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In the Photos of the Readers of La Vanguardia we can see in detail the commemorative monument of the Battle of Talamanca, in Bages, which was the last great victory of the Catalan army against the Castilian and French forces of Philip V, on the 13th and 14th. August 1714.
The Bourbon troops withdrew, but the Marquis of Poal’s offensive to help the besieged city of Barcelona was later halted.
The monument that remembers that battle was created with a pedagogical objective, in addition to being another tourist attraction in this town.
Talamanca, together with other towns in the mountains of Central Catalonia, such as Mura, was in 1714 a point of geostrategic importance, since it dominated the passage of the Coll d’Estenalles, which connected the Valais plain with inner Catalonia.
The Catalan troops were made up of about 3,000 men, mostly riflemen and cavalry. There was also a small contingent of Hungarian hussars who had voluntarily stayed to fight for Catalonia after the withdrawal of the Austrian troops in 1713. And also a small unit of soldiers from the castle of Cardona, where the Marquis of Poal had installed his headquarters. .
The Bourbons were in the Pla de Mussarra area, northeast of Talamanca, where they installed their command post. They numbered more than 2,000 men, almost half of them cavalry.
