In the talks, Dupont had agreed to surrender not only his own but Vedel's force as well even though the latter's troops were outside the Spanish encirclement with a good chance of escape; a total of 17,000 men were captured, making Bailén the worst defeat suffered by the French in the entire Peninsular War.

[13] 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.

[16][17] Finally, General Pierre Dupont de l'Étang, a distinguished division commander, was to lead 13,000 men south toward Seville and ultimately the port of Cádiz, which sheltered Admiral François Rosilly's fleet from the Royal Navy.

"[20] 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 Pedro de Echávarri that attempted to block their progress.

[22] 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.

[23] In mid-June General Antoine Charles Louis 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.

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.

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.

[32] 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.

[33] Setting up a general headquarters in Utrera, Castaños organized the Army of Andalusia into four divisions under Generals Theodor von Reding, Antonio Malet, Marquis of Coupigny (whose staff included a young San Martín, then a captain in the Spanish Army), Félix Jones, and a fourth (Reserve) under Manuel Lapeña, whose division included Colonel Juan de la Cruz Mourgeón's column of some 1,000 skirmishers, armed peasants, and other light infantry.

[35] 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.

[26] Glimmers of the long-promised reinforcements appeared at last: Generals Gobert and Jacques Lefranc passed the Puerta del Rey on 15 July, leaving behind a strong garrison in the Morena, and descended into Andalusia with their remaining infantry and cuirassiers.

[42] Reding assaulted Mengíbar anew on 13 July 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.

[43] The arrival of Vedel with this sizeable force put an end to the threat at Andújar but gravely imperilled the French left wing (Mengíbar—Bailén—La Carolina), leaving Ligier-Belair seriously denuded of troops in his fight against Reding.

On 16 July 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.

"[50] 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.

[50] Meanwhile, Reding, calling up Coupigny's division from Villa Nueva, had crossed at Mengibar on 17 July 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.

[45] 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"[52]—while patrols raced west to Linares to secure his rear.

[45] Dupont slipped away from Andújar unobserved[45] and at dawn on 19 July, his vanguard under Brigadier Théodore 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,"[53] 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.

[51] Dupont, following with the main body of the convoy at two leagues' distance, halted the bloodied vanguard,[54] 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.

[56] The cuirassiers trampled a Spanish infantry regiment, reached the artillery and sabred the gunners, but the defenders, extending their line and maintaining a constant fire, compelled the French to abandon the captured guns and fall back.

[51] Dupont's Swiss regiments, originally in Spanish service, defected, arms and baggage, to their former masters;[45] and lastly, Castaños' force finally arrived, overtaking Barbou along the Rumblar (a small tributary flowing from the Morena into the Guadalquivir), with Lapeña's division sounding its guns and preparing to storm the French rearguard.

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.

[60] 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.

The Pope published an open denunciation of Napoleon; Prussian patriots were heartened; and, most significantly of all, the Austrian war party began to secure the support of Emperor Francis for a renewed challenge to the French Empire.

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:[66] Has there ever, since the world began, been such stupid, cowardly, idiotic business as this?

"[67] 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.

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.

"[70] 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.