Battle of Tudela

The Battle of Tudela on November 23, 1808 was part of the Spanish War of Independence . The fighting took place on the Ebro in the northwestern apron of Tudela in the province of Navarre , a French corps under Marshal Jean Lannes attacked a Spanish army under General Francisco Javier Castaños . The battle led to the victory of the French, the encirclement laid out by Napoleon , but was not carried out because the Ney army arrived too late . For the Spaniards, the defeat resulted in the loss of Madrid .

prehistory

The Madrid Dos de Mayo uprising (May 2, 1808) against the French was followed by extensive popular uprisings throughout Spain. The French were forced to withdraw behind the Ebro. However, the Spaniards did not succeed in completely driving the numerically weaker enemy out of the country.

Emperor Napoleon himself hurried to Spain via Bayonne in order to take over the supreme command from November 8, 1808 and personally lead the advance on Burgos . In mid-October, the Spanish armed forces consisted of the army of General Joaquín Blake on the north coast, the army of General Francisco Javier Castaños in the Tudela area and the army of General José Rebolledo de Palafox around Saragossa . Blake opened an offensive on Bilbao and was thrown back by the French on October 31 at the Battle of Durango and Pancorbo . Marshal Soult defeated a Spanish army in the battle of Gamonal on November 10th , while the following day the combined corps under Marshal Victor and Lefebrve destroyed the armies under La Romana and Blake in the battle of Espinosa . Within ten days all of northern Spain was subject to French arms.

The French then tried to roll up the right flank of the Spanish central army. The Spanish army of Aragon under Palafox stood on the right bank of the Ebro at Lodosa and secured the line between Falces , Peralta and Milagro against the French troops under Marshal Moncey . The French 3rd Corps remained on the defensive against the army of the center under General Castaños from late October to November 21st.

March

Francisco Javier Castaños

The French army operating in the west under Marshal Ney had reached the upper Duero valley and was to advance from the southwest towards Tudela , thereby cutting off Castaño's army from retreat. Napoleon himself wanted to start the main attack in the direction of Burgos in order to drive a wedge between the displaced remnants of Blake's army and the southern armies. After the Spanish line was broken, the French troops were to advance north and south and destroy the remaining Spanish armies one by one. On November 18, the corps of Marshal Lannes began to advance towards Tudela. The avant-garde advanced on Logroño , while the Moncey corps crossed the Ebro at Lodosa. The orders for Ney had been issued on November 18th, he was told that the Corps would attack Lannes on November 22nd, by then he should have reached the union. Ney did not start his march in the west along difficult mountain roads until November 19, he reached Soria two days later and had to take a rest day after almost 130 kilometers of marching. Napoleon ordered Moncey to cross the Ebro at Lodosa and to unite with the corps under Marshal Lannes. As planned, Ney's troops were to be involved in the attack, but could not reach Tarazona until November 26th.

The quality of the Spanish troops and their numerical inferiority did not allow them to face the experienced French troops offensively, and there was no agreement between the Spanish generals Castaños and Palafox when planning operations. Palafox, who organized the defense of Saragossa , was superior to the older Castaños as a military man. The latter had already overwhelmed the central junta with his claims because he claimed sole supreme command. Castaños hoped to be able to maintain the position his troops had taken between the foothills of the Sierra de Moncayo to the Ebro, although instead of the 80,000 men promised by the junta, without the Aragon army that reached as far as Caparrosa , he had only 26,000 soldiers. Castaños defended a 15 kilometer line that stretched west of Tudela along the Ebro, then along the Rio Queiles to Cascante and finally to Tarazona at the foot of the Moncayo massif.

November 21 and 22

Sketch for the Battle of Tudela

On November 21, the two Spanish armies camped between Logroño and Tudela on both sides of the Ebro. The French 3rd Corps advanced further, crossed the Ebro at Logroño and advanced east towards Calahorra , while Marshal Ney advanced with the 6th Corps through the upper Duero Valley from the west towards Tudela. Only after the French were standing at the gates of Tudela and Polish lancers of the Vistula Legion had crossed the river, did Castaños attempt to build a barrier line south of the city. Castaños tried to get the already available troops of O'Neille's corps across the river before the French arrived, but the mostly new recruits maneuvered slowly and clumsily. The Polish lancers of the Wathier Division were followed by the 3rd Division under General Morlot and the 1st Division under General Musnier . Badly coordinated maneuvers delayed the passage of the Spanish Villalba Division through Tudela, and the Spanish cavalry east of the Ebro was not available. Castaños was aware that he did not have enough soldiers and asked General Juan O'Neille for further reinforcements, who camped with his corps on the east bank of the Ebro to Villafranca. Castaño's adjutant arrived in Caparrosa on November 21 at 5 p.m. General O'Neille promised to march to Tudela with 20,000 men, but this could not be done until the following morning because he would have to get the approval of his superior General Palafox beforehand. The approval was only given at noon on November 22nd, O'Neille decided to cross the river the next day.

On November 22nd, the troops under Lannes reached Calahorra and encountered Spanish troops off the hills of Cierzo. One could see the lines of the Spanish formations on the heights of Monte Canraso, reaching down to Tudela and then running south onto the road to Cascante. When the Spanish troops were located on the heights of Santa Barbara, Lannes decided to storm the heights and had the formations formed in the lowlands northwest of the city of Tudela. The Spanish reserve columns south of the Rio Queiles also began to unfold slowly. Castaños had his headquarters in Ablitas and hoped to close the gap between Cascante and Ebro with his 5th division, while the two divisions under O'Neille and Saint-Marcq should cover the area from Cascante to the Ebro. The forces of the Spanish 4th Division (8,000 men) under General Manuel La Peña were still several hours away from the battlefield and General Grimarest's division (13,000 men) at Tarazona had only advanced an avant-garde to Ágreda . Another division under the Marquis de La Roca was also on the east bank of the Ebro. Castaños convened a council of war in Tudela, attended by Palafox (he had arrived from Saragossa with his brother Francisco Palafox), General Coupigny, and an English observer, Thomas Graham, to discuss the following measures. Palafox argued against the establishment of a defensive line on the Rio Queiles because of the lack of pioneering forces and recommended to withdraw to Zaragoza and take up new heights in Aragon.

On the afternoon of November 22nd, on the French side of the Ebro, the units of the Aragon Army began to assemble in the village of Traslapuente, but with the clear instruction not to cross the river yet. Almost 45,000 Spanish soldiers were gathered at Tudela, who reinforced their positions until dark. The increasing number of the French and the establishment of a large battery made the difficult position of the Spaniards more threatening every hour. When it got dark, Castaño's army had expanded to almost 30 kilometers and the Spanish leaders learned that the French had occupied the villages of Corella and Cintruénigo.

The battle

Jean Lannes

The night before the battle, French troops had camped as far as Alfaro, ten miles from Tudela. These troops were led by Marshal Moncey until November 22, 1808, but Napoleon transferred this corps to Marshal Lannes before the battle. The French numbered almost 34,000 men, consisting of four infantry divisions and three cavalry regiments. Later came the division under Lagrange and the cavalry brigade of Brigadier General Colbert-Chabanais von Neys Korps. On the morning of November 23, the battle unfolded. Marshal Lannes had formed his troops in two attack columns. The smaller column, which consisted of the Lagrange division and two cavalry brigades, was sent in the direction of Cascante, while the larger column (Moncey's corps) attacked along the Ebro in the direction of Tudela.

At the Battle of Tudela, only three divisions, those of Roca, O'Neille and Saint-Marcq, were involved on the Spanish side - a total of about 23,000 men. Despite all clarification, Castaños was surprised on November 23rd. When the French avant-garde arrived in front of Tudela, Marshal Lannes had quickly realized that the Spaniards were not yet formed and had decided to launch an immediate assault with his leading brigades. While Moncey's troops advanced on Tudela, Castaños was still trying to get O'Neille's corps across the Ebro. Most recently the division under General La Roca had reached its place on the right flank of the Spanish line. The Saint Marcq division had taken its place before the French attacked, but O'Neille's own division was forming against a group of French skirmishes that had reached the rear of the Cabezo Malla plateau. This French attack, though repulsed, clearly showed how weak the Spanish position was. Even when all three Spanish divisions were assembled in the defensive position in front of Tudela, the distance to the subsequent reinforcements under La Peña in Cascante was several kilometers. Around noon Castaños tried to reach La Peña himself in order to order him personally to advance immediately with two brigades to the east, this movement was discovered and thwarted by the French cavalry. The outcome of the battle was decided by the inappropriate, unordered maneuvers of La Peña and Grimarest .

The second attack by the French was carried out with greater force. On the French left wing, the division of Morlot and Habert attacked the division of La Roca on the heights off Tudela. On the right wing, the division under Maurice Mathieu carried out a frontal attack on the Spanish lines of O'Neille, both attacks were successful. The La Roca division collapsed quickly when attacked head-on when French troops reached the top of the ridge while O'Neille's flank was outflanked down the ridge. Eventually, the French cavalry under Lefebvre-Desnouettes attacked the gap between the divisions under Roca and Saint Marcq, which completely gave way and the entire right wing of the Spaniards. On the left, La Peña and Grimarest had finally united in Cascante, so that they had a total of 18,000 infantrymen and 3,000 horsemen who had not yet fought. They were distracted by General Lagrange's 6,000-strong division and a small number of dragoons alone. After the defeat of the main Spanish army became apparent, La Pena also withdrew under cover of darkness.

Balance sheet and consequences

Surrender of Madrid on December 4, 1808

Ney's army could not carry out the planned pincer movement in time to encircle Castaños, the battle brought Napoleon the victory, but did not fulfill the possibility of completely destroying the armies of Castaños and Palafox. The two wings of the Spanish armies could escape from the Tudela area in different directions. The victory at Tudela cost the French and Poles 21 officers, 544 dead and 513 wounded. The Spanish casualties amounted to 300 officers, 3,000 dead, 3,000 prisoners and 30 guns. The Spanish left wing lost only about 200 men, while the right wing lost 3,000 dead and 1,000 prisoners.

General La Peña managed to withdraw his corps to Castile and escape from captivity. The Aragonese armed forces withdrew to Saragossa, where many troops under Palafox took part in the second siege from December 20th. The Spanish left, little active during the battle, was able to return to Madrid almost intact to defend the city. After Napoleon's Polish troops pushed aside a Spanish defensive position in the battle of the Somosierra Pass on November 30 , they reached Madrid on December 1. The main Spanish armies were dispersed and Madrid fell into French hands. Napoleon began to prepare to retake Portugal.

literature

• Sir Charles Oman : History of the Peninsular War Volume 1: 1807-1809 - From the Treaty of Fontainebleau to the Battle of Corunna, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1902, pp. 431-445, as Greenhill Military Paperback pp. 354-362 f. - ISBN 978-1853675881
• Charles Thoumas: Le maréchal Lannes , éditions Calmann-Lévy, Paris 1891, p. 388