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| See also: | Other events of 1808 List of years in Spain | ||||
Events from the year 1808 in Spain.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(June 2014) |
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| See also: | Other events of 1808 List of years in Spain | ||||
Events from the year 1808 in Spain.
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The Peninsular War (1807–1814) was fought in the Iberian Peninsula by Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom against the invading and occupying forces of the First French Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. In Spain, it is considered to overlap with the Spanish War of Independence.
The Battle of Espinosa de los Monteros took place during the Napoleonic Wars, fought on 10 and 11 November 1808 at the village of Espinosa de los Monteros in the Cantabrian Mountains. It resulted in a French victory under Marshal Victor against Lieutenant General Joaquín Blake's Army of Galicia.
The Battle of Bailén was fought in 1808 between the Spanish Army of Andalusia, led by General Francisco Javier Castaños and the Imperial French Army's II corps d'observation de la Gironde under General Pierre Dupont de l'Étang. This battle was the first open-field defeat of a Napoleonic army. The heaviest fighting took place near Bailén, a village by the Guadalquivir river in the Jaén province of southern Spain.
The Battle of the Pyrenees was a large-scale offensive launched on 25 July 1813 by Marshal Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult from the Pyrénées region on Emperor Napoleon's order, in the hope of relieving French garrisons under siege at Pamplona and San Sebastián. After initial success the offensive ground to a halt in the face of increased allied resistance under the command of Arthur Wellesley, Marquess of Wellington. Soult abandoned the offensive on 30 July and headed toward France, having failed to relieve either garrison.
The Battle of Zornoza, fought on 31 October 1808, was one of the opening engagements in Napoleon's invasion of Spain. The battle was intended to encircle and crush the left wing of the Spanish front. The Spanish infantry was swiftly thrown back but escaped in good order.
The Battle of Medina de Rioseco, also known as the Battle of Moclín, was fought during the Peninsular War on 14 July 1808 when a combined body of Spanish militia and regulars moved to rupture the French line of communications to Madrid. General Joaquín Blake's Army of Galicia, under joint command with General Gregorio de la Cuesta, was routed by Marshal Bessières after a badly coordinated but stubborn fight against the French corps north of Valladolid.
The 1808 siege of Zaragoza was a bloody struggle in the Peninsular War. A French army under General Lefebvre-Desnouettes and subsequently commanded by General Jean-Antoine Verdier besieged, repeatedly stormed, and was repulsed from the Spanish city of Zaragoza in the summer of 1808.
The two battles of the Bruch were engagements fought successively, at El Bruc, near Barcelona, Catalonia, on 6 and 14 June 1808, during the Peninsular War, by French troops commanded by Brigadier General François de Schwarz and General of Division Joseph Chabran against Spanish volunteers and mercenaries led by General Antoni Franch i Estalella and Joan Baget.
The third siege of Girona occurred in northern Catalonia, Spain from 6 May to 12 December 1809, during the Napoleonic Wars. A significant event of the Peninsular War, France's Grande Armée lay siege to the town of Girona for seven months. Girona was strategically important because it controlled the main road between France and Spain.
The Dos de Mayo or Second of May Uprising took place in Madrid, Spain, on 2–3 May 1808. The rebellion, mainly by civilians, with some isolated military action by junior officers, was against the occupation of the city by French troops, and was violently repressed by the French Imperial forces, with hundreds of public executions.
General Sir Brent Spencer was an Anglo-Irish officer in the British Army, seeing active service during the American Revolutionary War and the French Revolutionary Wars. During the Peninsular War he became General Wellesley's second-in-command on two occasions. He fought at Vimeiro and testified in Wellesley's favour at the inquiry following the Convention of Cintra. He led a division at Bussaco and two divisions at Fuentes de Onoro. After the latter action, he had an independent command in northern Portugal. Wellesley, now Lord Wellington, was not satisfied that Spencer was up to the responsibilities of second-in-command and he was replaced by Thomas Graham. Miffed, Spencer left Portugal and never returned. He became a full general in 1825.
The blockade of Barcelona, from August to December 1808, was the failed attempt by Spanish troops to recapture the French occupied Barcelona during the Peninsular War.
The Capture of the Rosily Squadron, also known as the Battle of Poza de Santa Isabel, took place on 14 June 1808, in Cádiz, Spain, following the Dos de Mayo Uprising against French troops in Madrid. Five ships of the line and a frigate of the French Imperial Navy were in the port, having remained there under a British blockade since the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. After an engagement with the Spanish lasting five days, French Admiral François Étienne de Rosily-Mesros surrendered his entire squadron with the four thousand seamen then on board.
Luis González Torres de Navarra Castro, 5th Marquis of Campoverde, was a Spanish military commander during the Peninsular War.
The first siege of Girona during the Peninsular War, also called the battle of Gerona, took place from 20 to 21 June 1808, when an Imperial French division led by Guillaume Philibert Duhesme try to overrun a Spanish garrison commanded by Lieutenant Colonels O'Donovan and O'Daly. The French assault failed and the attackers withdrew.
The second siege of Girona was the second unsuccessful French attempt to capture the city of Girona during the Peninsular War, part of the Napoleonic Wars.
The following tables show the sequence of events of the Peninsular War (1807–1814), including major battles, smaller actions, uprisings, sieges and other related events that took place during that period.
The Battle of Alcolea Bridge was a minor battle that took place on 7 June 1808, during the Peninsular War, at Alcolea, a small village 10 km from Córdoba, the city that would be invaded by French troops later that same afternoon.
The battle of Valdepeñas was a popular uprising that took place on 6 June 1808, at the beginning of the Spanish War of Independence, in the town of Valdepeñas, Ciudad Real, Castile-La Mancha. Valdepeñas is on the main road from Madrid to Andalusia.
The Cardedeu order of battle lists the troops that fought in the Battle of Cardedeu and several other battles fought between June and December in the Spanish province of Catalonia during the Peninsular War. In February 1808, Imperial French forces seized Barcelona on 29 February and Sant Ferran Castle on 15 March as well as other fortresses in Spain. The Dos de Mayo Uprising broke out when the Spanish people found that Emperor Napoleon deposed the Spanish royal family and set up his brother Joseph Bonaparte as their new king. The 12,000 Imperial French soldiers under Guillaume Philibert Duhesme occupying Catalonia were beaten at the Battles of El Bruch and Gerona in June. Though Duhesme was reinforced by another French division, the Spanish defeated him at the Second Siege of Gerona in July and August. With Duhesme blockaded in Barcelona, Napoleon appointed Laurent Gouvion Saint-Cyr as commander of the VII Corps, added two good divisions and other troops to his force, and ordered him to relieve Barcelona. Saint-Cyr succeeded in this task, winning the battles of Roses, Cardedeu and Molins de Rei in December.
