Battle of the Gebora
The Battle of the Gebora was a battle of the Peninsular War between Spanish and French armies. It took place on 19 February 1811, northwest of Badajoz, Spain, where an outnumbered French force routed and nearly destroyed the Spanish Army of Extremadura.
About Battle of the Gebora in brief
The Battle of the Gebora was a battle of the Peninsular War between Spanish and French armies. It took place on 19 February 1811, northwest of Badajoz, Spain, where an outnumbered French force routed and nearly destroyed the Spanish Army of Extremadura. Marshal Jean de Dieu Soult led part of the French Armée du Midi from Andalusia into the neighbouring Spanish region. He laid siege to the important fortress town of Badjoz, which fell to the French on 11 March and remained in French hands until the following year. Viscount Wellington and the Spanish captain-general Pedro Caro y Sureda, 3rd marqués de La Romana, sent a large Spanish army to raise the siege. When Mendizabal ignored Wellington’s instructions and failed to entrench his army, Soult took advantage of the vulnerable Spanish position and sent a small force to attack the Spaniards. On the morning of 19 February, French forces under Marshal Édouard Mortier quickly defeated the Spanish army, inflicting 1,000 casualties and taking 4,000 prisoners while losing only 400 men. Soult finally joined his original column with only a fraction of his original cavalry with no heavy artillery so he could not besiege a strong fortress so he continued onward to Almendralejo to continue his siege of the fortress. The battle was won by Soult’s second column, commanded by Gen. Marie Victor Latour-Maubourg, who captured the fortress on 6 January 1811 and held it until the end of the war in 1813.
The Battle of Bussaco in September 1810 saw Marshal André Masséna’s Army of Portugal retreat behind the extensive lines of Torres Vedras, a series of forts defending the Portuguese capital of Lisbon. Thirty thousand Allied troops and six major fortresses now stood between the French army and the Lisbon capital, making an attack against Lisbon virtually impossible. By 10 October 1810, only the British light division and a few cavalry patrols remained outside the defensive lines, while Massénas’ army concentrated around Sobral. After a fierce skirmish on 14 October, the French dug themselves in rather than launch a full-scale assault, remaining entrenched for a month before withdrawing to a position between Santarém and Rio Maior. On 3 January 18 11, a French column was confronted by 2,500 Spanish and Portuguese cavalry near Usagre, but that force was only a screen covering the retreat beyond the Guadiana of a Spanish infantry division. That second column was able to take position near AlmendRalejo and await the arrival of the second French column. On 6 January, the column was finally confronted by 5,000 Spanish troops under Gen. Francisco Ballesteros, who retreated without suffering serious harm but remained a threat to the rear of the column. As a result of the battle Soult decided to head off the Spanish force while he continued to protect the delayed siege-train.
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