One question about.... Napoleon

I'd agree. Care should be taken not to overplay the impact of the Peninsular War, which some, particularly British, historiography is inclined to do, but it's certainly a mistake to dismiss it as a sideshow. It was a wound steadily bleeding him of vital resources. The scale of the numbers needed to maintain control in the region are shown by the scale of the French defeat when men were pulled out to bolster the 1813 army. That was only one of many reasons for what happened at Vittoria, but it still played it's part.

Ohh, I like that one! It's a big one for me. Charles Esdaile has looked at the motives behind the invasion of Spain, but I can't speak for anything else.

thanks.

It has to be the third, since it was entirely of Napoleon's own volition in the certain knowledge that many would die as a result of his decision. While his own initial decisions eventually boxed him into the invasions of Spain and Russia, Napoleon's ultimate decision was not one over which he had free will. Both were essentially the results of economics. The 1803 Subsidy Treaty looked like it would go out of the window as Godoy and the monarchy became more resistant to Napoleon's rapacious demands for cash and manpower, so he had to seize the place to keep the cash to prop up his failing finances, especially after the 1807 war with Russia did not gain any indemnity and garrisoning conquered lands was draining the Treasury. Similarly, in 1811, Napoleon said to Mollien "If I am declaring a new war, it is, of course, for some great political interest, but it is also in the interest of my finances, and precisely because they look weak. Is it not by war that I have always managed to balance them?"

@david.a.hollins Interesting. Do you see an opportunistic element to the invasion of Spain, or do you see it largely as economic necessity? I've always felt that the Peninsular War provides as fairly clear indication of Napoleon's mindset. I'm also interested in the comment about what became the Waterloo campaign being entirely of Napoleon's volition (I'd personally agree, but I know many Bonapartists like to view him as a man of peace). Do you think he meant his claim of returning in peace, or was it just a cover to buy himself time?

I don't know enough about the political background to talk about opportunism, albeit a shift in Spanish policy would make it a potential backdoor for the British, which was a key reason for the invasion of Portugal. We did crunch the numbers many years ago on one of the forums, but I cannot find it now. However, whilst the 6m Francs annual subsidy may not seem much, economics works at the margins, where 6m would make all the difference. There is a good summary here https://www.cairn.info/revue-napoleonica-la-revue-2008-3-page-2.htm# (interesting to note the German states did not pay up for their 1810 acquisitions). If you add in the Spanish troops in Denmark and what was left of the Spanish Navy, there was a lot at stake in 1807-8. I suspect Napoleon also had ideas about extracting more from the New World, albeit Ouvrard and his chums were factoring the Spanish debt as the gold was not getting through. Interestingly, there were proposals to change the Austrian merchant flag in 1804 as its merchantmen were being attacked by the British, who mistook the flag for a Spanish flag. The UK certainly knew how the Napoleonic war effort was being financed and Ouvrard was banged up by Napoleon for four months in 1809. This is also interesting on the other cashflows to the Napoleonic regime from Spain https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=d6nbkY8kpuAC&pg=PA160&lpg=PA160&dq=1803+subsidy+treaty+spain&source=bl&ots=jWDXS7lglX&sig=ACfU3U1yR8u4NsUtN6rvtTDxXWdF5u2tpQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwilr5Hq0dniAhVOVBUIHW4lDD0Q6AEwEXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=1803%20subsidy%20treaty%20spain&f=false p.160-1. From the number-crunching, the key problem for Napoleon from about 1810 was that more debt was being issued at a time when the yield was over 5%, compared with UK bonds yields never exceeding 3% over the period. Cashflow issues can kill any business long before it is technically insolvent.

This "man of peace" nonsense is a product of Weider and his followers, taken up by Roberts, but it just proves the old adage that you should consider any work on a historical figure not just in terms of what is written about but when the book was written. War is not fashionable now, but you only need to check the full name of the Domaine extraordinnaire to see who thought he had a "right" to wage war. It was the same at the start of Napoleon's regime - he told the French people that he wanted peace in 1799-1800 to stabilise his new regime, when in reality, if you look at the Talleyrand-Thugut correspondence, there was absolutely no intention. This nonsense always reminds me of Mel Brooks in "To Be or Not to Be" (1983) impersonating Hitler singing:

"I don't want war! All I want is peace...peace...peace...! A little piece of Poland, A little piece of France, A little piece of Austria And Hungary, perchance! A little slice of Turkey And all that that entails, And then a bit of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales!"