The action is also notable because it featured a rematch between Maucune’s 5th Division of the Army of Portugal and the 5th Division of the Anglo-Portuguese army, just three months after the latter broke the former at Salamanca. Wellington’s men were supported by a brigade of the 6th (Galician) Spanish army. The battle involved approximately 11,500 men, fairly evenly divided between the two sides.
The book is the first full-length account of the action. The aim has been to pull together archival sources from all four nations involved – British, French, Spanish, and Portuguese – to build a coherent account of interest equally to historians and wargamers. The challenge of this research was to weave together the memoirs, diaries, and letters of twenty-seven participants into a credible and balanced narrative. Béchaud is often referred to but rarely given in full, and this account provides translations of his key passages. The book is a detailed study of one day’s action in the 1812 campaign, with a view to extracting
