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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.
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Thank you to Osprey Publishing for kind permission to use several of their images in this video. They have many excellent books covering the Peninsular War such as:
Spanish Guerrillas in the Peninsular War 1808–14: https://www.ospreypublishing.com/uk/spanish-guerrillas-in-the-peninsular-war-180814-9781841766294/
Corunna 1809: https://www.ospreypublishing.com/uk/corunna-1809-9781855329683/
Badajoz 1812: https://www.ospreypublishing.com/uk/badajoz-1812-9781855329577/
Salamanca 1812: https://www.ospreypublishing.com/uk/salamanca-1812-9781855326040/
Vittoria 1813: https://www.ospreypublishing.com/uk/vittoria-1813-9781855327399/
📚 Reading list:
‘Memoirs of a French Napoleonic Officer’ by Jean-Baptiste Barres
US: https://bookshop.org/a/99532/9781399077231
UK: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/12275/9781399077231
‘Peninsular Eyewitnesses: The Experience of War in Spain and Portugal 1808-1813’ by Charles J. Esdaille
UK: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/12275/9781844151912
‘The Recollections of Rifleman Harris’ by Benjamin Randell Harris
US: https://bookshop.org/a/99532/9780486836034
UK: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/12275/9781474626316
‘Adventures in the Rifle Brigade: In the Peninsula, France and the Netherlands from 1809 to 1815’ by John Kincaid
US: https://bookshop.org/a/99532/9781016060776
UK: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/12275/9789388396257
‘The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence: A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns’ by William Lawrence
US: https://bookshop.org/a/99532/9781474540155
UK: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/12275/9781409987925
‘Der Nassauer Johann Biersack: Sein Leben Als Soldat von 1806 Bis 1814’ compiled by Dr Reinhard Münch (translated by Mo-Chueh for the Weltseele Project: https://weltseele.miraheze.org/wiki/Main_Page)
‘With Napoleon’s Guns: The Military Memoirs of an Officer of the First Empire’ by Jean-Nicolas-Auguste Noël
US: https://bookshop.org/a/99532/9781848328358
UK: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/12275/9781853676420
‘A British Rifle Man: The Journals & Correspondence of Major George Simmons, Rifle Brigade during the Peninsular War & Campaign of Waterloo’ by George Simmons
US: https://bookshop.org/a/99532/9781015906280
You can visit our online bookshop to find great books on the Peninsular War and other Epic History topics:
UK site – https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/epichistorytv
US site – https://bookshop.org/shop/epichistorytv
As a bookshop.org affiliate we earn from qualifying purchases, while donating 10% of sales to support independent bookshops!
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39 Comments
We hope you enjoy our brand new documentary: 'Voices of the Peninsular War'. Don’t forget, if you want to watch all our videos first, and ad-free, come and join us at Nebula, with 40% off an annual subscription using our link: https://go.nebula.tv/EpicHistory.
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As always, let us know that you think and tell us what your favourite testimony was in the comments!
Thank you for watching.
Reading those texts in english with funny spanish/french/polish (? russian?) accents is the dumbest thing you can do. Those people spoke spanish or french, they didnt speak english with accent. Either read it in original language, or read it in english without accent. I couldn't finish watching this video because I just couldn't stand it.
As a Portuguese it fills my heart to see this, we are very proud of being the only nation in Europe to say "NO" to Napoleon when he forced the rest of Europe to accept the continental blockade.
Great video. Can't wait for Marengo
¡Muerte a Napoleón! ¡Viva Cristo Rey!
Men, "Know your enemy, and know yourself, and in 100 battles you will never be defeated." A military maxim of Sun Tzu that Napoleon completed ignored. Napoleon did not know nor understand how his enemy would fight, and he did not realize that his army was actually getting weaker and weaker over time. Napoleon did not foresee that the Spanish would wage guerrilla warfare, when they had previously done so in the recent past, a complete negligence to overlook this important detail brought on by the delusional hope that the Spanish would simply embrace his rule, if not force them into submission on the battlefield. Nope, it was going to be a different war, a total war with everyone involved, not just a soldiers war. Further, Napoleon did not realize that in the time from Austerlitz to the beginning of the Spanish invasion, the French army was in decline, losing elite troops at Eylau and Friedland, further exacerbated by the bloodbaths of Aspern and Wagram, the French grande armee had definitely taken a couple of steps back. And by the Russian invasion of 1812, forget it, there was NO WAY that Napoleon was going to win the Peninsular War with what was a second rate French military in Iberia. Just another defeat for Napoleon, another war lost that led down the road to total defeat due to ignoring established military maxims, and ignoring the actual situation, instead believing his delusions.
It would nice if the narrator's use the native language like spanish, polish, and french
This cant be a history channel, not a single mention of how the ancient aliens actually caused the war.
Very interesting way to present this stories. You always find the way to give epic yo your work! Greetings from Uruguay!
A nice cold shower for people that think present drone warfare and other modern implements of warfare are somehow more barbaric in method than the past.
I'm very glad you fought against YouTube's censorship to get this out here.
Thank god for the United Kingdom
6:06 epic
These are beautifully produced programmes – thank you.
My grandfather on dad side says he married the jermo marriage a relative of my 🇪🇸 line who was queen at the time
Sorry to say that, but this string of reports from the front are kind of boring, mainly if they represent the only content of the video.
I prefer when these reports are scattered here and there, and are measured out.
Too much breaks the bag.
POLSKA GUROM
Such a vicious war…
Love it
Wth guy aiming with his closed eye in the thumbnail
I thought this was very impressive!!
As much as I mock the French today for still refusing to admit to themselves of the total defeat with Napoleon, instead hiding behind phony monuments of "triumph", you really gotta feel sorry for those French boys getting dragged into Napoleon's wars. No one suffered more than the French youth, the hundreds of thousands that Napoleon pressed into military service against their will, who were not soldiers, never wanted to be soldiers. You know what it is to have a nice quite life on your farm as a French teenager, helping out your family, then you get pressed into military service, sent to Spain against your will and get nailed upside down on a barn door by the guerrillas….Do you realize how terrible that was? You did not deserve that, French youth who grew up in a chaotic state, then under the iron fist of a military dictator who sacrificed you for his vanity, only to have France end in total defeat under military occupation.
I would prefer it without unnatural accents.
Lots of detail and context missing but I remembered the reason for this was to show the accounts of people there, not a full education of the Peninsular War which would take a lot longer 👍
Finally a new video, tanks
😊 Enorme video 💓 Chequea mi rap! 💜
the craziest part. is that the british weren't committing the most atrocities
Thank you for a new exercise in Anglo-American historiography.
For this documentary there were French and Spanish atrocities but not a word about the multiple rapes, looting and destruction carried out by the English army on Spanish soil, supposedly their allies!!!!
The retreat from La Coruña was a disgrace to the British army. The sacking of Badajoz was another.
Even the robbery of the Spanish treasury after the battle of Vitoria is treated in the video in a rude and ridiculous way.
Frankly I hope they will change this trend in future documentaries.
The French marching and slaughtering their Spanish Prisoners of War reminded me of The Bataan Death March during WW2 where Allied POWs were marched and killed by the Japanese in The Pacific
When Epic History releases a video, "What a wonderful day!"
isn't it called the spanish war of independence???
God I love it when you guys release a new video, thank you !
Really good video but only one comment about the British Army that destroyed all the spanish factories, mills and industries that they found.
Epic history does not miss. THEY DO NOT MISS! Fantastic video, and wonderfully done.
I remember learning about this in school in Mexico. Great video!!
To hear these quotes spoken aloud is much more impactful than reading them off a piece of paper. May all these poor souls rest in peace.
Awesome video!
Wonderful video.
Well Sir, upon first sighting a new `Epic History` video, I naturally watched it, that's my style Sir!
Very fascinant 👏 🔥 👏 🔥 👏