The First Peninsular War, 1702-1713

444 Pages·1975·61.377 MB·English

by  David Francis

THE FIRST PENINSULAR WAR
1702 - 1713

The
First
War
Peninsular
-
1702
1713
DAVID FRANCIS
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS
NEW YORK
5
Copyright © DavidFrancis 19J
Allrights reserved
For information, write:
St. Martin's Press, Inc.
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Printed in Great Britain
Library ofCongress Catalog Card Number: 74-23033
Firstpublished in the United States ofAmerica in 1975
Preface
THIS work describes the events ofthe Peninsular part ofthe War
of the Spanish Succession and their background.
The cost of the war in Spain and Portugal did not fall far short
of that of Marlborough and Prince Eugene's war, particularly if
one debits it as one must with a sizeable share of the cost of the
fleet. It was an integral part of the war against the overweening
power of France, but for the two maritime powers the hope of
winning a larger share in the overseas trade with Spain was an
additional powerful motive. Nevertheless, the English and Dutch
undertook a land war in the Peninsula with misgivings; theywould
have preferred to confine the western half of the war to the sea,
and surprisingly enough neither the emperor nor the Archduke
Charles, who were the claimants to the crown of Spain, had much
interest in fighting there. They looked to the crown of Spain as a
means towards the conquest of Italy, more than as end in itself.
Consequently they as well as Britain and the United Provinces
regarded the peninsular campaigns as secondary to those in
Flanders, Germany, and Italy.
Historians have tended to follow suit, though English ones have
writtenagooddealaboutthedoingsofPeterboroughand Stanhope.
Some ofthe gaps have been filled by German writers, but French
works are comparativelyfew and there is notverymuch in Spanish
or Portuguese. The original sources are also patchy; Spain was
torn by civil war and such records as were kept by the short-lived
Court of King Charles have tended to be lost or dispersed. Most
of the fighting forces were far from home; communications were
bad and conditions not conducive to the keeping of regular
records. The contemporary records were written in six languages,
two more ifone counts Italian and Catalan, and this does not make
their co-ordination easy.
The historian cannot go back to original sources for every fact;
he must rely upon the standard works on his subject. But after the
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6 THE FIRST PENINSULAR WAR 1702-1713
standard accounts have been repeated several times, they tend to
diverge from the original and it is useful to check. When recent
published works are numerous, the main task is to co-ordinate
these, but when they are few or date from some time back, the
value ofconsulting the original sources is increased. For the war in
the Peninsula the principal English sources are the 3rd Earl
Stanhope and Parnell, amplified by Trevelyan, who himself dates
from thirty or forty years back; the principal German authors are
oflike vintage. The time seems to be ripe for a fresh account based
largely on the original sources. Fortunately the Stanhope papers
are more accessible than they used to be. The German sources
have largely been used by the Germans before, but I have gone
back to them, and have found some fresh material in Vienna and
Darmstadt, as also in the despatches of the Dutch and imperial
ministers at Lisbon and in English log-books, etc.
I have tried to build up a plain, coherent, and factual account of
what happened, when, where, how, and why, and to inform the
student as far as possible where the primary sources are to be
found. I have also tried to give some local colour, but accounts of
daily life by the rank-and-file are scarce, and most ofthe surviving
records are written by protagonists. I have drawn on such sources
by minor figures as I could find, but one would have to depart
from strict adherence to the documents and to resort to a little
fiction to give a fuller picture. This can be done, and has been
done well, for instance, by Philip Woodruff (Mason) in Colonel of
Dragoons, a fictional account of the 1705-06 campaigns in Spain,
which is almost a documentary. I have not ventured to go so far.
I have written from the English standpoint, but have worked in
as far as possible the allied points ofview, and particularly that of
Portugal and of the Court of King Charles. In so doing I have
moved the focus a little from Stanhope and Peterborough, I have
not attempted to give an equally full account of the French and
Bourbon Spanish point of view; this would have been hard to
co-ordinate. French works on the subject are fewer than one
would expect and one must lean heavily on Baudrillart's Philippe
V et sa com. No doubt more original sources could eventually be
found in Paris or at Simancas, but they must be sparse, for
hitherto they have been little quoted.
Inthemany quotationsfrom contemporarylettersordocuments,
many of them translated from foreign languages, I have not kept
the original spelling or punctuation, but have modernized and
PREFACE
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sometimes abbreviated when this seemed called for; on the other
hand, I have preserved contemporary idiom, when this seemed
required, for the flavour.
All dates are in new style unless otherwise designated.
London, A.D.F.
April 1974