Battle of Saragossa

The Battle of Saragossa (Spanish: Zaragoza) took place on 20 August 1710 between the Spanish-Bourbon army commanded by the Marquis de Bay and a multinational army led by the Austrian commander Guido Starhemberg during the War of the Spanish Succession.

Prelude

The 1710 Spanish campaign opened on 15 May when the Spanish Bourbon army commanded by Philip V in person and Francisco Castillo Fajardo, Marquis of Villadarias, took field for an attack upon the town of Balaguer. The imperial general Guido Starhemberg, commander of the Allied forces in Catalonia, collected his army and cut the thrust by preventing the Spanish army from fording the Segre river, a success in which the officers of the British contingent had a foremost role. On June Philip V received reinforcements and made another attempt upon Balaguer with 20.000 infantry and 6.000 cavalry soldiers.

On 27 July 1710 the Spanish army suffered a sharp defeat in the Battle of Almenara, near Balaguer. The allied troops had taken up a strong defensive position and rejected the Spanish attacks till the British commander, James Stanhope, leading the allied vanguard, broke the Spanish lines. Philip V was forced to leave Catalonia and withdraw to Saragossa, the capital of the Kingdom of Aragon. The Castilian Villadarias was afterwards deprived of his rank, which Philip gave to the French general Alexandre Maître, Marquis de Bay.