PENINSULAR WAR 



27 



Peninsular War ( 1807-14). The dissensions 

 between Charles IV., king of Spain, and his son 

 Ferdinand gave the Emperor Napoleon I. an oppor- 

 tunity of interfering in the affairs of that country. 

 In pursuance of a treaty ratified on 29th October 

 HOT with the Spanish king, he had sent an army 

 into Portugal under Junot, by whom Lisbon was 

 seized, and the members of the royal house of 

 Braganza obliged to flee to the Brazils. Ostensibly 

 with the object of supporting Junot's army, other 

 French troops gradually occupied Salamanca, Val- 

 ladolid, and other important positions in Spain, 

 including Madrid, where Murat was in command. 

 A popular outbreak against the king and his 

 favourite, Manuel Godoy, caused the former to 

 alMlicate and bis son Ferdinand to assume the 

 crown. But the latter was induced to meet the 

 French emperor at Bayonne, and by him held a 

 prisoner, while his father was again proclaimed 

 king. Riots at Madrid, Toledo, and other places 

 during the spring of 1808 caused the feeble king 

 such alarm that he surrendered his crown to 

 Xapoleon, by whom it was bestowed upon his 

 brother Joseph Bonaparte, then king of Naples. 

 He was proclaimed in Madrid on 24th July 1808. 



Owing to the large powers of the local junta, 

 and to a decentralised form of government, the 

 action of the capital of Spain had little effect upon 

 that of her provinces, which rose against the 

 French and those who favoured them in all direc- 

 tions. The organised forces of Spain amounted at 

 this time to aiMMit 127,000 of all arms, while the 

 French army in the Peninsula, exclusive of Jnnot's 

 troops in Portugal, consisted of some 80,000 con- 

 M-tipts of various nations, French, Swiss, Italians, 

 Poles, and even Portuguese, soon reinforced by 

 23,000 fresh troops. Arms, clothing, and money 

 were freely supplied by Great Britain to the 

 patriots of Spam and Portugal, whose numbers 

 rapidly increased. The first operations of the 

 French under Marshal Bessieres in the north were 

 uniformly successful, except at Saragossa, which 

 Palafox gallantly held against Lefebvre-Des- 

 nouettes. In Catalonia they suffered several de- 

 feats, and in Andalusia their general, Dnpont, 

 surrendered at Baylen with 18,000 men. The first 

 iiniu'd interference of the British in the affairs of 

 the Peninsula was the despatch on 12th July 1808 

 of Sir Arthur Wellesloy with some 30,000 men 

 to Portugal. Landing these troops in Mondego 

 Kivcr, he defeated Laborde at Rorica and Junot at 

 Vimiera, but then handed over the command 

 to Sir Harry Burrard, who had been sent out to 

 supersede him, to l>e himself superseded within a 

 few hours by Sir Hew Dalrymple. The latter 

 officer concluded the convention of Cintra with the 

 French commander, who evacuated Portugal by 

 30th September 1808. The three English gem-nil's 

 were examined licfore a court of inquiry ;is to 

 tlii-< convention, but no further steps were taken. 



Sir John Moore, appointed to the command of 

 tin- liritish troops (some 30,000) in Portugal on 6th 

 ' i.-tnU-r, had moved to Valladolid by 22d Deceml>er, 

 effecting a junction with Sir David Baird's division 

 from Coruna. But the Spanish troops had in the 

 meantime suffered a succession of defeats. The 

 French had received large reinforcements ; Napoleon 

 himself was in Madrid ; and Soult with 60,000 men 

 was in his front. Moore therefore executed a rapid 

 and masterly retreat to Corufia, and there fought 

 a successful battle to cover the embarkation, being 

 mortally wounded himself at the moment of victory. 

 For three months no further steps were taken by 

 the liritish government, but in December Sir John 

 Cradock was sent out to take command in Portu- 

 gal, and he took up a position covering Lisbon 

 from the French, now under Marshal Victor. In 

 this position Sir Arthur Wellesley, who was again 



sent out, found matters on 22d April 1809. The 

 French armies in Spain now numbered nearly 

 400,000 men, divided into eight corps d'armee, 

 under six marshals and Generals Junot and St Cyr, 

 and operating in the north, south, east, and west. 

 So long as Napoleon himself was able to direct 

 operations they were characterised by unity of pur- 

 pose and consequent success. Saragossa, attacked 

 for the third time, after a memorable defence of 

 sixty-three days, surrendered to Marshal Lanues 

 on 21st February 1809, and many victories were 

 gained over the Spanish levies ; but in Catalonia 

 St Cyr effected comparatively little. The outbreak 

 of war in Germany drew Napoleon to that country 

 in April, and the operations in Spain were some- 

 what neglected in consequence. The jealousies of 

 the French commanders too prevented any unity of 

 action there. 



Sir A. Wellesley first marched against Soult 

 with 20,000 British and 40,000 Spanish under 

 Cuesta, and .drove him out of Portugal. King 

 Joseph, with 80,000 men under Marshal Victor, 

 attacked at Talavera on 26th July and suffered a 

 severe defeat. For this victory Sir A. Welleslev 

 was created Viscount Wellington, but, beinjj left 

 without reinforcements, he was obliged to retire to 

 Almeida, while the defeat of the Spanish at Ocana 

 (November 20) enabled the French to overrun the 

 whole of Andalusia, except Cadiz, which still held 

 out. Wellington, foreseeing the impossibility of 

 taking the offensive at that time, prepared during 

 the winter a triple line of earthworks, 29 miles 

 long, from Torres Vedras on the Zizandra to 

 Alhandra on the Tagus, thus covering his base at 

 Lisbon. The French, 65,000 strong, under Massena, 

 moved against him in the spring of 1810, captured 

 the fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo on the llth July, 

 and attacked him in the position of Busaco on 29th 

 September. The attack was beaten off, and Wel- 

 lington, carrying out his preconceived plan, retired 

 slowly into the lines of Torres Vedras, carrying 

 with him as much of the resonrces of the country 

 as possible, and directing the Portuguese troops to 

 harass the flanks and rear of the French. To avoid 

 starvation Massena, finding himself unable to 

 attack Wellington's fortifications, and having lost 

 30,000 men, Began to retire on 14th November. 

 Reinforcements naving reached Wellington early 

 in 1811, he followed, defeated Massena at Sahagal 

 on 3d April 1811, and drove him ont of Portugal. 

 Soult in the meantime had defeated the Spaniards 

 at Gel>ora (February 19), and captured the fortress 

 of Badajoz. He also invested Cadiz, but General 

 Graham with a force of 12,000 men attacked and 

 defeated Marshal Victor's covering force at Barrosa 

 on 5th March, which checked his further move- 

 ments. Wellington, now designing to march on 

 Madrid and thence against the French line of com- 

 munications with Bayonne, found it necessary to 

 capture Badajoz and Almeida. Massena, at the 

 head of 50,000 men, marched to the relief of the 

 latter place. He was checked at Fuentes de Ofioro 

 on 5th May, where a hard-fought battle caused him 

 to retreat and abandon Almeida to the British. 

 \Vellington then turned towards Badajoz, which 

 Soult endeavoured to relieve with a force of 23,000 

 men. The British (7000) and Spaniards (25,000) 

 engaged him on the 16th May in the bloody battle 

 of Allmera, compelling him to retire, which he did 

 in a southerly direction. 



Matters were, however, in a very critical state 

 for the British, for the whole of Valencia, Asturios, 

 and Galicia was in the hands of the French, who 

 still hod nearly 300,000 men in Spain, and had 

 received no other check except from General Hill 

 in Estremadura and at Tarifa, which fortress 

 repelled Soult. Napoleon, too, threatened to take 

 the field again in person. But this was prevented 



