I have been approached with a view to writing a short (80,000-word) military history of the Peninsular War for the academic market. I have a rough plan for how something worthwhile could be done with that wordcount, by giving a very broad overview and then following up with case-studies of particular episodes. However, I am conscious that I will need to get up to speed on the scholarship relating to the non-British aspects. I have enough French to extract the sense from a piece, and access to someone who could potentially do a small amount of translation from Spanish; Portuguese would be a problem. All that said, within the constraints that I would be tied to if I took this on, I'm looking primarily for English-language sources.
Other than the collected works of Charles Esdaile, which I am working my way through, what else should I be looking at re. the Spanish? Whilst there is a lot of material there, I think I need a counterpoint otherwise they might as well have just asked Charles to write the book! I have the bilingual Santo/Brito title on logistics from the Portuguese perspective, the pamphlet-length piece that Tribuna e Historia put out on the 1808 campaign, and a chapter by Mark Thompson on Portuguese engineers, but anything else there (I note Bob's forthcoming project, but sadly I don't think that that is likely to appear in time)? Various older articles on the French experience, but nothing very recent.
Any suggestions gratefully received.
What are you looking for in Portuguese? XIX Century sources or recent publications? Books or articles? Manuscripts or printed? What subjects exactly?
Since it's intended for an academic audience, I'm primarily after recent scholarship, new interpretations, etc. If and when I get into it - and at the moment I'm trying to make sure that it's viable - I'll want to case-study particular episodes and in that case I'll no doubt be posting more focused requests for specific information.
Thank you for your reply.
Many works were published in the past 15 years (books, articles, congresses and conferences proceedings), leading to the 200th anniversary and afterwards.
Have you selected already the particular episodes?
@Rui Moura Very provisionally, it had occurred to me to case-study Rio Seco, Bussaco, and Vittoria as representative early-, mid-, and late-war battles; ditto Saragossa, C. Rodrigo 1810, and San Sebastian as representative sieges.
I appreciate that much will have been published for the bicentennial, as with other languages. My hope was that the good folk on here might direct me to the best of the non-British material.
@Andrew Bamford please check my post at: https://www.thenapoleonicwars.net/forum/main/comment/5e8765e23a933900172c9a4f
For a Portuguese perspective on the Peninsular War I would select the following:
BOOKS
Check this selection of 18 books on the "Guerra Peninsular" published in recent years: http://bibliografia.bnportugal.gov.pt/bnp/bnp.exe/queryp
I should make the following short list:
The Portuguese Army published 3 volumes with very interesting articles of the period of the French Invasions from 1807-1811, as well as a record of the activities performed along the years 2007-2011 regarding the 200 years (3 Volumes)
Volume I 2007-2008 (1807-1808)
Volume II 2009 (1809)
Volume III 2010-2011 (1810-1811)
https://bit.ly/3fpGatM
The CPHM (Comissão Portuguesa de História Militar) runs every year a Congress/Colloquium and publishes proceedings on different military subjects. Some of the past Congresses had the Peninsular War as a subject.
Actas do XXXV Congresso Internacional de História Militar "A Guerra no Tempo de Napoleão - Antecedentes, Campanhas Militares e Impactos de Longa Duração" (2009-2010)
A Guerra Peninsular em Portugal (1810-1812) : derrota e perseguição : a invasão de Masséna e a transferência das operações para Espanha : actas / XX Colóquio de História Militar (2012)
Portugal na Guerra Peninsular (1812-1815) : do cerco de Ciudad Rodrigo ao Congresso de Viena : o caminho para a derrocada do Império Napoleónico : actas / XXII Colóquio de História Militar (2014)
Finally, the title may seem a little restrictive and awkward, but some articles in these following 4 volumes are generic on the subject of the Peninsular War
O Porto e as Invasões Francesas, 4 Volumes, (2007-2009)
Volume I 1807-2007
Volume II 1808-2008
Volume III 1809-2009
Volume IV 1809-2009
ARTICLES
You can also find many articles in Revista Militar (https://www.revistamilitar.pt/), the oldest periodical Magazine in the World (founded in 1848, published continuously since January 1849), many articles on the Peninsular War.
For a Spanish perspective you might want to check out the 'Revista de Historia Militar' which is published by the Spanish Ministry of Defence. This is a Military History Magazine that is published several times a year and you can read the online version free. It covers all periods of Spanish Military History but often contains articles written on the Napoleonic Wars and you can look at previous issues. In Spanish the Peninsular War is typically known as the 'Guerra de Independencia'.
Thank you, much obliged. Is there an index, do you know? Having looked online there appear to be many decades' worth of issues available and ploughing through that much material in a language that I don't speak would be taxing to say the least.
I couldn't find an index but after a quick look, all the following editions were special editions on the Napoleonic Wars:
REVISTA DE HISTORIA MILITAR EXTRA 1-2013
REVISTA DE HISTORIA MILITAR EXTRA-1-2011
REVISTA DE HISTORIA MILITAR. Extra-1-2008
If you want a perspective on the Spanish army of Joseph Napoleon you might want to find a copy of 'El Ejército español de José Napoleón (1808-1813)' by Luis Sorando Múzas.
'No Sin Nosotros' by Arsenio Garcia Fuentes is a detailed account of the Spanish Army that served in northern Spain especially concentrating on the Siege of Astorga.
Whilst I am very grateful for all the suggestions that have come in, before anyone puts themselves to any more trouble can I please reiterate that I am looking primarily for English-language material. This is an academic project with no budget, and whilst I am happy to pay for a limited amount of translation out of my own pocket, the key word here is limited.
@Andrew Bamford let me know if you need any support from Portuguese, Spanish or French texts. For a Portuguese view on Peninsular War, or at least based in Portuguese Archives, you may start from here: Marcus de la Poer Beresford book on Marshall Beresford, the Portuguese Army Commander, a deep dive into the Portuguese Libraries and Archives, it is a must. D. Miguel Pereira Forjaz (English Edition) – January 1, 2011, by Francisco de La Fuente (Author) and these articles Dores Costa, Fernando (2008). Army size, military recruitment and financing in Portugal during the period of the Peninsula War – 1808–1811, in e-journal of Portuguese History, e-JPH, Vol.6, number 2, Winter 2008. Brown University. Meneses, Filipe Ribeiro de (2018). The Portuguese Expeditionary Corps in France (1917-18) and the Long Shadow of the Peninsular War against Napoleon, in e-journal of Portuguese History, e-JPH, Vol.16, number 2, December 2018. Brown University. if you are able to read in french please consider the following articles in Rives méditerranéennes, 36 | 2010, written by Portuguese researchers: Tereza Caillaux de Almeida L’échec des campagnes napoléoniennes au Portugal dans les Mémoires des officiers français [Texte intégral]
Gabriela Gândarra Terenas Images de la France au temps de Napoléon dans les romans historiques portugais de la guerre péninsulaire [Texte intégral]
António Pedro Vicente Raisons de la défaite de Napoléon au Portugal [Texte intégral]
Sofia Mendes Geraldes La guerre des lettres au Portugal [Texte intégral]
Thanks Rui, that's all really helpful. My French is a bit rusty, but should suffice. I knew about the Beresford biography but I haven't read it yet - sounds like it will be very useful.
@Andrew Bamford I must stress that Forjaz, Conde da Feira, Biography, by La Fuente is fundamental.
Forjaz, was the minister of War and Foreign Affairs at the Regency in Lisbon, Beresford, Chief of the Army reported to him. They were the two driving forces behind the Portuguese war effort from 1808 until 1814, both with vast correspondence with Wellington, that had him in the highest regard:
"I never entertained a doubt that Dom Miguel Forjaz would make the best arrangement, and give all the necessary orders for the performance of any service" (Wellington to C Stuart, Cartaxo, Jan. 3rd 1811)
Afternoon all! The 'collected works of Charles Esdaile'. Oh dear: that sounds much too grand. The basic problem when it comes to writing the history of the Peninsular War for English-speakers is that so few anglophone scholars have engaged with the Spanish archives. There are one or two people other than your humble correspondent, but very few, while in at least one case I fear that their claims to have done so are not to be taken at face value: I know the Spanish archives well enough to know when someone is telling the truth or not. Still, two names to follow up are Mark Lawrence, a Carlist specialist at the University of Kent who has written an interesting comparison between the Peninsular War and the Spanish Civil War, and Ronald Fraser, who in 2008 published a work that was based on much archival research called 'Napoleon's Cursed War'. This is full of useful material and is worth reading, but, for reasons of his own, Fraser decided to go head to head with me and therefore crafted a work that was deliberately designed to clash with mine, He is therefore inclined to concentrate on the idea of 'people's war' and the result is that the book is heavily weighted towards the events of 1808-1809 and, more widely, the guerrilla struggle. To repeat, there is much that is interesting in 'Napoleon's Cursed War' - I regard it unequivocally as a 'must read' even - but it does need to be studied with care as, to be frank, it is full of traps for the unwary, a good example being the way in which Fraser buys into the ridiculous notion that somehow Catalonia was the greatest bastion of the Patriot cause (a fiction put about by Catalan nationalists eager to show that Catalonia had a greater sense of nationhood than the rest of Spain). Also slightly dodgy in this respect is the work of the American historian, John Tone: while his book on the guerrilla struggle in Navarre is quite good as far as it goes, it has its limits and certainly cannot be regarded as a source which is valid for an understanding of the guerrilla war as a whole. Turning now to the 'greats', Oman remains fundamental: though he made little use of the Spanish archives, relying instead on nineteenth-century accounts like that of the Conde de Toreno, and is dreadful on the political and social context, most of what he has to say about the campaigns is pretty solid. Next there is Napier, in which respect the best that I can say is that he sometimes comes up with the occasional nugget, the fact being that he did not even try to rise above the realms of the 'black legend'. And finally, we come to the poet, Robert Southey. Published in the period 1823-32, his 'History of the Peninsular War' is an account based on a perspective that completely escaped Napier and Oman alike, namely that the Peninsular War was primarily an Iberian conflict rather than a British one, the only trouble being that Southey was rather indiscriminating in his approach; that being the case, his work is to be used with care, but there is a lot of material in its pages that cannot be accessed anywhere else in English.
Dear Charles, many thanks, that is extremely helpful and exactly what I was looking for. This project having almost textbook overtones, an emphasis on the clashes in the historiography is precisely what I need. I confess, I'm not as familiar with Southey as I ought to be, so a useful reminder there that I should not write him off.
I mentioned in one of the posts above, that I'm looking at case studies of specific battles and sieges, trying to find early, mid, and late war examples. For the early war battle, I was hoping to use that exercise to showcase the best and worst of the Spanish army at that stage in the war. Rio Seco seemed like an obvious candidate, with a marked difference in the make-up of Blake's forces vis a vis Cuesta's. Your views on the validity of that choice, and any suggestions for sources (this might be the place to deploy my limited translation budget) would be much appreciated.
Glad to help: Southey is genuinely fascinating, especially the first volume (the second and third are somewhat denatured by the savaging Vol. 1 got him from Napier: thus, they talk up Wellington and have less to say about matters Spanish. Re case studies, for 1808 I would go for Bailen and Medina de Rio Seco (can supply good photos for both), for 1809 Tamames and Ocana (ditto for Ocana) and for the latter part of the war San Marcial and Toulouse (ditto for San Marcial).
Thanks Charles. To clarify on the battles, with the wordcount that I have to play with I'd be looking at three case-study battles to cover the field engagements of the whole war, not just the Spanish elements. My thinking was therefore Rio Seco, Bussaco, and Vitoria. Obviously that selection tracks the French all the way through, but catches the Spanish both early and late, likewise the Portuguese, and has the British both on the defensive and the offensive. Rio Seco is the only one that I've not visited, so yes, pictures would be much appreciated.
@Andrew Bamford any support needed for the Portuguese view on Bussaco let me know.
@Rui Moura Noted - thank you.
Oh right: sorry! Re the pictures, I am going to do a battlefield tour on Twitter on 14 July. Can you wait till then?
Yes certainly, no rush at all. This is still an exercise in establishing whether the project is viable; I'm 2-3 weeks away from being able to start any serious work on it, and many months away from potential delivery.