Battle of Toulouse (1814)

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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 Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Marquess 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...

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