Battle of Salamanca
|
|
The Battle of Salamanca was fought in the Arapiles near Salamanca in Spain on July 22, 1812, and resulted in a Anglo-Portuguese tactical victory under Lord Wellington against the French under marshall Marmont. The losses were 3129 British and 2038 Portuguese and around 13.000 French.
The battle was a succession of strokes in oblique order, initiated by the Portuguese cavalry brigade and Pakenham's 3rd division and continued by the British heavy Cavalry and the 4th, 5th and 6th divisions. The tactical victory was flawed by the failure of Spanish troops to guard a crucial bridge at Alba de Tormes and persecution was ineffective. Wellington was reported to have defeated an army of 40,000 in under 40 minutes and said when Mashall Marmont had made his tactical error of separating his left flank, "by God that will do!"
The battle established Wellington as an offensive general; "He manoeuvred like Frederick the Great, in oblique order", wrote general Foy, a celebrated French divisional commander and author of memoirs about the Peninsular War in which he stated the famous assertion "Portugal is nothing but Lisbon; anything else is landscape."