[1] The heavily outnumbered Polish regiment, led by Colonel Jan Konopka, was surprised and nearly defeated by the larger Spanish force.

The Lancers (591 men in four squadrons[5]) could have spent the night in nearby Orgaz at the foot of the mountains, but Colonel Konopka chose the village of Los Yébenes (also called Yevenes or Ivenes), which the Poles had recognized as a comfortable place to rest during previous patrols.

[4] An eyewitness, Sergeant Kajetan Wojciechowski, wrote: This position was extremely dangerous for cavalry, because the only way out of the valley zigzagged through the mountain, from which any step to the right, where sky-high rocks were hanging over our heads, or to the left, because of abyss under our feet, was impossible to make, and it was the only way we had take if attacked by the enemy.

[6] As an outpost, the village could easily turn into a death trap for sleeping soldiers, with little room to organize for battle and no safe path to retreat.

[8] Colonel Konopka might have chosen such a place to spend the night because neither the French nor the Poles knew the Spanish forces were concentrated nearby.

The sentries heard suspicious sounds and informed the colonel, "But he calmed all his officers, assuring them that the enemy was several days marching from here, near the Guadiana river."

Suddenly, the fog lifted, and the Poles caught sight of dense ranks of Spanish cavalry, and two batteries of horse artillery as well.

Colonel Konopka, realising the enemy's superior numbers, gave the only possible order: to retreat toward the main French force.

Colonel Konopka, along with Major Ruttie and a dozen lancers, left the regiment as they reached the open field and began to form defense lines to repulse the Spanish cavalry, which flowed out from the canyon.

The Polish Colonel safely reached Mora, where General Valence's main forces had remained, convinced that the regiment was lost.

The regiment, however, led by one of the squadrons' COs, Captain Telesfor Kostanecki, fought its way through the enemy's lines and, in a roundabout way —by Consuegra – arrived a few hours later in Mora.

[17] When General Sebastiani approached with an infantry division and three regiments of Milhaud's dragoons, Cartaojal was forced to withdraw the Spanish troops to Ciudad Real.

On March 27 1809, at the battle of Ciudad Real, the Lancers took the bridge, crushed four squares of Spanish infantry, and put them to flight.

The next day, at the Battle of Santa Cruz de Mudela,[citation needed] the Lancers, without waiting for the rest of the Corps, defeated the same Spanish forces once again.

On 18 September 1809, the mere presence of the Lancers from Hell during the Battle of Ocaña, led to the same carabiñeros reales regiment fleeing the battlefield.

[24]In a later note to the Supreme Junta of Seville he added: Two more banners of the Polish regiment were taken in Los Yebanes; we found [them] on an officer killed in the battle.

[2] What happened to the three banners between the end of the battle and the moment when two of them were hung as trophies in the Royal Chapel of Saint Francis Cathedral in Seville is unknown, but a few surviving documents offer some possibilities.

It was possible all three Lancer banners were in the possession of the general staff of the Spanish Army, who had no desire to present them in public until the Battle of Albuera.

In 1889, J. Gestoso of Seville published, in the series National Glory, a colour reprint of the banner of the First squadron, along with the information that it was kept in "the Royal Chapel of Saint Francis in this town", as the "memorabilia" of the Battle of Bailén.

During the Invasion of Russia, he gained the command of the newly created Third Lithuanian Light Cavalry Regiment of the Guard, but in October, 1812, during the banquet in Słonim the day before the march out, was taken prisoner by the Russians.