Battle of Bailén The Battle of Bailén was contested in 1808 between the Spanish Army of Andalusia , led by General s Francisco Castaños and Theodor von Reding , and the Imperial French Army ' s II corps d ' observation de la Gironde under General Pierre Dupont de l ' Étang . The heaviest fighting took place near Bailén ( sometimes anglicized " Baylen " ) , a village by the Guadalquivir river in the Jaén province of southern Spain . In June 1808 , following the widespread uprisings against the French occupation of Spain , Napoleon organized French units into flying column s to pacify Spain ' s major centres of resistance . One of these , under General Dupont , was dispatched across the Sierra Morena and south through Andalusia to the port of Cádiz where an French naval squadron lay at the mercy of the Spanish . The Emperor was confident that with 20 , 000 men , Dupont would crush any opposition encountered on the way . Events proved otherwise , and after storming and plundering Córdoba in July , Dupont retraced his steps to the north of the province to await reinforcements . Meanwhile , General Castaños , commanding the Spanish field army at San Roque , and General von Reding , Governor of Málaga , travelled to Seville to negotiate with the Seville " Junta " — a patriotic assembly committed to resisting the French incursions — and to turn the province ' s combined forces against the French . Dupont ' s failure to leave Andalusia proved disastrous . Between 16 and 19 July , Spanish forces converged on the French positions stretched out along villages on the Guadalquivir and attacked at several points , forcing the confused French defenders to shift their divisions this way and that . With Castaños pinning Dupont downstream at Andújar , Reding successfully forced the river at Mengibar and seized Bailén , interposing himself between the two wings of the French army . Caught between Castaños and Reding , Dupont attempted vainly to break through the Spanish line at Bailén in three bloody and desperate charges , losing more than 2 , 500 men . His counterattacks defeated , Dupont called for an armistice and was compelled to sign the Convention of Andújar which stipulated the surrender of almost 18 , 000 men , making Bailén the worst disaster and capitulation of the Peninsular War , and the first major defeat of Napoleon ' s " Grande Armée " . When news of the catastrophe reached the French high command in Madrid , the result was a general retreat to the Ebro , abandoning much of Spain to the insurgents . France ' s enemies in Spain and throughout Europe cheered at this first check to the hitherto unbeatable Imperial armies — tales of Spanish heroism inspired Austria and showed the force of nation - wide resistance to Napoleon , setting in motion the rise of the Fifth Coalition against France . Alarmed by these developments , Napoleon briefly took command of the Spanish theatre and , at the head of fresh troops and overwhelming numbers , dealt devastating blows to the vacillating Spanish rebels and their British allies , recapturing Madrid in November 1808 . In doing so , however , the French military committed enormous resources to a long war of attrition characterized by heavy losses to the implacable Spanish guerrillas , ultimately leading to the expulsion of French armies from Spain and the exposure of southern France to invasion in 1814 by combined Spanish , British , and Portuguese forces . Background . Between 1807 and 1808 , thousands of French troops marched into Spain to support a Spanish invasion of Portugal orchestrated by Napoleon , who used the opportunity to initiate intrigues against the Spanish royal family . A coup d ' état , instigated by Spanish aristocrats with French support , forced Charles IV from his throne in favour of his son Ferdinand , and in April , Napoleon removed both royals to Bayonne to secure their abdication and he replaced the Spanish Bourbon line with a Bonapartist dynasty headed by his brother Joseph Bonaparte . However , none of these politicies sat well with the Spanish masses , who declared their loyalty to the deposed Ferdinand and revolted at the prospect of a foreign ruler . An uprising by the citizens of Madrid broke out on May 2 , slew 150 French soldiers , and was violently stamped out by Marshal Murat ' s elite Guards and mameluk cavalry . Joseph ' s entry into his prospective kingdom was delayed as guerrilla s poured down from the mountains and seized or threatened the main roads . On 26 May , Joseph Bonaparte , " in absentia " , was proclaimed King of Spain and the Indies in Madrid , his envoys receiving the acclamations of the Spanish notables . The madrileños , however , were indignant ; Spanish soldiers quietly withdrew to insurgent - held villages and outposts outside the city , and only Murat ' s 20 , 000 bayonets kept the city in order . Outside the capital , the French strategic situation deteriorated rapidly . The bulk of the French army , 80 , 000 strong , could hold only a narrow strip of central Spain stretching from Pamplona and San Sebastián in the north through to Madrid and Toledo to the south . Murat , stricken in an outbreak of rheumatic colic which swept the French camp , quit his command and returned to France for treatment : " the Spanish priests would have rejoiced if the hand of God had been laid on him whom they called the butcher of the 2nd of May . " General Savary , a man " more distinguished as Minister of Police than as any field commander " , arrived to take command of the shaky French garrison at a critical hour . With much of Spain in open revolt , Napoleon established a headquarters at Bayonne on the Spanish frontier to oversee the redress of his beleaguered forces . The Emperor assembled a number of flying column s to seize and pacify Spain ' s major cities : Marshal Bessières pushed northwest into Old Castile with 25 , 000 men and sent a detachment east into Aragón , aiming to capture Santander with one hand and Zaragoza with the other ; General Moncey marched toward Valencia with 29 , 350 men ; and General Duhesme marshalled 12 , 710 troops in Catalonia and put Gerona under siege . Finally , General Dupont led 13 , 000 men south toward Seville and ultimately the port of Cádiz , which sheltered Admiral François Rosilly ' s fleet from the Royal Navy . War reaches Andalusia . Dupont ' s corps primarily fielded of second - line forces of a distinctly unimpressive character . These second - line troops , originally raised as provisional or reserve formations , had been intended either for internal police services or garrison duty in Prussia — evidence that Napoleon intended the Spanish campaign to be " a mere " promenade " . " This force approached Córdoba in early June and in their first formal battle on Andalusian soil , captured the bridge at Alcolea , sweeping past the Spanish troops under Colonel Don Pedro de Echávarri that attempted to block their progress . The French entered Córdoba that same afternoon and ransacked the town for four days . However , in the face of increasingly menacing mass uprisings across Andalusia , Dupont decided to withdraw to the Sierra Morena , counting on help from Madrid . The French retreated fitfully in the sweltering heat , burdened with some 500 wagons of loot and 1 , 200 ill . A French surgeon remarked : " Our little army carried enough baggage for 150 , 000 men . Mere captains required wagons drawn by four mules . We counted more than 50 wagons per battalion , the result of the plunder of Córdoba . All our movements were impeded . We owed our defeat to the greed of our generals . " General Gobert ' s division set out from Madrid on July 2 to add weight to Dupont ' s expedition . However , only one brigade of his division ultimately reached Dupont , the rest being needed to hold the road north against the guerrillas . Reinforcements across the Sierra . Napoleon and the French strategists , anxious about their communications with Bayonne and wary of a British descent upon a Biscayan coast already in open revolt , initially prioritized operations in the north of Spain . In mid - June General Lasalle ' s victory at Cabezón simplified matters tremendously ; with the Spanish militias around Valladolid destroyed and much of Old Castile overrun , Savary shifted his gaze south and resolved to reopen communications with Dupont in Andalusia . Apart from the menace in the north , Napoleon was most anxious to secure the Andalusian provinces , where the traditional , rural peasantry was expected to resist Joseph ' s rule . On June 19 General Vedel with the 2nd Division was dispatched south from Toledo to force a passage over the Sierra Morena , hold the mountains from the guerrillas , and link up with Dupont , pacifying Castile - La Mancha along the way . Vedel set out with 6 , 000 men , 700 horse , and 12 guns , joined during the march by small detachments under Generals Roize and Ligier - Belair . The column raced across the plains , encountering no resistance , although stragglers were seized and cut down by the locals . Reaching the sierra on June 26 , the column found a detachment of Spanish regulars , smugglers , and guerrillas with six guns under Lieutenant - Colonel Valdecaños blocking the " Puerta del Rey " . Vedel ' s troops stormed the ridge and overran the enemy cannon , losing 17 dead or wounded . They then pushed south over the mountains toward La Carolina . The next day they encountered a detachment of Dupont ' s troops preparing to attack these same passes from the south side . With this junction , communications between Dupont and Madrid were reestablished after a month of silence . Confused orders . Vedel carried new orders from Madrid and Bayonne : Dupont was instructed to stop his march on Cádiz and fall back north - eastwards on the mountains ( a fait accompli ) , watching the Spanish movements in Andalusia while awaiting the reinforcements to be released upon the capitulation of Zaragoza and Valencia . These capitulations never came . For a time Marshal Moncey was simply nowhere to be found ; at length his defeat at the gates of Valencia surfaced ; some 17 , 000 Spaniards under the Conde de Cervellón massed victoriously around that city as Moncey gave up in disgust , having lost 1 , 000 men in a vain attempt to storm the walls . Suddenly , all prospects evaporated of Moncey ' s corps pivoting west from Valencia toward Granada and coupling with Dupont in a two - pronged invasion of Andalusia . Nor were troops forthcoming from Aragon , as Zaragoza shook off repeated French assaults and vowed to fight to the death . Meanwhile , Savary set to work preparing for the arrival of Joseph in his new capital . Many of the scattered French formations were drawn back around Madrid for security ; Dupont would remain close at hand to succour the capital if Bessières ' campaign in the north took a turn for the worse and Spanish armies appeared on the horizon . Yet at no time was Dupont ' s Andalusian expedition altogether scrapped . Savary continued to issue vague orders promising reinforcements at an undisclosed date while Napoleon fumed at the prospect of abandoning even Andújar to the Spaniards . With events hanging in the air , Dupont chose to hold his ground along the Guadalquivir , sacking and occupying the town of Bailén and the provincial capital of Jaén , instead of completing his retrograde movement to the strong positions atop the sierra ' s defiles . Napoleon wrote lightly , " even if he suffers a setback , . . . he will just have to come back over the Sierra . " Spain prepares . Upon learning of the French incursion into the southern provinces , General Castaños , guessing Dupont ' s intention , prepared to entrench his army in a fortified camp across from the strongpoint of Cádiz ; Dupont ' s retrograde movement rendered these precautions unnecessary . Setting up a General Headquarters in Utrera , Castaños set about organizing the Army of Andalusia into four divisions under General von Reding , the Marquis de Coupigny ( whose staff included a young San Martín , then a captain in the Spanish Army ) , Félix Jones , and a fourth ( nominally in reserve ) under Manuel la Peña . Colonel Juan de la Cruz Mourgeón led an additional column of some 1 , 000 skirmishers , armed peasants , and other light infantry . Stalled on the Guadalquivir . While Dupont lingered at Andújar with two divisions ( Generals Barbou and Fresia ) , attempting to master the strategic Madrid — Seville highway and the wide plains which it crossed , Castaños ' four divisions advanced steadily from the south and guerrillas from Granada marched to bar the road to the sierra and La Mancha beyond . Vedel ' s division was posted east to Bailén with a view to guarding these nearby mountain passes and on July 1 Vedel was forced to dispatch a brigade under General Cassagne to curb the advance of the guerrillas on Jaén and La Carolina , stretching the French line still further east . Meanwhile , General Liger - Belair with 1 , 500 men moved into a forward post at Mengibar , a village on the south bank of the Guadalquivir . At Andújar a tower by the river was fortified and small field works constructed on the south bank to forestall an enemy crossing , but , the Guadalquivir being fordable at so many points , and open to fire from the surrounding hills , Dupont ' s defences did not inspire much confidence . Cassagne , after driving the guerrillas off in rout , returned to Bailén on July 5 with 200 dead or wounded and nothing to show for his exertion — the Spaniards having plundered the towns of all provisions . Glimmers of the long - promised reinforcements appeared at last : Generals Gobert and Lefranc passed the " Puerta del Rey " July 15 , leaving behind a strong garrison in the Morena , and descended into Andalusia with their remaining infantry and cuirassier s . Dupont now had over 20 , 000 men idling along the Guadalquivir while the Spaniards massed and approached . But supplies were scarce and the Spanish peasants had deserted their fields , obliging Dupont ' s wearied men to bring in the harvest , grind the grain , and bake their own rations ; 600 men fell ill during their fortnight ' s stay by drinking the putrid waters of the Guadalquivir . According to French testimony , " The situation was terrible . Every night , we heard armed peasants roaming around us , drawn to our goods , and every night , we expected to be assassinated . " Early fighting . On July 9 General La Peña ' s division took up a position extending from El Carpio to Porcuna and the Army of Andalusia began a number of demonstrations against the French . From west to east along the Guadalquivir , Castaños with 14 , 000 men in two divisions ( La Peña and Jones ) approached Dupont at Andujar , Coupigny advanced his division to Villa Nueva , and Reding prepared to force a passage at Mengibar and swing north to Bailén , outflanking the French and cutting Dupont ' s line of retreat to the mountains . Marching east to Jaén , Reding delivered a strong attack against the French right wing between July 2 and July 3 , sending the 3rd Swiss regiment into the teeth of Cassagne ' s brigade . The Spaniards were forced back ( losing 1 , 500 casualties according to General Foy ) , but the isolated French brigade felt its danger and on the 4th Cassagne fell back over the Guadalquivir to Bailén , leaving only a few companies to guard the ferry at Mengibar . Reding assaulted Mengibar anew on July 13 and drove Ligier - Belair from the village after a hard fight ; at the appearance of Vedel ' s division , however , the Spanish column quietly drew back and French infantry reclaimed the town . The next day Coupigny tested the grounds at Villa Nueva and engaged the French piquets opposite him in a sharp skirmish . Castaños reached the heights at Arjonilla on July 15 and , setting up a battery on a ridge overlooking Andújar , opened fire on Dupont . At the same time , 1 , 600 – 4 , 000 skirmishers and irregulars under Colonel De la Cruz forded the river near Marmolejo and attacked towards Dupont ' s rear , but were handily repulsed by a French battalion and dispersed into the hills . Alarmed by this show of force , Dupont called on Vedel to release a battalion or even a brigade to his assistance , and Vedel , judging that Mengibar was not seriously threatened , set out in the night with his entire division . The arrival of Vedel with this sizeable force put an end to the threat at Andújar but gravely imperilled the French right wing ( Mengibar — Bailén — La Carolina ) , leaving Ligier - Belair seriously denuded of troops in his fight against Reding . Battle . On July 16 , Dupont and Vedel , expecting a desperate struggle for Andújar , found Castaños and Coupigny merely repeating the previous day ' s noisy demonstrations without seriously attempting a passage . Reding , however , was on the move : making a feint toward the Mengibar ferry with his sharpshooters , the Swiss forded the river upstream at Rincon and , encircling Mengibar , crushed the French battalions under Ligier - Belair . General Gobert , rushing forth from Bailén to plug the gap , was shot in the head and later died of the wound , and his counterattack , carried on by Brigadier - General Dufour , collapsed under the weight of the Spaniards . Distracting Reding with repeated charges from his cuirassiers , Dufour disengaged his men and fell back onto Bailén . Alerted to the loss of Mengibar , Dupont hesitated once again . Unwilling to take advantage of Vedel ' s presence to engage in a trial of strength with Castaños — a successful attack on the Arjonilla might have turned the Spanish line in return and allowed Dupont to swing across the rear of Coupigny and Reding — Dupont hunkered down at Andújar and ordered Vedel ' s weary division back to Bailén to prevent the collapse of the right wing . The right wings disengage . The fighting around Mengibar then took a curious turn : Reding , having finally gained the north bank and turned the French flank , suddenly retreated to the other side of the river , perhaps feeling isolated with his lone division . At the same time , guerrillas under Colonel Valdecanos made an unwelcome appearance on Dufour ' s flank , scattering his outposts and menacing the road to the " Puerta del Rey . " Dufour , conscious of the danger to the mountain passes , set off to confront the Spanish flankers at Guarromán and La Carolina . Consequently , when Vedel , by another tiring night march , retraced his steps to Bailén , he found the position oddly deserted of both friend and foe . When his reconnaissance parties made no contact with the enemy at the Guadalquivir , Vedel concluded that Reding had shifted his division to another point along the line . Dufour sent back alarming reports from Guarromán , convincing Vedel that 10 , 000 Spaniards — perhaps Reding ' s division , he warned — were marching on the mountains to their rear . This was too much . Gathering his exhausted division , Vedel hurried to Dufour ' s aid on July 17 , arriving at Santa Carolina the next day . Dufour ' s fatal blunder was soon revealed . Vedel discovered that the small band of irregulars roaming about were not at all the threat Dufour had described ; for the third time the Spaniards had stolen a march from him , and Reding still hovered somewhere around Mengibar , out of sight . Worse yet , an enormous gap now existed between Dupont and Vedel , and not a single battalion remained to prevent Reding from seizing the central position at Bailén . Trapped . News of Vedel ' s ill - advised movements reached Dupont at noon on July 18 and convinced him to fall back on Bailén and to recall Vedel there as well , re - concentrating his now dangerously scattered army : " I do not care to occupy Andujar . That post is of no consequence . " With a wary eye on Castaños ' columns across the river , and needing time to prepare his wagons and carriages ( encumbered by plunder from the sack of Cordoba ) , Dupont postponed the retreat till nightfall , hoping to conceal his departure from the Spaniards . Meanwhile , Reding , calling up Coupigny ' s division from Villa Nueva , had crossed at Mengibar on July 17 and seized the deserted Bailén , bivouacing there the night and preparing to swing west towards Dupont ' s — and what he assumed to be Vedel ' s ( oblivious as he was to the latter ' s recent movement east ) — position in the morning . Vedel quit La Carolina at 5 : 00 a . m . July 18 and rushed the bone - weary French right wing south - west toward Bailén , unwittingly bearing down on Reding ' s rear . Both armies were now north of the Guadalquivir and staggered in a curious position : Dupont between Castaños and Reding ; Reding between Dupont and Vedel . At Guarromán , scarcely two leagues from Bailén , Vedel rested his footsore troops for a few hours — " he could not refuse this " , says General Foy , " after three days and three nights of incessant marching " — while patrols raced west to Linares to secure his rear . Aware neither that Dupont was preparing to move in his direction , nor that Vedel was now in fact drawing in behind him , Reding , posting a few battalions to hold Bailén from whatever French formations might remain in the east , set off with his two divisions westwards July 18 , intending to surround Andújar from the rear and smash Dupont against Castaños . Dupont slipped away from Andújar unobserved and at dawn July 19 , his vanguard under Brigadier Chabert made contact with Reding ' s leading elements ( veterans of the Walloon Guard ) just shy of Bailén . Though caught off guard , Reding reacted " with promptitude and skill , " dissolving his columns and drawing up a defensive line with 20 guns in an olive grove intersected with deep ravines , about two miles from Dupont ' s main body . Badly underestimating the force before him , Chabert charged his 3 , 000 men into Reding ' s two divisions and was enfiladed and repulsed with heavy losses . Dupont , following with the main body of the convoy at two leagues ' distance , halted the bloodied vanguard , posted General Barbou to defend the rear against any pursuit by Castaños , and ordered all other formations to the fore in an attempt to crack Reding ' s line . Expecting to be overtaken and crushed by Castaños ' columns at any moment — one division under La Peña had already crossed to Andújar in pursuit and approached steadily — Dupont committed his troops piecemeal , without massing a reserve . As one historian observes , his troops were " both exhausted and strung out , and to commit them to battle in dribs and drabs was foolhardy in the extreme . " Brigadiers Chabert and Dupré led an infantry brigade and the chasseurs against the left wing , held by the Walloon Guards , but no ground was gained and Dupré fell mortally wounded at the head of his troops . Dupont ' s scattered guns were laboriously formed into batteries to support the attack only to be knocked out by the heavier Spanish artillery once the firing began . On the right , opposite Reding ' s militias and Swiss regulars , a fierce and desperate attack bent back the Spanish line . The cuirassiers trampled an enemy infantry regiment , reached the artillery and sabred the gunners , but the Spaniards , extending their line and maintaining a constant fire , compelled the French to abandon the captured guns and fall back . Fresh troops came up at 10 : 00 a . m . and Dupont immediately launched a second attack , with General Pannetier ' s brigade leading the charge . One last formation joined them ; d ' Augier ' s marines of the Imperial Guard , in theory the best troops present : " They were only three hundred men " , Foy remarks , " but they were three hundred whom no fears could ever make falter . " Dupont , himself wounded in the hip , grouped his exhausted and worn - out regiments around the Guard battalion in a last effort to break through to Bailén . At this point reserves may have pierced the badly shaken Spanish line : Dupont had none ; and the French columns , mercilessly raked by the Spanish artillery , were forced back down the slope for the third time . Dupont ' s Swiss regiments , originally in Spanish service , defected , arms and baggage , to their former masters ; and lastly , Castaños ' force finally arrived , overtaking Barbou along the Rumblar ( a small tributary flowing from the Morena into the Guadalquivir ) , with La Peña ' s division sounding its guns and preparing to storm the French rearguard . The day was lost . Closing moves . An unexpected Spanish reinforcement appeared suddenly in the last minutes of the battle , slipping south out of the foothills along the Rumblar and taking up positions among the rocks on the French left flank : Colonel de la Cruz . Driven off into the mountains in the attack of July 16 , de la Cruz had regrouped 2 , 000 sharpshooters at Peñas del Moral and climbed back down towards the battle , directed by the sound of firing . Dupont was now hopelessly surrounded on three sides . Towards noon , as Dupont ' s guns went quiet , Vedel continued from Guarromán onto Bailén and observed napping troops which he assumed to be Dupont ' s vanguard returning from Andújar — in fact they were Reding ' s Spaniards . Vedel and Reding prepared for battle , the former pulling up Legrange ' s cuirassiers , Cassagne ' s legion , and Dufour ' s brigade for the attack . On the Spanish side , Reding deployed Coupigny ' s division to meet the threat , with an Irish battalion and two guns on a knoll leading up to the mountains ; a regiment of regular troops , the " Órdenes militares " , at the San Cristóbal monastery ; militia in support ; and the other battalions drawn up behind , in the centre . Two Spanish officers approached Vedel under a flag of truce , announcing that Dupont had been badly defeated and had proposed to suspend arms ; the Frenchman replied , " Tell your General , that I care nothing about that , and that I am going to attack him . " Vedel directed Cassagne ' s legion , supported by Boussard ' s dragoon s , against the Irish position on the knoll . While Cassagne grappled the Irish , Boussard raced around the enemy flank and rear , trampled part of Coussigny ' s militia regiment , and enveloped the knoll . Their guns lost , the Irish battalion surrendered , and Vedel ' s men took the knoll and 1 , 500 prisoners . Meanwhile , Colonel Roche ' s column struck the Spanish strongpoint at San Cristóbal , possession of which was necessary if Vedel hoped to turn Coupigny and force open a path to Dupont . But here the Spanish regulars under Colonel Francisco Soler held their line obstinately and all attacks failed . Capitulation . Upon Castaños ' arrival Dupont decided to call for a truce , negotiating terms with the Spanish officers over several days . After learning this , Vedel withdrew some distance along the highway . Spanish commanders threatened to massacre the French soldiers if this formation did not surrender , and Dupont compelled Vedel to return and lay down his arms . Handing his sword to Castaños , Dupont exclaimed , " You may well , General , be proud of this day ; it is remarkable because I have never lost a pitched battle until now — I who have been in more than twenty . " The Spaniard ' s biting reply : " It is the more remarkable because I was never in one before in my life . " Aftermath . Repercussions . Neither the fruit of brilliant strategic planning , nor the war ' s largest or bloodiest battle , Bailén nonetheless assumed mythical status in Spain , its symbolism rapidly eclipsing the reality — the negotiated surrender of a rather inexperienced French corps in a peripheral theatre . At a decisive moment , news of victory rallied much of the vacillating Spanish elite to the insurrectionary movements surging across the country : Suddenly , the expulsion of the French by arms seemed possible , if not inevitable . At the same time , Spanish victory in an obscure Andalusian village signalled to the armies of Europe that the French , long considered invincible , could be beaten — a fact that persuaded the Austrian Empire to initiate the War of the Fifth Coalition against Napoleon : To commemorate a victory so rich in symbolic and propaganda value , the Seville Junta instituted the " Medalla de Bailén " . The British press avidly publicized the event and printed Castaños ' victory statements across Europe : The defeat mortified Napoleon . The Emperor treated Dupont ' s capitulation as a personal affront and a blight on the Imperial honour , pursuing a ruthless vendetta against all those involved : Dupont and Vedel returned to Paris in disgrace and were duly court - martial ed , deprived of rank and title , and imprisoned at Fort de Joux for their role in the disaster . ( Dupont was not paroled until the restoration of Louis XVIII ; indeed , rumours persisted that he had been quietly assassinated in captivity . ) None of the commanding officers , however slight their share of the responsibility , escaped without retribution : Napoleon held that his army in Spain had been " commanded by postal inspectors rather than generals . " In January 1809 , the Emperor halted a parade in Valladolid when he recognized Dupont ' s chief of staff among the commanders , scolding the unfortunate officer in full view of the troops and ordering him off the square . According to General Foy , Napoleon began his tirade : " What , general ! did not your hand wither up when you signed that infamous capitulation ? " Years later , Napoleon opened an inquiry into the Convention of Andujar under the mandate of the Imperial High Court , " in camera " , which turned out yet another proclamation against Dupont . An Imperial decree dated May 1 , 1812 , prohibited any field commander to treat for capitulation and declared every unauthorized surrender a criminal act punishable by death . Apart from the blow to French prestige , Bailén threw the French invasion forces — faltering after their failure to secure Gerona , Zaragoza , Valencia , Barcelona , and Santander , and with the country rapidly arming and mobilizing against them — into panic and disarray . With the sudden loss of 20 , 000 troops , Napoleon ' s military machine abruptly fell apart . On Savary ' s advice , Joseph fled from the openly hostile capital ; joining him on the highway were Bessières and Moncey , who drew the French corps north from Madrid and continued past Burgos in what became a wholesale retreat . The French did not halt until they were safely over the Ebro , where they could set up secure defensive positions along the north bank and wait out events . From his makeshift headquarters at Vitoria , Joseph wrote to his brother gloomily : " I repeat that we have not a single Spanish supporter . The whole nation is exasperated and determined to fight . " Napoleon , furious and dismayed , remarked that to cross the Ebro was " tantamount to evacuating Spain . " Napoleon had considered the Spanish Bourbon regime ' s old , regular army , for all its proud traditions hearkening back to the glorious " tercio s " , to be " the worst in Europe " , while the new militia formations were dismissed as packs of " bandits led by monks . " Castaños himself conceded that the greater part of his troops had been " raw and inexperienced ; but they were Spaniards , and Spaniards are heroes . " But it was this maligned army , largely untouched by French Revolutionary military principles — a relic from the previous century ' s absolutist administration — which outfought the Imperial citizen - soldiers . Spain ' s ancien regime military institutions , however , quickly unravelled in the following months , eclipsed by the growing scale of the war , crippled by the infusion of untrained conscripts , and caught up in the competing designs of the " juntas " . In November , Napoleon directed the bulk of the Grande Armée across the Pyrenees and dealt a series of devastating blows to the vacillating Spanish forces , receiving the surrender of Madrid in scarcely a month ' s time . As Spain ' s military and political apparatus deteriorated dramatically , so did the quality of its armed forces , recruited and equipped in the chaos of French military occupation and counterinsurgency . Subsequent efforts to fashion field armies capable of reproducing a Bailén proved less successful : Castaños was himself routed by Marshal Lannes at Tudela in November 1808 , while Reding was ridden down and trampled by the French cavalry at Valls in 1809 , dying of his wounds . Marshal Soult overran much of Andalusia the following year and on January 21 , 1810 , his men recovered the lost Eagles from the cathedral of Bailén . Before long , only Cádiz remained firmly in Spanish hands , and a difficult war lay ahead to drive the invader from Spain . Throughout the war , attempts to meet the French in open fields with corps severely deficient in training , leadership , and equipment led to frequent defeat , as incompetent or politically appointed commanders felt pressured to recreate Bailén without the talent or the means . This " Bailén syndrome " haunted Spain for the duration of the war : Fate of the prisoners . Dupont and his staff officer s were transported on Royal Navy vessels to Rochefort harbour after the Seville " Junta " refused to honour the pact under which the French were to be repatriated via Cádiz . The French prisoners were kept in Cadiz harbor aboard prison hulks , old warships that had their masts and rigging removed . They were fed at irregular intervals on the overcrowded vessels . The start of the Siege of Cádiz in 1810 meant that French troops occupied the land approaches to the city . From 6 to 9 March 1810 a howling storm struck from the southwest and drove one Portuguese and three Spanish battleships ashore , where they were destroyed by French cannon fire . Thirty merchant ships were also sunk or driven ashore in the same tempest , including one vessel with 300 men of the British 4th Foot who became prisoners of war . The French officers , who were segregated aboard the " Castilla " , noted that vessels which had lost their anchors had drifted onto the opposite shore during the storm . During the next south - wester , on the night of 15 and 16 March , the officers overcame their Spanish guards and cut the prison hulk ' s cables . The French fought off the crews of two gunboats that tried to retake the vessel and over 600 escaped when the " Castilla " grounded on the French side of the bay . Ten days afterward , the prisoners on the " Argonauta " tried the same thing , but suffered a worse fate . The ship stuck fast on a bar out in the harbor and was taken under fire by several gunboats . At length the ship caught fire and fewer than half of the prisoners survived to be rescued by their compatriots . Several British sailors later expressed their revulsion at having to shoot at escaping prisoners . The few remaining officers were transferred first to Majorca and later to England . The rank and file were sent to the Canary and Balearic Islands , where the inhabitants protested at the proximity of so many of their enemies . Consequently , 7 , 000 prisoners were put on the uninhabited island of Cabrera . The Spanish government , which could barely supply its own armies in the field , was unable to properly take care of the prisoners . Cannibalism was alleged to have occurred during times when the supply ships failed to arrive . On 6 July 1814 , the remaining survivors of Bailén returned to France : fewer than half remained , most having perished in captivity . Many of the survivors never recovered their health after the experience .