Although the French troops managed to take over Spain and Portugal with a relative ease,
the rebellions against them started immediately and proved that the Peninsular War won't
be concluded as fast as Napoleon expected.
While the siege of Zaragoza was ongoing, situation was changing rapidly in the southern part
of Spain and the iconic battle of Bailen was soon to happen.
Was it the time for Napoleon to step in?
Previously, Napoleon dispatched General Pierre Dupont to re-assert French control over the
south of Spain.
Dupont was a rising star, only recently promoted to general.
This was a huge task for such an untested commander, and he was not given much to accomplish
it.
The core of his 13,000-man force was not even French, but Swiss.
These were experienced regular soldiers, but had been forced into the Imperial army under
duress, so their loyalty was dubious.
The rest of Dupont's force were mostly raw recruits who had never seen action.
Still, Dupont had success in the initial stage of his campaign.
On the June 7th 1808, he seized the strategically-important city of Córdoba.
However, the countryside behind Dupont's army began to rise in rebellion.
Peasants formed guerrilla bands that attacked French messengers and supply convoys.
If the general did not act quickly, he would be cut off.
Dupont was forced to retreat beyond the Guadalquivir river, but was extremely slow due to the loot
his army took in Córdoba.
Soon he was reinforced by two divisions sent from Madrid which brought his troops to 22,000
men.
At the same time Spanish regulars and rebels have started to unite under the leadership
of general of General Francisco Javier Castaños and he had more than 30,000 under his command.
Dupont needed to retreat to Madrid, but received no such order.
To prevent Castaños from crossing Guadalquivir, he moved most of his troops to the place called
Andújar, leaving smaller units to defend the crossing at Mengíbar and the city of
Bailén, which was crucial for the communications with Madrid.
Although Castaños was a novice and never commanded an army, Dupont's passivity allowed
him to take the initiative.
On the 16th of July he divided his army in two and the smaller group attacked Dupont's
main force at Andújar.
However, the primary point of attack was against the Dupont's left flank commanded by general
Liger-Веlair.
Although the crossing was tough, the Spaniards under von Reding had the overwhelming numbers
at this position and outnumbered the French at least 3-to-1.
Liger-Веlair sent messengers to the unit in Bailen, commanded by general Gobert, asking
for help.
Despite the fact that Gobert moved fast, the united French forces were drove back from
Mengíbar and the Spaniards crossed the river.
The French troops, covered by their cuirassiers first retreated to Bailén and then to Guarromán
and beyond in order to keep the passages across the Sierra Morena mountains secured.
Dupont who knew about the engagement and stopped the false attack on his position with ease,
sent one of his units under Vedel to assist his left flank ea rly on the 17th.
In order to move faster, Vedel decided to use the road to and from Bailén.
However, when he reached the town, he received a false message, claiming that the Spanish
are already at La Carolina, so he moved to the north.
The messengers he sent to Dupont were caught.
As a result, already outnumbered French forces were now divided into two groups separated
by at least a day of heavy march.
Von Reding either had a better reconnaissance or was informed by the locals, but he used
the distance between the French and took Bailén.
By the night of the 18th Dupont started to understand the danger of his current position
and decided to move to the north, towards the mountain passes.
He forced marched his troops, which allowed him to create some space with the troops of
Castaños.
However, he didn't know that von Reading is expecting him at Bailén.
Dupont's tired and battered troops reached the stream near the town on the morning of
the 19th.
Although von Reding's troops occupied an elevation and had a very defensible position,
which was only possible to attack from a narrow front, Dupont decided to charge, knowing that
there are more Spanish troops to the south.
Dupont also hoped that Vedel's troops will come to his help hearing the fight.
The French charged 7 times uphill and were even able to break through the first line
of the Spanish troops on a few occasions, but his troops were forced to retreat each
time.
At the same time a few thousand of his Swiss soldiers deserted him and joined von Reding,
who was their compatriot.
Light Spanish troops sent by Castaños started to arrive on the battlefield and Dupont was
now surrounded and offered von Reding to surrender.
Vedel's troops arrived from the north shortly after and even destroyed a few Spanish units,
but it was too late, as Dupont ordered Vedel to surrender.
More than 2000 French were killed and more than 17 thousand became prisoners of war as
the result of the battle of Bailén.
When news of this catastrophe reached Zaragoza in early August, Verdier destroyed his fortifications
and began withdrawing from the city.
The French fell back slowly, by August 17th, they were gone.
They had lost nearly four thousand men.
The Spanish had won, but at a terrible cost, perhaps as high as five thousand casualties.
Palafox was hailed as a hero.
Zaragoza had been saved in no small part by the bravery and determination of her defenders,
but none of it would have been possible without the Spanish victory at the Battle of Bailén.
A few weeks later French commander in Portugal Junot lost to the allied Anglo-Portuguese
forces at Vimiero and surrendered the country.
Napoleon ordered all French troops in Iberia to fall back to the Ebro river, abandoning
most of the peninsula.
At Bailén and Vimiero, Napoleon had lost much more than his soldiers- the myth of invincibility
which had surrounded the French army for nearly a decade was shattered.
But Napoleon was nowhere near giving up his ambition to control Portugal and Spain and
started to gather his forces, planning to personally lead his forces.
While Napoleon gathered his forces, the Spanish attempted to continue the offensive, hoping
to push the French entirely out.
However, by the fall of 1808, they had lost the momentum.
The French had recovered from the initial shock of the rebellion, and the inexperience
and poor organization of the Spanish armies was beginning to show.
The French were able to hold onto their defensive positions without too much trouble, while
Napoleon took his time getting tsar Alexander's guarantees that Russia won't attack France
in his absence.
By November, the French were ready.
The Emperor decided on an audacious plan: he would lure the Spanish forward by feigning
weakness in the French center.
Then, once the enemy was across the Ebro river and over-extended, the French would strike
them simultaneously on both flanks, trapping the advancing Spanish between two pincers.
If executed properly, all of Spain's field armies might be surrounded and destroyed in
one fell swoop.
Contrary to Napoleon's orders, Lefebvre ordered his corps forward early.
On October 31st, Lefebvre's 24,000 men encountered a Spanish force of around 19,000 under General
Joaquín Blake at the Battle of Pancorbo.
The Spanish were surprised, but rallied for a tenacious fighting retreat, preventing Lefebvre
from completing the encirclement of their army.
General Blake had been tipped off to the precariousness of his position, and with his lines of retreat
still open, his army began to fall back.
Napoleon ordered Lefebvre to pursue, supported by another corps under Marshal Claude Victor.
If Victor and Lefebvre were quick, there may have still been time to pin Blake down before
he could escape the trap.
Napoleon's offensive officially began on November 6th.
All along the front, the French suddenly sprung into action, catching the Spanish off-guard
and unprepared.
Some Spanish units panicked and fled, others resisted bravely, but all were ultimately
forced to fall back.
Napoleon had seized the initiative.
The campaign was off to a promising start, but the Emperor constantly harangued his commanders
to move faster.
Despite his entreaties, the French armies were never able to achieve the level of speed
Napoleon envisioned in his plans.
Napoleonic strategy relied on rapid movement, but what was possible in the plains of Germany
or Austria often proved unworkable in the rugged hills of Spain.
Napoleon's great pincers were to converge on Tudela, a town in north-eastern Spain,
site of one of the last bridges over the river Ebro still open to the Spanish.
If the French seized the bridge, the Spanish field armies would be trapped.
Marshal Jean Lannes, who was known as one of the fastest and most aggressive of Napoleon's
commanders, arrived at Tudela on November 23rd with around 30,000 men.
Lannes discovered the enemy had just barely beaten him there.
A Spanish army of around 33,000 had occupied the town and begun to cross the river-- it
would only be a matter of time before they were over the Ebro to safety.
They were led by the victor of Bailén, General Francisco Castaños, but unfortunately for
the Spanish, Castaños was ill, so the inspiring, but less capable General José de Palafox
took command.
Tudela could have been a strong defensive position-- the town is surrounded by hills,
and protected on one side by the Ebro river, but the Spanish army had only just arrived,
and were still exhausted from their rapid retreat.
There had been hardly any time to set up a strong perimeter, and Palafox had made little
effort to do so.
Marshal Lannes was outnumbered, but he sensed the Spanish weakness, and understood the importance
of engaging the enemy before they escaped.
The two armies made contact in the early morning, and Lannes ordered his advance guard to attack
immediately.
This was a small, haphazard assault, but the Spanish were only able to hold them off with
great difficulty.
The French fell back, but this probe had laid bare the vulnerabilities of the Spanish position.
Marshal Lannes's instincts had been correct, and he prepared to pounce.
There was no time to prepare any sophisticated maneuvers; Lannes's plan was simply to launch
his army at the beleaguered, disorganized Spanish, break them as quickly as possible,
and trap them against the other wing of Napoleon's pincer before they could escape.
The assault began in earnest with General Antoine Morlot's division moving directly
against the heights at the Spanish center.
Under normal circumstances, this would be a careless, almost reckless maneuver.
However, Lannes had confirmation from his advance guard that the enemy positions were
poorly-prepared; too far apart to support each other, and that the Spanish troops were
in no condition for a fight.
Morlot's men took the heights.
As the rest of Lannes's corps arrived on the scene, he threw them against the unprepared
Spanish lines.
The French were successful all across the front, and the enemy was forced to retreat.
The Spanish attempted to bring up reinforcements, but as they approached the battlefield, they
found French troops standing between them and Palafox's embattled army.
Lannes was too fast.
It looked like the French might be on the verge of a total victory.
Lannes's corps was only one half of Napoleon's great pincer maneuver.
The second half was due to arrive in Tudela at any moment-- an entire fresh corps under
Marshal Ney, aimed directly at the rear of the Spanish army, cutting off any escape.
But Marshal Ney never came.
Napoleon's plan had looked perfect on the map at headquarters, but in practice, it had
proved impossible for Ney's corps to move quickly enough to rendezvous with Lannes and
take part in the battle.
Without Ney's corps to complete the pincer, the shattered Spanish army was able to disengage
and fall back.
The French inflicted over four thousand casualties on the Spanish, at the cost of fewer than
seven hundred of their own men, but it was not the devastating blow Napoleon had hoped
for.
Most of the Spanish forces escaped to fight another day.
Thanks to Marshal Lefebvre's impatience, much of General Blake's army had escaped
as well.
The first phase of Napoleon's offensive was a success… but total victory had slipped
through his fingers.
In the space of just three weeks, Napoleon and his armies had turned the tide of the
war.
Bonaparte now set his sights on the greatest prize in Iberia—Madrid, but nothing in Spain
was as easy as it seemed.
Thank you for watching the third episode of the second season of our series on the Napoleonic
Wars.
You can watch the whole first episode via the link in the description.
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This is the Kings and Generals channel, and we will catch you on the next one.
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