As usual with battle accounts in this period, reports of casualties vary wildly. Berwick admitted his own loss at 2,000; some more modern accounts have put the figure much higher, at 5-6,000, an astonishingly high number in proportion to the total Allied strength. Bourbon setbacks in the battle were due more to their less -experienced troops than to overwhelmingly heavy casualties, and Berwick, whose memoirs are normally relentlessly impartial and accurate (and who was, after all, in a position to know), is probably not far off the mark. Allied losses, however, were dreadful, not just in casualties but also in prisoners and men simply 'missing'; apart from the remnant with Galway, their army had practically ceased to exist.

Around 4,000 had been killed and wounded, mainly from amongst the English, Dutch and Hugenott Regiments who had bourne the brunt of the fighting. and this number included many officers; 3,000 were prisoners, including those who had surrendered with Shrimpton; about 5,000 were as yet unaccounted for. Only 3,000 to 3,500, almost all cavalry, left the field in something like good order - most of these were Portuguese, and this fact is more strong evidence that they had not panicked in battle as thoroughly as is usually claimed.

Whatever his other faults, Galway, despite his age and wounds, wasted no time in trying to sort something out of the wreckage. Passing through Onteniente to Alcira, he sent the baggage, train and sick on to Grao, the port of Valencia city, for embarcation. It was clear that the Allies could not survive in open field against Berwick in Valencia, so while preparations were made to move with the cavalry to Catalonia and join Charles III there, Galway arranged garrisons for the Valencian towns, out of newly-arrived recruits and returning stragglers. He hoped that these would, if not allow the Allies to retain the effective control of the province implied by possession of the towns, at least delay Berwick.

It was not to be. Almansa had occurred to early in the year that the Bourbons were left with the entire campaigning season to exploit their victory, and they did not waste their opportunity. The day after the battle, Orleans arrived to take supreme command, but there were no personality difficulties: he worked well with Berwick first joining him in the advance into Valencia and then leaving him to polish off the towns while he went off to oversee the occupation of Aragon. Berwick soon followed him for attacks on Catalonia, leaving d'Asfeld to mop up in Valencia. Denia held out until 1708 and Alicante until 1709, but otherwise the Allies were effectively bottled up in Catalonia, until their restored army made a new effort against Madrid in 1710, by when the two years' respite had enabled the Bourbons to make their rule of Castile unshakable. Stanhope's surrender at Brihuega merely confirmed what Almansa had already made certain: the Habsburgs would never rule in Spain again.

Almansa gives us a fascinating example of a Marlburian battle, with many detailed tidbits illustrating minor tactics, the command chain (or lack of it) and behaviour in action, from the opening cavalry clash between limited forces which only gradually escalates into a battle between the entire wings, to the chaos of defeat and morale collapse. British cavalry, most of it dragoons who are supposed to be inferior to horse, manages to hold its own against vastly superior numbers of Spanish horse, instead of being swamped at once as we might expect; but on the other hand, Drimborn's cavalry twice fails to press home a charge, without a shot being fired against them. We see an unusually effective co-operation of infantry and cavalry and its effect on the Spaniards; the way infantry can fire on cavalry pursuing their friends and stop the pursuit; and how infantry rarely forms square against cavalry - they could not form square fast enough with the drill used at the time, and musketry was often capable of stopping an attack delivered only at the walk. Of course, infantry fire was not always effective: Berwick's infantry could not completely stop a single squadron, though Harvey's would probably have been halted had it not been close to the end of the infantry line.

And the firefight in the centre lasted half an hour before it was resolved, half an hour of both sides blazing away at each other for all they were worth. Hughes' figures on accuracy for the 18th century in his Firepower are far wide of the mark, due to his reliance on fanciful battle accounts by Fortescue; his calculations for the Napoleonic period (about 5% of shots fired hitting their target) are in fact also correct for the 18th century - the highest hit ratio I have come across is the oft-quoted exchange between the 18th Foot and the French Royal Irish Regiment at Malplaquet, where at most 10% of the British shots hit, in a carefully controlled opening-fire, as opposed to 2 or 3% of French shots.

Other events of note include the Walloon Guards' difficulty in keeping position and their unusual flank march to correct the mistake; normally, contemporary drill required some very complicated and time-consuming manoeuvres for a unit to gain ground to the flank. And it is significant that the Spanish battalion never seems to have thought of attacking the English Foot Guards on their open left flank.

Of course, (here are still many gaps, things unclear or things left unsaid. Much of the precise sequence of events in the Bourbon recovery and the collapse of the Allied left and centre is unclear (even if we do now know that it was not all started by the rout of the Portuguese). For example, exactly how did Berwick manage to draw infantry off to deal with Galway while Erie was apparently still intact in front of his battered centre? Is it safe to assume that the English and Dutch were in as much confusion as the Bourbons, unable to press their advantage, allowing Berwick to move troops away? We do not know many things, such as the location of the pond behind which Erie made that final stand or the truth of what Harvey's Horse was doing for most of the battle. Our view of the latter stages of the action is very confused - but at least this is probably a true enough picture of reality, with all semblance of a coherent line of battle disappearing on both sides. If you fight a wargame that ends up looking like an impossible muddle, you've probably got it right!

More Battle of Almansa 25th April 1707

Part One
Part Two

Part Three

Casualties and Aftermath
Commander: Berwick (1670-1734)
Commander: Galway (1648-1720)
The Armies: Allied and Bourbon
Uniforms and Bibliography
Allied Order of Battle
Bourbon Order of Battle