Battle of Braga

Battle context

The Battle of Braga was a decisive engagement during the French second invasion of Portugal in the Peninsular War. Soult's corps, numbering around 16,000 troops, routed a Portuguese force of up to 25,000 under Baron Eben, inflicting roughly 4,400 casualties. The collapse of the Portuguese resistance at Braga exposed the weakness of relying on ill-disciplined and poorly armed militia against a professional imperial army, leaving the road into Portugal significantly more open to French advance. The scale of the defeat underscored the difficulty Portugal faced in mounting effective conventional resistance without substantial regular-force support.