ABSTRACT
The most important shift of focus in Britain’s long wars against France came about by stages and remained subject to regular review. The British first sent forces to Portugal in the summer of 1808, drawing them from Sweden and Ireland with some personnel going from Gibraltar. A substantial re-engagement occurred in spring 1809. But ministers continued into 1811 to offer the local commander, if hard-pressed, the option of evacuation. Although one of the most important mainstays of the British intervention remained government commitment to it, that commitment was always measured rather than absolute. The key principles behind the British presence were a combination of optimism that the Portuguese would actively support a British army in their midst, that the Spanish would fight the occupying French, and that the French forces in Spain were at the end of their lines of communication, reinforcement, and supply and were far more vulnerable to British intervention than they would be elsewhere in continental Europe. Initially at least, it was unclear whether operations in the Iberian peninsula would have precedence over the British commitment to Sicily and draw men from that island into Portugal and especially Spain. Nor was it clear whether the British in Iberia would play a significant fighting role in defeating the French, as distinct from a supporting role in assisting the Spanish to exhaust and reduce the French invading army. For some British commentators, British troops would add peripheral pressure to a widespread Spanish uprising against Napoleonic despotism. Very few, if any, observers or policy-makers envisaged in 1808 or 1809 that Britain would fulfil a prominent military part in the war for the peninsula or that the peninsular campaign would later take on mythic status in the history of British warfare. The war, therefore, needs to be examined in relation to the nature and scale of the British commitment, and in relation to what effect British intervention had and how well the British developed their military capability.
