The whole range of heights occupied was about two miles long, and an army attacking in front would have to cross the Ers under fire, advance through ground, naturally steep and marshy, and now rendered almost impassable by means of artificial inundations, to the assault of the ridge and the works on the summit; and if the assailants should even force between the two platforms, they would, while their flanks were battered by the redoubts above, come upon the works of Cambon and Saccarin. If these fell the suburbs of Guillemerie and St. Steven, the canal, and finally the ramparts of the town, would still have to be carried in succession. But it was not practicable to pass the Ers except by the bridge of Croix d’Orade which had been seized so happily on the 8th. Lord Wellington was therefore reduced to make a flank marchManuscript Notes by the Duke of Wellington. under fire, between the Ers and the Mont Rave, and then to carry the latter with a view of crossing the canal above the suburb of Guillemerie, and establishing his army on the south side of Toulouse, where only the city could be assailed with any hope of success.
To impose this march upon him all Soult’s dispositions had been directed. For this he had mined all the bridges on the Ers, save only that of Croix d’Orade, thus facilitating a movement between the Ers and the Mont Rave, while he impeded one beyond that river by sending half his cavalry over to dispute the passage of the numerous streams in the deep country on the right bank. His army was now disposed in the following order. General Reille defended the suburb of St. Cyprien with Taupin’s and Maransin’s divisions. Daricau’s division lined the canal on the north from its junction with the Garonne to the road of Alby, defending with his left the bridge-head of Jumeaux, the convent of the Minimes with his centre, and the Matabiau bridge with his right. Harispe’s division was established in the works on the Mont-Rave. His right at St. Sypiere looked towards the bridge of Bordes, his centre was at the Colombette redoubt, about which Vial’s horsemen were also collected; his left looked down the road of Alby towards the bridge of Croix d’Orade. On this side a detached eminence within cannon-shot, called the Hill of Pugade, was occupied by St. Pol’s brigade, drawn from Villatte’s division. The two remaining divisions of infantryPlan 10. were formed in columns at certain points behind the Mont Rave, and Travot’s reserve continued to man the walls of Toulouse behind the canal. This line of battle presented an angle towards the Croix d’Orade, each side about two miles in length and the apex covered by the brigade on the Pugade.
Wellington having well observed the ground on the 8th and 9th, made the following disposition of attack for the 10th. General Hill was to menace St. Cyprien, augmenting or abating his efforts to draw the enemy’s attention according to the progress of the battle on the right of the Garonne, which he could easily discern. The third and light divisions and Freyre’s Spaniards, being already on the left of the Ers, were to advance against the northern front of Toulouse. The two first supported by Bock’s German cavalry were to make demonstrations against the line of canal defended by Daricau. That is to say, Picton was to menace the bridge of Jumeaux and the convent of the Minimes, while Alten maintained the communication between him and Freyre who, reinforced with the Portuguese artillery, was to carry the hill of Pugade and then halt to cover Beresford’s column of march. This last composed of the fourth and sixth division with three batteries was, after passing the bridge of Croix d’Orade, to move round the left of the Pugade and along the low ground between the French heights and the Ers, until the rear should pass the road of Lavaur, when the two divisions were to wheel into line and attack the platform of St. Sypiere. Freyre was then to assail that of Calvinet, and Ponsonby’s dragoons following close were to connect that general’s left with Beresford’s column. Meanwhile lord Edward Somerset’s hussars were to move up the left of the Ers, while Vivian’s cavalry moved up the right of that river, each destined to observe Berton’s cavalry, which, having possession of the bridges of Bordes and Montaudran higher up, could pass from the right bank to the left, and destroying the bridge fall upon the head of Beresford’s troops while in march.
BATTLE OF TOULOUSE.
The 10th of April at two o’clock in the morning the light division passed the Garonne by the bridge at Seilh, and about six o’clock the whole army moved forwards in the order assigned for the different columns. Picton and Alten, on the right, drove the French advanced posts behind the works at the bridge over the canal. Freyre’s columns, marching along the Alby road, were cannonaded by St. Pol with two guns until they had passed a small stream by the help of some temporary bridges, when the French general following his instructions retired to the horn-work on the Calvinet platform. The Spaniards were thus established on the Pugade, from whence the Portuguese guns under major Arentschild opened a heavy cannonade against Calvinet. Meanwhile Beresford, preceded by the hussars, marched from Croix d’Orade in three columns abreast. Passing behind the Pugade, through the village of Montblanc, he entered the marshy ground between the Ers river and the Mont Rave, but he left his artillery at Montblanc, fearing to engage it in that deep and difficult country under the fire of the enemy. Beyond the Ers on his left, Vivian’s cavalry, now under colonel Arentschild, drove Berton’s horsemenMemoir by general Berton, MSS. back with loss, and nearly seized the bridge of Bordes which the French general passed and destroyed with difficulty at the last moment. However the German hussars succeeded in gaining the bridge of Montaudran higher up, though it was barricaded, and defended by a detachment of cavalryMemoir by colonel Hughes, MSS. sent there by Berton who remained himself in position near the bridge of Bordes, looking down the left of the Ers.
While these operations were in progress, general Freyre who had asked as a favour to lead the battle at Calvinet, whether from error or impatience assailed the horn-work on that platform about eleven o’clock and while Beresford was still in march. The Spaniards, nine thousand strong, moved in two lines and a reserve, and advanced with great resolution at first, throwing forwards their flanks so as to embrace the end of the Calvinet hill. The French musquetry and great guns thinned the ranks at every step, yet closing upon their centre they still ascended the hill, the formidable fire they were exposed to increasing in violence until their right wing, which was also raked from the bridge of Matabiau, unable to endure the torment wavered. The leading ranks rushing madly onwards jumped for shelter into a hollow road, twenty-five feet deep in parts, and covering this part of the French entrenchments; but the left wing and the second line run back in great disorder, the Cantabrian fusiliers under colonel Leon de Sicilia alone maintaining their ground under cover of a bank which protected them. Then the French came leaping out of their works with loud cries, and lining the edge of the hollow road poured an incessant stream of shot upon the helpless crowds entangled in the gulph below, while the battery from the bridge of Matabiau, constructed to rake this opening, sent its bullets from flank to flank hissing through the quivering mass of flesh and bones.
The Spanish generals rallying the troops who had fled, led them back again to the brink of the fatal hollow, but the frightful carnage below and the unmitigated fire in front filled them with horror. Again they fled, and again the French bounding from their trenches pursued, while several battalions sallying from the bridge of Matabiau and from behind the Calvinet followed hard along the road of Alby. The country was now covered with fugitives whose headlong flight could not be restrained, and with pursuers whose numbers and vehemence increased, until lord Wellington, who was at that point, covered the panic-stricken troops with Ponsonby’s cavalry, and the reserve artillery which opened with great vigour. Meanwhile the Portuguese guns on the Pugade never ceased firing, and a brigade of the light division, wheeling to its left, menaced the flank of the victorious French who immediately retired to their entrenchments on Calvinet: but more than fifteen hundred Spaniards had been killed or wounded and their defeat was not the only misfortune.
General Picton, regardless of his orders, which, his temper on such occasions being known were especially given, had turned his false attack into a real one against the bridge of Jumeaux, and the enemy fighting from a work too high to be forced without ladders and approachable only along an open flat, repulsed him with a loss of nearly four hundred men and officers: amongst the latter colonel Forbes of the forty-fifth was killed, and general Brisbane who commanded the brigade was wounded. Thus from the hill of Pugade to the Garonne the French had completely vindicated their position, the allies had suffered enormously, and beyond the Garonne, although general Hill had now forced the first line of entrenchments covering St. Cyprien and was menacing the second line, the latter being much more contracted and very strongly fortified could not be stormed. The musquetry battle therefore subsided for a time, but a prodigious cannonade was kept up along the whole of the French line, and on the allies’ side from St. Cyprien to Montblanc, where the artillery left by Beresford, acting in conjunction with the Portuguese guns on the Pugade, poured its shot incessantly against the works on the Calvinet platform: injudiciously it has been said because the ammunition thus used for a secondary object was afterwards wanted when a vital advantage might have been gained.