The combat of Navas de Membrillo took place on 29 December 1811 near Mérida, Spain, and saw the British light cavalry of General Rowland Hill assault a small Imperial French force led by Captain Neveux.

On the last days of 1812, Arthur Wellesley, Viscount Wellington, commander-in-chief of the Anglo-Portuguese army, wanted to distract the French forces commanded by Marshal Jean-de-Dieu Soult, which were occupied by the Siege of Tarifa.

[2] The 2nd Hussars Regiment of the King's German Legion and two squadrons of the 13th Light Dragoons charged Neveux's troop, but the French formed a square in a wood and the attackers were put in disorder by the cork trees which protected the Imperial soldiers.

[1] The combat of Navas de Membrillo was considered by historian Ian Fletcher, from the British point of view, "as one of the more disappointing cavalry episodes in the Peninsula".

He compared this action with the combat of Barquilla (or Villar de Puerco), fight in July 1810 in similar conditions (unsuccessful cavalry charge against infantry formed in square).