“Belchite is the third and final battle in the duel between the III Corps of Louis-Gabriel Suchet and the Army of Aragón y Valencia of Joachim Blake for control of Aragon in 1809. It takes place a mere three days after the Spanish defeat at Maria, which had thoroughly demoralized the Spanish army, filled up as it was with thousands of new recruits. In fact, when he paraded his army at Belchite, Blake discovered that he had lost about 2,000 men who had disbanded to return home, in addition to the heavy losses at Maria. As a result, even after incorporating Areizaga’s division that had not fought at Maria, Blake was only able to put about 12,000 men in line. For the first time he is at a numerical disadvantage to Suchet, who had called in Laval with his first brigade (2,000) in addition to the reinforcements (3,000) that Robert brought at the crisis of the Battle of Maria. Suchet, in his memoirs, claims that Blake received reinforcements of 4,000 men from Valencia on the eve of the battle, but both Spanish accounts and Oman consider this the usual exaggeration by French marshals. Historians therefore have difficulty understanding why Blake chose to risk battle again with his army’s morale shaken.”
Tell me about it! As the Spanish commander things could only go badly for me, although the Spanish started bravely enough. But halfway through there was a massive ammunition park explosion that caused a third of the defenders to bolt.
The game was played on a 6’ X 10’ table, using my 1/72 scale toy soldiers and the Over the Hills rules.
Here's the link to the AAR with lots and lots more pictures! https://tinywarsplayedindoors.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-battle-of-belchite-june-18th-1809.html
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