Marshal Soult

Marshal Jean-de-Dieu Soult surveyed the battered remnants of his corps from the heights above Oporto, the morning mist still clinging to the Douro like a ghostly shroud. The retreat from Portugal had been an unrelenting test of endurance, a march through rain-soaked valleys and mountain passes where every step was dogged by relentless British pursuit and the merciless bite of starvation.

His men, veterans of Austerlitz and Jena, had been reduced to ragged specters of their former selves, their once-proud uniforms tattered, their boots in ruins. Yet still, they marched. Still, they fought. And still, Soult held his head high. He was no stranger to adversity, nor to the sting of temporary defeat

 

 Word had come from the Emperor himself—he was to link up with the armies in Spain and press on. Yet, standing amid the ruins of his ill-fated Portuguese campaign, Soult knew this war was unlike any other. Here, the enemy was not merely British redcoats or Spanish guerillas—it was the land itself, the people, the very spirit of resistance that refused to be broken.

  

 He clenched his jaw and turned away from the smoldering cityscape, the acrid scent of burning stores and abandoned cannon still heavy in the air. There would be another battle, another campaign, another moment of triumph. Napoleon demanded it, and Soult—lame foot and all—would see it done.