Battle of Espinosa de los Monteros
Battle of Espinosa de los Monteros | |
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Part of the Castile and Leon, Spain 43°04′00″N 3°32′00″W / 43.0667°N 3.5333°W | |
Result | French victory[1] |
The Battle of Espinosa de los Monteros took place during the
Background
The Dos de Mayo Uprising had put Iberia in revolt against French rule. The Spanish conventional warfare had started at El Bruch (June 1808), while the Battle of Bailen (July 1808) marked the first open-field defeat of a Napoleonic army.[3] British intervention had started at Roliça (August 1808), and Napoleon's personal participation in the invasion of Spain started with the engagement of Joaquín Blake's forces at Zornoza.
Battle
Victor launched a series of attacks on the first day that were thrown back with heavy losses by the disciplined regulars of
General Acevedo launched a counterattack, with two brigades of the Asturian division, some five thousand troops each, commanded by Cayetano Valdés y Flores and Gregorio Bernaldo de Quirós. The troops headed downhill into a barrage of musket-fire from Maison's brigade of fusiliers, resulting in the Spanish commanding officers, at the head of their raw recruits, bearing the brunt of the fire; General Quirós was killed and both Valdés and Acevedo were seriously wounded, the latter blinded. The defeated Army of the Left suffered over five thousand casualties.[5]
Blake led his remaining men through a heroic retreat west through the mountains to escape
Aftermath
Napoleon's invasion of Spain proceeded with the Battle of Tudela.
In popular culture
- The Gun, by C. S. Forester (author of the Horatio Hornblower series), begins with the Spanish retreat from Espinoza.
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e Bodart 1908, p. 391.
- ^ Esdaile 2003, p. 133.
- ^ Oman, Charles (1902). A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. I, p. 204. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 28 February 2023.
- ^ a b Esdaile 2003, pp. 133–134.
- Real Academia de la Historia. Retrieved 21 March 2023.
Bibliography
- Bodart, Gaston (1908). Militär-historisches Kriegs-Lexikon (1618-1905). Retrieved 17 May 2021.
- Esdaile, Charles J. (2003). The Peninsular War. Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-6231-7. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
External links
- Media related to Battle of Espinosa de los Monteros at Wikimedia Commons}
Preceded by Battle of Gamonal (Burgos) |
Napoleonic Wars Battle of Espinosa de los Monteros |
Succeeded by Battle of Tudela |