The Peninsular War: The Spanish Perspective (Gimnez J. J. Herrero)(Pevná vazba)

The Peninsular War has been extensively studied by British historians for decades, even centuries, but the Spanish contribution to the conflict, which was fundamental to the defeat of Napoleon's armies, has been largely relegated to minor role. This book is an attempt to rebalance our understanding of the campaign in Iberia, written by a Spanish historian and translated into English for the first time. The book does not attempt to minimise the problems the Spanish experienced nor the catastrophic defeats suffered by the Spanish Army, but the reasons for these setbacks are viewed and analysed from the Spanish viewpoint. With the finest elements of the Spanish Army serving with the French forces in Denmark, Spain was virtually undefended when Napoleon's armies marched into the Iberian Peninsula. New armies had to be raised virtually from scratch to fight the invader in a country where, as the Duke of Wellington remarked, small armies were beaten and large armies starved. The logistical and political difficulties faced by the Spaniards are fully explored and explained. It is the big battles, nevertheless, which receive the most attention; both the great battles such as Tudela and Oca a and the surprising victory at Bail n, and the smaller, lesser-known combats which took place across the Peninsula. The defeats, even destruction, of their armies, did not deter the Spaniards; in fact quite the contrary. Their cities, most notably Zaragoza, defied Napoleon's legions for month
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