The Battle of Araure was a battle fought during the short-lived

Second Republic of Venezuela The Second Republic of Venezuela ( es, Segunda República de Venezuela) is the name used to refer to the reestablished Venezuelan Republic declared by Simón Bolívar on 7 August 1813. This declaration followed the defeat of Domingo Monteverde ...

on December 5, 1813, in the city of

Araure Araure () is a town in the Venezuelan state of Portuguesa. This town is the shire town of the Araure Municipality and, according to the 2001 Venezuelan census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating i ...

Portuguesa State ) , anthem = ''Portuguesa State Anthem, Himno del Estado Portuguesa'' , image_map = Portuguesa in Venezuela.svg , map_alt = , map_caption = Location within Venezuela , pushpin_map ...

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

Simon Bolivar Simon may refer to: People * Simon (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name Simon * Simon (surname), including a list of people with the surname Simon * Eugène Simon, French naturalist and the genu ...

's force defeated General

Domingo de Monteverde Juan Domingo de Monteverde y Rivas (born Juan Domingo de Monteverde; 2 April 1773 15 September 1832), commonly known as Domingo de Monteverde, was a Spanish soldier, governor and Captain General of Venezuela from June 1812 to 8 August 1813. Mont ...

to whom he had been forced to surrender the year before in July at the Siege of Puerto Cabello.

The battle

The actual battle began early in the morning of December 5 and lasted for around six hours. It was clear that the

royalist A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of governm ...

troops were numerically superior to the Venezuelan patriots. The royalists had a total of 3,500 to 5,000 (depending upon the source) soldiers under the command of José Ceballos while the patriots had an unknown number of troops under Bolívar's command. Despite the superiority of the royalists, the patriots would go on to win the battle, and Bolivar would later tell his troops:

Your valor has earned yesterday a name for your corps, and through the midst of the fighting, when I saw you succeed, I named you the Victorious Battalion of Araure. You removed the enemy's flags in the moment of your victory; you have earned the famous, invincible call of Numantia.

References

Bolivar's words after the Battle (''in Spanish'') :es:Batalla de Araure
Commanders and Event Dat

br /> Size of the Spanish Force (1

br /> Size of the Venezuelan and Spanish Force (2

{{DEFAULTSORT:Battle Of Araure Battles of the Venezuelan War of Independence, Araure Araure 1813 1813 in Venezuela December 1813 events