Wellington, soldier and statesman, and the revival of the military power of England . ty to observe the line of his re-treat, in the event of a reverse. But DErlon andClausel had the mass of their forces accumulatedalong Mont Rave and thetableland, the point, Soultcorrectly judged, that his adversary would be obligedto attack. Wellington did not refuse a just meed ofpraise to his very able foe : In the whole of myexperience, he wrote many years afterwards, Inever saw an army so strongly posted as that of theFrench at the battle of Toulouse. The start gained upon Wellington by his oppo-nent had
Wellington, soldier and statesman, and the revival of the military power of England . ty to observe the line of his re-treat, in the event of a reverse. But DErlon andClausel had the mass of their forces accumulatedalong Mont Rave and thetableland, the point, Soultcorrectly judged, that his adversary would be obligedto attack. Wellington did not refuse a just meed ofpraise to his very able foe : In the whole of myexperience, he wrote many years afterwards, Inever saw an army so strongly posted as that of theFrench at the battle of Toulouse. The start gained upon Wellington by his oppo-nent had enabled the Marshal, not only to choosehis position, but to strengthen Mont Rave and thetableland with redoubts and field works. The Brit-ish General was now in command of 52,000 men,9COO, however, being Spaniards ; he resolved to at-tack Soult and to drive him out of Toulouse. On the28th of March he tried to cross the Garonne abovethe city; but the river was in flood and the materi-als for a bridge too scanty ; he was obliged to cross Sir H. Maxwell, Life of Wellington, i., From the Pyrenees to the Garonne 251 lower down at a place called Grenade. The bridgewas destroyed by the force of the current; Beres-ford was isolated, without support, for two wholedays; Soult has been severely blamed for not at-tacking him when in these straits; but Grenade isfifteen miles from Toulouse; it is difficult to saythat an opportunity was missed. Wellington hadhis dispositions made by the 9th of April; Hill wasto threaten, and, if there was a chance, to attack ; Picton, on the left, was to assist Hill; themain attack, directed by Wellington himself, withBeresford and the Spaniards, was to be on MontRave and the tableland. The assailants, therefore,were extended along a broad arc, of which the de-fenders held the chord, an advantage in itself of nolittle importance ; and the British General, as his ad-versary had foreseen, had been compelled to makehis principal effort under co
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