Popular Resistance in the French Wars
Also by Charles J. Esdaile THE SPANISH ARMY IN THE PENINSULAR WAR THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON AND THE COMMAND OF THE SPANISH ARMY THE WARS OF NAPOLEON SPAIN IN THE LIBERAL AGE: From Constitution to Civil War THE FRENCH WARS THE PENINSULAR WAR: A New History FIGHTING NAPOLEON: Guerrillas, Bandits and Adventurers in Spain, 1808 1814
Popular Resistance in the French Wars Patriots, Partisans and Land Pirates Edited by Charles J. Esdaile
Editorial matter, selection, introduction and Chapters 1 and 10 Charles J. Esdaile 2005 Chapters 2 9 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd 2005 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2005 978-1-4039-3826-8 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2005 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-51933-0 ISBN 978-0-230-52299-2 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9780230522992 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Popular resistance in the French wars : patriots, partisans and land pirates / edited by Charles J. Esdaile. p. cm. The papers contained in this volume of essays were originally presented at a symposium held in the School of History in the University of Liverpool in September 2003 Pref. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Wars of Liberation, 1813 1814. 2. Guerrilla warfare Europe History 19th century. 3. Napoleonic Wars, 1800 1815 Underground movements. 4. France History, Military 1789 1815. 5. Europe History, Military 1789 1815. 6. Europe Politics and government 1789 1815. 7. Nationalism Europe History 19th century. I. University of Liverpool. School of History. DC236.P66 2004 940.2 73 dc22 2004053529 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05
This book is respectfully dedicated to the memory of the 192 citizens of Madrid who died in the terrorist attacks of 11 March 2004, and especially to that of Marion Subervieille, azafata of the Biblióteca Nacional: the world is a sadder place without her smile
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Contents List of Figures Preface Acknowledgement Notes on Contributors ix x xi xii 1 Patriots, Partisans and Land Pirates in Retrospect 1 Charles J. Esdaile 2 The Ubiquitous Brigand: The Politics and Language of Repression 25 Alan Forrest 3 Guerrilla Warfare avant la lettre: Northern Italy, 1792 97 45 Martin Boycott-Brown 4 Resistance, Collaboration or Third Way? Responses to Napoleonic Rule in Germany 67 Michael Rowe 5 Popular Resistance in Catalonia: Somatens and Miquelets, 1808 14 91 Antonio Moliner Prada 6 The Anatomy of a Research Project: The Sociology of the Guerrilla War in Spain, 1808 14 115 Charles J. Esdaile and Leonor Hernández Enviz 7 Regulating the Irregulars: Spanish Legislation on la guerrilla during the Peninsular War 137 Vittorio Scotti-Douglas 8 The Pen and the Sword: Political Catechisms and Resistance to Napoleon 161 Emilie Delivré vii
viii Contents 9 The Patriotism of the Russian Army in the Patriotic or Fatherland War of 1812 181 Janet Hartley 10 Popular Resistance in Napoleonic Europe: Issues and Perspectives 201 Charles J. Esdaile Index 225
List of Figures 7.1 Combatants in la guerrilla analyzed by status 129 7.2 Combatants in la guerrilla analyzed by year and status, 1808 14 130 7.3 Commandants as a percentage of combatants in la guerrilla, 1808 14 131 7.4 Combatants in la guerrilla analyzed by year, 1808 14 131 7.5 Combatants in la guerrilla analyzed by region, 1808 14 132 7.6 Commandants in la guerrilla analyzed by region, 1808 14 132 7.7 Combatants in la guerrilla analyzed by occupation, 1808 14 133 7.8 Combatants in la guerrilla analyzed by professional group, 1808 14 134 7.9 Combatants in la guerrilla analyzed by estate, 1808 14 134 7.10 Members of four different categories of armed force in la guerrilla, 1808 14 135 ix
Preface The papers contained in this volume of essays were originally presented at a symposium held in the School of History in the University of Liverpool in September 2003. One of a series of bi-annual meetings of scholars working on the Napoleonic period, it was funded by the British Academy, the London branch of the Instituto de Cervantes and the University of Liverpool, and to all of these organizations I should like to extend my special thanks. To all the contributors, too, I am most grateful: they have been models of patience and hard work and have in a number of cases withstood the assaults of an all too heavy editorial hand with grace and good humour. If any of them are to be singled out, it should be my research assistant, Leonor Hernández Enviz, whose diligence, efficiency and sense of responsibility is the foundation of much that is contained within these pages. Behind the scenes, meanwhile, there stand my Head of School, Professor Pauline Stafford; our devoted School Administrator, Val Fry; and, at Palgrave Macmillan, Luciana O Flaherty and Daniel Bunyard. Last but not least, there come my family: without their support and love none of this would have ever happened. Liverpool CHARLES ESDAILE x
Acknowledgement With regard to the jacket picture, which is here published for the first time, special thanks are due to the owner, Ilustrísimo Señor Don Antonio Gómez de Olea Nevada, Marqués de Velascó, who has kindly given his permission for its reproduction, and to the latter s nephew, Teniente Coronel Don José Pardo de Figueroa, of the Spanish army s Escuela de Guerra, whose good offices have throughout been of inestimable help in this connection. As so often before, then, the author is deeply indebted to Spanish generosity. xi
Notes on Contributors Martin Boycott-Brown was for many years an English teacher in northern Italy. In 2002 he published The Road to Rivoli: Napoleon s First Campaign. Emilie Delivré is a doctoral student at the European University Institute in Florence. She is working on the subject of political catechism in the Age of Revolution, and has presented papers at a number of international conferences. Charles J. Esdaile is a Reader in History at the University of Liverpool. The author of numerous works on the Napoleonic period, including, most recently, The Peninsular War: a New History (2002), and Fighting Napoleon: Guerrillas, Bandits and Adventurers in Spain, 1808 14 (2004), he is currently working on an international history of Napoleonic Europe. Alan Forrest is a leading specialist on the French Revolution. He has a Chair in the Department of History at the University of York, and is the author of many works on the Revolution and its armies, including the seminal Napoleon s Men: the Soldiers of the Revolution and Empire (2002). Janet Hartley has a personal chair in the Department of International History at the London School of Economics. Britain s leading expert on Russia in the Napoleonic period, she is the author of Alexander I (1994). Leonor Hernández Enviz is a freelance researcher living in Madrid. She is the author of various conference papers on the Peninsular War, and is at present preparing a doctoral thesis at the Universidad Complutense. Antonio Moliner Prada is a professor at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona. A leading specialist on Spain and, especially, Catalonia, in the Napoleonic period, his many publications include La Catalunya Resistent a la Dominació Francesa, 1808 1812: la Junta Superior de Catalunya (Edicions 62, 1989), La Guerra del Francés a Mallorca, 1808 1814 (2000) and La Guerrilla en la Guerra de la Independencia (2004). xii
Notes on Contributors xiii Michael Rowe was until the summer of 2004 a lecturer in History at Queen s University, Belfast. As this work was going to press, however, he was appointed to a lectureship at King s College, London. The editor of a collection of essays on Napoleonic Europe that was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2003, in the same year he also published From Reich to State: the Rhineland in the Revolutionary Age, 1780 1830 (2003). Vittorio Scotti-Douglas is a senior fellow at the University of Trieste and is the editor of the historical journal, Spagna Contemporanea. An expert on the contents of the Archivo General de Simancas, he has published a variety of articles and conference papers on the Peninsular War.