English Battles and Sieges in the Peninsula. / Extracted from his 'Peninsula War'.

by William Francis Patrick Napier

Soult’s attention being thus attracted below Toulouse, a bridge was laid near Pensaguel, two miles above the confluence of the Arriege, and Hill passed the Garonne with thirteen thousand sabres and bayonets, eighteen guns, and a rocket brigade. His advanced guard then pushed on rapidly by the great road to seize the bridge of Cintegabelle fifteen miles up the Arriege; and to secure a ferry-boat known to be at Vinergue. The main body followed with intent to pass the Arriege at Cintegabelle, and so come down the right bank to attack Toulouse on the south, while Wellington assailed St. Cyprien. This march was to have been made privily in the night of the 30th, but the pontoon bridge was not finished until five in the morning of the 31st; Soult thus got notice in time to observe the strength of the column, and ascertain that the great body of the army was still in front of St. Cyprien. Knowing what swamps were to be passed, and having the suburbs of St. Michel and St. Etienne now in a state of defence, he thought the operation only a feint to draw off a part of his army from Toulouse while St. Cyprien was assaulted or the Garonne passed below the city; wherefore, keeping his infantry in hand, he merely sent cavalry up the Arriege in observation, and directed Lafitte, who had some regular horsemen and national guards higher up, to hang upon Hill’s skirts and pretend to be the van of Suchet’s army. He was, however, disquieted, because the allies’ baggage, to avoid encumbering the march, had been sent higher up the Garonne, to cross at Carbonne, and was by the scouts reported as a second column increasing Hill’s force to eighteen thousand men.

While in this uncertainty, Soult first heard of the measurement of the river made at Portet in the night of the 27th, and that many guns were still there; hence, as he could not know why the bridge was not thrown, he concluded the intent was to cross there also when Hill should descend the Arriege. To meet this danger, he gave Clausel orders to fall upon the head of the allies with four divisions if they should attempt the passage before Hill came down; resolving in the contrary case to fight in the suburbs of Toulouse and on the Mont Rave, because the positions on the right of the Arriege were all favourable to the assailants. He was, however, soon relieved from anxiety. Hill passed the Arriege at Cintegabelle and sent his cavalry forward; but his artillery were unable to follow in that deep country, and as success and safety alike depended on rapidity, he returned and recrossed the Garonne in the night, keeping a flying bridge and a small guard of infantry and cavalry on the right bank: he was followed by Lafitte’s horsemen, who picked up a few stragglers and mules, but no other event occurred, and Soult was well pleased that his adversary had thus lost three or four important days.

Being now sure the next attempt would be below Toulouse, he changed his design of marching down the Garonne to fight between that river and the Tarn; and as his works for the city and suburbs were nearly complete, he concluded to hold Toulouse in any circumstances, and set his whole army and all the labouring population to entrench the Mont Rave, beyond the canal, thinking thus to bear the shock of battle, come on which side it would. Fortune favoured him. The Garonne continued so full and rapid that Wellington remained inactive before St. Cyprien until the evening of the 3rd, when, forced to adopt the lower passage, and the flood having abated, the pontoons were carried in the night to Grenade, fifteen miles below Toulouse. The bridge was then well thrown, and thirty guns placed in battery on the left bank to protect it. The third, fourth, and sixth divisions, with three brigades of cavalry, the whole under Beresford, immediately passed; and the horsemen being pushed to the front and flanks captured a large herd of bullocks destined for the French. But again the Garonne flooded high, the light division and the Spaniards were unable to follow, the bridge got damaged and was taken up.

Soult soon heard by his cavalry scouts of this passage, but not of the force across, and as Morillo’s Spaniards, whom he mistook for Freyre’s, were then in front of St. Cyprien, he thought Hill had moved also to Grenade, and that the greatest part of the allied army was over the Garonne. Wherefore, observing Beresford with cavalry, he continued to work at his field of battle, his resolution to fight for Toulouse being confirmed by hearing that the allied sovereigns had entered Paris.

On the 8th the water subsided again, and the bridge was once more laid; Freyre’s Spaniards and the Portuguese artillery then crossed, and Wellington in person advanced within five miles of Toulouse. Marching up both banks of the Ers, his columns were separated by that river, which was impassable without pontoons, and it was essential to secure one of the stone bridges. Hence, when his left approached the heights of Kirie Eleison, on the great road of Alby, Vivian’s horsemen first drove Berton’s cavalry up the right of the Ers towards the bridge of Bordes; then the 18th Hussars descended towards that of Croix d’Orade, where after some skirmishing a French regiment suddenly appeared in front of the bridge. The opposite bank of the river was as instantly lined with dismounted carbineers, and the two parties stood facing each other, hesitating to begin, until the approach of some British infantry, when both sounded a charge at the same moment; but the English horses were so quick the French were in an instant jammed up on the bridge, and their front ranks sabred, while the rear went off in disorder. They had many killed or wounded, lost above a hundred prisoners, and were pursued through the village of Croix d’Orade, yet rallied beyond on the rest of their brigade and advanced again; whereupon the hussars recrossed the bridge, which was now defended by the British infantry. The communication between the allied columns was thus secured. The credit of this brilliant action was erroneously given to Colonel Vivian in the despatch. That officer was wounded by a carbine shot previous to the charge at the bridge, and the attack was conducted by Major Hughes.

Wellington having, from the heights of Kirie Eleison, examined the French general’s position, decided to attack on the 9th; and, to shorten his communications with Hill, had his bridge on the Garonne relaid higher up at Seilh, where the light division were to cross at daybreak; but the pontoons were not relaid until late in the day, and he, extremely incensed at the failure, was forced to defer his battle until the 10th.

Soult had now by means of his fortresses, his battles, the sudden change of his line of operations after Orthes, his rapid retreat from Tarbes, and his clear judgment in fixing upon Toulouse as his next point of resistance, reduced the strength of his adversary to an equality with his own. He had gained seventeen days for preparation, and had compelled Wellington to fight on ground naturally adapted for defence and well fortified; where one-third of his force was separated by a great river from the rest; where he could derive no advantage from his numerous cavalry, and was overmatched in artillery. Covering three sides of Toulouse the French position was indeed very strong. The left was at St. Cyprien on the west; the centre at the canal on the north; the right at Mont Rave on the east; the reserve of conscripts manned the ramparts of Toulouse, and the urban guards within the town aided the transport of artillery and ammunition to different posts.

Hill was in front of St. Cyprien, and he could only communicate with the main body by the pontoon bridge at Seilh, a circuit of ten or twelve miles. Wellington was advancing from the north, but being still intent to assail on the south, where Soult was weakest in defence, he examined the country on the left of the Ers, designing under cover of that river to make a flank march and gain the open ground which he had formerly vainly endeavoured to reach by passing at Portet and Pinsaguel. Again he was baffled by the deep country, which he could not master so as to pass the Ers by force in the upper part; and all the bridges there, with the exception of Croix d’Orade, were mined or destroyed. There was no choice then but to attack the north and east fronts. The first, open and flat, and easily approached by the great roads of Montauban and Alby, was yet impregnable in defence; because the canal, the bridges over which were strongly defended by works, was under the fire of the ramparts of Toulouse, and for the most part within musket-shot. Wherefore, as at St. Cyprien, a fortress, not a position, was opposed, and the assault was necessarily confined to the Mont Rave or eastern front.

Naturally strong and rugged, that ridge was covered by the Ers river, and presented two distinct platforms, Calvinet and St. Sypière. Between them, where the ground dipped a little, two routes called the Lavaur and Caraman roads led to Toulouse, passing the canal at the Guillemerie and St. Etienne suburbs.

The Calvinet platform was fortified on the left with two large redoubts, having open entrenchments in front. On the right were two other large forts, called the Colombette and Tower of Augustines.