The two Battles of the Bruch were engagements fought successively between a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 column and a body of Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 volunteers and mercenaries on June 4, 1808 in the Peninsular War

Peninsular War

The Peninsular War was a war between France and the allied powers of Spain, the United Kingdom, and Portugal for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars. The war began when French and Spanish armies crossed Spain and invaded Portugal in 1807. Then, in 1808, France turned on its...

.

The French detachment under General Schwartz emerged from Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

 on June 4, advancing in the direction of Zaragoza

Zaragoza

Zaragoza , also called Saragossa in English, is the capital city of the Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain...

–Lleida

Lleida

Lleida is a city in the west of Catalonia, Spain. It is the capital city of the province of Lleida, as well as the largest city in the province and it had 137,387 inhabitants , including the contiguous municipalities of Raimat and Sucs. The metro area has about 250,000 inhabitants...

. A rainstorm that day slowed their march considerably; the delay gave time for local Spanish forces, composed of militia from the neighboring villages, Catalan

Catalan people

The Catalans or Catalonians are the people from, or with origins in, Catalonia that form a historical nationality in Spain. The inhabitants of the adjacent portion of southern France are sometimes included in this definition...

 volunteers (somatén), and Swiss and Walloon

Walloons

Walloons are a French-speaking people who live in Belgium, principally in Wallonia. Walloons are a distinctive community within Belgium, important historical and anthropological criteria bind Walloons to the French people. More generally, the term also refers to the inhabitants of the Walloon...

 soldiers from the Barcelona garrison, to mobilize for action. The Spaniards were led by General Franch and deployed along Bruch Pass.

The resulting stand was a success, and the French under General Schwartz were turned back to Barcelona with the loss of 300 dead and one gun

Artillery

Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...

 captured. The partisans made off with an Imperial eagle

Imperial Eagle

An Imperial Eagle is a heraldic eagle used by an empire, notably:*the military standard of the Roman Empire, see Aquila .*the Byzantine imperial eagle*the German Reichsadler...

, adding to the French humiliation.

A second French sortie on June 14 succeeded only in putting to the torch several buildings in El Bruc.