Battle of Maida

Battle of Maida
Part of the French invasion of Naples
Battle of Maida, Philip James de Loutherbourg
Date 4 July 1806 Location San Pietro di Maida, Italy 38°51′00″N 16°22′00″E / 38.8500°N 16.3667°E / 38.8500; 16.3667 Result Anglo-Sicilian victory
Belligerents
United Kingdom Royal Corsicans Royal Sicilians  Sicily	First French Empire 2 Polish battalions 1 Swiss battalion
Commanders and leaders
John Stuart Sidney Smith Fra Diavolo	Jean Reynier
Strength
5,236	6,440
Casualties and losses
45 killed 282 wounded	490 killed 870 wounded 722 captured

The Battle of Maida, fought on 4 July 1806 was a battle between the British expeditionary force and a French force outside the town of Maida in Calabria, Italy during the Napoleonic Wars. John Stuart led 5,236 Anglo-Sicilian troops to victory over about 5,400 Franco-Italian-Polish troops under the command of French general Jean Reynier, inflicting significant losses while incurring relatively few casualties. Maida is located in the toe of Italy, about 30 kilometres (19 mi) west of Catanzaro.

In early 1806, the French invaded and overran the Kingdom of Naples, forcing King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies and his government to flee to Sicily. The Calabrians revolted against their new conquerors and Stuart's expeditionary force tried to exploit the unrest by raiding the coast. While ashore, the British encountered Reynier's division and the two sides engaged in battle. The 19th-century historians presented the action as a typical fight between French columns and British lines. This view of the battle has been called into doubt by at least one modern historian who argued that the French deployed into lines. Nobody questions the result which was a one-sided British victory.

After the battle, Stuart captured some isolated garrisons in Calabria and was transported back to Sicily by the Royal Navy. Two weeks after the battle, the city of Gaeta fell to the French after a long siege. While Stuart succeeded in preventing a French invasion of Sicily and sustained the revolt in Calabria, he missed an opportunity to assist the defenders of Gaeta.