Editing Battle of Tudela (section)

==Preliminaries==
On 21 November 1808 Castaños was around [[Calahorra]] on the Ebro between [[Logroño]] and Tudela. On this day the French III Corps crossed the Ebro at Logroño and headed east towards Calahorra while at the same time Marshal [[Michel Ney]] with the [[VI Corps (Grande Armée)|VI Corps]] reached the Upper [[Douro]] Valley and headed towards Tudela.

[[File:Esquema posiciones224.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.6|Diagram of Spanish positions: Santa Barbara - La Peña Division]]

These movements threatened Castaños with entrapment between these two armies. To avoid this Castaños withdrew to Tudela. He decided to defend a line {{convert|17|km|mi|0}} long stretching west from Tudela along the Ebro, then along the [[Queiles]] River to [[Cascante]] and finally to [[Tarazona]] at the foot of the [[Moncayo Massif]].

Castaños had insufficient men to hold a line of this length so he asked General [[Juan O'Neylle]], who had two divisions at [[Caparroso]] on the east bank of the Ebro, for help. As O'Neylle was under the command of Palafox he refused to move without an order from Palafox. This did not arrive until noon on 22 November 1808. O'Neylle moved promptly to the east bank of the Ebro opposite Tudela but decided not to cross the river until the next day.

By nightfall on 22 November 1808 Castaños had almost 45,000 soldiers in the vicinity of Tudela but very few of them actually in position. Castaños placed General [[Manuel la Peña]]'s 4th Division of 8,000 men, mostly [[Andalusian people|Andalusians]] who had participated in the [[Battle of Bailén]], at [[Cascante]] and General [[Pedro Grimarest|Grimarest]] at the head of three divisions totaling 13,000 to 14,000 soldiers at Tarazona. General Roca's division was on the east bank of the Ebro plus the two divisions from Aragon of O’Neylle and [[Felipe Augusto de Saint-Marcq]].{{sfn|Peñas|2020}}

Most of the fighting in the battle of Tudela would involve only the three divisions of Roca, O'Neylle, and Saint-Marcq – totaling about 23,000 infantry.

For the French only the III Corps was involved in the Battle of Tudela. Prior to 22 November 1808 this force had been commanded by Marshal Moncey. However, Napoleon transferred command to Marshal [[Jean Lannes]] when the advance began. This corps was just under 34,000 men consisting of four infantry divisions and three cavalry regiments. To this was added [[General of Division]] [[Joseph Lagrange (soldier)|Joseph Lagrange]]'s infantry division and [[General of Brigade]] [[Auguste François-Marie de Colbert-Chabanais]]'s cavalry brigade from Ney's corps.

On the night of 22 November the French Army camped at [[Alfaro, La Rioja|Alfaro]] – 17 kilometres up the Ebro from Tudela.{{sfn|Rickard|2008}}