Marshal General Jean-de-Dieu Soult, 1st Duke of Dalmatia (French: [ʒɑ̃dədjø sult]; 29 March 1769 – 26 November 1851) was a French general and statesman. He was a Marshal of the Empire during the Napoleonic Wars, and served three times as President of the Council of Ministers (prime minister) of France. Soult is referred to as one of the outstanding military commanders of the modern era.
Son of a country notary from southern France, Soult enlisted in the French Royal Army in 1785 and quickly rose through the ranks during the French Revolution. He was promoted to brigadier general after distinguishing himself at the Battle of Fleurus in 1794, and by 1799 he was a division general. He fought a drawn battle against equally numbered troops of Alexander Suvorov at Glarus in 1799 and in the same year notably defeated the Austrians under the lead of Friedrich von Hotze at the Linth River as Hotze died at the very beginning of battle leaving his Austrians without organization. In 1804, Napoleon made Soult one of his first eighteen Marshals of the Empire. Soult played a key role in many of Napoleon's campaigns, most notably in the Ulm campaign (e.g., Battle of Memmingen) and at the Battle of Austerlitz, where his corps delivered the decisive attack that secured French victory. He was subsequently created Duke of Dalmatia. From 1808, he commanded French forces during the Peninsular War. At the Battle of Corunna, Soult clashed with the British under generals John Moore and John Hope; during Soult's attack, his troops were outflanked by numerically superior infantry and retreated to their original positions as did the British troops, but eventually the battlefield remained his due to the British retreat to their ships, thus Spain was left without British support for a while. At the Battle of Albuera, against superior Anglo-allied forces of William Beresford, he again fought to a draw. Despite several initial victories, for instance at the Battle of Ocaña, Soult was eventually outmaneuvered and driven out of Spain by the coalition forces under the command of Arthur Wellesley (later Duke of Wellington), which were superior to the army given to Soult in terms of the quality of troops and supplies. Soult then stubbornly fought Wellington at Toulouse in 1814, days after Napoleon's first abdication. Soult declared himself a royalist following the Bourbon Restoration, but rejoined Napoleon during the Hundred Days. He was Napoleon's chief of staff during the Waterloo campaign in 1815, where the emperor suffered a final defeat; in this role Soult proved himself less capable than as a field commander.
