André-Marie-Michel Soult

“ And I verily believed that Soult had collected his whole force together here for the express purpose of either allowing himself to be surrounded, and thus make a show of being compelled to surrender, or of inducing his whole army to come over at once to the side of the Bourbons, but in all these conjectures I was completely mistaken; for whatever may have been Soult's faults as a man, he has always shown himself a consistent and an able defender of the cause he first espoused, and as such is certainly respectable. ”

“ But the weakest feature of his whole conduct was that he allowed himself to be surprised in Oporto by Wellesley on May 12. When an army in close touch with the enemy is taken unawares at broad midday, by an irruption of its opponents into the middle of the cantonments, the general-in-chief cannot shift the blame on to the shoulders of subordinates. It was Soult’s duty to see that his officers were taking all reasonable precautions to watch the British, and he most certainly did not do so. ”

“ Disease was the natural consequence of so many privations; ague and dysentery undermined the men's strength, and many poor fellows, unable to proceed, were left upon the road. Horses died by hundreds, and those which held out were for the most part sore-backed, one of the greatest calamities that can happen to cavalry and artillery on the march. Fortunately Soult, who, with ninety thousand men, followed the harassed army, had some experience of British troops. ”

“ The victory of Marengo restoring his freedom, he received the command of the southern part of the kingdom of Naples, and in 1802 he was appointed one of the four generals commanding the consular guard. Though he was one of those generals who had served under Moreau, and who therefore, as a rule, disliked and despised Napoleon, Soult had the wisdom to show his devotion to the ruling power; in consequence he was in August 1803 appointed to the command-in-chief of the camp of Boulogne, and in May 1804 he was made one of the first marshals of France. ”

“ Let any man, I say, consider this, and he will be convinced that it was no common genius that could remain unshaken amidst such difficulties; yet Soult not only sustained himself, but contemplated the most gigantic offensive enterprises, and was at all times an adversary to be dreaded. What though his skill in actual combat was not so remarkable as in some of his contemporaries; who can deny him firmness, activity, vigour, foresight, grand perception, and admirable arrangement? It is this combination of high qualities that forms a great captain. ”

“ This letter was written three days after the action, and as the bad cases die in numbers in the first few days, and the mortality must have been greatly increased by want of rest, of accommodation, and of surgical aid, it was inferred, that the total loss of the enemy could not have been less than 8000 men. Soult is said to have acknowledged, that, in the whole course of his long service, he had never before seen so desperate and bloody a conflict. He is said, also, to have observed, “there is no beating those troops, in spite of their generals! ”

“ With the fall of the Bourbon dynasty in 1830 the subtle old soldier at once gave his adherence to the Orleanists, and was appointed Minister of War; and it was thanks to his energy and wisdom that the numerous revolts which threatened the early days of the new régime were stamped out. Soult, like Wellington, hated the idea of civil war, but knew that strong measures were the best means to prevent bloodshed, so when, as at Lyons, it was essential to strike, he took good care to have the necessary force at hand. ”

“ Sir Rowland Hill on the right crossed the Nive at Cambo, and the French in front of him fell back on Bayonne; he then occupied the heights of Villefranche. The forces of the allies were disposed in a semicircle, their communications intersected by a river, and made difficult by the muddy roads. The position of the French was central, with short and easy communications, and was supported by the guns of the fortress. Soult could fling himself with all his weight on any point where the allies were weakest in his estimation, and that before they could bring up reinforcements. ”

“ It is a part of human nature to dislike any disturbance of previous habits, and soldiers are never pleased at first with a general, who introduces and rigorously exacts a system of discipline differing from what they have been accustomed to. Its utility must be proved and confirmed by habit ere it will find favour in their eyes. Now Soult suddenly assumed the command of troops, who had been long serving under various generals and were used to much license in Spain. ”

“ When the wagons had been turned back, there were only pack-horses and mules sufficient to carry 3,000 rounds for the guns, and 500,000 cartridges for the infantry. This was a dangerously small equipment for an army which had a whole kingdom to conquer, and which was forced to waste many shots every day on keeping off the irrepressible insurgents. But Soult was determined that he should not be accused of shrinking from the task imposed on him, or allowing himself to be thwarted by bands of half-armed peasants. ”

“ The descent into France is much steeper than that into Spain—Burguete and Espinal are only 700 feet below the summit of the pass, Arneguy and the village of Val Carlos on the French side 3,000 feet below it. This is the reason that caused Soult to send his right column along the lofty path on the Airola ridge, from which they could approach the Linduz on a level, instead of bidding them climb up direct from the deep-sunk bottom of the Val Carlos trough. ”

“ Men and officers marched off on the new adventure grumbling and with stomachs ill-filled.
The result of Soult’s orders was to produce two separate actions on the 30th—one between D’Erlon and Hill behind Lizaso, in which the French gained a tactical advantage of no great importance, the other on the heights along the Ulzama between Wellington’s main body and Clausel and Reille, in which the French rear divisions were so routed and dispersed that Soult had to throw up all his ambitious plans, and rush home for safety as fast as was possible. ”

“ The attack was fiercely made, as fiercely repulsed, and every effort against the allied flanks was unsuccessful. Finally, numbers enabled the French marshal to turn the position: but Hill steadily retired on Equaros, and there, joined by Campbell’s Portuguese brigade and Morillo’s Spaniards, he again boldly stood his ground and offered battle. But Soult declined an action—and, contented with having gained the Isurzun road, he determined to force his way to San Sebastian; but it was decreed that, like Pampeluna, the fortress on the Urumea should be abandoned to its fate. ”

“ This would be a good road but for the innumerable river-mouths, small and great, which it has to cross: the road passes each stream just where it ceases to be tidal, and at each is fronted at right angles by a defensible position, which, if held by a competent enemy, is difficult to force from the front, and still more difficult to turn by a detour up-stream. Nevertheless it was by this route that Soult successfully invaded Northern Portugal in the spring of 1809. It must be remembered that he was only opposed by bands of peasants not even organized into the loosest form of militia. ”

“ The first was his secret, but only half-disguised, intention to annex all the Spanish provinces north of the Ebro to France, an insane resolve which led him to keep Suchet and Macdonald in Aragon and Catalonia, as well as the governors of Navarre and Biscay, out of the control of any central authority that he might set up in Spain. The second was his jealousy of entrusting the vast army south of the Ebro, [p. 461] far more than 250,000 men at the moment, to any single commander. He remembered Soult’s absurd strivings after royalty in Portugal ”

“ The loss of the French bore no proportion in men, but general Paris was killed, and several superior officers were wounded.
This unexpected encounter with such a force of cavalry, led Soult to believe that the Spanish general, aware of his error, was endeavouring to recover his line of operations. The examination of the prisoners confirmed this opinion; and in the night, information from the duke of Belluno, and the reports of officers sent towards Villa Maurique arrived, all agreeing that only a rear-guard was to be seen at Santa Cruz de la Zarza. ”

“ Here he thought that he could defend the line of the Tormes, even against a combined force that outnumbered him by 25,000 men. Probably he would have succeeded if the enemy had delivered a frontal attack, as Jourdan and the majority of the French generals desired. But Soult’s safe but indecisive policy of refusing to make such an attack, and turning the Allied flank by the fords of the upper Tormes, was adopted. The only counter to this move would have been to assail the French while they were in the midst of their manœuvre, even as Marmont had been assailed at the battle of the Arapiles. ”

“ What could the students of the Polytechnic School and an undisciplined mob do against these armed troops? In vain their cries of Vive la Liberté; à bas Louis Philippe! The military school was closed, and the leading journals of the Republican party were seized. Marshal Soult found himself on the 7th of June, 1832, at the head of sixty thousand regular troops and twenty thousand National Guards. The insurgents, who had erected barricades, were driven back after a fierce fight at the Cloister of St. Méri. This bloody triumph closed the insurrection. ”

“ But it must be remembered that in December and January all the orders that were sent him directed him to move no more than a small corps—in one dispatch the Emperor calls it only 10,000 men. A supreme commander-in-chief present on the spot might have seen his way to make the temporary sacrifice of the provinces which had cost so many men to conquer and to hold, in order that every available man might be sent against Lisbon, and the English might at last be expelled from the Peninsula. But Soult was not such a commander-in-chief ”

“ On the 11th the army advanced in order of battle. Hope forded the Nivelle above St. Jean de Luz and marched on Bidart; Beresford moved by the roads leading upon Arbonne; Hill brought his left forward into communication with Beresford, and with his centre faced Cambo on the Nive. This change of front and the time required to restore the bridges for the artillery, enabled Soult to rally his army upon a third line of fortified camps which he had previously commenced, the right resting on the coast at Bidart, the centre at Helbacen Borda, the left at Ustaritz on the Nive. ”

“ Much more frequently the enemy against whom the concentration was planned has beaten one corps before the other—delayed by one of the uncountable chances of war—has come upon the scene. And this was to be the case with Soult before Pampeluna.
The advantages of Soult’s scheme were very comprehensible. The greatest was that, owing to the existence of a first-class road from Bayonne to St. Jean-Pied-du-Port, he could concentrate the main body of his army upon his extreme left wing long before Wellington could make the corresponding counter-move. ”

“ With their left pressed from the pass of Maya, and their front vigorously assailed by the main body of the allies, they could hardly have keptSoult’s Official Report, MSS. together, since more than twenty-one thousand men exclusive of Foy’s troops were then absent from their colours. And as late as the 12th of August Soult warned the minister of war that he was indeed preparing to assail his enemy again, but he had not the means of resisting a counter-attack, although he held a different language to his armyAppendix, 4. and to the people of the country. ”

“ His head-quarters were fixed at Aire, his army was in position on each side of the Adour, he had repaired all the bridges behind him, restored that over the Lees in his front, and dispersed some small bands which had appeared upon his left flank and rear: Soult had however organized a more powerful system of partizans towards the mountains and only wanted money to put them in activity. ”

“ Such was the exact state of affairs when Soult, throwing out a multitude of skirmishers and pushing forward his supporting columns and guns as fast as the steepness of the road and difficult nature of the ground would permit, endeavoured to force Byng’s position; but the British general, undismayed at the multitude of assailants, fought strongly, the French fell fast among the rocks, and their rolling musketry pealed in vain for hours along that cloudy field of battle elevated five thousand feet above the level of the plains. ”

“ It is hard to believe that Soult could have fought to advantage, since he must have left so many men to blockade Badajoz that he could not have faced Beresford with more than 12,000 sabres and bayonets, numbers inadequate to hold off the 18,000 Anglo-Portuguese who formed the allied Army of Estremadura. ”

“ It was a long business: for 20,000 men with 4,000 cavalry horses and a great drove of pack-animals had to be passed over the narrow, rickety, and uneven structure, whose balustrades had not been replaced. All the day was spent in hurrying the troops across, but they got forward so slowly that Soult saw himself forced to place a strong rearguard in position, to hold back the pursuers till the main body was safe. He left behind a brigade of Merle’s division, and two of Franceschi’s cavalry regiments, ranged behind a lateral ravine which crosses the road some distance below the bridge. ”