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Pierre Dupont, played into the hands of the
Spaniards by himself dividing his forces.
One brigade, after a clash with the Span-
iards near the town of Bailén on July 16,
withdrew. The remaining body, under
Dupont in person, arrived at Bailén, found
it abandoned, and set out to link up with
Dupont's subordinate, Jean Vedel. On July
19, Castaños's principal lieutenant, the
Swiss-born general Theodor von Reding,
blocked the advance of Dupont with a large
and well-positioned mixture of infantry
and artillery, which beat back a succession
of French attacks to break through the
Spanish lines. Growing increasingly des-
perate, Dupont promised his exhausted
and near-mutinous soldiers that Vedel
would soon join them and then launched
an all-out attack that was repelled with
even greater losses. In despair Dupont
opened negotiations for surrender, which
occurred on July 23, and the veteran impe-
rial troops experienced the humiliation of
laying down their arms at the feet of an
army whom they had expected to sweep
away with scarcely any effort. Castaños's
men had suffered some 500 casualties all
told, while the French had been mowed
down by the thousands in their repeated
attempts to smash their way through the
implacable royal army.
The victory at Bailén amazed and thrilled
all the nations of Europe, who had come to
accept Napoléon as invincible. His brother
Joseph fled from Madrid, and for a time it
appeared that the French would completely
evacuate Spain. Although the emperor
would cross the Pyrenees with a new army
to reimpose his tyranny for another five
years, the Battle of Bailén had rallied Span-
iards of all classes and regions to oppose
the invaders, and the memory of Bailén
sustained them throughout what came to
be known in Spain as its war of indepen-
dence (P
ENINSULAR
W
AR
). Castaños was
created duke of Bailén, held many political
offices during his long life, and remains a
national hero.
Balboa, Vasco Núñez de
(1475-1519)
Spanish explorer
Part of the first wave of conquistadores that
followed the “discoveries” of C
HRISTOPHER
C
OLUMBUS
, Balboa arrived in the New
World in 1501, while Columbus was still
active. He took part in several unproduc-
tive ventures to the coast of what is now
V
ENEZUELA
and C
OLOMBIA
, then took up
farming in H
ISPANIOLA
. By 1510 he had
accomplished little except the accumula-
tion of debts, which he attempted to evade
by stowing away on board a ship carrying
the new governor to the outpost of Darien
(the Isthmus of Panama). Governor Martín
Fernández de Enciso, on finding Balboa, at
first threatened to throw him overboard
but then permitted him to complete the
voyage. This proved a mistake, for Balboa
soon organized a mutiny among the set-
tlers, supplanted Enciso, and sent him back
to Hispaniola.
During the next few years Balboa dis-
played his latent genius for organization
and leadership by fending off various rivals
and establishing effective relationships
with the local indigenous population. The
latter inspired him to cross the isthmus,
and Balboa thus became the first European
to gaze upon the Pacific Ocean (1513).
Calling this body of water the South Sea,
he claimed it and all the lands that touched
upon it for the Spanish Crown. Balboa's
report of his discovery gained him initial
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