Spanish Army (Peninsular War)

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Spanish Army
Ejércitos de España (Spanish)
A painting depicting a column of Spanish troops during the Peninsular War, by Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau
Active	27 October 1807 – 17 April 1814
Country	Spain
Type	Field army
Engagements	Peninsular War Battle of Ciudad Real Battle of Salamanca

The Spanish Army of the Peninsular War refers to the Spanish military units that fought against France's Grande Armée during a period which coincided with what is also termed the Spanish War of Independence (Spanish: Guerra de la Independencia Española).

In June 1808, the Spanish Army numbered 136,824 men and officers (including 30,527 militiamen assigned to provincial battalions).^[1] This figure also includes General La Romana's 15,000-man Division of the North^[2] garrisoned in Denmark.^{[note 1]}

In 1808, the first year of the armed conflict against the French Army, at least two hundred new Spanish infantry regiments were created, most of which consisted of only one battalion.^[3]

These regular troops and local militias which, in the case of Catalonia, ran to several thousand well-organised miquelets, or somatenes, who had already proved their worth in the Catalan revolt of 1640 and in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), were supplemented throughout the country by the guerrilla and were a constant source of harassment to the French army and its lines of communication. So much so that, between the new year and the middle of February 1809, General St. Cyr calculated that his troops had used up 2,000,000 cartridges in petty skirmishes with the miqueletes between Tarragona and Barcelona.^[4]

At some battles, such as the Battle of Salamanca, the Army of Spain fought side-by-side with their allies of the Anglo-Portuguese Army, led by General Wellesley (who would not become the Duke of Wellington until after the Peninsular War was over).^[5]

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