ABSTRACT
Although that winter Wellington was planning to take the war into southern Spain, he was never destined to march into Andalusia, and it was near the ancient university city of Salamanca that he was to fight perhaps his most skilful battle. In the way that a poem is sometimes termed a ‘poet’s poem’ so might Salamanca be called a soldier’s battle. It is not recognized as one of the great military actions of the Napoleonic wars; Creasy, when he wrote his book, Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World from Marathon to Waterloo, almost certainly never thought of including it. Yet from the soldier’s point of view the battle of Salamanca has peculiar characteristics that set it apart from the general run of such affairs. The two armies were, to all intents and purposes, evenly matched in strength. In modern warfare this is exceedingly rare; more often one side or the other has a preponderance of strength, whether in numbers, equipment or technique, and from the outset the vanquished probably had little chance of victory. This perhaps did not happen so often in the wars of the eighteenth century, but even here the skill of one particular general, or the superior quality of his army, frequently gave one side a decisive advantage before battle was joined.
