Editing Peninsular War (section)

==1812==

===Allied campaign in Spain===
[[Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington|Wellington]] renewed the allied advance into Spain in early 1812, besieging and capturing the border fortress town of [[Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo (1812)|Ciudad Rodrigo]] by assault on 19 January and opening up the northern invasion corridor from Portugal into Spain. This also allowed Wellington to proceed to move to capture the southern fortress town of [[Battle of Badajoz (1812)|Badajoz]], which would prove to be one of the bloodiest siege assaults of the [[Napoleonic Wars]].{{sfn|Weller|1962|p=204}} The town was stormed on 6 April, after a constant artillery barrage had breached the curtain wall in three places. Tenaciously defended, the final assault and the earlier skirmishes left the allies with some 4,800 casualties. These losses appalled Wellington who said of his troops in a letter, "I greatly hope that I shall never again be the instrument of putting them to such a test as that to which they were put last night."{{sfn|Fletcher|2003a|p=81}} The victorious troops massacred 200–300 Spanish civilians.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/event/Siege-of-Badajoz-"1812 Siege of Badajoz."] ''Encyclopædia Britannica''.</ref>

The allied army subsequently took Salamanca on 17 June, just as Marshal Marmont approached. The two forces met on 22 July, after weeks of manoeuvre, when Wellington soundly defeated the French at the [[Battle of Salamanca]], during which Marmont was wounded. The battle established Wellington as an offensive general and it was said that he "defeated an army of 40,000 men in 40 minutes."{{sfn|Fitzwilliam|2007}} The Battle of Salamanca was a damaging defeat for the French in Spain, and while they regrouped, Anglo-Portuguese forces moved on Madrid, which surrendered on 14{{nbsp}}August; 20,000 muskets, 180 cannon and two [[French Imperial Eagle]]s were captured.{{sfn|Porter|1889|p=318}}

<gallery widths="200px" heights="145px">
File:Battle of Badajoz.jpg|British infantry attempt to scale the walls of [[Siege of Badajoz (1812)|Badajoz]], 1812
File:Battle of Salamanca.jpg|The [[Battle of Salamanca]]
</gallery>

===French autumn counterattack===
After the allied victory at Salamanca on 22 July 1812, King Joseph Bonaparte abandoned Madrid on 11 August.{{sfn|Glover|2001|pp=207–208}} Because Suchet had a secure base at Valencia, Joseph and Marshal [[Jean-Baptiste Jourdan]] retreated there. Soult, realising he would soon be cut off from his supplies, ordered a retreat from Cádiz set for 24 August; the French were forced to end the two-and-a-half-year-long siege.{{sfn|Hindley|2010}} After a long artillery barrage, the French placed together the muzzles of over 600 cannons to render them unusable to the Spanish and British. Although the cannons were useless, the Allied forces captured 30 gunboats and a large quantity of stores.{{sfn|Southey|1828f|p=68}} The French were forced to abandon Andalusia for fear of being cut off by the allied armies. Marshals Suchet and Soult joined Joseph and Jourdan at Valencia. Spanish armies defeated the French garrisons at [[Siege of Astorga (1812)|Astorga]] and [[Guadalajara, Castilla–La Mancha|Guadalajara]].

As the French regrouped, the allies advanced towards Burgos. Wellington besieged Burgos between 19 September and 21 October, but failed to capture it. Together, Joseph and the three marshals planned to recapture Madrid and drive Wellington from central Spain. The French counteroffensive caused Wellington to lift the [[siege of Burgos]] and retreat to Portugal in the autumn of 1812,{{sfn|Glover|2001|pp=210–212}} pursued by the French and losing several thousand men.{{sfn|Bodart|1908|p=441}}{{sfn|Southey|1828f|p=122}} Napier wrote that about 1,000 allied troops were killed, wounded and missing in action, and that Hill lost 400 between the Tagus and the Tormes, and another 100 in the defence of Alba de Tormes. 300 were killed and wounded at the Huebra where many stragglers died in woodland, and 3,520 allied prisoners were taken to Salamanca up to 20 November. Napier estimated that the double retreat cost the allies around 9,000, including the loss in the siege, and said French writers said 10,000 were taken between the Tormes and the Agueda. But Joseph's dispatches said the whole loss was 12,000, including the garrison of Chinchilla, whereas English authors mostly reduced the British loss to hundreds.{{sfn|Napier|1867|p=155}} As a consequence of the Salamanca campaign, the French were forced to evacuate the provinces of Andalusia and Asturias.