PublishedPen & Sword Books, April 2011 |
ISBN9781848841420 |
FormatHardcover, 224 pages |
Dimensions23.4cm × 15.6cm × 2.8cm |
The first French invasion of Portugal in 1807 - which was commanded by General Jean-Andoche Junot, one of Napoleon's most experienced generals - was a key event in the long, brutal Peninsular War, and it was the first campaign fought in the Peninsula by Sir Arthur Wellesley, later Duke of Wellington, yet it tends to be overshadowed by more famous episodes in the six-year conflict that followed. David Buttery, in this original and perceptive new study, sets the record straight.
His tightly focused narrative covers the entire campaign in vivid detail - the rise of popular resistance to the French occupying forces, the outbreak of ruthless guerrilla warfare, the differences in the tactics of the opposing Allied and French armies, the contrasting personalities of Wellesley and Junot, the Allied victories at Roliça and Vimeiro, and the notorious Convention of Cintra which terminated the campaign, ruined the careers of two British generals and nearly wrecked that of Wellesley himself.
But the account also examines the wider implications of the invasion and liberation of Portugal - its impact on Napoleonic strategy and on the protracted struggle against the French across the Iberian Peninsula, and its contribution to the eventual defeat of Napoleon.
