On the flight of the royal family to Brazil, a council of regency was appointed to carry on affairs. The disgust at João was so great that the French general Junot met almost no resistance, but rather welcome as the bringer of freedom and democracy. The council of regency submitted to him at Lisbon. His first acts were to seize the treasury and disband the Portuguese army; on the other hand he forbade the Spanish their expected plunder and he raised the Portuguese Legion of troops who served with fidelity and bravery under Napoleon in other countries down to his defeat at Waterloo.
Having disarmed Portugal by easy measures and false hopes, Junot suddenly announced the end of the dynasty of Braganza, substituted French for Portuguese governors everywhere, and formed a new ministry and a new regency, largely French, with Junot at the head as president, eventually, he hoped, as king of Portugal. Spain had been similarly duped and given a French king, Joseph Bonaparte. Spain responded by rebellion; Portugal, after nine months of submission to Junot, rose and butchered the French in large numbers. Revolutionary juntas took the government and appealed to England for aid, receiving in response both men and money as well as generals, chief among them the Irishman, Sir Arthur Wellesley, later and better known as the duke of Wellington. Portugal was in England’s eyes, according to Canning’s own words, merely the fulcrum for the lever of England to wrench Napoleon from his power.
[1808-1814 A.D.]
After some hindrance, due to division of command, Wellesley was able to march forward; he defeated Laborde at Roliça (or Roriça) August 17th, 1808, and four days later dealt Junot himself such a blow at Vimeiro that he surrendered all his strongholds and his troops on the condition that the English carry the army and its spoils safely back to France on their own ships. This so-called Convention of Cintra, concluded some miles from Cintra, was carried out, but provoked a storm of rage in England.
The French being thus transported, as by Aladdin’s carpet, out of Portugal, Dom João’s regency was re-established and found abundant ground for dispute with the junta of Oporto, and later with the English officers and diplomats. England sent J. C. Villiers as ambassador, and Beresford to organise the native armies. He did his work with skill, and ten thousand Portuguese were taken into English pay. Hardly had Junot’s army been evicted from Portugal when another French army under Soult came over from Spain, which was full of French troops. Soult drove back all resistance and took Oporto, whence Wellington expelled him May 12th, 1809. Wellington then entered Spain and beat “king” Joseph Bonaparte and his marshal Victor at Talavera.
Meanwhile there were endless disputes with the regency, who seemed to divert the moneys England sent until the troops were hampered almost to helplessness, and the English generals were driven frantic. Sir Charles Stuart was finally at England’s insistence added to the regency, and something less inefficient resulted. The people were, however, not altogether convinced of their duty to play “fulcrum” indefinitely to the Archimedean lever of England. They were not cheered by having to dig those famous and enormous lines of defence at Torres Vedras, and they were still less encouraged in being compelled to devastate their own country and retire with the English troops behind breastworks, before the terrible army Napoleon sent under Masséna in 1810.
But while Wellington kept under cover and guarded Lisbon doggedly, Portuguese militia under Antonio de Silveira and various English officers made it increasingly hard for Masséna to subsist his troops. Trant took Coimbra, and in 1811 Masséna was forced to retire or starve. Wellington was now reinforced, and following Masséna cautiously, bested him at Sabugal, April 3rd, 1811. But the year was one of great anxiety to Wellington. England could afford few supplies and the Portuguese regency was more prolific of complaints and quarrels than of provisions. But, though compelled to keep on the defensive, the Iron Duke showed a menace he hardly felt. The war hovered on the borders of Portugal and went generally to French advantage in Spain.
Wellington gradually, and by a patience as great as his skill in emergency, gained the upper hand, and forcing his way into Spain, took Madrid August 12th, 1812. He was later forced out by French adroitness and made a retreat, which, as described in the history of Spain, is infamous in British annals for the outrageous and inexcusable misbehaviour of the troops. Wellington berated his army in violent terms, and though he was not made the more popular thereby, his troops were somewhat sobered. He now received full power from the court in Brazil, and at the same time was made chief of the Spanish armies, with the whole peninsula under his command. He at once assumed the offensive with a vigour that answered the violent criticism his alleged timidity had provoked in England as well as in the peninsula and France. His victories, coinciding with Napoleon’s disastrous Moscow campaign, drove the French out of the peninsula and led him into France, where the Peninsular War was ended with Napoleon’s abdication.