In the opening scene, where the marshals are attempting to persuade Napoleon to abdicate, Marshal Soult is present: in 1814, Soult was commanding the defence of Toulouse against Wellington's Army.

During the Peninsular War, Badajoz was unsuccessfully attacked by the French in 1808 and 1809 ; but on March 10, 1811, the Spanish commander, José Imaz, was bribed into surrendering to a French force under Marshal Soult.

A draft agreement was worked out by the commissioners and the company's representatives which was approved on 11 December by the King, and by Marshall Soult, Admiral Duperré, and the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce.

Colonel Nicolas Soult, then serving as Lefebvre's Chief of staff, wrote that it was, " fifteen hours of the most desperate fighting I ever saw in my life.

Other surviving evidence however, strongly suggests that the advance was unplanned and occurred as the result of an undisciplined skirmish which Marshals Soult and Murat should have acted to quell but did not.

The Battle of Ocana or Battle of Ocaña was fought on 19 November 1809 between French forces under Marshal Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult and King Joseph Bonaparte and the Spanish army under Juan Carlos de Aréizaga, which suffered its greatest single defeat in the Peninsular War.

Actual command over the 24, 000 infantry, 5, 000 cavalry, 1, 500 artillerists and 50 cannon was exercised by Marshal Nicolas Soult.

The French encirclement, however, was not deep enough to prevent Kienmayer's escape: the French corps did not all arrive at the same place – they instead deployed on a long west-east axis – and the early arrival of Soult and Davout at Donauwörth incited Kienmayer to exercise caution and evasion.

Mack was now in a dangerous situation: there was no longer any hope of escaping along the north bank, Marmont and the Imperial Guard were hovering at the outskirts of Ulm to the south of the river, and Soult was moving from Memmingen to prevent the Austrians escaping south to the Tyrol.

However, the severity of his conduct in suffocating a whole Arab tribe in the Dahra or Dahna caves, near Mustaganem, where they had taken refuge ( 18 June 1845 ), aroused such indignation in Europe that Marshal Soult, the minister of war, publicly expressed his regret ; but Marshal Bugeaud, the governor-general of Algeria, not only approved, but secured for Pélissier the rank of général de brigade ( brigadier ), which he held until 1850, when he was promoted to général de division ( division commander ).

When the French took the town, a monument was built over his grave by the orders of Marshal Soult.

Nicolas Jean-de-Dieu Soult, 1st Duke of Dalmatia (; 29 March 1769 – 26 November 1851 ), the Hand of Iron, was a French general and statesman, named Marshal of the Empire in 1804.

Soult was born at Saint-Arnans-la-Bastide ( now Saint-Amans-Soult near Castres in the Tarn département ), the son of a country notary Jean Soult ( 1726 – 1779 ) and wife Brigitte de Grenier, paternal grandson of Jean Soult ( 1698 – 1772 ) and wife Jeanne de Calvet and maternal grandson of Pierre François de Grenier de Lapierre and wife Marie de Robert.

The victory of Marengo restored his freedom, and Soult received the command of the southern part of the kingdom of Naples, and in 1802 he was appointed one of the four generals commanding the consular guard.

Though he was one of those generals who had served under Moreau, and who therefore, as a rule, disliked and despised Napoléon Bonaparte, Soult had the wisdom to show his devotion to the ruling power ; in consequence he was in August 1803 appointed to the command-in-chief of the camp of Boulogne, and in May 1804 he was made one of the first marshals of the Empire.

In the subsequent Siege of Burgos campaign, Soult was able to drive Wellington's Anglo-Allied army back to Salamanca.

On 13 October, Langlois also approached Admiral Duperré and Marshall Soult ( President of the Council ), stating that he had promises of support from Le Havre and that he would be able to make an offer acceptable to the Government.

Soult was able to capture the fortress at Badajoz from the Spanish, but was forced to return to Andalusia following Marshal Victor's defeat in March at the Battle of Barrosa.

Soult sited his 11 heavy guns upon the rocky outcrop from where they would be able to fire upon the British right.

When Soult perceived that the British had left the ridge, he posted six guns on the heights above the southern end of the bay and by midday the French were able fire upon the outlying ships.

But d ' Erlon was never able to reach Sorauren to help Soult.

Accordingly, Napoleon sent the corps of Soult and Marmont towards the Iller, meaning he now had four infantry and one cavalry corps to deal with Mack ; Davout, Bernadotte, and the Bavarians were still guarding the region around Munich.

A corps commander during the campaigns of 1805 – 1807, Soult is best known for the prominent part he played in the Peninsular War in Spain and Portugal.

However, Soult was again acting on outdated information ; unknown to the Marshal, the Spaniards had already linked up with the Anglo-Portuguese corps, and his 24, 000 troops now faced a combined Allied army 35, 000 strong.

The Battle of Corunna ( or La Corunna, A Coruña, La Coruña, Elviña, or La Corogne ) took place on 16 January 1809, when a French corps under Marshal of the Empire Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult attacked a British army under Lieutenant-General Sir John Moore.

However, Moore failed to follow up against a surprised Soult, halting for two days and allowing Soult to concentrate his corps.

On 25 July, Soult and two French corps fought the reinforced British 4th Division and a Spanish division at the Battle of Roncesvalles.

Instead of falling back to the northeast toward Roncesvalles Pass, Soult made contact with his third corps on 29 July and began to move north.

Soult ordered General of Division Jean-Baptiste Drouet, Comte d ' Erlon commanding one corps ( 21, 000 men ) to attack and secure the Maya Pass.

General of Division Honoré Reille was ordered by Soult to attack and seize the Roncesvalles Pass with his corps and the corps of General of Division Bertrand Clausel ( 40, 000 men ).

To Clausel's intense frustration, Soult decided to wait for Reille's tardy corps to arrive and even took a nap.

At about 8: 45 a. m., satisfied at the weakness in the enemy center, Napoleon asked Soult how long it would take for his men to reach the Pratzen Heights, to which the Marshal replied, " Less than twenty minutes, sire.

Around 8: 45 a. m., finally satisfied at the weakness in the enemy centre, Napoleon asked Soult how long it would take for his men to reach the Pratzen Heights, to which the Marshal replied, “ Less than twenty minutes, sire .” About 15 minutes later, Napoleon ordered the attack, adding, “ One sharp blow and the war is over .”

He is best known for his military training reforms and for his death at the Battle of Corunna, in which he defeated a French army under Marshal Soult during the Peninsular War.

When Napoléon returned from Elba, Soult at once declared himself a Bonapartist, was made a peer of France and acted as major-general ( chief of staff ) to the Emperor in the campaign of Waterloo, in which role he distinguished himself far less than he had done as commander of an over-matched army.

Dependable generals with the usual military virtue, or careful and exact troop leaders like Soult and Macdonald, are kept under Napoleon's own hand for the final assault which he himself launched ; the long hours of preparatory fighting against odds of two to one, which alone made the final blow possible, he entrusted only to men of extraordinary courage and high capacity for command.

Furthermore, the rations promised to Beresford, to be taken from the town of Estremoz, had been consumed by the remnants of Mendizabal's Army of Extremadura, which had settled in the region following their defeat by Soult at the start of the year.

By 15 May it was clear to Beresford that Soult was taking the central route to Badajoz, which ran through Santa Marta and the village of Albuera.

Doggedly pursued by the French under Soult, the British made an epic retreat across northern Spain, during which both armies suffered extremely from the harsh, winter conditions.

The Times, which carried little in the way of general interest news, printed this report alongside an account of the campaigns of Marshal Soult in the Peninsular War ( 14 July ):

The most notable action in which Beresford held independent command occurred in 1811 when a combined Anglo-Portuguese and Spanish army under his command, intercepted a French army commanded by Marshal Soult who had been ordered by Marshal Auguste Marmont to move to protect the important Spanish fortress-city of Badajoz.

In the midst of war, French cavalry leaders Murat, Soult, and Lannes had segregated their troops from the greater unit, which would soon result in utter failure.

Another battle of Orthez occurred during the Napoleonic Wars on February 27, 1814 in which the Duke of Wellington defeated Marshal Soult on the hills to the north of Orthez.

After the Battle of Baylen ( 1808 ) he entered the French army, in which he rose to be colonel and aide-de-camp to Marshal Soult.