"Napoleon Could Have Won the Peninsular War" Topic

You were asked – TMP link

It's generally acknowledged that the 'Spanish Ulcer' played a key role in the eventual downfall of Napoleon's empire. After reading about the Peninsular War, I've been left with a question: was it possible for the Bonapartist regime in Spain to definitively win?

53% said "yes, Napoleon could have won the Peninsular War"

34% said "no, Napoleon could not have won the Peninsular War"

Monty was once asked how to win a war and his reply was don't attack Russia. Napoleon should have let the Peninsula alone and just forget the two countries were avoiding the Continental System that didn't work well anywhere else including France itself.

With enough variables anything's possible, so the answer has to be yes.

He got so much wrong in the lead up that you could argue that by the time he was there it was already unwinable.

Cheers,
John

Unfortunately, you can't decide to just overlook the fact that your blockade's not working. You can't run a blockade that's leaking like a sieve from both ends.

The Corsican upstart's error was much the same as Putin's in Ukraine a year ago. He assumed he could barge in with his army, replace the regime with a gangster regime of his own, and the locals would just capitulate. Unfortunately they fought back powerfully, and more unfortunately still, they turned out to have some powerful and committed allies.

The Italian-speaking parvenu probably twigged by late 1808 that he'd suckered himself into an unwinnable encounter. As it was a priority for him to avoid personal association with military failure, he routinely deserted armies that were getting pwned. He did it in 1798, he did it in 1812, he did it in 1815 and of course he did it in Spain in 1808, leaving Soult to follow up Moore once it was clear the latter was sure to escape.

The arriviste usurper could have gone back in the second half of 1809; or throughout 1810; or throughout 1811; or indeed in 1812, instead of into Russia. Using his enormous military brain, he had three clear years in which he could have ended it. Doing so would have signalled to Russia that he was serious about his blockade, and might even have obviated the need for an 1812 campaign in Russia.

He did not return because he knew perfectly it was unwinnable and he wanted this to be other people's fault. In fact, it was so unwinnable that he actually thought invading Russia looked smarter. Imagine that: the Spanish campaign was so doomed that assembling another army, 600,000 strong, and marching it to Moscow looked easier than trying to win in Spain.

He hadn't learnt his lesson by 1815 either. At Waterloo, Hougoumont was General di Buonaparte's Spain, in microcosm.

Napoleon's three greatest mistakes were invading Spain, invading Russia, and the Continental System. The invasion of Spain, specifically, saddled Napoleon with a definite second front. This was more of a drain on French resources than Russia was.

Napoleon left Spain because of the Austrian invasion of Bavaria in April 1809. He knew of the Austrian preparations for another war early in 1809 because of Davout's excellent intelligence system in central Europe where he commanded 90,000 French veterans, including his own III Corps.

Could Napoleon have won in Spain? Yes, but he would have had to come back to Spain to finish the job after again defeating Austria.

The reason Napoleon invaded Spain was that he found evidence in Berlin in November 1806 that had Napoleon been defeated in Prussia, Spain would have turned on him.

It is also interesting to note that Moore's British army was chased out of Spain by Soult in late 1808 and that after the continued intervention of the British after Moore's defeat, the Spanish guerillas and Wellingtons Anglo-Portuguese army were dependent upon each other for their own existence. One could not exist without the other. And Suchet's campaigns in eastern Spain were an example of what could be done with energetic campaigning and competent leadership.

Comparing Napoleon's invasion of Spain with Putin's invasion of Ukraine is a false analogy. The two situations are completely different. The best sources of information on the Peninsular War are Oman's history of the war and Lipscombe's Atlas.

Further, using comments such as 'Corsican upstart', 'Italian-speaking parvenu', 'arrivste usurper' as well as attempting to read Napoleon's thought processes 200 years after the fact is ahistorical at best and degrades the value of historical discussion. Further, the comments are historically inaccurate and reflect the British and allied propaganda of the period and not historical scholarship.

Possibly, the biggest mistake was after Ocana when the French invaded Andalusia. They should have concentrated immediately on driving Wellington's army off the continent, then mopped up Spain. Without the British & Portuguese forces acting as a diversion for over 70,000 troops it is highly likely that Spanish resistance would in time be overcome.

4th is baiting you, Brechtel, and you're taking the bait.

Sadly, the analogy is not false. Both invasions stemmed from a belief that the invaded nation might cause trouble later, and a conviction that the regime change would be relatively cheap and bloodless. I could suggest other examples of that sort of thinking over the intervening two centuries, and even voted for some of the perpetrators. Once or twice, it's even been a correct reading of the situation.

But whether Bonaparte should have invaded Spain from a legal or moral standpoint, is not the same as the prudential argument--was a win possible? I'd still say no. His Imperial Majesty was always better at defeating hostile armies than in making friends of foreign nations. Appeasing the Iberian people was beyond him, logistics were always his weak point, and an army would have had to remain in central Europe to keep his "allies" in line. I don't know how you'd prove it, absent a paratime machine, but I don't see a win.

In fact, I think the "three greatest mistakes" are consequences of a single mistake--the unwillingness to concede that other nations could do things he disapproved of, and which even damaged his interests. That was the price of a stable empire, and it was a price he would never pay.

Napoleon finding evidence in Berlin that Spain would switch sides if Napoleon had been defeated in Prussia. That has to rank up there with Capt. Renault being shocked, shocked to discover gambling going on at Rick's. That Spain under the Bourbons was going to act in her own interests, and was within its rights to do so, should have been a given in Napoleon's mind.

PoE, it is understandable why the French did what they did. In mid 1809 pro-Bourbon Spanish forces probably controlled more of the Iberian Peninsula than anyone else. They had more troops in the field than Britain or Portugal. Pro-Bourbon forces had come close to recapturing Madrid in the lead up to Ocana.

It is interesting that when Napoleon discovered, so we are told, that the Spanish would have "turned on him' in the event of his being defeated by the Prussians (a tentative project one might think) he took the course he did. For, he wasn't and they didn't, so there he was with the upper hand, but rather than use diplomacy to exploit the situation- "keep your friends close but your enemies closer"-¡Dio mio! There were even Francophile and liberal factions at the Spanish court ripe for playing off against each other- he chose invasion with the consequences we know.

All I know is that my French army has a winning record when we game the Peninsular war….until those pesky British show up🤔

I do not know enough about the Napoleonic period to have an opinion on the question, but Kevin, yes, 4th is indeed baiting you. Like me and others among us, some of your buttons are visible and easily pushed. (grin)

Since the OP was "Could Napoleon have won" and not "Should he have invaded" I'll answer the OP.

Yes, there were several points that probably would have tipped the scales in French favor. A lot of this was more in the realm of strategy, but that still counts:

a) Mend fences with the Church. Had the French government made nice with Rome (collectively speaking) it would have helped dial down the religious war aspects of the conflict. The further in advance of invasion that happened, the more time for such a rapprochement to sink in with the public.

b) Go for the early solution. There was a point when Napoleon had a chance to cut a deal with the family and advisors despite their generally despicable nature (anyone who doesn't like Napoleon should try reading up on the Spanish royal family of 1808). Any related warfare would (again) have been less ideologically charged.

c) This is probably asking for strategic planning farther in advance than is reasonable, but: had Napoleon not occupied Switzerland five+ years earlier, he might well have avoided the intense British drive to get involved in the Peninsula. But that's probably asking for too much, even from a master planner.

d) Stop annoying Alexander I and marry the Russian princess. I think it was Cambeceres who told Napoleon that he preferred that he marry the Russian princess rather than the Austrian princess, because whoever he didn't marry would be the next country they are at war with. That and the fact that Napoleon managed to irritate the &#%$ out of Alexander on several occasions didn't help. Had he managed to put off war with Russia (who was indeed planning their own attack) for several years and instead piled into the Peninsula, with an emphasis on destroying the British army, he could have avoided the two-front war problem. The newly rebuilt French navy (which was rather more formidable than generally credited) would only need to interfere with a British evacuation to complicate things for the other side.

The British were already under quite a strain from executing that war, a major disaster or challenge to that could well have tipped things against the hawks in Parliament. Napoleon would also have needed to crack the whip with his subordinates and install a proper command structure if he were not going to do it in person. Following known wisdom and securely changing cyphers for major communications regularly would also have helped a great deal.

But, yes it's possible to have won.

I don't engage in 'baiting' games and believe it is just silly. What I do engage in is criticizing and/or correcting ridiculous comments that can affect the study of history.

And whether or not it was baiting, substituting the old British and allied period propaganda in support of personal bias is just plain ridiculous.

cavcrazy, there's a serious difference between winning battles and winning wars. It's lost on miniature wargamers, I know. But it's there anyway.

Absolutely correct.

What is often overlooked is that the British army had a habit of winning battles and losing wars (the War of the American Revolution) and campaigns (Maida and Talavera).

I do not know enough about the Napoleonic period to have an opinion on the question, but Kevin, yes, 4th is indeed baiting you. Like me and others among us, some of your buttons are visible and easily pushed. (grin)

Then why post on this thread and forum if not to poke fun at another poster?

It borders on an ad hominem attack and/or personal ridicule.

We tend to look at the Peninsular War with 20/20 hindsight. As well executed as several of Wellingtons mini campaigns were, there was no serious threat to France's hold on Spain until Napoleon had to draw troops away to fight in Germany.

Considering there are 300,00 books on Napoleon, can anyone point to one that supports with research that Napoleon didn't return to Spain because he was afraid?

If not, we can deduce that this preciously unique viewpoint needs to either get rushed to the printer or relegated to "la poubelle" where historical conclusions based on nothing more than personal feelings belong.

If you come to the era without the a priori view that Napoleon was a secular modern saint who single-handedly invented the metric system, secondary education and Germany, and look at his career with a slightly less awestruck eye, you may well end up concluding that he was in fact a grudge-holding, vengeful chancer with a manipulative streak a mile wide, a determination to avoid blame for anything and take credit for everything, and a goal of turning Europe back into a Dark Ages moral wilderness, where feuding robber barons ruled, with himself as the daddy. He wasn't a friend of the Revolution. He didn't want a democracy. He didn't oppose hereditary monarchy. He just wanted it to be his clan who were the hereditary monarchs.

He would have been successful and prominent whenever he lived, but in other lives and eras he would have been Vlad the Impaler, or John Gotti, or Bill Clinton, or at best some rapacious, unimaginably greedy but not very forward-thinking monopolist like Bill Gates.

That is, whenever he lived, he'd garner wealth, notoriety, admirers and coat-tail-hangers, but would on balance still be a force for net bad, to some extent or other.

In organising extraordinary rendition of his political enemies so he could have them whacked, assaulting countries such as Spain because they were looking at his bird, bonking his junior officers' wives and abusing his position to get the husband sent home, failing to educate himself in the history and practice of sea power, failing to think ahead to what wheezes such as the Continental system were likely to lead to, looting his allies instead of supporting them, and generally making a desert and calling it peace, he brought the values of the Corsican vendetta to the job of head of state, a role that usually calls for incumbents who are responsible and far-sighted. The best argument for hereditary monarchies (and aristocracies) is that the monarch thinks further ahead than what suits them within their own lifetime, because succession. A metaphor for this is the way the owners of great estates planted colonnades of trees they'd never live to see – but their heirs would, and that mattered.

The Corsican parvenu planted no colonnades. If he did anything that happened to benefit future generations, it was incidental to the real reason he did this, which was that it benefited him, right then and now.

Inside the imperial bling, the bees and the eagles and what not, he was indeed just Napo di Buonaparte, Corsican street playah made good, with a high IQ.

Notwithstanding that he'd also score very high on any test of psychopathy, he was an excellent general – when he had to be. But if he didn't have to be – if he thought he could get the job done by spilling his men's blood, and he didn't have to think up a cunning plan – then he didn't bother. His tactics at Eylau, Aspern, Borodino, and others were barbarously unsubtle and appallingly costly, for example.

You can have a brain the size of a planet, but if your priorities are your personal standing, the desire to bully others to your own will, and a steadfast refusal to admit error or allow association with failure, then you behave accordingly. A really, really smart shark would still act like a shark. High intelligence does not confer moral competence.

There is a certain aptness in the fact that he was undone not by other rapacious parvenus on the make, but by, basically, public servants doing their jobs for a salary.

Many are blinded by the greatness and the footprint, but here's a counterfactual thought experiment. Suppose the man who rose to power in post-Revolutionary France had not been Napoleon – suppose it had been George Washington. What would Europe have been like instead then? What would it be like now?

Better.

Afterthought: if "Napoleon's three greatest mistakes were invading Spain, invading Russia, and the Continental System", as Kevin suggests, we should note that the first two were consequences of the third (which chronologically happened first). So these three in fact unpack into one great error: the Continental system – thought up as a way of waging war against Britain, a naval power, because he'd no other plan for how a land power was going to win it.

Napoleon the eternal landsman was undone because when all's said and done he brought a knife to a gunfight.

"the British army had a habit of winning battles and losing wars (the War of the American Revolution) and campaigns (Maida and Talavera)."

That intriguing proposition caught my eye. It does have an air of having been framed to embrace those specific examples.

A cursory glance back over the previous century might suggest quite the opposite, that the British army had a knack of losing battles but winning wars (Overlooking for the sake of argument that during the period British troops tended to fight as part of an alliance)

During the WOSS, Marlborough was successful in northern Europe but there were several bloody debacles in Spain, nonetheless the newly minted United Kingdom was on the winners bench at Utrecht in 1715.
The WOAS didn't start well with glorious defeats at Fontenoy and Lauffeld but victory was snatched at Dettingen and while the end of the war was hardly triumphant, Britain did at least retain Minorca and Gibraltar (Falkirk, Prestonpans- Culloden!).

The Seven Years war started with a debacle in America on the road to Detroit and was followed up by two more at Fort Wlliam Henry and Ticonderoga, however Wolfe's glorious, posthumous victory at Quebec and a series naval victories at sea and allied victories on land at Minden and elsewhere put Britain firmly in the winner's enclosure in 1763.

We need not dwell on the war in America, except to say that arguably it may have been lost in London, possibly even before the fighting broke out- although militarily it was a close run thing. Those pesky French.

In the early years of the First Coalition, British troops did not do as badly as popular opinion might believe. The French suffered several stinging defeats in the course of the fighting in the Austrian Netherlands 1793-94. Nonetheless, after being forced into a strategic withdrawal, York's weaknesses as a field commander contributed to a messy withdrawal behind the wide moat of the Meuse-Rhine delta after which they might still have held the French to a draw if General Frost had not stolen a march on the allies and sent the British and their allies stumbling back into Germany with the French at their heels. Chalk up one 'disastrous Flanders campaign' to the poor old Duke of York (although he hadn't been in theatre for four months).

Egypt. A masterly seaborne assault followed by hard fought battles outside Alexandria. The French were defeated. Victories and victorious.

We could talk about India. I think that turned out quite well, though, all in all- after that unfortunate business with the Black Hole of Calcutta. Does that bring us up to date?

Looking forward. Crimea started well, and ended well but other than that the less said the better. Afghanistan 1 & 2 hard to call. Zululand and the Boer wars, good Gad but- well… you know? Egypt- bloody good show. Sudan and the Nile, yes, a little embarrassing but- Omdurman! And we could talk about the retreat from Mons and the Battle of France. Not to mention Hong Kong, Singapore and Burma – and the yoyoing back and forth in Libya (we really won't mention Greece and Crete. Wavell's awful, rotten bad luck) but it did all turn out well in the end. We* truly did hang our washing on the Siegfried Line. Good of the Yanks to join in.

Whoever said that 'Optimism is not a strategy' clearly wasn't British.

{*that's the Commonwealth and Empire 'we')

Good of the Yanks to join in.

Thank you, 42nd. It was good of you to invite us along.

My dear fellow, it was the least we could do.

If Napoleon would have left Russia alone and just went into Spain and Portugal he should have been able to take them over but not certainly.

"In Spain, small armies are cut up and big armies starve".

Would it have been possible for Napoleon to move a large enough force across Spain to successfully assault the Lines of Torres Vedras?

I sort of keep that argument in reserve, Trockledockle. I'm not by any means convinced that Imperial France had the uncommitted manpower. But if they had, how many (more) looters could Iberia have supported? Given the Spanish roads, Bonaparte couldn't have fed them from elsewhere even if he'd wanted to.

I'm not entirely convinced by 4th's argument that His Imperial Majesty knew the war was unwinnable, but I think if he believed it was winnable quickly by a bold stroke, a unified command and a surge of reinforcements, he'd have done it. Instead of men, he sent orders impossible to carry out. My reading is that he was putting off admitting defeat while hoping for some stroke of luck. And luck, as we say, is not a planning consideration.

If you come to the era without the a priori view that Napoleon was a secular modern saint who single-handedly invented the metric system…blah blah

I like to discuss an interesting period with a lot of colorful personalities. These people have been dead for a very long time and I find it hard to get myself worked up over it. If someone wants to get rabid over Napoleon, he can feel free but I dont see why I would have to tolerate that sort of misplaced psychic energy colliding with every discussion about the man.

The Corsican upstart

The Italian-speaking parvenu

The Corsican parvenu

Napo di Buonaparte, Corsican street playah made good…

I find this disturbing. I have to ask, is there something wrong with being Corsican or Italian? Somehow, the way you salt comments like this onto threads about Napoleon makes me think that you consider his ethnicity inferior; or, at a minimum, inherently comic.

I don't think Napoleon ever pretended he wasn't both and he maintained that he adopted France. The French dont seem to have minded. Incidentally, France had many different ethnicities back then and some 60+ languages and dialects. I don't know that being Italian or Corsican was the joke you seem to think it is.

Or am I wrong? Is there some reason you constantly and over multiple threads have to remind us he wasn't "French"?

I mean weren't Alexander I and George III Germans? I dont think there was a requirement to be "of a people" to be their king.

…where feuding robber barons ruled, with himself as the daddy. He wasn't a friend of the Revolution. He didn't want a democracy. He didn't oppose hereditary monarchy. He just wanted it to be his clan who were the hereditary monarchs.

Let me guess, he didnt deserve to be a hereditary monarch because he was Italian? It's interesting that you believe feuding robber barons originate with Napoleon and not the 1000 years of European violence which proceeded him. I vaguely remember a conflict that was so internecinely murderous they called it the Cousins War.

The best argument for hereditary monarchies (and aristocracies) is that the monarch thinks further ahead than what suits them within their own lifetime, because succession.

And yet, Napoleon is revered in France, is studied the world over and just about no one remembers the "hereditary" monarchies and their aristocracies. I suppose no good deed goes unpunished.

It shows how weak he was in strategy, as how the war was conducted it was not winnable, too many armies and commanders – no commander in chief who could manage on the spot.

In case he went himself, as he did in 1808 – he would have to deplete his forces in Germany, then the Austrians took their chance in 1809. In case Boney would try again at a later period, Russia would invade the Duchy of Warsaw.

Also after the committed atrocities from both sides, how should a lasting peace be established?

"You can't run a blockade that's leaking like a sieve from both ends."

Actually, 4th, as any blockade runner could tell you, those are the easiest blockades to run.

Au pas, I know how much it upsets you and Brechtel, but lese majeste is not a crime under the laws of the United States. People can describe tyrannous usurpers who declare themselves hereditary absolute monarchs any way they wish--a category which includes Bokassa I, "Papa Doc" Duvalier and His Imperial Majesty Napoleon I, Emperor of the French.

Try defending Bonaparte's military and administrative gifts, which were considerable, without demanding that everyone speak of him as his police insisted they should.

Roger Knight's 'Britain Against Napoleon' is worth a read because he goes into considerable depth around amphibious operations, and how large a military movement was physically possible by sea. In doing so, he indirectly debunks the idea that Napoleon the landsman could ever have invaded southern Britain (although that's not what he's discussing).

In the chapter 'Transporting the Army by Sea 1793–1811' he notes that

Amphibious operations were the most complex and costly operations attempted by the British state, and as such were overseen and coordinated by cabinet ministers…The authority to send an expedition lay with the prime minister…advised by the secretary of state for war, the first lord of the Admiralty and, when appropriate, the master-general of the Ordnance. If expeditions went badly wrong, it was usually due to mistakes or friction at this level of decision making.

He then details what sort of tonnage was required to lift an army:

To a warm climate, one soldier was carried for every two tons; to Gibraltar or the Continent, it was one man for every one and a half tons. A regiment of 700 men…would therefore need 1,400 tons of shipping, and, with hired merchant ships ranging between 150 and 300 tons, on average each regiment required six transports…The crew had to number five men and a boy for every hundred tons….The cavalry presented the greatest logistical difficulties, for these regiments required specially adapted horse-ships, together with others that transported only forage. [In 1808] Over 65,000 British, German and Spanish infantry, cavalry and artillery, and 7,155 horses, were carried in 522 transports, measuring 134,334 tons. In addition to 227 ships carrying carrying troops, there were army victuallers, forage ships, ships carrying ordnance and camp stores, wagon train equipment, six hospital ships and one ‘ship with rockets'…

Generally these ambitious movements were successful:

…thousands of voyages…were made efficiently, in every year of both wars. In the French Revolutionary War alone, 135,000 troops were transported successfully from Britain to five theatres of war…..Enemy territory overseas was occupied and taken under British control in Newfoundland, the French and Spanish West Indies, Minorca and Malta in the Mediterranean, the Cape of Good Hope, and the French enclaves in India, Mauritius and islands in Indonesia…In all, between 1793 and 1815, at least fifty amphibious expeditions…took possession of hostile overseas possessions….The worldwide movements of British troops in the Napoleonic War achieved such success that by 1811 France and its allies did not possess a single overseas territory.

Around 1810 or 1811 there was a wheeze that British troops might assault Brest.

….William Huskisson, the undersecretary for war, produced a preliminary analysis of the shipping that would be needed to transport such an expedition of 70,000 men….The force would be composed of 60,000 regular infantry rank and file, with officers and sergeants, and 60 women to a regiment. An infantry force of this magnitude would require seven regiments of cavalry, containing 4,000 rank and file, to which one would have to add officers, farriers, equipment, 12,000 horses and forage. When artillerymen, engineers, the medical Commissariat and members of the Quartermaster-General's Department were included, the total, according to Huskisson, would be 83,628 individuals, requiring no less than 350,000 tons of shipping, or at least a thousand ships…at no time between 1793 and 1815 did the British government come within 100,000 tons of this figure.

So basically the maximum size of amphibious lifting, even if you had Britain's merchant marine and command of the sea, was perhaps 60,000 men (250/350 x 83,000).

There was no answer, via the Continental System, to a strategy that involved picking off every last overseas territory you held…

And yet, Napoléon is revered in France, is studied the world over and just about no one remembers the "hereditary" monarchies and their aristocracies.

Apparently, according to press at the bicentenary of his death, most citizens of the Fifth Republic are in fact indifferent to the memory of Napoléon (It would be interesting to conduct another survey this week).

And I don't suppose it's worth pointing out that, for better or worse, there are currently monarchies in Spain (just), The United Kingdom of GB & NI (for the time being), Belgium, The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Norway- and a scattering of Grand Duchies, Principalities, and Baileywicks, to boot. The Papacy seems to be holding on as well.
It was the First World War, not Napoléon Bonaparte, that did for the Caesars of Germany, Austria and Russia and the Ottoman Sultan of Constantinople.

And even the French themselves submitted to a Second Emperor in 1852. That does seem to have involved a touch of Bonapartist nostalgia, if only in the mind of the Bonapartist Empereur himself.

It's a lovely, lovely idea that Napoleon, a self-appointed hereditary monarch, was somehow the undoing of other hereditary monarchies 100 years in the future.

4th Cuirassier.
It's really not helpful if you provide evidence that Bonaparte didn't stand a Scooby's chance of winning the war.

In that case I won't mention that in 1814, there were more French troops in Spain and fighting Wellington in south-west France than there were fighting the Austrians, Russians, Prussians and Swedes in the north.

only another attempt to rewrite the History to exaggerate the small british contribution in the war, the French Army in Spain, inclunding the French garrisons still in Cataluña not expelled by the Germano-Siciliano-Spanish-Portuguese-British represented less than 20% of the French Army at the very best I think so the 80% were not here in such secondary to not say tertiary or quaternary theater of operations given that the threat was not only in Belgium Lowlands and the Rhine, but also the Austrian Army was near Lyon the second city of the country in the center-east Alps at that time, the Pyrénées never represented a major threat for France in his History if not from North or Northeast and the Alps partially

the small british army in the Peninsula at that time gathered the very "impressive" number of ~43 000 (!) the Austrian Russians and Prussians were reaching part of the French territory never invaded for centuries while the pathetic VilainThon's army was still near the Pyrénées and obviously with French garrisons in Cataluña behind them

this thread is another great example that the Napleonic Wars are like the "Crimea" mentionned above as a great british victory :
300 000 French sent, 300 000 Turks, each 100 000 dead but Crimea is a great british army victory with less than 100 000 men sent and 20 000 dead only, with no regards for greater major and significant contributions and sacrifices than the british as usual, you can apply the law to the Napoleonic Wars and Austria Russia Prussia

by the way 42Flanqueadores "Dio mio" is italian I assume that you would like to write rather "Dios mío" and the bonapartism is a legacy in the french society certainly larger and deeper than a nostalgia or something like that, something that the british in particular are totally unable to see, feel or understand given their abysmal ignorance of french topics, both countries don't live on the same planet and galaxy

It is brit tradition to be a small portion of combatants but claim it a "great british victory." Heck look at Waterloo. Not even 20% total were actual brits, more allies, Prussia turned it. I am sure there are some that have as long winded arguments spinning AWI into a victory lol. Nevermind that was all to the king's credit on that one.

These days I just let them fuss and splash their Twinings around. It's just part of life.

Reading Sharpe's Escape so on second thought maybe not

@4th Cuirassier – exactly so: Soult had more soldiers with him at Nivelle & Orthez & Toulouse than Napoleon had at Brienne, Craonne & Arcis-sur-Aube, and more than Mortier, Marmont and Moncey had at Paris. And of course, Bordeaux and Toulouse had not been successfully invaded for centuries either.

it is obviously a grotesque way to count to occult and falsify that as said the French forces on the Pyrénées represented less than ~20% of the French Army, hard fact
main French strenght was placed against the Austrians Russians Prussians and them they had already reached the heart and interior of France while VilainThon's army was only reduced to stamp and admire the snows of the Pyrénées at Toulouse near the border 4 days before the armistice without having been able to expell the French from Cataluña on the other side of the border or probably more interested in reach the Bordelais and its bottles, area already evacuated and town offered by the French royalists to the Bourbons, artificially crediting the merits of the british army in the campaign with a further imaginary battle and victory there on the Garonne

it is obviously a grotesque way to count to occult and falsify that as said the French forces on the Pyrénées represented less than ~20% of the French Army, hard fact

No, what you said was grotesque and falsified: what I gave were the facts about those battles. The hard facts are that the main strength was not placed against the advancing Austrians, Russians and Prussians: the French Army was very roughly split equally between NW France, the garrisons in Germany (biggest portion), SW France and the rest (Italy, Holland). And as well as being slightly bigger, Soult's army was much more experienced and a tougher opponent than the other conscript armies.

Of course, the reason Bordeaux fell was because Soult had been beaten by Wellington at Orthez and was no longer able to stop him. So you, in your words, have falsified the situation again. And of course, the French cowering in a couple of garrisons in Catalonia no more meant that they controlled it than the the French garrisons in Germany meant they controlled Prussia. And the distance of Bordeaux and Toulouse from the Bidassoa is not that much shorter than the Allies advanced into France, so you falsified that too…oh dear, there seems to be a pattern.

I am sorry that the victories of the Anglo-Portuguese over the French armies bring you misery and discomfort. But I don't see how making stuff up to try and reduce your embarrassment will make you feel better.

@ Whirlwind

I suspect the problem is that it suits some to think Well, by 1814 France was so grossly outnumbered by the Austrians, Prussian, Russians, Swedes, Bavarians, etc that defeat was inevitable and excusable.

In Spain the French army had numerical superiority the entire time, much of the forces initially sent there were the Austerlitz-Friedland Grande Armee, yet this A team was contained, bled and ultimately beaten by inferior numbers. By 1814 Britain held 116,000 French prisoners of war, a force not far off the size of the Armee du Nord of 1815.

The result was the invasion and conquest of France from the south-west not by an overwhelming horse of half a million central Europeans, but by 100,000-odd Peninsular allies.

This completely stuffs up the narrative.

Another favoured anti-British trope is "look how long and how many coalitions it took for Britain to win". The thing you must not say in response is "look how long and how many coalitions it took for Napoleon to lose".

It's a good thing Britain never loses a war. Oh, and Happy 4th guys!

PS. Special thanks to France for helping us to get rid of one crazy king.

Boney should have returned to Spain after defeating the Austrians in 1809. If he had then defeated the one British army in the field he could have then won the Russian Campaign, if after Britain's defeat, he had needed to.

@ Rosenberg

Exactly. Clearly very straightforward. If the real reason he left Spain in 1808 was to deal with an Austrian attack that started five months later (while he was still in Paris – which is preposterous in itself), then the obvious thing to do after taking the required 4 months to dispose of Austria was return to Spain to finish the job. He had three uninterrupted years in which do so. What, exactly, was more important than achieving an easy victory over the trivially small British army?

Instead he assaulted Russia. Yes, the attempt to defeat Britain by invading Portugal by way of Spain was such a disastrous failure that the better bet, easier than winning in Spain, was to invade Russia. Just think about that for a minute. He's got three choices: do nothing, complete what he started in Spain, or invade Russia. The first wasn't working so he picked 'invade Russia'. That one stood more chance of success. That's how crazy he was.

This is actually comparable, in the magnitude of its crazy failure to stay focused and realistic, with the Schlieffen Plan 100 years later. Germany couldn't fight a prolonged two-front war with France and Russia, so the Schlieffen Plan called for an assault on France followed by turning on Russia in full strength. The farce was that even if Germany found herself at war with only Russia, the Plan demanded that she attack France anyway, even if not actually at war with her. That is, it required Germany to start the two-front war she didn't want in order to win it.

You're bogged down in Spain, your armies are bleeding, your marshals are getting pwned and you did all this to enforce your economic blockade. What do you do? Why, obviously you raise a 600,000 man army and march it 2,000 miles in the wrong direction. Obvious common sense really. Sure it is.

You are looking at a situation where Napoleon returns to the Iberian Peninsula after Wagram 4thC. I would argue there were plausible scenarios where a French could have won something that passes for victory prior to that point. Despite this I would still argue that even without the benefit of hindsight the smarter course would be for Napoleon not to go into the Iberian Peninsula in the first place. He could have dealt with problems caused by Spain or Portugal better in 1807-9 at the Pyrenees than his forces could in Iberia.

@ Bill

Given the whole country rose in revolt, I reckon the only French option was to cut and run. Any attempt at salvaging a victory would probably have involved impossible political concessions, such as reinstating the Bourbons.

Russia was a further example besides Spain of Napoleon being completely baffled when the enemy refused to co-operate. After beating the Russian army and occupying Moscow, he was bemused when they ignored his attempts to open what he assumed would be treaty negotiations.

Exactly. Clearly very straightforward. If the real reason he left Spain in 1808 was to deal with an Austrian attack that started five months later (while he was still in Paris – which is preposterous in itself), then the obvious thing to do after taking the required 4 months to dispose of Austria was return to Spain to finish the job. He had three uninterrupted years in which do so. What, exactly, was more important than achieving an easy victory over the trivially small British army?

Your opinion, is your opinion. I might ask, are there historians that back this view? All readings that Ive encountered support that Napoleon left Spain to deal with Austria. Additionally, that he didn't return to Spain because the marshals told him everything was in hand and Britain posed no threat. Also, far from having to measure up to your high standards for one of history's greatest military captains, Napoleon was also emperor of the French and had an empire to run. And I'm sure you can relate to how painful it is to lose an Empire via mismanagement.

Instead he assaulted Russia. Yes, the attempt to defeat Britain by invading Portugal by way of Spain was such a disastrous failure that the better bet, easier than winning in Spain, was to invade Russia. Just think about that for a minute. He's got three choices: do nothing, complete what he started in Spain, or invade Russia. The first wasn't working so he picked 'invade Russia'. That one stood more chance of success. That's how crazy he was.

He was already occupying Spain. Russia was breaking its treaty with France. The complete something in Spain bit is misleading because at the time, there wasnt that much to do.

Napoleon wasn't crazy. The Russia campaign was a sound strategy. You cant evaluate the soundness of a strategy based on how it turns up. That would indicate a belief in magic rather than thought and planning.

Now George III, he was actually crazy. You know, frothing at the mouth kind of crazy? i understand he used to rant and rave endlessly about the colonies and Napoleon. I understand there were times when onlookers feared that he lost so much control, he might hurt himself. Poor fellow.

You're bogged down in Spain, your armies are bleeding, your marshals are getting pwned and you did all this to enforce your economic blockade. What do you do? Why, obviously you raise a 600,000 man army and march it 2,000 miles in the wrong direction. Obvious common sense really. Sure it is.

They were policing Spain. You make it sound like the Spanish monarchy was some sort of benign "for the people" institution. It treated it's lower classes like absolute crap, some of the worst conditions in Europe. Even worse than the way the lower classes were treated in Britain! And that tells you something.

Napoleon's stated strategy was a limited tour de force to make Russia back down. It didnt end up as planned but it was not initially envisioned to last so long or go so far. Your hindsight is self serving and unexamined. Generals arent good or bad because you disapprove of them and military history students dont study generals because they ultimately won in the sense that you want to craft as important.

Otherwise, we wouldn't Study Lee, Hannibal or Gustavus Adolphus.

Your hindsight is self serving and unexamined. Generals arent good or bad because you disapprove of them and military history students dont study generals because they ultimately won in the sense that you want to craft as important.

Refreshing post. Honestly if this quote popped up in a new window every time someone clicked "Submit" the quality of argument around here might improve greatly. Many simply aren't self aware regarding this.

French Strengths in 1814

In that case I won't mention that in 1814, there were more French troops in Spain and fighting Wellington in south-west France than there were fighting the Austrians, Russians, Prussians and Swedes in the north.

That is incorrect.

As of 1 January 1814 Napoleon's overall strength in northwest and central Europe was 117,000. That does not include the garrisons left behind, such as Davout's 26,000 in Hamburg and Lemarois' 16,000 in Magdeburg and including Carnot's garrison in Antwerp. There were smaller garrisons as well that held out until Napoleon abdicated. Then there was the 15,000 troops sent north from Soult's command and 10,000 from Suchet's to reinforce Napoleon during the campaign in France.. Overall French strength was over 184,000.

Soult's command in Spain was 60,100 and Suchet's 46,290. Grand total in Spain was then 106,390 before sending reinforcements to France.

Eugene's command in Italy numbered around 50,000.

So, it appears that the troops in Spain did not outnumber those in France and in central Europe.

Soult had more soldiers with him at Nivelle & Orthez & Toulouse than Napoleon had at Brienne, Craonne & Arcis-sur-Aube, and more than Mortier, Marmont and Moncey had at Paris.

That wasn't the original comment…It should be noted that Napoleon brought back 120,000 troops to France after Leipzig and Hanau.

Sources:

-Swords Around a Throne by John Elting.
-A Military History and Atlas of the Napoleonic Wars by Vincent Esposito and John Elting.
-The Peninsular War Atlas, 2d Edition, by Nick Lipscombe.

The French Invasions of Spain

In Spain the French army had numerical superiority the entire time, much of the forces initially sent there were the Austerlitz-Friedland Grande Armee,

That is an incorrect assumption.

There were two French invasions of Spain in 1808.

The first was accomplished with what was supposed to be an ‘army of occupation' and was definitely not from the Grande Armee which was still in central Europe. So, the veterans of 1805-1807 were not in the first invasion.

The second invasion army was taken from the Grande Armee's veteran units in central Europe, and the remainder, 90,000 including the heavy cavalry, remained there under Davout as the Army of the Rhine.

‘On 12 October [1808], the Grande Armee was deactivated. French troops left in central Europe (90,000, including the heavy cavalry) became the ‘Army of the Rhine' under Davout…Veteran divisions, with especially large proportions of engineer troops for siege work, were mustered from every corner of Napoleon's empire. The Senate granted him authority to call up conscripts from the classes of 1806-1810.'-Esposito/Elting Atlas, Map 86.

The first invasion army was composed largely of untried conscripts formed into provisional units. There were some solid and veteran units, such as the Sailors of the Guard, as well as Swiss battalions drawn from the four regular Swiss infantry regiments, as well as the Garde de Paris. Provisional units organized for the invasion ‘lacked experienced NCOs' with their officers being ‘either too young or too old.' Junot's corps, as well as Dupont's was part of the first invasion of Spain.

‘Of the approximately 118,000 men Napoleon had allotted for the occupation of Spain, only 34,000 were from the regular French Army. The rest-aside from 15,000 foreign troops-were almost raw-conscripts, hastily huddles into temporary units that were short of officers, equipment, morale, and discipline.'-Esposito/Elting Atlas, Introduction to the Campaign in Spain.

‘The first French invasion of Spain came to ruin because Napoleon had tried to accomplish it with an army of rookies commanded by retreads under mostly uncertain generals. (Dupont, whose capitulation at Baylen had touched off the rout, was a man who alternated between flaring courage and abject funk. At the time he was both sick and wounded.) Joseph's cowardice did the rest.Though Moncey outmaneuvered them in eastern Spain and Bessieres beat them in the north, the Spaniards' horn was mightily exalted. Some of their regiments inscribed ‘The Conquerors of the Conquerors of Austerlitz upon their flags. Soon thereafter they encountered French veterans who had been at Austerlitz. The result was a cascade of Spanish defeats, army after army, year after year, usually by smaller French units…'-John Elting, Swords Around a Throne, 510.

The composition of these units had only 34,200 who could be considered veterans from the regular French army, and of those three infantry battalions were newly raised fourth battalions.
There were five legions of the reserve, and two supplementary legions of the reserve; fifteen provisional regiments from depots in southern France; six regiments de marche made up of conscripts; eighteen foreign battalions (Swiss, Italian, German); sixteen provisional cavalry regiments along with some provisional squadrons and escadrons de marche; three regiments of foreign cavalry.

Most of the regular infantry was assigned to Junot (17,500), the rest was assigned to Duhesme in Catalonia. The corps of Bessieres, Dupont, and Moncey had few veteran formations, Dupont's in particular, had only two battalions (1700 men) of veteran troops, Moncey none, and Bessieres four.

And, interestingly, none of the above units were assigned to work together undoubtedly because it was an ‘occupation' and not originally a combat operation-with the exception of Junot's command which is probably why their composition was overwhelmingly regular troops and not provisional units composed of new conscripts.

For the second invasion of Spain, veteran corps from the Grande Armee were ordered from central Europe into Spain under veteran commanders and it was this army that repeatedly defeated the Spanish armies and drove Moore's British army into the sea (much of that army was sent to Walcheren and suffered from disease and were defeated).

The Spanish army was the Royal Guard (7,184), Line Infantry (44,398), Light Infantry (13,655), Foreign Infantry (12,981), Militia (30,527), Cavalry (14,440), Artillery (6,679), and Engineers (1,049) for a grand total of 130,913. 15,000 had been sent to Denmark to support the operations of the Grande Armee.

The Spanish armies definitely outnumbered the first French invasion army, but not the second.

The Source for these numbers, both French and Spanish were taken from Oman, Volume I.

Orders of Battle for the French Invasions of Spain

The numbers of French troops in the first invasion were as follows:

-1st Corps of Observation of the Gironde-General Junot, 24,918.
-2d Corps of Observation of the Gironde-General Dupont, 24,428.
-Corps of Observation of the Ocean Coast-Marshal Moncey, 29,341.
-Corps of Observation of the Pyrenees-Marshal Bessieres, 19,086.
-Corps of Observation of the Eastern Pyrenees-General Duhesme, 12,714.
-Imperial Guard-General Dorsenne, 6,412.
-Troops that entered Spain after the revolt of the Spanish in June, July, and August 1808, 48,204.
The total was 165,103.

The army of the second invasion was composed of:

-I Corps commanded by Marshal Victor (33,937.
-II Corps commanded by Marshal Bessieres and then Marshal Soult (33,054).
-III Corps commanded by Marshal Moncey (37,690).
-IV Corps commanded by Marshal Lefebvre (22,895)
-V Corps commanded by Marshal Mortier (24,552)
-VI Corps commanded by Marshal Ney (38,033).
-VII Corps commanded by General Gouvion St Cyr (42,382).
-VIII Corps commanded by General Junot (25,730).
-Cavalry Reserve:
-Dragoon Division commanded by General Latour-Maubourg (3,695).
- Dragoon Division commanded by General Milhaud (2,940).
- Dragoon Division commanded by General LaHoussaye (2,020).
- Dragoon Division commanded by General Lorges (3,101).
- Dragoon Division commanded by General Millet, then General Kellermann (2,903).
-Light Cavarly Division commanded by General Franceschi (2,400)
Imperial Guard (8,000 infantry, 3,500 cavalry, 600 artillerymen, 36 field pieces).

Total: 314,612 with 32,643 detached and 37,844 missing or in hospital leaving effective strength at 244,125. This total includes 19,371 artillerymen.

The Spanish army was the Royal Guard (7,184), Line Infantry (44,398), Light Infantry (13,655), Foreign Infantry (12,981), Militia (30,527), Cavalry (14,440), Artillery (6,679), and Engineers (1,049) for a grand total of 130,913. 15,000 had been sent to Denmark to support the operations of the Grande Armee.

The composition of the Spanish armies after the revolt was made up of regulars, militia, and ‘newly raised corps.'
Troops in the First Line:

-The Army of Galicia commanded by General Blake (43,978).
-The Army of Aragon commanded by General Palafox (at least 33,674).
-The Army of Estramadura commanded by General Galluzzo, then the Conde de Belvedere (12,846).
-The Army of the Center commanded by General Castanos (51,000 less 9,000 that were later incorporated into the Army of Reserve commanded by General San Juan).
The Army of Catalonia commanded by General Vives (20,033).
Total: 151,243 less the 9,000 troops left in Madrid.

Troops of the Second Line:

-The Army of Grenada commanded by General Reding (15,000).
-The Galician Reserves (3,735)
-The Asturian Reserves (5,285).
-The Army of Reserve of Madrid commanded by General San Juan (12,118).
-Estremaduran Reserves (4,608).
-Balearic Isles (3,360).
-Murcian and Valencian Reserves (5,774).
-Andalusian Reserves (6,794).
Total: 65,378.

Grand Total: 216,621.

The Spanish armies definitely outnumbered the first French invasion army, but not the second.
The Source for these numbers, both French and Spanish were taken from Oman, Volume I.