The campaign of Bussaco and Torres Vedras, therefore, marked the turning-point of the whole war, and I have endeavoured to set forth its meaning in full detail, devoting special care to the explanation of Wellington’s triple device for arresting the French advance--his combination of the system of devastation, of the raising of the _levée en masse_ in Portugal, and of the construction of great defensive lines in front of Lisbon. Each of these three measures would have been incomplete without the other two. For the Lines of Torres Vedras might not have saved Portugal and Europe from the domination of Napoleon, if the invading army had not been surrounded on all sides by the light screen of irregular troops, which cut its communications, and prevented it from foraging far afield. Nor would Masséna have been turned back, if the land through which he had advanced had been left unravaged, and if every large village had contained enough food to subsist a brigade for a day or a battalion for a week. The preparations, the advance, and the retreat of Masséna cover about half of this volume. The rest of it is occupied with the operations of the French in Northern, Eastern, and Southern Spain--operations which seemed decisive at the moment, but which turned out to be mere side-issues in the great contest. For Soult’s conquest of Andalusia, and Suchet’s victories in Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia only distracted the imperial generals from their central task--the expulsion of Wellington and his army from the Peninsula. Most readers will, I think, find a good deal of new information in the accounts of the siege of Gerona and the battle of Ocaña. The credit due to Alvarez for the defence of the Catalonian city has never been properly set forth before in any English history, nor have the details of Areizaga’s miserable campaign in La Mancha been fully studied. In particular, the composition and strength of his army have never before been elucidated, and Appendices V, VI of this volume consist of absolutely unpublished documents. I have to offer my grateful thanks to those who have been good enough to assist me in the writing of this book, by furnishing me with stores of private papers, or hitherto unknown official reports. Two of the kind helpers who put me on the track of new information for the compiling of Volume II have passed away while Volume III was in progress. I bitterly regret the loss of my friends General Arteche and Colonel F. A. Whinyates. The former, with his unrivalled knowledge of the contents of the historical department of the Madrid War Office, had enabled me to discover many a lost document of importance. The latter had placed at my disposal his copious store of papers, letters, and diaries relating to his old corps, the Royal Artillery. In this present section of the history of the war I am still using much of the material which he lent me.