Battle of Medina de Rioseco

Escena de la Guerra de la Independencia, 1808, by Joseph-Bernard Flaugier.

Date	14 July 1808
Location	Medina de Rioseco, north of Valladolid, Spain
Result	French victory

Belligerents

French Empire

Spain

Commanders and leaders

Jean-Baptiste Bessières

Joaquín Blake
Gregorio de la Cuesta

Strength

12,550–800 infantry,
950–1,200 cavalry,
32 guns

21,300–22,000 regulars and militia,
600 cavalry,
20 guns

Casualties and losses

400–500 dead or wounded

1,000 dead or wounded,
1,200 missing or captured,
13 guns captured

The Battle of Medina de Rioseco, also known as the Battle of Moclín, was fought during the Peninsular War on 14 July 1808 when a combined body of Spanish militia and regulars moved to rupture the French line of communications to Madrid. General Joaquín Blake's Army of Galicia, under joint command with General Gregorio de la Cuesta, was routed by Marshal Bessières after a badly coordinated but stubborn fight against the French corps north of Valladolid.

Bessières exploited the poor coordination between Blake and Cuesta to defeat the Spaniards in detail, with Blake being ejected from a low ridge while Cuesta sat to the rear, and Cuesta failing to recapture the ridge with his own troops. The Army of Galicia was the only formation capable of threatening the French advance into Old Castile—Cuesta's command having been destroyed earlier at Cabezón—and its destruction marked a serious blow to Spain's national uprising.

But in the event, Medina de Rioseco proved to be the solitary French triumph in an invasion of Spain that ultimately failed to seize the country's major cities or to pacify its rebellious provinces, and which met outright disaster at Bailén, forcing French forces—Bessières' victorious corps included—to fly over the Ebro in retreat. A fresh campaign, conducted by Napoleon himself with the bulk of the Grande Armée, would be needed to redress the situation.

Recent French operations in the region had come far short of Napoleon's expectations. The Galician and Biscayan provinces were ideally suited as a base for resistance against France: remote and mountainous; out of the French Army's immediate reach yet flanking its long communications to occupied Madrid; its coastline largely secured by the allied Royal Navy, which disgorged supplies and materiel. In June, Marshal Bessières' flying column, marching on Santander in an attempt to secure French communications in Galicia and guard the coast against a possible British landing, had been forced back by popular resistance. Stung by these and other reverses, Napoleon committed more troops and formulated a new strategy. In July he ordered Bessières to renew his western offensive.

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