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  The Peninsular War and the Fall of Napoleon, 1809-1814

The Peninsular War and the Fall of Napoleon, 1809-1814

After the embarkation of the British troops, Napoleon thought that the Spanish rising was ''nearly at an end". But he was to be quickly undeceived, for in April, 1809, Wellesley arrived in the Peninsula for the second time. With Wellesley's operations the campaigns known in our history as the Peninsular War really begin. The difficulties which Wellesley had to overcome were very great. Opinion at home was much divided as to the expediency of the war and the abilities of Wellesley himself; consequently he had to be cautious - "if I.lost five hundred men without the clearest necessity", he said, "I should be brought to my knees". The British officers with him were for the most part at first inex­perienced; the men were sometimes six months in arrears of pay, and for four campaigns had to do without tents. Of the British allies, the Portuguese, till trained by the British, were untrustworthy. The Spaniards waged a guerrilla warfare, it is true, so successfully against the French that the latter, though they had as many as three hundred thousand men in the field, were never able to concentrate more than seventy thousand against Wellesley. But the Spaniards were useless in formal battles; even the best of them, in Wellesley's opinion, would only fire a volley whilst the enemy was out of reach and then run away.

It has been said of the Peninsula that it is a country where " large armies starve and small armies get beaten ". The country was mountainous, and the roads instead of following ran across the river valleys. Consequently it was difficult to get food or transport for a large army for any length of time; and the art of war consisted in the ability to concentrate rapidly a large army for a swift and decisive blow. The French generals, however, found greater difficulties from the nature of the country than did Wellington. They had to operate in the main down the ribs of a fan, down the river valleys, and they found it difficult to move from one valley to another. Their lines of communication, owing to the hostile population, were always precarious, and the farther the French went, the more difficult it was to secure them. The English, on the other hand, had their communications by sea. They could thus avoid lengthening their lines, whilst when strong enough to take the offensive they could strike at the communications of the French and compel - as Moore in the Corunna campaign and Wellington in the Vittoria campaign - the French to retreat.

Chronology
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