This a re-worked version of a book
first released 25 years ago. The original book has been out-of-print
for some time and obtaining a copy had become quite difficult and
expensive. Detailed treatments of the Spanish Army during this
period in English have been rare, although Osprey have updated their
original rather sketchy volume with an excellent 3-volume work which
has brought much more detail to light on the uniforms and tactical
organisation of the Army from 1793-1815. These Ospreys complement
rather than provide an alternative to Esdaile's work however, as
Esdaile focuses on answering wider questions about the Spanish Army,
but contains little about the campaigns themselves, the uniforms,
lower-level organisation or the tactics employed by Spanish troops
except in relatively general terms.
This book has a slightly unusual
structure. The original edition is re-printed in its entirety rather
than being re-written to incorporate the author's (extensive)
research over the intervening period. Instead, this material is all
together as an update at the beginning of the book. This method
(apparently chosen for technical reasons) has the virtue of showing
how the author's opinions and research have developed since the book
was first published, but it does make the book less coherent and
readable.
The first chapter explains the workings
of the Spanish Army pre-1792. It details exactly why the Army was
organised and recruited the way it was, and how there was no easy
remedy for its systemic flaws, those flaws in many ways being a
reflection of the society from which it was drawn. It goes into some
detail on the human material that composed the Spanish Army – from
which quarters of society it was recruited, and which ranks the
various social orders occupied, the author going in to some detail on
issues of recruitment and promotion. It also attempts to explain the
efforts made to keep pace with military developments across Europe
and the brittle logistical underpinning and cumbersome administration
which was to be so exposed in 1808. The author adds little in his
update to this section.
The second chapter concerns the period
of Godoy's reign in power in Spain, and in particular his attempts to
reform the army and the military institutions. In essence, the
author shows that Godoy deserves more personal credit than he is
sometimes given for his attempts to create a workable foreign policy
and a reformed army to back it up, and these attempted reforms are
described in some detail. However, the story the author tells is
ultimately one of failure, as the opposition towards the reforms from
key social groups was too entrenched to be overcome, and led to
Godoy's temporary fall from power. In the author's update, there is
some explanation of the events of the Spanish Army's invasion of
France in the Revolutionary Wars, and its subsequent failure with
some attempts to quantify how popular the resistance to the French
counter-invasion was.
The third chapter deals with the Army's
response to and participation in the revolutionary and resistance
events of May 1808 – September 1808. It is a complicated picture,
as it is full of tensions between legitimist, collaborationist and
revolutionary tendencies. It is however a much fuller picture of how
political events influenced the first campaigns than one finds in the
more military-orientated histories of the Peninsular War in English,
like Oman's History of the Peninsular War
http://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Peninsular-War-1807-1809-Fontainebleau/dp/1163311197/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1355043415&sr=8-11
or Gates' The Spanish Ulcer
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spanish-Ulcer-History-Peninsular-War/dp/0306810832/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1355043471&sr=1-1
. It also shows how political control of the Spanish Army was
obtained and that military considerations and opinions were
subordinated to political goals. In the updated section, the author
is keen to emphasize that popular resistance was reasonably marginal
and how instead we should focus on revolutionary intrigue as the
source of the Spanish uprising against the French. This would seem
to have consequences for subsequent criticism of Napoleon's response
to these events.
The next chapter deals with the period
of the struggle when the Spanish armies were controlled by the
Central Junta. The author explains how political pressures
simultaneously demanded unrealistic military objectives whilst
rendering impossible the measures necessary to improve and enlarge
the Spanish Army so it would be capable of attaining them. There
are hard words about the Spanish officer corps and the cavalry arm in
particular, as well as some debunking of myths regarding the
effectiveness of both the guerillas and popular resistance overall.
Again, this would seem to have implications for how the Napoleonic
effort in Spain as a whole should be judged.
The author then tackles the period
1810-1814 where Spain was controlled by a Liberal government, who,
although stout in their opposition to the French, were at least as
exercised by the danger of militaristic and reactionary despotism, so
as they attempted to increase Spanish efforts against the French, the
ideological and economic circumstances ruled it out. Esdaile does
point out that Spanish troops could be reasonably efficient at this
stage – pointing to Albuera and some of the units with Wellington's
forces that had reasonable rest and logistical support, but overall
the clash between the Liberals and the higher echelons of the Spanish
Army prevented the Spanish from successful reforming their Army into
a truly effective force, with the effect that the major role in
liberating Spain was played by the Anglo-Portuguese armies. The
updated section contains a major critique of the impact of the
guerrillas upon the war, as well as additional information on the
experience of the Spanish Army at war in this period.
The book ends with a short epilogue on
the shape of the Army from 1814 and the effect of its politicization
during the preceding six years.
I found the book well-written and
well-referenced. Citations for sources are given at the end of each
chapter.
Overall, this book is highly
recommended for people interested in the Spanish Army of this period
or the Peninsular War, as it explains trends and attitudes which
would otherwise leave certain events and phenomena inexplicable. In
my opinion, it shades my understanding of the whole war, especially
from the French side: it makes it much more clear why Napoleon
remained hopeful for a comprehensive victory as long as he did, as
well as indicating why Napoleon thought he might get away with the
machinations of Bayonne.
Many of the arguments and conclusions
in this book can be found in abbreviated form in the author's contribution to the "Armies of the Napoleonic Wars"
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