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The Battle of Bailén was fought in 1808 by the Spanish Army of Andalusia, led by Generals Francisco Castaños and Theodor von Reding, and the Imperial French Army's II corps d'observation de la Gironde under General Pierre Dupont de l'Étang. The heaviest fighting took place near Bailén (sometimes anglicized ''Baylen''), a village by the Guadalquivir river in the Jaén province of southern Spain.〔The Peninsular War. Author: Esdaile, Charles. Publisher:Penguin Books, 2002 Edition. Work:Chapter 3, Bailén - The Summer Campaign of 1808 .ISBN 9780140273700〕 In June 1808, following the widespread uprisings against the French occupation of Spain, Napoleon organized French units into flying columns to pacify Spain's major centres of resistance. One of these, under General Dupont, was dispatched across the Sierra Morena and south through Andalusia to the port of Cádiz where a French naval squadron lay at the mercy of the Spanish. The Emperor was confident that with 20,000 men, Dupont would crush any opposition encountered on the way.〔Chandler, p. 616〕 Events proved otherwise, and after storming and plundering Córdoba in July, Dupont retraced his steps to the north of the province to await reinforcements. Meanwhile, General Castaños, commanding the Spanish field army at San Roque, and General von Reding, Governor of Málaga, travelled to Seville to negotiate with the Seville ''Junta''—a patriotic assembly committed to resisting the French incursions—and to turn the province's combined forces against the French. Dupont's failure to leave Andalusia proved disastrous. Between 16 and 19 July, Spanish forces converged on the French positions stretched out along villages on the Guadalquivir and attacked at several points, forcing the confused French defenders to shift their divisions this way and that. With Castaños pinning Dupont downstream at Andújar, Reding successfully forced the river at Mengibar and seized Bailén, interposing himself between the two wings of the French army. Caught between Castaños and Reding, Dupont attempted vainly to break through the Spanish line at Bailén in three bloody and desperate charges, losing more than 2,500 men. His counterattacks defeated, Dupont called for an armistice and was compelled to sign the Convention of Andújar which stipulated the surrender of almost 18,000 men, making Bailén the worst disaster and capitulation of the Peninsular War. In one of the most controversial episodes of the campaign, Dupont compelled his subordinate, General Vedel, to surrender his division despite Vedel being positioned outside the Spanish encirclement, with a good chance of escape. When news of the catastrophe reached the French high command in Madrid, the result was a general retreat to the Ebro, abandoning much of Spain to the insurgents. France's enemies in Spain and throughout Europe cheered at this first check to the hitherto unbeatable Imperial armies〔Esdaile (2003), p. 62 notes, "Spain was overjoyed, Britain exultant, France dismayed, and Napoleon outraged. It was the greatest defeat the Napoleonic empire had ever suffered, and, what is more, one inflicted by an opponent for whom the emperor had affected nothing but scorn."〕—tales of Spanish heroism inspired Austria and showed the force of nationwide resistance to Napoleon, setting in motion the rise of the Fifth Coalition against France. Alarmed by these developments, Napoleon briefly took command of the Spanish theatre and, at the head of fresh troops and overwhelming numbers, dealt devastating blows to the vacillating Spanish rebels and their British allies, recapturing Madrid in November 1808. In doing so, however, the French military committed enormous resources to a long war of attrition characterized by heavy losses to the implacable Spanish guerrillas, ultimately leading to the expulsion of French armies from Spain and the exposure of southern France to invasion in 1814 by combined Spanish, British, and Portuguese forces. ==Background== Between 1807 and 1808, thousands of French troops marched into Spain to support a Spanish invasion of Portugal orchestrated by Napoleon, who used the opportunity to initiate intrigues against the Spanish royal family. A coup d'état, instigated by Spanish aristocrats with French support, forced Charles IV from his throne in favour of his son Ferdinand, and in April, Napoleon removed both royals to Bayonne to secure their abdication and replace the Spanish Bourbon line with a Bonapartist dynasty headed by his brother Joseph Bonaparte. However, none of these politicies sat well with the Spanish masses, who declared their loyalty to the deposed Ferdinand and revolted at the prospect of a foreign ruler. An uprising by the citizens of Madrid broke out on May 2, slew 150 French soldiers, and was violently stamped out by Marshal Murat's elite Guards and mameluk cavalry.〔Chandler, p. 610〕 Joseph's entry into his prospective kingdom was delayed as guerrillas poured down from the mountains and seized or threatened the main roads. On 26 May, Joseph Bonaparte, ''in absentia'', was proclaimed King of Spain and the Indies in Madrid, his envoys receiving the acclamations of the Spanish notables. The madrileños, however, were indignant; Spanish soldiers quietly withdrew to insurgent-held villages and outposts outside the city, and only Murat's 20,000 bayonets kept the city in order.〔Foy, p. 311〕 Outside the capital, the French strategic situation deteriorated rapidly. The bulk of the French army, 80,000 strong, could hold only a narrow strip of central Spain stretching from Pamplona and San Sebastián in the north through to Madrid and Toledo to the south.〔Chandler, p. 612〕 Murat, stricken in an outbreak of rheumatic colic which swept the French camp, quit his command and returned to France for treatment: "the Spanish priests would have rejoiced if the hand of God had been laid on him whom they called the butcher of the 2nd of May."〔Foy, p. 312〕 General Savary, a man "more distinguished as Minister of Police than as any field commander", arrived to take command of the shaky French garrison at a critical hour.〔Glover, p. 54〕 With much of Spain in open revolt, Napoleon established a headquarters at Bayonne on the Spanish frontier to reorganize his beleaguered forces and redress the situation. Having little respect for his Spanish opponents, the Emperor decided that a swift display of force would cow the insurgents and quickly consolidate his control of Spain. To this end, Napoleon dispatched a number of flying columns to throttle the rebellion by seizing and pacifying Spain's major cities: from Madrid, Marshal Bessières pushed northwest into Old Castile with 25,000 men and sent a detachment east into Aragón, aiming to capture Santander with one hand and Zaragoza with the other; General Moncey marched toward Valencia with 29,350 men; and General Duhesme marshalled 12,710 troops in Catalonia and put Gerona under siege.〔Chandler, p. 611; Gates, pp. 181–182〕 Finally, General Dupont, a distinguished field commander, was to lead 13,000 men south toward Seville and ultimately the port of Cádiz, which sheltered Admiral François Rosilly's fleet from the Royal Navy.〔Gates, p. 51〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Bailén」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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