Campaign in south-west France (1814)

• 1. Introduction

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  The campaign in south-west France, fought across the final months of 1813 and the first months of 1814, brought the Peninsular War to its close. In August 1813, Edward Pakenham, Wellington's brother-in-law, put his unease into a letter: "I should think that much must depend upon proceedings in the north: I begin to apprehend... that Boney may avail himself of the jealousy of the Allies to the material injury of the cause." Austria had just joined the coalition against Napoleon Bonaparte, yet the Allies had also been beaten at the Battle of Dresden, and nobody could say the alliance would hold. Arthur Wellesley, Marquess of Wellington, commanded a mixed army of British, Portuguese and Spanish troops. Against him stood Marshal Jean de Dieu Soult and his French forces, defending the ground between Spain and France. Could an alliance held together mostly by fear of Napoleon survive unpaid wages, foreign soil, and an opponent as capable as Soult? And once the fighting crossed into France itself, would the French army bend, or would Wellington have to break it?

• 2. Soult's Counter-Offensive

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  In July 1813, Marshal Soult struck back in what became known as the Battle of the Pyrenees. He beat the Allies at Maya, then again at Roncesvalles on the 25th of July. By the 27th, the Roncesvalles wing of his army had pushed to within ten miles of Pamplona. There it met a wall: a strong Allied force held high ground between the villages of Sorauren and Zabaldica, and Soult's advance stalled. The Allies threw him back at the Battle of Sorauren, fought on the 28th and the 30th of July. General Reille's right wing then lost more men at Yanzi on the 1st of August, and at Echallar and Ivantelly the next day, while retreating into France. The counter-offensive cost the Allies about 7,000 men and the French about 10,000.

  San Sebastián held out under Brigadier-General Louis Emmanuel Rey through two sieges that together ran from the 7th to the 25th of July. Wellington accepted the city's surrender on the 8th of September. He had left General Graham enough troops behind to block any French relief or breakout while he dealt with Soult himself.

  With San Sebastián gone, Wellington turned north, toward the river Bidassoa and the port of Fuenterrabia beyond it.

• 3. Crossing the Bidassoa

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  At daylight on the 7th of October 1813, Wellington sent seven columns across the river Bidassoa, striking the whole French position at once. Soult's men held two heavily entrenched lines. These ran from north of the Irun-to-Bayonne road, along mountain spurs, up to the 2,800-foot summit of the Great Rhune. The decisive stroke fell near Fuenterrabia, a spot the French had judged impossible to cross because of the river's width and its shifting sands. Wellington's men proved them wrong, and the French right gave way in astonishment. Soult could not reinforce that flank in time, and his positions fell one after another. He withdrew to the river Nivelle. The Allies lost about 800 men in the crossing, the French about 1,600. It was later remembered as "a general's not a soldier's battle."

  Pamplona surrendered on the 31st of October, freeing Wellington to look beyond the mountains. Napoleon Bonaparte had just suffered a heavy defeat at the Battle of Leipzig on the 19th of October and was in retreat. Wellington wanted to clear Marshal Suchet out of Catalonia before pushing into France, but the British government pressed for an immediate advance over the northern Pyrenees instead. Wellington left the Catalan front to other commanders and moved north.

  Suchet's own war, fought far to the east along the Mediterranean coast, was about to take on a life of its own.

• 4. The Catalan Front

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  After the Battle of Vitoria on the 21st of June 1813, Marshal Suchet evacuated Tarragona on the 17th of August. He then beat Bentinck's force at the Battle of Ordal on the 13th of September. Fighting flared again in 1814, notably at the Battle of Molins de Rey on the 16th of January, but Suchet's army kept losing regiments sent north to reinforce France. As his force shrank, he called in garrisons from towns the Allies had left unbesieged, folding those men into his field army and shortening his lines back to the French frontier.

  By early April 1814, Suchet held only enough troops, about 14,000, to camp around the Spanish frontier town of Figueras. Barcelona itself held out under French General Pierre-Joseph Habert, who launched two major sorties before finally surrendering on the 25th of April.

  The Allies badly misjudged how many men Suchet had left. They assumed his remnant force was marching over the Pyrenees to join Soult on the Atlantic coast. Acting on that mistaken belief, the best British units in Catalonia set out on the 31st of March to reinforce Wellington on the river Garonne. That left the Spanish alone to mop up the last French garrisons in Catalonia. When Wellington later struck an armistice with Soult, its terms covered Suchet's forces too. Suchet and his small army were still on the Spanish side of the mountains at the time.

  While Suchet's isolated command waited out the war in the east, Wellington's main force was already converging on a new defensive line further north.

• 5. Breaking the Nivelle Line

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  On the night of the 9th of November 1813, Wellington shifted his right wing up from the Pyrenean passes north of Maya. Soult had about 79,000 men dug into three entrenched lines, running from the sea at Saint-Jean-de-Luz along high ground to Amotz, then behind a river to Mont Mondarrain, near the Nive. Each side had roughly 100 guns in place.

  On the 10th of November, Wellington attacked this 16-mile front in five columns. About 50,000 of his men converged on the French centre near Amotz. After hard fighting, they swept away an 18,000-strong second line there, splitting Soult's army in two. The French right fell back on Saint-Jean-de-Luz, the left toward the Nive. Soult used the night's lull to slip away to Bayonne.

  The Allies lost about 2,700 men at Nivelle; the French lost about 4,000, along with 51 guns and every one of their supply magazines. The next day, Wellington closed in on Bayonne, from the coast to the left bank of the Nive.

• 6. The Nive and a Fracturing Alliance

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  French troops were driven off the bridges at Urdains and Cambo-les-Bains, but heavy weather then made the swollen Nive impossible to ford. Portuguese and Spanish officials were failing to feed or pay their own troops, and Wellington had similar arguments with his government back home. Spanish soldiers, avenging French abuses on their own soil, had committed serious excesses inside France. Wellington answered by sending 25,000 of them back to Spain and resigning his command, though he later withdrew the resignation. For a moment, a full break with Spain seemed possible.

  Boxed in between the sea and the Nive, Wellington could not use his cavalry or artillery properly, nor cut French supply lines running through Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. On the 9th of December 1813, Wellington staged a diversion elsewhere. He then sent part of his force, under Rowland Hill and Beresford, across the river near Ustaritz and Cambo-les-Bains, losing few men. He then pushed toward Villefranque, where Soult blocked the road to Bayonne.

  With the Allied army now split by the river, Soult used his central position at Bayonne to strike both banks in turn. On the morning of the 10th of December, Soult threw 60,000 men and 40 guns at Hope's position. Hope held about 30,000 men and 24 guns, dug in on a ridge behind two lakes near Arcangues, three miles south of Biarritz. Broken ground forced Soult's men to advance slowly. Once Wellington arrived with Beresford from the far bank, the French pulled back. Two lighter clashes followed on the 11th and the 12th of December.

  On the 13th, Soult sent 35,000 men up the right bank against Hill's roughly 14,000. Hill held high ground running from Villefranque, past Saint-Pierre, known locally as Lostenia, to Vieux Mouguerre. The fighting around Saint-Pierre ranked among the bloodiest of the entire war. Hill held his ground for hours and finally drove the French back. Wellington could not arrive in time; his pontoon bridge over the Nive had been swept away. Across four days of fighting before Bayonne, the Allies lost about 5,000 men and the French about 7,000.

  When campaigning resumed in February 1814, Bayonne still stood, unbroken, between Wellington and the rest of France.

• 7. Bridging the Adour

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  By February 1814, the French line ran from Bayonne up the north bank of the Adour to the Pau, then south along the Bidouze to Saint-Palais, with outposts on the Joyeuse and at Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. Soult's available field force numbered about 41,000, not counting garrisons, roughly matching Allied strength once Hope's force watching Bayonne was set aside.

  Wellington wanted to lure Soult away from Bayonne so his army could cross the Adour and besiege the town at a smaller cost in lives. The river's mouth was about 500 yards wide, and its bar was treacherous with shifting sand. Hauling bridging equipment overland through the soft ground nearby risked giving the plan away. He gambled that nobody would expect a crossing so close to Bayonne itself. He gathered a fleet of local coastal boats, called chasse-marées, at Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and Passages.

  Leaving Hope with 30,000 men to watch Bayonne, Wellington swung the rest of his force around Soult's left. On the 14th and the 15th of February, Hill fought the Battle of Garris and drove French outposts back past the Joyeuse. Wellington pressed them further, over the Bidouze and the Gave de Mauleon to the Gave d'Oloron. Soult, drawn off as planned, left only 10,000 men in Bayonne and gathered the rest at Orthez, on the Pau. Wellington went to Saint-Jean-de-Luz on the 19th of February to oversee the boats bound for the Adour. Bad weather forced him to leave that task to Sir John Hope and Admiral Penrose instead. He crossed the Gave d'Oloron himself and faced Soult on the Pau on the 25th of February.

  Hope, meanwhile, used feints upstream before slipping 600 men across the Adour by boat on the 22nd and the 23rd of February. The French, not suspecting an attempt at that spot, came out only slowly to fight. Volleys of Congreve rockets, still a novelty at the time, sent the defenders into disarray. By the morning of the 24th, the promised flotilla of chasse-marées arrived from Saint-Jean-de-Luz, led in by naval boats. The crossing still cost several men and vessels lost on the bar. By noon on the 26th, a bridge of 26 vessels was in place, secured with batteries and a boom. Eight thousand troops crossed it, and French gunboats were driven back upriver. Bayonne was now surrounded on both banks, ready for siege.

  Soult, having given up Bayonne to save his field army, still had Orthez left to defend.

• 8. Orthez, Toulouse, and a Peace Too Late

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  On the 27th of February, Wellington crossed the Pau below Orthez with little loss and attacked Soult directly. Both sides fielded about 37,000 men; the Allies had 48 guns to the French 40. Soult held strong ground behind Orthez, on heights commanding the roads to Dax and Saint-Sever. Beresford's attempt to turn the French right was repulsed after hard fighting over rough terrain. Wellington then spotted an unguarded gap in the heights and pushed the Light Division through it, between Soult's right and centre. Meanwhile, Hill found a ford and turned the French left. Soult pulled back just in time to avoid being cut off, retreating to Saint-Sever, which he reached on the 28th. The Allies lost about 2,000 men; the French lost 4,000 men and 6 guns.

  From Saint-Sever, Soult turned east toward Aire-sur-l'Adour, covering the roads to both Bordeaux and Toulouse. Beresford took 12,000 men to Bordeaux, which surrendered peacefully, exactly as promised. Hill drove Soult out of Aire-sur-l'Adour on the 2nd of March 1814. Soult fell back through Vic-en-Bigorre, where there was fighting on the 19th of March. He then passed through Tarbes, the scene of a sharp action on the 20th, before reaching Toulouse behind the river Garonne. His attempt to turn the local peasantry against the Allies failed, since Wellington's fair treatment of them had given the French no real grievance.

  Wellington hoped to attack Toulouse from its weaker southern side and cut Soult off from Suchet, but found the plan impractical. Instead, he left Hill on the western bank and crossed the Garonne at Grenade on the 3rd of April. The bridge there washed out just after Beresford's men crossed, stranding him briefly on the far bank. Soult never attacked, though, and the bridge was rebuilt by the 8th of April. Wellington then crossed the Garonne and the Hers-Mort and struck Soult on the 10th.

  At Toulouse, the French fielded about 40,000 men and 80 guns, not counting local National Guard units. The Allies had under 52,000 men and 64 guns. Soult's position, anchored on the Canal du Midi, fortified suburbs, and the high ridge of Mont Rave, was formidable. Beresford's men marched about two miles under artillery and musket fire, threatened by cavalry. They then climbed the ridge's eastern face while Spanish troops attacked its northern slope. The Spanish were thrown back, but Beresford's soldiers took Mont Rave, and Soult fell back behind the canal. Soult slipped away toward Villefranque on the night of the 11th of April, and Wellington entered Toulouse the next day. The Allies lost about 5,000 men in the battle, the French about 3,000, in what turned out to be the war's last major battle.

  On the 13th of April, officers rode in with news that Paris had fallen and that Napoleon had abdicated on the 4th. Peace, in practice, had already arrived. A French sortie from Bayonne on the 14th still cost each side roughly 1,000 men. A formal convention covering Soult's and Suchet's forces followed on the 18th of April, and the Peace of Paris itself was signed on the 30th of May 1814.

  British troops went home to England, or sailed from Bordeaux to fight in the last months of the War of 1812. The Spanish and Portuguese recrossed the Pyrenees, and the French army scattered across its own country. Louis XVIII returned to the French throne, and Napoleon, deposed as Emperor of the French, was allowed to keep the small island of Elba, its sovereignty conceded to him by the allied powers.