Battle of La Bisbal

Battle context

At La Bisbal on 14 September 1810, a Spanish division under Enrique O'Donnell and an Anglo-Spanish naval squadron under Francis William Fane and Charles William Doyle achieved a sharp local success against French forces in Catalonia. The Imperial brigade of François de Schwarz, drawn from the Confederation of the Rhine states allied to Napoleon, was almost completely wiped out — most of its soldiers taken prisoner alongside their commander — out of a French force of roughly 2,400. With French casualties reaching 1,600, the action effectively destroyed Schwarz's brigade as a fighting formation. The engagement demonstrated Allied capacity to combine land and naval forces in a coordinated strike against a larger occupation presence in northeastern Spain. The battle came at a cost to the Spanish effort, however: O'Donnell, described as a capable commander, was wounded in the foot, removing a key officer from operations at a critical phase of the Peninsular War.