United States or Saint Barthélemy ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


The narrow causeway between the two small lakes in our front conducted to an open space of ground, about a cannon-shot from the Russian line; and this we were now ordered to occupy, to be prepared to act as support to the infantry of Soult's left, whenever the attack began.

During the retreat the two armies approached each other several times; and on one occasion, when the French army was crossing the plains of Ger, its pursuers followed so closely, that had it not been for the thick woods through which they had to pass, Soult's retreat would have been seriously endangered by the British cavalry.

The conscripts, however, were not equally steady, and when Hill, advancing from the extreme right, pressed upon the French left, Soult's orderly retreat became a precipitate flight.

March to intercept Clausel. Tafalla. Olite. The dark End of a Night March to Casada. Clausel's Escape. Sanguessa. My Tent struck. Return to Villalba. Weighty Considerations on Females. St. Esteban. A Severe Dance. Position at Bera. Soult's Advance, and Battle of the Pyrenees. His Defeat and subsequent Actions. A Morning's Ride. June 26th, 1813.

"There, that is the marshal," said my companion, in a whisper, as we joined the party. "Yes, Monsieur le Duc," said an engineer colonel, who stood beside Soult's horse with a colored plan in his hand, "yes, that is the Château de Goumont, yonder. It is, as you perceive, completely covered by the rising ground marked here. They will doubtless place a strong artillery force in this quarter."

Upon the 3d, however, he learned the real strength of Soult's army, and upon the same day heard that General Cuesta had basely retreated from Talavera, without having provided any transport whatever, according to his promise, for the British sick and wounded.

Napoleon, as he rode back to Fleurus after nightfall, could claim that he had won a great victory. Yet he had not achieved the results portrayed in Soult's despatch of 3.15 to Ney. This was due partly to Ney's failure to fulfil his part of the programme, and partly to the apparition of D'Erlon's corps, which led to the postponement of Napoleon's grand attack on Ligny.

There, on June the 10th, he turned fiercely at bay and dealt heavy losses to the French vanguard. In vain did Soult's corps struggle up towards the intrenchments; his men were mown down by grapeshot and musketry: in vain did Napoleon, who hurried up in the afternoon, launch the fusiliers of the Guard and a division of Lannes' corps.

Confident that success would attend his operations, Sir Arthur directed the Portuguese corps to be in readiness to harass Soult's retreat through the mountain denies and up the valley of the Tamega, and so to force him to march north instead of making for Salamanca, where he could unite with the French army there. A mounted officer brought similar orders to Terence.

Some of the Duke of Wellington's victories over Soult they stoutly denied, and others they ascribed to great superiority of numbers, and to the large drafts of Soult's best troops for the purpose of forming skeleton battalions, to receive the conscripts of 1813.