Battle of Toulouse (1814)

The Battle of Toulouse took place on April 10, 1814, just four days after Napoleon's surrender of the French Empire to the Sixth Coalition, marking one of the final conflicts of the Napoleonic Wars. Having pushed the demoralised and disintegrating French Imperial Army out of Spain in a difficult campaign the previous autumn, the Allied British-Portuguese and Spanish army under the Duke of Wellington pursued the war into southern France in the spring of 1814.

The city of Toulouse, the regional capital, put up a fierce resistance under the command of Marshal Soult, who tenaciously defended its fortified environs. The city fortifications themselves were not attacked. One British and two Spanish divisions were badly mauled in bloody fighting on 10 April, with Allied losses exceeding French casualties by almost 3,000, as per recent estimate. In the battle, Wellington's Spanish corps was led by Manuel Freire de Andrade, who had defeated Soult at the Battle of San Marcial last year. Freire's Spaniards were heavily engaged in the main assault and thus suffered heavy losses. Freire was unable to break through on his own, so Beresford's corps was thrown into the fray. Victory shifted back and forth in fierce combats as the Allies confidently tried to make their way through until, by the end of the day, the Anglo-Allied achievement was only to press back the French army at a certain distance in one sector of the battle; the Allies, nevertheless, were unable to break the French resistance there. On the other flank, Thomas Picton's Anglo-Portuguese forces (part of Wellington's own corps) were unable to push the French out of their position. The day after the battle at Toulouse, Soult retreated from that city, leaving behind 1,600 wounded soldiers including three generals.

Wellington's entry on the morning of 12 April was acclaimed by a great number of French Royalists, validating Soult's earlier fears of potential fifth column elements within the city. That afternoon, the official word of Napoleon's abdication and the end of the war reached Wellington. Soult agreed to an armistice on 17 April.