Andrew Rawson, an eminent historical researcher and author of seven Battleground Europe books as well as The Vietnam War Handbook, applies his talents to the Napoleonic wars, specifically in Iberia, with The Peninsular War, a Battlefield Guide. The introduction briefly explains the situation in Spain before and during the French invasion, and concisely analyzes the strength of the armies involved in the ensuing conflict – French, British, Portuguese, Spanish regular and guerrilla forces – as well their tactics.
The stage thus set, the author begins his first chapter with the arrival of Sir Arthur Wellesley in Portugal with a British expeditionary force comprising six infantry brigades, several cavalry squadrons, and five batteries of guns. The frigate HMS Crocodile, with Wellesley aboard, had first entered the Spanish port of Corunna, but quickly discovered it to be an unhealthy place for the British fleet to drop anchor. Crocodile finally found itself welcome in Oporto by Portugal's ruling junta, while the rest of the fleet made use of Figueira da Foz, halfway between Oporto and Lisbon.
The first British force to come ashore on 1 August 1808 numbered only 9,500 troops. By the time of the Talavera campaign the following year that number had risen to more than 20,000 organized into four infantry divisions and one cavalry division. By the autumn of 1810, Wellesley, retitled the Duke of Wellington, had seven divisions and three independent brigades, while the Portuguese army numbered 26,000 men. By the autumn of 1811 another two divisions had been added while the fortified line of Torres Vedras provided Wellington with a safe means to withdraw before overwhelming French forces.
In the summer of 1812 Wellington, commanding an Anglo-Portuguese force of 52,000, defeated Marshal André Masséna's army at Salamanca. In November 1812, Wellington crossed the Portuguese-Spanish border for the last time with 120,000 men (including the Spanish army) and used his nine divisions to defeat Joseph Bonaparte's army at Vittoria in June 1813. By the end of the year he had crossed the Pyrenees, repulsed French counterattacks and entered France. The victorious campaign ended with the unexpected defeat of the British Guard in front of the walls of Bayonne on 14 April 1814, but by then it was virtually irrelevant – Napoleon's empire was all but doomed.
Throughout the narrative of the allied and French forces' back-and-forth progress, The Peninsular War, A Battlefield Guide provides for the reader detailed military maps as well as current photos of the old battlefields, plus useful information on those historical places and their monuments. Napoleonic scholars planning to tour the Iberian Peninsula will find the book extremely useful in making their travel plans.
(Thomas Zacharis, October 2009)
Book review: The Peninsular War, A Battlefield Guide, by Andrew Rawson
Author(s) : ZAKHARIS Thomas