Popular Mobilisation in Spain, 1808–1810: A Reassessment

Abstract

With these words is encapsulated one of the abiding images of the history of modern Spain — the idea that when Napoleon overthrew the Bourbon dynasty in 1808, he found himself confronted by the resistance of the proverbial people numerous and armed, and, what is more, a people who threw themselves into battle with a ferocity and determination that has rarely been surpassed. To quote Gabriel Lovett: ‘All the energies of unoccupied Spain were directed toward one objective, beating back the invaders.’² So often has this idea been repeated, indeed, that it is almost literally impossible to find a work on Napoleon, the Peninsular War or the history of modern Spain that does not simply take it as read. In recent years, however, in line with developments in the treatment of other areas of Europe, the historiography of Napoleonic Spain has begun to undergo something of a revolution. Thus, a new generation of writers has begun to generate a picture of the struggle against Napoleon that is very different from its traditional predecessor. Even in Spain the process has not gone very far, the issues involved having been touched upon in no more than a handful of studies, whilst in Britain and the United States it can safely be said that the issue remains even less well known. Hence the need for the current essay, and hence too the need for a new history of the Peninsular War that will have as its main theme something other than the operations of the Duke of Wellington.³

Patriotism … resounds from the high Pyrenees to the coasts of Andalucia … Thousands of combatants are coming forward … greed and egotism have been silenced, and a thousand sacrifices are providing riches for the needs of the state.¹