Peninsular War

The Peninsular War could fairly be called Napoleon's Vietnam--a bloody, protracted struggle, part conventional and part guerilla, that sapped the strength of the French Empire and left Spain and Portugal in ruins. This new history is a sure guide through the quagmire. The war was on one level a military epic--Napoleon's nemesis Wellington made his name on the Peninsula--and Esdaile (The Wars of Napoleon) provides an enthralling narrative of the major campaigns and battles, along with a detailed assessment of the character and quality of the armies that fought there. But he also probes the political and social dimensions of the conflict, where nothing was simple. The Bonapartist regime in Spain, he finds, combined well-meaning reform with corruption and repression; the Spanish resistance was a blend of liberal and reactionary tendencies; the celebrated Spanish guerilla fighters were often no better than bandits; and the Spanish people were by turns patriotic and apathetic, hostile to both the traditional Spanish elites and the French interlopers who piled on new forms of exploitation. In this chaotic context, the Peninsular War became a byword for brutality: civilians were regularly pillaged and massacred by soldiers on every side acting out of starvation, reprisal for guerilla attacks or sheer drunken rage. Drawing on first-hand accounts of the conflict, Esdaile paints an indelible picture of the cruelties of Napoleonic warfare. His vigorous writing, comprehensive analysis and even-handed judgments make this an indispensable treatment of one of the watersheds of European history.