Читать книгу Battlefields - Michael Rayner - Страница 25

With the key border fortresses of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz secure by 1812, General Lord Arthur Wellesley, Viscount Wellington, planned a series of strategic moves enabling him to invade Spain and pit his Anglo-Portuguese army against Marshal Auguste Marmont’s Army of Portugal. Marmont arrived in the Peninsula with the reputation of being a first-class field general, adept in aggressive movement and decisive in battle, and by midsummer there had been a campaign of manoeuvre as each commander sought to gain an advantage to attack the other, until finally, on 22 July, Wellington saw his chance near the city of Salamanca.