Editing Peninsular War (section)

===Emergence of the guerrilla===
{{main|Guerrilla warfare in the Peninsular War}}
[[File:Juan Martín Díez.jpg|thumb|[[Juan Martín Díez]], ''El Empecinado'', a key guerrilla leader]]

The Peninsular War is regarded as one of the first people's wars, significant for the emergence of large-scale guerrilla warfare. It is from this conflict that the English language borrowed the word.{{sfn|etymology|2021}} The guerrillas troubled the French troops, but they also frightened their own countrymen with forced conscription and looting.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Chartrand |first=Rene |title=Spanish Guerrillas in the Peninsular War 1808–14 |publisher=Osprey Publishing |year=2004 |isbn=978-1841766294 |edition= |location=Oxford |language=en}}{{page?|date=June 2023}}</ref> Many of the partisans were either fleeing the law or trying to get rich.<ref name=":0" /> Later in the war the authorities tried to make the guerrillas reliable, and many of them formed regular army units such as [[Francisco Espoz y Mina|Espoz y Mina]]'s "Cazadores de Navarra". The French believed that [[enlightened absolutism]] had made less progress in Spain and Portugal than elsewhere, and that resistance was the product of a century's worth of what the French perceived as backwardness in knowledge and social habits, Catholic [[obscurantism]], superstition and counter-revolution.{{sfn|Rocca|Rocca|1815|p=126}}

The guerrilla style of fighting was the Spanish military's single most effective tactic. Most organized attempts by regular Spanish forces to take on the French ended in defeat. Once a battle was lost and the soldiers reverted to their guerrilla roles, they tied down large numbers of French troops over a wide area with a much lower expenditure of men, energy, and supplies{{citation needed|date=June 2012}}<ref name=":0" /> and facilitated the conventional victories of Wellington and his Anglo-Portuguese army and the subsequent liberation of Portugal and Spain.{{sfn|Glover|2001|p=10}} Mass resistance by the people of Spain inspired the war efforts of Austria, Russia and Prussia against Napoleon.{{sfn|Chandler|1995|p=746}}

Hatred of the French and devotion to ''[[dios, rey y patria|God, King and Fatherland]]'' were not the only reason to join the Partisans.{{sfn|Esdaile|2003|p=270}} The French imposed restrictions on movement and on many traditional aspects of street life, so opportunities to find alternative sources of income were limited{{mdash}}industry was at a standstill and many ''señores'' were unable to pay their existing retainers and domestic servants, and could not take on new staff. Hunger and despair reigned on all sides.{{sfn|Esdaile|2003|p=271}} Because the military record was so dismal, many Spanish politicians and publicists exaggerated the activities of the guerrillas.{{sfn|Esdaile|2003|p=280}}