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)}} – 17 April 1814 () | place = Iberian Peninsula and southern France | result = | combatant1 = | combatant2 = | commander1 = | commander2 = }} The Peninsular War (1807–1814) was a military conflict between Napoleon's empire and the allied powers of Spain, Britain and Portugal for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars. The war started when French and Spanish armies invaded and occupied Portugal in 1807, and escalated in 1808 when France turned on Spain, its ally until then. The war on the peninsula lasted until the Sixth Coalition defeated Napoleon in 1814, and is regarded as one of the first wars of national liberation, significant for the emergence of large-scale guerrilla warfare. The Peninsular War overlaps with what the Spanish-speaking world calls the ''Guerra de la Independencia Española'' (Spanish War of Independence), which began with the Dos de Mayo Uprising on 2 May 1808 and ended on 17 April 1814. The French occupation destroyed the Spanish administration, which fragmented into quarrelling provincial ''juntas''. In 1810, a reconstituted national government, the Cádiz Corteseffectively a government-in-exilefortified itself in Cádiz but could not raise effective armies because it was besieged by 70,000 French troops. British and Portuguese forces eventually secured Portugal, using it as a safe position from which to launch campaigns against the French army and to provide whatever supplies they could get to the Spanish, while the Spanish armies and guerrillas tied down vast numbers of Napoleon's troops. These combined regular and irregular allied forces prevented Napoleon's marshals from subduing the rebellious Spanish provinces by restricting French control of territory and the war continued through years of stalemate. The British Army under Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, guarded Portugal and campaigned against the French in Spain alongside the reformed Portuguese army. The demoralised Portuguese army was reorganised and refitted under the command of General William Carr Beresford, who had been appointed commander-in-chief of the Portuguese forces by the exiled Portuguese royal family, and fought as part of a combined Anglo-Portuguese army under Wellesley. In 1812, when Napoleon set out with a massive army on what proved to be a disastrous campaign to conquer Russia, a combined allied army under Wellesley pushed into Spain defeating the French at Salamanca and taking Madrid. In the following year, Wellington scored a decisive victory over King Joseph's army at Vitoria. Pursued by the armies of Britain, Spain and Portugal, Marshal Jean-de-Dieu Soult, no longer able to get sufficient support from a depleted France, led the exhausted and demoralized French forces in a fighting withdrawal across the Pyrenees during the winter of 1813–1814. The years of fighting in Spain was a heavy burden on France's Grande Armée. While the French were victorious in battle, their communications and supplies were severely tested and their units were frequently isolated, harassed or overwhelmed by partisans fighting an intense guerrilla war of raids and ambushes. The Spanish armies were repeatedly beaten and driven to the peripheries, but they would regroup and relentlessly hound the French. This drain on French resources led Napoleon, who had unwittingly provoked a total war, to call the conflict the "Spanish Ulcer".〔 cites Owen Connelly (ed), "peninsular War", ''Historical dictionary'', p. 387.〕 War and revolution against Napoleon's occupation led to the Spanish Constitution of 1812, later a cornerstone of European liberalism. The burden of war destroyed the social and economic fabric of Portugal and Spain, and ushered in an era of social turbulence, political instability and economic stagnation. Devastating civil wars between liberal and absolutist factions led by officers trained in the Peninsular War persisted in Iberia until 1850. The cumulative crises and disruptions of invasion, revolution, and restoration led to the independence of most of Spain's American colonies and the independence of Brazil from Portugal. ==Origins== Subdued by its defeat in the Pyrenees War, Spain allied with France. In 1806, while in Berlin, Napoleon Bonaparte declared the Continental System, a blockade forbidding British imports into continental Europe. Neutral Portugal tried in vain to avoid Napoleon's ultimatum — since 1373 it had had a treaty of alliance with England, which became an alliance with Great Britain, which then became an alliance with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. After the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807, which cemented French dominance over central and eastern Europe, Napoleon decided to capture the Iberian ports. The decision went against Napoleon's own advice from earlier in his career; he had once remarked that the conquest of Spain would be "too hard a nut to crack". On 27 October 1807, Spain's prime minister Manuel de Godoy signed the Treaty of Fontainebleau with France, agreeing that after Spain and France had defeated Portugal, it would be split into three kingdoms; the new Kingdom of Northern Lusitania, the Algarve (expanded to include Alentejo), and a rump Kingdom of Portugal. In November 1807, after the refusal of the Prince Regent, John VI of Portugal, to join the Continental System, Napoleon sent an army into Spain under General Jean-Andoche Junot with the task of invading Portugal. Godoy initially requested Portugal's alliance against the invading French armies, but later secretly agreed with France that in return for Spain's cooperation, it would receive Portugal's territories. Spain's main ambition was the seizure of the Portuguese fleet, and sent two divisions to help French troops occupy Portugal. Junot initiated the Invasion of Portugal on 19 November 1807. The Portuguese army was positioned to defend the ports and the coast against a French attack, and Lisbon was captured with no military opposition on 1 December. On 29 November, the escape of Maria I of Portugal and Prince Regent John, together with the administration and the Courtaround 10,000 people and 9,000 sailors aboard 23 Portuguese warships and 31 merchant shipswas a setback for Napoleon which enabled the Prince Regent to continue to rule over his overseas possessions, including Brazil. The Portuguese royal family would remain in Rio de Janeiro for the next 13 years. In 1807, Spain was experiencing political chaos and corruption; Charles IV was considered to be incompetent to run the country. Napoleon, now Emperor of the French, decided to take advantage of the dissensions in the Spanish court. Feigning sympathy with their situation, he listened to Charles and his son Ferdinand, inviting them to Paris. Ferdinand responded favourably to Napoleon's advice and asked for the hand of a Bonaparte princess. Napoleon played the part of an ally and coaxed the two Spaniards into believing he had friendly and peaceful intentions. In the absence of Charles and Ferdinand, Napoleon took the opportunity to invade Spain. All over Spain, townsfolk and peasants, who had been forced to bury family members in new municipal cemeteries, stole their bodies back at night and tried to restore them to the protection of the old resting-places. In Madrid, the growing Francophilia of the court was met by the ''majos''shopkeepers, artisans, taverners and labourers who dressed in traditional style and took pleasure in picking fights with ''petimetres'' (fops). Under the pretext of reinforcing the Franco-Spanish army occupying Portugal, French imperial troops entered Spain, where they were greeted with enthusiasm by the populace despite growing diplomatic unease. In February 1808, Napoleon turned on his ally and ordered French commanders to seize key Spanish fortresses. Barcelona was taken on 29 February 1808 when a French column disguised as a convoy of wounded soldiers persuaded the authorities to open the city's gates. Many commanders were not particularly concerned about the fate of the ruling regime, nor were they in any position to fight. The Spanish Royal Army of 100,000 men found itself paralysed; it was under-equipped; for instance its 26 cavalry regiments of 15,000 men possessed only 9,000 horses. It was frequently leaderless, confused by the turmoil in Madrid, and was scattered from Portugal to the Balearic Islands. 15,000 of its finest troopsPedro Caro, 3rd Marquis of la Romana's Division of the Northhad been lent to Napoleon in 1807 and remained stationed in Denmark under French command. Only the peripheries contained armies of any strength; Joaquín Blake's Army of Galicia, and that of Andalusia, under Francisco Javier Castaños. The French were thus able to seize much of northeastern Spain by ''coups de main'' and any hope of turning back the invasion ended. In March 1808, riots and a popular revolt at the winter palace in Aranjuez forced King Charles IV to abdicate in favour of his son Ferdinand VII on 19 March. The rebellion seemed popular; inspired from outside the military, it was in effect a ''coup d'état'' by the Royal Guard. Challenged by this call to arms, Godoy and his royal patrons found they had few defenders. Ferdinand was hailed as a saviour when he entered Madrid on 24 March. Alcalá Galiano wrote, "The cheers were loud, repeated and delivered with ... eyes full of tears of pleasure, kerchiefs were waved ... from balconies with hands trembling with pleasure ... and not for a moment did the passion... or the thunderous noise of the joyful crowd diminish". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Peninsular War」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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