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Historically it's not often that we British are on the same side as the Spanish. We've been allies with the Portuguese since 1373 though. Odd then, that at the beginning of the 19th Century British, Portuguese and Spanish troops fought shoulder to shoulder against the common enemy. We Britons call it the Penninsular War the Spanish call it the War of Independence.

In 1808 Napoleon was master of Europe. Well most of it. A sea going chap with multiple disabilities, Nelson, had put paid to the the Little Corporal's ambitions to conquer Britain when he had obliterated the combined French and Spanish fleets just off Cape Trafalgar. Napoleon, peeved I suppose, tried to enforce a blockade to stop British goods from entering Europe but with the Portuguese ports still open that wasn't working too well. So Napoleon, taking advantage of a bit of a power struggle within the Spanish Royal Family, moved 100,000 French Troops through Spain on the pretext of invading Portugal. He used the leverage an army of that size gives you to install his brother, Joseph, on the Spanish throne. The Spanish didn't like this much and they revolted.

The British, who weren't too keen on this French super power status, now had a new Spanish ally as well as an obligation to assist their Portuguese allies. Lieutenant General Sir Arthur Wellesley was sent to Portugal. After a couple of opening battles Wellesley dug in. When the French attacked the British infantry line held. It was he first time that the French tactics, which had gained them most of Europe, failed. Wellesley's victory was sufficient to persuade the French to evacuate Portugal as part of a controversial agreement but the political fallout from that agreement caused Wellesly to have to return to England to clear his name.

This left Sir John Moore in command of a British force of 30,000 in Portugal. When the Spanish army had a remarkable victory over the French at Bailén Napoleon decided it was time to get involved personally. He brought 200,000 battle hardened veterans with him. Moore slipped over the border into Spain to have a go at the flank of Napoleon's army near Burgos. When the French turned Moore had to retreat towards La Coruña. He lost a lot of men on the way but the Royal Navy was there to pull them out when they reached the coast. Moore was killed in the evacuation. Napoleon left Spain.

Wellesley was now back in Portugal. He beat the French at Porto and headed for Spain where he joined up with a Spanish troops. The French attacked the allied force at Talavera but the British-Portuguese-Spanish lines held. With French reinforcements on the way Wellesley decided to fall back. He hurried all the way to Lisbon where he dug in so deep at Torres Vedras that when the French finally got there, having smashed a couple of Spanish armies on the way, they couldn't get to him. And, yet again, the Royal Navy were there to keep Wellesley, who was now Viscount Wellington of Talavera, supplied.

In 1811 the war ebbed and flowed but the tide had changed. It was now definitely the French rather than the British who were on the defensive though Wellington did not advance into Spain until the beginning of 1812. His first target was Ciudad Rodrigo, the place where I live. He took that in a lighning siege which lasted just two days. He moved on to Badajoz and took that too where, just like in Ciudad Rodrigo, the British troops went completely beserk for a few days in an orgy of killing, raping and looting. Wellington's work was made easier because the French were having a lot of trouble with the Spanish who would not fight fair. They were shadowing French forces all over the country taking pot shots and then running away, poisoning water suppliesand generally being a nuisance to those fine French soldiers carrying kilos of gear and wearing big busbies. The civilian population was hostile to the French too. It was a little war and hence the word guerilla.

Wellington took Salamanca, then Madrid but he ended up backtracking as the French massed a large army which he knew better than to take on. Meanwhile Napoleon was having a spot of bother over in Russia. As his broken army retreated the Prussians decided they would enter the war alongside the Russians against France. Napoleon couldn't spare extra troops for Spain.

By May 1813,Wellington was on the move again; out of Ciudad Rodrigo and heading towards Burgos. When the French dug in near the Zadorra River they were soundly thrashed at the battle of Vitoria in the Basque Country.

And that was it more or less. The victory at Vitoria rallied the anti Napoleon forces in the East, who had just lost a couple of big battles, and it convinced the Austrians to throw their lot in with the Russians and Prussians. By July Wellington was at the Pyrenees, by October he was in France and in March of the next year Paris fell. In April 1814 Napoleon abdicated and the Penninsular War was over.

Lots more on my blog - check out the signature in the forums or Google Life in Ciudad Rodrigo .