26 July 1813 – Northern Spain – End of Santander Campaign

 

Battles fought during campaign phase

Soult won five of the six battles fought
Wellington won the remaining one

Despite winning five of the six battles fought, Soult failed to take the city of Santander. At the end of the first day he had taken two of the three wargame objectives, and thus won the battle. But he had run out of supplies and was forced to retreat and thus failed to take the city. As a result Wellington won the campaign

The campaign started on 4 May and ended on 27 June 2024

We had to change the rules after a run of games where the defender could slowly retreat and avoid battle within the allowed 12 game moves. The new rules would have three game objectives in the three middle squares of the table. The winner would be the one who held at least two at the end of the game. It worked well, but resulted in a strange result in this campaign. The French won five of the six games. But due to guerrilla activity they were very low on supplies when they fought the last battle. They took two of the three objectives, but the British firmly held the third, which controlled the approach to Santander. To take the campaign objective, the French would have to fight a second day of battle. But because the northern army group were out of supply, they would have to retreat to resupply. This left t the other two army groups isolated and they also had to withdraw to the river Ebro.

Madrid Region

At the end of the campaign the British still held Santander
The French had to retreat towards San Sebastian to resupply

Wellington ordered his army to hold Santander
Soult ordered his army to hold the line of the river Ebro