Combat of the Côa 1810
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 24 July 1810 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1810 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
| Era | 19th century (1800–1913) | derived from year |
| Location | Portugal | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Peninsular War | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | First French Empire, Kingdom of Portugal, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 40.7261, -6.9061 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Combat of the Côa (July 24, 1810; also referred to as Coa or Cõa) was a military engagement that occurred during the Peninsular War period of the Napoleonic Wars. It took place in the valley of the Côa River and it was the first significant battle for the new army of 65,000 men controlled by Marshal André Masséna, as the French prepared for their third invasion of Portugal.
As the British-Portuguese forces were outnumbered here, on July 22, General Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington sent Brigadier-General Robert Craufurd a letter, saying that he (Wellington) was "not desirous of engaging in an affair beyond the Coa." On July 24, Craufurd's Light Division, with 4,200 infantry, 1,100 cavalry, and six guns, was surprised by the sight of 20,000 troops under Marshal Michel Ney, of which only about a quarter were thrown into combat by him, namely parts of the Loison division, which also had up to six guns. Rather than retreat and cross the river as ordered by Wellington, Craufurd chose to engage the French, narrowly avoiding disaster.
The French objective was to force the Light Division back across the Côa in order to besiege Almeida. Ney succeeded after hard fighting, but then launched a costly fruitless assault across the Côa, suffering heavy casualties.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Combat of the Côa (revision 1370611984), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
Nearby battles
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Other battles of the Peninsular War
- Battle of the Monterrey Valley 1809
- First Battle of Porto 1809
- Second Battle of Porto 1809
- Siege of Chaves 1809
- Third siege of Girona (Peninsular War) 1809
- Battle of Baza 1810
- Battle of Bussaco 1810
- Battle of Fuengirola 1810
- Battle of La Bisbal 1810
- Battle of Manresa (1810) 1810
All 124 battles of the Peninsular War →
Browse more: battles in Portugal · Europe · 19th century battles