A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 1, 1807-1809 : $b From the treaty of Fontainbleau to the battle of CorunnaOman, Charles
History
A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 1, 1807-1809 : $b From the treaty of Fontainbleau to the battle of Corunna
Oman, Charles
Peninsular War, 1807-1814
Napoleon, then, intended to conquer Spain with a force of about 110,000
men, of which no more than 34,000 sabres and bayonets belonged to
his regular army; the rest were conscripts or foreign auxiliaries.
But we must also note that the small body of veteran troops was
not distributed equally in each of the corps, so as to stiffen the
preponderating mass of conscripts. If we put aside the division of
Imperial Guards, we find that of the remaining 25,000 infantry of old
organization no less than 17,500 belonged to Junot’s army of Portugal,
which was the only one of the corps that had a solid organization.
Junot had indeed a very fine force, seventeen old line battalions to
two battalions of conscripts and three of foreigners. The rest of
the veteran troops were mainly with Duhesme in Catalonia, who had a
good division of 5,000 veterans. In the three corps of Dupont, Moncey,
and Bessières on the other hand old troops were conspicuous by their
absence: among the 19,000 infantry of Dupont’s corps, on which (as it
chanced) the first stress of the Spanish war was destined to fall,
there was actually only two battalions (1,700 men) of old troops. In
Moncey’s there was not a single veteran unit; in Bessières’, only
four battalions. This simple fact goes far to explain why Dupont’s
expedition to Andalusia led to the capitulation of Baylen, and why
Moncey’s march on Valencia ended in an ignominious retreat. Countries
cannot be conquered with hordes of undrilled conscripts--not even
countries in an advanced stage of political decomposition, such as the
Spain of 1808.
§ 2. THE ARMY OF 1808-14: ITS CHARACTER AND ORGANIZATION.
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