Battle of Tordesillas (1812)

Stone bridge over the Duero at Tordesillas

Date	25 to 29 October 1812
Location	Tordesillas, Spain
Result	French victory

Belligerents

Commanders and leaders

Joseph Souham

Marquess Wellington

Strength

53,000

35,000

Casualties and losses

350

800

In the Battle of Tordesillas or Battle of Villa Muriel or Battle of Palencia between 25 and 29 October 1812, a French army led by Joseph Souham pushed back an Anglo-Portuguese-Spanish army commanded by Arthur Wellesley, Marquess Wellington. After its failed Siege of Burgos, the 35,000-man Allied army withdrew to the west, pursued by Souham's 53,000 French soldiers. On 23 October, French cavalry attacked the Allied rear guard in the inconclusive Battle of Venta del Pozo. The Allies pulled back behind the Pisuerga and Carrión Rivers and took up a defensive position.

Beginning on the 25th there were clashes at Palencia and Villamuriel de Cerrato as Souham sought to turn the Allied north flank. Wellington then adopted an unorthodox defensive position, prompting Souham to pause for two days. The stalemate was broken on 29 October when a party of naked French soldiers swam the Duero River at Tordesillas with their weapons on a raft. Upon reaching the far bank, they took up their guns and routed the Brunswick defenders of a key bridge. With an intact bridge in French hands, Wellington was forced to continue his retreat toward Portugal.

Meanwhile, Wellington's subordinate Rowland Hill withdrew from Madrid. The two British commanders united their armies near Alba de Tormes on 8 November. By this time the combined French armies were led by Nicolas Soult. Though 80,000 French faced 65,000 Allies on the old Salamanca battlefield neither commander initiated a battle, whereupon Wellington began a withdrawal. After a retreat in miserable conditions during which hundreds of soldiers were captured or died of hunger and exposure, the Allied army went into winter quarters. The actions were fought during the Peninsular War, part of the Napoleonic Wars.

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