British Army during the Second World War the command of Lieutenant-General Sir Alan Cunningham. Over time the Eighth Army would be commanded by Neil Ritchie, Claude Auchinleck, Bernard Montgomery, Oliver Leese and Richard McCreery. In the early years of the war Eighth Army suffered from poor leadership and repeated reversals of fortune until the Second Battle of El Alamein when it advanced across Libya into Tunisia and joined the First Army in the 18th Army Group. The Eighth Army, under 15th Army Group command, later took part in the Allied invasion of Sicily, the Allied invasion of Italy and the Italian Campaign, where progress was slow and
Battle of El Bodón Battle of El Bodón The Battle of El Bodón was fought on 25 September 1811 by elements of the Anglo-Portuguese army and elements of the French army during the Peninsular War. Soon after the Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro, the French army withdrew from the northern frontier of Portugal, and the Duke of Wellington, with three divisions of the British Army and a corps of cavalry, blockaded Ciudad Rodrigo. In September 1811, Marshal Marmont assembled the army of the north, consisting of 60,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry, in the neighbourhood of Salamanca, and moved on Ciudad Rodrigo, for the purpose