eBooks by Mark Simner
The Peninsular War, fought in Portugal, Spain and southern France between 1808 and 1814, was perhaps Britain’s most significant contribution to the fighting on land during the Napoleonic Wars. The conflict also saw Arthur Wellesley, who Napoleon would later deride as the ‘sepoy general’, make his name as one of Britain’s leading field commanders and become the Duke of Wellington. However, although often seen as largely a British struggle against the French, it should be remembered that both the Portuguese and Spanish played an equally important part in the eventual defeat of the emperor’s troops on the Iberian Peninsula.
A Brief History of the Peninsular War examines the complex origins of the conflict before considering the key phases of the war, including: Wellesley’s first expedition; Moore’s failed campaign; the return of Wellesley and his campaign in Portugal; the war as it happened in Spain; and the climatic invasion of southern France. Although Napoleon’s first defeat in 1814 was arguably a result of fighting elsewhere in Europe, the Peninsular War, in the form of both major battles and the relentless guerrilla tactics of the Spanish, acted as an immense drain on the French Grande Armée. It truly was Napoleon’s ‘Spanish Ulcer’.
