Battle of Ocaña [SEP] point in time
Battle of Ocaña
The Battle of Ocaña was fought on 19 November 1809 between French forces under Marshal Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult, Duke of Dalmatia and King Joseph Bonaparte and the Spanish army under Juan Carlos de Aréizaga, which suffered its greatest single defeat in the Peninsular War. General Juan Carlos de Aréizaga's Spanish army of 51,000 lost nearly 19,000 killed, wounded, prisoners and deserters, mostly due to the French use of their cavalry. Tactically, the battle was a Cannae-like encirclement of the Spanish army. The
not recognize its authority. On January 28, 1813 Bolívar captured Ocaña, a city which was on the main roads to Venezuela. The expedition was formed by two divisions, a vanguard led by Colonel Atanasio Girardot and a rear under Colonel José Félix Ribas. At the same time Domingo de Monteverde was moving troops to western Venezuela in preparation for an invasion of New Granada, threatening the newly independent states there.
From Ocaña Bolívar moved against royalist areas of New Granada, taking the border city of Cúcuta in the Battle of