Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro

Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro

Part of: Defense of Portugal 1808–1811

date	May 3. bis 5. May 1811
place	At Fuentes de Oñoro west of Ciudad Rodrigo
output	Allied victory

Parties to the conflict
United Kingdom Portugal King’s German Legion	France
Commander
Wellington	Marshal Massena
Troop strength
37.614+	48.268+
losses
1,545+ dead, wounded and missing	2,200+ dead, wounded and missing

In the battle of Fuentes de Oñoro from May 3rd to 5th, 1811, a British-Portuguese army under Wellington defeated a French army under Marshal Massena . The French wanted the Portuguese city Almeida shock .

background

Massena had pursued the British and their allies to Lisbon the year before until he came across the Torres Vedras lines . He decided against storming these extensive double lines of interconnected fortifications. After a hungry winter outside Lisbon, the French withdrew to the Spanish border, followed by the British-Portuguese army.

After Portugal was secured, Wellington began to recapture the fortified border towns of Almeida , Badajoz and Ciudad Rodrigo . While Wellington was besieging Almeida, Massena reformed his battered army and marched to relieve the French garrison in the city. Wellington chose the small village of Fuentes de Oñoro to stop this attempt at relief. Wellington left its lines of retreat uncovered to guard all access routes to Almeida. He thought this risk justified, as the French would only have supplies for a few days, whereas he had considerably more. The British-Portuguese-Spanish army consisted of 34,000 infantrymen, 1,850 cavalrymen and 48 cannons. The French had 42,000 infantrymen, 4,500 cavalrymen and 38 cannons.

battle

On May 3, Massena launched a frontal attack against the British regiments that had occupied the barricaded village, while the British, who stood on the hills east of the village, were exposed to heavy artillery fire. Throughout the day, the village was the center of fighting, in which French grenadiers and the elite of the Guards clashed with the British red coats and the riflemen of Crauford's Light Division . Although the French were pushing back the British with tremendous pressure, the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (51st Light Infantry) made an advance to recapture the buildings and streets that had been lost during the day. When the sun set the French withdrew and the village remained in British hands, albeit at a terrible cost in human terms.

There was little fighting on May 4th. Both sides tried to recover from the cruelty of the previous day and rethink their plans and options.

The actions began again in the early morning of May 5th. Wellington had left an infantry division exposed on its right flank. Massena launched an attack on this British flank, led by General Junot's Corps, supported by the majority of Massena's skirmishers and Uhlans , with the purpose of turning the British front. This forced Wellington to send reinforcements to save the division from annihilation, which was barely achieved with the help of the Light Division and the cavalry of the King's German Legion . Massena, whose main goal was still to conquer the village, now sent massed columns of infantry forward. The village, criss-crossed by low stone walls, provided excellent cover for the British line and the snipers, while the attacking French troops were severely hindered in the narrow streets. Nevertheless, they managed to drive the Allies back to the eastern edge of the village. At this critical moment in the battle, Wellington ordered the 88th Mackinnon Regiment to attack down into the village. General Thomas Picton shouted, “We don't waste powder! This has to be done with the cold steel! ”A few minutes later the 88th Regiment attacked down the hill and encountered French light infantry at the church in the center of the village. The 74th Regiment did the same elsewhere. Intense hand-to-hand combat ensued until the French began to give way. With the support of the Highlanders and the Allied light infantry, it was possible to push the French back to the western edge of the village. This was one of the few situations in the war on the Iberian Peninsula where the bayonet was used in general combat.

Meanwhile, volleys from the redcoats on the right, combined with attacks by the British and Portuguese hussars, rocked Junot's columns and suffered heavy losses. The fighting ended around 2 p.m.

The morale of the French was destroyed, some of their companies were only 40% of their strength.

Two nights after Massena's retreat, most of the French garrison in Almeida managed to sneak through the British lines in the dark of night and reach the French lines. On May 8th, the French withdrew to Spain.

gallery

• 

  Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. Oil painting by the Spanish painter Francisco de Goya

• 

  André Masséna

consequences

Wellington had repulsed the Portuguese army , causing great losses, but suffering only 1,500 of its own losses. The exact number of French casualties (dead, wounded and missing) varies in the sources from around 2200 to 3500 and can no longer be precisely quantified. Wellington was able to continue the siege of Almeida. But he had realized how dangerous the situation had been. He later confessed that if Boney ( Napoleon ) had been here I would have lost . He didn't count the battle among his victories.

After reaching Ciudad Rodrigo, Massena was called back to Paris by an enraged Napoleon to explain his actions (although Napoleon had issued this order before the battle). He was replaced by Marshal Auguste Marmont . Massena began his trip to France with an enormous amount of gold that had been stolen in Portugal and Spain.

literature

Non-fiction

• René Chartrand: Fuentes de Oñoro. Wellington's liberation of Portugal (Osprey Military Campaign Series; Vol. 99). Osprey, Oxford 2002, ISBN 1-84176-311-X .
• David Gates: The Spanish Ulcer. A History of the Peninsular War . Da Capo Press, Cambridge, Ma. 2001, ISBN 0-306-81083-2 (EA London 1986).
• Nick Lipscombe: The peninsular war atlas . Osprey, Oxford 2010, ISBN 978-1-84908-364-5 .
• Charles Oman : A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. 4: December 1810 to December 1811 . Greenhill, London 1996, ISBN 1-85367-618-7 (reprinted from the Oxford 1911 edition).
• Julian Paget: Wellington's Peninsular War. Battles and Battlefields . Pen & Sword Military, London 2005, ISBN 1-84415-290-1 (reprint of the London 1990 edition).
• Jac Weller: Wellington in the Peninsula. 1808-1814 . Greenhill, London 1992, ISBN 1-85367-127-4 (reprint of the London 1962 edition).

Fiction

• Bernard Cornwell : Sharpe's battle. Richard Sharpe and the "Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro", May 1811 . HarperCollins, New York 1995, ISBN 0-06-017677-6 .
  • German: Sharpe's battle. Richard Sharpe and the "Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro", May 1811 . Bastei Lübbe, Cologne 2014, ISBN 978-3-404-16918-4 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Oman, p. 622ff.
2. ↑ Oman, p. 316.
3. ↑ Chartrand, p. 77.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Chartrand, p. 85.
5. ↑ Weller, p. 166
6. ↑ Paget, p. 133.
7. ↑ Oman, p. 630.

Web links

• Battle of Fuentes de Onoro
• Spanish Battle Tour Guides