5) Vitoria
A year on from Badajoz, in the summer of 1814, Wellington had pushed the French into the North-East corner of Spain and was within reach of completing his campaign successfully.
At the Battle of Vitoria, Wellington unfurled a sophisticated plan in which a great coalition army of 53,000 British, 27,000 Portuguese and 19,000 Spaniards confounded French expectations by attacking from different directions.
It proved to be the decisive battle of the war, and the culmination of everything Wellington had learned since landing in Portugal four years earlier.
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