This Napoleonic clash set in a Spanish Spring had Marshal Jourdan crossing three mountain passes in an attempt to surprise General Beresford and defeat his army of British, Spanish and Portuguese.

With the choice of a high difficult pass, a middle easier one potentially blocked by a village and a lower easy pass which was likely to be most heavily defended, Marshal Jourdan had to divide his polyglot forces to achieve a crushing victory in at least one place.

Unbeknown to the French, Beresford had been forced by circumstances beyond his control to hold the high pass with a handful of Portuguese, the middle pass with a substantial force of Spanish, leaving only a strong force of British and KGL to contest the low pass.

Having decided to make the low pass his main effort, the confident Jourdan chose to command personally at the middle pass, leaving the others to his competent subordinates.

At the high pass a brigade of Neapolitan, Italian and Nassau foot, supported by a brigade of chasseurs found themselves facing a reinforced brigade of Portuguese foot of similar strength.  Here the action centred on a walled olive grove with the brave Nassau forces going forward not once, not twice but thrice before they were spent. With the fall of the olive grove to the “French” both forces were too fatigued for further offensive action.

The battle for the middle pass saw the main part of the French forces; a French foot brigade supported by a Spanish brigade of King Joseph’s foot.  While the decisive action here was the valiant and successful attempt by the Spanish foot to hold the village against the French infantry, who so nearly succeeded in their assault, full credit must be given to the Spanish Dragoons who did serious damage to their countrymen on the other side.

The lowest pass had two main phases, the first massive cavalry clashes on both wings between hordes of French Dragoons and great numbers of British and KGL cavalry.  The superior numbers of French generally told, except in one action thanks to some valiant Light Dragoons.  The fate of the Allied cavalry was sealed when half a regiment of heavy dragoons charged a French 12 pdr battery, which just managed to deploy in time.  These brave fools duly charge only to be halved in number by a wall of canister from the clinically efficient gunners.

By this time the second phases began with the French Swiss brigade of veteran foot, despite suffering heavy losses, succeeding in forcing a lodgement in a key hamlet, seriously compromising the Allied centre.  At this point a brave but isolated Highland battalion gave way on the left leaving half their number and all their officers as casualties.

At this point spotting a flood of uncommitted French battalions surging forward to add their weight to the attack, Beresford knew the game was up and started to withdraw, giving overall victory to the French on the day!