Army size, military recruitment and financing in Portugal
Army size, military recruitment and financing in Portugal during the period of the Peninsula War – 1808–1811
Fernando Dores Costa
e-JPH, Vol. 6, number 2, Winter 2008
“Everyone wishes for the defense of the Realm, but few remember this duty when it affects people with whom they have relations: in this manner, the Army would never be recruited.”
Abstract
This article is intended to offer a preliminary approach to some questions that were of central importance in the period of the so-called Napoleonic invasions in Portugal: the size of the army that was effectively raised, the difficulties that were encountered in recruiting men to serve in the ranks of this army, and finally the shortage of funds to finance the efforts to sustain this force. This is not an account of the Peninsular War on Portuguese territory, but makes some contributions to the renewal of the study of this period, namely through the use of quantitative sources.
Anything by Dores-Costa is excellent. That said, some aspiring young scholar needs to write a full-length study of PW Portugal: it really is a massive gap in the historiograhy