In Expelling Napoleon from Spain, the Duke of Wellington Expresses a Great Maxim of War: “There are very few certainties in war, but if there is one more than another it is this: that bad cavalry can do nothing against a good one.”

Anglona would lead Wellington’s 3rd Army Division in expelling the French and crossing into France itself

 

From the collection of Dr. Otto O. Fisher, who bought primarily from the 1920s to 1940s, so this not been offered for sale in nearly a century

The Peninsular War was a key focal point of the Napoleonic Wars, one that drained French forces and energies and led to a rise to leadership of the Duke of Wellington, who would be Napoleon’s nemesis. It pitted the French and its allied armies against the Anglo-Portuguesearmies under Wellington and Spanish insurgents. The war began when France, with the consent of Spain, crossed the Iberian Peninsula and invaded Portugal in 1807. In May 1808, France turned on its ally when Napoleon handed the throne of Spain to his brother Joseph and forced the abdication of King Carlos IV. A puppet Spanish government was formed, but an insurrection broke out against it that required France to expend significant resources to counter. Where once Napoleon had bragged that 12,000 men could conquer Spain, now he required 80,000 to keep peace in just a portion. That number grew exponentially over time.

British military intervention became a reality for Napoleon in August 1808, when the Duke of Wellington landed in Portugal and successfully threw the French out of that country. The next few years saw competing incursions, with the troops led by Wellington attempting to push the French eastward and the French attempting renewed and unsuccessful invasions of Portugal.

With 1812 all this would change. Napoleon took 30,000 men from his army in Spain to use for his ill-fated invasion of Russia. Wellington took Ciudad Rodrigo, the Spanish gateway to Portugal. Although his forces were still numerically inferior to the French, he benefited greatly from the Spanish guerrilla fighters, who in what in Spain is called the War of Independence, kept Napoleon’s forces occupied and spread too thin. In the summer campaign of 1812, Wellington made his first entrance into Madrid and Salamanca, winning a major battle at the latter city. Meanwhile, the Spanish resistance gained strength into 1813, particularly in the North along the coast, making Napoleon anxious to counter them.

By late Winter, the complexion of the situation had changed. Instead of being on the offensive, Napoleon’s enemies of the 6th Coalition were closing in on France itself from the East.

On October 30, 1812, the Prince of Anglona was sent by the Cortes of Cádiz to arrest General Francisco Ballesteros, commander of the 4th Army who, earlier that month, had called for a military uprising in protest against Wellington’s appointment as generalissimo of the Spanish Army. Wellington wanted Anglona in charge of a larger contingent of Spanish troops to try to force out the French.

Autograph letter signed, February 9, 1813, to the Prince. “My dear Prince d’Anglona, I am eager to talk with you a little about the position which you hold and your views about the Service; and I cannot fill my time better than giving you the trouble of reading this letter.

“I believe that you are at present attached to the cavalry of the 3rd Army; but from all that I have seen and learned, all of the Spanish Cavalry is in a very bad condition. And there remains not reason to doubt after all the pains we shall take that she will be in any condition to give service in the campaign which is to begin I hope soon. There are very few certainties in war but if there is one more than another it is this: that bad cavalry can do nothing against a good one. I’d advise you therefore that you attach yourself to the infantry during the next campaign with which you have already served; and I am told that you hold no dislike for it.

“If you accept what I am proposing to you it only remains to learn which of the armies you prefer and I shall make arrangements that you be placed with one of the divisions without loss of time.

“p.s. I write you in French as I can express myself in it with greater facility than in any other, excepting in my proper language; but I beg you to write to me in Spanish.”

In the late spring of 1813, Wellington launched a powerful offensive designed to drive King Joseph Bonaparte’s Imperial French army from Spain. On 21 June, Wellington’s army inflicted a decisive defeat on Joseph’s troops at the Battle of Vitoria.

Wellington, however, refused to move into France until his forces had taken Pamplona, seized by the French in 1808. It appears that Wellington underestimated Anglona’s capability with the cavalry. His cavalry played an important role in the siege of Pamplona.

Soon, Anglona would take over the 3rd army for its march into France.