Napoleonic Wars: Peninsular War: Battle of Salamanca: British forces led by Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington) defeat French troops near Salamanca, Spain.

The Peninsular War (1808–1814) was fought in the Iberian Peninsula by Portugal, Spain 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.

The Battle of Salamanca took place on 22 July 1812. An Anglo-Portuguese army under the Earl of Wellington defeated Marshal Auguste Marmont's French forces at Arapiles, south of Salamanca, Spain, during the Peninsular War. A Spanish division was also present but took no part in the battle.

Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington was a British Army officer and statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures in Britain during the early 19th century, twice serving as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He was one of the British commanders who ended the Anglo-Mysore wars by defeating Tipu Sultan in 1799 and among those who ended the Napoleonic Wars in a Coalition victory when the Seventh Coalition defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

Salamanca is a municipality and city in Spain, capital of the province of the same name. Located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is located in the Campo Charro comarca, in the Meseta Norte, in the northwestern quadrant of the Iberian Peninsula. It has a population of 144,436 registered inhabitants. Its stable functional area reaches 203,999 citizens, which makes it the second most populated in the autonomous community, after Valladolid. Salamanca is known for its large number of remarkable Plateresque-style buildings.