When was the peninsular war

A campaign waged on the Iberian peninsula between the French and the British, the latter assisted by Spanish and Portuguese forces, from to during the Napoleonic Wars. The French were finally driven back over the Pyrenees in an expedition led by Wellington.

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Your current browser may not support copying via this button. Peninsular War by Charles J. General Overviews General overviews of the Peninsular War exist in large numbers and have, for convenience, been divided into two groups, namely those published in the 19th century and those published in the 20th century and beyond.

How to Subscribe Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. The devastating conflict that raged across Spain and Portugal between and following Napoleon's invasion was one of the most dramatic and defining moments in Iberian history.

At the end of the eighteenth century Spain remained one of the world's most powerful empires. Thanks to a long period of enlightened absolutism, Portugal, too, was prosperous. But by all this had changed: Portugal was under occupation and, ravaged by famine, disease, economic problems and political instability, Spain had undergone an extraordinary implosion. Worse was to come: for the next six years the Iberian peninsula, for three centuries a byword for religious and military aggression, became itself the helpless victim of others, suffering perhaps over a million deaths while troops from all over Europe tore it to pieces.