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Peninsular War

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The Peninsular War (1808–1814) (known as War of Independence in Spain, as Invasões Francesas (French Invasions) in Portugal, as Guerre d'Espagne in France, as Guerra del Francès (War of the French) in Catalonia) was a major conflict during the Napoleonic Wars, fought on the Iberian Peninsula by Spanish, Portuguese, and the British forces against the Napoleonic French. It has been described as "a hammer and anvil" campaign – the hammer being the Anglo-Portuguese Army, commanded by Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, with 40,000 to 80,000 men, pounding the French army against the anvil – the Spanish armies and guerrillas and the Portuguese militia.

The nature of the war was largely dictated by the characteristics of the Iberian Peninsula. Large armies could not live off the land, so although the French had almost 300,000 soldiers at their peak they were never able to concentrate them. Small armies could only do so for a limited period in any area, and were unlikely to achieve decisive results.

The war destroyed the social and economic fabric of Portugal and Spain and ushered an era of turbulent Liberalism, with major civil wars until 1850, led by officers trained in the Peninsular War. It also led to the independence of the former Spanish colonies of the Americas and the independence of Brazil from Portugal.

Contents

Progress of the war

In 1806, in Berlin, Napoleon declared the Continental Blockade, forbidding British imports into continental Europe. Of the two remaining neutral countries – Sweden and Portugal – the latter tried in vain to avoid Napoleon's ultimatum. After the treaty of Tilsit in 1807, now being free to the East, Napoleon decided to capture the Iberian ports. In November 1807, he sent an army into Spain under Jean-Andoche Junot tasked with invading Portugal, after the refusal of Prince Regent John VI to join the Continental System. At the same time, General Dupont was sent in the direction of Cadiz and Marshal Soult towards Corunna, as the Spanish Prime Minister Godoy was duped by Napoleon. Two Spanish divisions joined the French troops in a treasonous attempt to occupy their rival, Portugal, after having requested it alliance against the incoming Napoleonic armies, but, later on agreed under the table with France that in return of obedience to Napoleon, it would receive Portugal's territories furthermore, their main ambition, to seize the Portuguese fleet. Portugal's capital, Lisbon was captured on December 1 offering no military opposition. The Portuguese army was positioned to defend the ports and the coast from a British attack. The escape on November 29, of the Portuguese Queen and Prince Regent and 6,000 people (plus 9,000 sailors from the fleet) from the Administration and the Court enabled John VI to continue to rule over its overseas possessions, including Brazil. It was a major defeat to Napoleon, who referred to it in the Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène: C'est ça qui m'a perdu (this was what destroyed me).

On the pretext of reinforcing the Franco-Spanish Army occupying Portugal, Napoleon then began sending troops into key towns in Spain; Pamplona and Barcelona were seized in February 1808. A Spanish coup, instigated by the aristocratic party, forced Charles IV from his throne and replaced him with his son Ferdinand VII. Napoleon removed the royals to Bayonne and forced them both to abdicate on May 5, giving the throne to his brother Joseph. A puppet Spanish council approved the new king. When Joseph tried to enforce his rule in Spain, he provoked a popular uprising. Citizens of Madrid rose up in rebellion against French occupation on May 2, 1808 but the revolt was crushed by Maréchal Murat.

Until then, British military operations on mainland Europe had been marked by bungling half-measures and a series of humiliating defeats (the Walcheren expedition 1809 was the last of these.) The British Army was not large enough to operate on its own against the French, and without strong allies, Britain had been forced to withdraw from Europe. This was the main reason why Portugal refused British aid against Napoleon.

The Spanish army won a stunning victory over the army of Pierre Dupont at the Battle of Bailén (May 19 – May 21), capturing a 15,000-strong French army. On 18 June the Portuguese uprising began. The popular uprisings in Portugal and Spain encouraged the British to commit substantial forces once again and British propaganda was quick to capture the novelty of the situation; for the first time, peoples, and not princes, were in rebellion against the "Great Disturber".

In August, 1808 British forces landed in Portugal under the command of then Major-General Sir Arthur Wellesley. Wellesley defeated forces under the command of Delaborde at Roliça on August 17, while the Portuguese Observation Army of Bernardim contained Loison. On August 21, the Anglo-Portuguese were strongly engaged at the Battle of Vimeiro by French forces under the command of Junot. Wellesley's careful management, strong leadership, and sound tactics repulsed the French and the Allies held their line. Despite his victory, Wellesley was replaced as commander by Harry Burrard, as he was considered too junior an officer to command the newly reinforced expedition to Portugal. A second, Hew Dalrymple was appointed as well, in case Burrard should die. These victories led to the French withdrawing from Portugal under the controversial Convention of Sintra in August, 1808. The British commanders were ordered back to England for the inquiry into Sintra, leaving Sir John Moore to head the 30,000-strong British force.

Battle of Somosierra, one of greatest successes of 19th century Polish cavalry
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Battle of Somosierra, one of greatest successes of 19th century Polish cavalry

The Anglo-Portuguese and Spanish victories provoked Napoleon himself to lead 200,000 men into the Peninsula. The British attacked near Burgos, but were soon forced into a long retreat, chased by the French and punctuated by battles at Sahagun, Benavente and Cacabelos, ending in an evacuation from Corunna in January, 1809. Moore was killed while directing the defence of the town in an action known as the Battle of Corunna. After only a little more than two months in Spain, Napoleon returned the command to his Marshals and returned to France.

In March, Marshal Soult initiated the second invasion of Portugal, through the northern corridor. Initially repulsed in the Minho river by Portuguese militias, he then captured Chaves, Braga and, on March 29, 1809, Porto. Yet, the resistance of Silveira in Amarante and other northern cities isolated Soult in Oporto and he embarked upon a gamble to either become king of North Portugal or retreat from the country.

Meanwhile, Napoleon's victories had broken the Spanish armies, but had also forced the Spanish to begin the guerrilla warfare that would contribute to the downfall of the French in Spain. In Portugal, Miguel Pereira Forjaz, the Secretary of War had rebuilt the Portuguese Army with money and arms received from the British. The Reform of the Army, held up since 1806, was implemented. In a first phase some 20,000 were called to the Regular Army and some 30,000 to Militias. Later on, this number would grow to 50,000 in the Army and another 50,000 in Militias, in addition to Ordenanças and voluntary units.

Wellesley returned to Portugal in April 1809 to command the Anglo-Portuguese forces. He strengthened his British army with the recently formed Portuguese regiments organized by Forjaz and the Governors of the realm and adapted by General Beresford to the British way of campaigning. These new forces defeated Soult at the Battle of Grijo (May 10 – May 11) and then the Battle of Oporto (May 12). All other northern cities were captured by Silveira.

Leaving the Portuguese to take care of their newly-won territory, Wellesley advanced into Spain to join up with the Spanish army of Gregorio de la Cuesta. The combined Allied force had a sterling opportunity to defeat the French corps of Victor at Talevera, but Cuesta's insistence that the Spanish wouldn't fight on a Sunday provided the French the chance to get away. The next day, having lost the best chance for victory they were likely to get, Cuesta sent his army headlong after Victor, losing a clash with the reinforced French army (now led by King Joseph). The Spanish retreated precipitately, necessitating several British battalions advancing to cover their retreat and Wellesley was nearly captured by French cavalry (just one of the many times the French almost got him). That night a patrol of French dragoons spooked the Spanish Infantry: ten thousand opened fire at once, in one of the largest single volleys of the Napoleonic wars; panicked by their own fire, the Spaniards turned and ran, thus playing nearly no part in the battle the next day.

The next day July 27, The French advanced in three columns; repulsed several times throughout the day by British infantry in line and the French withdrew. the Battle of Talavera de la Reina was a costly victory which left the allies precariously exposed and soon the British had to retreat westwards, leaving several thousand British wounded under Cuesta's protection (the Spanish abandoned them shortly afterwards and they were rescued from their allies by the French). Although the Spanish had promised food to the British if they advanced into Spain, not only was no food given, but Spanish troops threatened to pillage any town that sold food to their 'Allies,' and the British were forced to continue their retreat back to Portugal. Wellesley was made viscount for his victory at Talavera, later that year, Spanish armies were badly mauled at the battle of Ocana and the battle of Alba de Tormes.

After his disappointing experience of collaboration with the Spaniards, and fearing a new French attack, Wellesley took the decision to strengthen Portugal's defences. To protect Lisbon, he took a plan from Major Neves Costa and ordered the construction of a strong line of 162 forts along key roads and entrenchements and earthworks, the Lines of Torres Vedras.

The French reinvaded Portugal in July 1810 with an army of around 60,000 led by Marshal Masséna. The first significant clash was at the Battle of Coa. Later on, Masséna took "the worst route in Portugal". At the Battle of Buçaco on September 27, he suffered a tactical defeat in a careless attack on a strong position, but he soon forced the Allies to retreat to the Lines. The fortifications were so impressive that after a small attack at Sobral on October 14 the conflict fell into stalemate. As Charles Oman wrote, "On that misty October 14th morning, at Sobral, the Napoleonic tide attained its highest watermark, then it ebbed." The Portuguese population had subjected the area in front of the lines to a scorched earth policy. The French were eventually forced to withdraw due to a lack of supplies and disease.

The Allies were reinforced by the arrival of fresh British troops in early 1811 and began an offensive. A French force was beaten at Barrosa on March 5 as part of an unsuccessful manoeuvre to break up the siege of Cadiz, and Masséna was forced to withdraw from Portugal after a stalemate at the Battle of Fuentes de Onoro (May 3 - May 5). Masséna had lost 25,000 men in the fighting in Portugal and he was replaced by Auguste Marmont. Soult came from the South to threaten Badajoz, his force was intercepted by an Anglo-Portuguese and Spanish army led by the Marshal William Beresford at the Battle of Albuera on May 16; after a bloody battle the French were forced to retreat.

The war then fell into a temporary lull, the numerically superior French being unable to find an advantage and being under increasing pressure from Spanish guerilla activity. The French had upwards of 350,000 soldiers in L'Armée de l'Espagne, but the vast majority, over 200,000, were deployed to protect the French lines of supply, rather than as substantial fighting units. The Spaniards managed to draft the 1812 liberal Constitution of Cadiz.

Wellesley renewed the Allied advance into Spain just after New Year in 1812, besieging and capturing the fortified towns of Ciudad Rodrigo on January 19 and Badajoz, after a costly assault, on April 6. Both towns were pillaged by the troops. The Allied army took Salamanca on June 17, as Marmont approached. The two forces finally met on July 22, and the Battle of Salamanca was a damaging defeat to the French. Marshal Beresford was severely wounded. As the French regrouped, the Anglo-Portuguese entered Madrid on August 6, and advanced onwards towards Burgos before retreating all the way back to Portugal.

The French hopes of recovery were stricken by Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812. He had taken 30,000 soldiers from the hard-pressed Armée de l'Espagne, and, starved of reinforcements and replacements, the French position became increasingly unsustainable as the Allies renewed the offensive in May. 1813.

In a strategic move, Wellesley planned to move his supply base from Lisbon to Santander.

A Santander monument to Pedro Velarde y Santillán.
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A Santander monument to Pedro Velarde y Santillán.

The Anglo-Portuguese forces swept northwards in late May and seized Burgos; then, they outflanked the French army, forcing Joseph Bonaparte into the vally of the river Zadorra. At the Battle of Vitoria, June 21, the 65,000 men of Joseph were routed by 53,000 British, 27,000 Portuguese and 19,000 Spaniards. Wellesley pursued and dislodged the French from San Sebastian, which was sacked and burnt.

The Allies chased the retreating French, reaching the Pyrenees in early July. Soult was given command of the French forces and began a counter-offensive, dealing the Allied generals two sharp defeats at the Battle of Maya and the Battle of Roncesvalles. Yet, he was severely repulsed by the Anglo-Portuguese, lost momentum, and finally fled after the Allied victory at the Battle of Sorauren (July 28 and July 30).

This week of campaigning, called the Battle of Pyrenees is perhaps Wellington's finest. The adversaries' numbers were balanced, he was fighting very far from his supply line, the French were defending their territory and, yet, he won by a mixture of manoeuvre, shock, and fire, seldom equalled in the war. It was mountain warfare and at this moment Wellington qualified the Portuguese Army as "The fighting cocks of the (allied) Army".

On October 7, after Wellington received news of the reopening of hostilities in Germany, the Allies finally crossed into France, fording the Bidasoa river.

The Peninsular war went on through the Allied victories of Vera pass, Battle of Nivelle, and the Battle of Nive near Bayonne (December 10 – December 14 1813), the Battle of Orthez (February 27 1814) and the Battle of Toulouse (April 10). This last one was after Napoleon's abdication.

The guerrilla war

During the war the British gave aid to Portuguese Militia Levies and Spanish guerrillas, who tied down thousands of French troops. The British gave this aid because it cost them much less than it would have to equip British soldiers to face the French troops in conventional warfare. This was one of the most successful partisan wars in history and is the origin of the word guerrilla in the English language (from Spanish Guerra de guerrillas or War of little wars). However, this guerrilla warfare was costly to both sides. Not only did the 'patriotic' Spaniards terrify the French, they also petrified the people with a combination of forced conscription and raiding towns for loot. Many of the partisans were, in fact, either fleeing the law or trying to get rich, although later in the war, the authorities tried to make the guerrillas into a military operation, and many of them formed regular army units, like Espoz y Mina "Cazadores de Navarra", and many others. 
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Consequences in Portugal

The Peninsular War signified the traumatic entry of Portugal into contemporary age. The transference of the Court to Rio de Janeiro initiated the process of Brazil's state-building which, in due time became independent. The skilful evacuation by the Portuguese Fleet of more than 15,000 people from the Court, Administration, and Army was a bonus for Brazil and a blessing in disguise for Portugal, as it liberated the energies of the country. The Governors of Portugal nominated by the absent king had a scant impact on account of successive French invasions and British occupation.

The role of the War Minister Miguel Pereira Forjaz was unique. Wellington held him as "the only statesman in the Peninsula". With the Portuguese Staff, he managed to build a regular army of 55,000 men and a further 50,000 as national guard milicias and a variable number of home guard ordenanças, perhaps totalling more than 100,000. In a letter to Baron Stein, the Russia Court Minister, 1812, Forjaz recommended a "scorched earth" policy and to trade time for space as the only way to defeat a Napoleonic Invasion. Alexander I, Tsar of Russia ordered his Generals to use Wellington's Portuguese strategy and avoid battles to starve Napoleon's Grande Armée.

The impact a nation at arms had on Portugal was the equivalent of the French Revolution, as a new class, tried, disciplined, and experienced by war against the French Empire was to assert Portuguese independence. Marshall Beresford was retained after 1814 as the commander of Portugal's Army (and some 160 officers), a sort of proconsul as the king remained in Brazil. The whole of Portuguese politics hinged on the project of a Luso-Brazilian United Kingdom, the African colonies supplying slaves, Brazil manufactures and Portugal the trade. By 1820, all this became untenable. The Portuguese Peninsular war officers expelled the British officers and began the liberal revolution at Porto August, 24. The building of liberal institutions was consolidated only after a Civil War in 1832-34.

Consequences in Spain

The new King Joseph was cheered initially by Spanish afrancesados ("Frenchified"), who believed that collaboration with France would bring modernization and liberty. An example was the abolition of the Spanish Inquisition. However, priesthood and patriots began an agitation among the populace, which became widespread after the French army's first examples of repression (Madrid, 1808) were presented, as fact, to unite and enrage the people against the invaders. The remaining ones were exiled to France following the departure of French troops. The painter Francisco de Goya was one of these afrancesados, and after the war he had to exile himself to France to avoid being prosecuted and perhaps lynched.

On the pro-independence side, both traditionalists and liberals were found. After the war, they would clash in the Carlist Wars, as the new king Ferdinand VII "the Desired one" (later "the Traitor king"), revoked all the social advances made by the independent Cortes, which were summoned in Cádiz acting on his behalf to coordinate the provincial Juntas and resist the French. He restored absolute monarchy, prosecuted and put to death every one suspected of liberalism, and, as his last misdeed, altered the laws of royal succession in favour of his daughter Isabella II, thus starting a century of civil wars against the supporters of the former legal heir to the throne.

The liberal Cortes had approved the first Spanish Constitution on 19 March 1812, which was later nullified by the king.

In Spanish America, the Spanish and Criollo officials formed Juntas which swore allegiance to King Ferdinand. This experience of self-government led the later Liberators to promote the independence of the Spanish-American colonies.

The French troops seized many of the extensive properties of the Catholic Church. Churches and convents were used as stables and barracks, and artworks were sent to France, which meant that the Spanish cultural heritage was greatly impoverished. In addition, the Allied armies also plundered Spanish towns and countryside. The effect of the war was to severely impoverish Spain's economy, which would flounder during the rest of the century.

Major battles and sieges

Personalities

Spanish

Statesmen

Soldiers and generals

Guerilla leaders and revolutionaries

Other

French

British

Portuguese

Role of intelligence

Intelligence played a large part in the successful prosecution of the war by the British after 1810. Spanish and Portuguese guerrillas were asked to capture messages from French couriers. From 1811 onwards, these dispatches were often either partially or wholly enciphered. George Scovell of Wellington's General Staff was given the job of deciphering them. At first the ciphers used were fairly simple and he received help from other members of the General Staff. However beginning in 1812, a much stronger cipher originally devised for diplomatic messages, came into use and Scovell was left to work on this himself. He steadily broke it, with the result that knowledge of French troop movements and deployments was used to great effect in most of the engagements described above. The French never realised that the code had been broken and continued to use it until their code tables were captured at the battle of Vitoria.

Media influence

Prosper Mérimée's Carmen, on which Bizet's opera Carmen was based, is set during the war.

Curro Jiménez was a very successful Spanish TV series, about a generous bandit fighting against the French in Sierra Morena.

The British Sharpe novels by Bernard Cornwell a series of novels following the adventures of a British Army officer, set in part during the Peninsular War. Later made into a sereis of television movies Sharpe (TV Series), featuring actor Sean Bean as Sharpe.

See also

Further reading

The Sharpe's series by Bernard Cornwell

External links

The British Army in Portugal and Spain: Its Order-of-Battle (June 1808 - April 1809)]

 

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