Suchet had trapped Blake's entire army of twenty-eight thousand and forty-four men in the city of Valencia on December 26; they force it to surrender on January 9, 1812 after a brief siege, with Blake having lost twenty thousand two hundred and eighty-one men dead or captured.

Suchet advances south from Valenica, capturing the port town of Denia in mid-January.

The redeployment of a substantial part of his troops for the invasion of Russia grinds Suchet's operations to a halt.

The victorious marshal has established a secure base in Aragon and is ennobled by Napoleon as the Duke of Albufera, after a lagoon south of Valencia.

The war now falls into a temporary lull, with the superior French unable to find an advantage and coming under increasing pressure from Spanish guerrillas.

The French have over three hundred and fifty thousand soldiers in L'Armée de l'Espagne, but over two hundred thousand are deployed to protect the French lines of supply, rather than as substantial fighting units.

Wellington Invades France – The End of the French Occupation of Spain (October 1813)

With the arrival of dry weather in late 1813, Wellington led the Peninsular Army across the French frontier, pursuing Marshals Soult and Suchet, whose outnumbered and exhausted forces were retreating into France. This marked the end of the French invasion of Spain, as Napoleon’s forces were completely expelled from the Iberian Peninsula.

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The French Retreat – The End of the Peninsular War in Spain

• After his crushing defeat at Vitoria (June 21, 1813) and his failed counteroffensive at the Battle of the Pyrenees (July–August 1813), Marshal Soult’s forces were in full retreat.
• San Sebastián and Pamplona, the last major French strongholds in Spain, fell to Wellington’s forces by September 1813, ensuring that French control in Iberia was fully eliminated.
• Marshal Suchet, who commanded the remaining French forces in Catalonia, was also forced to pull back toward France.

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Wellington’s Invasion of France (October 1813 – April 1814)

• On October 7, 1813, Wellington crossed the Bidasoa River, leading the Anglo-Portuguese-Spanish forces into France.
• The invasion of southern France would see several battles, including:
  • Battle of the Nivelle (November 10, 1813) – Wellington defeats Soult, forcing him to retreat further into France.
  • Battle of the Nive (December 9–13, 1813) – Another Anglo-Portuguese victory, tightening the noose around Napoleon’s forces.
  • Battle of Toulouse (April 10, 1814) – The last battle of the Peninsular War, fought after Napoleon had already abdicated.

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The End of the Peninsular War (1814)

• With Napoleon’s abdication on April 6, 1814, the war officially ended, bringing nearly six years of fighting in Iberia to a close.
• France’s defeat in Spain helped pave the way for Napoleon’s first downfall, as the Peninsular War drained his resources and forced him into a two-front war.

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Conclusion – A Decisive Allied Victory

By late 1813, French occupation of Spain had completely collapsed, and Wellington’s invasion of France marked the final phase of the Peninsular War. The French invasion of Spain was over, and Spain and Portugal were fully liberated, setting the stage for Napoleon’s ultimate defeat in 1814.

The French army under Marshal Soult is arrayed in front of the course of the River Nivelle, whose route is marked by a series of hills on which the French had built strong defensive positions or redoubts.

Soult's lines stretch from the shores of the Atlantic on the French right flank to the snow-covered pass of Roncesvalles on the left, a perimeter of about twenty miles.

With only sixty thousand men, Soult is stretched to an almost impossible point.

This also means that he cannot hold troops back as reserves, a factor that may have turned the tide of the battle.

As Soult moves back to his base at Bayonne, his position strengthens but he is not quick enough and Wellington, with his Peninsular army of eighty thousand, catches up to him on November 10.

By two o'clock, Soult is in retreat and the British are in a strong offensive position.

Soult has lost four thousand three hundred and fifty-one men to Wellington's twenty-four hundred and fifty.

Wellington's Anglo-Portuguese and Spanish army defeats Marshal Soult's French army in the Battle of the Nive, a series of encounters near the city of Bayonne from December 9 to 13.

Unusually, for most of the battle, Wellington remains with the Reserve, delegating command to his senior Lieutenant-Generals Rowland Hill and John Hope.

Storms and torrential rain will preclude any further action for the next two months.

Three Coalition armies are preparing to invade France on the northeastern front; however, by the time that the Six Days' Campaign ends, only two armies have crossed the frontier into France:

    The Army of Bohemia or the Grand Army, with two hundred thousand to two hundred and ten thousand Austrian, Russian, Bavarian, and Wurttemberg soldiers under Prince Felix of Schwarzenberg, had passed through Swiss territory (violating the cantons' neutrality) and crossed the Rhine between Basel and Schafhausen on December 20, 1813.

    The Army of Silesia, with fifty thousand to seventy-five thousand Prussians and Russians under Prince Gebhard von Blücher, had crossed the Rhine between Rastadt and Koblenz on January 1, 1814.

At the same time Wellington has invaded France over the Pyrenees.

Leaving Marshals Soult and Suchet to defend south-west France, Napoleon commands the French resistance in northeast France.

The remaining two Allied corps, resuming their eastward drive, push Soult's army back to Orthez, where the French marshal offers battle.

The outnumbered French repel several Allied assaults on their right flank, but their center and left flank are overcome and Soult was compelled to retreat. At first the withdrawal was conducted in good order, but it eventually ended in a scramble for safety and many French soldiers became prisoners.

Wellington, mindful that Spanish troops had indulged in plundering French civilians after the Battle of Nivelle, had greatly feared an outbreak of guerrilla warfare against his soldiers by the French people.

Accordingly, he had taken pains to send most of his Spanish units back to their home country, rightly concerned that they would inflict the same atrocities on French civilians that their own had suffered from Napoleon's armies.

At first, only Pablo Morillo's division had been brought forward because it depended on the British payroll and supply train.

As in Spain, Wellington harshly punishes any British soldiers caught marauding.

As it happened, the French troops, hardened by years of plundering foreign civilians, had begun to despoil their own citizens.

Actually, despite their French citizenship, the inhabitants south and east of Bayonne are Basque people for the most part, often unable to speak and/or understand French.

Soult has also tried to crack down on looting, hanging offenders and even shooting a much-decorated captain, but he is unable to stop it.

As a consequence, Wellington has little to fear from French guerrilla action.

Wellington eventually cuts off Bayonne by crossing the mouth of the Adour west of the city between February 23 and 27.

Leaving Hope to seal up the seventeen thousand-strong French garrison, Wellington relentlessly pursues Soult and the rest of his army.

Marshal Soult had retreated north behind the Adour River to Saint-Sever after his defeat by Wellington at the Battle of Orthez in late February 1814.

Soult is on the horns of a dilemma: he can defend the large port of Bordeaux to the north-west or Toulouse to the east, but he cannot protect both.

The French army will have difficulty obtaining food near Bordeaux and it will place the Garonne River in their rear.

Therefore, Soult elects to base himself on Toulouse.

With Soult moving east, Wellington sends Beresford and two divisions to seize Bordeaux, the third-largest city of France.

To make up for this subtraction of strength, the British general calls up eight thousand Spanish infantry and the British heavy cavalry as reinforcements.

Fearful that the Spanish will plunder the French countryside and incite a guerrilla war, Wellington puts his allies on the British payroll and supply system.

Meanwhile, the British-Portuguese-Spanish army pushes the French out of Aire-sur-l'Adour on March 2 in a skirmish.

Soult pulls back to Plaisance and Maubourget, facing west.

A ten-day lull will follow, during which time Wellington's reinforcements will begin to arrive.

Beresford captures Bordeaux on March 12 without resistance.

Leaving the 7th Division as a garrison, he rushes back to join Wellington with the 4th Division.