Napoleon Bonaparte’s campaign on the Iberian Peninsula lasted from 1807 to 1814, and is called the Spanish War of Independence (Guerra de la Independencia Española) by the Spanish, and the Peninsular War by the British. The Peninsular War represents a period of the Napoleonic Wars, in which Spain, Portugal and Great Britain fought against French domination. It began as an attempt by France to include Portugal in the trade blockade against Great Britain.
Since this is a rather long and detailed overview of the Peninsular War, you can use the table of content for a quick navigation:
Table of Contents
Overview of the Napoleonic Wars on the Iberian Peninsula
- Date: 1807 – 1814
- Location: Iberian Peninsula
- Event: Part of the Napoleonic Wars on the Iberian battlefield
Significant participants
- France
- United Kingdom
- Spain
- Portugal
Precursor of the War
The First Consul of France Napoleon Bonaparte forced Spain to sign the Treaty of San Ildefonso in October 1800. This Franco-Spanish alliance led to a revival of the conflict with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Manuel de Godoy became Spain’s “strong man”, while Pedro Ceballos Guerra formally served as Prime Minister. At the beginning of 1801, Godoy was appointed Generalissimo and Admiral of Spain and India (Spanish-America). The Peace of Amiens (March 1802) between Great Britain and France gave Spain a brief but much needed respite. In December 1804 Godoy declared war on the United Kingdom. The French-Spanish fleet suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805. Godoy’s opponents personally blamed him for the heavy losses of men and material and demanded an end to the alliance with France. Therefore, Godoy called for war against France in October 1806. But already at the beginning of 1807, Godoy had to end his anti-French policy. Napoleon I. demanded the provision of 15.000 Spanish soldiers. These soldiers had to fight in the Napoleonic army in Northern Germany and East Prussia against Prussia and Russia (Fourth Coalition War).
On 21 November 1806 Napoleon ordered the continental blockade, an economic blockade, of the British Isles. It was intended to bring Britain to her knees by means of economic warfare. The Continental Blockade was also intended to protect the French economy against all European and transatlantic competition. Since a contractual agreement with Portugal to maintain the blockade was not possible, Napoleon intended to invade Portugal.
On 27 October 1807, France and Spain concluded the secret Treaty of Fontainebleau. In this treaty they agreed on the conquest and division of Portugal. In order for French troops to reach Portugal by land, Spain granted the French passage through Spain. At the end of 1807, Jean Andoche Junot received orders from Napoleon to command the troops assembled at Salamanca to occupy Portugal. Already on 17 October 1807, Napoleon wrote to Junot the order to be in Lisbon until 1 December, as friend or enemy. Junot followed this order, and within 11 days, the French marched in forced marches from Salamancha to Abrantes, just outside Lisbon. On 30 November Junot entered the city with 1500 soldiers without a fight. The day before, King João VI had left for Brazil by sea with his court, accompanied by the government and important nobles.
French Invasion of Iberian Peninsula
At the beginning of 1808 the French troops began to occupy strategically important places in Spain. This development prompted the Spanish King Charles IV to plan the transfer of his throne to a safe country, such as Mexico. When the plans became known among the population, this led to an uprising, which was primarily directed against the government and person of Godoy. When Charles learned that his son Ferdinand had asked Napoleon for help against Godoy, and French troops invaded Spain, the royal family fled to Aranjuez. On 17 March 1808, the mutiny broke out in Aranjuez; the king was arrested and forced to have Godoy arrested. His son was celebrated by the people the following day as King Ferdinand VII, but under pressure from the French he was forced to relinquish the crown on 6 May. Charles, his wife and Godoy fled to France, where Charles was forced to abdicate the Spanish throne in favour of Napoleon’s brother Joseph Bonaparte.
On 10 April 1808, Ferdinand left for Bayonne to negotiate with Napoleon, leaving the government in his absence to a Council of Regency chaired by his uncle Antonio Pascual de Borbón. Ferdinand arrived in Bayonne from Aranjuez on 20 April 1808 and Charles IV at the end of April 1808. There, after a long struggle, Ferdinand returned the crown to his father on 6 May 1808 and placed himself under the protection of Napoleon, who gave him the castle of Valençay as his residence, with an annual pension of one million francs. Charles had already previously agreed to his resignation in favour of Joseph Bonaparte. In fact, this was a capture of the royal family by Napoleon.
Spanish popular uprising
When the French tried to bring the youngest son of King Charles IV, the Infante Francisco de Paula de Borbón, to Bayonne on May 2, 1808, this triggered a popular uprising in Madrid. On this day, Madrid was the scene of extensive street fighting between the inhabitants, who were joined by a Spanish artillery unit, and French troops. Several hundred people died as a result. The events of 2 May 1808 (Dos de Mayo) are considered to be the beginning of the armed resistance against the French rule. On 3 May 1808, several insurgents who had been arrested were shot. Uprisings broke out throughout Spain. Especially in Catalonia, Navarre, the Basque Country and the mountains of Castile, the French could hardly enforce their occupation regime. In wide parts of the country, there was a permanent small war, which the French could not control. In this way, the Spanish uprising against the Napoleonic occupation differed from almost all other areas of Europe, where there were only short, largely ineffective uprisings. The reason for this can be identified as the previously weakly developed Spanish state, which, alongside the standing army, was based on a militia system that became the basis for the widespread uprising. Strong gangs of smugglers and robbers also took part in the fight against the French and their Spanish allies. With the guerrilla warfare, the Spanish War of Liberation was the first time that an element of warfare appeared that was related to the armament of the people, as the French Revolution had imposed it, but was also radically different from it.
On 24 May 1808, the provincial junta of Oviedo first declared an uprising against the French occupation. Independently of this, the popular uprising took place in Cartagena on 22 May, in Valencia on 23 May and in Murcia and Zaragoza on 24 May. Santander and Seville rose on 26 May, followed by the uprisings in Badajoz and La Coruña on 30 May.
Monks stirred up the masses to anger against the occupying forces, pointing out the mistreatment of the Pope in Rome, who had been captured by the French. More than 2100 monasteries and 1100 nunneries became the centers of a religiously motivated uprising against the foreign occupation “made godless” by the ideas of the French Revolution.
In September 1808, a counter government (Junta Suprema Central) formed in Aranjuez in the part of Spain not occupied by French troops, which did not recognize the government in office in Madrid. With the call for guerrilla warfare on December 28, 1808, the junta recognized the guerrillas as part of the common liberation struggle against the French. Previously, regional governments hostile to the French had also partly taken action against the guerrillas. The people’s war, but also the operation of regular units under adverse conditions far away from supplies, led to great hardship not only against the military opponent, but also against the civilian population, which had to suffer from looting with which the occupying forces supplied themselves. With another decree of 17 December 1809, the Junta Suprema tried to bind the guerrillas to the official war, but it remained a form of independent patriotic people’s war, the roots of which contained a strong social component. The anarchism of the deserters, the arbitrariness of autonomous bandits of robbers forming everywhere stood directly next to a great selflessness for the common struggle for freedom. Under these circumstances, a wide variety of talents emerged, simple aristocrats like Francisco Espoz y Mina and his nephew Francisco Javier Mina, who de facto ruled Navarre, or the gang leader Juan Martín Díez, from a peasant family called El Empecinado. The population fed and informed these men and hid them when the occupying forces’ patrol corps approached. The guerrilla’s failure to maintain the demarcation between the civilian population and combatants led to a high level of violence against civilians by regular French troops. There were numerous acts of cruelty against civilians and prisoners from both sides. The brutality of the French, who increasingly attacked the population indiscriminately, resulted in great sacrifices, especially among the rural population, but could not break the will of resistance of the Spanish. At its height, “the” guerrillas, which consisted of a large number of groups, some of which were enemies of each other, controlled the country so effectively that messengers of the French had to be protected with up to two hundred cavalrymen on their rides. Many guerrilla groups had also or primarily been active as bandits during the battle and made the country unsafe until the 1820s. The painter Francisco de Goya captured cruel scenes of this fight in 82 etchings between 1810 and 1814; the series of pictures named Desastres de la Guerra (Horrors of War) was published posthumously in 1863.
The war year 1808
After the abdication of Charles IV and Ferdinand VII, Joseph Bonaparte was proclaimed King of Spain on 6 June 1808 by Napoleon I, with the participation of the Castile Council. After this act, resistance broke out again among the Spanish population, which resulted in a permanent war that overshadowed the entire reign of Joseph. Joseph Bonaparte planned to appoint Ceballos as foreign minister and to have the constitution co-signed. But Ceballos clearly stood at the side of King Ferdinand. In several publications he defended his legitimate right to the Spanish throne. Napoleon declared him a traitor to the Spanish and French crowns in November 1808. Ceballos fled to London, from where he continued to support the Spanish resistance against Napoleon.
The French tried to occupy the still unoccupied southern Spain. Therefore a French corps under General Dupont was sent from Toledo to Andalusia to try to take Cádiz, where a French fleet under Admiral Rosily-Mesros was anchored. General Dupont’s troops approached Córdoba in early June and, against the resistance of the Spanish militia under Colonel Echeverría, forced the crossing over the bridge of Alcolea with 3,000 volunteers. The French troops entered Córdoba on June 7th and plundered the city for four days. General Vedel’s division followed on 15 June with 5,000 men to the south.
Meanwhile, the newly formed Junta de Sevilla bombarded the trapped French fleet in Cádiz until several warships fell into the hands of the Spanish on June 14. The French troops in Catalonia under General Moncey, who were advancing along the east coast, failed in their first attack on Valencia between 24 and 26 June. A French corps under Marshal Bessières set off from Burgos with 14,000 men and conquered Valladolid on 10 July. On 14 July 1808, Bessières defeated the superior Spanish army (26,000 men) under General de la Cuesta and Joaquín Blake y Joyes in the battle of Medina del Río Seco north of the central Duero in Old Castile.
Faced with increasingly threatening uprisings in Andalusia, Dupont decided to retreat to the Sierra Morena and wait for help. On 18 June, General Dupont decided to stay in the plain near Andújar while Spanish troops sealed off the mountains. General Goberts Division left with General Vedel on July 2 to reinforce Dupont’s troops. However, Dupont reached only one division near Andújar, the rest had to keep a road to the north open against the guerrilla troops.
On Dupont’s orders, Vedel moved north to drive out the militia blocking the Despeñaperros pass. However, General Castaños beat him to it and occupied this central position between Dupont and Vedel with 17,000 men and 12 cannons. On 11 July the main Spanish army under Castaños united its troops in Porcuna with those of the Junta de Granada. Between July 18 and 21, regular Spanish troops under General Castaños encircled the French and forced the corps under Dupont between the Guadalquivir and Sierra Morena to surrender after the Battle of Bailén. Dupont capitulated on 22 July with 8,242 men, followed on 23 July by the Vedel, Chabert and Dufour divisions with a further 9,393 soldiers. Of the approximately 18,000 prisoners, about 12,000 were taken to the island of Cabrera, where about 5,000 died of the inhuman conditions there. General Castaños was later appointed generalissimo by the central junta for this victory. For Napoleon this defeat was a humiliating and painful experience. Joseph Bonaparte’s troops, who had occupied Madrid on July 20th, had to leave the city on August 1st and return to Burgos.
On 25 June, General Verdier took command of the French siege army assembled outside Zaragoza, which launched the attack on 1 July. On 11 July, the French began to build a bridge over the Ebro River to enable them to encircle Zaragoza from the other side of the river. After he was wounded on 4 August, Verdier had to hand over command to General Lefebvre-Desnouettes. On 4 August, the French entered the city through a breach and were driven out again by Colonel Palafox. Meanwhile, at the end of August, 9,500 men had arrived in Spain under General Marques de La Romana. They had previously been in Jutland as Napoleon’s auxiliary troops and were transferred by the British fleet under Admiral Keats to La Coruña to fight the French at home. On 13 August, the French troops in Catalonia had to break off their first three-month siege of Saragossa without success. A few months later, on 19 December, a strong force of about 30,000 soldiers under the marshals Moncey and Mortier left for Aragon and began the second siege of Zaragoza on 21 December.
On 17 August 1808, General Gouvion Saint-Cyr became commander of the “Spanish army” in Catalonia. His troops conquered the fortress of Roses and defeated the Spanish under Caldagnes at Molins de Rey (21 December) and General Reding at Igualada (14 February 1809).
English intervention in Portugal
On 1 August 1808 British troops landed in Portugal, about 12,000 men. The joint supreme command was initially held by the generals Sir Harry Burrard and Sir Hew Dalrymple, as they had earlier patents as Major General Arthur Wellesley. Wellesley (the later Duke of Wellington) was still underestimated in Europe, as he had previously fought only in India. The army consisted of British troops and a large contingent of the King’s German Legion. In addition, a number of British officers joined the Portuguese army. These reformed the army according to the British model. The Portuguese who were under the command of General Bernardim Freire soon became reliable allies.
After Wellesley had occupied the mouth of the Mondego, French troops under Junot were reported, these were already advancing against the landing troops. Wellesley and his troops defeated the French vanguard under Delaborde in the Battle of Roliça on August 17, and later Junot’s main force in the Battle of Vimeiro on August 21 at Torres Vedras, west of the Lower Tagus. Generals Burrard and Dalrymple prevented Wellesley’s intention to cut off and destroy Junot’s troops in Lisbon. Although they were both experienced generals, they made a serious tactical error: In the Cintra Convention, the two British generals agreed that the French army, along with equipment, could be taken to Quiberon on British ships. The leading generals were ordered back to Great Britain and court-martialed. When the French handed over control to the British on 15 September and the Portuguese government was not yet formed, British General John Hope became the virtual administrator of Portugal. Hope returned to his troops to evacuate a French force stationed southeast of Elvas. Sir John Moore was sent with the rest of the troops to Almeida in the northeast and took over command of the British army in Spain for the time being. Wellesley was quickly rehabilitated. Moore marched to Madrid in November, but had to retreat to the Biscay after Napoleon’s advance through Asturias. His rearguard successfully engaged the pursuing French in rearguard action on 21 December at Sahagún and 29 December at Benavente.
Napoleonic intervention
In the meantime, the French had had to leave Madrid in autumn. In October 1808, the French army was strengthened to 250.000 men in the Spanish theatre of war. With the reinforcements, Badeners, Nassauers and Hesse (Rhine Confederation troops of the Kingdom of Westphalia) had also arrived at the end of October 1808 and were assigned to the army corps of Marshal Lefebvre. On 31 October they fought under his supreme command at Durango and Pancorbo and on 8 November at Valmaseda against the Spaniards under General Blake. While parts of the German troops then secured Bilbao or stayed behind as occupying forces on the Bay of Biscay, the majority marched off to Madrid, where they arrived in early December.
Emperor Napoleon himself hurried via Bayonne to Vitoria, where he arrived on 8 November 1808 and assumed the supreme command. The British under Moore also arrived late in Portugal with 15,000 men, while the French defeated two strong Spanish armies. Marshal Soult defeated the Spanish army under the Conte de Belveder in the Battle of Gamonal, not far from Burgos, on 10 November. At the same time, the following day, the united corps under Marshals Victor and Lefebvre destroyed the armies of La Romana and Joaquín Blake y Joyes in the Battle of Espinosa. Within 10 days, the whole of northern Spain was subdued by the troops of Soult and Bessieres.
Meanwhile, the Spanish general general, Castaños, who led the last regular army, advanced as far as the Ebro, but was defeated by Marshal Lannes in the Battle of Tudela on 23 November and was later so slandered by the scheming General Montijo at the Central Junta that he was deposed and put out of service for several years.
Meanwhile, Moore pushed on to Castile, where he hoped to find support from the Spanish insurgents. Before Burgos, he did not meet with the support he hoped for from regular Spanish units. Napoleon himself rushed to the rescue of Madrid, his troops pursuing the Spanish troop power, which was disintegrating due to desertion, over the Sierra de Guadarrama. General Juan de San Benito left 3000 men to cover the retreat at Sepúlveda. His vanguard, Polish forces under Kozietulski, broke the enemy resistance at the Somosierra Pass on 30 November. On 4 December, Napoleon occupied Madrid without a fight. Moore broke off his advance after these successes of the enemy and turned north through Asturias to unite his troops with those of General Baird, who had landed in La Coruña on 11 November with 10,000 men. Caught between two fires (Junot’s army was advancing over Burgos and Soult’s troops had been regrouped in Asturias) the British had no choice but to retreat. Napoleon pursued them again with the main army on December 23 through the impassable Sierra de Guadarrama to the north.
On 29 December, Moore was able to repel the French vanguard under Lefèbvre near Benavente and continue his retreat. His troops reached the port of La Coruña, where the Royal Navy awaited his retreat and covered him with naval artillery. The British built up a line of defence to allow the embarkation of the troops. They won the Battle of La Coruña on 16 January 1809; the embarkation succeeded. General Moore fell in the battle; Wellesley was reinstated as commander.
In the spring of 1809, the Bonapartist regime seemed to prevail in Spain. Nests of resistance were destroyed in large parts of the country, while the British had left the theatre of war. Further reinforcements also arrived in Spain from the Rhine alliance troops, about 7000 Westphalians, 4000 from the Grand Duchy of Berg and 2000 Würzburgers, who were assigned to the French army in Catalonia under Gouvion St. Cyr and later used in the siege of Gerona.
On January 8, 1809, the Frankfurters, and on January 13, the Nassauers, Badeners and Hessians marched via Toledo to Talavera, where they were assigned to the French division Le Val. At the end of January 1809, General von Schäffer took command of the Nassau and Frankfurt regiments. French General Werlé led the combined brigade of the Baden and Hessians. The German division of about 4000 men was assigned to the army corps of Marshal Victor in the Extremadura and primarily secured the rear connections against the Spanish guerrillas, whereby cruel war crimes took place. On 17 March 1809 Schäffer’s brigade stormed the rocky heights of Mesa de Ibor, and the Baden and Nassau troops then took part in the Battle of Medellin (28 March).
Second campaign in Portugal 1809
After Maréchal Soult’s troops had taken the town of Chaves, they moved towards Braga, with the vanguard between Ruivães and Salamonde being repelled by Portuguese forces under General Freire. Freire was murdered by soldiers of the local militia, and the high command then took over from Colonel Baron Eben.
On 20 March 1809, the defending Portuguese troops were defeated at the Battle of Braga, and the French forces under Marshal Soult succeeded in conquering Braga and later Porto. Between the 20th and 26th March, Maréchal Soult secured its communication and supply routes through various infantry and cavalry bases. The towns of Barcelos and Guimarães were taken. After passing the Hail and advancing towards Sobreira, the French moved towards Porto. However, there were still British remnants in Portugal, to which additional troops were sent from Britain to liberate Portugal. On March 28th, the battle of Medellín followed, between the villages of Don Benito and Mingabril, east of Merida, 18,000 French under Victor defeated about 24,000 Spaniards under General de la Cuesta.
After the British again landed in Portugal, Wellesley increased to 22,000 men and defeated the French in the Second Battle of Porto on 12 May 1809. The French troops had to retreat from Portugal, so that four weeks after the British victory in this battle there were no French combat troops left. The British troops followed the withdrawing French without being able to catch up with them. Near Abrantes the British regrouped under Wellesley. His plan was to advance to Spain with his 20,000 British soldiers and 35,000 Spaniards. Another 25,000 Spaniards were to attempt to advance against Madrid and take the capital at the same time.
With this in mind, Wellington’s advance through the Tagus Valley began on 28 June 1809, crossing the Spanish-Portuguese border on 3 July 1809. As a result, serious problems occurred, such as inactivity of Spanish commanders and collapsing logistics, but nevertheless, on 22 July 1809, the French patrols discovered the British troops still on the march to Madrid. Due to the orders of Emperor Napoleon, several French corps were supposed to form an army at that time and take action against the British army and Portugal.
On 25 July 1809, approximately one hundred kilometres to the west of Madrid, two French corps under Marshal Victor had joined forces with King Joseph, who was approaching from Madrid, with a total strength of 45,000 men. Knowing this concentration of troops, the Spaniards withdrew again westwards to the British troops. Nevertheless, the Spanish and French clashed east of Talavera. The Spaniards under General de Cuesta retreated on 27 July after a small skirmish near the ruins of Casa de las Salinas to the British troops under General Wellesley. In the Battle of Talavera de la Reina, Wellington, together with the Spaniards under Cuesta and Contreras, achieved a great victory on 28 July. In the further course of the year, however, the commander, who had in the meantime been appointed Viscount Wellington, was only able to prevent the French from conquering Portugal.
Meanwhile, the Fifth Coalition War and smaller uprisings in the German-speaking world had begun, forcing Napoleon to withdraw strong contingents of troops from Spain. After the victory against Austria at Wagram in July 1809 Napoleon was able to strengthen his troops in Spain again and prepared a strike against Wellesley’s troops in Portugal.
The war year 1809 in Catalonia
On 10 January 1809, the shelling of the fortified city of Zaragoza began, which was defended by some 20,000 men under General Palafox. On 22 January General Lannes took over the command of the French. Instead of Palafox, General San Marc led the final battles. The Spanish finally capitulated after fierce fighting on February 20. The house fights were considered typical for the Spanish guerrillas, because in addition to regular troops, civilians and women also took part in them, some of whom tried to fend off the invading French with stones or boiling water. By the end of the fighting, Zaragoza was largely destroyed.
In the Battle of Valls on 25 February 1809 the French-Italian troops under Marshal Gouvion Saint-Cyr and the Spanish troops under the Swiss General Theodor von Reding faced each other. Reding had been wounded in the battle by five sabre blows. The Spanish forces were defeated and fled dispersed towards Tarragona. The French captured all the Spanish artillery and entered Reus. They besieged Tarragona until 20 March. The plague broke out in the city and claimed many lives under the garrison and the inhabitants.
South of Zaragoza, 12,000 Frenchmen under Suchet defeated over 30,000 Spaniards under General Blake in the Battle of Belchite on 18 June. The 80,000 troops under Soult defeated the Spanish army under Cuesta in the Battle of Arzobispo on 8 August and a few days later the second Spanish army under Venice, which had arrived too late to reinforce it, in the Battle of Almonacid (11 August).
In the second half of the year the siege of Gerona also took place, already in May a 15,000 men strong corps, mostly Rhine Confederation troops, under Gouvion St. Cyr had appeared in front of the city and started the formal siege on June 8th. The defence was in the hands of General Mariano Alvarez de Castro. Gouvion St. Cyr succeeded in driving the Spanish troops back across the Ebro. After seven months of futile attacks, St. Cyr’s successor Augereau managed to force the small rock fortress to surrender on 11 December 1809.
In the Battle of Ocaña on November 19, French troops and Spaniards under General de Areizaga faced each other. The corps of Generals Sebastiani and Kellermann defeated the Spaniards in the Battle of Alba de Tormes on 26 November. Without a functioning army that could have defended the south of Spain, Andalusia was overrun by the French the following winter.
The war year 1810
Wellesley, however, had the fortification lines of Torres Vedras completed by 1810 and his troops entrenched behind them. The first of the two lines of defence consisted of 30 entrenchments with 140 guns, the second had 65 entrenchments and 150 guns, and just behind it, facing the sea, was a third with 11 works and 96 cannons. The whole line was manned with up to 70,000 men, which was sufficiently supplied by the English fleet.
The new French commander-in-chief, Marshal Massena, had pursued the British and their allies to Lisbon the year before, until he came across the lines of Torres Vedras, where his advance got stuck in Wellington’s defence system. He decided against storming these extensive, double lines of interconnected fortifications. After a famine winter outside Lisbon, the French withdrew to the Spanish border, followed by the British-Portuguese army. Between 26 April and 9 July, the first siege of Ciudad Rodrigo was carried out, which the French VI. Corps under Marshal Ney.
Meanwhile, in the Spanish heartland, encouraged by laws of the Cortes of Cádiz, the largely suppressed guerrilla movement flared up again. In some cases, local juntas or individual militia leaders regionally took over the functions of rulers or governments, collected taxes, installed administrative structures and also fought each other.
In early 1810, the junta appointed Suprema Central General Venegas as governor of Cadiz, just as the French were beginning the siege of the fortress. Protected by the superior British fleet, communication was also guaranteed to all ports in Spain and abroad. From 6 February 1810 to 25 August 1812, the siege of Cadiz was carried out by the French, first under the command of Soult, then under Victor and Sébastiani, but they could only take a few forts. In February 1810, the defeated Spanish corps of the Duke of Albuquerque, with 8,000 men, had withdrawn there, being pursued by the French army under Victor. In addition, a British division under General Graham landed in Cádiz to protect the junta government.
With a decree of January 29, 1810, the Junta Suprema Central disbanded and transferred its legislative power to the Cortes, which met on the fortified Isla de León (Lion Island) near Cádiz. The Cortes were convened by the Suprema Junta gubernativa de España e Indias on January 1, 1810 for March 1, 1810. Napoleon’s decree of 8 February, which converted the provinces of Catalonia, Aragon, Biscaja and Navarre into French governorates in preparation for incorporation into France, caused particular displeasure. On September 24th, the Cortes was opened on the Isla de León, which began consultations on a new constitution. Between September 1810 and March 1812, this parliament, known as the Cortes generales y extraordinarias, created a constitution that was promulgated on 19 March 1812.
Meanwhile Wellington succeeded in occupying the Serra do Buçaco, the Portuguese theatre of war, with 25,000 British troops and the same number of Portuguese troops. He was then attacked five times by 65,000 men under Marshal Masséna. In the Battle of Buçaco (Bussaco) on 27 September 1810, the British-Portuguese troops achieved a major defensive victory at Torres Vedras. The French attacks were carried out by the corps of Marshal Ney and General Reynier, but despite fierce fighting they did not succeed in driving the allied troops away and they had to retreat, losing 4,500 dead or wounded. Portugal was now free from French occupation, with the exception of the border fortress of Almeida. During the retreat, the battle of Sobral de Monte Agraço (13-14 October 1810) took place.
In Catalonia, Marshal Augereau was replaced by MacDonald on 24 April 1810. The troops under Suchet successfully completed the siege of Lerida on 13 May and that of Mequinenza on 5 June. The Neapolitan Division Pignatelli marched from Gerona on July 17th and brought a strong convoy to supply the occupying forces in Barcelona. Another 16,000 men marched south to support Suchet’s operations against Tortosa. The Spanish commander in Catalonia, General O’Donnell then tried to stop the French attacks on Tarragona and Tortosa. A Spanish division, reinforced by an Anglo-Spanish detachment under General Fane, was unexpectedly attacked by the French Rouyer division. On 14 September, the Franco-German Brigade under Schwarz was completely defeated at La Bisbal and the prisoners were taken to Colonja.
The war year 1811
Main cemetery Frankenthal (Pfalz), gravestone of Johannes Haas, lieutenant in the 16th French line infantry regiment, with reference to his participation in the siege of Tarragona (1811) and the battle of Sagunto
In January 1811, Marshal Soult thinned out his siege troops before Cádiz to assemble a field army that went to Badajoz for the siege. In response, British and Spanish troops tried to break the French lines off Cádiz by landing a contingent of troops behind the French lines at Algeciras, an operation that led to the Battle of Barrosa (Chiclana) on 5 March. On 19 February, the Spanish Extremadura army under General Mendizabal was crushed in the Battle of Gévora, near Badajoz. The French defeat at Chiclana was not exploited by the allies.
Meanwhile, Soult was able to continue the siege of Badajoz; although the garrison of the town was now about 8,000 men, due to the influx of soldiers from Mendizabal’s destroyed army, it finally fell into the hands of the French on 11 March. Wellington then sent a large Anglo-Portuguese corps, under the command of General William Beresford, to retake the important fortified city, so that on 20 April the second siege of Badajoz began.
Meanwhile, in Portgal, after the French defeat at the Battle of Sabugal on 3 pril, Masséna realised the untenability of his positions and retreated to the Spanish border fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo, which guarded the road to Salamanca. He left a small troop behind in the Portuguese fortress of Almeida. South of the Tagus, the Portuguese fortress of Elvas and the Spanish fortress of Badajoz on the main road from Portugal to Madrid remained under French control. After Masséna Ciudad had reached Rodrigo, he was recalled to Paris by Napoleon and replaced by Marshal Marmont.
Wellington began the reconquest of the fortified border towns of Almeida and Badajoz. 20,000 men under General Beresford were sent to lay siege to Badajoz, while Wellington marched to Almeida with double that number.
On 22 April, General Beresford took command of the siege of Badajoz. On 12 May, a French army of 26,000 men and 4,000 horsemen, led by Marshal Soult, marched from the south. Beresford immediately broke off the siege and moved southeast towards the small town of Albuera, where he took up a defensive position. After uniting with the Spanish corps under Generals Blake and Castanos, an army of 36,000 men (including about 7,000 British) was available. In the Battle of Albuera on 16 May, Beresford and Soult’s troops met in a draw. Especially the Spanish division under Zayas proved its worth against a surprising flank attack by the French. In the night of 17th to 18th May Soult was forced to return to Seville and Wellington resumed the siege of Badajoz. The newly appointed French commander-in-chief Marmont marched to horrify the French garrison at Almeida. The British-Portuguese-Spanish coalition consisted of 34,000 infantry and 1,850 horsemen in the following Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro on May 3rd, and achieved another victory. On 8 May the French withdrew again, Wellington was also able to continue the siege of Almeida.
The newly appointed French commander in Catalonia, General Suchet received an order from King Joseph in early May to lay siege to Tarragona, the fortress held by Spanish troops under General Contreras surrendered on June 28th after fierce fighting. The surrender was followed by massacres of the civilian population.
After the capture of Tarragona, Suchet, who had been appointed Marshal, set about cleaning up the coastal province of Valencia. On 27 July he reached Sagunt with 25,000 men and on 18 October he began shelling the small fortress of Sagunt, where 3,000 men defended. About 30,000 Spaniards under General Blake advanced to the relief in the battle of Murviedro, but despite strong support from the sea by their fleet, they were thrown back at Puçol on 25 October and lost 5000 prisoners. Suchet then pursued the Spaniards to Valencia, where Blake and his troops threw themselves.
In September 1811, the Godinot Division disbanded the guerrilla army under Francisco Ballesteros in southern Andalusia. In December, Soult’s Leval Division suffered heavy losses in the attack on Tarifa.
After Portugal was secured, Wellington left the country to continue the fight against Napoleon’s troops in the interior of Spain, Lord Beresford remained as the highest military officer in Portugal after the summer operations. Until 1812, French and British-Portuguese troops repeatedly attacked each other in the Spanish-Portuguese border area, but they did little to change the deadlocked situation.
The battles of 1812
Siege of Burgos by British-Portuguese forces led by the Duke of Wellington, 1812, painting by François-Joseph Heim
Marshal Auguste Marmont, on Napoleon’s orders, had already transferred 10,000 men to the commander in Catalonia, Marshal Suchet, at the end of the year to reinforce the troops charged with the conquest of Valencia. Between 1st and 9th January, the French forced the surrender of the city, and the rest of the Spanish army, some 20,000 men under General Blake, were taken prisoner.
When Wellesley received the news that Marmont’s troops in the west had weakened as a result, he marched to Ciudad Rodrigo and, after a brief siege, took it on 19 January, for which he was made Earl of Wellington by the Prince Regent George. During the siege and the assault on this fortress, the British Division Generals Craufurd and MacKinnon were mortally wounded. The conquest of Ciudad Rodrigo opened the northern corridor for the invasion of Spain from Portugal. It also allowed Wellesley to march on Badajoz and conquer this fortress, which was to be a much more costly event. From 16 March 1812 Badajoz was besieged for the third time and stormed on 6 April, in which Wellington’s troops lost 3,340 men.
While a British corps under General Hill then advanced against the Tajo between the French armies of Marmont and Soult, Wellington’s main power turned to León. The army under Marmont moved back to the Duero before him, took the Bonet division and advanced again against the English. On July 21, Marmont awaited the enemy at Tormes and in positions on the Arapil Islands. On 22 July Wellington defeated the French at the Battle of Salamanca, and on 23 July light cavalry under Major General Anson met a brigade of dragoons from the German Legion at García Hernández. The French rearguard was commanded by Foy, who, after the defeat of Salamanca, had taken over in place of the wounded Marmont. On August 12th, the British-Portuguese vanguard of Wellington’s army was crushed by a French cavalry division in the battle of Majadahonda, Lord Wellington was able to occupy Madrid on August 12th, but was driven out of the city shortly afterwards. Wellington abandoned the planned siege of Burgos on 21 October 1812 and withdrew southwest towards Torquemada, his 35,000-strong army being pursued by the French under General Souham.
After the destruction of the Grande Armée in Russia and the beginning of fighting in Germany in the spring of 1813, the French troops in Spain were no longer reinforced.
The last year of the war 1813
Wellington spent the winter reorganising and training his army. In contrast, Napoleon withdrew many soldiers from Spain, as he had to reorganize his destroyed army, which had been decimated by the disastrous Russian campaign. Already on 13 April 1813, 17,000 British and Spanish troops under General Murray were able to repel a corps of Suchets with 15,000 men near Castalla.
In May 1813, Wellington launched the final offensive between the Duero and Tagus rivers, initially conquering the northern provinces of Spain and moving his headquarters from Lisbon to Santander. Wellington’s troops marched from northern Portugal over the mountains in northern Spain to flank the troops (58,000 men) of Marshal Jourdan, the Chief of Staff of King Joseph Bonaparte. To prevent Wellington’s forces from blocking their way into France, the French retreated to Burgos. Finally, Wellington attacked the French under Joseph Bonaparte with three columns in the decisive battle of Vitoria on 21 June. After a fierce battle, the division under General Picton managed to break into the centre of the French and break through the defences. Too late, the French corps arrived at Clausel. On the British side there were 4,500 dead and wounded. At the same time 152 cannons were captured. The battle ended Napoleon’s reign in Spain. The British soldiers failed to pursue the fleeing French troops, preferring to plunder the covered wagons left behind. Joseph Bonaparte was recalled and Marshal Nicolas Soult was given the supreme command. On July 7, Wellington began the siege of San Sebastián, the French garrison was under General Rey.
From Sicily, the British fleet under Rear Admiral Carew landed on the Spanish east coast near Tarragona on 2 June with 14,000 men and 2,000 horsemen under General John Murray. In Salou Bay, six miles south of Tarragona, the union with 7,000 Spaniards under General Copons on June 3 began the siege of Tarragona. After the French commander-in-chief in Catalonia, General Decaen unleashed strong forces under Mathieu off Barcelona and threw them at the landing troops, the British had to break off the siege on 11 June and reembark. On 27 June they landed again near Alicante under the new commander-in-chief Lord Bentinck. In the middle of July, Lord Bentinck abandoned the fortress of Valencia, reinforced Decaen and in September he repelled Bentinck near Ordel.
The French counter-offensive in northern Spain brought Soult a few more victories, but these only brought heavy losses and no strategic advantage. The French had re-strengthened to 77,000 men and stopped the pursuers on a broad front in the battle in the Pyrenees on 25 July. Soult defeated the British 4th Division. The allied units were pushed back further during the day until they entrenched themselves on the Col de Roncevaux at night, pursued by far superior French forces. The attack of the French Corps Clausel was repulsed by the British Division Byng. On the right wing of Soult, the Darmagnac, Abbe and Maransin divisions managed to overrun the front of the British 2nd Division under General Stewart in the Col de Maya. As a result of the French offensive, Wellington pulled together strong units north of Pamplona and stopped Soult’s advance at the Battle of Sorauren on July 28. Two more battles followed the next day as the French again attempted to slip between Wellington’s troops and the besiegers of San Sebastian. At Tolosa, Division Hill succeeded in rejecting this attempt. Having broken his attack momentum, Soult retreated to French territory on August 1st and prepared for the British offensive. The French Vandermaesen Division was almost surrounded at Bera and managed to break away just in time.
On August 31, Wellington succeeded in occupying San Sebastián, the capital of Guipuzcoa. The British troops crossed the river after the Battle of Bidassoa and conquered Pamplona on 31 October. On November 10th, the French lost another 4000 men (including 1200 prisoners) in the Battle of Nivelle. Between December 9 and 13, Wellington forced the river crossing in the Battle of Nive. The British and Portuguese broke through the French position. Soult lost almost 10,000 men in a 5-day battle and began the retreat to Bayonne. Wellington drove Napoleon’s Spanish army across the Pyrenees and entered French soil on 7 October 1813.
End of the war in Southern France 1814
After the battles that took place at Bayonne in 1813, the armies retreated to their winter quarters and did nothing until February 1814, when Wellington decided to take Soult by surprise in his positions at Bayonne. On February 14, the division under General Rowland Hill crossed the Nive and forced the French to retreat north to Saint-Palais. General Harispe initially left a garrison at Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, but it was pressed by the Spaniards under the command of General Espoz y Mina. Since he did not act forcefully enough, the French were able to escape via the Bidassoa.
On 27 February 1814, he defeated Soult’s troops at the Battle of Orthez and on 12 March he was able to occupy Bordeaux in cooperation with the British fleet. On 15 March Augereau surrendered Lyon to the east and retreated to Vienne. The battle of Vic-de-Bigorre in the Pyrenees ended without a victor on 19 March 1814. The French withdrew to Toulouse with about 42,000 men. Shortly before Napoleon’s abdication, he succeeded in forcing the French to retreat again and conquer the city in the Battle of Toulouse on 10 April 1814. In the night of 11th to 12th April Soult conquered the city, Wellington triumphantly entered the city on the same day, received by the Royalists like a liberator. Still by Napoleon himself, Ferdinand VII received the Spanish crown in the Treaty of Valençay in 1813, and in 1814 Napoleon had to capitulate. On 18 April 1814, the armistice ended the war in southern France.
Political consequences in Portugal
For Portugal, the outcome of the war was a disaster. The country was heavily indebted and its trade dependence on Great Britain grew. Portugal became a de facto Brazilian colony and British protectorate, and power in the country was in the hands of the British commander William Carr Beresford. The development of industrialisation was halted; the country was devastated by the scorched earth tactics used by both the French and the British. Constitutionally, Portugal was governed from Brazil, and in 1815 Brazil was given a new status, no longer a Portuguese colony, but an independent kingdom of equal rights with Portugal, with which it was linked by personal union. In 1820, the liberal revolution took place, which began with an uprising of Portuguese officers in Porto. The British officers were removed from the Portuguese army. The rebels convened a constitutional assembly, adopted the first constitution in Portuguese history and were able to persuade the king to return to Portugal in 1821.
Implications for Spain
As a result of the Napoleonic wars in Europe, there were wars of independence in South America. After the French invasion of Spain, the colonies were governed by various Juntas, following the example of the Council of Regency of Cádiz. These provisional governments initially swore allegiance to the king, but operated de facto independently of Spain. The driving forces behind the independence efforts were above all the two Venezuelans Bolívar and Sucre in the north of South America and the Argentinean San Martín and the Chilean O’Higgins in the south. By 1825 almost all South American states had gained their independence from Spain.
In the Treaty of Valençay (11 December 1813) Joseph Bonaparte had renounced the Spanish crown in favour of Ferdinand VII. On his return to Spain, Ferdinand VII declared in a manifesto to Valencia on 4 May 1814 that all legislation since May 1808 was invalid from the outset. This also meant the dissolution of the Cortes assembled in Madrid and an abrupt end, for the time being, to the path of enlightenment that had already begun in Spain. The Spanish economy had reached a low point due to the wars. During the time of the King’s absence, various overseas colonies had loosened their ties with Spain and declared themselves independent. This led to a loss of almost all the income from the colonies, which had previously gone into the national budget.
In 1812, the Cortes of Cádiz had given Spain the first modern, liberal constitution with the Constitution of Cádiz. The question of a written constitution was already on the agenda from March 1811. The most important of these laws had been promulgated by the Cortes of Cádiz. Among them was a new law on manorial rule, with which the patrimonial courts were abolished on 6 August 1811. On 22 April 1811 torture was banned. The abolition of the Family Fidei Commissariat was intended to make it possible to divide inheritances and sell land belonging to families. Another law stipulated that monasteries where fewer than twelve monks or nuns lived were to be dissolved. A very controversial law was the law on the dissolution of the Inquisition in Spain, passed on 5 February 1813. The Cortes ordinarias, convened by the law of 23 May 1812, met in Cadiz on 25 September 1813, then from 14 October on the Isla de León near Cádiz, and then, after the withdrawal of the French, from 15 January 1814 in Madrid. None of the members of the first Cortes of Cádiz was a member of the newly elected parliament, because the electoral law ruled out a new membership.
However, from March 1820, after the outbreak of unrest, Ferdinand VII was forced to give in to the demand to reinstate the Constitution of Cádiz. In the following three years the constitution of Cádiz was again in force. At the Congress of Verona in 1822, the members of the Holy Alliance commissioned France to intervene in Spain. The French invasion of Spain, which began in April 1823, led to the restoration of absolutist rule under Ferdinand VII. In the Decree of 1 October 1823, the Constitution of Cádiz and all orders, laws and regulations of the government since 7 March 1820 were repealed.