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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Peninsular War
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(1808–14)
Campaign of the *Napoleonic Wars in Portugal and Spain, and the only part of the war on land in which Britain took a significant part until 1815. It was provoked by Napoleon's Continental System, an attempt to deny Britain the use of every port in continental Europe. Portugal, friendly to Britain, was a loophole which he closed by invading the country in 1807. Spain was already in the French alliance, but Napoleon pressed matters further in 1808 when he forced the Spanish royal family to abdicate and placed on the throne his own brother, Joseph Bonaparte.
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British troops landed in Portugal in August 1808, captured Lisbon, and marched into Spain to support a widespread Spanish insurrection; but this first campaign ended in disaster when Sir John Moore's army had to retreat rapidly to *Corunna before escaping to England. In 1809 the remaining British forces in Portugal were placed under the command of *Wellington, whose strategy was to build heavily fortified defences stretching some 40km/25m from the Atlantic on the west, past Torres Vedras, to the broad river Tagus on the east.
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Lisbon, 40km/25m to the south, was secure behind these lines, giving Wellington an unusually large stronghold for his base. In the subsequent campaigns his two crucial victories were on 22 July 1812 at Salamanca (180km/112m NW of Madrid) and on 21 June 1813 at Vitoria (100km/62m from Spain's Atlantic border with France). At Vitoria the entire baggage train of Joseph Bonaparte was captured, accounting for many of the treasures now at *Apsley House.
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