By the spring of 1813, Napoleon's position in Spain was deteriorating. His disastrous invasion of Russia had forced the recall of thousands of soldiers to rebuild the Grande Armee, leaving King Joseph Bonaparte and Marshal Jean-Baptiste Jourdan with a diminished force of 68,000 to hold the peninsula. Wellington, who had spent the winter reorganizing after his failed siege of Burgos, now commanded 121,000 troops: 53,749 British, 39,608 Spanish, and 27,569 Portuguese. In May he launched a bold flanking march from northern Portugal across the mountains, sending Sir Thomas Graham with the bulk of the army over terrain the French considered impassable. Wellington himself commanded a smaller central force as a feint, drawing French attention while the real blow swung wide around their right flank.

The battlefield centered on the Zadorra River, which runs east to west before looping into a sharp hairpin bend. The French had deployed in three defensive lines south of the river, their positions anchored by the Heights of La Puebla to the south and Monte Arrato to the northwest. Vitoria lay two miles to the east, its streets clogged with an enormous wagon train of accumulated plunder. Jourdan, who had been ill with fever the day before, had issued few orders. Wellington attacked from four directions simultaneously. Hill's 20,000-man column drove up the Burgos road toward the heights. Wellington's center crossed the Zadorra at the hairpin bend. Dalhousie's column cut across Monte Arrato. And Graham's 20,000-man column swung around to the north to cut the road to France.

The fighting was fierce and costly. On the Heights of La Puebla, Colonel Henry Cadogan was killed leading his brigade against French counterattacks. Picton's 3rd Division, crossing the river under withering artillery fire of 40 to 50 cannon, lost 1,800 men -- more than a third of all Allied casualties in the entire battle. But the French command structure was fractured. Jourdan, fixated on his left flank, refused to send reinforcements when his right began to crumble. Gazan refused to cooperate with d'Erlon. When Graham's column appeared on the Bilbao road and Longa's Spanish troops cut the road to Bayonne, the French position became untenable. The army attempted a stand at the village of Arinez, but four Allied divisions swept the position. French morale collapsed. Artillerists abandoned their guns and fled on the trace horses.

The French left behind 151 cannon, 2,800 prisoners, and a fortune in looted treasure. Allied casualties totaled about 5,000: 3,675 British, 921 Portuguese, and 562 Spanish. French losses were at least 8,000 killed, wounded, and captured. Tens of thousands more escaped through a narrow valley on the Salvatierra road, covered by the rearguard action of Reille's two divisions. The French losses would have been far worse had Wellington's soldiers not broken ranks to plunder the abandoned wagons. The 18th Hussars earned Wellington's particular fury, and he threatened to send them home in disgrace. They later redeemed themselves in a gallant charge at Croix d'Orade the following April.

By December 1813, Wellington's army had seized San Sebastian and Pamplona and was encamped in France. The Peninsular War was effectively over. The battle's resonance traveled far beyond the battlefield. Ludwig van Beethoven composed his Opus 91, known as "Wellington's Victory" or the "Battle Symphony," to celebrate the engagement. George IV later commissioned the painter George Jones to depict the scene. Bernard Cornwell placed the battle at the climax of his novel Sharpe's Honour. At Vitoria-Gasteiz today, the Armory Museum displays captured Imperial militaria and model recreations of the fighting, and a monument marks the French withdrawal from the valley where an empire's grip on Spain was finally broken.