History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year 1807 to the year 1814, vol. 6

by William Francis Patrick Napier

Was he not a great general who being originally opposed on the Adour by nearly double his own numbers, for such was the proportion after the great detachments were withdrawn from the French army by the emperor in January, did yet by the aid of his fortresses, by his able marches and combinations, oblige his adversary to employ so many troops for blockades sieges and detached posts, that at Toulouse his army was scarcely more numerous than the French? Was it nothing to have drawn Wellington from such a distance along the frontier, and force him at last, either to fight a battle under the most astonishing disadvantages or to retreat with dishonour. And this not because the English general had committed any fault, but by the force of combinations which embracing all the advantages offered by the country left him no option.

That Soult made some mistakes is true, and perhaps the most important was that which the emperor warned him against, though too late, the leaving so many men in Bayonne. He did so he says because the place could not hold out fifteen days without the entrenched camp, and the latter required men; but the result proved Napoleon’s sagacity, for the allies made no attempt to try the strength of the camp, and on the 18th of March lord Wellington knew not the real force of the garrison. Up to that period sir John Hope was inclined to blockade the place only, and from the difficulty of gathering the necessary stores and ammunition on the right bank of the Adour, the siege though resolved upon was not even commenced on the 14th of April when that bloody and most lamentable sally was made. Hence the citadel could not even with a weaker garrison have been taken before the end of April, and Soult might have had Abbé’s division of six thousand good troops in the battles of Orthes and Toulouse. Had Suchet joined him, his army would have been numerous enough to bar lord Wellington’s progress altogether, especially in the latter position. Here it is impossible not to admire the sagacity of the English general, who from the first was averse to entering France and only did so for a political object, under the promise of great reinforcements and in the expectation that he should be allowed to organize a Bourbon army. What could he have done if Soult had retained the twenty thousand men drafted in January, or if Suchet had joined, or the people had taken arms?

How well Soult chose his ground at Toulouse, how confidently he trusted that his adversary would eventually pass the Garonne below and not above the city, with what foresight he constructed the bridge-head at Montauban, and prepared the difficulties lord Wellington had to encounter have been already touched upon. But Mr. Choumara has assumed that the English general’s reason for relinquishing the passage of the Garonne at Portet on the night of the 27th, was not the want of pontoons but the fear of being attacked during the operation, adducing in proof Soult’s orders to assail the heads of his columns. Those orders are however dated the 31st, three days after the attempt of which Soult appears to have known nothing at the time: they were given in the supposition that lord Wellington wished to effect a second passage at that point to aid general Hill while descending the Arriege. And what reason has any man to suppose that the same general and troops who passed the Nive and defeated a like counter-attack near Bayonne, would be deterred by the fear of a battle from attempting it on the Garonne? The passage of the Nive was clearly more dangerous, because the communication with the rest of the army was more difficult, Soult’s disposable force larger, his counter-movements more easily hidden until the moment of execution. At Portet the passage, designed for the night season, would have been a surprise, and the whole army, drawn close to that side could have been thrown over in three or four hours with the exception of the divisions destined to keep the French in check at St. Cyprien. Soult’s orders did not embrace such an operation. They directed Clauzel to fall upon the head of the troops and crush them while in the disorder of a later passage which was expected and watched for.

General Clauzel having four divisions in hand was no doubt a formidable enemy, and Soult’s notion of defending the river by a counter-attack was excellent in principle; but to conceive is one thing to execute is another. His orders were, as I have said, only issued on the 31st, when Hill was across both the Garonne and the Arriege. Lord Wellington’s design was then not to force a passage at Portet, but to menace that point, and really attack St. Cyprien when Hill should have descended the Arriege. Nor did Soult himself much expect Clauzel would have any opportunity to attack, for in his letter to the minister of war he said, the positions between the Arriege and the canal were all disadvantageous to the French and his intention was to fight in Toulouse if the allies approached from the south; yet he still believed Hill’s movement to be only a blind and that lord Wellington would finally attempt the passage below Toulouse.

The French general’s views and measures were profoundly reasoned but extremely simple. His first care on arriving at Toulouse was to secure the only bridge over the Garonne by completing the works of St. Cyprien, which he had begun while the army was still at Tarbes. He thus gained time, and as he felt sure that the allies could not act in the Arriege district, he next directed his attention to the bridge-head of Montauban to secure a retreat behind the Tarn and the power of establishing a fresh line of operations. Meanwhile contrary to his expectation lord Wellington did attempt to act on the Arriege, and the French general, turning of necessity in observation to that side, entrenched a position on the south; soon however he had proof that his first notion was well-founded, that his adversary after losing much time must at last pass below Toulouse; wherefore he proceeded with prodigious activity to fortify the Mont Rave and prepare a field of battle on the northern and eastern fronts of the city. These works advanced so rapidly, while the wet weather by keeping the rivers flooded reduced lord Wellington to inactivity, that Soult became confident in their strength, and being influenced also by the news from Paris, relinquished his first design of opposing the passage of the Garonne and preserving the line of operations by Montauban. To hold Toulouse then became his great object, nor was he diverted from this by the accident which befel lord Wellington’s bridge at Grenade. Most writers, French and English, have blamed him for letting slip that opportunity of attacking Beresford. It is said that general Reille first informed him ofNotes by general Berton, MSS. the rupture of the bridge, and strongly advised him to attack the troops on the right bank; but Choumara has well defended him on that point; the distance was fifteen miles, the event uncertain, the works on the Mount Rave would have stood still meanwhile, and the allies might perhaps have stormed St. Cyprien.

Lord Wellington was however under no alarm for Beresford, or rather for himself, because each day he passed the river in a boat and remained on that side. His force was not less than twenty thousandMorning State of lord Wellington, 4th of April, MSS. including sergeants and officers, principally British; his position was on a gentle range the flanks covered by the Ers and the Garonne; he had eighteen guns in battery on his front, which was likewise flanked by thirty other pieces placed on the left of the Garonne. Nor was he without retreat. He could cross the Ers, and Soult dared not have followed to any distance lest the river should subside and the rest of the army pass on his rear, unless, reverting to his original design of operating by Montauban, he lightly abandoned his now matured plan of defending Toulouse. Wisely therefore he continued to strengthen his position round that city, his combinations being all directed to force the allies to attack him between the Ers and the Mount Rave where it seemed scarcely possible to succeed.

He has been also charged with this fault, that he did not entrench the Hill of Pugade. Choumara holds that troops placed there would have been endangered without adequate advantage. This does not seem conclusive. The hill was under the shot of the main height, it might have been entrenched with works open to the rear, and St. Pol’s brigade would thus have incurred no more danger than when placed there without any entrenchments. Beresford could not have moved up the left bank of the Ers until these works were carried, and this would have cost men. It is therefore probable that want of time caused Soult to neglect this advantage. He committed a graver error during the battle by falling upon Beresford with Taupin’s division only when he could have employed D’Armagnac’s and Villatte’s likewise in that attack. He should have fallen on him also while in the deep country below, and before he had formed his lines at the foot of the heights. What hindered him? Picton was repulsed, Freyre was defeated, the light division was protecting the fugitives, and one of Maransin’s brigades withdrawn from St. Cyprien had reinforced the victorious troops on the extreme left of the Calvinet platform. Beresford’s column entangled in the marshy ground, without artillery and menaced both front and rear by cavalry, could not have resisted such an overwhelming mass, and lord Wellington can scarcely escape criticism for placing him in that predicament.

A commander is not indeed to refrain from high attempts because of their perilous nature, the greatest have ever been the most daring, and the English general who could not remain inactive before Toulouse was not deterred by danger or difficulty: twice he passed the broad and rapid Garonne and reckless of his enemy’s strength and skill worked his way to a crowning victory. This was hardihood, greatness. But in Beresford’s particular attack he did not overstep the rules of art, he hurtled against them, and that he was not damaged by the shock is owing to his good fortune the fierceness of his soldiers and the errors of his adversary. What if Beresford had been overthrown on the Ers? Wellington must have repassed the Garonne, happy if by rapidity he could reunite in time with Hill on the left bank. Beresford’s failure would have been absolute ruin and that alone refutes the French claim to a victory. Was there no other mode of attack? That can hardly be said. Beresford passed the Lavaur road to assail the platform of St. Sypiere, and he was probably so ordered to avoid an attack in flank by the Lavaur road, and because the platform of Calvinet on the side of the Ers river was more strongly entrenched than that of St. Sypiere. But for this gain it was too much to throw his column into the deep ground without guns, and quite separated from the rest of the army seeing that the cavalry intended to maintain the connection were unable to act in that miry labyrinth of water-courses. If the Spaniards were judged capable of carrying the strongest part of the Calvinet platform, Beresford’s fine Anglo-Portuguese divisions were surely equal to attacking this same platform on the immediate left of the Spaniards, and an advanced guard would have sufficed to protect the left flank. The assault would then have been made with unity, by a great mass and on the most important point: for the conquest of St. Sypiere was but a step towards that of Calvinet, but the conquest of Calvinet would have rendered St. Sypiere untenable. It is however to be observed that the Spaniards attacked too soon and their dispersion exceeded all reasonable calculation: so panic-stricken they were as to draw from lord Wellington at the time the bitter observation, that he had seen many curious spectacles but never before saw ten thousand men running a race.

Soult’s retreat from Toulouse, a model of order and regularity, was made in the night. This proves the difficulty of his situation. Nevertheless it was not desperate; nor was it owing to his adversary’s generous forbearance that he passed unmolested under the allies’ guns as an English writer has erroneously assumed. For first those guns had no ammunition, and this was one reason why lord Wellington though eager to fall upon him on the 11th could not do so. On the 12th Soult was gone, and his march covered by the great canal could scarcely have been molested, because the nearest point occupied by the allies was more than a mile and a half distant. Nor do I believe that Soult, as some other writers have imagined, ever designed to hold Toulouse to the last. It would have been an avowal of military insolvency to which his proposal, that Suchet should join him at Carcassone and retake the offensive, written on the night of the 11th, is quite opposed. Neither was it in the spirit of French warfare. The impetuous valour and susceptibility of that people are ill-suited for stern Numantian despair. Place an attainable object of war before the French soldier and he will make supernatural efforts to gain it, but failing he becomes proportionally discouraged. Let some new chance be opened, some fresh stimulus applied to his ardent sensitive temper, and he will rush forward again with unbounded energy: the fear of death never checks him he will attempt anything. But the unrelenting vigour of the British infantry in resistance wears his fury out; it was so proved in the Peninsula, where the sudden deafening shout, rolling over a field of battle more full and terrible than that of any other nation, and followed by the strong unwavering charge, often startled and appalled a French column before whose fierce and vehement assault any other troops would have given way.