The next operation of consequence was the siege of San Sebastian, a frontier fortress of great im portance, which the French made the most vigorous efforts to relieve. Their army, provided anew with ammunition and cannon, advanced under command of Soult, and drove back, after some sharp actions, the British corps posted in the passes of the Pyre nees. Our troops retreated to the vicinity of Pam plona, where, on the 27th, and still more on the 28th, they sustained a succession of impetuous attacks from the enemy. On the 29th Lord Wellington re sumed the offensive, drove the French from their position, strong as it was, and obliged them to re trace their steps through the Pyrenees. Our loss in these actions was about 6000 men in killed and wounded ; that of the enemy was still greater, ex. elusive of 4000 prisoners.
At San Sebastian we had been repulsed in an as sault on 25th July; the siege was continued, and a final assault on 31st August led to the capture of the place, though with the loss of 2500 men. The far ther operations were the entrance of our army on the French territory on 7th October ; the capitols.. tion of Pamplona on the 26th, and a general attack on the position of the French near St Jean de Luz on 10th November, after which they retreated across the Nivelle. But this mountainous country afforded a number of positions, and our next task was to drive the enemy from behind the Nive, a large river flowing northward from the Pyrenees. This was partly accomplished on 9th December ; but on se veral succeeding days the French, commanded by Soult, made impetuous attacks on the allied army, all anticipated by Lord Wellington, and all repulsed with heavy loss. Still the rains of the season, and the size of the mountain streams, retarded our ope rations. In January (1814) our artily made some farther progress, and, on 25th February, attacked the French in a position near Othes, behind the Gave de Pau, another large river flowing from the Pyre nees. This attack was successful ; and the retreat of the French was followed by the desertion of a number of their new levies. Soult's army now drew back, not in a northerly but easterly direction, to join detachments from the army of Suchet in Cata lonia. At Tarbes, on 20th March, the fighting was of short duration, but a sanguinary battle took place at Toulouse, on 10th April ;—a battle attended with 1 a loss to the allies of nearly .5000 men, which, as well as a great sacrifice of lives on the part of the French, might have been prevented, had earlier intel ligence arrived of the overthrow of Bonaparte, and the change of government at Paris.
The causes of this great change have been already explained in the concluding Section of our article FRANCE. They are but partly to be found in the ope rations described above ; for though the Spanish war had proved extremely injurious both to the finances and military establishment of Bonaparte, his power was so great, that nothing could have shaken it but a vast and sudden catastrophe. From the moment that he lost his armies in Russia, there existed substantial grounds for hope ; and after the accession of Aus tria to the coalition, there was little reason to doubt his overthrow.• The resources of France continued indeed unreservedly at his disposal; and the dread of a counter-revolution gave him the support of the majority of a nation long disgusted with his domi deering spirit and never-ending wars ; but the pre ponderance of military means was irresistible ; in vain did he struggle against it in Saxony in 1813, and in Champagne in 1814. His partial successes served only to excite a temporary illusion ; and the occupation of Paris by the allies proved, like its possession by successive parties in the Revolution, decisive of the fate of France.
We are now arrived at the period when, after al contest which, as far as regards England and France,' may be termed a war of twenty years, Europe was restored to a condition which promises long cond., nued peace. The principal provisions of the treaty, of Paris in 1814, and the Congress of Vienna in 1815, were as follows : France was circumscribed within her former terri tory, with the addition of part of Savoy, which, how ever, was relinquished in 1815 to the King of Sardinia.
Austria recovered Lombardy, and added to it Ve nice with its adjacent territory ; possessing thus a po pulation (29 millions) equal, or very nearly equal, to that of France, and considerably greater than she had had in 1792.
Germany was declared a great federal body as be fore the French Revolution ; with the distinction that a number of petty districts and principalities were ,incorporated into the larger, such as Bavaria, Wir temberg, Hesse Camel, Hesse Darmstadt; and with the farther distinction, that there is now no imperial head, but an understood division of influence be. tween the two great powers ; Austria being the pro tectrix of the south, Prussia of the north. These are progressive advances towards consolidation, and to them are to be added the formation of a Diet, still devoid of unity and slow in deliberation, but not al together so tardy or disunited as its predecessors at Ratisbon.