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Despite Napoleon's clear advantage in the Peninsular War, the Spanish Army was never completely destroyed. Wrought by poor leadership and insufficient training, Spain's armies persisted in the fight against imperial France. This book gives an overview of Spain's confused position during the Napoleonic Era, caught between the competing interests of Britain and France. The book focuses primarily on the uniforms of the Spanish Army in the period before 1808 and during the war years as the Army of King Joseph, as well as the infantry uniforms of 1814-15. Numerous illustrations and eight color plates vividly depict the uniforms of this often-underestimated force.
A renowned historian captures the French experience of the Peninsular War through soldiers’ unpublished memoirs and eyewitness accounts. While much has been written about the British campaigns of the Peninsular War, surprisingly little has been published in English on their opponents, the French. Now, using previously unseen material from the French army archives in Paris, Paul Dawson tells the story of the early years of the Peninsular War as never before. Eyewitness accounts of the Siege of Zaragoza and the Spanish defeats at Medellin and Ocaña are interspersed with details of campaign life and of struggling through the Galician mountains in pursuit of the British army. Dawson captures the perspectives of ordinary French soldiers and their beliefs about the war they were fighting for their Emperor. Napoleon’s Peninsular War is a vital and unprecedented addition to our understanding of the war in Iberia.
Reproduces an unpublished manuscript showing Spanish uniforms of the early Napoleonic era.
Illustrated with 9 maps and 2 portraits The 1807-14 war in the Iberian Peninsula was one of the most significant and influential campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars. Arising from Napoleon's strategic need to impose his rule over Portugal and Spain, it evolved into a constant drain on his resources. Sir Charles Oman's seven-volume history of the campaign is an unrivalled and essential work. His extensive use and analysis of French, Spanish, Portuguese and British participants' accounts and archival material, together with his own inspection of the battlefields, provides a comprehensive and balanced account of this most important episode in Napoleonic military history. The first part of this classic work provides the background to the war and its origins, and covers the early stages of the conflict. Introducing the subject and many of its main players, this volume recounts the French invasion of Portugal and the forcible deposition of the Spanish royal family, the beginning of Spanish popular resistance, the arrival of the British in the Iberian Peninsula, the first victories of Sir Arthur Wellesley (the future Duke of Wellington), Napoleon's personal participation in the Spanish campaign, the French surrender at Baylen, and Sir John Moore's terrible retreat, ending with his death in the hour of victory at the Battle of Corunna.
Constant Spanish guerrilla activity so drained the resources and diverted the attention of the French military that Wellington was able to advance against and overcome a numerically superior enemy. So many French soldiers were being used to counter the guerrillas and the threat that they posed that less than a third of the French army could be tasked with confronting Wellington. This book brings to life, for the first time, the formation, tactics and experiences of the Spanish guerrilla forces that fought Napoleon's army. Using much previously unpublished material, it offers a vivid description of the guerrilla and his lifestyle.
The Peninsular War has been extensively studied by British historians for decades, even centuries, but the Spanish contribution to the conflict, which was fundamental to the defeat of Napoleon’s armies, has been largely relegated to minor role. This book is an attempt to rebalance our understanding of the campaign in Iberia, written by a Spanish historian and translated into English for the first time. The book does not attempt to minimize the problems the Spanish experienced nor the catastrophic defeats suffered by the Spanish Army, but the reasons for these setbacks are viewed and analyzed from the Spanish viewpoint. With the finest elements of the Spanish Army serving with the French forces in Denmark, Spain was virtually undefended when Napoleon’s armies marched into the Iberian Peninsula. New armies had to be raised virtually from scratch to fight the invader in a country where, as the Duke of Wellington remarked, small armies were beaten and large armies starved. The logistical and political difficulties faced by the Spaniards are fully explored and explained. It is the big battles, nevertheless, which receive the most attention; both the great battles such as Tudela and Ocaña and the surprising victory at Bailén, and the smaller, lesser-known combats which took place across the Peninsula. The defeats, even destruction, of their armies, did not deter the Spaniards; in fact quite the contrary. Their cities, most notably Zaragoza, defied Napoleon’s legions for months in some of the most savage fighting of any conflict as their streets were turned to rubble. Across the country, the ordinary citizens took up arms, attacking isolated French outposts and capturing enemy messengers and patrols – and the term guerrilla warfare came into being. Napoleon’s marshals had never encountered such fanaticism and Spain became a posting dreaded by the French soldiers. As the war progressed, the Spanish armies became strong enough to win several battles, contributing decisively to the defeat of Napoleon in conjunction with the magnificent achievements of Sir Arthur Wellesley and his Anglo-Portuguese army. This unique book will help the reader understand the Spanish vision of the war, dismantling some false myths and exposing the reality of a country with an indomitable spirit that never accepted the new order that Napoleon tried to impose. It is the book that has been missing from the literature of the Peninsular War for far too long.