Somosierra 1808 - Mýtus a realita – Elbl Pavel B. (2025)

Among those who study the history of the Napoleonic Wars more closely, we would find it difficult to locate anyone who has not heard of the Battle of Somosierra and the events that took place on November 30, 1808, almost at the gates of the Spanish capital, Madrid. Not only for enthusiasts of the era of French Emperor Napoleon I and his Grande Armée, but especially for the traditions of Polish cavalry and the army, Somosierra is one of the key points. There was no ostentatious cavalry clash here like that of the imperial and tsarist guards at the Battle of Austerlitz on December 2, 1805. It was not a massive attack by French cavalry as at Jílové on February 8, 1807. The cavalry did not repeatedly charge into daring, strenuous, and bloody raids like the French cuirassiers did on May 21-22, 1809, at Essling and on July 5-6 of the same year at Wagram. Nor was it the even bloodier and exhausting struggle reminiscent of the capture of the Great Redoubt by Saxon cuirassiers at Borodino on September 7, 1812, and finally, it was not the impressive, desperate, and fruitless assault of the French cavalry, which lacked infantry support in the fateful Battle of Waterloo on June 18, 1815. Nevertheless, without a doubt, the most courageous heroic cavalry charge of the entire period of the Great Wars took place here...