AHC: France Wins the Peninsular War

[CthulhuFhtagn]

From what I've read on this site, the Peninsular War is generally considered to be one of the biggest factors in the fall of the French Empire. But with a PoD any time after Napoleon's decision to invade Spain, it possible for France to win the war?

 

[Tjakari]

For it to be an actual war would be a start, guerrilla warfare is just bad news no matter who's on the business end of it.

The only way to win it would be for the French just to not go past the Pyrenees, just wasn't worth it.

 

[martin76]

No, France never had a chance to win the war.
From a strategic point of view, the Peninsular War had two levels: one international, French - British, whose initiatives would be sporadic. Other national, French - Spanish distinguished by a constant pressure that requires constant responses. A devilish sequence Action - Repression - Action.

The Peninsular War is a very complex war. It lasted six years. The strategic initiative was usually in the imperial army. Spaniards fought, usually, two ways:

a) The Guerrilla Warfare: acting on the enemy's rear, attacking their supply lines, communications, their mobile columns, isolated garrisons and checkpoints.
b) The Siege Warfare: usually performed by the regular army. Siege warfare was new for the Frenchmen, accustomed to war movement, which they had no rival. In Spain, the agile strategic maneuvers not working.. you are fighting against 12 million Spaniards.. so the winners of Rivoli, Arcole, Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Wagram, Dresde, Bautzen, Lutzen failed in Spain... "Pour soumettre un pays oú les habitants prenaient une parte si active a la lutte, il ne suffisait pas de le parcourir en touts sens avec des armées victorieuses, il fallait s´emparer de tous les points fortifiés; ocupier d´une manière permanente les principales positions; mettre en sûreté les depôts d´armes et des munitions, les magasins, les hôspitaux; assurer les communications et maintenir les populations toujours prêtes à se soulever..."
In this war, the sieges were almost as frequent as battles: Saragossa, Gerona, Astorga, Burgos, Badajoz, Ciudad Rodrigo, Lerida, Tarragona, Salamanca etc etc etc. An army of quality, is in the maneuver on the battlefield its main virtue... and that adventage is lost in urban combat: in Saragossa or in Stalingrad, in Gerona or in Hue, in Lerida or in Mogadishu...
(French lost more soldiers in Saragossa 1808 than in Germany 1806). The Lannes letter is very descriptive: street by street, house by house, room by room...not in those stupid fights where you must lose your excellent soldiers ...
And in the field.. the Guerrillas: Mina the young, Ezpoz y Mina, Llauder, Mansó, Eroles, Lacy, Milans del Bosch, Porlier, Longa, Empecinado, El Médico, el Pastor, el Barbudo etc etc etc.

French armies had defeated in a short time all the armies in Europe but they found in Spain the mountain actual everywhere and a very poor country, lacking resources... The Spanish Hell as it was said by the french soldiers... Napoleon is going to fail in Leipzig in 1813 because he still has 220.000 men in Spain.. in a war (1813) is virtually lost.

No, France lack of chance to win the War...

 

[cracou]

Ally with the pope!

In 1809 French captured Papal states. Just imagine that Napoleon (or Talleyrand) say "ok, you keep them but you give us a free hand in spain and you ask the lcergy to shut up and support us". To spaniards "ok you want to ally with England. Good catholics they are, aren't they?" Basically without church support the guerilla is not going to go anywhere.

Step 2: put a puppet on the throne

step 3: tell them (well the nobility) that they can keep Portugal if they want.

 

[martin76]

The Art of War to Napoleon is summarized in the phrase "“Separate to live, unite to fight" but "to live" you need good roads and rich villages and towns... Spain had neither the former nor the latter... In Spain, the French Armies had an insoluble problem...if they dispersed to live, they were weak everywhere and easy prey to the guerrillas and regular units, whether by contrast, if they were concentrated, they were strong, but yielded the land and Space to the enemy and dued to lack of resources, could only be concentrated a little time. in Spain "separate to live" means to die by Guerrillas... "unite to fight" means to die by famine...

As It is written by Tjakari, there is only one way to win the Guerre d´Espagne

not go past the Pyrenees, just wasn't worth it.

Maximun when Spain was not a thread to Napoleon...the intervention in Spain was the most stupid thing he did in his life.

 

[lucaswillen05]

No, France never had a chance to win the war.
From a strategic point of view, the Peninsular War had two levels: one international, French - British, whose initiatives would be sporadic. Other national, French - Spanish distinguished by a constant pressure that requires constant responses. A devilish sequence Action - Repression - Action.

The Peninsular War is a very complex war. It lasted six years. The strategic initiative was usually in the imperial army. Spaniards fought, usually, two ways:

a) The Guerrilla Warfare: acting on the enemy's rear, attacking their supply lines, communications, their mobile columns, isolated garrisons and checkpoints.
b) The Siege Warfare: usually performed by the regular army. Siege warfare was new for the Frenchmen, accustomed to war movement, which they had no rival. In Spain, the agile strategic maneuvers not working.. you are fighting against 12 million Spaniards.. so the winners of Rivoli, Arcole, Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Wagram, Dresde, Bautzen, Lutzen failed in Spain... "Pour soumettre un pays oú les habitants prenaient une parte si active a la lutte, il ne suffisait pas de le parcourir en touts sens avec des armées victorieuses, il fallait s´emparer de tous les points fortifiés; ocupier d´une manière permanente les principales positions; mettre en sûreté les depôts d´armes et des munitions, les magasins, les hôspitaux; assurer les communications et maintenir les populations toujours prêtes à se soulever..."
In this war, the sieges were almost as frequent as battles: Saragossa, Gerona, Astorga, Burgos, Badajoz, Ciudad Rodrigo, Lerida, Tarragona, Salamanca etc etc etc. An army of quality, is in the maneuver on the battlefield its main virtue... and that adventage is lost in urban combat: in Saragossa or in Stalingrad, in Gerona or in Hue, in Lerida or in Mogadishu...
(French lost more soldiers in Saragossa 1808 than in Germany 1806). The Lannes letter is very descriptive: street by street, house by house, room by room...not in those stupid fights where you must lose your excellent soldiers ...
And in the field.. the Guerrillas: Mina the young, Ezpoz y Mina, Llauder, Mansó, Eroles, Lacy, Milans del Bosch, Porlier, Longa, Empecinado, El Médico, el Pastor, el Barbudo etc etc etc.

French armies had defeated in a short time all the armies in Europe but they found in Spain the mountain actual everywhere and a very poor country, lacking resources... The Spanish Hell as it was said by the french soldiers... Napoleon is going to fail in Leipzig in 1813 because he still has 220.000 men in Spain.. in a war (1813) is virtually lost.

No, France lack of chance to win the War...

Spanish regular forces also did a lot of fighting. Like the American Revolutionary armies they fought, got beaten and then came back for more. The war was an endless drain for Napolenic France and one they were very likely to lose. Further the French generals founsd it very hard to work together under a co-ordinated strategy.

 

[martin76]

Spanish regular forces also did a lot of fighting. Like the American Revolutionary armies they fought, got beaten and then came back for more. The war was an endless drain for Napolenic France and one they were very likely to lose. Further the French generals founsd it very hard to work together under a co-ordinated strategy.

Exactly. 100 times beaten an never defeated.