Talk:Battle of Montijo

portuguese victory?

In Spain, I've studied this battle as a spanish victory. As you can see, portuguese forces didn't get anything, but a non-catastrophic defeat.--PayoMalayo 17:01, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

SPANISH victory?

Portugueses did won this battle, as "Matias de Albuquerque" was ranked "conde de Alegrete"(Count of Alegrete). I learned that the Portuguese forces, with great loses, did victoried push back the spanish forces trow the guadiana river

"Evidences", See: http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matias_de_Albuquerque and http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batalha_do_Montijo —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Struta (talk • contribs) 14:13, 9 April 2007 (UTC).

The Portuguese did indeed win this battle, it was the first major victory against the Spanish in the War of Restoration. I live in the United States, and ever source I've read says that Portugal won. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Monikwee (talk • contribs) 22:57, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

== Any victory? ==

If you look at Casualties and losses: 4,000 dead or wounded Port. ~900 dead or wounded Spain. But more important: The portuguese NOT pushed back the spanish forces trow the guadiana river; the portuguese had invaded Spain, and they were pused back...

Portugal always was allied with U.K., so is easy to convince with his point of view... It is not the first time to hide or to change the result of an action. (You can have a look at largest naval defeat in British history, though it is now largely forgotten by the British: Battle of Cartagena de Indias)

Ranking someone is not an evidence. It is not the first time it happen after a big defeat.

Anyway, of course this action was important to keep Portugal independence, BUT afirm portugal victory...

--AQUIMISMO (talk) 16:57, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Outcome

Fisrt of all, I would like to say I'm portuguese. If no one can reach an agreement, I'll write: "Spanish Strategic Victory; Military Stalemate". Since the Spanish managed to hold their lines, stopping the Portuguese from capturing Badajoz, it is then considered a Strategic Victory. YET, they didn't forced the Portuguese to retreat. So, neither side won the battle. It was a stalemate.

Now, refering to what AQUIMISMO says here, casualties don't tell who won or who lost. A battle can be won, even if the victor's casualties are higher than the defeated (See Phyrric victory). Do you want to talk about what the History forgot? History forgot that the Spanish wanted to have the southern part of Portugal, while the French took the Northern part of it. Yeah, that's right. The Spanish were not victims. Actually, the war was just perfect. They could conquer Portugal as they always wanted, with the help of the French. Oh, and by the way, "Guerrilla" isn't a spanish word. The true word comes from the Portuguese, who were the first to use guerrilla warfare against the spanish, because they didn't had enough military manpower to face them in an open field. The real word is "Guerrinha" (Little war, in portuguese). The Spanish heard of it, but since they could't pronounce the two "r's", they said "guerrilla".

Want to know another thing that history forgot? She forgot that, after helping us in the Peninsular War, the British wanted to take the northern part of Portugal. Portuguese, as obvious, refused, and the British replied with military strenght. The outcome? Portuguese crushing victory. Of course it wasn't diplomatically healthy to the Brits for the world to know that a country weakened by a recent war, defeated the military that clamed to be "the best in the world". That's why the relations between Portugal and Britain became so turbulent. Oh, and PayoMalayo, what you learn in Spain... Dear God. That's why some Spanish come saying to everyone, with all their arrogance, that they the Battle of Aljubarrota was just a "skirmish". Trust me , you won't want to know the sort of crap they teach you...

And, by the way, the Portuguese were at war with the Dutch by the time this battle hapenned. Therefore, it is not possible that the Dutch had helped the Portuguese in this battle. I'm changing that too. I'm changing the outcome. Prtgl93--Prtgl93 (talk) 00:59, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Please enlighten us on your information of the supposed 'crushing Portuguese victory' over the British just after the Peninsular war? I'm all ears - list of battles Commanders etc etc. And the turbulent relations? Portuguese were annoyed that William Beresford practically governed Portugal... so what. The British helped in the Liberal wars fighting the Miguelites, Charles Napier helping to win the victory at the Battle of Cape St . Vincent. Although this is really irrelevant to the article itself, and I agree with your changes. Bruich (talk) 00:29, 13 September 2010 (GMT)

I can't really "enlighten" you with that information. All I can say is that the primary objective of the "Sinédrio" was to leave Portugal for the Portuguese, not on the hands of a country that signed an alliance with Portugal, and then dishonored the Treaty of Windsor during the Pink Map episode. But this is just an extra, and has nothing to do with the article. I'll search, and I'll search hard. Once I find the evidences, I'll show you all I can.

About the article, I'm really confused and in need of help. The french, portuguese, and even the spanish wikipedia say that it was a portuguese victory. The majority of the sources I "googled" and even my encyclopedias say that it was a portuguese victory. Unless someone finds some reliable and convincing information that the spanish actually won the battle, I'm changing the outcome again. Prtgl93--Prtgl93 (talk) 14:02, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

About the result of the battle, the references used, and the POV...

It's clear that the majority of the anglo-saxon sources attribute the victory to the Portuguese. It seems to me that any Spanish account of the battle had been studied by these historians, as many have done with such important battles as Rocroi. The 15,000 casualties claimed in the Gazette had been repeated ad nauseam dozens of times. The Spanish official Aviso of the Battle of Montijo, obviously, has not received the same treatment. And this article, of course, discard the sources that say the opposite of what the main editor means. But what is the problem of trying to hush up the Spanish version?... The answer is that Spanish relations are very full and leave no doubt about who won the battle. The Reencuentro del Montijo en Extremadura confirms that:

• The Spanish army buried 3,070 Portuguese corpses after the battle.
• The Spanish army took 800 prisoners including the Auditor General Pedro Avelar de Sotomayor, the Teniente Maese de Campo General Bernaldin de Segueira, and Captains Jorge Mello, Dom Francisco de Almeda, Manuel de Saldaña, Dom Manuel Enriquez, Esteban de Britto Mascareñas, Dom Manuel de Meneses, Francisco Correa, Fernando Fereira, as well as the Dutch Maese de Campo Octavio Pique and the French Captain Count of Fiesco.
• The Spanish army harassed the retreating Portuguese to the frontier.
• The Spanish army lost 433 men killed: Maese de Campo José del Pulgar, three cavalry Captains vivos, three cavalry reformados, two Sargentos mayores reformados, 13 infantry Capitanes vivos, 10 infantry Captains, 8 alféreces and a sargento vivos, 16 alféreces and sargentos reformados, 276 soldiers from the Tercios, and 100 cavalrymen.
• The Spanish army took from the Portuguese many baggage including mules and oxen, gunpowder, bullets, bombs and grenades, a cannon adjustment, 4,000 weapons, Matias de Albuquerque's carriage, many waggons, and a catapult!

Draw your own conclusions. Or give me a more credible relation. ElBufon (talk) 07:08, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, the most famous Portuguese report of the battle is also very full and descriptive, and doesn't have any doubts about the final outcome. The contemporary account of Ericeira describes the following:

• More than 3,000 Spanish were killed in the battle. These included, 4 Mestres de Campo, 9 Cavalry Captains, 45 Infantry Captains among many other officers.
• The Portuguese army lost about 900 hundred men, killed and captured. The men killed included, 2 Mestres de Campo: D.Nuno Mascarenhas and Aires de Saldanha, Cavalry Captain: João de Saldanha da Gama, Infantry Captain: Bartolomeu de Saldanha, Dutch Cavalry Captain: Rodrigo Starch, 2 Sergeants: Jerónimo Ferrete and Belchior do Crato, 8 Infantry Captains and other officers. The captured included, Mestre de Campo: Eustáquio Pique, Cavalry Captains: Fernão Pereira, Francisco Fiesco Genovez, Manuel de Saldanha, Jorge de Mello, Francisco de Almada and Diogo de Menezes, Infantry Captains: Nuno da Cunha and Francisco Correia da Silva.
• There is no mention of harassment by the Spanish army.
• There is mention of more than 4,500 weapons taken from the Spanish killed and from those who escaped the battle. XPTO (talk) 14:31, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

An extensive relation, and extremely different, undoubtedly. About the number of Spanish officers killed, Ericeira seems to have promoted all the dead alféreces to captains and killed three maeses de campo. The names of the dead Spanish captains are mentioned in the Reencuentro del Montijo en Extremadura, an were not 45. About the harassment, the account that I cite says that Torrecuso, in command of five cavalry units, harassed the Portuguese on their retreat to Campomaior, forcing them to abandon 30 waggons. Also is said that Torrecuso and Molinguen advanced to Talavera la Real after the battle, not fleeing across the Guadiana. ElBufon (talk) 16:06, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

So, you're saying that, according to what that spanish document says, the Spanish won the battle... Oh, is that so? Well, I would be astonished if a spanish document said that the Portuguese won a battle whose victory is claimed by both sides. And you justify the spanish victory with a spanish document and by calling anglo-saxon sources a lie? I'm sorry, but that's not enough. As far as I know, I googled a thousand times and only spanish sites said that it was a spanish victory. I've got encyclopedias that say the portuguese won it and even the spanish article about this battle, right here in Wikipedia, says the same.

I'm sure that, through my name, you found out that I'm portuguese. But this is not the reason why I'm arguing on this article. I think that, by using all the information I found, it was a Spanish Strategic Victory and a Military Stalemate, since the Spanish managed to hold their lines against the advancing portuguese army, but still, they didn't forced their retreat. It is as fair as it gets. What we can't have in the "outcome" section is a battle where there are two victors. Unless you want to write "Stalemate". --Prtgl93 (talk) 16:24, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Outcome

Changed the outcome to "Indecisive: Both sides claim victory" since a wide number of references (that I kept to support the outcome change) tell different tales. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Prtgl93 (talk • contribs) 16:15, 8 January 2011 (UTC)