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Fighting Napoleon
Alongside the Spanish army in the campaign against Napoleon (1808-1814) was an assortment of freebooters, local peasants, and bandits who were organized into ad hoc regional private armies. These “guerrillas”―a term introduced to the English language during the Peninsular War―ambushed French convoys, attacked French encampments, and pounced upon, dodged, and fought French columns, often with extreme brutality. This book investigates for the first time the irregular Spanish forces and their role in resisting Napoleon. Delving deeply into previously untapped archival resources, Charles Esdaile arrives at an entirely new view of the Spanish guerrillas. He shows that the Spanish war against Napoleon was something other than the great popular crusade of legend, that many guerrillas were not armed civilians acting spontaneously, and that guerrillas were more often driven by personal motives than high-minded ideology. Tracking down the bandit armies and assessing their contributions, Esdaile offers important insights into the famous “little war” and the motives of those who fought it.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published April 10, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 19, 2021
I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of this book, as my take on revisionist authors is not something even close to resembling positive in most cases. Esdaile succeeded in winning me over the old fashioned way: hard work, excellent research, tight references, and some very good writing.
I've found that history cannot always be seen by authors without a applying some shades of personal bias to filter the data. This is commonplace and an understood. When it comes to Napoleon, the Anglo biases can be very intense. Some very esteemed historians I despise because of their inability to remain neutral observers. I think the tales of the partida groups in Spain fell victim to a form of anti-Napoleon bias not long after the wars ended, and have remained unchallenged until only very recently.
The findings Esdaile writes about are pretty convincing that the Guerilla warfare so long held as fact is essentially wishful thinking. Mobs of bandits were "reformed" into heroic guerillas and motives for their activities were completely ignored. To be fair, they are also rather undocumented due to the rampant illiteracy of the average Spaniard in those times. Those that could write, often did so from a biased point not really supporting the ideas of guerillas being bandits. The few primary sources are laughably poor and certainly are more fantasy then fact.
The peasants and rural communities were never supporters of the Spanish king, and hated their city brethren in a manner not too dissimilar from our US society today. To think they would suddenly rise up to defend their arch-enemies for the sole purpose of stopping Napoleon makes no sense. The idea of profiting off of the war by pillaging both the city refugees and French supply columns makes far more sense and is certainly supported by the evidence. The evidence that most partida consisted primarily of Spanish soldiers and French deserters was the most damaging in my mind. How can one say that the civilian population was rising up against Napoleon when the vast majority of guerilla fighters were simply dispersed soldiers trying to survive off the land (and the people living there). And surely profit was large motivator, considering how poor the average soldier and peasant was back then.
This book was very well written, and is heavily supported with nearly 60 pages of references and notes. The source material is of high quality, and I cannot say a single bad word about how Esdaile presented the material. I do believe I have found my new #1 reference book for Spain's contributions to irregular warfare against the French. While it does not revise the idea that irregulars hindered the French considerably, it does raise some very interesting points on how much better it could have been for the Spanish had these soldiers reformed into regular military units and participated in a manner fitting soldiers rather than bandits.
Well written, well assembled, and a plethora of references... just about perfection. 5 Stars
I've found that history cannot always be seen by authors without a applying some shades of personal bias to filter the data. This is commonplace and an understood. When it comes to Napoleon, the Anglo biases can be very intense. Some very esteemed historians I despise because of their inability to remain neutral observers. I think the tales of the partida groups in Spain fell victim to a form of anti-Napoleon bias not long after the wars ended, and have remained unchallenged until only very recently.
The findings Esdaile writes about are pretty convincing that the Guerilla warfare so long held as fact is essentially wishful thinking. Mobs of bandits were "reformed" into heroic guerillas and motives for their activities were completely ignored. To be fair, they are also rather undocumented due to the rampant illiteracy of the average Spaniard in those times. Those that could write, often did so from a biased point not really supporting the ideas of guerillas being bandits. The few primary sources are laughably poor and certainly are more fantasy then fact.
The peasants and rural communities were never supporters of the Spanish king, and hated their city brethren in a manner not too dissimilar from our US society today. To think they would suddenly rise up to defend their arch-enemies for the sole purpose of stopping Napoleon makes no sense. The idea of profiting off of the war by pillaging both the city refugees and French supply columns makes far more sense and is certainly supported by the evidence. The evidence that most partida consisted primarily of Spanish soldiers and French deserters was the most damaging in my mind. How can one say that the civilian population was rising up against Napoleon when the vast majority of guerilla fighters were simply dispersed soldiers trying to survive off the land (and the people living there). And surely profit was large motivator, considering how poor the average soldier and peasant was back then.
This book was very well written, and is heavily supported with nearly 60 pages of references and notes. The source material is of high quality, and I cannot say a single bad word about how Esdaile presented the material. I do believe I have found my new #1 reference book for Spain's contributions to irregular warfare against the French. While it does not revise the idea that irregulars hindered the French considerably, it does raise some very interesting points on how much better it could have been for the Spanish had these soldiers reformed into regular military units and participated in a manner fitting soldiers rather than bandits.
Well written, well assembled, and a plethora of references... just about perfection. 5 Stars
July 11, 2025
I keep reading books on the side in between my intended reading, which I should not have done with this book. Not because it isn't good, but because I didn't devote as much time and concentration to it as it deserved.
This is an extraordinary work, avowedly revisionist in its claims to challenge the traditional narrative of a people in arms in Napoleonic Spain. I had long doubted it constituted a 'national' uprising in any modern sense, as I was skeptical that the mostly illiterate parochial Spanish would have possessed a national consciousness.
This book vindicated my suspicions by demonstrating it was absolutely not a romantic nationalist uprising, but a much more complex and nuanced phenomenon.
Basically Esdaile argues that the collapse of Spanish authority and the Spanish economy severely dislocated Spanish society, leaving many people poor and destitute.
Compounded with this, those elements that remained loyal to Ferdinand that sought to establish some semblance of authority in 'Patriot Spain,' attempted to conscript the male population into the regular army.
Unfortunately they had very little means to pay or feed these men, so the tendency was for men to resort to banditry and guerrilla resistance out of necessity rather than due to any patriotic impulse.
Added to this were deserters, often foreign elements in the French armies (e.g. Germans, Italians, Swiss, Belgians, etc), who sought to escape the thralldom of their own commanders.
Long ago when I was first becoming interested in historical subjects, I wrote a short essay on the folly of Spain's revolt against France. I had argued that Spain ought to have embraced France against England, because England was the primary threat to the Spanish Empire and France the only hope to salvage it.
The Spanish uprising played into England's hands as it contributed to the ruin of both Spain and France, and ultimately to the collapse of the Spanish Empire shortly thereafter (largely thanks to British support for independence).
But I would have to revise that argument upon reading this book. The Spanish were certainly not rebelling en masse against the French or in sympathy with England. For the most part, Esdaile stresses, they were simply trying to survive.
In practice this meant looting the French, but it also meant terrorizing the Spanish countryside as well. Many of them even joined the French, or switched between sides. Some of these men were little more than gangsters, some even set up rackets for protection or demanding tolls for use of roads. This is more like the Mafia than like the heroic resistance we've come to picture.
Esdaile in this sense is against Marxist historians like Hobsbawm who see the guerrilla as a social movement against the ancien regime as well as one against the French. He believes that the guerrillas were not really on the side of the Cadiz Constitution, that they did not decisively contribute to the Carlist Wars, and perhaps their legacy in Spain has been misrepresented.
Surely it is a curious thing that the guerrillas were suppressed shortly after Ferdinand returned and restored some semblance of order. It is also to be noted that the Carlists, whether adopting guerrilla or conventional tactics, failed in every attempt. Nor did any insurgent elements defy the French in 1823, an episode I would sorely like to know more about.
As for their actual importance, Esdaile has long argued that the Spanish could not have won without Wellington. Here he argues that Wellington's strategy was not based on cooperation with the guerrillas, since the Iron Duke did not consider them reliable.
Esdaile argues that the guerrillas did not prevent the French from concentrating against Wellington, for example in 1811. This was a surprising revelation to me because I had been lead to believe (by e.g. Glover) that one of Wellington's great advantages was that he could concentrate while the French could not, the latter having to subsist off the land and suppress the guerrillas. Evidently this was not the case. Or not the whole truth.
This is even more striking when we learn that the guerrillas themselves had no ability to concentrate or cooperate. They only operated in their own localities, showing their parochial, as opposed to national, horizons.
Esdaile states that the guerrillas were powerless against French strongholds, such as fortified towns and cities, and fortresses proper of course. They could not assault them, and they could not besiege them long enough to starve them out because the French would march to their relief.
The question is then posited of how the Spanish could have driven the French from Spain with their own efforts. Esdaile even quotes an authority towards the end that the French had succeeded in suppressing insurgencies in places like the Tyrol, and they had come close to doing it in Spain too.
One cannot say as to the accuracy of that view, but it is one that is striking to hear in light of our image of the guerrilla.
While I was reading this I had a sort of epiphany that if the classic example of insurgency was so misleading, then perhaps it skewers our whole idea of insurgencies and their efficacy in general. Spain is often used as a paradigm for modern insurgencies, and is always cited as an inspiration.
But, I thought, this would shed light on things such as the Mexican resistance against France in the time of Napoleon III. Was that similarly overrated? I thought of French deserters, Hoffman Nickerson I believe said there were tens of thousands of French soldiers tied down chasing deserters in France herself.
Esdaile touches upon this a little. He does not mention Mexico, but he brings up the American Revolution where the guerrillas were similarly bandits preying on both sides, and other insurgencies such as in Italy where the tendency was towards robbery rather than patriotism. He also mentions the debate about the Vendee and Chouannerie, where some modern historians believe the motivation was more towards banditry than a vainglorious attempt to restore the monarchy.
One cannot help but think of Braudel and his observation that the mountains of the Mediterranean were ever the haven for bandits and brigands seeking to escape government authority. Perhaps our 'national movements' in the time of Napoleon are merely the heirs and descendants of highwaymen in the early modern era.
The picture that ultimately emerges is that the guerrillas were desperate men just trying to survive, sometimes trying to escape from the law or from the army, or deserters and renegades. Their leaders were selfish ambitious men seeking to set themselves up as regional potentates, and one is reminded here of the complete collapse of society that also happened in Spanish America as described by, for example, Anthony McFarlane.
The societal collapse in Spain herself was no less profound, though it, fortunately, did not result in the disintegration of the state. Or, perhaps to put it another way, the state was reintegrated despite the collapse.
This must rank as an extremely influential work in Peninsular War historiography. Esdaile is seen as something of the modern doyen of this subject, and he did not disappoint. I had long been wanting to read his work and I was glad to have started with this.
The idea that the guerrillas crippled the French, tied down huge numbers of men, and bled the French Army is simply not tenable given the evidence. Esdaile concludes by saying that Napoleon's own mistakes and the brilliance of Wellington were more decisive than any contribution they might have made.
My only reservation is that this is a very strong revision. While Esdaile is careful to say that the guerrillas weren't totally useless bastards, one gets the impression that they were far from dangerous to the French. This might be going too far, but as the guerrillas have long been unchallenged as the 'tomb of the French Army,' this intense corrective may be fresh and welcome to those who have long doubted.
This is an extraordinary work, avowedly revisionist in its claims to challenge the traditional narrative of a people in arms in Napoleonic Spain. I had long doubted it constituted a 'national' uprising in any modern sense, as I was skeptical that the mostly illiterate parochial Spanish would have possessed a national consciousness.
This book vindicated my suspicions by demonstrating it was absolutely not a romantic nationalist uprising, but a much more complex and nuanced phenomenon.
Basically Esdaile argues that the collapse of Spanish authority and the Spanish economy severely dislocated Spanish society, leaving many people poor and destitute.
Compounded with this, those elements that remained loyal to Ferdinand that sought to establish some semblance of authority in 'Patriot Spain,' attempted to conscript the male population into the regular army.
Unfortunately they had very little means to pay or feed these men, so the tendency was for men to resort to banditry and guerrilla resistance out of necessity rather than due to any patriotic impulse.
Added to this were deserters, often foreign elements in the French armies (e.g. Germans, Italians, Swiss, Belgians, etc), who sought to escape the thralldom of their own commanders.
Long ago when I was first becoming interested in historical subjects, I wrote a short essay on the folly of Spain's revolt against France. I had argued that Spain ought to have embraced France against England, because England was the primary threat to the Spanish Empire and France the only hope to salvage it.
The Spanish uprising played into England's hands as it contributed to the ruin of both Spain and France, and ultimately to the collapse of the Spanish Empire shortly thereafter (largely thanks to British support for independence).
But I would have to revise that argument upon reading this book. The Spanish were certainly not rebelling en masse against the French or in sympathy with England. For the most part, Esdaile stresses, they were simply trying to survive.
In practice this meant looting the French, but it also meant terrorizing the Spanish countryside as well. Many of them even joined the French, or switched between sides. Some of these men were little more than gangsters, some even set up rackets for protection or demanding tolls for use of roads. This is more like the Mafia than like the heroic resistance we've come to picture.
Esdaile in this sense is against Marxist historians like Hobsbawm who see the guerrilla as a social movement against the ancien regime as well as one against the French. He believes that the guerrillas were not really on the side of the Cadiz Constitution, that they did not decisively contribute to the Carlist Wars, and perhaps their legacy in Spain has been misrepresented.
Surely it is a curious thing that the guerrillas were suppressed shortly after Ferdinand returned and restored some semblance of order. It is also to be noted that the Carlists, whether adopting guerrilla or conventional tactics, failed in every attempt. Nor did any insurgent elements defy the French in 1823, an episode I would sorely like to know more about.
As for their actual importance, Esdaile has long argued that the Spanish could not have won without Wellington. Here he argues that Wellington's strategy was not based on cooperation with the guerrillas, since the Iron Duke did not consider them reliable.
Esdaile argues that the guerrillas did not prevent the French from concentrating against Wellington, for example in 1811. This was a surprising revelation to me because I had been lead to believe (by e.g. Glover) that one of Wellington's great advantages was that he could concentrate while the French could not, the latter having to subsist off the land and suppress the guerrillas. Evidently this was not the case. Or not the whole truth.
This is even more striking when we learn that the guerrillas themselves had no ability to concentrate or cooperate. They only operated in their own localities, showing their parochial, as opposed to national, horizons.
Esdaile states that the guerrillas were powerless against French strongholds, such as fortified towns and cities, and fortresses proper of course. They could not assault them, and they could not besiege them long enough to starve them out because the French would march to their relief.
The question is then posited of how the Spanish could have driven the French from Spain with their own efforts. Esdaile even quotes an authority towards the end that the French had succeeded in suppressing insurgencies in places like the Tyrol, and they had come close to doing it in Spain too.
One cannot say as to the accuracy of that view, but it is one that is striking to hear in light of our image of the guerrilla.
While I was reading this I had a sort of epiphany that if the classic example of insurgency was so misleading, then perhaps it skewers our whole idea of insurgencies and their efficacy in general. Spain is often used as a paradigm for modern insurgencies, and is always cited as an inspiration.
But, I thought, this would shed light on things such as the Mexican resistance against France in the time of Napoleon III. Was that similarly overrated? I thought of French deserters, Hoffman Nickerson I believe said there were tens of thousands of French soldiers tied down chasing deserters in France herself.
Esdaile touches upon this a little. He does not mention Mexico, but he brings up the American Revolution where the guerrillas were similarly bandits preying on both sides, and other insurgencies such as in Italy where the tendency was towards robbery rather than patriotism. He also mentions the debate about the Vendee and Chouannerie, where some modern historians believe the motivation was more towards banditry than a vainglorious attempt to restore the monarchy.
One cannot help but think of Braudel and his observation that the mountains of the Mediterranean were ever the haven for bandits and brigands seeking to escape government authority. Perhaps our 'national movements' in the time of Napoleon are merely the heirs and descendants of highwaymen in the early modern era.
The picture that ultimately emerges is that the guerrillas were desperate men just trying to survive, sometimes trying to escape from the law or from the army, or deserters and renegades. Their leaders were selfish ambitious men seeking to set themselves up as regional potentates, and one is reminded here of the complete collapse of society that also happened in Spanish America as described by, for example, Anthony McFarlane.
The societal collapse in Spain herself was no less profound, though it, fortunately, did not result in the disintegration of the state. Or, perhaps to put it another way, the state was reintegrated despite the collapse.
This must rank as an extremely influential work in Peninsular War historiography. Esdaile is seen as something of the modern doyen of this subject, and he did not disappoint. I had long been wanting to read his work and I was glad to have started with this.
The idea that the guerrillas crippled the French, tied down huge numbers of men, and bled the French Army is simply not tenable given the evidence. Esdaile concludes by saying that Napoleon's own mistakes and the brilliance of Wellington were more decisive than any contribution they might have made.
My only reservation is that this is a very strong revision. While Esdaile is careful to say that the guerrillas weren't totally useless bastards, one gets the impression that they were far from dangerous to the French. This might be going too far, but as the guerrillas have long been unchallenged as the 'tomb of the French Army,' this intense corrective may be fresh and welcome to those who have long doubted.
September 24, 2017
Esdaile made his mark debunking (although really he simply clarified the more extreme positions) the myth of the Spanish Guerrilla. Initially it was in articles but this is the magnum opus in book form
October 12, 2024
An excellent deconstruction of the criminally understudied Spanish war effort from 1809-1813. Too many histories of the Peninsular war reflect the British perspective on Spanish resistance and collaboration.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews