TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE * Italics are denoted by underscores as in _italics_, and small caps are represented in upper case as in SMALL CAPS. [Illustration: _General Joseph Palafox_ _From the Portrait by Goya in the Prado Gallery._ _Walker & Cockerell Ph. Sc._] A HISTORY OF THE PENINSULAR WAR BY CHARLES OMAN, M.A. FELLOW OF ALL SOULS COLLEGE AND DEPUTY PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY (CHICHELE) IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE REAL ACADEMIA DE LA HISTORIA OF MADRID VOL. II JAN.-SEPT. 1809 FROM THE BATTLE OF CORUNNA TO THE END OF THE TALAVERA CAMPAIGN WITH MAPS, PLANS AND ILLUSTRATIONS OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1903 HENRY FROWDE, M.A. PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD LONDON, EDINBURGH NEW YORK PREFACE The second volume of this work has swelled to an even greater bulk than its predecessor. Its size must be attributed to two main causes: the first is the fact that a much greater number of original sources, both printed and unprinted, are available for the campaigns of 1809 than for those of 1808. The second is that the war in its second year had lost the character of comparative unity which it had possessed in its first. Napoleon, on quitting Spain in January, left behind him as a legacy to his brother a comprehensive plan for the conquest of the whole Peninsula. But that plan was, from the first, impracticable: and when it had miscarried, the fighting in every region of the theatre of war became local and isolated. Neither the harassed and distracted French King at Madrid, nor the impotent Spanish Junta at Seville, knew how to combine and co-ordinate the operations of their various armies into a single logical scheme. Ere long, six or seven campaigns were taking place simultaneously in different corners of the Peninsula, each of which was practically independent of the others. Every French and Spanish general fought for his own hand, with little care for what his colleagues were doing: their only unanimity was that all alike kept urging on their central governments the plea that their own particular section of the war was more critical and important than any other. If we look at the month of May, 1809, we find that the following six disconnected series of operations were all in progress at once, and that each has to be treated as a separate unit, rather than as a part of one great general scheme of strategy--(1) Soult’s campaign against Wellesley in Northern Portugal, (2) Ney’s invasion of the Asturias, (3) Victor’s and Cuesta’s movements in Estremadura, (4) Sebastiani’s demonstrations against Venegas in La Mancha, (5) Suchet’s contest with Blake in Aragon, (6) St. Cyr’s attempt to subdue Catalonia. When a war has broken up into so many fractions, it becomes not only hard to follow but very lengthy to narrate. Fortunately for the historian and the student, a certain amount of unity is restored in