Battle of Talavera

Background

In the spring of 1809 Sir Arthur Wellesley drove Marshal Soult out of Oporto and northern Portugal. With Soult's corps worn out and short of guns and equipment, Wellesley turned east to join the Spanish Army of Estremadura under Captain-General Gregorio García de la Cuesta in an advance up the Tagus valley on Madrid. The British had been in Spain since early July. They met Cuesta at Oropesa on 20–21 July and together pushed Marshal Victor's I Corps back to the river Alberche, just east of Talavera de la Reina.

Victor had only about 22,000 men, and Wellesley wanted to attack him on 23 July. Cuesta would not move that day, and by the next dawn Victor had slipped away towards Madrid. The quarrel set the tone of the campaign. Wellesley, whose men were already on half rations for want of transport, refused to go further. Cuesta pursued alone, ran into the concentrated French near Torrijos and fell back on Talavera.

King Joseph Bonaparte, with Marshal Jourdan as his military adviser, had gathered Victor's corps, General Sebastiani's IV Corps and the Madrid reserve, some 46,000 men. Venegas's Spanish Army of La Mancha was threatening Madrid from the south, and Joseph had ordered Soult to march on Plasencia, across the allies' line of communications. Time was therefore on the French side, but Victor was impatient to fight. Wellesley judged the Alberche indefensible and chose a line running nearly three miles north from the town of Talavera to the Cerro de Medellín: the Spaniards behind the town walls, sunken roads and olive groves, the British on the open ground and the hill.

The armies

Wellesley's state of 25 July shows 20,641 British and King's German Legion (KGL) officers and men present. He had four infantry divisions, under Sherbrooke (the 1st, with the Foot Guards and four KGL battalions), Hill (2nd), Mackenzie (3rd) and Alexander Campbell (4th). About 3,000 cavalry served in the brigades of Fane, Cotton and Anson, and he had only 30 guns in five batteries, none heavier than a 6-pounder. Cuesta's Army of Estremadura had a vanguard, five infantry divisions, two cavalry divisions under Henestrosa and Albuquerque, and about 30 guns: some 32,000 men in line. It had been beaten at Medellín in March and filled with recruits, and Wellesley had already decided it could not manoeuvre in the open.

The French had about 46,000 men and 80 guns. Victor's I Corps (19,300) had the divisions of Ruffin, Lapisse and Villatte. Sebastiani's IV Corps (15,500) had his own strong French division, Leval's division of German and Dutch regiments (Nassau, Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, Frankfurt, Holland), a Polish brigade and Merlin's light cavalry. Latour-Maubourg's and Milhaud's dragoons added 5,600 sabres, and Joseph kept back his Guards and a brigade of Dessolles's division, about 5,700 men.

The tactical contest was the familiar one of the Peninsula: French battalion columns behind swarms of tirailleurs and a heavy cannonade, against British infantry in a two-deep line, kept behind crests until the last moment. On the British front the French guns outnumbered the allied ones by more than two to one.

The battle

27 July. The French crossed the Alberche in mid-afternoon. Lapisse's division, screened by smoke from burning huts, forded the river unseen and fell on Mackenzie's rearguard in the woods by the ruined Casa de Salinas. Wellesley, watching from its roof, was nearly caught, and the British lost about 440 men before Mackenzie got back to the main position.

At about 7 pm Victor's columns came out of the woods, with Ruffin's division on the Cerro de Cascajal, facing the Medellín across the Portiña ravine. The Spanish line fired a huge volley at enemies out of range, and four battalions of Portago's division fled, plundering the British baggage as they went. Most were brought back, but Cuesta later had some 25–30 of them shot.

At about 9 pm, without Joseph's leave, Victor sent Ruffin's nine battalions against the Medellín in the dark. Hill's division had halted half a mile behind the crest. The 24th Line lost its way and the 96th was held up in the ravine, but the 9th Léger surprised Löw's KGL brigade, broke the 7th KGL and reached the summit. Hill, riding up to stop what he took for friendly fire, was almost captured; his brigade-major was killed. He then led Richard Stewart's brigade in a charge that cleared the crest. Each side lost about 300 men.

28 July, dawn. At about 5 am a signal gun set some 50 French guns firing on the Medellín, and Hill pulled his men back behind the crest. Ruffin came again with nearly 5,000 men in three columns against fewer than 4,000. Hill's six battalions rose, volleyed and, after a short firefight, charged, while the 5th KGL struck the French flank. In about forty minutes Ruffin lost 1,300 men; Hill lost about 750 and was wounded in the head.

Midday. An informal truce followed. On the Cascajal, Joseph, Jourdan and Victor argued for over an hour. News that Venegas was at Toledo and that Soult could not reach Plasencia before 3–5 August settled it for an attack. Wellesley used the delay to post Anson's and Fane's cavalry in the valley north of the Medellín; Cuesta lent him Bassecourt's division, heavy 12-pounders and later Albuquerque's cavalry.

Afternoon. At about 2 pm 80 French guns opened. At 2.30 Leval's Germans, disordered by vines and olive groves, ran into Campbell's 4th Division and the guns in the Pajar de Vergara redoubt. Campbell charged, then halted. A second attack at about 4 pm also failed, and the Spanish cavalry regiment del Rey rode into its flank. Leval lost 17 guns.

At about 3 pm Lapisse and Sebastiani, 24 battalions, came at Sherbrooke's division. Sherbrooke held fire to fifty yards, volleyed and charged, and the French broke. But the Guards and the KGL chased them across the Portiña into the French second line, the Cascajal guns and Latour-Maubourg's dragoons, and came back in disorder, carrying the 61st and 83rd with them. The Guards lost 611 of 2,000. Mackenzie's brigade let them rally behind it and held Sebastiani, though Mackenzie was killed. Wellesley sent the 1/48th down from the Medellín to stand in front of the Germans. Lapisse fell, and the French centre gave way.

The north valley. Ruffin and one of Villatte's brigades edged up the valley and formed squares. Wellesley ordered Anson's brigade to charge. A hidden ravine wrecked the 23rd Light Dragoons and the 1st Light Dragoons KGL; part of the 23rd galloped on past the squares into Merlin's cavalry and was cut off. The regiment lost 207 of about 450.

Evening. Joseph sent his reserve forward, then halted it on a false report that Cuesta was advancing, and ordered a withdrawal. In the final cannonade the dry grass on the slopes of the Medellín caught fire, burning wounded men of both armies. Sebastiani's corps fell back at dusk; Victor left the Cascajal at 3 am.

Aftermath

Oman counts 5,363 British and German casualties over the two days, about a quarter of Wellesley's army; Generals Mackenzie and Langwerth were killed. The French returns give 7,268, including General Lapisse. Cuesta reported 1,201, but Oman and Esdaile both think the Spanish lost only a few hundred in the fighting. The 17 guns lost by Leval were concealed from Napoleon by Joseph's staff until the English newspapers revealed them.

The victory changed little. The Light Brigade arrived on the 29th after marching 42 miles in 26 hours, but Mortier's corps, leading Soult's advance, took Plasencia on 1 August. On 3 August a captured letter showed that Soult was coming down on the allied rear with far more men than Wellesley had believed. Wellesley turned aside over the Tagus at Arzobispo and fell back towards Portugal, abandoning much of his baggage. Cuesta followed and gave up Talavera, where about 1,500 badly wounded British fell into French hands when Victor reoccupied the town on 6 August.

On 26 August 1809 Wellesley was created Viscount Wellington of Talavera and of Wellington. He thought Talavera the most savage battle he had fought, and the Spanish panic of the 27th shaped his later dealings with Spanish armies; in November the Spaniards were routed at Ocaña. The verdict is still argued: the French were repulsed with heavier losses, but within a week the allies had given up both the field and the campaign, which Oman calls a failure.

Wargaming it

Talavera is a defensive battle against the clock. The field is about three miles long, so it suits a grand-tactical game with one unit per battalion or a divisional game on a single table. The Medellín night fight and Ruffin's dawn attack make good separate scenarios at battalion or company scale.

The terrain decides most things: the Cerro de Medellín and the Portiña ravine on the British left; the open grass of the centre, with no cover for Sherbrooke; the vines and olive groves that broke up Leval; the walls and gardens that sheltered the Spaniards; and the northern valley with its hidden ravine. A concealed-terrain rule for that ravine and a pursuit-control test for Sherbrooke's brigades recreate the battle's two famous accidents.

The French player has the guns, the cavalry and the initiative, but must choose between attacking piecemeal, as Victor did, and one co-ordinated blow, with Joseph's 5,000-man reserve as the last card. The allied player fights with half an army: Spanish troops should be brittle in the open but solid behind walls, and the question is whether Cuesta can be persuaded to sortie. Oman's own what-if was Cuesta throwing 25,000 men at the French flank at 4 pm, when Leval, Sebastiani and Lapisse were all falling back. Others are a successful night attack, Hill already on the crest at 9 pm, or Soult arriving a few days earlier.

Maps and pictures

Paintings and prints

Paintings and prints of the battle, from the time and the century after, by year: free-to-use pictures from the battle's category on Wikimedia Commons. Each opens its file page there, with the full caption and source.