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In the Battle of Roliça (17 August 1808) an Anglo-Portuguese army under Sir Arthur Wellesley defeated an outnumbered French army under General Henri Delaborde, near the village of Roliça in Portugal. The French retired in good order. Formerly spelled ''Roleia'' in English, it was the first battle fought by the British army during the Peninsular War.〔''Wellington: The Years of the Sword'', Elizabeth Longford, Harper & Row, 1969, pp. 148-152〕 ==Background== In the months after occupying Portugal, Napoleon undertook the conquest and control of Spain. He met much resistance but it was disorganised even when it was effective. By the end of July the Spanish had met the French a dozen times, winning, or at least not losing, at seven of those meetings. Their most spectacular victory was in southern Spain on 23 July 1808, when General Castaños surrounded and forced 18,000 French under General Dupont to surrender at Baylen. On 30 July 1808, the French General Loison massacred the population, men, women, and children, of Évora. Both of these events were to have an effect on the future of each nation's relationships with British troops. On the same day, Wellesley received a letter from Viscount Castlereagh, the Secretary of War. It informed Wellesley that General Jean-Andoche Junot's forces numbered more than 25,000. Castlereagh forwarded his plans to augment the British army in Portugal by another 15,000 men. General Sir John Moore was to arrive with an army from Sweden, and another force would be forwarded from Gibraltar. The command of this larger force would pass to Sir Hew Dalrymple (the Governor of Gibraltar, a 60-year-old general who had seen active service only in a failed campaign in Flanders in 1793–1794). Dalrymple would be seconded by Sir Harry Burrard, attended by five other generals, all senior to Wellesley (Dalrymple, Burrard, Moore, Hope, Fraser, and Lord Paget). The ambitious General Wellesley hoped to make something happen during the time he still commanded the army in Portugal. On 30 July 1808, General Wellesley remet Admiral Cotton's convoy with Wellesley's troops at Mondego bay. Wellesley chose this as his landing point because students from Coimbra University had seized the fort making this a safer landing than any place nearer Lisbon. The disembarking of Wellesley's original 9,000 troops and supplies with the 5,000 they met off Portugal lasted from 1–8 August. Some landing craft capsized in the rough surf making the first British casualties in the Peninsula victims of drowning. The army marched off on the 10th on the hot and sandy march to Leiria. Wellesley arrived on the 11th and soon argued with General Freire, the commander of 6,000 Portuguese troops, about supplies and the best route to Lisbon. The result had Wellesley taking his preferred route, close to the sea and his supplies, with 1,700 of the Portuguese under the command of Colonel Trant, a British officer in service with the Portuguese Army. The army then began its march toward Lisbon following a force of the French army. The French were under the command of General Henri François, Comte Delaborde. These troops had been sent by Junot to harass and hold the British while he brought his larger army into position to oppose the Anglo-Portuguese forces. By 14 August the British reached Alcobaça and moved on to Óbidos. Here the British vanguard, mostly 95th Rifles, met pickets and the rearguard of the French forces. The 4,000 French were outnumbered approximately four to one. 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 Roliça」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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