The Battle of Maria
June 15, 1809
Turning the Tide
by Todd Fisher, USA
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The Santa Fe Convent - Maria (courtesy of Van Gott)
Serious thought was given to abandoning Zaragoza, but since it had just been taken earlier that year by the French following one of the greatest sieges in history, its evacuation would be a devastating blow to the morale of the entire French army. More importantly, it would kill the career of the young General Suchet, who had just recently been given the Army’s command. So after due consideration, Suchet ordered his heavy baggage and wounded sent to the rear and prepared to march out of Zaragoza to meet the Spanish army head on. He had reinforcements coming from Tudela about fifty miles
away, but could not wait to have them arrive due to the quick advance of Blake.
Maria is about twelve miles south of the city and lies along the Huerva River. The Spanish army under Blake was advancing along both sides of the river hoping to use their superior strength to prevent any outflanking movement by the fast marching French. Suchet moved the French army out leaving only one battalion to garrison the city. He sent two brigades to act as a blocking force to the east of the
Huerva and took the remainder of his army and took up a position around the Santa Fe Convent. Here he waited for Blake and hoped for the re-enforcements to arrive. The rough numbers on the main field of action were 14,000 Spaniards in two divisions including 1000 cavalry versus 9,000 French of which 800 were cavalry. The Tudela reinforcements numbered 3,000. The other Spanish division to the east of the Huerva numbered 6,000, while the French blocking force was 2,000 men.
Blake had taken up a position a mile and a half north of Maria in hopes that Suchet might be induced to attack as he had done at Alcañiz. The morning slipped away whereupon Blake decided that Suchet was stalling, as he was, and came down the slopes in an attack. It is here that we start the Revolution and Empire scenario.
As Blake’s army advanced Suchet launched a series of spoiling attacks by the Vistula lancers. This threw the Spanish left into some confusion and Suchet launched a counter-attack. This was met with stiff resistance and when a hailstorm started the French withdrew to their ridge and waited for Robert’s men to come up. These troops arrived around 2:30 in the afternoon and advanced against the Spanish right. Once engaged with his infantry, Suchet send his remaining cavalry against the Spanish troops engaged with Robert. The Spanish cavalry were no match for the French counterparts and routed. This allowed the French to turn in on the engaged Spanish infantry and destroy it.
Suchet ordered a general advance and the entire fate of the Spanish army hung in the balance. Blake ordered most of his guns abandoned and retreated into the hills, where the French cavalry would have no advantage. The French were mostly spent and Blake was able to disengage and retreat to the South. Neither the Spanish Division of Areizaga nor Leval’s men participated in the battle.
Blake reorganized his army and drew up in defensive position around the town of Belchite. His army was now demoralized, however, and was mauled by Suchet on June 18th. The whole of Aragon was abandoned by the Spanish regular army following these twin defeats and Suchet was able to consolidate his holdings and prepare for an invasion of Valencia. It would be years before the Spanish could mount more than a guerrilla effort in the area to challenge the French dominance.
Blake had come very near to recovering the whole of Aragon. After Alcañiz Suchet was very much on the ropes and the Spanish army was at an all time high in morale. He was both unlucky and clumsy in making his attack. Clearly, his planning had not gone further than getting the French to attack him in his chosen position. When this didn’t happen, he was somewhat at a loss. He made no attempt to recall Areizaga to help him in his attack, nor ordered him to advance on the lightly guarded city of Zaragoza. While he muddled his way through the early part of the battle, he exhibited quite a bit of sang-froid when the defeat occurred. Unfortunately for the Spanish cause, he reverted to form by not coming up with a viable plan once he got away.
After visiting the battlefield I was anxious to put together a scenario to re-fight the battle. I gathered all the maps I could of the battlefield and found, much to my chagrin, that none but the Oman map had any scale to them, and this appeared to be wrong.
As a side observation. Charles Oman was frequently wrong on the scaling of his maps, particularly on those battlefields he did not personally visit. His scale on the battlefield of Barossa is wildly over-scaled, for example. Now I was on the horns of a dilemma. It would appear that Oman was about 50% over scaled (3/2). It is with that assumption that I have scaled this map. One more piece of frustration
was that my camera was stolen with all my photographs; so all I have to show you is a shot of the Santa Fe Convent used by Suchet as his HQ. My friend, Van Gott, who accompanied me on the battlefield visit, took this.
The battle site is hard to decipher. A number of low ridges, running east to west run between Santa Fe and Maria, each indistinguishable from the next. It was only with the location of Cadrete, Santa Fe and Maria that I was able to triangulate and determine on which ridges each phase of the battle were fought. Unfortunately, today a rail line cuts the two combatants’ positions in half. This requires some scrambling up embankments and crawling through wire fences to gain access to key portions of the field. The entire area with Suchet’s three battles of Alcañiz, Maria and Belchite is easily covered in one day. It might even leave you time to walk the siege lines of Zaragoza before retiring to a well deserved meal of Tapas and Rioja.
The Battle of Maria June 15, 1809
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The battle of Maria was fought on June 15, 1809. It turned the tide in the campaign of Aragon. General Suchet, who had recently been defeated by the Spanish General Blake at the battle of Alcañiz had fallen back to Zaragoza (Saragossa) to try to regroup against the resurgent Spanish Army.