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The Battle of Tudela (23 November 1808) saw an Imperial French army led by Marshal Jean Lannes attack a Spanish army under General Castaños. The battle resulted in the complete victory of the Imperial forces over their adversaries. The combat occurred near Tudela in Navarre, Spain during the Peninsular War, part of a wider conflict known as the Napoleonic Wars. Spanish casualties were estimated to be about 4,000 dead and 3,000 prisoners out of a total force of 33,000. The French and Poles lost no more than 600 dead and wounded out of a total of 30,000. This is one of the battles whose name was engraved on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.〔(Arc de Triomphe website )〕 ==Historical Context== The Dos de Mayo Uprising of 2 May 1808, followed by extensive uprisings throughout Spain, forced the French to pull back from their occupation of Spain to the Ebro River. There was an opportunity for the Spanish to finally expel the French altogether but this was missed due to their failure to appoint a Supreme Commander leaving the individual Spanish forces to operate independently. These Spanish forces consisted of the army of General Joaquín Blake on the North coast, the army of General Francisco Javier Castaños around Tudela and the army of General José Rebolledo de Palafox around Zaragoza. Blake was active in attacking the French but his offensive near Bilbao was defeated at Pancorbo on 31 October 1808. Napoleon’s strategy was to make a strong attack towards Burgos splitting off the army of Blake from the others and to outflank them by then swinging both north and south. It was in his interest that the Spanish maintain their exposed advanced positions. The French armies facing them were therefore ordered not to attack. So from October to 21 November 1808, Marshal Bon-Adrien Jeannot de Moncey’s III Corps remained static in front of Castaños’s army. The Spanish armies were however in a constant state of movement to no effect. For much of the time Castaños was ill leaving Palafox to direct operations. Palafox seems to have been indecisive on what course of action to take.〔This section is based on Rickard, J (28 February 2008), Battle of Tudela, 23 November 1808 ()〕 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 Tudela」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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