Battle of Truillas
Part of theWar of the Pyrenees
TheBattle of Truillas by Jean-Baptiste Réville.
Date 22 September 1793 Location Trouillas,Pyrénées Orientales,France 42°36′39″N2°48′28″E / 42.61083°N 2.80778°E /42.61083; 2.80778 Result Spanish victory
Belligerents
Spain	France
Commanders and leaders
Antonio Ricardos	Luc Siméon Dagobert
Strength
17,000[1]	22,000[1]
Casualties and losses
2,000[1]	4,500, 10 guns[1]
class=notpageimage| Location within France

TheBattle of Truillas, in 22 September 1793, saw theRepublican FrenchArmy of the Eastern Pyrenees led byLuc Siméon Auguste Dagobert attack theSpanish Army of Catalonia commanded byAntonio Ricardos. This attempt by the French to exploit their success in theBattle of Peyrestortes ended in a Spanish victory. Dagobert tried to outflank the Spanish left wing, but Ricardos blocked the move. Dagobert then attacked the Spanish center and had initial success, but Ricardos rapidly shifted his forces to counter the French. Thwarted, Dagobert was finally compelled to order a retreat. Dagobert's scornful treatment of two key subordinates was one reason for the lackluster French performance. The battle was fought near the village ofTrouillas in the French department ofPyrénées Orientales during theWar of the Pyrenees.^[1]

Since invading FrenchRoussillon in April 1793,Captain General Ricardos and his Spanish army won a string of successes over the defending forces of theFirst French Republic. TheSiege of Bellegarde ended with a French capitulation on 24 June 1793.^[2] Since June, the Spanish army maintained itself a few kilometers south ofPerpignan, the department capital. In early September, Ricardos made a bid to isolate and capture the fortress of Perpignan by sending two divisions around its western side to cut the road toNarbonne. Meanwhile, he bombarded the city from the south. French troops underGeneral of DivisionEustache Charles d'Aoust andGeneral of BrigadeJacques Gilles Henri Goguet attacked the positions of SpanishLieutenant GeneralJerónimo Girón-Moctezuma, Marquis de las Amarilas atPeyrestortes and Lieutenant GeneralJuan de Courten atVernet-les-Bains. The resultingBattle of Peyrestortes on 17 September was an important French victory. The badly shaken Spanish army regrouped near Trouillas.^[3]

The day afterPeyrestortes, General of DivisionLuc Siméon Auguste Dagobert was appointed commander of the Army of the Eastern Pyrenees. Desiring to take advantage of the recent victory and urged on byRepresentative-on-mission Claude Fabre, Dagobert decided to attack Ricardos in his camp at Trouillas.^[4]

Trouillas nestles in a plain on the Canterrane stream at an altitude of about 100 meters. Mas Deu, an establishment founded by theKnights Templar in medieval times, is located 2.4 km to the east.Thuir lies five km to the northwest. Ricardos defended these positions with a force of 17,000 soldiers and 38 cannons. The second battalion of theBarcelona Infantry Regiment arrived, but this reinforcement did not make up for the heavy Spanish losses suffered at Peyrestortes. Dagobert attacked the Spanish defenses with 22,000 soldiers.^[4] The French order of battle included the 7th, 61st, 70th, and 79th InfantryDemi-Brigades, as well as theNational Guards of Gers and Gard.^[1]

Dagobert preferred to envelop the Spanish position from the west, but Fabre and the other generals persuaded him to make a frontal attack. So he sent General of Brigade Louis Antoine Goguet's division to assault the Spanish left flank at Thuir while sending a flanking column to attack that town from the west. D'Aoust's division was ordered to attack the Spanish right flank at Mas Deu, while Dagobert led his own division in an attempt to pierce the Spanish center. Believing that Thuir was the focus of the main French effort, Ricardos posted General Crespo and only 3,000 men to defend the Spanish right. He shifted the troops of LGPedro Téllez-Girón, 9th Duke of Osuna and LGLuis Firmín de Carvajal, Conde de la Unión to hold Thuir. Dagobert's attack pushed back the Spanish center and forced its way into the main camp at Trouillas. Meanwhile, Goguet ran into a concentration of Spanish infantry and artillery on the west flank at Thuir and was beaten. Ricardos personally led a cavalry charge to break up the flanking column, then he returned to the crisis of the battle in the center. D'Aoust merely skirmished with Crespo near Mas Deu and never mounted a serious threat to the Spanish right. This allowed Ricardos to mass his cavalry against Dagobert's division. After disposing of Goguet, de la Unión marched to Trouillas to take the French center in reverse. Three French demi-brigades were surrounded and many prisoners taken. After an all-day battle Dagobert retreated northeast toCanohès.^[5]

The Spanish victory was also helped by disorganization and poor logistical arrangements on the part of the French.^[4]

Though Dagobert admitted only 1,500 casualties, historianDigby Smith notes that the French actually suffered 3,000 killed and wounded, with 1,500 soldiers and 10 artillery pieces captured. The Spanish army lost a total of 2,000 killed, wounded, and missing. De Courten and General Diego Godoy also fought for the Spanish.^[1] Representatives Fabre and Raymond Gaston removed the unsuccessful Dagobert from command of the army on 28 September and temporarily replaced him with d'Aoust. Dagobert returned to theCerdagne with his division and sacked the Spanish town ofCamprodon on 4 October.^[6] However, the positive casualty exchange proved inconsequential as 15,000 reinforcements reached the French the day after the battle while Ricardos’ army continued to shrink.^[3] Though Ricardos gained the victory at Trouillas, he soon found it expedient to withdraw to theTech River. On 3 October, the Spanish commander and 15,000 troops repulsed d'Aoust and 16,000 Frenchmen atLe Boulou on the Tech. In that action, 1,200 French soldiers became casualties against only 300 Spaniards.^[1]

• Cust, Edward (1859)."Annals of the Wars: 1783–1795, Volume 4". London: Mitchell's Military Library. Retrieved30 November 2023.
• Hamel, Michael C. "The Roussillon Campaign Of 1793-94: Spain’s Lost Opportunity."Age of Revolutions (May 13, 2024).https://ageofrevolutions.com/2024/05/13/the-roussillon-campaign-of-1793-94-spains-lost-opportunity/.
• Phipps, Ramsay Weston (2011).The Armies of the First French Republic: Volume III The Armies in the West 1793 to 1797 And, The Armies In The South 1793 to March 1796. Vol. 3. USA: Pickle Partners Publishing.ISBN 978-1-908692-26-9.
• Smith, Digby (1998).The Napoleonic Wars Data Book. London: Greenhill.ISBN 1-85367-276-9.

• 17 Septembre 1793 La Bataille de Peyrestortes by Bernard Prats in FrenchArchived 2011-07-21 at theWayback Machine
• Mort pour la Bataille de Trouillas ou est ta Victoire by Bernard Prats in FrenchArchived 2018-01-12 at theWayback Machine
• La Revanche de Luc Simeon Auguste Dagobert de Fontenille by Bernard Prats in FrenchArchived 2018-01-12 at theWayback Machine
• Rickard, J. (2009)."Battle of Truillas". History of War. Retrieved30 November 2023.
• Media related toBattle of Truillas at Wikimedia Commons

• Military history of Spain
• Battles of the War of the Pyrenees
• Pyrénées-Orientales in the War of the Pyrenees
• Conflicts in 1793
• 1793 in France
• 1793 in Spain

• Pages using gadget WikiMiniAtlas
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Coordinates on Wikidata
• Webarchive template wayback links
• Commons category link from Wikidata
• Articles containing French-language text