Attack on the Pajar Vergara - Talavera July 28th 1809

We had not pulled out our Napoleonics figures in a long time, so this last weekend we decided to do a small game of General d'Armee. I had written up a scenario last year that we had not gamed yet and thought this would make for a small division sized battle. The scenario was built around General Leval's attack on the Pajar Vergara at the Battle of Talavera in 1809.

In the original French plan, Leval was to attack second, but his troops had to advance through the olive groves north of Talavera, and he soon lost sight of the rest of the French lines. Believing his advance had taken longer than it really had, Leval attacked early. Their order from left to right was as follows - Frankfurt, Hessen, Baden, Nassau and Holland. The nine battalions of the German Division were arrayed in a single line of battalion columns with a thick screen of skirmishers in their front. His columns had been broken up in the advance through the trees, and emerged into the open ground in front of the Allied lines in some disorder.

His right hand regiment was facing British troops, his left hand regiment Spanish troops and his central regiment the gun battery on Pajar de Vergara. For some time his left and right regiments made some progress, but then the central regiment broke under the impact of the artillery fire. Seeing this, the 7th, 40th and 53rd Regiments charged the French right, which broke and fled. Leval’s left was forced to retreat to avoid being isolated. The British captured six French guns, spiked them, and then returned to their lines. In a fight that had lasted 45 minutes, Leval had lost close to 700 men.

The Battle

The battalions of the ‘German’ division struggled to move out of the olive tree fields in an orderly fashion. And it was a battalion of Baden troops from the Brigadier Porbeck brigade in the center which formed up first. They tried to rush the Spanish heavy guns at the top of the Pajar Vergara … canister fire however drove them off and after a second attempt by the other Baden battalion failed, the Brigadier changed his tactics. He reinforced his brigade skirmish screen and set them in from the guns to slowly pick off the Spanish gunners.

The two Baden Battalions in front of the "ramp" to the Pajar Vergara

 While this was going on, Brigadier Grandjean two hessian battalions and a battalion from Frankfurt advanced on the French left towards the line held by the Spanish infantry. Some very indecisive action then occurred, but the French slowly but surely gained the upper hand.

The 2nd Attempt by the Baden regiment to take the redoubt.

The two battalions of Dutch infantry on the French right took the longest time getting out of the Olive groves, and once clear struggled to move forward under the flanking bombardment of the British battery on the Pajar Vergara. The fire was to much and this battalion dispersed, however it did buy time for the other battalion to engage the British Battalion of Detachments from Gen. Kemmis brigade. The veteran Dutchmen were able to rout off the battalion, before Gen. Kemmis could swing his other two battalions around.

Gen. Campbell 4th Division

With just one battalion holding his right flank, General Leval sent his only reserves, the Polish Brigade (temporarily attached), to shore up the gap between the center and right brigades. Gen. Potocki’s two large polish battalions launch an all-out assault on the remaining battalions of Col. Kemmis' brigade … and failed spectacularly!

Col. Kemmis brigade right before the Dutch attack them.

French Artillery fire finally started to takes its toll on the British and Spanish forces. In particular, General Portago Spanish division faltered and was close to routing before two provincial militia battalions arrived to stabilize the division.

General Portago Spanish Division after it has been pushed back across the Portina stream.

With the spanish gunners finally driven off by the large skirmish screen, General Porbeck sent his one remaining fresh battalion of Nassau infantry up the ramp and assaulted the British battery in the flank. The royal gunners fought valiantly but were routed off the Pajar Vergara.

1st Brigade marching to shore up the Spanish flank ... moments later they would turn around!

The Polish brigade rallied and move back into the french line, which was conforming to the Portina stream. This prompted General Campbell's two battalions of British Veterans to to turn around and march back to the British left to make sure a gap in the allied line could not be exploited. In fact, Brigadier General Campbell 1st brigade spent most of the battle counter marching back an forth between the left and right flanks during the battle, and in the end did not engage in any any combat except for skirmishing fire! Though reinforced the Spanish division was in poor shape as artillery fire and close range musketry was taking its toll on the spaniards.

 [After 5 hours of game play we ended the game at this point and called it a minor French victory.] With his right about to be compromised, Sir Wellesley ordered the Foot Guard brigade to attack the Germans trying to flank his position utop Medellín hill. This indeed put a halt to the German Divisions advance, but left the Medellin hill depleted and Gen Sebastiani 1st Division troops were able to push onto and hold Medllin Hill. This forced Wellesley to retire as his command was in jeopardy of being split into two parts.

Turned out to be a really good game and has inspired us to do another battle soon ... leaning towards Russians vs French and so perhaps an 1814 game.