Chronology_of_events_of_the_Peninsular_War

Timeline of the Peninsular War

Timeline of the Peninsular War

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The following tables show the sequence of events of the Peninsular War (1807–1814), including major battles, smaller actions, uprisings, sieges and other related events that took place during that period.[note 1]

For ease of reference using modern maps, the provinces/regions given for Spain and Portugal are those that correspond to the 20th century.[note 2] Events in Portugal and France are specified.

Overview

The Peninsular War was a military conflict for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars, waged between France and the allied powers of Spain, the United Kingdom and Portugal. It started when French and Spanish armies, then allied, occupied Portugal in 1807, and escalated in 1808 when France turned on Spain, its former ally. The war on the peninsula lasted until the Sixth Coalition defeated Napoleon in 1814, and is regarded as one of the first wars of national liberation, and significant for the emergence of large-scale guerrilla warfare. British and Portuguese forces eventually secured Portugal, using it as a safe position from which to launch campaigns against the French army, while both Spanish and Portuguese guerrillas weakened the occupying forces.

The Peninsular War overlaps with what the Spanish-speaking world calls the Guerra de la Independencia Española (Spanish War of Independence), which began with the Dos de Mayo Uprising on 2 May 1808 and ended on 17 April 1814. Although Spain had been in upheaval since at least the Mutiny of Aranjuez (March 1808), May 1808 marks the start of the Spanish War of Independence. The French occupation destroyed the Spanish administration, which fragmented into quarrelling provincial juntas. In 1810, a reconstituted national government, the Cortes of Cádizeffectively a government-in-exilefortified itself in Cádiz but could not raise effective armies because it was besieged by up to 70,000 French troops. Cádiz would go on to hold the distinction of being the only city in continental Europe to survive a siege by Napoleon: thirty-one months—from 5 February 1810 to 25 August 1812.[1] The combined efforts of regular and irregular forces throughout the peninsula prevented Napoleon's marshals from subduing the rebellious Spanish provinces, and the war continued through years of stalemate.[2]

While the initial stages of the Peninsular War were fought on Portuguese soil, most of the war was fought on Spanish soil and, as the French army was pushed further back across the Pyrenees, the final stages of the war were fought on French soil.

List of events

1807

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1808

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1809

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1810

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1811

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1812

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1813

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1814

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See also

Notes

  1. Also included are naval actions which had a direct effect on the development of the events on the Iberian Peninsula. However, unless they can be directly ascribed to the Peninsular War, those actions which took place in the vicinity, such as the blockade of French ports in the Bay of Biscay, for instance, the actions of November 1808 or April 1809, however much they affected Napoleon's plans on the Peninsula, are excluded as they were possibly more related to the general war efforts of the time.
  2. That is, resulting from the 1976 Constitution of Portugal and the processes of devolution of Spain's transition to democracy (1979), which created seventeen autonomous communities (regions) and two autonomous cities. This affects, in particular, the historical regions and provinces of León and Old Castile (Spanish: Castilla la Vieja), constituted in 1983 as Castile and León.
  3. The only Spanish troops able to escape the round-up were the 2nd Cavalry regiment, the Queen's Own, whose colonel rode off to Oporto with his two squadrons, and some units of the infantry regiments of Murcia and Valencia who escaped to Badajoz. (Oman, 1902: pp. 208–209.)
  4. The mutiny was led by Vives's second-in-command, the Marquis del Palacio, governor of Minorca who, a fortnight later, finally set sail with the greater part of the Balearic garrisons. Part of Vives's reluctance to leave Port Mahon without troops had been due to his "deeply rooted idea" that the English would once again control Minorca, as they had for the greater part of the 18th century. (Oman, 1902: p. 323.)
  5. Originally a hamlet outside the city, Gamonal has been part of the city of Burgos since 1955.
  6. Napoleon was at Vitoria for four days, where, among other reports, he had been waiting to hear that Bessières, his vanguard, had occupied Burgos (Oman, 1902).
  7. Bessières was superseded by Soult.
  8. "Canning strenuously maintained... in the great British tradition of characterizing defeat as victory..." (Fremont-Barnes, 2004, p. 80.)
  9. The Duke del Parque, had moved his forces south, taking with him Ballasteros's division, which had formed the core of the Army of Asturias. (Oman, 1908: p. 217.)
  10. These ships would, later that year, also participate in the Anglo-Spanish Cantabrian Expedition (see 14 October 1810, below), following which two of the Spanish ships, the frigate Santa Maria Magdalena and the brigantine Palomo, would be destroyed in a storm off the coast of Galicia with great loss of life, Magdalena having collided with Narcissus shortly before going down.
  11. Not to be confused with the combat of Aldeia da Ponte, which took place later that year, on 28 September 1811.
  12. Not to be confused with the combat of Vila da Ponte, which took place earlier that year, on 11 January 1811.
  13. In the letter he sent to Suchet along with the capitulation, he stated, "To-day I see that to render Spain less unhappy it is necessary for us all to unite under the King [Joseph], and I make my offer to serve him with the same enthusiasm. Your excellency may be quite sure of me—I surrender a fortress fully provisioned and capable of a long defence—which is the best guarantee of the sincerity of my promise." (Oman, 1914: p. 89.)
  14. "... the most important event that had happened on the north coast of Spain since 1809", for it gave the squadron of Popham possession of the sole really good harbor—open to the largest ships, and safe at all times of the year—which lies between Ferrol and the French frontier". (Oman 1914, p. 555.)
  15. The British government had told Wellington that the force would be entirely at his disposal. However, Maitland, who was under Bentinck's orders, had been told by his commander that he was not part of the army of Spain and must be ready to return to Sicily at the first sign of trouble there. (Yonge.)

References

  1. Grab, Alexander (2003). Napoleon and the Transformation of Europe. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 147–8. ISBN 9781403937575.
  2. Esdaile, Charles (2003). The Peninsular War: A New History. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 34–35, 83, 155. ISBN 978-1-4039-6231-7. Retrieved 27 March 2013.
  3. (in Spanish). Martínez-Campos, Pilar. "Vicente Bertrán de Lis Thomas". Diccionario Biográfico electrónico (DB~e).] Real Academia de la Historia. Retrieved 18 March 2023.
  4. Southey, Robert (1823). History of the Peninsular War, pp. 283–295. Google Books. Retrieved 18 March 2023.
  5. Serra, Hernando; Pilar, María (2017). El ayuntamiento de Valencia y la invasión napoleónica (in Spanish). Publicacions de la Universitat de València. ISBN 978-84-370-9480-9.
  6. Fremont-Barnes, Gregory and Todd Fisher (2004). The Napoleonic Wars: The Rise and Fall of an Empire, pp. 15–16, 205. Osprey Publishing. Google Books. Retrieved 22 August 2013.
  7. (in Spanish) Baselga, José Manuel (2021). "El día que ardió L'Arboç". 8 June 2021. Diari de Tarragona. Retrieved 8 April 2023.
  8. Scott, Walter (1839). The Life of Napoleon. E. L. Carey and A. Hart. p. 386.
  9. (in Spanish) Lastra Rodríguez, Alicia (1975). "Buscando a mi general: el periplo asturiano de Andrew Leith Hay en 1808" in Archivum, pp. 219–247. Universidad de Oviedo. Google Books. Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  10. Yonge, Ian. "The Royal Navy and the Peninsular War: The Army of Sicily". The Waterloo Association. Retrieved 19 March 2023.
  11. "Peninsular War". National Army Museum. Retrieved 19 February 2023.
  12. Napier (1844). History of the War in the Peninsula, Vol. 1, p. 91. Google Books. Retrieved 25 February 2023.
  13. Chartrand, René (2013). Bussaco 1810: Wellington defeats Napoleon's Marshals, p. 9. Bloomsbury Publishing. Google Books. Retrieved 15 March 2023.
  14. Oman, Charles (1903). A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. II, pp. 5–10, 13, 58–64, 153, 155, 263–4, 384–385. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 20 March 2023. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  15. Sandler, Stanley, Ground warfare: An International Encyclopedia, Vol.1, (ABC-CLIO, 2002), 214; "Costly British victory in the Peninsular War.... Corunna was a British victory only in the sense that Moore was able to prevent Soult from annihilating his men...".
  16. According to The Times, "The fact must not be disguised ... that we have suffered a shameful disaster": Hibbert, p. 188. Carl Cavanaugh Hodge, Encyclopedia of the Age of Imperialism, 1800–1914 (Greenwood, 2007), p. lxxiii: "French Victory at the Battle of Corunna. Britain Forced to Evacuate Spain."
  17. (in Spanish). Picatoste, Mauro. "¿Quién es quién en la Reconquista de Vigo?" 25 March 2022. El Español. Retrieved 11 August 2023.
  18. (in Spanish). Isabel Sánchez, José Luis. "Bartolomé Amor de la Pisa". Diccionario Biográfico electrónico (DB~e).] Real Academia de la Historia. Retrieved 20 March 2023.
  19. Rickard, J. (2008). "Combat of Astorga, 9 October 1809". Retrieved 25 August 2013.
  20. Rickard, J. (2008). "Combat of Ocaña, 11 November 1809". Retrieved 31 August 2013.
  21. Marshall, John (2010). Royal Naval Biography. Cambridge University Press. pp. 203–204. ISBN 978-1-108-02271-2.
  22. Burnham, Robert. "The Napoleon Series: Action on the River Coa". Retrieved 24 August 2013.
  23. (in Spanish). González Fernández, Marcelino. "Blas Salcedo y Salcedo". Real Academia de la Historia. Retrieved 3 June 2023.
  24. Brialmont, Alexis Henri (1858). History of the life of Arthur, duke of Wellington, Vol. 1. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, p. 381; "Both armies retained their positions".
  25. Currie, Laurence (1934). The bâton in the knapsack: new light on Napoleon and his marshals. John Murray, p. 126.
  26. Weller, Jac (2012). Wellington in the Peninsula: 1808-1814, p. 166. Napoleonic Library.
  27. Sidney, Edwin (1845). The Life of Lord Hill, G.C.B., Late Commander of the Forces, p. 180. J. Murray. Google Books. Retrieved 26 March 2023.
  28. (in Spanish) Saldueña, Jesús Albert. "Pedro García Navarro". Diccionario Biográfico electrónico. Real Academia de la Historia. Retrieved 16 March 2023.
  29. Gates, David (2001). The Spanish Ulcer: A History of the Peninsular War, p. 473. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-81083-2
  30. Rodman, Michael. "Wellington's Victory, for orchestra, Op. 91". Allmusic. Retrieved 6 September 2013.
  31. Esdaile, Charles J. (2014). The Wars of Napoleon, p. 337. Routledge. Google Books. Retrieved 13 March 2023.
  32. (in Spanish). Guerrero Misa, Luis Javier; Fernando Sígler Silvera (2012). Estudios sobre la Guerra de la Independencia española en la Sierra de Cádiz, p. 133. Consejería de Gobernación y Justicia. Junta de Andalucía. Retrieved 7 April 2023.

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