It is 1807 and the Emperor of the French Napoleon Bonaparte is near the height of his power.
The Treaties of Tilsit forced Prussia to surrender nearly half of its territory, while Russia
became the ally of France.
Time and again, the great powers of Europe had united against France, only to be humbled.
Now almost the entire continent is ruled by France.
But Napoleon still wants to force Britain to bow to him, and that will draw him into
new wars.
Welcome to the second season of the Napoleonic Wars.
Napoleon knew the peace on the continent could never last as long as there was the promise
of British gold to subsidize his enemies.
With the French fleet shattered at Trafalgar, he had no hope of striking at Britain directly,
so instead he made an indirect attack on the source of Britain’s financial power: trade.
Napoleon united every country under French influence into the “Continental System”
an embargo on all trade with Britain.
It was a bold plan, but for the Continental System to be effective, every country in Europe
had to participate.
As long as there was a single port on the continent open to British trade, there would
be no stopping smugglers.
Every country complied, save for Portugal.
On July 19th, 1807, Napoleon issued an ultimatum, threatening war if Portugal did not submit.
They met many of its conditions but refused his demands to seize British ships and declare
war on Great Britain.
Bonaparte was not satisfied.
He dispatched an invasion force of twenty-five thousand men under General Jean-Andoche Junot,
a close friend who had once served as his personal assistant.
Napoleon promised Junot a noble title and promotion to Marshal of the Empire.
With French troops massing on their borders, the Portuguese finally caved to Napoleon’s
demands and declared war on Britain, but it was too late.
On November 12th, 1807, Junot’s force and an allied Spanish army crossed into Portugal.
Junot’s army raced unopposed to seize the capital at Lisbon.
It took a grueling forced march, but they managed to reach the city in only a few weeks…
just barely too late to seize the Portuguese royal family or treasury, which had set sail
for their colonies in Brazil only hours before.
Junot faced no formal opposition from the Portuguese army, but the invasion had cost
hundreds of French lives.
In his race to the capital, Junot had pushed his army to its limits.
Supplies were inadequate, the weather was bad, and the local population was hostile
to the invaders.
Men died of hunger and exposure or were separated from their units and ambushed by angry peasants.
True to his word, Napoleon made Junot Duke of Abrantès and appointed him governor of
the French occupation forces, but the Emperor wasn’t entirely pleased with his performance
and withheld the promised promotion to Marshal.
Junot never forgave him.
Napoleon had achieved his goal Portugal was in French hands, and its ports were closed
to Britain.
Unfortunately for Junot and for Napoleon, their ordeal in Portugal had barely begun.
As Junot’s troops marched through Spain, they carefully mapped the country’s roads,
fortresses, and other important topographical features.
The French left behind suspiciously large garrisons in major towns and other strategic
locations.
When the Spanish protested, they were told these were not garrisons, but reinforcements,
stopping to rest on their way to Portugal.
In reality, Napoleon had initiated an occupation of the country by stealth and planned to seize
control of the entire Iberian Peninsula.
By 1808, there were nearly 100,000 French soldiers stationed in Spain.
On paper, Spain was allied to France, but Napoleon had lost confidence in its rulers.
Its government was weak and old-fashioned.
King Carlos IV was disinterested in ruling and left most of his responsibilities to his
prime minister: the corrupt and self-interested Manuel de Godoy.
Napoleon decided France’s south-western border would not be secure unless he toppled
the Spanish government and replaced it with a more competent and pro-French regime.
In early 1808, Napoleon got the excuse he needed to execute it.
On March 17th, 1808, a group of Spanish noblemen launched a coup d’état.
Their aim was to arrest Prime Minister Godoy and replace King Carlos IV with his son, crown
prince Fernando.
The coup succeeded at its first goal, but failed at the second.
Napoleon invited Carlos and Fernando to a summit in Bayonne, in southern France, where
he forced them to renounce the throne in favor of his brother, Joseph Bonaparte.
Everything seemed to be going according to plan, but while Napoleon executed his political
maneuvers, the situation on the ground in Iberia was spinning out of control.
French rule was harsh.
They levied huge taxes on the people of Spain and Portugal, forcing them to pay for their
own occupation.
Anger was growing.
In the Spring of 1808, anti-French rebellions broke out all over the peninsula, most famously
the Dos de Mayo Uprising in Madrid, which nearly succeeded in ejecting the French from
the city.
Spanish and Portuguese government officials and army units refused to recognize the authority
of their pro-French regimes, and set up provisional rebel governments called “juntas.”
By the time Joseph Bonaparte arrived in Madrid to claim his throne in the summer of 1808,
huge parts of his kingdom were in rebel hands.
The fighting was brutal.
The rebels struck without warning, and rarely took prisoners.
The French responded in kind, and sometimes even engaged in reprisals against civilians.
General Junot was now separated from the rest of the French army by huge swathes of hostile
territory.
With only around 25,000 men, he had no hope of holding on to the whole country, so he
ordered his troops to pull back to the area around Lisbon.
Once his forces were consolidated and his main base of operations secured, Junot hoped
he could then strike out from Lisbon and retake the country.
In July of 1808, Junot dispatched eight thousand men under General Louis Henri Loison to secure
the road between Lisbon and the French-held town of Elvas.
Standing in his way were about three thousand rebel troops under the Portuguese General
Francisco de Paula Leite.
The rebels were outnumbered more than two to one, but on July 29th, 1808, General Leite
made his stand just outside the town of Évora.
Unfortunately for the Spanish and Portuguese, the poorly-trained, ill-disciplined rebel
troops were no match for veteran French regulars.
General Loison ordered a charge, and the rebel lines crumpled.
The Spanish contingent fled east, towards the border.
Most of the Portuguese rebels took refuge in the town of Évora, but the French were
hot on their heels.
Loison’s men immediately stormed the town, and a massacre ensued.
Exact numbers are disputed, but thousands of rebel troops and militia were killed, along
with many civilians.
The French lost under one hundred killed and only a few hundred wounded.
Leite’s army was completely destroyed, and the way to Elvas was clear.
As word of atrocities spread, “victories” like Évora only created more rebels.
Junot would soon have much bigger problems.
On August 1st, 1808, a British army of nearly 20,000 men began to disembark at Mondego Bay,
only about 200 kilometers, north of Lisbon.
They were commanded by General Sir Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington.
An amphibious landing with Napoleonic-era technology was tricky business.
Until they expanded their beachhead, the British were vulnerable.
Wellesley pushed south as quickly as possible, and the French raced to stop him.
Junot sent a hastily-assembled force under General Henri Delaborde to delay the British
as long as possible, but when the two armies made contact Delaborde was outmaneuvered and
forced to retreat, but not before forcing the British to fight a bloody engagement,
buying precious time.
By August 21st, Junot had assembled around 13,000 troops in the area.
He was outnumbered.
Wellesley’s army had been joined by Portuguese rebel units, and may have numbered as high
as 20,000 men.
Wellesley would only grow stronger with time and Junot chose to attack.
Wellesley arranged his forces in a defensive line along a range of hills overlooking the
Atlantic.
His right flank was anchored at a village called Vimeiro, which bordered a steep ravine.
He placed some of his units on his left flank just behind the ridgeline-- in theory, this
was a weaker position than the crest of the hill, but it obscured them from view and protected
them from French artillery.
This would become one of Wellesley’s signature tactics.
The British position was strong, but their backs were to the sea-- if Junot could break
the line or get around their flanks, Wellesley would have nowhere to run, and the whole army
would face destruction or surrender.
Junot’s plan was to divide his forces-- launching the main attack against Vimeiro,
on the British right, and sending a smaller detachment around their left flank, thus enveloping
Wellesley’s army.
It was a clever plan, but he would be taking a huge risk by dividing his outnumbered army
into even smaller contingents.
Just before 8 a.m. on the morning of August 21st, 1808, Junot ordered the attack.
Two huge French assault columns approached the British positions in front of Vimeiro.
This part of the line included two battalions of elite riflemen-- the best marksmen in the
British army, armed with state-of-the-art Baker rifles, who sniped at the French as
they advanced.
Still, the columns marched onward.
But once they got within musket range, the combined firepower of the British defenders
was too much.
Junot’s columns staggered, stopped, then fell back.
The French re-formed and attacked again, and again were halted by a hail of gunfire.
At this key moment, Wellesley’s light dragoons charged, and the French fled.
Meanwhile, on the British left, Junot’s flanking detachment was easily defeated.
It was simply too small to make a serious assault.
Junot’s plan had been far too aggressive and ambitious for an outnumbered army facing
a strong defensive position.
His men had paid the price for his hubris.
Over two thousand Frenchmen were killed or wounded, and thirteen cannons were captured
by the enemy.
Wellesley’s army had suffered just over seven hundred casualties.
The French army survived to fight another day, but Junot soon realized his situation
was hopeless.
On August 30th he signed the Convention of Cintra: Portugal was surrendered to the British
in exchange for safe passage back to France for Junot’s army.
The Battle of Vimeiro was a small affair compared to climactic engagements like Austerlitz or
Jena-Auerstedt, but it was a turning point.
Vimeiro heralded the end of the First French invasion of Portugal, but more than that,
it was a major defeat for the Imperial Army, which had seemed invincible only a few months
before.
This was Wellesley’s first major victory over the French-- the beginning of a reputation
for military genius that would eventually rival Napoleon’s.
Junot’s reputation never recovered from the defeat.
The Peninsular War was just starting, and the eyes of whole Europe were fixed on Iberia.
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