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Updated: May 4, 2025
Advancing to the Ebro the Prince offered battle at Navarete with an army already reduced by famine and disease in its terrible winter march, and Henry with double his numbers at once attacked him. But in spite of the obstinate courage of the Castilian troops the discipline and skill of the English soldiers once more turned the wavering day into a victory.
Before the end of July Joseph and the French troops had been compelled to retreat behind the Ebro River. In November the French emperor himself led a magnificent army into Spain, two hundred thousand strong, in the best of condition and commanded by his ablest marshals.
Already, in consequence of the fall of New Carthage, not only had the Spaniards on the north of the Ebro completely submitted, but even beyond the Ebro the most powerful princes had exchanged the Carthaginian for the Roman protectorate. Scipio Goes to Andalusia Hasdrubal Crosses the Pyrenees
It was a war waged between the genius of a mighty general and the resources of the Roman people, for Hannibal did not look for aid so much to his own State, as to those hardy Spaniards who followed his standard. He encountered at the Ebro the first serious resistance, but this was from the natives, and not the Romans.
Simmons, who was with the famous Light Division, notes that the Rifles did not fire a shot after breaking up their winter quarters, until they skirmished with the French in the hills near the source of the Ebro. The French retreat was really necessary in order to bring the King's forces into touch with the corps of Generals Clausel and Foy, in Navarre and Biscay respectively.
Messengers in all haste summoned the governor of the adjoining province of the Ebro, Marcus Domitius Calvinus, to check the farther advance of the Sertorians; and there soon appeared also the experienced general Quintus Metellus, sent by Sulla to relieve the incapable Fufidius in southern Spain. But they did not succeed in mastering the revolt.
"The military triumphs which your valour has achieved upon the banks of the Douro and the Tagus, of the Ebro and the Garonne, have called forth the spontaneous shouts of admiring nations. Those triumphs it is needless on this day to recount. Their names have been written by your conquering sword in the annals of Europe, and we hand them down with exultation to our children's children."
The French, ignorant alike of Wellington's intentions and preparations, were in no position to stem effectually this mighty wave of war, and were driven headlong before it, with many fierce skirmishes, until their scattered forces were, for the most part, united on the Ebro.
The sea-coast from the Ebro to the Tiber was mostly friendly to her. In the fourth year, after the battle of Cannæ, Syracuse forsook the Roman alliance, the revolt spread through Sicily, and Macedonia also entered into an offensive league with Hannibal. These changes extended the necessary operations of the Roman fleet, and taxed its strength.
A small division alone was conducted by Gaius Marcius, an excellent officer of the school of Gnaeus, in safety to the other bank of the Ebro; and thither the legate Titus Fonteius also succeeded in bringing safely the portion of the corps of Publius that had been left in the camp; most even of the Roman garrisons scattered in the south of Spain were enabled to flee thither.
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