Napoleonic Wars in the Iberian Peninsula

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The campaign of Napoleon Bonaparte on the Iberian Peninsula lasted from 1807 to 1814. From the Spanish side he is Spanish War of Independence (Guerra de la Independencia Española), by the British Peninsular War called. The war on the peninsula represents a phase of the Napoleonic wars in which Spain , Portugal and Great Britain in particular fought against French supremacy. It began as an attempt by France to include Portugal in the trade blockade against Great Britain.

prehistory

Manuel de Godoy

The First Consul of France, Napoleon Bonaparte , imposed the Treaty of San Ildefonso on Spain in October 1800 . This Franco-Spanish alliance revived the conflict with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Manuel de Godoy became the “strong man” of Spain, while Pedro Ceballos Guerra was officially prime minister. At the beginning of 1801 Godoy was appointed Generalissimo and Admiral of Spain and India (term for Spanish America ). The Treaty 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 Franco-Spanish fleet suffered a crushing defeat on October 21, 1805 in the Battle of Trafalgar . Godoy's opponents personally credited him with the high losses of people and material and demanded the termination of the alliance with France. Because of this, Godoy called for war against France in October 1806. But at the beginning of 1807 Godoy had to end his anti-French policy. Napoleon I asked for 15,000 Spanish soldiers to be deployed. These soldiers had to fight against Prussia and Russia in the Napoleonic army in northern Germany and East Prussia ( fourth coalition war ).

On November 21, 1806, Napoleon imposed the continental blockade , an economic blockade , on the British Isles. It was supposed to bring Great Britain to its knees with the means of economic war. In addition, the continental barrier was intended to protect the French economy against any European and transatlantic competition. Since a contractual agreement with Portugal to comply with the lock was not possible, Napoleon intended to invade Portugal.

On October 27, 1807, France and Spain signed the secret Treaty of Fontainebleau . In this they agreed to conquer and partition Portugal. So that the French troops could reach Portugal by land, Spain allowed the French to march through Spain. At the end of 1807, Jean Andoche Junot received from Napoleon the command of the troops gathered at Salamanca for the occupation of Portugal. As early as October 17, 1807, Napoleon wrote to Junot that he was to be in Lisbon by December 1 , as a friend or as an enemy. Junot acted accordingly, within 11 days the French marched in forced marches from Salamanca to Abrantes , close to Lisbon. On November 30th, Junot entered the city with 1,500 soldiers without a fight. The day before was King João VI. With his court, accompanied by the government and important nobles, left for Brazil by sea .

French invasion

Charles IV and his wife Queen Maria Louisa, detail from Die Familie Karls IV von Goya.

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 move his throne to a safe country, e.g. B. Mexico to plan. When the plans became known to the population, it led to an uprising, which was primarily directed against the government and person of Godoy. When Karl learned that his son Ferdinand had asked Napoleon for help against Godoy and that French troops were marching into Spain, the royal family fled to Aranjuez . On March 17, 1808, the Aranjuez mutiny broke out; the king was arrested and forced to arrest Godoy. On the following day his son was celebrated by the people as King Ferdinand VII , but had to surrender the crown on May 6th under pressure from the French. Karl, his wife and Godoy fled to France, where Karl was forced to surrender the Spanish throne in favor of Napoleon's brother Joseph Bonaparte.

On April 10, 1808 Ferdinand left for negotiations with Napoleon in Bayonne and left the government to a Regency Council under the chairmanship of his uncle Antonio Pascual de Borbón during his absence. On April 20, 1808, Ferdinand and at the end of April 1808 also Charles IV. From Aranjuez arrived in Bayonne. There Ferdinand gave the crown back to his father on May 6, 1808 after long reluctance and placed himself under the protection of Napoleon, who assigned him the Valençay Castle as his place of residence with an annual pension of one million francs . Karl had previously agreed to resign in favor of Joseph Bonaparte . De facto, this was a capture of the royal family by Napoleon.

Spanish popular uprising

Attack of the Mamluks , painting by Francisco Goya

When the French tried on May 2, 1808 to bring the youngest son of King Charles IV, the Infante Francisco de Paula de Borbón , to Bayonne, it triggered a popular uprising in Madrid. On that day there was extensive street fighting in Madrid between residents, which was also joined by a Spanish artillery unit, and French troops. Several hundred deaths were the result. The events of May 2, 1808 ( Dos de Mayo ) are seen as the beginning of the armed resistance against French rule. On May 3, 1808, several arrested rebels were shot. Riots broke out across Spain. Especially in Catalonia, Navarre , the Basque Country and the mountains of Castile, the French were barely able to enforce their occupation regime. In large parts of the country there was permanent guerrilla warfare that the French could not master. This differentiated the Spanish uprising against the Napoleonic occupation from almost all other areas of Europe, where there were only brief, largely ineffective uprisings. The reason for this can be identified as the previously underdeveloped Spanish state, which, in addition to the standing army, relied on a militia system that became the basis for the widespread uprising. The strong gangs of smugglers and robbers also took part in the fight against the French and their Spanish allies. With the guerrilla guerrilla warfare , an element of warfare appeared for the first time in the Spanish War of Liberation, which, although related to the armament of the people , as it had enforced the French Revolution, was also radically different from it.

On May 24, 1808, the provincial junta of Oviedo first declared the revolt against the French occupation. Independently of this, the popular uprising in Cartagena took place on May 22, Valencia on May 23 and Murcia and Zaragoza on 24. Santander and Seville rose on May 26th, followed by the uprisings in Badajoz and La Coruña on May 30th .

Monks incited the masses to anger against the occupiers, citing the mistreatment of the Pope in Rome, who had been captured by the French . Over 2,100 monasteries and 1,100 nunneries became the centers of a religiously motivated uprising against the foreign occupation, which had been "ungodly" by the ideas of the French Revolution.

In the part of Spain not occupied by French troops, a counter-government ( Junta Suprema Central ) was formed in Aranjuez in September 1808 , which the incumbent government in Madrid did not recognize. 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, some anti-French regional governments had also acted against the guerrillas. The people's war, but also the operation of regular units under adverse conditions far away from supply possibilities, led to great hardship not only against the military opponents, but also against the civilian population, who had to suffer from looting that the occupiers supplied themselves with. With another ordinance of December 17, 1809, the Junta Suprema attempted to bind the guerrillas to the official war, but it continued to be 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 the autonomous robber gangs that were forming everywhere stood right next to a great unselfishness for the common struggle for freedom. A wide variety of talents emerged under these circumstances, 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 , known as El Empecinado, who came from a peasant family . The population nourished and informed these men and hid them when the raiding corps of the occupiers approached. The guerrillas' failure to maintain the demarcation between civilian population and combatants led to high levels of violence against civilians on the part of regular French troops. There were numerous acts of cruelty against civilians and prisoners on both sides. The brutality of the French, who increasingly and indiscriminately attacked the population, led to great casualties, especially among the rural population, but could not break the resistance of the Spanish. In its heyday, "the" guerrillas, which consisted of a large number of groups, some of which were at odds with one another, controlled the country so effectively that French messengers had to be protected with up to two hundred cavalrymen on their rides. Many guerrilla groups had also or primarily acted as robber gangs during the fight and made the country unsafe until the 1820s. Between 1810 and 1814 the painter Francisco de Goya captured the cruel scenes of this struggle in 82 etchings ; the series of pictures called Desastres de la Guerra ( Horrors of War ) appeared posthumously in 1863.

The war year 1808

King Joseph Bonaparte

After the abdication of Charles IV and Ferdinand VII, Joseph Bonaparte was proclaimed King of Spain on June 6, 1808 by Napoléon I with the participation of the Council of Castile. After this act, resistance broke out again among the Spanish population, which resulted in a lasting guerrilla war that overshadowed the entire reign of Joseph. Joseph Bonaparte planned to appoint Ceballos as foreign minister and to have the constitution signed. But Ceballos clearly stood on 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 journalistically support the Spanish resistance against Napoleon.

The French tried to occupy the still unoccupied southern Spain. For this purpose, 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 Cordoba at the beginning of June and, against the resistance of the Spanish militia under Colonel Echeverría with 3,000 volunteers, forced the crossing over the bridge of Alcolea . French troops invaded Cordoba on June 7 and looted the city for four days. General Vedel's division followed on June 15 with 5,000 men to the south.

The newly established Junta de Sevilla, meanwhile, bombed the trapped French fleet in Cadiz until several warships fell into the hands of the Spanish on June 14. The French troops in Catalonia under General Moncey, which were advancing on the east coast, failed in the first attack on Valencia between June 24 and 26 . A French corps under Marshal Bessières set out with 14,000 men in Burgos and captured Valladolid on July 10th . On July 14, 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 Middle Duero in Old Castile.

Faced with increasingly threatening uprisings in Andalusia, Dupont decided to retreat to the Sierra Morena and wait for help. On June 18, General Dupont decided to stay on the plain at Andújar while Spanish troops cordoned off the mountains. General Gobert's division left with General Vedel on July 2 to reinforce Dupont's troops. However, Dupont reached only one division at Andújar , the rest had to keep a road open to the north against the guerrilla force.

Castaños (in white uniform) after the Battle of Bailén

On Dupont's orders, Vedel moved north to drive away the militia blocking the Despeñaperros pass . But General Castaños got ahead of him and occupied this central position between Dupont and Vedel with 17,000 men and 12 cannons. On July 11th, the main Spanish army under Castaños united its troops in Porcuna with those of the Junta de Granada. Between July 18 and July 21, regular Spanish troops under General Castaños surrounded the French and forced the corps under Dupont between the Guadalquivir and the Sierra Morena to surrender after the battle of Bailén . Dupont surrendered on July 22nd with 8,242 men, on July 23rd the Vedel, Chabert and Dufour divisions followed with a further 9,393 soldiers. Of the approximately 18,000 prisoners, around 12,000 were brought to the island of Cabrera , where around 5,000 died of the inhumane conditions there. General Castaños was later appointed generalissimo for this victory by the central junta . For Napoleon this defeat was a humiliating and painful experience. Joseph Bonaparte's troops, which occupied Madrid on July 20th, had to leave the city on August 1st and return to Burgos .

On June 25, General Verdier took command of the French siege army assembled in front of Saragossa , which launched the attack on July 1. On July 11th, the French began to build a bridge over the Ebro in order to be able to enclose Saragossa from the other side of the river. After being wounded on August 4th, Verdier had to hand over command to General Lefebvre-Desnouettes . On August 4, the French penetrated the city through a breach and were driven out by Colonel Palafox. Meanwhile, at the end of August 9,500 men had arrived in Spain under General Marques de La Romana . They were previously in Jutland as Napoleon's auxiliary troops and were transferred to La Coruña by the British fleet under Admiral Keats to fight the French at home. On August 13, the French troops in Catalonia had to break off their first three-month siege of Zaragoza without success. On December 19, a strong force of around 30,000 soldiers under Marshals Moncey and Mortier moved to Aragon and on the 21st began the second siege of Zaragoza .

On August 17, 1808, General Gouvion Saint-Cyr became the commander of the "Spanish Army" in Catalonia. His troops conquered the fortress of Roses and defeated the Spaniards under Caldagnes at Molins de Rey (December 21) and General Reding at Igualada (February 14, 1809).

English intervention

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, oil painting by the Spanish painter Francisco de Goya

On August 1, 1808, British troops, about 12,000 men, landed in Portugal. The joint supreme command was initially with the generals Sir Harry Burrard and Sir Hew Dalrymple , as they had older patents than Major General Arthur Wellesley . Wellesley (who later became the Duke of Wellington ) was underestimated in Europe because he had only fought in India before. The army consisted of British troops and a large contingent of the King's German Legion . In addition, a number of British officers were taken over into the Portuguese army. These reformed the army based on 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 were reported under Junot , they were already advancing against the landing forces. Wellesley and his troops defeated the French vanguard under Delaborde on August 17 at the Battle of Roliça and later Junot's main power on August 21 at Torres Vedras, west of the Lower Tagus, in the Battle of Vimeiro . Generals Burrard and Dalrymple prevented Wellesley's intention to cut off and destroy Junot's forces in Lisbon. Although they were both seasoned generals, they made a serious tactical mistake: in the Cintra Convention , the two British generals agreed that the French army and equipment could be brought to Quiberon on British ships . The leading generals were recalled to Great Britain and tried to court martial. When the French surrendered control to the British on September 15, and the Portuguese government was not yet complete, British General John Hope practically became the governor 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 the northeast to Almeida and initially took over the command of the British army in Spain. Wellesley was quickly rehabilitated. Moore marched to Madrid in November, but had to retreat to the Bay of Biscay through Asturias after Napoleon's approach . His rearguard delivered successful rearguard battles with the pursuing French on December 21 at Sahagún and on December 29 at Benavente .

Intervention of Napoleon

January Suchodolski : Napoleon after the victory at Tudela, November 23, 1808
Breakthrough of the French at Somosierra Pass, November 30, 1808

In the meantime, the French had to leave Madrid in the autumn. In October 1808, the French armed forces in the Spanish theater of war were increased to 250,000 men. With the reinforcements at the end of October 1808, Baden, Nassauer and Hesse ( Rheinbund troops of the Kingdom of Westphalia ) arrived and were assigned to Marshal Lefebvre's army corps . On October 31, they fought under his command at Durango and Pancorbo and on November 8 at Valmaseda against the Spanish under General Blake. While parts of the German troops then secured Bilbao or stayed as crews on the Bay of Biscay , the majority marched off to Madrid, where they arrived at the beginning of December.

Emperor Napoleon himself hurried via Bayonne to Vitoria , where he arrived on November 8, 1808 and took over the supreme command. The British landed under Moore with 15,000 men in Portugal too late, while two strong Spanish armies were defeated by the French. Marshal Soult defeated the Spanish army under the Conte de Belveder in the battle of Gamonal not far from Burgos on November 10 , while the following day the combined corps under Marshal Victor and Lefebvre destroyed the armies of La Romana and Joaquín Blake y Joyes in battle at Espinosa . Within ten days all of northern Spain was subdued by Soult and Bessiere's troops.

The Spanish high general Castaños, who led the last regular army into the field, advanced as far as the Ebro , but was defeated on November 23 by Marshal Lannes in the battle of Tudela and later so slandered by the vicious General Montijo at the central junta that he was deposed and decommissioned for several years.

Meanwhile, Moore advanced to Castile, where he hoped to find support from the Spanish insurgents. Before Burgos he did not find the support he had hoped for from regular Spanish units. Napoleon rushed to the rescue of Madrid personally; his troops pursued the Spanish troops over the Sierra de Guadarrama , which was disintegrating due to desertion . General Juan de San Benito left 3,000 men behind to cover the retreat at Sepúlveda. His vanguard and Polish forces under Kozietulski broke the opposing resistance at the Somosierra Pass on November 30th . On December 4, Napoleon occupied Madrid without a fight. Moore broke off his advance after these successes of the enemy and turned north through Asturias to join his troops with those of General Baird , who had landed on November 11 with 10,000 men in La Coruña. When caught between two fires (Junot's army was advancing over Burgos and Soult's troops had been concentrated in Asturias), the British could only retreat. Napoleon pursued them with the main army on December 23rd again through the impassable Sierra de Guadarrama to the north.

On December 29, Moore was able to throw back the French vanguard under Lefebvre at Benavente and continue his retreat. His troops reached the port city of La Coruña , where the Royal Navy awaited his retreat and covered him with naval artillery. The British built a line of defense to allow troops to embark. They won the Battle of La Coruña on January 16, 1809 ; embarkation was successful. General Moore fell in battle; Wellesley was reinstated in command.

In the spring of 1809 the Bonapartist regime seemed to prevail in Spain. Nests of resistance were wiped out in large parts of the country while the British had left the theater of war. Further reinforcements from the Rhineland troops also arrived in Spain, around 7000 Westphalia, 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 Frankfurter, on the 13th the Nassau, Baden and Hesse marched via Toledo to Talavera, where they were assigned to the French Le Val division. At the end of January 1809 General von Schäffer took command of the Nassau and Frankfurt regiments, while the French General Werlé led the combined brigade of Baden and Hesse. The 4,000-strong German division was assigned to Marshal Victor's army corps in the Estremadura and primarily secured the rear connections against the Spanish guerrillas, with cruel war crimes being played out. On March 17, 1809, Schäffer's brigade stormed the rocky heights of Mesa de Ibor, and the Baden and Nassau residents then took part in the Battle of Medellin (March 28).

Second campaign in Portugal

Marshal Soult at the Battle of Oporto

After the troops of Maréchal Soult took the city of Chaves , they moved towards Braga , the vanguard between Ruivães and Salamonde being repulsed by Portuguese forces under General Freire. Freire was murdered by soldiers from the local militia, and Colonel Baron Eben took over command .

On March 20, 1809, the defending Portuguese troops were defeated in the Battle of Braga , and the French forces under Marshal Soult succeeded in conquering Braga and later Porto. Between March 20th and March 26th, Maréchal Soult secured his connection and supply routes through various infantry and cavalry bases. The towns of Barcelos and Guimarães were taken. After passing the Ave and advancing on Sobreira , the French moved towards Porto. However, there were still remaining British formations in Portugal, to which additional troops were sent from Great Britain to liberate Portugal. On March 28, the Battle of Medellín followed , between the villages of Don Benito and Mingabril, east of Mérida , 18,000 French under Victor defeated about 24,000 Spaniards under General de la Cuesta .

After the British landed in Portugal again, Wellesley increased to 22,000 men and defeated the French on May 12, 1809 in the Second Battle of Porto . The French troops had to withdraw from Portugal, so that four weeks after the British victory in this battle there were no more French combat troops. 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 Spanish. Another 25,000 Spaniards should try to advance against Madrid and take the capital at the same time.

With this in mind , Wellington's advance through the Tajo Valley began on June 28, 1809 , and the Spanish-Portuguese border was crossed on July 3, 1809. As a result, there were serious problems, such as inaction by Spanish commanders and collapsing logistics, but the French patrols discovered the British troops on July 22, 1809, still on the march to Madrid. Due to the orders of Emperor Napoleon, several French corps were to form an army during this time and take action against the British army and Portugal.

On July 25, 1809, about a hundred kilometers west of Madrid, two French corps under Marshal Victor joined forces with King Joseph, who was approaching from Madrid, with a total of 45,000 men. The Spaniards withdrew - knowing this concentration of troops - back west to the British troops. Nevertheless, the Spanish and French clashed east of Talavera . The Spaniards under General de Cuesta withdrew on July 27 after a minor skirmish near the ruins of Casa de las Salinas on the British troops under General Wellesley. In the battle of Talavera de la Reina , Wellington and the Spaniards under Cuesta and Contreras achieved a great victory on July 28th. In the further course of the year, the army leader, who had meanwhile been appointed Viscount Wellington, was only able to prevent the French from conquering Portugal.

Meanwhile, the Fifth Coalition War and minor uprisings had begun in German-speaking countries, which forced Napoleon to withdraw large troop contingents 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 blow against Wellesley's troops in Portugal.

The war year 1809 in Catalonia

On January 10, 1809, the shelling of the fortified city of Saragossa began, which was defended by about 20,000 men under General Palafox. On January 22nd, General Lannes took command of the French. Instead of Palafox, General San Marc led the final battles. The Spaniards finally capitulated after fierce fighting on February 20th. The house-to-house fights were considered typical of the Spanish guerrillas, as in addition to regular troops, civilians and women also took part, some of whom tried to repel the invading French with stones or boiling water. At the end of the fighting, Zaragoza was largely destroyed.

In the Battle of Valls on February 25, 1809, the Franco-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 by five sword blows in the battle. The Spanish forces were defeated and scattered and fled towards Tarragona . The French captured all of the Spanish artillery and entered Reus. They besieged Tarragona until March 20th. The plague broke out in the city and claimed many lives among the garrison and residents.

South of Saragossa, 12,000 French under Suchet defeated over 30,000 Spaniards under General Blake in the Battle of Belchite on June 18 . The increased to 80,000 troops under Soult struck on August 8, the Spanish army under Cuesta in the Battle of Arzobispo and a few days later to the gain too late zoom gekom mende second Spanish army Venegas in the battle of Almonacid (August 11).

The siege of Gerona also took place in the second half of the year, as early as May a 15,000-strong corps, mostly Rheinbund troops , under Gouvion St. Cyr had appeared in front of the city and began the formal siege on June 8th. The defense was in the hands of General Mariano Alvarez de Castro . Gouvion St. Cyr managed to drive the Spanish troops back across the Ebro. After seven months of unsuccessful attacks, St. Cyr's successor Augereau succeeded in forcing the small rock fortress to surrender on December 11, 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 defeat the Spaniards on November 26th in the battle of Alba de Tormes . Without a functioning army that could have defended southern Spain, Andalusia was overrun by the French the following winter.

The war year 1810

André Masséna

Wellesley had the fortifications of Torres Vedras completed by 1810 and entrenched his troops behind them. The first of the two lines of defense was made up of 30 entrenchments with 140 guns, the second comprised 65 entrenchments and 150 guns, and a third one with 11 works and 96 guns behind it, facing the seashore. The whole line was manned with up to 70,000 men, which were adequately 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 hit the Torres Vedras lines, where his advance got stuck in Wellington's defense system. He decided against storming these extensive, double lines of interconnected fortifications. After a hungry winter outside Lisbon, the French withdrew to the Spanish border, followed by the British-Portuguese army. Between April 26th and July 9th, the first siege of Ciudad Rodrigo took place . Corps under Marshal Ney .

In the Spanish heartland, encouraged by the laws of the Cortes of Cádiz , the largely suppressed guerrilla movement flared up again. Sometimes local juntas or individual militia leaders performed the functions of rulers or governments, collected taxes, installed administrative structures and also fought against each other.

In early 1810, the Junta Suprema Central appointed General Venegas governor of Cadiz, just as the French were beginning to siege the fortress. Protected by the superior British fleet, communication to all ports in Spain and abroad was guaranteed. From February 6, 1810 to August 25, 1812, Cadiz was besieged by the French, first under Soult's command, then under Victor and Sébastiani, but they were only able to capture a few forts. In February 1810 the defeated Spanish corps of the Duke of Alburquerque with 8,000 men had gone there and was pursued by the French army under Victor. In addition, a British division under General Graham landed in Cadiz to protect the junta government.

With a decree of January 29, 1810, the Junta Suprema Central dissolved and transferred its legislative power to the Cortes, who 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 February 8th, which converted the provinces of Catalonia, Aragon, Biscaja and Navarre to French governorates, in preparation for incorporation into France, aroused particularly displeasure. On September 24th the Cortes was opened on the Isla de León, which took up deliberations on a new constitution. This parliament, known as Cortes generales y extraordinarias , created a constitution between September 1810 and March 1812, which was promulgated on March 19, 1812.

Wellington managed meanwhile in the Portuguese theater of war to occupy the Serra do Buçaco, with 25,000 men of British 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 September 27, 1810, the British-Portuguese troops were able to record a great defensive victory at Torres Vedras. The French attacks were carried out by the corps of Marshal Ney and General Reynier , but despite hard fighting, they failed to displace the Allied forces and they had to withdraw, with the loss of 4,500 dead or wounded. Portugal was now liberated from the French occupation with the exception of the border fortress of Almeida . During the retreat, the battle of Sobral de Monte Agraço (October 13-14, 1810) took place.

In Catalonia, Marshal Augereau was replaced by MacDonald on April 24, 1810 . Suchet's troops successfully completed the siege of Lerida on May 13th and that of Mequinenza on June 5th. The Neapolitan Pignatelli division marched from Gerona on July 17th and brought a strong convoy to supply the occupation forces in Barcelona. Another 16,000 men marched south to support Suchet's operations against Tortosa . The Spanish commander in Catalonia, General O'Donnell tried to stop the French attacks on Tarragona and Tortosa. A Spanish division, reinforced by a landed Anglo-Spanish detachment under General Fane , was suddenly attacked by the French Rouyer division . On September 14th, the Franco-German brigade under Schwarz was completely defeated at La Bisbal , and the prisoners were taken to Colonja.

The war year 1811

Mourning Napoleonic soldier from the Spanish campaign, under a star and palm tree, sitting in front of graves, detail from the Napoleon stone , old cemetery, Worms-Pfeddersheim
Main cemetery Frankenthal (Pfalz) , tombstone of Johannes Haas, lieutenant in the 16th French Line Infantry Regiment, with reference to the participation in the siege of Tarragona (1811) and the battle near Sagunto

In January 1811, Marshal Soult thinned out his siege troops in front of Cádiz in order to assemble a field army that went off to siege Badajoz. In response, British and Spanish troops attempted to break the French lines off Cádiz by landing a contingent of troops behind the French lines at Algeciras , an endeavor that led to the Battle of Barrosa (Chiclana) on March 5 . On February 19, the Spanish Extremadura army under General Mendizabal was crushed in the Battle of Gévora , near Badajoz . The allies did not take advantage of the French defeat at Chiclana.

Soult was able to continue the siege of Badajoz; although the town's garrison was now about 8,000 strong because of the influx of soldiers from Mendizabal's destroyed army, it finally fell into the hands of the French on March 11th. Wellington then sent a large Anglo-Portuguese corps under the command of General William Beresford to retake the important fortified city, so that on April 20th the second siege of Badajoz began.

In Portugal, after the French defeat in the Battle of Sabugal on April 3, Masséna recognized the untenability of his positions and withdrew to the Spanish border fortress Ciudad Rodrigo, which guarded the road to Salamanca. He left a small force behind in the Portuguese fortress of Almeida. South of the Tagus, the Portuguese fortress Elvas and the Spanish fortress Badajoz on the main road from Portugal to Madrid remained under French control. After Masséna reached Ciudad Rodrigo, he was recalled to Paris by Napoleon and replaced by Marshal Marmont .

Wellington began recapturing the fortified border towns of Almeida and Badajoz . 20,000 men under General Beresford were dispatched to besiege Badajoz, while Wellington marched on Almeida with twice that number .

On April 22nd General Beresford took command of the siege of Badajoz. On May 12, the arrival of a French relief army under Marshal Soult with 26,000 men and 4,000 horsemen was reported from the south. Beresford immediately broke off the siege and moved southeast towards the small town of Albuera , where he took a defensive position. After the union with the Spanish Corps under Generals Blake and Castanos, an army of 36,000 men (about 7,000 of them British) was available. At the Battle of Albuera on May 16, Beresford and Soult's troops met with a tie. The Spanish division under Zayas in particular proved itself against a surprising flank attack by the French. Soult had to return to Seville on the night of May 17-18, and Wellington resumed the siege of Badajoz. The newly appointed French commander-in-chief Marmont marched to relieve the French garrison of Almeida. The British-Portuguese-Spanish coalition consisted of 34,000 infantry and 1,850 horsemen in the following battle at Fuentes de Oñoro on May 3, and won another victory. On May 8th 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 besiege Tarragona , the fortress held by Spanish troops under General Contreras, surrendered on June 28th after hard fighting. After the handover, massacres of the civilian population followed.

After the capture of Tarragona , Suchet, appointed Marshal, made preparations to clean up the coastal province of Valencia. On July 27th he reached Sagunto with 25,000 men and on October 18th he began bombarding the small Sagunto fortress, where 3,000 men were defending. About 30,000 Spaniards under General Blake advanced in the battle of Murviedro for relief, but were thrown back by their fleet on October 25th at Puçol despite strong support from the sea and lost 5,000 prisoners. Suchet then pursued the Spaniards to Valencia, where Blake threw himself with his troops.

In September 1811, the Godinot division dissolved 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 interior Spain, Lord Beresford remained after the summer operations as the highest military in Portugal. Until 1812, there were repeated attacks by French and British-Portuguese troops in the Spanish-Portuguese border region, but these did little to change the deadlock.

The fighting of 1812

Siege of Burgos by British-Portuguese forces led by the Duke of Wellington , 1812, painting by François-Joseph Heim

At the end of the year, Marshal Auguste Marmont , on the orders of Napoleon, had already given 10,000 men to the commander in Catalonia, Marshal Suchet , in order to reinforce the troops charged with the conquest of Valencia. Between January 1st and 9th 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 become weaker, he marched to Ciudad Rodrigo and took it after a short siege on January 19, for which he was raised to Earl of Wellington by the Prince Regent George . British division generals Craufurd and MacKinnon were fatally wounded in the siege and assault on this fortress . The capture of Ciudad Rodrigo opened the northern corridor for the invasion of Spain from Portugal. It also allowed Wellesley to march into Badajoz and capture that fortress in what turned out to be a much more lossy event. From March 16, 1812 Badajoz was besieged for the third time and stormed on April 6, Wellington's troops had lost 3,340 men.

While a British corps under General Hill then advanced between the French armies Marmont and Soult against the Tagus, Wellington's main power turned to León. The army under Marmont fell back on the Duero before him , drew Bonet's division to them and advanced again against the English. On July 21, Marmont awaited the enemy at Tormes and in positions on the Arapilen. On July 22nd, Wellington defeated the French at the Battle of Salamanca , on July 23rd, light cavalry under Major General Anson encountered a dragoon brigade of the German Legion near García Hernández , the French rearguard was commanded by Foy , who replaced the after the defeat of Salamanca wounded Marmont had taken over the command. On August 12, the British-Portuguese vanguard of Wellington's army was crushed by a French cavalry division in the battle near Majadahonda. Lord Wellington was able to occupy Madrid on August 12, but was driven out of the city shortly afterwards. Wellington gave up the planned siege of Burgos on October 21, 1812 and withdrew to the southwest in the direction of Torquemada, his 35,000-strong army was pursued by the French under General Souham .

After the destruction of the Grande Armée in Russia and the beginning of the fighting in Germany in the spring of 1813, the French troops in Spain no longer received any reinforcements.

The last year of the war, 1813

Nicolas Jean-de-Dieu Soult

Wellington spent the winter reorganizing 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 catastrophic Russian campaign . As early as April 13, 1813, 17,000 British and Spanish under General Murray were able to push back a corps of Suchets with 15,000 men at Castalla .

In May 1813 Wellington began the final offensive between the Duero and Tajo, in which he first conquered the northern provinces of Spain and moved his headquarters from Lisbon to Santander . Wellington's troops marched from northern Portugal over the mountains of northern Spain to flank the troops (58,000 men) of Marshal Jourdan , King Joseph Bonaparte's chief of staff . To prevent Wellington's forces from blocking their way to France, the French withdrew to Burgos. Finally, Wellington attacked the French under Joseph Bonaparte on June 21 in the decisive battle of Vitoria with three columns. After a bitter struggle, the division under General Picton was able to break into the center of the French and tear open the defensive line. The French corps found Clausel too late . There were 4,500 dead and wounded on the British side. At the same time, 152 cannons were captured. The battle ended Napoleon's rule in Spain. The British soldiers failed to pursue the fleeing French troops, preferring to plunder the covered wagons that had been left behind. Joseph Bonaparte was recalled, Marshal Nicolas Soult was given supreme command. On July 7th, Wellington began the siege of San Sebastian , the French garrison was under General Rey .

From Sicily, the British fleet under Rear Admiral Carew landed on June 2 on the Spanish east coast near Tarragona 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 took place on June 3 , when the siege of Tarragona began. After the French commander-in-chief in Catalonia, General Decaen, released strong forces under Mathieu in front of Barcelona and threw them against the landing forces, the British had to break off the siege on June 11th and embark again. On June 27, they landed again at Alicante under the new Commander-in-Chief Lord Bentinck . Suchet then gave up the fortress of Valencia in mid-July, reinforced the Decaen and defeated Bentinck at Ordel in September.

The French counter-offensive in northern Spain brought Soult a few more victories, but they only brought high losses and no more strategic advantage. The French had strengthened themselves again to 77,000 men and stopped the pursuers on a broad front in the battle of the Pyrenees on July 25th. Soult defeated the British 4th Division. The Allied units were able to be pushed back further during the day until they holed up on the Col de Roncevaux during the night , pursued by far superior French forces. The attack of the French Corps Clausel was repulsed by the British division Byng. On Soult's right wing, 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 concentrated strong forces north of Pamplona and stopped Soult's advance at the Battle of Sorauren on July 28th. Two more skirmishes ensued the next day, when the French tried again to get between the forces of Wellington and the besiegers of San Sebastian. At Tolosa , Hill's division succeeded in rejecting this attempt. After his attack momentum was broken, Soult withdrew to French territory on August 1 and prepared for the British offensive. The French Vandermaesen division almost threatened to be encircled near Bera, and managed to break away just in time.

On August 31, Wellington, San Sebastian, the capital of Guipuzcoa, was able to occupy it. British troops crossed the river after the Battle of Bidassoa and captured Pamplona on October 31 . On November 10, the French lost another 4,000 men (1,200 of them prisoners) in the Battle of the Nivelle . Between December 9th and 13th, Wellington forced the river to cross in the Battle of the Nive . The British and Portuguese broke through the position of the French. Soult lost almost 10,000 men in a five-day battle and withdrew to Bayonne. Wellington drove Napoleon's Spanish army across the Pyrenees and set foot on French soil on October 7, 1813.

The outcome of the war and its consequences

End of the war in southern France in 1814

Battle of Toulouse

After the fighting that had taken place at Bayonne in 1813, the armies withdrew 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, General Rowland Hill's division crossed the Nive , forcing the French to retreat north to Saint-Palais. General Harispe initially left a garrison in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port , but it was harassed by the Spanish under the command of General Espoz y Mina . Since this did not proceed energetically enough, the French were able to escape via the Bidassoa .

On February 27, 1814, he defeated Soult's troops in the battle of Orthez and was able to occupy Bordeaux on March 12, in cooperation with the British fleet . On March 15, Augereau gave up Lyon in the east and withdrew to Vienne. The Battle of Vic-de-Bigorre in the Pyrenees ended on March 19, 1814 without a winner. The French withdrew to Toulouse with about 42,000 men . Shortly before Napoleon's abdication, on April 10, 1814, at the Battle of Toulouse , he succeeded in forcing the French to retreat and to conquer the city. Soult evacuated the city on the night of April 11th and 12th, and Wellington triumphantly entered it on the same day, received by the royalists like a liberator. Ferdinand VII received the Spanish crown from Napoleon himself in the Treaty of Valençay in 1813, and in 1814 Napoleon had to capitulate. On April 18, 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; power in the country was in the hands of the British commander, William Carr Beresford . The building of industrialization was stopped; ravaged the country by the scorched earth tactics used by both the French and the British. Constitutionally, Portugal was ruled from Brazil, in 1815 Brazil received a new status, was no longer a Portuguese colony, but an independent kingdom with the same rights as Portugal, linked to it by personal union. In 1820 there was the liberal revolution, which began with a revolt of Portuguese officers in Porto. The British officers were removed from the Portuguese army. The insurgents called a constituent assembly, passed 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 ruled by various juntas modeled on the Cadiz Regency Council. These provisional governments initially swore allegiance to the king, but actually operated independently of Spain. The driving forces behind the struggle for independence were mainly the two Venezuelans Bolívar and Sucre in the north of South America and the Argentine San Martín and the Chilean O'Higgins in the south. By 1825, almost all the states of South America had gained independence from Spain.

In the Treaty of Valençay (December 11, 1813) Joseph Bonaparte renounced the Spanish crown in favor of Ferdinand VII . On his return to Spain on May 4, 1814, Ferdinand VII declared all legislation since May 1808 to be invalid from the outset in a manifesto at Valencia. This also disbanded the Cortes who had gathered in Madrid and abruptly ended the path that had already been taken to enlightenment in Spain. The Spanish economy had hit rock bottom 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 of the income from the colonies that had previously flowed into the state budget.

In 1812, the Cortes of Cádiz made it possible for Spain to have the first modern, liberal constitution with the Constitution of Cádiz . The question of a written constitution was on the agenda from March 1811. The most important of these laws were promulgated by the Cortes of Cadiz. Including a new law on manorial rule, with which the patrimonial courts were repealed on August 6, 1811. On April 22, 1811, torture was banned. The abolition of the family entailment was supposed to mean that inheritances could be divided and land owned by families could be sold. Another law stipulated that monasteries in which fewer than twelve monks or nuns lived should be closed. A very controversial law was the law passed on February 5, 1813, dissolving the Inquisition in Spain. The Cortes ordinarias, convened by the law of May 23, 1812, met in Cádiz on September 25, 1813, then on October 14 on the Isla de León near Cádiz, and then, after the French had withdrawn, resigned to meet in Madrid on January 15, 1814. None of the members of the first Cortes of Cadiz was a member of the newly elected parliament, because the electoral law precluded renewed membership.

After the outbreak of unrest, Ferdinand VII felt compelled from March 1820 to give in to the demand for the re-enactment of the Cádiz constitution. In the following three years, the Cadiz Constitution was in effect again. At the Verona Congress of 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 October 1, 1823, the constitution of Cadiz and all orders, laws and regulations of the government since March 7, 1820 were restored canceled.

literature

Web links

Commons : Napoleonic Wars in the Iberian Peninsula  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Henry Adams , Earl N. Harbert (1986): History of the United States of America During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson , pp. 1009-1010 , ISBN 0-940450-34-8 , accessed December 22, 2010
  2. ^ The popular encyclopedia or 'Conversations Lexicon (Vol. V), London 1846 , accessed on June 16, 2018
  3. Angel Martínez de Velasco: Ferdinand VII. In: Walther L. Bernecker u. A. (Ed.): The Spanish Kings , CH Beck, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-406-42782-0 , p. 211 ff.
  4. ^ Charles Oman : History of the Peninsular War: 1807-1809 - From the Treaty of Fontainebleau to the Battle of Corunna (Vol. 1), online
  5. Charles Esdale: The Peninsular War. A New History . London 2002, p. 161.
  6. Zaragoza . In: Brockhaus Konversations-Lexikon 1894–1896, Volume 14, pp. 316–317 (here p. 317).
  7. ^ Eyewitness report in: Ruthard von Frankenberg: In the Black Corps to Waterloo. Memoirs of Major Erdmann von Frankenberg . Hamburg 2015. p. 99f.