Osprey Men-at-Arms 332 : Spanish Army of the Napoleonic Wars (2) 1808-1812

In the summer of 1808 the Spanish nation was flushed by its incredible victory over General Dupont's French army at Bailen. The standard of revolt had been raised throughout the Iberian peninsula and, thanks to the British fleet, about 9,000 men of General Romana's corps in Denmark had escaped the French and landed in northern Spain. But the French were far from defeated, and their withdrawal into northern Spain was merely a tactical move. An irate Napoleon was assembling his Grand Army to solve the Iberian problem. With a force of over 300,000 men, it was far larger than the effective combined regular forces of Spain, Portugal and Britain deployed in the Peninsula. In October 1808 Napoleon marched into Spain. On 23 November Marshal Lannes defeated the 45,000-man Spanish army led by General Castanos at Tudela. Another French corps marched into Catalonia and besieged Rosas, which finally fell on 4 December after nearly a month of stubborn resistance. On the same day Napoleon, having defeated all opposition, entered Madrid. However that certainly wasn't the end of the story... In this second of three books concentrating on the Spanish army of the Napoleonic wars [Men-at-Arms 321, 332 334] René Chartrand examines the story, uniforms and equipment of the Spanish army from 1808-12 accompanied by plenty of illustrations including eight full page colour plates by Bill Younghusband.

Contents

• Introduction
• Resistance and British Aid
• Uniforms and Equipment
• Guerrillas
• Regional Volunteers and Armed Peasantry
• The Navy
• Select Bibliography
• The Plates