Battle of Espinosa de los Monteros
Part of thePeninsular War
Date 10–11 November 1808 Location Espinosa de los Monteros, northeast ofCastile and Leon,Spain 43°04′00″N3°32′00″W / 43.0667°N 3.5333°W /43.0667; -3.5333 Result French victory[1]
Belligerents
French Empire	Spain
Commanders and leaders
Claude Victor	Joaquín Blake Pedro Caro, 3rd Marquis of la Romana
Strength
21,000[1]	23,000[1]
Casualties and losses
1,100[1]	5,400[1]

Peninsular War: Napoleon's invasion

210km
130miles

14

Corunna

13

12

11

10

9

8

Zaragoza

7

6

Somosierra

5

Tudela

4

Espinosa

3

2

Roses

1

Zornoza

   

  current battle

TheBattle of Espinosa de los Monteros took place during theNapoleonic Wars, on 10 and 11 November 1808 at the village ofEspinosa de los Monteros in theCantabrian Mountains. It resulted in aFrench victory underMarshal Victor againstLieutenant GeneralJoaquín Blake'sArmy of Galicia.^[2]

TheDos de Mayo Uprising had putIberia in revolt against French rule. TheSpanish conventional warfare had started atEl Bruch (June 1808), while theBattle of Bailen (July 1808) marked the first open-field defeat of a Napoleonic army.^[3]British intervention had started atRoliça (August 1808), andNapoleon's personal participation in the invasion of Spain started with the engagement of Joaquín Blake's forces at Zornoza.

Victor launched a series of attacks on the first day that were thrown back with heavy losses by the disciplined regulars ofGeneral La Romana'sDivision of the North. By nightfall, Blake's positions still held. On the morning of 11 November, Victor regained his composure and coordinated a massive French attack that pierced Blake's left wing and drove the Spaniards from the field.^[4]

GeneralAcevedo launched a counterattack, with two brigades of the Asturian division, some five thousand troops each, commanded byCayetano Valdés y Flores andGregorio Bernaldo de Quirós. The troops headed downhill into a barrage of musket-fire fromMaison's brigade of fusiliers, resulting in the Spanish commanding officers, at the head of their raw recruits, bearing the brunt of the fire; General Quirós was killed and both Valdés and Acevedo were seriously wounded, the latter blinded. The defeated Army of the Left suffered over five thousand casualties.^[5]

Blake led his remaining men through a heroic retreat west through the mountains to escapeSoult's pursuit. However, when Blake arrived atLeón on 23 November, only 20,000 of his men remained, in an extremely bad condition.^[4]

Napoleon's invasion of Spain proceeded with theBattle of Tudela.

• The Gun, byC. S. Forester (author of theHoratio Hornblower series), begins with the Spanish retreat from Espinoza.

• Timeline of the Peninsular War

• Bodart, Gaston (1908).Militär-historisches Kriegs-Lexikon (1618-1905). Retrieved17 May 2021.
• Esdaile, Charles J. (2003).The Peninsular War. Palgrave MacMillan.ISBN 978-1-4039-6231-7. Retrieved17 May 2021.

• Media related toBattle of Espinosa de los Monteros at Wikimedia Commons}

• Battles of the Peninsular War involving Spain
• Battles in 1808
• 1808 in Spain
• November 1808
• Cantabrian Mountains
• Military history of Castile and León
• History of the Province of Burgos
• Battles inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe
• Mountain warfare in Europe

• Articles with Spanish-language sources (es)
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use shortened footnotes from May 2021
• Use dmy dates from March 2017
• Pages using gadget WikiMiniAtlas
• Articles containing OSM location maps
• Commons category link from Wikidata
• Pages using the Kartographer extension