The French army that conquered Portugal, however, also occupied parts of northern Spain and Napoleon, whose intentions were now becoming clear, claimed all of Portugal and certain provinces of northern Spain. The Portuguese royal family fled, sailing to Brazil, and Junot arrived in Lisbon on November 30. When the Portuguese proved dilatory, Napoleon ordered General Andoche Junot, with a force of 30,000, to march through Spain to Portugal (October–November 1807).
Russia, it was decided, would deal with Sweden, while Napoleon, allied to Spain since 1796, summoned (July 19) the Portuguese “to close their ports to the British and declare war on Britain.” His intention was to complete the Continental System designed to make economic war against Britain, for there was no other means to bring it to seek peace than by striking at its trade.
#Napoleon total war peninsular campaign free
Napoleon’s pact with Russia at Tilsit (July 7, 1807) left him free to turn his attention toward Britain and toward Sweden and Portugal, the two powers that remained allied or friendly to Britain. The war in the Peninsula did interest the British, because their army made no other important contribution to the war on the continent between 17 the war, too, made the fortunes of the British commander Arthur Wellesley, afterward duke of Wellington. Napoleon’s peninsula struggle contributed considerably to his eventual downfall but until 1813 the conflict in Spain and Portugal, though costly, exercised only an indirect effect upon the progress of French affairs in central and eastern Europe. Peninsular War, Spanish Guerra de la Independencia (“War of Independence”), (1808–14), that part of the Napoleonic Wars fought in the Iberian Peninsula, where the French were opposed by British, Spanish, and Portuguese forces.