The entire affair on the Iberian Peninsula from Spain and Portugal was expected to be of little note militarily to Napoleon. Bringing Portugal under French control due to their persistence in continuing to trade with Great Britain in 1807 violated Napoleon’s Continental System and he could not stand for this. This coupled with the royal intrigues of the Bourbon monarchy in Spain (which Napoleon detested) was an additional opportunity to rid his immediate neighbor of another potential threat and place those of his own choosing in charge of both countries. A simple matter of injecting some French muskets and bayonets would bring both countries to heel. It would be quite the contrary and would soon give Napoleon a “Spanish ulcer.” 

Charles IV of Spain. Charles was forced to abdicate the Spanish throne by Napoleon in 1808 who replaced him with his brother Joseph as king of Spain.

There were two primary factors that contributed to the fanatical hostility of the Spanish and Portuguese people to the French: a sense of individual nationalism and strict religious adherence. The inhabitants of Iberia were looked down upon with disdain and revulsion, even by the British in many respects. The two powers shared such a strong “mutual detestation” of the Spanish people that when a group of Spaniards had dug up the body of a French general and began tearing it to pieces, that the English charged in cutting the Spaniards down to retrieve the body for the French.[1] This revulsion of the native people was further evidenced when French Corporal Martial Joseph Delroeux said that the “inhabitants are filthy, eaten by vermin.”[2]

Spanish officials are depicted surrendering Madrid to Napoleon. This scene would be replayed in many other Iberian cities, but true victory in Iberia proved elusive for Napoleon.

Though seen as a fallen military power, with dubious contributions, Spain, and the English leaning Portugal, were filled with a hardy, fiery people. For every fault that both countries had from their severely neglected and starving populations to nearly non-existent infrastructures and deeply entangled royal families, it was still theirs. Nationalism in the sense as we know it today was not present at the time, rather it was more like a sense of personal nationalism in that “this is what I know, and no one is going to come in my country and change it!” type of attitude. This hit a breaking point for the Spanish people especially when Napoleon forced Charles IV and Ferdinand his son, to give up the Spanish throne, to then have it filled by proclaiming his brother Joseph as King of Spain.

The second serving factor of extreme hostility toward the French and their occupation, stemmed from the religious practices and adherence from the population. The people of both Portugal and Spain were generally under strict control of their daily lives from the clergy or that of local superstitions. The clergy throughout those countries played a deeply repressive role, which included restricting education to only monks, friars, and the like, while also having nearly free reign to have at the daughters and wives of others. As corrupt and broken as the church was in those countries, along with their strange religious superstitions such as the wearing of an amulet made from the tooth of a hanged man, it was still theirs.[3] These practices were extremely strange and astonishing to the French who set about trying to “liberalize” the Church which did not set well with the population base, let alone the well off and well to do clergy.

Spanish troops defending Mount San Marcial against the French at the Battle of San Marcial. Spain and its resilient people kept rising up and pushing back against Napleonic rule, proving to be a thorn in Napoleon's side.

These factors helped serve as the impetus for thousands of the population to rise and exert their force against the occupying French. These guerrillas (which was derived from the Spanish word guerra which means war) were seemingly everywhere, harassing French supply lines, pinning down French garrisons, and picking off wayward French soldiers where possible, all of which spread fear and loathing for them among the French forces. The cruelty and barbarity wrought by both the guerillas and the French in turn included being “skinned alive, boiled alive, impaled and then grilled over a campfire, or crucified upside down.”[4] The psychology behind these horrific practices was another potential means to an end for both the oppressed and the oppressor.

Notes

[1] John R. Elting, Swords around a Throne: Napoleon's Grande Armée (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1988), 508-509.

[2] Georges Blond, La Grande Armée (London, UK: Arms and Armour, 1998), 169.

[3] Ibid., 171.

[4] John R. Elting, Swords around a Throne: Napoleon's Grande Armée (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1988), 515.

Bibliography 

Blond, Georges. La Grande Armée. London, UK: Arms and Armour, 1998. 

Elting, John R. Swords around a Throne: Napoleon's Grande Armée. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1988. 

Haythornthwaite, Philip J. The Napoleonic Source Book. London, UK: Arms and Armour, 1997. 

Mikaberidze, Alexander. The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2020.