The battles of the British Army

by Robert Melvin Blackwood

Beresford immediately resumed the attack, two redoubts were carried, and the sixth division dislodged the enemy, and occupied the centre of their position. The contest here was exceedingly severe; Pack, in leading the attack, was wounded, and in an attempt to recover the heights by the French, Taupin, who commanded the division, was killed. Every succeeding effort failed, and the British held the ground their gallantry had won.

Picton had most imprudently changed a false into a real attack upon the bridge over the canal of Languedoc nearest its entrance into the Garonne, but the tête du pont was too strong to be forced, and he fell back with considerable loss. On the left, Sir Rowland Hill menaced the fauxbourg of Saint Cyprien, and succeeded in fully occupying the attention of its garrison, thus preventing them from rendering any assistance when Soult was most severely pressed.

In the meantime, Beresford, having obtained his artillery, resumed offensive movements, and advanced along the ridge with the divisions of Cole and Clinton. Soult anticipated the attack, and threw himself in front and flank in great force upon the sixth division; but the effort failed. The French marshal was driven from the hill, the redoubts abandoned, the canal passed, and, beaten on every point, he sought refuge within the walls of Toulouse.

Few victories cost more blood than this long and hard-contested battle. The allied casualties, including two thousand Spaniards, nearly extended to seven thousand men. Several regiments lost half their number, and two, the 45th and 61st, their colonels. It was impossible to ascertain the extent to which the French suffered. Their loss was no doubt commensurate with that of the victors. Of their superior officers alone, two generals were killed, and three wounded and made prisoners.

On the night of the succeeding day, Soult, alarmed by Wellington’s movements on the road to Carcassone, retired from the city, which next morning was taken possession of by the allies, although the French unblushingly assert that they gained a victory.

There was seldom a bloodier, and never a more useless, battle fought than that of the 10th of March, for on the evening of the 12th a British and French field officer, Colonels Cooke and St. Simon, arrived at the allied headquarters, with intelligence that, on the 3rd, hostilities had ceased, and the war was virtually terminated. A courier, despatched from the capital with this important communication, had been unfortunately interrupted in his journey; and in ignorance of passing events, the contending armies wasted their best energies, and lost many of their bravest on both sides, in a bootless and unnecessary encounter.

Soult, on having the abdication of Napoleon formally notified to him on the night of the 13th, refused to send in his adherence to the Bourbons, merely offering a suspension of hostilities, to which Lord Wellington most properly objecting, instantly recommenced his pursuit of the French marshal’s beaten divisions.

The bold and decisive measures of the allied leader doubtless hastened the Duke of Dalmatia in making his decision, and, on the arrival of a second official communication, Soult notified his adherence, and hostilities ceased. Suchet had already shewn him the example, and Toulouse displayed the white flag. A line of demarcation was made by commissioners between the rival armies, and a regular convention signed by the respective commanders.

On the 27th, Thouvenot was instructed by Soult to surcease hostilities, and acknowledged the Bourbons—the lilies floated over the citadel—and saluted by three hundred rounds of artillery, Napoleon’s abdication, and the restoration of the Bourbons, were formally announced.

With political events we have no business, and it is sufficient to cursorily observe, that arrangements were effected for Napoleon’s retirement from public life to the “lonely isle,” where he might still, in fancy, “call himself a king.” To this secluded spot, many of his old and devoted followers accompanied him. Peace was generally proclaimed over Europe; tranquillity restored in France; the “Grand Nation,” to all appearance, contented itself with the change of government; the allied sovereigns retired with their respective corps, each to his own dominions; and the victorious army of Wellington quitted the French soil, on which it had consummated its glory; and received, on landing on the shores of Britain, that enthusiastic welcome which its “high deeds” and boundless gallantry deserved from a grateful country.