When was the Battle of Zornoza?

On 31 October 1808, near Zornoza (today Amorebieta-Etxano) in Biscay, northern Spain, at the opening of Napoleon's campaign in Spain.

Who fought at Zornoza?

Marshal Lefebvre's French IV Corps, with Villatte's division of Victor's corps, against General Joaquín Blake's Spanish Army of Galicia.

How many men fought at Zornoza?

About 21,000 French by Oman's and Rickard's count, 25,000 by Napier's, against about 19,000 Spaniards (17,000 by Napier's count) with only six guns.

Who won the Battle of Zornoza?

The French won the field, but Blake's army got away beyond Bilbao, in good order according to Oman and Rickard, in disorder according to Napier.

Why was Lefebvre's attack a mistake?

Napoleon wanted Blake held in place until he could encircle him. By attacking against orders, Lefebvre pushed Blake out of the trap, and King Joseph and Napoleon were both displeased.

What were the losses at Zornoza?

About 200 French, and about 300 Spanish killed and wounded with about 300 taken prisoner.

What happened after Zornoza?

Blake turned back on 5 November to rescue Acevedo's cut-off division, then retreated west and was beaten by Victor at Espinosa de los Monteros on 10 and 11 November 1808.

Battle of Zornoza 1808: How Lefebvre Spoiled Napoleon's Trap

Le Général Lefebvre, lithograph by Durieux, printed by Lemercier, 1829 (cropped). Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, RP-P-1911-1935, via Wikimedia Commons, CC0

By the numbers
Side	Strength	Losses
France	About 21,000 in three divisions (Oman counts 21,324)	About 200 men
Spain	About 19,000 with six guns	About 300 killed and wounded and about 300 prisoners

Quick answer

What happened at the Battle of Zornoza?

On 31 October 1808 Marshal Lefebvre's French IV Corps attacked General Joaquín Blake's Spanish Army of Galicia at Zornoza in Biscay, out of a dense mountain fog. A column broke the Spanish center and Blake fell back beyond Bilbao, losing about 600 men to the French 200. Lefebvre won the field, yet by attacking before Napoleon was ready he pushed Blake out of the trap the emperor had planned for him.¹

In the autumn of 1808 Napoleon was about to take charge in Spain in person, with a plan to crush the Spanish armies at one blow. The first real battle of that campaign was fought before he arrived, in the hills between Bilbao and Durango, by a marshal who could not wait.²

Background: Blake in Biscay

The first French invasion of Spain had ended in failure that summer, and the French had fallen back behind the Ebro. The Spanish juntas had appointed no supreme commander, and each general fought his own war. The most active was Joaquín Blake, with the Army of Galicia on the northern coast. In October he pushed into Biscay, and on 11 October the small French force in Bilbao under General Merlin abandoned the town and fell back to Zornoza and Durango.³

Dark locator map of the Bay of Biscay coast of northern Spain and southwestern France with a gold star in a glowing circle marking Zornoza east of Bilbao, and a small world map inset — Zornoza, today Amorebieta-Etxano, lies in the hills of Biscay between Bilbao and Durango, on the road the French armies used to reach the Ebro from France. The star marks the approximate site. Drawn for this article from Natural Earth data, with no modern borders. Location map: © Echoes of Battle (data: Natural Earth, public domain)

Blake then hesitated. He left a large part of his army, the Asturians of Acevedo among them, to guard the passes from the Ebro toward Bilbao, and only on 24 October did he march on Durango with the rest, some 17,000 men by Napier's count and 18,000 by Rickard's. His advance was slow, and for a week he stood in front of the French without attacking, in what Oman calls the supremely dangerous post of Zornoza.⁴

That suited Napoleon. His plan was to let Blake and the other Spanish armies stay far forward and then fall on their flanks and rear. For that reason, Oman explains, he wanted his lieutenants to hold the Spaniards in place without pressing them until he was ready. King Joseph and his chief of staff Jourdan had a bolder idea, to send Marshal Victor over the hills to Bilbao behind Blake, but Bessières, Victor and Ney opposed it because Napoleon had said he did not want matters hurried before he came. Lefebvre was ordered to keep to the defensive.⁵ › Napoleon Bonaparte

Armies and commanders

Marshal François Joseph Lefebvre, Duke of Danzig, had arrived at Durango on 18 October with two divisions of his IV Corps, under Sebastiani and Leval, the latter mostly German and Dutch battalions. King Joseph lent him Villatte's division from Victor's I Corps. Oman counts 21,324 men by the return of 10 October; Rickard about 21,000; Napier, who describes the French coming down the mountain with all arms, about 25,000.⁶

Painted half-length portrait of a red-haired Spanish general in a dark uniform with gold-embroidered cuffs, a red and gold sash and a star, his hands resting on a sword hilt, above a painted inscription — General Joaquín Blake, commander of the Spanish Army of Galicia at Zornoza and Espinosa, in a later portrait by Manuel Ojeda in the Prado. Public domain. Manuel Ojeda, Museo del Prado, via Wikimedia Commons.

Blake had about 19,000 men by Oman's and Rickard's count, 17,000 by Napier's, in three lines on low hills before the village, with a reserve brigade in the houses of Zornoza. The first troops of the Marquis de la Romana's army, brought home by sea from the Baltic, had just begun to arrive. He had only six guns, having sent the rest of his artillery to the rear, and Rickard adds that the French were generally the better troops.⁷

The battle in phases

Disobedience. Lefebvre attacked anyway. Oman sees the reason in the old marshal's ambition: in all his campaigns he had never fought a pitched battle of his own, and the timid Spanish army had been sitting in front of him for a week. He covered his disobedience with the excuse that the enemy was preparing an attack. Napier, less charitable, calls it a hasty attack founded on false data.⁸

Out of the fog. At daybreak on 31 October a thick fog filled the valley and hid the French. Then Villatte's division came out of it close to the Spanish front, drove in the right wing and spread out to threaten Blake's flank, while Leval's Germans struck the Spanish left and Sebastiani marched up the valley road against the center.⁹

San Martín. The Spanish first line gave way, and the army rallied on the heights of San Martín. Lefebvre bombarded the new position; Blake had already sent his single battery to the rear, so there was no reply. Then ten battalions of Sebastiani's division went in and cut through the Spanish center, leaving the two wings isolated.¹⁰

Turning point: the retreat on Bilbao

Blake ordered a retreat on Bilbao. How it went depends on the source. Oman, drawing on the report of the British liaison officer Captain Carroll, writes that the intact wings covered the retreat and that the army got away in very fair order, irritated rather than cowed; Rickard agrees. Napier describes a Spanish army heaped in confused masses, driven from one position to another, beyond Zornoza by midday and in full flight for Bilbao by three in the afternoon.¹¹

Either way the fight had been short and cheap. The Spaniards lost about 300 killed and wounded and about as many prisoners, the French about 200 men. Oman judged that Blake had been surprised and tactically beaten rather than defeated by force of arms.¹²

Aftermath

The costly part came after. About 8,000 Spaniards under Acevedo, left to guard the passes south of Bilbao, were cut off when the French entered the city. Lefebvre occupied Bilbao, pursued Blake for a short way, then left Villatte's division to watch him and returned to the town. On 5 November Blake turned back and attacked Villatte, who broke out at Güeñes with the loss of a gun and part of his baggage, and Acevedo's men escaped.¹³

The victory spoiled the plan it was meant to serve. Napoleon was displeased with the attack at Zornoza, and King Joseph was much vexed by the disobedience. Napier, judging both commanders harshly, called Lefebvre's attack ill-combined and feebly followed up, and wrote that between 24 October and 4 November Blake committed almost every error possible.¹⁴

Hand-colored print of a battle in hilly country, with French officers on horseback in the foreground, captured Spanish soldiers and a monk led away at left, and lines of infantry firing across red hills under clouds of smoke — The sequel to Zornoza: a French popular print of the Battle of Espinosa, where Victor beat Blake's army on 10 and 11 November 1808, published in Paris in the series on the taking of Madrid. Anonymous engraver, Bataille d'Espinosa, published by the widow Chéreau, Paris, about 1808, Paris Musées, G.33629. Public domain (CC0), via Wikimedia Commons

Blake was caught only at Espinosa de los Monteros on 10 and 11 November, where Victor beat him, and even then a large part of his army escaped. Napoleon pushed on to Madrid, forcing the pass of Somosierra on 30 November, but the Spanish armies he had hoped to destroy at one blow kept fighting.¹⁵ › Battle of Somosierra, 1808

Legacy and memory

For the British historians of the war, Oman and Napier, Zornoza showed both the Spanish generals' ignorance of the forces against them and the French marshals' habit of acting on their own; for Napoleon's campaign it was the first crack in a plan that depended on the Spaniards staying where they were.¹⁶

The ground was mapped long afterward. The Spanish army's map archive holds a manuscript plan of the battle in pen and watercolor, drawn in 1854 by Francisco Nebot and Joaquín Blake y Orbaneja, a namesake born in 1829 and not the general of 1808, with a table marking the French and Spanish positions.¹⁷

Visiting Zornoza today

The village of Zornoza is now part of the town of Amorebieta-Etxano in Biscay, on the road from Bilbao to Durango along which both armies moved in 1808.¹⁸

Sunny street in a Basque town with young trees, a stone wall and an old cream-colored villa, and the domed baroque tower of a church rising behind — Amorebieta-Etxano today, the town that grew around the old village of Zornoza, with the tower of its parish church behind the trees. Photograph by Zarateman, 2017. CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Notes

A number in the text points to a note; each note names the works that paragraph draws on, listed in full under Sources.

John Rickard, “Battle of Zornoza, 31 October 1808”; Charles Oman, A History of the Peninsular War; William Napier, History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France. ↩
Charles Oman, A History of the Peninsular War; John Rickard, “Battle of Zornoza, 31 October 1808”. ↩
John Rickard, “Battle of Zornoza, 31 October 1808”; Charles Oman, A History of the Peninsular War; William Napier, History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France. ↩
John Rickard, “Battle of Zornoza, 31 October 1808”; William Napier, History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France; Charles Oman, A History of the Peninsular War. ↩
Charles Oman, A History of the Peninsular War; John Rickard, “Battle of Zornoza, 31 October 1808”. ↩
John Rickard, “Battle of Zornoza, 31 October 1808”; Charles Oman, A History of the Peninsular War; William Napier, History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France. ↩
Charles Oman, A History of the Peninsular War; John Rickard, “Battle of Zornoza, 31 October 1808”; William Napier, History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France. ↩
Charles Oman, A History of the Peninsular War; William Napier, History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France; John Rickard, “Battle of Zornoza, 31 October 1808”. ↩
Charles Oman, A History of the Peninsular War; William Napier, History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France; John Rickard, “Battle of Zornoza, 31 October 1808”. ↩
Charles Oman, A History of the Peninsular War; John Rickard, “Battle of Zornoza, 31 October 1808”; William Napier, History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France. ↩
Charles Oman, A History of the Peninsular War; John Rickard, “Battle of Zornoza, 31 October 1808”; William Napier, History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France. ↩
Charles Oman, A History of the Peninsular War; John Rickard, “Battle of Zornoza, 31 October 1808”. ↩
John Rickard, “Battle of Zornoza, 31 October 1808”; Charles Oman, A History of the Peninsular War; William Napier, History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France. ↩
William Napier, History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France; Charles Oman, A History of the Peninsular War. ↩
John Rickard, “Battle of Zornoza, 31 October 1808”; Charles Oman, A History of the Peninsular War. ↩
Charles Oman, A History of the Peninsular War; William Napier, History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France; John Rickard, “Battle of Zornoza, 31 October 1808”. ↩
Biblioteca Virtual de Defensa, “Plano de la Batalla de Zornoza”; Charles Oman, A History of the Peninsular War. ↩
Biblioteca Virtual de Defensa, “Plano de la Batalla de Zornoza”; Charles Oman, A History of the Peninsular War; William Napier, History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France. ↩

Sources

John Rickard, HistoryOfWar.org, “Battle of Zornoza, 31 October 1808”
Charles Oman, A History of the Peninsular War, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1902), chapter “The misfortunes of Joachim Blake: Zornoza and Espinosa”, full text on Project Gutenberg
William Napier, History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France, vol. 1, book III, chapter 5, “Combat at Durango”, full text on the Internet Archive
Biblioteca Virtual de Defensa, Spanish Ministry of Defense, catalogue record of a manuscript plan by Francisco Nebot and Joaquín Blake, about 1854, “Plano de la Batalla de Zornoza: Ocurrida el 31 de octubre de 1808” (in Spanish)