Soult's Last Stand
Toulouse 1814
Introduction
by Leon Parte, France
 |
To a large extent the man was right: Vimiera, Fuentes d'Onoro,
Ciudad Rodrigo, Orthez, were all waged on the Sabbath day, and Toulouse,
as desperate an engagement as any in the war, was fought on Easter
Sunday, 10th April 1814. It was a last stand by a brave general, turning at bay before the gates
of the third city of his country, ignorant that the cause for which he struggled
was already lost, as Napoleon had abdicated several days before.
Standing in the centre of a flat and pastoral country, liable to frequent
flooding from the streams that intersected its meadows and cornfields, the
city of Toulouse was protected on three sides by the river Garonne and a large
canal, and girdled by a massive old wall flanked at regular intervals by pointed
turret towers, above which rose a forest of spires and the quaint gables of the
houses, many of them built of wood. Soult lost no time in raising works
and strong bridgeheads, and with great skill and ingenuity managed in seventeen
days to make the place impregnable. Its natural features offered every facility for
the purpose, and he compelled the somewhat reluctant citizens to assist in forming
redoubts on the heights to eastward. These ran for two miles roughly parallel
to the city wall, between the canal and the swollen Ers, all of whose bridges, save
one at Croix d'Orade, were purposely broken or mined.
Artificial flooding covered the approaches in many places, cavalry
were on the lookout, about the river Ers, and the roads themselves were
difficult to traverse having been turned to mud by the heavy rains.
In an unpublished journal I have before me, kept by an officer of the 2nd
Queen's (Lieutenant, afterwards Captain, J. A. Wilson), the following entry
occurs: “Roads actually up to my middle in mud; walked into a river to wash my
clothes!”
Under these conditions, and to oppose this formidable resistance, Wellington
attacked St. Cyprien on the 28th of March, and made several attempts to
cross the Garonne above Toulouse.
The floods, however, stopped the advance, and it was not until the 4th
April that Beresford was able to cross, fifteen miles below the city, with the
3rd, 4th, and 6th Divisions and three brigades of cavalry. The 4th Division
crossing the pontoons first, their bands and drums playing “The British Grenadiers.”
The sun came out as they halted on the enemy's bank to sponge arms and
loosen ammunition.
They marched to La Espinasse without opposition, the French patrols retiring
at the first passage of the river, although a large and a large body of French cavalry
threatened but did not attack.
“April 8th. Marched at three in the
afternoon. At five my company sent on
picquet. Ordered by the general to load
and go to a church, where I should find a
picquet of the French, and to drive them
out and keep the church. A company of
the 53rd sent to support me . . . Found
the French had just retired, and left both
doors of the church open for me, for
which I was much obliged to them.” Napier has cleverly shown how Soult left the bridge intact at Croix
d'0rade to entice Wellington into the marshy ground between the heights and
the river Ers, and then he shows what Wellington did when he got there, which
was not at all what the French marshal anticipated.
Soult's Last Stand Toulouse 1814
|
The day before Waterloo a Peninsular veteran of the 52nd
was overheard to remark, “There'll be a great battle tomorrow,” and when questioned by an officer as to
his meaning, said, “All the Duke's great battles are fought on a Sunday.”
On the west the Garonne formed a strong barrier, with the outlying suburb
of St. Cyprien beyond it. The canal, lined with troops, curved from the
Garonne round the north of the city, and then along its eastern side, where
several clustering suburbs were capable of being strongly garrisoned, so that the
only weak spot was to the south, and even there another suburb was full of
troops. The walls were manned with guns. The heights - divided by the
Lavaur road into two distinct elevations or platforms, the Calvinet and St.
Sypière - were steep, and held by Harispe's division. Darricau defended
the canal; Reille occupied St. Cyprien; and a detached hill between the northern
end of the heights and Croix d'Orade, called the Pugade, was garrisoned by St. Pol.