
ing, and gender.
Digdem Soyaltin-Colella is an assistant professor of Political Science at
Altınbaş University, Istanbul, and a board member of Transparency
International, Turkey. She is also the academic director of the Jean Monnet
Module entitled “EU Good Governance Promotion Inside and Beyond
Its Borders (EUGOGOV)” funded by the European Commission for
three years (2018–2021). Her main fields of interest are the EU enlarge-
ment policy, Europeanisation and domestic change, good governance,
Southeast European and Turkish politics, and more specific policy
sectors of the fight against corruption. She is the author of
Europeanisation, Good Governance and Corruption in the Public Sector:
The Case of Turkey (2017).
Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm is an assistant professor at the
Department of Political Science and International Relations at Bahçeşehir
University. She is also an associate member of the Nottingham
Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP).
Her research focusses on Europeanisation, EU foreign policy, Turkish for-
eign policy, gendering EU studies, gender, and diplomacy. She is the
author of Conditionality, the EU and Turkey: From Transformation to
Retrenchment (Routledge, 2018).
Canan Ezel Tabur is a teaching fellow at the Department of Politics and
International Relations at the University of Aberdeen. Her research
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xiii

i­nterests include EU migration and asylum policy, EU Neighbourhood,

and EU policymaking.
Burcu Taşkın is an assistant professor at the Department of Political
Science and Public Administration, Istanbul Medeniyet University. Her
areas of interest are political representation of minorities, democratisation,
gender studies, voter behaviour, Turkish-Greek relations, and Balkan
politics. She is the author of Political Representation of Minorities in
Greece and Turkey: Nationalism, Reciprocity and Europeanization (2019).
She has published several related articles in the journals Turkish
Studies, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, and Nationalism and
Ethnic Politics.
Ayfer Ustabaş is an assistant professor and the head of the Department
of Economics at Beykent University’s Faculty of Economics and
Administrative Sciences. Her research interests and expertise include
industrial economics, microeconomics, economic growth, and women’s
employment.
Elif Uzgören is a lecturer at the Department of International Relations
at Dokuz Eylül University. Her research interests include critical political
economy, European politics, and Turkish politics.
 List of Tables

Table 7.1 Women MPs in the Turkish parliament and party competition
(1935–2018)142
Table 7.2 Parliamentary work of women deputies in the Turkish
parliament (26th/27th terms) 150
Table 10.1 Demographic characteristics of participants 213
Table 11.1 Girls’ schooling ratio 239

xv
 PART I

Conceptual Framework
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Why Gender and the EU?

Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm and F. Melis Cin

This book is co-edited by two scholars—Cin, in the feminist theory and

gender studies, and Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm, in the EU studies—and thus
offers a thorough interdisciplinary consideration of how the EU
(Europeanisation, to be more precise) and gender equality (or feminist
theory) can conceptually co-exist to examine the domestic change occur-
ring in gender equality policies, and addresses some of the challenges in
the debates surrounding the domestic impact of the EU. By taking Turkey
as a case study, it illustrates that Europeanisation needs a feminist agenda
and perspective and illuminates the limitations of the Europeanisation
pathways emanating from the problematic gender equality understanding
of the EU, as well as the associated problems of coherence among the
member states. Subsequently, the book develops a feminist framework of

R. Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm (*)
Department of Political Science and International Relations, Bahçeşehir
University, Istanbul, Turkey
e-mail: rahime.kurum@eas.bau.edu.tr
F. M. Cin
Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
e-mail: m.cin@lancaster.ac.uk

© The Author(s) 2021 3

R. Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm, F. M. Cin (eds.), Feminist
Framing of Europeanisation, Gender and Politics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52770-9_1
4 R. SÜLEYMANOĞLU-KÜRÜM AND F. M. CIN

Europeanisation by drawing on the work of key feminist philosophers

(Carole Pateman, Onora O’Neill, Nancy Fraser, Anne Phillips, Iris Marion
Young, Martha Nussbaum) to offer a critique of the Europeanisation of
gender policies in various areas.
Developing such a feminist framework for gender policies is an impor-
tant determinant by which to assess the EU’s transformative power on
member states and candidates. This is best exemplified by the report from
the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and
Constitutional Affairs, revealing a backlash in gender equality and wom-
en’s rights in six EU countries (Austria, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania
and Slovakia) (European Parliament 2018). The report indicates that EU
membership does not in itself ensure the adoption or the full application
of EU norms. Indeed, as the report reveals, gender equality norms may be
abandoned once membership has been granted. This report underscores
how important and urgent it is for EU gender policies to incorporate a
feminist agenda and framing that goes beyond merely ticking boxes to
meet legislation. It also underlines the importance of the case of Turkey, a
country involved in a long-term relationship with the EU, and its endeav-
ours to obtain full membership, which was argued to be the most effective
incentive for adopting the EU norms. Hence, through the case of Turkey,
our aim here is to apply a critical lens to the EU’s approach to promote
sustainable gender equality within the member states and beyond, and
identify the crucial mechanisms underway.
Our analytical framework departs from a popular and oft-cited defini-
tion of Europeanisation. In this definition, Europeanisation is defined as ‘a
process of (a) construction, (b) diffusion, (c) institutionalisation of formal
and informal rules, procedures, policy paradigms, styles and “ways of
doing things” and shared beliefs which are first defined and consolidated
in the making of EU decisions and then incorporated in the logic of
domestic discourse, identities, political structures and public policies’
(Radaelli 2002: 11). This definition implicitly illustrates that what is to be
Europeanised includes not only formal rules but also informal ones, and
extends to procedures, political structures, public policies, identities and
discourse, to summarise the main headings. Additionally, by focussing not
only on the construction but also diffusion and institutionalisation,
Radaelli (2002) implicitly incorporates the domestic change both at the
level of harmonisation and implementation subsequently within his
definition.
 1 INTRODUCTION: WHY GENDER AND THE EU? 5

Scholars of Europeanisation popularly applied new institutionalist

approaches, particularly its rationalist and constructivist/sociological vari-
ants, to study the EU’s influence on current and future EU member states
(Cowles et al. 2001; Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005). These theo-
retical approaches offer a well-equipped analytical toolbox with which to
trace the processes, scope conditions and causal mechanisms for the dem-
ocratic construction of EU norms; however, the units of analysis and the
agencies studied leave us with a major question: ‘Can we talk about only
one type of understanding of Europeanisation which works through the
EU-driven strategic calculations or socialisation?’ Related to this question,
the book questions the limits of Europeanisation with gender policies and
builds a novel agenda based on an understanding of Europeanisation as
informed by feminist debates to look into gender policies. In doing so, the
book critically assesses the conceptual and theoretical framework of
Europeanisation as studied by new institutionalist approaches and offers
alternative explanations from feminist theory in order to contribute to
building a feminist framing of Europeanisation. It is also an important
contribution to the Europeanisation research agenda, which has grown
significantly but has remained limited in its focus on gender issues and
women’s development. However, gender policies represent a crucial case
to study the EU’s impact as integration and enlargement of the EU also
involves constructing gender relations by advancing the normative ideas of
gender orders. It is a goal that has been in place since the Treaty of Rome
in 1957 and indeed has intensified since then through law instruments,
treaty provisions and directives as well as soft policy tools. Yet, how
Europeanisation is conceptualised and understood in the establishment of
gender equality policies in the absence of a strong acquis still remains mar-
ginal in EU studies.
The research focusses on Turkey—a candidate country for accession
with prospects of full membership—for a number of reasons. As
Europeanisation research has illustrated, the EU’s impact is greatest when
the EU offers a membership perspective (Schimmelfennig 2007; Börzel
and Risse 2012), and Turkey’s candidacy status since 1999 has made it a
most-likely case for being influenced by the EU. Additionally, even though
single-country case studies have been criticised on the basis of their limited
capacity to generalise their findings (King et al. 1994), we have deliber-
ately chosen the single-country case of Turkey as its economic, political,
cultural and social relations with the EC/EU date back to 1959, which is
longer than those of many current member states. The case of Turkey
6 R. SÜLEYMANOĞLU-KÜRÜM AND F. M. CIN

offers us significant variation in the independent variables (such as the clar-

ity and legitimacy of EU demands, the size and credibility of EU incen-
tives, domestic veto players, etc.) proposed under the rationalist and
constructivist institutionalist approaches and allows us to identify the gaps
in their explanatory value. Therefore, the findings will be relevant beyond
Turkey, being of significance for a set of countries with which the EU
establishes different types of associations. Additionally, as we are focussing
not only on the adoption but also the application of the EU’s norms (see
further information below), a single-country study provides us with
opportunities for an in-depth analysis of the reasons for the gap between
the adoption and application of EU norms. Such an in-depth analysis
would not be possible by comparing different countries with different
legal and cultural backgrounds, as this would risk threatening the validity
of the findings for a wider set of cases. The report mentioned above also
stresses the importance of why Turkey offers the best case study to prob-
lematise Europeanisation from a feminist lens.
Conceptualising the case of Turkey as a most likely case is also deter-
mined by Turkey’s liminal identity of being both Western and Eastern and
its struggle to rely on women’s rights and status in order to have its
European identity confirmed by Europeans (Rumelili and Suleymanoglu-­
Kurum 2017). Women’s position in society has always remained an
emblem of Turkey’s modernity and Westernisation/Europeanisation.
Thus, gender issues are of particular importance for Turkey and a compre-
hensive understanding and awareness of gender issues and women’s devel-
opment is needed if Turkey wants to internalise the democratic values of
the EU. Furthermore, Turkey offers a robust case to illustrate that gender
should not be seen as a variable or a unit of analysis, but rather as an
underpinning rationale in understanding various forms of the EU’s impact
on target countries in various policy areas. The research on the EU and
Turkey has neglected the debates and the relationship between gender
equality and the EU, even though both Turkey and the EU stress gender
equality as both an important goal and an issue to be addressed. This book
aims to fill this gap whilst providing analytical tools to help contextualise
EU strategies and policies within gender studies. In doing so, it argues and
illustrates that Europeanisation process, without a feminist rationale and
framing, is insufficient to create transformative changes in gender equality.
 1 INTRODUCTION: WHY GENDER AND THE EU? 7

Why the EU and Gender Equality?

There is a growing body of work on the Europeanisation of gender equal-
ity policies or the EU and gender equality (see Chiva 2009; Sindbjerg
Martinsen 2007; Forest and Lombardo 2012; Jacquot 2015; Bego 2015;
Kantola 2010; Abels and MacRae 2016). For instance, Weiner and MacRae
(2017) explored the dynamics of power and change within institutions
where they looked at gender as a critical aspect of such. In doing so, the
book brought a new perspective from which to study the EU’s gender
equality agenda by highlighting the institutional challenges of redressing
gender inequalities. Abels and MacRae (2016) opened a new avenue for
debate and dialogue between European integration theory and gender
studies. This debate has been followed up by Ahrens (2018), focussing on
the internal processes in and between the EU-level institutions and which
has helped us to understand how gender equality policies are developed
and processed within the EU whilst paying attention to the role of actors,
NGOs and institutions in forming the gender equality programmes within
the EU. These books have enriched our understanding of the gendered
nature of EU policymaking throughout the integration process and the
gender problem in its institutional settings. We build on this literature but
focus predominantly on the process of Europeanisation to reflect on how
the gendered structures in EU policymaking impact the EU’s promotion
of gender equality both inside and beyond its borders. We are interested
in unpacking the outcomes of the process of Europeanisation and the
quality of these outcomes and whether they reflect meaningful changes in
the lives of women and girls and whether the EU has the mechanisms to
make its impact positive, sustainable and irreversible.
There are also a number of studies that focus on feminist institutional-
ism to explain the shortcomings of the EU’s gender equality promotion
(Eräranta and Kantola 2016; Ansorg and Haastrup 2018). Whilst feminist
institutionalism can help us unpack how institutions can be sites of resis-
tance and can obstruct the gender movement (Kenny 2013)—as revealed
by the backlash towards women’s rights in six EU countries—what is miss-
ing is an understanding of how Europeanisation can align with feminist
theory to offer a discussion that moves beyond the mechanisms of the
EU’s impact on women’s status and position in a wide range of social and
political contexts and, indeed, the private realm. This book takes this
debate further and builds on the emerging research on gender and the EU
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
predecessors should have cleared the way in front of them. The 5th
Division, having received the alarm about Clausel’s raid on Vittoria,
had turned back on the 23rd and was a full march behind Hill. The
6th Division had now passed out of Pakenham’s hands into those of
Clinton, its normal commander, who had just come up from
Lisbon[635]. It remained at Vittoria when all danger from Clausel was
over, and had originally been intended to come in on the rear of the
5th Division at Salvatierra, leaving the hospitals and spoils under the
guard of some details[636]. But other orders were soon to reach it.
During the night of the 25th Wellington got the news from Mina
that Clausel’s column, which he had supposed to be making a hasty
retreat down the Ebro, ever since its vain appearance in front of
Vittoria on the evening of the 22nd, was much less far off than he
had supposed. Owing to its counter-marches on the 23rd-24th it had
only just got back to Logroño, and had started off from that town on
the 25th by the road north of the Ebro via Mendavia and Sesma,
apparently heading for Pampeluna. If this were Clausel’s game, he
might be intercepted and caught, and allied columns might thrust
themselves between him and his escape towards Saragossa or
Jaca. The nearer he got to Pampeluna the better, since the French
main army was no longer there, but in rapid march for its native soil.
The orders which Wellington had issued upon the afternoon of
the 25th for the movements of the army on the 26th, had
contemplated nothing more than the investment of Pampeluna by
the 3rd and 7th Divisions on the north side, and the Light and 4th
Divisions on the south side of the Arga. But the news which had
come in from Mina caused a complete change in his plans: the
morning orders of the 26th direct Cole, with the 4th and Light
Divisions, not to linger near Pampeluna, but to move off as far as the
men could go on the Tudela road—to Mendavil, half-way to Tafalla, if
possible: Grant’s hussar brigade was to push ahead in front of the
infantry, and discover whether Clausel was to be heard of on this
road, or perhaps on the Estella-Puente la Reyna road, which was an
alternative (if less likely) track for him to take if marching on
Pampeluna. Hill was ordered to hurry up from the rear, and replace
in the blockade not only the troops of Cole, but those of Picton and
Dalhousie. For the 3rd and 7th Divisions were to get ready to follow
Cole’s column the moment that they were relieved: they were to
concentrate meanwhile at the village of Sielvas, south of the Arga,
and to march southward as soon as Hill came up. But it was
calculated that they would not be able to move till dawn on the 27th,
as Hill had a long way to come. Ponsonby’s cavalry brigade would
attach itself to them when the move should begin. Meanwhile, four
divisions being set in motion to head off Clausel from this side,
another column was ordered to strike across the mountains and fall
in on his rear if possible. The 6th Division was still at Vittoria on the
25th, as was R. Hill’s brigade of heavy cavalry. Clinton (now
commanding his old division in lieu of Pakenham) received orders to
start off with all speed on the Logroño road, taking the Household
Cavalry with him, and to endeavour to catch up the retreating
French. He made forced marches via Trevino and Peñacerrada, and
reached Logroño on the 27th, where he picked up six abandoned
French guns, but learned that Clausel had been gone for two days,
and had crossed the Ebro at Lodosa instead of continuing on the
Pampeluna road. There was little chance of catching him up, when
he had a start of two marches, but Clinton continued the pursuit as
far as Lerin on the Miranda-de-Arga road, where he gave it up. The
Household Cavalry returned to Logroño, where it was directed to go
into billets, as horsemen would not be wanted in the Pyrenees, while
the 6th Division marched at leisure from Lerin to Pampeluna[637].
The only real chance of catching Clausel was to head him off at
Tudela, by means of the four divisions which were descending upon
him down the Tafalla road. But a glance at the map will show that he
could only have been intercepted if he had displayed uncommon
torpidity. For having crossed the Ebro at Lodosa on the 26th he was
only 35 miles from Tudela on a good road: and marching hard he
reached the town on the afternoon of the 27th, when the advanced
cavalry of the column sent to intercept him had only got to Olite, 25
miles to the north, and the Light Division at the head of the infantry
column was 10 miles behind at Barasoain. Clausel did not halt more
than a few hours at Tudela: there was no need for the intervention of
the treacherous alcalde—who figures in legends of the time—to bid
him press on hard for Saragossa. For the design, attributed to him by
some of the contemporary British diarists, of marching up from
Tudela along the Aragon river, with the object of reaching France
and joining the King by way of Sanguesa was never really in his
mind. Ever since he had crossed the bridge of Lodosa his only
desire was to get to Saragossa in the shortest possible time. Starting
off again at dawn on the 28th, with his force increased by the
garrison of Tudela, he marched that day twenty miles to Mallen, and
on the 29th a similar distance to Alagon. On the 30th a shorter stage
of 15 miles brought him to Saragossa, where he found General
Paris, the Governor of Aragon, still completely ignorant of the battle
of Vittoria, though it had taken place nine days back.
Since the 26th Clausel had been practically out of danger, for he
had the Ebro, whose bridges at Lodosa and Tudela he had
destroyed, between him and Wellington’s columns. There was no
force which could have stopped him, for there are 20 miles less of
road between Lodosa and Tudela than between Pampeluna and
Tudela. Wellington had hoped for a moment that Mina might have
intercepted the French column at Tudela, and have held it in check
long enough to allow the British to come up. But though Mina was,
so far as mere distances went, capable of striking at Tudela, two
things prevented him from being able to do so—the first was the
obstacle of the Ebro, the second the fact that Tudela was a fortified
place with a competent garrison. Even if the great guerrillero had got
his men across the river, he certainly could not have captured
Tudela, and equally certainly would have been beaten by Clausel,
when the French column—double his available force in numbers—
came up, if he had dared to offer battle in the open near the town.
During the night of the 27th Wellington heard that Clausel had
slipped past Tudela in haste, and that Mina, quite unable to stop him,
was only able to follow him with his cavalry—to which Julian
Sanchez’s Lancers had joined themselves. At a very early hour on
the 28th—before 5 o’clock in the morning—the British Commander-
in-Chief issued a fresh set of orders in view of this untoward
news[638]. They are a little difficult to understand, but internal
evidence seems to show that Wellington must have received some
sort of report tending to make him think it possible that Clausel,
instead of falling back on Saragossa and joining Suchet’s army,
might march across country by the road Tauste-Exea-Un Castillo-
Jaca, or the alternative road Exea-Luna-Murillo-Jaca, in order to
cross the Pyrenees by the pass of Canfranc and join the King’s army
in Bearn. Or he might march through Saragossa in haste, and make
for Jaca by the Gallego river[639]. There was a bare possibility of
intercepting him by turning the whole pursuing column eastward, and
taking it into the valley of the river Aragon, from which it would march
by Sanguesa and Berdun on Jaca. The weak point of the scheme
was that there was no certainty that Clausel would march on Jaca at
all: he might stop in Aragon and combine his operations with those of
Suchet. Or even if he did start for Jaca, when he heard that his road
was intercepted by British troops, he would naturally turn back and
cast in his lot with the French Army of Aragon, rather than with the
King.
It is therefore rather surprising to find that Wellington imposed
two days of heavy marching on his left wing, on the bare possibility
that Clausel might be intercepted at or near Jaca. The orders for the
28th June were for the cavalry at the head of the column to make the
long march Olite-Caparrosa-Caseda, by the good but circuitous road
along the valley of the Aragon, taking in charge the artillery
belonging to the infantry divisions. The latter were to cut across from
the Pampeluna to the Sanguesa roads by country tracks in the hills
—the Light Division by Olite-Beyre-Gallipienzo, the 4th Division by
Tafalla-St. Martin de Unx-Gallipienzo. The 3rd and 7th Divisions,
farther behind, went from Mendavil by Olleta to Caseda. This move
concentrated 30,000 men in a solid body on a decent road—but left
a very long gap between them and the troops blockading Pampeluna
—and the gap would grow longer each day that the marching force
pushed north-eastward up the course of the Aragon on its way to
Jaca[640].
On the following day (June 29th) the column, now with the 3rd
Division at its head and the 4th Division at its tail, had moved along
the river till its head reached Sanguesa, when Wellington suddenly
made up his mind to relinquish the scheme, which (as he himself
owned) had never been a very promising one. He wrote to Castaños
that Clausel, having passed Tudela marching hard for Saragossa,
had got too long a start, and could not be caught. The plan of
intercepting him at Jaca had been given up, firstly because it would
probably have failed, and secondly because, if it had succeeded, it
would only have forced Clausel to join Suchet—which was not a
thing to be desired[641]. A third reason, which he did not cite to
Castaños but reserved for Lord Bathurst’s private eye, was that the
Army was marching very badly, with many stragglers, and many
marauders. ‘The British on the 17th June were 41,547 rank and file:
on the 29th, 35,650 rank and file—diminution, 5,897. Now the loss in
the battle was 3,164—so that the diminution from irregularities,
straggling, &c., for plunder, is 2,733.’ The Portuguese before the
battle were 25,489—their present strength is 23,044. As they lost
only 1,022 in the battle, they show an extra diminution of another
1,423 rank and file, from the same causes as the British. ‘There are
only 160 men in the hospital which I established—the others are
plundering the country in different directions.’ The truth was, that the
Army was sulky—the men had not got over the effects of the looting
at Vittoria, the weather had been bad, and the hunt after Clausel had
been regarded by officers and men alike as a wild-goose chase.
The French General gave his men three days’ rest at Saragossa
(June 30-July 2) and then started to march up the Gallego river to
Jaca, where the head of his column arrived on July 6th: he then
halted his divisions for some days, stopping in a position where he
could either cross the pass of Canfranc into France, for he had no
field-guns or wheeled transport with him, to impede his passage by
that steep defile, or else return into the plains of Aragon. If Suchet
should come to Saragossa with the Army of Valencia, he could drop
back to meet him. But on the 11th arrived the news that Saragossa
had been evacuated on the preceding day, after some indecisive
fighting between General Paris’s garrison and the bands of Mina and
Duran, who had beset the city on both sides of the Ebro. All chance
of a junction with Suchet having vanished, Clausel crossed the
Pyrenees next day, after leaving a garrison in Jaca. He came down
into the Val d’Aspe on the French side, with 11,000 infantry, 500
horse, and six mountain guns packed on mules—his sole artillery.
He had lost somewhere about 1,500 men in his long march—some
broken-down stragglers, others sick left in hospital at Tudela and
Saragossa. All these fell into the hands of Mina, but the casualties in
actual fighting had been practically nil. By July 15th the whole
column, marching over the Pyrenean foot-hills, had reached St.
Jean-Pied-de-Port, and come into touch with the Armies of the South
and Centre, who had so long and vainly desired to see Clausel.
Meanwhile Wellington, having stopped his eastward march on
June 29th, had given his troops one day’s rest, and then drawn them
back toward Pampeluna by the road through Monreal. He was now
about to take up the pursuit of the King’s troops, which had been
abandoned on the 25th while he went off on his fruitless hunt after
Clausel—an enterprise which would have been far better left to Mina
and the guerrilleros, for there never had been much probability of its
succeeding. But the new move required several days of preparation,
since four divisions had to be brought back from the valley of the
Aragon, and one more, the 6th, to come up from Lerin via Puente La
Reyna. And it was necessary to provide a considerable force for the
blockade of Pampeluna. The instructions for July 1 were that Hill was
to make the first move, by marching northward with the 2nd Division,
handing over the investment of Pampeluna to Silveira’s Portuguese
and Morillo’s Spaniards[642], to whose assistance there would come
up in 24 hours the 7th Division, and a little later the 3rd Division. Hill
was to march by the Col de Velate and Santesteban into the Bastan,
from which it was intended that he should drive out D’Erlon’s
divisions.
But these operations belong to the fighting of July, and before
dealing with them it is necessary to go back to June 22nd, in order to
follow the fortunes of the other large French force, which might have
been present at the battle of Vittoria, but was not.
 SECTION XXXVII: CHAPTER II
THE PURSUIT OF FOY

We left General Foy at the decisive moment when he received

the dispatch forwarded by Thouvenot from Vittoria, which informed
him of the King’s retreat beyond the Ebro, and suggested that he
might come in to join the main army, but left him the fatal choice of
deciding whether his own immediate operations were or were not of
such paramount importance that they could not be abandoned[643].
Foy decided, and many other generals have made a similar error in
all ages, that his own job was the really important thing. The dispatch
reached him on the 19th, when he had his division concentrated at
Bergara, and could have brought it to Vittoria in time for the battle.
Probably the brigade of Berlier, belonging to the Army of the North,
which was under his orders, could also have been brought in from
Villafranca to Vittoria by the 21st.
But on the very eve of the decisive engagement, and with
Jourdan’s dispatch advising him ‘de se rapprocher de Vittoria’ before
his eyes, Foy decided that the petty affairs of the Biscay garrisons
were of more importance than the fate of the King’s Army. Instead of
bringing down his own and Berlier’s troops to Vittoria, where 5,000
bayonets would have been most welcome to the depleted Army of
Portugal, he proceeded to disperse them. He sent, on the 20th, two
battalions to El Orrio to facilitate the retreat of the garrison of Bilbao,
dispatched two others to Deba, on the coast, to guard against a
rumoured British demonstration against that port, and remained at
Bergara with the 6th Léger alone. Orders were forwarded to Berlier
to stand fast at Villafranca, and to the troops expected from Bilbao to
make the best pace that they could, as the Army of Galicia would
soon be upon them[644]. Giron’s demonstration on the Balmaseda
road had convinced Foy that the Spanish 4th Army was aiming at
Bilbao—he could not know that Wellington had brought the Galicians
down by Orduña to join his main body.
On the evening of the 21st the division of Maucune, escorting the
convoy which had started from Vittoria at dawn, came through the
pass of Salinas unmolested. Its general met Foy, and told him that
he had heard heavy cannonading for many hours behind him, but
had no notion of what was going on upon the Zadorra. The column
bivouacked between Mondragon and Bergara, and started off again
before daybreak. It had not gone more than a league when fugitives
began to drop in from Vittoria, bringing news of the disaster. The
King’s army had been routed—his artillery abandoned: he had been
pushed aside on to the Pampeluna road, and Allied columns were
coming up the great chaussée making for Bergara and Durango. On
hearing these depressing news the commandants of the forts which
guarded the passes—those of Arlaban, Mondragon, and Salinas—
spiked their guns, and fell back without orders to join Foy at Bergara.
The news was only too true. On the night of the battle Wellington
had issued orders for Longa’s Division to set out at dawn on the
22nd to force the passes, and, if possible, to overtake Maucune’s
unwieldy convoy. Giron was to follow, when his men, who had
suffered dreadful fatigue in their forced march from Orduña, were
capable of movement. As the Galicians were terribly under-gunned—
there appear to have been only six pieces with the 12,000 infantry—
Wellington lent them two batteries from the British artillery
reserve[645]. Giron started from the neighbourhood of Vittoria at 3
o’clock in the afternoon, and had gone only some six miles when the
news of Clausel’s raid was sent to him by Pakenham. The whole
army halted and began to retrace its steps, with the object of joining
the 6th Division and fending off this unexpected attack. But the
return march had hardly begun when the message arrived that
Clausel’s cavalry had retreated in haste, and that there was no
danger on the side of Vittoria. Giron therefore resumed his original
advance, but only reached Escoriaza, a hamlet half-way between
Salinas and Mondragon after dark[646]. His troops were worn out, and
had not received any regular rations that day.
 It thus chanced that only Longa’s Division continued the advance
along the Bayonne chaussée on the 22nd, and that all day the
Cantabrians were far ahead of, and quite out of touch with, the Army
of Galicia. It was with this small force alone that Foy had to deal. The
French General had been prepared for trouble by the ominous news
that Maucune had given him on the previous day, and conceived that
it was his duty to hold the passes as long as was prudent, in order to
gain time for the convoy to get on its way, and for the garrison of
Bilbao to come in from the right rear. Accordingly he was much
vexed to find that the officers commanding the Mondragon forts had
evacuated them, and had fallen back on Bergara. He resolved to
hold the defile if possible, and marched back toward it, taking with
him the only two battalions of his division which he had at hand[647],
and the garrisons of the three forts.
The fort of Mondragon was found empty—there were no enemies
visible save some local guerilleros who fled. But on advancing a little
farther, Foy came on the head of Longa’s column, descending from
the defile of Salinas. He spent the whole afternoon in a series of
rearguard actions, making his men fall back by alternate battalions,
and defending each turn of the road. The French troops behaved
with great steadiness, and Longa was cautious, having received
false news that the Bilbao garrison had joined Foy. He contented
himself with turning each successive position that the enemy took
up, and at nightfall had only got about two miles beyond Mondragon.
Here he halted, having occupied the fort (where he found six spiked
guns) and taken 53 prisoners. Foy had lost about 200 men in all in
the long bickering, and had been himself slightly wounded in the
shoulder, though he was not disabled: the Spaniards probably
somewhat less[648].
During the evening hours three more battalions of Foy’s own
division arrived at Bergara, but the garrison of Bilbao and St. Pol’s
Italians had not yet been heard of. Having now 3,000 men in hand,
the French general resolved to hold Longa up, until the missing
troops should have passed behind him and got into a safe position.
He waited opposite the Cantabrians all the morning, but was not
attacked: a reconnaissance sent out reported that the enemy was
quiescent at Mondragon. The fact was that Longa had heard that the
French had received reinforcements, and was waiting for Giron to
come up with the three Galician divisions. They arrived by noon,
much fatigued and drenched by heavy rain, and Giron contented
himself with making arrangements for an attack on Bergara on the
next morning.
But this attack was never delivered, for Foy having at last picked
up the missing brigades, retreated on Villareal during the afternoon,
using St. Pol’s Italians as his rearguard. He says in his dispatch that
he had deduced from Longa’s strange quiescence the idea (quite
correct in itself) that the Spaniards were refraining from pushing him,
because they were hoping that he would linger long enough at
Bergara to be cut off by some other column, coming from Salvatierra
on to Tolosa far in his rear. And Graham’s force had actually been
detached for this very purpose that afternoon—but Giron did not
know it, and was really detained only by the exhaustion of his troops.
It was not till evening that he got a dispatch from Wellington directing
him to press hard upon Foy and delay his march, because an Anglo-
Portuguese force was moving by the Puerto de San Adrian to
intercept his retreat[649]. But Foy, having guessed what plans might
be brewing for his discomfiture, had not only retreated betimes, but
ordered Maucune, who was now a day’s march in front of him with
the convoy, to drop the impedimenta and bring all his fighting force
back to Villafranca, to block the road from Salvatierra until he and his
8,000 men should have got past the point of danger. This order
Maucune executed on the morning of the 24th, turning the convoy
into Tolosa, and turning back to hold the junction of the roads, with
one of his brigades in Villafranca town, and the other thrown forward
across to the river Oria to Olaverria and Beassayn on the south
bank. News had by this time come to hand that the march of a British
column from Salvatierra across the hills had been verified, and that
the peril was a real one. Wherefore Foy pressed his retreat, and sent
Maucune orders to hold on at all costs till the column from Bergara
should have passed his rear.
Now Wellington’s orders to Graham to cut in by the Puerto de
San Adrian with the 1st Division, Pack’s and Bradford’s Portuguese,
and Anson’s Light Dragoons, had been issued late on the 22nd, but
had only reached the General and the greater part of his troops on
the morning of the 23rd. Of all the column only the two Light
Battalions of the King’s German Legion and Bradford’s Portuguese
had turned off that night. Consequently on the 23rd, the critical day,
Graham and the bulk of his command were toiling up the pass in
heavy rain, and had not crossed the watershed, only Bradford and
the two German battalions having reached the village of Segura. It
was not till dawn on the 24th that Anson’s cavalry and Pack’s
Portuguese got to the front; the rest of the infantry was still far off.
Graham then advanced on Villafranca, and soon came into collision
with Maucune, who was already in position covering the cross-roads.
The head of Foy’s column, coming in from the West, was clearly
visible on the other side of the Oria in the act of passing behind the
screen formed by Maucune’s covering force. He had started from
Villareal before dawn, and got clear away before Longa and Giron
were on the move, or able to delay him.
Graham attacked at once, in the hope of driving in Maucune
before Foy could get past. Bradford’s Portuguese, endeavouring to
turn the French flank, pushed to the right; Halkett’s Germans,
supported by the grenadier and light companies of Pack’s brigade,
made for Beassayn on the left wing. Bradford’s leading unit, the 5th
Caçadores, attacking recklessly on unexplored ground, was thrown
back at its first assault; but the Brigadier, extending other battalions
farther to his right, ended by taking the village of Olaverria and
pushing his immediate opponents across the river. The German light
battalions carried Beassayn at their first rush. But Maucune, retiring
to a new position on high ground immediately above Villafranca,
continued his resistance, trying to gain time at all risks. In this he
was successful: Foy, hurrying past his rear, got well forward on the
Tolosa road with his two leading brigades—the other two he dropped
behind the town, to support Maucune or relieve him when he should
be driven in.
Owing to the early hour—three in the morning—at which Foy had
started on his retreat from Villareal, the bulk of Giron’s army was
never able to catch him up. Only Longa’s Cantabrians, leading the
advance as usual, came into contact with his rear brigade—St. Pol’s
Italians—at the defile of La Descarga west of Villafranca. Failing to
force a passage by a frontal attack, Longa turned the position; but
the delay permitted St. Pol to get off with small loss and to catch up
the rest of Foy’s column.
By three in the afternoon Graham was beginning to outflank
Maucune’s line about Villafranca, with Bradford’s brigade on his right
and Pack’s on his left, while Longa had come in sight upon the
chaussée. Thereupon the French General, having held his ground
for the necessary space of time, made a prompt retreat along the
Tolosa road, pursued but not much harmed by the Portuguese.
This ended a rather unsatisfactory day—the French had lost
more men than the Allies[650], but the trap to catch them had failed
completely. It is clear that if Graham’s column could have crossed
the Puerto de San Adrian twelve hours earlier, or if Giron had
pressed Foy hard and delayed his movements either on the 23rd or
on the 24th, the scheme would have worked. Bad staff work was
apparently responsible in some measure for both of these failures,
though the extreme inclemency of the weather was a secondary
cause. Foy’s conduct of the operations on the 22nd-23rd appears a
little rash—he might have been caught but for his good luck. But till
he had picked up the troops from Bilbao, at noon on the 23rd, he
was constrained to wait at Bergara; and after he had once received
them he marched hard, and so escaped, thanks to his wise
precaution in sending Maucune to Villafranca.
After the combat of the morning Graham moved forward a few
miles as far as Ichasondo and neighbouring villages on the Tolosa
road, while Giron came up in the evening, and billeted his army in
Villafranca, Beassayn, and other places on the Oria. As the missing
brigades of the 1st Division appeared that night, there were now
some 10,000 Anglo-Portuguese[651] and 16,000 Spaniards[652]
massed along the chaussée; Foy, having picked up the garrisons of
Tolosa and some smaller places, and having been joined by a stray
brigade from the Army of the North, had also as many as 16,000
men in hand[653], so that the opposing forces on both sides had
swollen to a considerable strength.
Graham having failed (through no fault of his own) to intercept
the enemy’s retreat at Villafranca, and regarding extreme haste as
no longer necessary, since the scheme had miscarried, set himself
to carry out Wellington’s orders to drive back the enemy to the
Bidassoa without any great hurry. He was much hampered by the
fact that Giron’s army had outmarched its train, and was therefore
suffering for want of supplies, which could not be procured in the
mountains of Guipuzcoa. On the 25th he brought the whole of the
allied forces up to Alegria, half-way to Tolosa, driving out Maucune’s
division, which Foy had left there as a rearguard. It was then
discovered that the enemy had taken up a long and extensive
position on each side of Tolosa, and showed no disposition to give
ground. It was clear that he must be driven off by force.
Foy, as he explains in his dispatch of June 28th[654], had resolved
to make a stand at the junction of roads in Tolosa, because he was
obsessed by a theory (less accurate than that which he had formed
as to Graham’s march two days before) to the effect that King
Joseph might have dispatched part or the whole of his army, by the
road which leads from Yrurzun on the Araquil to Tolosa across the
mountains, in order to transfer it to the lower Bidassoa and the
Bayonne road. He was still ignorant of the full effects of the battle of
Vittoria, and having heard cannonading far to the south-west on the
23rd[655] had jumped to the conclusion that the main army might be
moving up to join him at Tolosa. As a matter of fact King Joseph had
turned a detachment off the Pampeluna road at Yrurzun—Reille’s
two divisions—but they had been sent not by the more westerly road
to Tolosa, but by the Col de Velate route to Santesteban, on which
they travelled fast because they had no guns or transport.
But to cover the imaginary movement Foy disposed his troops in
front of the junction of roads. Tolosa town lies in a narrow defile,
through which pass the Oria river and the great chaussée. It had
been prepared long before for serious defence, as it was one of the
chief halting-places on the great road from Bayonne to Madrid. The
old walls had been strengthened with blockhouses, the gates were
palisaded outside and had guns mounted by them. The town blocks
the defile completely, but is commanded by steep hills on either side.
Foy sent on the great convoy which Maucune had escorted,
under charge of four battalions commanded by General Berlier. The
rest of his troops he disposed for defence. De Conchy’s brigade held
the fortified town. On the south-east Bonté’s brigade and St. Pol’s
Italians were placed on the heights above the Lizarza torrent, a
forward position in which they protected the Pampeluna road. The
second brigade of Foy’s own division was placed on the hill of Jagoz,
on the same flank but nearer the town. On the other or western bank
of the Oria Rouget’s brigade (the troops from Bilbao) were on
commanding ground, flanking the town and blocking two mountain
paths which came down on to it from Azpeytia in the valley of the
Uroli. Maucune’s division was in reserve behind Tolosa, massed on
the chaussée. As Foy very truly observes in his dispatch, the
position was strong against frontal attack, and could only be turned
by very wide détours by any troops arriving from the south.
This was as evident to Graham as to Foy, and the British General
prepared for a long day’s work. His intention was to outflank the
position, even though it should take many hours. In the centre the
bulk of the 1st Division, followed by Pack’s Portuguese and Giron’s
Galicians, advanced up the chaussée on the left bank of the river
Oria, and halted a considerable distance from Tolosa. But Longa’s
Cantabrians and Porlier’s small Asturian division were sent off to
make a very circuitous march over the mountains on the right by
Alzo and Gastolu with the object of cutting into the Pampeluna road
many miles east of Tolosa, and then taking the town in the rear. A
less wide curve was made by a column consisting of Bradford’s
Portuguese brigade, with the three Line-battalions of the King’s
German Legion in support, who were also to operate to the east of
the chaussée and of the river Oria, and were directed to cross the
Lizarza ravine and carry the hill behind it, from whence they were to
push forward to the Pampeluna road and then turn inwards against
the town. A smaller column, consisting of one battalion of Pack’s
brigade and the light companies of Giron’s 3rd Division, was to make
a corresponding movement to the west, and to endeavour to get on
to the hill dominating Tolosa on that side. Nor was this all:
information came to hand that Mendizabal had brought to Aspeytia
what remained of the Biscayan irregulars whom Foy had routed and
dispersed a month back[656]. Graham wrote to beg him to
demonstrate with these bands against the Bayonne chaussée north
of Tolosa, and to get on to that road if possible and block it.
The main column halted while the flanking operations were
pursuing their slow course. The only fighting which took place in the
morning was an attack by Bradford’s brigade on the heights
occupied by Bonté, opposite Aleon and beyond the Lizarza torrent.
The French Brigadier had neglected to guard the passages of the
ravine, and allowed the Portuguese to get on to the ridge of his
position without much difficulty[657]. He then counter-attacked them,
first with his own brigade, then with St. Pol’s Italians also, but was
unable to cast them down from the hill: nor could Bradford get
forward. All the hours of the early afternoon were spent in an
indecisive tiraillade on this front. It is curious to note that both the
commanders-in-chief write in sharp criticism of their subordinates:
Foy says that Bonté was careless and disobeyed orders; Graham
that Bradford’s men, after a good start, fought in a confused and
disorderly fashion[658]. On the other flank the Spanish-Portuguese
detachment, sent to try to gain a footing on the hills to the west of
Tolosa, reported that they had come up against an absolute
precipice, and could do nothing.
So matters wore on till about six o’clock in the afternoon, when
distant firing in the rear of the French position announced that both
Longa on the right and Mendizabal on the left were in touch with the
enemy. Graham then ordered a general attack, the three German
Line-battalions, hitherto in reserve behind Bradford, being ordered to
strike at the Pampeluna road; meanwhile the main column, which
had so long waited opposite Tolosa, deployed the two light German
battalions in its front, with the Guards Brigade and Giron’s 3rd
Division supporting, and advanced against the south face of the
town. The detachment to the extreme left, which had failed to get up
the precipices in its front, was directed to turn inward to attack the
west side of Tolosa.
These orders brought on very heavy fighting, for Foy had held his
forward positions so long that he had great difficulty in withdrawing
his troops from them, when he found that he was outflanked, and
even attacked in the rear. At the south end of the field, along the
chaussée, the allied attack failed entirely, the strength of the
fortifications of the town having been under-estimated. When the
leading battalion (1st Light Battalion K.G.L.) approached the gate, it
came into a cross-fire from the blockhouses, and still heavier frontal
musketry from the well-lined ramparts, which proved wholly
inaccessible. Scaling ladders would have been required to mount
them. The line broke, but the men did not retire, but threw
themselves down behind walls and in ditches and tried to answer the
fire from such cover as they could find. Many took refuge in the
courtyard of a convent not far outside the Vittoria gate, from which
their colonel, Ompteda, led out a second assault, which melted away
under the fire as the first had done. In truth, the attempt was a
misjudged one on Graham’s part—possibly his bad eyesight had
failed to note the strength of the defences. The 1st Light Battalion
lost five officers and 58 men killed and wounded in a quarter of an
hour[659], and had to keep under shelter as best it could; the
supporting troops were halted and ordered to lie down, while guns
were brought up from the rear to batter the gate. This should
obviously have been done before, and not after, the assault. The
check was unnecessary, as was shown a little later when the artillery
smashed the gate by a few shots, and cleared the neighbouring
walls.
Meanwhile there had been fierce fighting on the eastern side of
the town, where Bradford’s Portuguese, and the three German line-
battalions, with Longa’s men on their northern flank, had fallen upon
the three French brigades lying outside the town. Bonté’s and St.
Pol’s battalions, still frontally engaged against Bradford, suddenly
realized the danger of their position, when the Germans attacked
their left flank, and Longa appeared almost in their rear. They
retreated in haste towards Tolosa, and got jammed outside the
Pampeluna gate, which had been blocked for defence and could not
readily be entered. To avoid being crushed against the walls, they
massed themselves for a counter-stroke, and thrusting back the
Germans for a moment, raced along the river-bank, past the foot of
the ramparts, till they got under the cover of Foy’s second brigade on
the hill of Jagoz, and escaped beyond the north end of the town. The
Germans, though in great disorder, made an attack on the
Pampeluna gate, which failed for the same reason that had wrecked
that on the Vittoria gate—the impossibility of escalading a well-
defended rampart.
Meanwhile there was heavy skirmishing going on to the north-
west of Tolosa: Mendizabal’s bands had appeared on the mountain
road from Aspeytia, and had engaged Rouget’s brigade, which was
covering Foy’s right flank. The French general’s dispatch confesses
that the troops from the Bilbao garrison, which included some
conscript battalions from the Bayonne reserve, behaved badly, lost
ground, and had to be rallied by their general’s personal exertions.
They were apparently thrown into a panic by an attack delivered on
their flank, by the small Spanish-Portuguese detachment which
Graham had sent out on his left: it had worked up by the narrow
space between the walls of Tolosa and the precipice above, and
came up very opportunely to aid Mendizabal. Rouget held on till
dark, but with difficulty, and the knowledge that his route of retreat
was threatened added to Foy’s anxiety, for Longa was also pushing
behind the town on the other side. Accordingly he ordered
Deconchy’s brigade to evacuate Tolosa at once, just as the sun was
setting, and prepared for a general retreat.
If the order had been given half an hour later, the garrison of
Tolosa would probably have been captured whole, for Graham’s
guns had just blown the defences of the Vittoria gate to pieces, and
the German light battalions burst in with ease at the point where they
had been checked before. There was some confused fighting in the
streets, but the French got off with no great loss under cover of the
darkness, and fell in with the rear of their main column, which went
off down the chaussée at great speed. Mendizabal made some
prisoners from Rouget’s brigade, as it fell back to join the rest across
the slopes, and Longa caught some fugitives on the other flank[660].
Foy says that he lost some 400 men in the fight, which would
seem a low estimate, as the Allies could show 200 prisoners, and
Bonté’s and Rouget’s brigades had been very roughly handled.
Graham reports 58 killed, 316 wounded, and 45 missing—the last all
from Bradford’s brigade. Of the Spaniards Longa and Mendizabal
only were engaged: Giron’s report (as so often occurs with Spanish
documents) gives no figures, only remarking that some of Longa’s
1st battalion of Iberia ‘perished by reason of their rash courage, but
had a great share in deciding the day’—presumably by pushing far
ahead in the turning movement which caused Foy to order a general
retreat. If we allow 200 Spanish killed and wounded, we shall
probably not be far out of our reckoning. Had Graham withheld his
unlucky assault on the Vittoria gate till it had been well battered, and
trusted entirely to his turning movements, he would have got off with
a much smaller casualty list. His original design of manœuvring Foy
out of Tolosa was the right game, considering the strength of the
position. The French general could plead in defence of his risky
tactics that he had held up a superior force for a whole day—but at
that particular moment time did not happen to matter—as Graham’s
leisurely pursuit on the subsequent days sufficiently shows. He was
only set on getting Foy across the Bidassoa; and nothing in the
general course of the campaign depended on whether he did so a
day sooner or a day later. On the other hand, by standing too long at
Tolosa Foy nearly lost three brigades, and might indeed have lost his
whole force.
The remainder of this side-campaign displays none of the interest
of its four first days. Foy retired to Andoain on the night of the
combat of Tolosa, where he was joined by the battalions of the 40th
and 101st under General Berlier, which had escorted Maucune’s
convoy to the frontier, and by the 62nd and a Spanish ‘Juramentado’
regiment withdrawn from Biscay garrisons. This, despite of his recent
losses, gave him a force of 16,000 infantry, 400 sabres, and 10
guns. Graham did not press him, his troops being much fatigued:
only the indefatigable Longa appeared with his Cantabrians in front
of the position. On the 27th the whole French force retired
unmolested to Hernani.
It was of course all-important to Foy to know what were the
situation and intentions of the King. Nothing could be heard of the
main army at Andoain or Hernani, so he detached Berlier’s brigade
to seek for news in the Bastan, along the upper Bidassoa. On the
28th Berlier discovered Reille and two divisions of the Army of
Portugal at Vera. They were in bad order, without guns and much
under strength, though stragglers were rejoining in considerable
numbers. Reille had been as ignorant of Foy’s whereabouts as Foy
had been of that of the main army. He was rejoiced to hear that all
the Biscay garrisons had been saved, and that there was a solid
force ready to co-operate with him in the defence of the line of the
Bidassoa. His own troops were not yet fit for fighting. Accordingly he
sent Foy orders to evacuate Hernani and come back to the frontier,
though he need not actually cross the Bidassoa unless he were
compelled to do so. By stopping at Oyarzun he could keep up
communication with St. Sebastian, which must be needing attention.
The condition of that fortress, indeed, had already been troubling
the mind of Foy on his last day of independent command. It lay so
near the French border, and had been for years so far from any
enemy—Guipuzcoan guerrilleros excepted—that it had been much
neglected. When General Rey, named as Governor by King Joseph
two days before the battle of Vittoria, arrived with orders to put it in a
state of defence, he found it garrisoned only by 500 gendarmes, a
battalion of recruits on the way to join the 120th Line, and two weak
companies of pioneers and sappers—1,200 men in all. The stores of
food were low, the glacis was cumbered with huts and sheds, there
was no provision of gabions, fascines, or timber. Moreover, the town
was full of Spanish and French fugitives who had preceded the King
on his retreat—there were (it is said) as many as 7,000 of them,
lingering in Spain till the last moment, in the hope that Wellington
might be stopped on the Ebro. The news of Vittoria arrived on the
23rd, and caused hopeless consternation—the place was not ready
to stand a siege—the garrison so small that it could not even spare a
battalion to escort the tiresome mass of refugees to Bayonne. Rey
began in feverish haste to clear the glacis, palisade the outworks,
and rearrange the cannons on the walls, but he had too few hands
for work, and was in a state resembling despair when on the 28th
Foy turned up for a flying visit, saw and acknowledged the
nakedness of the land, and promised to do all that he could to help—
though it was less than the Governor required. He took away the old
garrison—the recruits were not too trustworthy, the gendarmes not
siege troops: to replace them he threw in the whole of Deconchy’s
brigade—four battalions, about 2,000 infantry—and all the gunners
that he could spare. As the garrison of Guetaria, 450 strong,
escaped by sea to San Sebastian two days later, and a number of
stragglers dropped into the place before the siege began, the gross
total of the garrison was raised to some 3,000 men. Rey asked for
4,000, but Foy would not grant him another battalion—and was
justified by the course of the siege, for the place was very small and,
if it could be held at all, was defensible by the lesser number. The
only doubt was whether there would be time to get it in order before
the Allies appeared[661]. But perhaps the best service that Foy did for
Rey was that he removed, at two hours’ notice, the whole mass of
refugees. They marched, much lamenting, for Bayonne, under the
escort of the old outgoing garrison. On the 29th Reille ordered Foy to
evacuate Oyarzun and fall back to the Bidassoa, and before he had
been gone three hours Mendizabal’s Guipuzcoan irregulars, 3,000
strong, appeared in front of the fortress and cut its communication
with France. They were an unorganized band, without artillery, but
effective enough for stopping the highway.
Graham, seeing that the French had escaped him, and had a
clear retreat to the frontier, had made no serious attempt to press
them. He was quite content that they should go at their own pace,
and was determined not to harass the 1st Division, who, as he wrote
to Wellington, were in a state of great exhaustion. To have hurried
Foy out of Spain two days earlier would have cost men, and would
have had no beneficial effect on the general course of the campaign;
for Wellington and the main army were far away in Navarre, and if
Graham had reached the Bidassoa on the 26th or 28th, with his own
and Giron’s 25,000 men, they could have done nothing, since they
had in front of them the fortress of Bayonne, with Foy’s 16,000 men,
the 7,000 whom Reille had brought up from Santesteban, and the
remains of the general reserve—for though Rouget’s battalions and
other detachments had been lent from Bayonne already, there were
still a few thousand men in hand. In all, Reille would have had an
army as large as Graham’s own, and though some of it was rather
demoralized, the fortress, and the strong positions in front of it along
the Bidassoa, Nive, and Nivelle, counterbalanced this disadvantage.
If Wellington had chosen to march on Bayonne with his main body,
the day after Vittoria, the problem would have been a very different
one. But since he had preferred to move in pursuit first of King
Joseph and then of Clausel, there was nothing more which the
commander of a detached corps like that of Graham could
accomplish. He did all that his chief required of him, when he pushed
Foy out of Spain and laid siege to St. Sebastian. That the project for
cutting off the French detachments at Villafranca came to nothing
was no fault of Graham’s—being due partly to bad staff-work at