The Battle of Albuera was fought on 16 May 1811 during the Peninsular War. A mixed British, Spanish and Portuguese corps engaged elements of the French armée du Midi (Army of the South) at the small Spanish village of Albuera, about 20 kilometres (12 mi) south of the frontier fortress-town of Badajoz, Spain.
From October 1810, Marshal Masséna's French Army of Portugal had been tied down in an increasingly hopeless stand-off against Wellington's Allied forces, safely entrenched in and behind the Lines of Torres Vedras. Acting on Napoleon's orders, in early 1811 Marshal Soult led a French expedition from Andalusia into Extremadura in a bid to draw Allied forces away from the Lines and ease Masséna's plight. Napoleon's information was outdated and Soult's intervention came too late; starving and understrength, Masséna's army was already withdrawing to Spain. Soult was able to capture the strategically important fortress at Badajoz on the border between Spain and Portugal from the Spanish, but was forced to return to Andalusia following Marshal Victor's defeat in March at the Battle of Barrosa. However, Soult left Badajoz strongly garrisoned. In April, following news of Masséna's complete withdrawal from Portugal, Wellington sent a powerful Anglo-Portuguese corps commanded by General Sir William Beresford to retake the border town. The Allies drove most of the French from the surrounding area and began the siege of Badajoz.
Soult rapidly gathered a new army from the French forces in Andalusia and, joining with the troops retreating before Beresford, he marched to relieve the siege. With intelligence of another approaching force—a Spanish army under General Joaquín Blake—he planned to turn Beresford's flank and interpose his army between the two. However, Soult was again acting on outdated information; unknown to the marshal, the Spaniards had already linked up with the Anglo-Portuguese corps, and his 24,000 troops now faced a combined Allied army 35,000 strong.
The opposing armies met at the village of Albuera, both sides suffering heavily in the ensuing battle. The French finally withdrew on 18 May, but Beresford's troops, although too battered and exhausted to pursue, were able to resume the investment of Badajoz. Despite Soult's failure to relieve the town, the battle had little strategic effect on the war. Just one month later, in June 1811, the Allies were forced to abandon their siege by the approach of the reconstituted French Armies of Portugal and Andalusia.
Background
Despite his victory over elements of Marshal André Masséna's Army of Portugal at the Battle of Bussaco in September 1810, Viscount Wellington was forced by Masséna's subsequent maneuvering to withdraw his numerically inferior force behind the extensive series of fortifications he had prepared around Torres Vedras to protect the approaches to Lisbon. By 10 October 1810 only the British Light Division and some cavalry patrols remained outside the Lines of Torres Vedras. Wellington manned the fortifications with "secondary troops"—25,000 Portuguese militia, 8,000 Spaniards and 2,500 British marines and artillerymen—keeping his main field army of British and Portuguese regulars dispersed in order to rapidly meet a French assault on any point of the lines.
Masséna's Army of Portugal concentrated around Sobral de Monte Agraço, apparently in preparation to attack. However, after a fierce skirmish on 14 October in which the strength of the lines became apparent, the French dug themselves in rather than launch a costly full-scale assault. They remained entrenched for a month before falling back to a position between Santarém and Rio Maior. Following Masséna's withdrawal, Wellington moved the 2nd Division under Lieutenant General Sir Rowland Hill, along with two Portuguese brigades and an attachment of dragoons, across the Tagus to protect the plains of Alentejo—both from Masséna and a possible attack from Andalusia by the French Army of the South.
Napoleon had previously sent dispatches to Marshal Jean-de-Dieu Soult, commander of the Army of the South, urging him to send assistance to Masséna. The Emperor's orders were based on outdated intelligence and called for only a small force; by the time Soult received them the situation had changed considerably. Soult now knew a successful attack against Lisbon was beyond his means with the forces proposed—there were 30,000 Allied troops and six major fortresses between his army and the Portuguese capital—but he had received orders nonetheless and felt obliged to do something. He therefore gathered an army of 20,000 men, mainly from V Corps, and launched an expedition into Extremadura with the limited aim of capturing the fortress at Badajoz and hopefully drawing some of the Allied forces away from their impregnable positions in the lines. Along with V Corps, this venture also pulled both infantry and cavalry from Marshal Claude-Victor Perrin's I Corps who were besieging Cádiz at the time. Soult ordered more of Victor's men to fill the gaps left by his use of V Corps; this was bitterly opposed by Victor since it severely weakened his own forces, leaving him with only 15,000 men besieging a city garrisoned by around 26,000 Allied troops.
Following a successful campaign in Extremadura, on 27 January 1811 Soult began his investment of Badajoz. Almost immediately, the Spanish Army of Extremadura arrived in the vicinity with some 15,000 troops under the command of General Gabriel de Mendizábal Iraeta. Soult's army, too small to surround Badajoz, was unable to prevent 3,000 of Mendizabal's men from reinforcing the fortress and the remainder occupying the heights of San Cristóbal. This posed a major threat to the French, so Soult moved at once to engage. In the ensuing Battle of the Gebora the French inflicted 1,000 casualties on the Spanish field army and took 4,000 prisoners, at a cost to themselves of only 400 casualties. The remnants of Mendizabal's defeated army fled towards Badajoz or into Portugal.
The garrison of Badajoz, ably commanded by General Rafael Menacho, initially put up strong resistance and by 3 March the French had made little progress against the powerful fortress. On that day, however, Menacho was killed on the ramparts by a chance shot; command of the garrison fell to Brigadier General José Imaz and the Spanish defense started to slacken. The walls were finally breached on 10 March. Soult was anxious to press the siege since he had learned that Masséna, in command of a disintegrating army plagued by sickness, starvation and an unusually harsh Portuguese winter, had retreated from Portugal. Concerned that the British would now be free to send a contingent to relieve Badajoz, Soult sent a deputation into the town to demand the garrison's surrender. Imaz duly capitulated and the French took possession of the fortress on 11 March.
On 12 March, news of Victor's defeat at the Battle of Barrosa reached Soult and he left Badajoz to return to Andalusia, anxious that the siege of Cádiz had been lifted. Reaching Seville on 20 March he was relieved to find that Victor's siege lines still held and Andalusia remained under French control. Before his departure, Soult had consolidated his gains in Extremadura by garrisoning Badajoz with 11,000 French troops under the command of Marshal Édouard Mortier.
Prelude
With no political considerations to get in the way, the Allies soon learnt of Soult's investment of Badajoz, and with the threat from Masséna diminished by his withdrawal towards Spain, Wellington prepared to send his 2nd and 4th divisions (now under the command of General Sir William Beresford) to relieve the siege. The orders were first issued on 8 March, but countermanded the next day due to false reports of Masséna offering battle at Tomar. Following further delays as Beresford's two divisions regrouped, the relieving force were ordered to hurry to Badajoz on 15 March. Around this time though, Wellington received news of the town's surrender; the urgency had diminished and Beresford's expedition could proceed at a more moderate pace.
Mortier keeps busy
Marshal Édouard Mortier, commanding the French V Corps, made good use of the Allied delays. Leaving six battalions to hold the fortress, in early March he moved against the nearby Portuguese town of Campo Maior with around 7,000 men and three batteries borrowed from the siege-train stationed at Badajoz. The French captured the outlying Fort São João on 14 March (the night of their arrival) but the Campo Maior fortress proved a harder proposition. Despite being manned by only 800 militia and Ordenanças, commanded by Major José Talaya, the town held out for seven days—surrendering only when an entire face of the bastion crumbled under the bombardment from Mortier's artillery. Mortier also sent two cavalry regiments under General Victor de Faÿ de La Tour-Maubourg to invest Alburquerque; the 6,000 strong garrison there surrendered before French reinforcements needed to be brought up.
Major Talaya's prolonged defence of Campo Maior gave Beresford's divisions time to arrive before the captured fortress had been slighted. On returning to Badajoz after his successful foray into Portugal, Mortier had left one infantry and three cavalry regiments at Campo Maior, under Latour-Maubourg, to dismantle its defences; Beresford's appearance on 25 March caught the French by surprise. However, despite the Allies having 18,000 troops at their disposal, Latour-Maubourg calmly formed up his command and retreated towards Badajoz. Beresford sent 1,500 cavalry, under the command of Brigadier General Robert Long after the French. Most of the French cavalry were driven off by a charge of the 13th Light Dragoons; however, the pursuit of Latour-Maubourg's force then faltered. It was poorly co-ordinated and the greater part of the French force managed to reach the safety of Badajoz. The reason behind this failure was subsequently disputed between supporters of Brigadier Long and General Beresford.
Allies invest Badajoz
Beresford now began the task of positioning his army to invest Badajoz, but a series of mishaps delayed the Allied advance into Spain. The Guadiana, a major river of Spain and Portugal that delineates part of the border, lay across Beresford's line of march. Wellington had promised a stock of Spanish pontoon boats so that a bridge could be erected, but these were not forthcoming. Instead, a bridge had to be fashioned in situ—a task that would take until 3 April to complete. Furthermore, the rations promised to Beresford, to be taken from the town of Estremoz, had been consumed by the remnants of Mendizabal's Army of Extremadura, which had settled in the region following their defeat by Soult at the start of the year. Beresford's troops eventually had to draw on rations from the fortress-town of Elvas in order to feed themselves. Finally, the shoes of the 4th Division had completely worn out following two weeks of marching, and replacements from Lisbon would take a week to arrive. These delays gave the Badajoz garrison time to work on the fortifications, taking them from a state of serious disrepair on 25 March to being tenable on 3 April. Beresford began to bring his army forward on 4 April, but a sudden flood swept away his makeshift bridge across the Guadiana, trapping the Allied vanguard on the eastern bank. This could have proved disastrous for Beresford, but Mortier had been recalled to Paris leaving Latour-Maubourg in command at Badajoz, and he was more concerned with repairing the fortress's defences than confronting the Allied army. After a minor success involving the capture of an entire squadron of the 13th Light Dragoons, Latour-Maubourg retired before Beresford's superior forces, leaving 3,000 men garrisoning Badajoz and 400 in Olivenza.
By 8 April new bridges had been thrown across the Guadiana and the following day Beresford's army moved to Olivenza; they were now over the border and 24 kilometres (15 mi) south of Badajoz. While the British 4th Division tackled the small French garrison there, the main Allied army followed Latour-Maubourg south while sending covering forces to watch the Badajoz garrison from Valverde and Albuera. Beresford coordinated his movements with the remnants of the Spanish Army of Extremadura (now under the command of General Francisco Javier Castaños), adding 3,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry to his strength. On 15 April, Olivenza fell to the 4th Division, which technically put Beresford in a position to commence the more important task of besieging Badajoz. However, neither Beresford nor Wellington had provided a siege-train for the expedition, so one had to be improvised on the spot. The solution adopted was to take sufficient artillery pieces of various qualities and vintages from the fortress of Elvas, but this expedient caused yet another delay in Allied progress. Beresford took the opportunity presented by this delay to have his forces clear southern Extremadura of French forces and Latour-Maubourg was pushed back to Guadalcanal. Beresford left his cavalry and a brigade under Lieutenant Colonel John Colborne, along with a detachment of Spanish horse, to watch Latour-Maubourg's movements and dissuade him from returning to Extremadura. Wellington was so concerned by the lack of progress that he decided to pay a flying visit to the region. He and Beresford conducted a reconnaissance of Badajoz on 22 April and by the time he left for the north, he had prepared for Beresford a detailed set of memorandum concerning how he should conduct the impending siege and the rest of the campaign. Beresford followed the instructions slowly but surely and finally began the siege of Badajoz on 4 May.
A positive development for the Allies during this time was the appearance of another Spanish force in the region. The Cortes of Cádiz, serving as Spain's Regency, had sent General Joaquín Blake, with the two divisions of Zayas and Lardizábal, by sea to Ayamonte on the mouth of the Guadiana. Landing on 18 April, Blake's army moved to join General Francisco Ballesteros at the Spanish town of Jerez de los Caballeros.