A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 2, Jan.-Sep. 1809 : $b From the battle of Corunna to the end of the Talavera campaignOman, Charles
History
A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 2, Jan.-Sep. 1809 : $b From the battle of Corunna to the end of the Talavera campaign
Oman, Charles
Peninsular War, 1807-1814
Twenty-four regiments of infantry of two battalions each 36,000
twelve regiments of cavalry at 470 5,640
four regiments of artillery at 989 3,956
ten garrison companies of artillery (veterans) 1,300
‘Experimental Legion,’ engineers, &c. 1,500
------
Total 48,396
Halliday gives an even larger figure, 52,204.
Portugal had a few keen soldiers (such as Gomez Freire de Andrade,
and the renegade D’Alorna), who had received abroad a good military
education, and had even written military books. But the majority of
the officers were slack, ignorant, and incompetent; while the men
were half-drilled, badly disciplined, and ill-equipped. The only
attempt which had been made to introduce any of the modern military
discoveries which had been worked out in the wars of the French
Revolution, consisted in the creation of the already-mentioned
‘Experimental Legion’ which D’Alorna had been allowed to raise and
to train with a new light-infantry drill, adapted by himself from
French models. The main body of the army looked with some jealousy
and suspicion on this corps, and had made no effort to copy it.
The French invasion of Portugal had dashed to pieces the old regular
army. Junot, it will be remembered, had disbanded the greater part
of the men, and formed with the remainder a few battalions, which he
had begun to send off to France ere the insurrection of June, 1808,
broke out. Some of them took an involuntary share in the first siege
of Saragossa: others were hurled into the red holocaust of Wagram.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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