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Trant's Raid | |||||||
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Part of the Peninsular War | |||||||
![]() Coimbra | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
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Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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Strength | |||||||
4,000 Portuguese militia | Unknown | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
3 killed 26 wounded | 8 killed 4,000 captured |
Trant's Raid was the Portuguese recapture of the city of Coimbra from the French on 6 October 1810 during the Peninsular War. The assault was undertaken by a Portuguese militia led by Colonel Nicholas Trant, an Irish officer in the British Army. [2]
Marshal André Masséna's army had captured Coimbra and established a base there. On 7 October Trant and 4,000 Portuguese militia recaptured the city. French losses were 8 killed and 400 able-bodied soldiers captured. About 3,500 sick and wounded, plus several hundred medical and service personnel also surrendered.[ citation needed ] Trant's losses were only 3 men killed and another 26 men wounded.[ citation needed ]
As the new governor of the city, he remained in possession of the city all winter while the French carried out their futile blockade of the Lines of Torres Vedras [3]
The Peninsular War (1807–1814) was the military conflict fought in the Iberian Peninsula by Spain, Portugal, and the United Kingdom against the invading and occupying forces of the First French Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. In Spain, it is considered to overlap with the Spanish War of Independence.
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