R. Caton Woodville
“On our right the 3rd Division, under General Picton, was ordered to make a false attack on the canal bridge, which was strongly fortified and formed an impracticable barrier to that part of the town; but General Picton (who never hesitated at disobeying his orders) thought proper to change this false attack into a real one, and after repeated and useless attempts to carry it was forced to give it up, with an immense loss of officers and men. To our extreme right and on the opposite side of the river General Hill was stationed with his corps in order to watch the bridge and gates of the town, and either prevent any attempt of the enemy to pass over a body of troops during the action to cut off our communications with the rear, or, should he show any design of retreating that way, to impede him. However, all was quiet on that side, and now that every man of the enemy’s army had been chased from the position the battle was won, and the roar of cannon, the fire of the musketry, and the shouts of the victors ceased. All was still; the pickets placed; the sentinels set; and the greatest part of the army sleeping in groups round the fires of the bivouac.”
Soult had only been able to bring some 39,000 men into the field, to so great an extent had his forces been depleted, while Wellington had less than 50,000 available troops. Of the French, 3200 were killed or wounded, of the Allies 4600. On the 12th April Soult evacuated Toulouse, six days after Napoleon the Great had snatched up a pen and scrawled his formal abdication. A moment before he had been full of fight, had wanted to rally the corps of Augereau, Suchet and Soult. A year later he won back more than these. Wellington entered Toulouse on the day Soult left it, and within a few hours of the receipt of the news from Paris of the proclamation of Louis XVIII, a monarch as incompetent as the fallen Emperor was great. History is oftentimes ironic, and Time’s see-saw seldom maintains an even balance for any lengthy period.
CHAPTER XVII
The Prelude to the Waterloo Campaign (1814–15)
“I work as hard as I can in every way in order to succeed.”
Wellington.
“I march to-morrow to follow Marshal Soult, and to prevent his army from becoming the noyau of a civil war in France.” Thus writes Wellington to Sir John Hope on the 16th April 1814, when the white flag of the Bourbons was flying at Toulouse, and forty-eight hours after Hope had been made a prisoner during a sortie on the part of the French garrison of Bayonne. Soult extended no right hand of welcome to Louis XVIII, and positively refused to submit to the new regime until he had received trustworthy information from some of Napoleon’s ministers. However, he was speedily convinced of the fall of his former master, and both he and Suchet acknowledged the Provisional Government. On the 19th April a Convention was signed by each party and Wellington for the cessation of hostilities and the evacuation of Spain. The British infantry were sent either to the homeland or on foreign service; the cavalry traversed France and crossed to England from Calais.
Wellington’s work was not yet over, although his military career was closed for a time. He was appointed British Ambassador at Paris, and while he wrote to a correspondent that recent political and military events promised “to restore the blessings of peace permanently to the world,” we must not suppose that he believed the abdication of Napoleon to be the herald of the millennium. When Castlereagh proposed the diplomatic post to him Wellington would have been perfectly justified in declining it, but sufficient of his story has been told for the reader to appreciate the fact that the Hero of the Peninsula was as keenly devoted to the service of his king and country as the Hero of Trafalgar. Whatever egotism he possessed was certainly not carried to excess. He says that he should never have thought himself qualified for the work. “I hope, however,” he adds, and here the sterling qualities of the man are revealed, “that the Prince Regent, his Government, and your Lordship, are convinced that I am ready to serve him in any situation in which it may be thought that I can be of any service. Although I have been so long absent from England, I should have remained as much longer if it had been necessary; and I feel no objection to another absence in the public service, if it be necessary or desirable.” He says much the same thing to his brother Henry: “I must serve the public in some manner or other; and, as under existing circumstances I could not well do so at home, I must do so abroad.”
Those who accuse Wellington of lack of heart will do well to remember that before leaving Toulouse for Paris he wrote an appealing letter to Earl Bathurst in behalf of Sir Rowland Hill and Sir Robert Kennedy, the latter of whom had exerted himself to the utmost in keeping the army well supplied with provisions, and to write a letter of condolence to Hope, who was a prisoner and wounded.