"To Conquer and to Keep: Suchet and the War for Eastern" Topic

… Spain, 1809-1814

"Napoleon once famously remarked "If I had had two Marshals like Suchet I should not only have conquered Spain, but have kept it." Louis-Gabriel Suchet was one of the few French commanders to leave the Peninsular War with his reputation enhanced, and the only one to win his marshal's baton in that war. When Suchet was first appointed to take command of French forces in Aragon in 1809 as a général de division, the French were on the verge of losing control over that province. Through a string of brilliant battlefield victories and sieges against Spanish regular forces as well as an initially successful counter-guerrilla campaign, Suchet managed to not only secure French control of Aragon, but moved on to conquer Lower Catalonia and Valencia as well. Like all French commanders in the Peninsular War, Suchet was faced with the challenges of Spanish popular resistance, but stood out above his colleagues for his notable success in pacifying Aragon. yet despite initial triumphs in 1809-1810 against the ‘traditional guerrilla', Suchet's counter-guerrilla policies were less successful than is often popularly perceived. As the war went on, French resources became thinly stretched, while conversely, the guerrilla war was increasingly spearheaded by Spanish regular forces to great efficiency, which contributed to the eventual collapse of French control in Eastern Spain…"

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Armand

Well spotted T. It is not ready for order yet though. A most useful subject area as there is not much written in English on the battles in eastern Spain.

Helion Books publishes these and many more new ones forthcoming…you can sign up for an alert when it is published. They usually publish the hard copy first, then a few months later they'll publish the epub as a special introduction….

A votre service mon ami…

Armand

August 31st 2022
wrong as often with amazon

…Patrice Courcelle is finishing the card cover…so quite short to be available for the end of the month