Editing History of Spain (section)

== War of Spanish Independence and American wars of independence ==
{{Main|Contemporary history of Spain}}
{{See also|History of Spain (1810–73)}}

=== War of Spanish Independence (1808–1814) ===
{{Main|Peninsular War}}
[[File:El dos de mayo de 1808 en Madrid.jpg|thumb|right|''[[The Second of May 1808]]'' was the beginning of the popular Spanish resistance against Napoleon.]]

In the late 18th century, Spain had an alliance with France, and therefore did not have to fear a land war. Its only serious enemy was Britain, which had a powerful navy; Spain therefore concentrated its resources on its navy. When the French Revolution overthrew the Bourbons, a land war with France became a threat which the king tried to avoid. The Spanish army was ill-prepared. The officer corps was selected primarily on the basis of royal patronage, rather than merit. About a third of the junior officers had been promoted from the ranks and had few opportunities for promotion or leadership. The rank-and-file were poorly trained peasants. Elite units included foreign regiments of Irishmen, Italians, Swiss, and [[Walloons]], in addition to elite artillery and engineering units. Equipment was old-fashioned and in disrepair. The army lacked its own horses, oxen and mules for transportation, so these auxiliaries were operated by civilians, who might run if conditions looked bad.  In combat, small units fought well, but their old-fashioned tactics were hardly of use against the Napoleonic forces, despite repeated desperate efforts at last-minute reform.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Sturgill|first1=Claude C.|last2=Esdaile|first2=Charles|date=November 1989|title=The Spanish Army in the Peninsular War.|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2516106|journal=The Hispanic American Historical Review|volume=69|issue=4|page=755|doi=10.2307/2516106|jstor=2516106|issn=0018-2168}}</ref> When war broke out with France in 1808, the army was deeply unpopular. Leading generals were assassinated, and the army proved incompetent to handle command-and-control.  Junior officers from peasant families deserted and went over to the insurgents; many units disintegrated. Spain was unable to mobilize its artillery or cavalry. In the war, there was one victory at the [[Battle of Bailén]], and many humiliating defeats. Conditions steadily worsened, as the insurgents increasingly took control of Spain's battle against Napoleon.  Napoleon ridiculed the army as "the worst in Europe"; the British who had to work with it agreed.<ref>{{cite book|first1=Philip|last1=Haythornthwaite|first2=Christa|last2=Hook|title=Corunna 1809: Sir John Moore's Fighting Retreat|url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=X5c1vy_JumsC|page=17}}|year=2013|publisher=Osprey|pages=17–18|isbn=978-1472801982}}</ref> It was not the Army that defeated Napoleon, but the insurgent peasants whom Napoleon ridiculed as packs of "bandits led by monks".<ref>{{cite book|first=Russell|last=Crandall|title=America's Dirty Wars: Irregular Warfare from 1776 to the War on Terror|url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=Op1cAwAAQBAJ|page=21}}|year=2014|publisher=Cambridge UP|page=21|isbn=978-1107003132}}</ref>  By 1812, the army controlled only scattered enclaves, and could only harass the French with occasional raids. The morale of the army had reached a nadir, and reformers stripped the aristocratic officers of most of their legal privileges.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Pivka|first=Otto von|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/2543018|title=Spanish armies of the Napoleonic Wars|date=1975|publisher=Osprey Publishing|isbn=0-85045-243-0|oclc=2543018}}</ref>

Spain initially sided against France in the [[Napoleonic Wars]], but the defeat of her army early in the war led to [[Charles IV of Spain|Charles IV]]'s pragmatic decision to align with the French. Spain was put under a British blockade, and her colonies began to trade independently with Britain, but Britain invaded and was defeated in the [[British invasions of the Río de la Plata]] in South America (1806 and 1807) without help from mainland Spain, which emboldened independence and revolutionary hopes in Spain's American colonies. A major Franco-Spanish fleet was lost at the [[Battle of Trafalgar]] in 1805, prompting the king to reconsider his difficult alliance with Napoleon. Spain temporarily broke off from the [[Continental System]], and Napoleon invaded Spain in 1808 and deposed [[Ferdinand VII of Spain|Ferdinand VII]], who had been on the throne only forty-eight days after his father's abdication in March 1808. On July 20, 1808, [[Joseph Bonaparte]], eldest brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, entered Madrid and became King of Spain, serving as a surrogate for Napoleon.<ref>{{cite book|first1=Julia Ortiz|last1=Griffin|first2=William D.|last2=Griffin|title=Spain and Portugal: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present|url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=TafGfPHuagsC|page=241}}|year=2007|publisher=Infobase Publishing|page=241|isbn=978-0816074761}}</ref>
[[File:El tres de mayo de 1808 en Madrid.jpg|thumb|right|''[[The Third of May 1808]]'', Napoleon's troops shoot hostages. Goya]]
Spaniards revolted.  Thompson says the Spanish revolt was, "a reaction against new institutions and ideas, a movement for loyalty to the old order: to the hereditary crown of the Most Catholic kings, which Napoleon, an excommunicated enemy of the Pope, had put on the head of a Frenchman; to the Catholic Church persecuted by republicans who had desecrated churches, murdered priests, and enforced a "loi des cultes"; and to local and provincial rights and privileges threatened by an efficiently centralized government.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Thompson|first=James Matthew|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1111461388|title=Napoleon Bonaparte : His Rise and Fall.|date=2018|publisher=Friedland Books|isbn=978-1-78912-759-1|oclc=1111461388|pages=244–245}}</ref>  ''[[Junta (Peninsular War)|Juntas]]'' were formed all across Spain that pronounced themselves in favor of Ferdinand VII. On September 26, 1808, a Central Junta was formed in the town of [[Aranjuez]] to coordinate the nationwide struggle against the French.  Initially, the Central Junta declared support for Ferdinand VII, and convened a "[[Cortes Generales|General and Extraordinary Cortes]]" for all the kingdoms of the Spanish Monarchy. On February 22 and 23, 1809, a popular insurrection against the French occupation broke out all over Spain.{{sfn|Herr|1974||pp=72–73}}
The peninsular campaign was a disaster for France. Napoleon did well when he was in direct command, but that followed severe losses, and when he left in 1809 conditions grew worse for France. Vicious reprisals, famously portrayed by Goya in "[[The Disasters of War]]", only made the Spanish guerrillas angrier and more active; the war in Spain proved to be a major, long-term drain on French money, manpower and prestige.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Blanco|first1=Richard L.|last2=Gates|first2=David|date=October 1988|title=The Spanish Ulcer, A History of the Peninsular War.|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1988459|journal=Military Affairs|volume=52|issue=4|page=221|doi=10.2307/1988459|jstor=1988459|issn=0026-3931}}</ref>

[[File:Cortes de cadiz.jpg|thumb|right|''The promulgation of the Constitution of 1812'', oil painting by [[Salvador Viniegra]].]]
In March 1812, the [[Cortes of Cádiz]] created the first modern Spanish constitution, the [[Spanish Constitution of 1812|Constitution of 1812]] (informally named ''La Pepa''). This constitution provided for a separation of the powers of the executive and the legislative branches of government. The Cortes was to be elected by universal suffrage, albeit by an indirect method. Each member of the Cortes was to represent 70,000 people. Members of the Cortes were to meet in annual sessions. The King was prevented from either convening or proroguing the Cortes. Members of the Cortes were to serve single two-year terms. They could not serve consecutive terms; a member could serve a second term only by allowing someone else to serve a single intervening term in office. This attempt at the development of a modern constitutional government lasted from 1808 until 1814.<ref>{{cite book|first=Jon|last=Cowans|title=Modern Spain: A Documentary History|url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=IcmrVmq0_-8C|page=26}}|year=2003|publisher=U. of Pennsylvania Press|isbn=0-8122-1846-9|pages=26–27}}</ref> Leaders of the liberals or reformist forces during this revolution were [[José Moñino, 1st Count of Floridablanca|José Moñino, Count of Floridablanca]], [[Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos]] and [[Pedro Rodríguez, Conde de Campomanes]]. Born in 1728, Floridablanca was eighty years of age at the time of the revolutionary outbreak in 1808. He had served as Prime Minister under King Charles III from 1777 until 1792; However, he tended to be suspicious of the popular spontaneity and resisted a revolution.<ref>{{cite book|first=Jesus|last=Cruz|title=Gentlemen, Bourgeois, and Revolutionaries: Political Change and Cultural Persistence among the Spanish Dominant Groups, 1750–1850|url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=Ks4ov_eww5UC|page=216}}|year=2004|publisher=Cambridge U.P.|pages=216–218|isbn=9780521894166}}</ref> Born in 1744, Jovellanos was somewhat younger than Floridablanco. A writer and follower of the philosophers of the Enlightenment tradition of the previous century, Jovellanos had served as Minister of Justice from 1797 to 1798 and now commanded a substantial and influential group within the Central Junta. However, Jovellanos had been imprisoned by [[Manuel Godoy, Prince of the Peace|Manuel de Godoy, Duke of Alcudia]], who had served as the prime minister, virtually running the country as a dictator from 1792 until 1798 and from 1801 until 1808. Accordingly, even Jovellanos tended to be somewhat overly cautious in his approach to the revolutionary upsurge that was sweeping Spain in 1808.<ref>{{cite book|first=George F.|last=Nafziger|title=Historical Dictionary of the Napoleonic Era|url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=Dcr7Zt2FEPoC|page=158}}|year=2002|publisher=Scarecrow Press|page=158|isbn=978-0810866171}}</ref>

The Spanish army was stretched as it fought Napoleon's forces because of a lack of supplies and too many untrained recruits, but at [[Battle of Bailén|Bailén]] in June 1808, the Spanish army inflicted the first major defeat suffered by a Napoleonic army; this resulted in the collapse of French power in Spain. Napoleon took personal charge and with fresh forces, defeating the Spanish and British armies in campaigns of attrition. After this the Spanish armies lost every battle they fought against the French, but were never annihilated; after battles they retreated into the mountains to regroup and launch new attacks and raids. Guerrilla forces sprang up all over Spain and, with the army, tied down huge numbers of Napoleon's troops, making it difficult to sustain concentrated attacks on Spanish forces. The raids became a massive drain on Napoleon's military and economic resources.<ref>{{cite book|first=David G.|last=Chandler|title=The Campaigns of Napoleon|url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=hNYWXeVcbkMC|page=659}}|year=1973|publisher=Simon and Schuster|page=659|isbn=978-1439131039}}</ref> Spain was aided by the British and Portuguese, led by the [[Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington|Duke of Wellington]]. The Duke of Wellington fought Napoleon's forces in the [[Peninsular War]], with Joseph Bonaparte playing a minor role as king at Madrid. The brutal war was one of the first [[guerrilla warfare|guerrilla wars]] in modern Western history. French supply lines stretching across Spain were mauled repeatedly by the Spanish armies and guerrilla forces; thereafter, Napoleon's armies were never able to control much of the country and ending in French defeat. The war fluctuated, with Wellington spending several years behind his fortresses in Portugal while launching occasional campaigns into Spain.<ref>{{cite book|first=Todd|last=Fisher|title=The Napoleonic Wars: The Rise And Fall Of An Empire|url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=j45Rg2VBbRAC|page=222}}|year=2004|publisher=Osprey Publishing|page=222|isbn=978-1841768311}}</ref>

After Napoleon's disastrous 1812 campaign in Russia, Napoleon began to recall his forces for the defence of France against the advancing Russian and other coalition forces, leaving his forces in Spain increasingly undermanned and on the defensive against the advancing Spanish, British and Portuguese armies. At the [[Battle of Vitoria]] in 1813, an allied army under the Duke of Wellington decisively defeated the French and in 1814 [[Ferdinand VII]] was restored as King of Spain.<ref>{{cite book|first=Ian|last=Fletcher|title=Vittoria 1813: Wellington Sweeps the French from Spain|url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=Zi1wxv8M8a4C}}|year=2012|publisher=Osprey Publishing|isbn=978-1782001959}}</ref><ref name="John Michael Francis 2006 905">{{cite book|first=John Michael|last=Francis|author1-link=J. Michael Francis|title=Iberia and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History|url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=OMNoS-g1h8cC|page=905}}|year=2006|publisher=ABC-CLIO|page=905|isbn=978-1851094219}}</ref>

===Independence of Spanish America===
{{Main|Spanish American wars of independence}}
[[File:Batalla de Ayacucho by Martín Tovar y Tovar (1827 - 1902).jpg|thumb|The pro-independence forces delivered a crushing defeat to the royalists and secured the independence of Peru in the 1824 [[battle of Ayacucho]].]]
Spain lost all of its North and South American territories, except Cuba and Puerto Rico, in a complex series of revolts 1808–26.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Lynch|first=John|url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=m3q8ngEACAAJ}}|title=Latin American Revolutions, 1808–1826: Old and New World Origins|date=1994|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press|isbn=978-0-8061-2661-6}}</ref> Spain was at war with Britain 1798–1808, and the British blockade cut Spain's ties to the overseas empire. Trade was handled by American and Dutch traders. The colonies thus had achieved economic independence from Spain, and set up temporary governments or juntas which were generally out of touch with Spain. After 1814, as Napoleon was defeated and Ferdinand VII was back on the throne, the king sent armies to regain control and reimpose autocratic rule. In the next phase 1809–16, Spain defeated all the uprising. A second round 1816–25 was successful and drove the Spanish out of all of its mainland holdings. Spain had no help from European powers. Indeed, Britain (and the United States) worked against it. When they were cut off from Spain, the colonies saw a struggle for power between Spaniards who were born in Spain (called "peninsulares") and those of Spanish descent born in New Spain (called "creoles"). The creoles were the activists for independence. Multiple revolutions enabled the colonies to break free of the mother country. In 1824 the armies of generals [[José de San Martín]] of Argentina and [[Simón Bolívar]] of Venezuela defeated the last Spanish forces; the final defeat came at the [[Battle of Ayacucho]] in southern [[History of Peru|Peru]]. After that Spain played a minor role in international affairs. Business and trade in the ex-colonies were under British control. Spain kept only Cuba and Puerto Rico in the New World.{{sfn|Carr|2008|pp= 101–105, 122–123, 143–146, 306–309, 379–388}}