Battle of The Gebora - Consequences

Consequences

The battle was a serious setback for the Anglo-Spanish-Portuguese allies; Wellington had earlier warned the Spanish generals that the Army of Extremadura was "the last body of troops which their country possesses", and later wrote that "he defeat of Mendizabal is the greatest misfortune, which was not previously expected, that has yet occurred to us." The army had been essentially destroyed; although 2,500 infantry had escaped into Badajoz—and a slightly smaller number to Portugal—about 1,000 Spaniards had been killed or wounded, 4,000 were taken prisoner, and 17 cannon had been lost. The French, for their part, suffered only minor casualties. Soult initially reported his losses as 30 killed and 140 wounded, but those figures were eventually revised to around 400 casualties, mainly from the cavalry.

Soult was now free to continue his investment of Badajoz; although the town's garrison was now some 8,000 strong due to the influx of soldiers from Mendizabal's destroyed army, it eventually fell to the French on 11 March. Wellington then sent a large Anglo-Portuguese corps, commanded by Sir William Beresford, to retake the important fortress town, and by 20 April, the second siege of Badajoz had begun. A French attempt to lift this siege resulted, on 16 May, in the bloody Battle of Albuera, in which Beresford's strong Allied corps maintained the siege, but only barely managed to hold off an outnumbered French army, again commanded by Soult. However, when the French Army of Portugal, now under the command of Marshal Auguste Marmont, and the Army of the South converged, the combined French force of over 60,000 men forced Wellington, on 20 June, to call off the siege and to pull his 44,000-man besieging army back to Elvas. Thus Badajoz would remain in French hands until the following year, when the Allies finally retook it following the Battle of Badajoz.