March to 26 July 1809
Porto and the advance up the Tagus
After Corunna Marshal Soult invades northern Portugal in March 1809 with about 20,000 men. He takes Chaves and Braga, and on 29 March storms Porto, where thousands of Portuguese soldiers and townspeople die, many of them when the bridge of boats over the Douro breaks. He halts in the city to refit before marching on Lisbon.
Marshal Soult at Porto in March 1809, painting by Joseph Beaume, 1840Wikimedia Commons, Joseph Beaume, Public domain (LargeBattleofOportobyBeaume.jpg)
Wellesley returns to Portugal and on 22 April takes command of the British army, reinforced with Portuguese regiments trained by General Beresford, and marches north by Coimbra. On 12 May, opposite Porto, Colonel Waters finds four wine barges moored unguarded on the far bank above the city. A company of the 3rd Foot crosses and occupies the empty bishop’s seminary, which holds against General Foy’s attacks, and when Soult pulls the guards off the quays the townspeople ferry more British troops over into the city.
The French lose 600 killed and wounded and 1,800 captured, the British 125. Soult escapes over the mountains to Ourense in Spain, leaving behind all 58 of his guns, his baggage and 4,500 men. Wellesley then marches up the Tagus into Spain with 20,641 men and 30 guns to join General Gregorio García de la Cuesta’s Spanish army of 35,000.
Marshal Victor’s I Corps falls back from Talavera before them. Cuesta follows it towards Madrid alone and is driven back when King Joseph and Marshal Jourdan join Victor with Sébastiani’s IV Corps, the cavalry reserve and the Madrid garrison, 46,000 men and 80 guns in all. The allies take up a line north of the town of Talavera on the Tagus, about 120 km south-west of Madrid. Cuesta’s army holds the right from the town along the Portiña stream to a redoubt in the centre, the British hold the left up to the hill of the Medellín, and beyond a valley to the north Bassecourt’s Spanish division stands on the Sierra de Segurilla.
The Battle of Talavera, 28 July 1809, print after William Heath, 1815Wikimedia Commons, William Heath, Public domain (Heath - Battle of Talavera, July 28th 1809.jpg)
Sources
- Charles Oman, A History of the Peninsular War, vol. II (1903).
- Michael Glover, The Peninsular War 1807–1814 (1974).
- David Gates, The Spanish Ulcer: A History of the Peninsular War (2001).
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