France won the Battle of Somosierra in November 1808, when Napoleon's Polish light cavalry charged straight up a defended mountain pass and rode down the Spanish guns blocking the road to Madrid. In a series of furious charges the Poles broke the defence and opened the road to the capital, in one of the most celebrated feats of Polish arms.
In November 1808, Napoleon's advance on Madrid was blocked at the mountain pass of Somosierra, where Spanish guns and infantry held a strong position above the road. Impatient at the delay, Napoleon ordered his Polish light cavalry to charge straight up the pass2 at the batteries. In a series of furious charges the Polish light horse rode down the guns and broke the defence, opening the road to the Spanish capital. The charge became one of the most celebrated feats of Polish arms.
The road to Madrid
In the autumn of 1808 Napoleon marched on Madrid to restore his brother to the Spanish throne. The direct road ran through the Somosierra pass in the mountains north of the city, where a Spanish force under Benito de San Juan had massed artillery and infantry3 to block the way.
Napoleon's order
Rather than grind up the pass with infantry, the impatient emperor ordered the Polish chevau-legers of his Imperial Guard to take the guns by a direct charge up the narrow, winding road. A single squadron, led by officers including Jan Kozietulski4, was sent up first into the fire.
The charge up the pass
Under heavy fire from the batteries and the slopes, the Polish horsemen galloped up the road and took the Spanish gun positions in succession, one after another, at fearful cost to themselves. The charge, together with French infantry pressing up the slopes on either side, broke the defenders' nerve, and the Spanish position collapsed.
The road opens
The charge shattered the defence of the pass and opened the road to Madrid, which fell to Napoleon within days3. Costly but spectacular, Somosierra passed into legend as a supreme example of Polish courage and became a favourite subject of Polish painters and poets.
The men of the Polish light horse
The charge was made by the Polish Light Cavalry Regiment of Napoleon's Imperial Guard, raised only a year earlier5. The squadron sent up the pass numbered about 125 troopers1, and in a few minutes roughly half of them were killed or wounded1. Its commander, Jan Kozietulski, lost his horse in the first rush; Lieutenant Andrzej Niegolewski reached the last battery6 and was found among the guns with numerous wounds, yet survived. Napoleon praised the Poles before the army, and the regiment's fame from Somosierra followed it through the rest of the Napoleonic Wars.