CHAPTER V.
The two armies being now once more in presence of1814. March. each other and with an equal resolution to fight, it is fitting to show the peculiar calculations upon which the generals founded their respective combinations. Soult, born in the vicinity, knew the country and chose Toulouse as a strategic post, because that ancient capital of the south contained fifty thousand inhabitants, commanded the principal passage of the Garonne, was the centre of a great number of roads on both sides of that river, and the chief military arsenal of the south of France. Here he could most easily feed his troops, assemble arm and discipline the conscripts, controul and urge the civil authorities, and counteract the machinations of the discontented. Posted at Toulouse he was master of various lines of operations. He could retire upon Suchet by Carcassone, or towards Lyons by Alby. He could take a new position behind the Tarn and prolong the contest by defending successively that river and the Lot, retreating if necessary upon Decaen’s army of the Gironde, and thus drawing the allies down the right bank of the Garonne as he had before drawn them up the left bank, being well assured that lord Wellington must follow him, and with weakened forces as it would be necessary to leave troops in observation of Suchet.
His first care was to place a considerable body of troops, collected from the depôts and other parts of the interior at Montauban, under the command of general Loverdo, with orders to construct a bridge-head on the left of the Tarn. The passage of that river, and a strong point of retreat and assembly for all the detachments sent to observe the Garonne below Toulouse, was thus secured, and withal the command of a number of great roads leading to the interior of France, consequently the power of making fresh combinations. To maintain himself as long as possible in Toulouse was however a great political object. It was the last point which connected him at once with Suchet and with Decaen; and while he held it, both the latter general and the partizans in the mountains about Lourdes could act, each on their own side, against the long lines of communications maintained by Wellington with Bordeaux and Bayonne. Suchet also could do the same, either by marching with his whole force or sending a detachment through the Arriege department to the Upper Garonne, where general Lafitte having seven or eight hundred men, national guards and other troops, was already in activity. These operations Soult now strongly urged Suchet to adopt, but the latter treated the proposition, as he had done all those before made from the same quarter, with contempt.
Toulouse was not less valuable as a position of battle.
The Garonne, flowing on the west, presented to the allies a deep loop, at the bottom of which was the bridge, completely covered by the suburb of St. Cyprien, itself protected by an ancient brick wall three feet thick and flanked by two massive towers: these defences Soult had improved and he added a line of exterior entrenchments.
Beyond the Garonne was the city, surrounded byPlan 10. an old wall flanked with towers, and so thick as to admit sixteen and twenty-four pound guns.
The great canal of Languedoc, which joined the Garonne a few miles below the town, wound for the most part within point-blank shot of the walls, covering them on the north and east as the Garonne and St. Cyprien did on the west.
The suburbs of St. Stephen and Guillermerie, built on both sides of this canal, furnished outworks on the west, for they were entrenched and connected with and covered by the hills of Sacarin and Cambon, also entrenched and flanking the approaches to the canal both above and below these suburbs.