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Updated: June 9, 2025
The principal fortresses of the province had shared the fate of the chief city; and on one side the insurrection spread to Saragossa, whilst on the other, the important city of Valencia proclaimed Charles III. The situation was little better in the west of the kingdom, for an Anglo-Portuguese army had penetrated into Estramadura, commanded by a French refugee who had been made an English peer, and whose hatred pursued Louis XIV. on every field of battle.
Then Wellington, whose Anglo-Portuguese troops were much weakened by sickness, fell back rapidly, sending orders to General Hill, who commanded the troops left behind in Madrid, to evacuate that city, and to fall back and unite with him on the Tormes.
However, Marshal Soult, after concentrating several divisions below the ramparts of Bayonne, once more attacked the Anglo-Portuguese. On the 9th of December, at Saint-Pierre de Rube, there was a battle which lasted for five days, and was one of the bloodiest of the war, for it cost the enemy 16,000 lives and the French 10,000, but we were able to remain in position around Bayonne.
General Hill commanded at this battle, and with 14,000 Anglo-Portuguese, with 14 guns, repulsed the furious and repeated attacks of 16,000 French, with 22 guns. In five days' fighting on the river the French lost more than as many thousand men. The weather now for a time interrupted operations, but Wellington was preparing for the passage of the Adour.
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