At daylight, the British and Spanish discovered that the bulk of the French force had retired, leaving their wounded and two brigades of artillery in the field.

On 27 July, Wellesley sent out the 3rd Division and some cavalry under the command of George Anson to cover Cuesta's retreat into the Talavera position.

Two of Ruffin's three regiments went astray in the dark, but the 9th Light Infantry routed Sigismund von Löw's King's German Legion (KGL) brigade (1st Division) and pushed forward to capture the high ground.

Suddenly, without orders, Cuesta's entire Spanish line fired a thunderous volley at the French dragoons.

"[5] While a majority of the panicked troops were brought back, many hundreds continued to flee, taking some rear echelon British with them.

While Joseph nominally led the French Army, his military adviser Marshal Jean-Baptiste Jourdan actually exercised command over their 37,700 infantry and artillerymen, 8,400 cavalry and about 80 cannon.

[9] Victor's I Corps included the infantry divisions of François Amable Ruffin (5,300), Pierre Belon Lapisse (6,900) and Eugene-Casimir Villatte (6,100), plus Louis-Chrétien Carrière, Baron de Beaumont's 1,000-man light cavalry brigade.

The Madrid Garrison included part of Jean-Joseph, Marquis Dessolles's division (3,300), the King's Spanish Foot Guards (1,800) and two regiments of cavalry (700).

Victor urged his superiors for a massive attack, but Joseph and Jourdan chose to peck away at the Anglo-Spanish position.

Having learned the hard way about the destructive power of French artillery, Wellesley soon pulled his soldiers back into cover.

When Ruffin's men got within effective range, the British emerged from cover in two-deep lines to overlap the French columns.

Alexander Campbell's men and the Spanish (notably the Cavalry Regiment El Rey) met Leval's attack, which went in first.

The Guards and the Germans with them were routed in their turn, losing 500 men, including Major General Heinrich von Porbeck, and carried away Cameron's brigade with them.

Seeing Guards and his centre broken,[11] Wellesley personally brought up the 48th Foot to plug the hole caused by the dispersal of Sherbrooke's division.

The enemy abandoned great numbers of their wounded, which together with our own we have been collecting [...]"[14]The next day, the 3,000 infantry of the Light Division reinforced the British army after completing a famous march of 42 miles (68 km) in 26 hours.

Thinking that the French force was only 15,000 strong, Wellesley moved east on 3 August to block it, leaving 1,500 wounded in the care of the Spanish.

The British commander, realising his line of retreat was about to be cut by a larger French force, sent the Light Brigade on a mad dash for the bridge over the Tagus River at Almaraz.

[17] The Spanish made another attempt to take Madrid, with Wellesley still refusing to participate, and they were ultimately badly defeated at the battle of Ocaña in November 1809.

Historian Charles Oman, in volume II of A History of the Peninsular War, calls the Talavera campaign a failure for the Anglo-Spanish allies, placing the blame on various Spanish errors while dismissing much of the criticism of Wellesley and the British, suggesting there was no reason to imagine a concentration of the French forces opposing them.

At the start of the campaign Wellington had received the promised provisions while both the French[19] and the Spanish were suffering severe shortages of food.

The same year Irish politician and writer John Wilson Croker's poem The Battles of Talavera was published.

A popular success, running through several editions, it played a major role in romanticising the Peninsular War.