Campaign in south-west France (1814)

The campaign in south-west France in late 1813 and early 1814 was the final campaign of the Peninsular War. An allied army of British, Portuguese and Spanish soldiers under the command of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington fought a string of battles against French forces under the command of Marshal Jean de Dieu Soult, from the Iberian Peninsula across the Pyrenees and into south-west France ending with the capture of Toulouse and the besieging of Bayonne.

The campaign ended when—on receiving word of the abdication of Napoleon onaparteas Emperor of the French, and the ratification of a general armistice (the Treaty of Fontainebleau, 11 April)—the opposing commanders signed a local armistice on 17 April 1814.

Prelude (end of the war in Spain, 1813–1814)

Campaign in the eastern Atlantic region

In July 1813 Marshal Soult began a counter-offensive (the Battle of the Pyrenees) and defeated the Allies at the Battle of Maya and the Battle of Roncesvalles (25 July). Pushing on into Spain, by 27 July the Roncesvalles wing of Soult's army was within ten miles of Pamplona but found its way blocked by a substantial allied force posted on a high ridge in between the villages of Sorauren and Zabaldica, lost momentum, and was repulsed by the Allies at the Battle of Sorauren (28 and 30 July) Reille's right wing suffered further losses at Yanzi (1 August); and the Echallar and Ivantelly (2 August) during its retreat into France. Total losses during this counter-offensive being about 7,000 for the Allies and 10,000 for the French.

In August 1813, British headquarters still had misgivings about the eastern powers. Austria had now joined the Allies, but the Allied armies had suffered a significant defeat at the Battle of Dresden. They had recovered somewhat, but the situation was still precarious. Wellington's brother-in-law Edward Pakenham wrote, "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." But the defeat or defection of Austria, Russia and Prussia was not the only danger. It was also uncertain that Wellington could continue to count on Spanish support.

On 8 September Wellington accepted the surrender of the French-garrisoned city of San Sebastián under Brigadier-General Louis Emmanuel Rey after two sieges that lasted from 7 to 25 July (While Wellington departed with sufficient forces to deal with Marshal Soult's counter-offensive, he left General Graham in command of sufficient forces to prevent sorties from the city and any relief getting in. Wellington next determined to throw his left across the river Bidassoa to strengthen his own position, and secure the port of Fuenterrabia.

At daylight on 7 October 1813 Wellington crossed the Bidassoa in seven columns, attacked the entire French position, which stretched in two heavily entrenched lines from north of the Irun- Bayonne road, along mountain spurs to the Great Rhune high. The decisive movement was a passage in strength near Fuenterrabia to the astonishment of the enemy, who in view of the width of the river and the shifting sands, had thought the crossing impossible at that point. The French right was then rolled back, and Soult was unable to reinforce his right in time to retrieve the day. His works fell in succession after hard fighting, and he withdrew towards the river Nivelle. The losses were about—Allies, 800; French, 1,600. The passage of the Bidassoa "was a general's not a soldier's battle".

On 31 October Pamplona surrendered, and Wellington was now anxious to drive Marshal Suchet from Catalonia before invading France. The British government, however, in the interests of the continental powers, urged an immediate advance over the northern Pyrenees into south-western France. Napoleon Bonaparte had just suffered a major defeat at the Battle of Leipzig on 19 October and was in retreat, so Wellington left the clearance of Catalonia to others.

Campaign in the northern Mediterranean region

After the Battle of Vitoria (21 June 1813) Marshal Suchet, evacuated Tarragona (17 August) but defeated Bentinck in the battle of Ordal (13 September).

Although there were a few minor battles during 1814 (notably Battle of Molins de Rey on 16 January), Suchet's army was repeatedly denuded of regiments sent to reinforce the French forces fighting in the north-east France theatre. As his army shrank, Suchet was able to keep a small field force in being by calling in outlying garrisons (that were not besieged by the Allies) and gradually moving his area of operations closer to the French frontier (so shortening his lines of communication and adding the men previously guarding them to his field force). At the end of the campaign in early April 1814 Suchet had about 14,000 men cantonmented around the Spanish frontier town of Figueras. Some besieged fortresses and towns also held out to the end of the war (notably Barcelona under the command of the French General Pierre-Joseph Habert who attempted two major sorties before eventually surrendering on 25 April).

Towards the end of the campaign the Allies underestimated the size of Suchet's force and thought that Suchet with the remnant of his army was crossing the Pyrenees to join Soult in the Atlantic theatre. So the Allies started to redeploy their own forces. The best of the British forces in Catalonia were ordered to join Wellington's army on the river Garonne in France. They left to do so on 31 March, leaving the Spanish to mop up the remaining French garrisons in Catalonia. Consequently, when Wellington agreed an armistice with Marshal Soult, he included Suchet's forces in that armistice, although Suchet and his small army were still on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees.

Invasion of France

Battle of the Nivelle, November 1813

On the night of 9 November 1813 Wellington brought up his right from the Pyrenean passes to the northward of Maya and towards the Nivelle. Marshal Soult's army (about 79,000), in three entrenched lines, stretched from the sea in front of Saint-Jean-de-Luz