Was the Peninsular War a mistake?

Was the Peninsular War a mistake?

For who?
France didn't have a choice in fighting the war and Britain had a great time letting french people starve and hiking through mountains.

>France didn't have a choice in fighting the war
What? They invaded an ally so Nappy could put a relative on a throne. It was a retarded move

For Napoleon obviously.
Did he really need to invade Spain and Portugal.

The invasion of Portugal made semse with his policy. The invasion of Spain was just greedy

I could understand invading Portugal but why did he invade Spain?
Was he confident that he could beat them?

>why did he invade Spain?
It is a mystery. Some say he was paranoid about a Spanish betrayal while others believe he just wanted to put all his relatives into a European throne
>Was he confident that he could beat them?
Sure. But his plan was to make a coup and expect everyone to just accept his brother as a king. He didn't believe that a war was necessary

Sorry boys was thinking specifically of the attempted invasion of Portugal.

I don't really think anyone could have predicted how nutters Wellington was at beating the French. In retrospect we can all say it was a stupid idea but at the time it woulda made perfect sense.

Although I guess there's an argument that he probably shouldn't have fallen for the war on two fronts meme.

The war with Portugal was pretty much over until Nappy decided to make his brother the king of Spain. After that everything went downhill

Spain was still quite powerful at the time and their navy combined with Britain was unstoppable. Spain as an ally and not an enemy was just another step closer to the eternal Anglo

A couple of things to remember.

The war was inevitable for the French. After Trafalgar the Spanish generalship had plotted to betray France. Their plans were put on hold by Prussia being destroyed in 19 days. Napoleon wanted someone he could trust on the throne of Spain but while Joseph was an excellent diplomat he ended up being a poor choice for the Spanish peasantry because of his masonic and libertine background while many of the nobles liked him. Lucien would have been the best choice as Lucien was exceptionally competent and had been an asset before. Unfortunately Lucien and Napoleon were not on the best terms after Napoleon's coronation. In the end however Lucien rallied to his brother during the hundred days.

The other consideration is that for the French the peninsular war was always of secondary importance. Little in the way of resources were sent and most of the generals in that theatre had fallen out of grace with the Emperor. Had Napoleon taken the Grande Armee south across the Pyrenees the war would have been over very quickly in France's favour.

>Spanish generalship had plotted to betray France.
There is zero evidence about this other than Napoleon's paranoia

>Napoleon’s suspicions had been raised during the Jena campaign of 1806, when the Spanish government had issued a proclamation calling on the people to unite against an unnamed enemy, widely assumed to be France. In the aftermath of Napoleon’s victory at Jena the proclamation had been withdrawn, but the damage was done.

Napoleon was egomaniac, he wanted to be the greatest conqueror to ever exist. Isnt there something called the Alexander the Great complex? He had it, so did Hitler, and it often makes these people overextend and eventually lose.

>the greatest conqueror to ever exist

Is that why most of his wars were defensive wars?

Well he also invaded a good part of Europe and impeded the sovereignty of a lot of independent kingdoms

autist spouting anglo propaganda
the alliance with spain was very delicate, the spanish royals were related to Louis XIV. Napoleon figured he could cow the Spanish with a few large scale victories and they'd accept the somewhat enlightened rule of his brother. he was wrong.

That wasn't the military but some people in the Court. In any case, Spain joining and anti-french alliance would have only happened in an scenario where France were already crumbling.

All in all, it wasn't worth the effort for a hypothetical situation that would almost exclusively depend on Prussia, Russia and Austria btfo France. But Napo probably thought he could just intervene, put his brother in the throne as a pawn, keep milking the spanish cow and all problems solved. Easy like that.

Again Napoleon's paranoia. Why would a country that is about to betray you allows your army to cross their country? It makes no fucking sense

The invasion of Portugal was also pretty fucking stupid.

>muh continental blockade

It's not like Portugal's economy was any relevant. In any case, the relevant part was the portuguese colonial economy and geostrategical clay, but that was beyond France's reach because the French navy had been destroyed.

It's like during this Napoleonic period there wasn't in France one single person not suffering from severe mental retardation, cause it's a concatenation of absolutely retarded geopolitical moves one after the other.

>expedition to Egypt
>selling Louisiana
>Trafalgar
>attacking Portugal
>attacking Spain
>attacking Russia

Never, in all History, so many have been so dumbfuck retarded in such little period

Here in Spain we are taught that our king at the time was the worst king a country could ever have to the point he sold the entire country to Napoleon in exchange of his life in a tiny castle in southern France.

makes you think they would stop attacking him then

>selling Louisiana
>bad
Are you fucking kidding me bruv?

>The other consideration is that for the French the peninsular war was always of secondary importance. Little in the way of resources were sent and most of the generals in that theatre had fallen out of grace with the Emperor. Had Napoleon taken the Grande Armee south across the Pyrenees the war would have been over very quickly in France's favour.
Napoleon did cross the Pyrenees with the Grand Armeé defeated all the rmies which he found and return back to France.
And the Spaniards kept their uprising.

>Calls other retards
>Is retarded
You have no idea about how economy, war and politics work, holy shit.

>It's not like Portugal's economy was any relevant
>Attacking Portugal
Portugal is a centuries long ally of England. Continental Europe isn't allowed to trade with UK, except Russia (who violated the treaty and hence got rightfully invaded) and Portugal. They both happen to trade with both UK and continental Europe, so it's obvious why muh blockade doesn't work so well.
>expedition to Egypt
A success until Acre, which isn't Napoleon's fault
>selling Louisiana
Napoleon knew it would make USA a great power in the future, but there's not a single ruler who cares about long term gains rather than short term ones. They can't happen without the latter, and that's how successful people live - without risk there's no gain.
>Trafalgar
Nelson pulled off the most retarded and successful tactic he could, he got killed for it and French lost because they didn't expect it to ever happen.
>Attacking Russia
Again, Russia wasn't allowed to trade with UK, it traded with UK and supplied them with resources from countries that actually were a part of the blockade. Napoleon really fucked it up, but who could predict that Russians were willing to commit genocide on their own people to deny him victory?
>Attacking Spain
Spain was a part of anti-French coalition a few years back, Spain wanted to fuck over Napoleon if he failed Prussian campaign, Spain was ruled by a Bourbon of all people. Why would anyone feel bad for them?

I was talking about Spain you spastic retard

And is probably true, he later allowed a french invasion to kick the liberals.

t. napoleon
If you do something that is against France's interest you must get invaded!!1!

>Portugal
You must be some special kind of stupid to think that trade with continental Portugal was in any way vital to the English. The Portuguese Royal Family and Government just moved to Brazil and now the English had a beachhead in continental Europe to operate against France. Dumbfuck retarded.

>Egypt

Hey mes amis, I have le happy idea; let's lose the entire Mediterranean fleet and all the expeditionary troops (except the coward generals, among them Napo) assfuck in turkish prison camps in exchange for absolutely fucking nothing.
Voila, la splendid retardation!.

>Louisiana

Hey let's give all that massive fertile clay away for a couple of shekels lol!!1!1!1

>Trafalgar

Neither the Spanish nor the French fleet were ready for a fight. Much less with an incompetent in charge. But what the hell, half the fleet was lost being retarded in Egypt, let's lose the other half and piss off Spain, the only ally you have lol. Vive la France!!!11!!1. Lol 10/10 dumbfuck retarded.

>Russia

Yeah, who would have expected the Russians surrendering just because you take Moscow but lack any capability to occupy the country? Exactly, only a 10/10 dumbfuck french retard.

>Spain

Spain would have probably bandwagoned against Napo like Sweden or Naples did under Murat kek, or everybody else in Europe did at the end. But if and only if France total collapse were to be perceived as imminent. But in 1807-08 France was at its height and Spain was virtually a client state that wasn't in any way going to attack France (and even if it did, it would have been rekt in 5mins). Furthermore, part of the Spanish Army was already operating in Denmark as allies of France under French command.

"muh continental blockade" was the only chance Napoleon had at defeating the UK, all his ships were destroyed in 1805 and thus the only weapon he could use was a continent wide embargo. Napoleon never stood a chance and the UK would keep funding coalitions till he was beat.
The Napoleonic wars ended at Trafalgar tbqh.

That's not really true to be honest. Had the Grande Armee not been destroyed in the Russia campaign none of the former coalition members would have risen. Trade with Britain was only important for Portugal and Russia. To be honest the correct decision for Napoleon would be to force the Russians to launch another joint invasion of India like the planned Indian March of Paul because that's where Britain got its economic strength. Not to mention in Britain's eyes Russia would become a real enemy and not just a subjugated ally.

Portugal violating the continental blockade meant goods could enter all of Europe through Portugal - what I'm saying is, it wasn't just """portuguese trade""". There's principle there aswell, if Portugal get to ignore it and get away with it, the rest of europe would have started ignoring it aswell.

ok the rest of your post is just bait but