Eyewitness Accounts from the Napoleonic Wars: Spain and Portugal 1808-1814

In 1808, Napoleon launched a war against Spain, sparking a savage conflict that lasted nearly six years, cost half a million lives, and helped to bring down his empire.

We tell the story of this war through more than a dozen dramatic accounts from Spanish, French, British, German and Polish participants. Together, they provide a raw and unflinching perspective of Napoleon's doomed attempt to conquer the Iberian peninsula.

For the Spanish, it was their ‘War of Independence’ – for their British allies, ‘the Peninsular War’. These are the voices of witnesses to those momentous days.