Napoleon
Peninsular War and Erfurt

After Tilsit, Napoleon turned his attention to Portugal, which was reluctant to strictly enforce the blockade against its traditional ally Britain. On 17 October 1807, 24,000 French troops under General Junot crossed the Pyrenees with Spanish consent and headed towards Portugal to enforce the blockade. Junot occupied Lisbon in November, but the Portuguese royal family had already fled to Brazil with the Portuguese fleet.

In March 1808, a palace coup led to the abdication of the Spanish king Carlos IV in favour of his son Fernando VII. The following month, Napoleon summoned Carlos and Fernando to Bayonne where, in May, he forced them both to relinquish their claims to the Spanish throne. Napoleon then made his brother Joseph King of Spain.

By then, there were 120,000 French troops garrisoned in the peninsula and widespread Spanish opposition to the occupation and the overthrow of the Spanish Bourbons. On 2 May, an uprising against the French broke out in Madrid and spread throughout Spain in the following weeks. In the face of brutal French repression, the uprising developed into a sustained conflict.

In July, Joseph travelled to Madrid where he was proclaimed King of Spain on the 24th. However, following news of a French defeat by regular Spanish forces at the Battle of Bailén, Joseph fled Madrid several days later. The following month, a British force landed in Portugal and, on the 21st, they defeated the French at Vimiero. Under the Convention of Cintra, the French evacuated Portugal.

The defeats at Bailén and Vimiero convinced Napoleon that he had to take command of the Iberian campaign. Before leaving for Spain, he attempted to strengthen the alliance with Russia and obtain a commitment from Alexander that Russia would declare war on Austria if she attacked France. At the Congress of Erfurt in October 1808, Napoleon and Alexander reached an agreement that recognized the Russian conquest of Finland and called upon Britain to cease its war against France. However, Alexander failed to provide a firm commitment to make war with Austria.

On 6 November, Napoleon was in Vitoria and took command of 240,000 French troops. After a series of victories over Anglo-Spanish forces, Madrid was retaken on 4 December. Napoleon then pursued the retreating British forces who were eventually evacuated at Corunna in January 1809. Napoleon left for France on 17 January, leaving Joseph in command.

Napoleon never returned to Spain after the 1808 campaign. In April, the British sent another army to the peninsula under Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington. British, Portuguese and Spanish regular forces engaged the French in a protracted series of conflicts. Meanwhile, a brutal guerrilla war engulfed much of the Spanish countryside, a conflict in which atrocities were committed by both sides.

Napoleon later called the Peninsular campaign, "the unlucky war ruined me." It tied up some 300,000 French troops from 1808 to 1812. By 1814, the French had been driven from the peninsula, with over 150,000 casualties in the campaign.
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