The Fatal Knot
eBook - ePub

The Fatal Knot

The Guerrilla War in Navarre and the Defeat of Napoleon in Spain

  1. 247 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

The Fatal Knot

The Guerrilla War in Navarre and the Defeat of Napoleon in Spain

About this book

John Tone recounts the dramatic story of how, between 1808 and 1814, Spanish peasants created and sustained the world's first guerrilla insurgency movement, thereby playing a major role in Napoleon's defeat in the Peninsula War. Focusing on the army of Francisco Mina, Tone offers new insights into the origins, motives, and successes of these first guerrilla forces by interpreting the conflict from the long-ignored perspective of the guerrillas themselves.

Only months after Napoleon's invasion in 1807, Spain seemed ready to fall: its rulers were in prison or in exile, its armies were in complete disarray, and Madrid had been occupied. However, the Spanish people themselves, particularly the peasants of Navarre, proved unexpectedly resilient. In response to impending defeat, they formed makeshift governing juntas, raised new armies, and initiated a new kind of people's war of national liberation that came to be known as guerrilla warfare. Key to the peasants' success, says Tone, was the fact that they possessed both the material means and the motives to resist. The guerrillas were neither bandits nor selfless patriots but landowning peasants who fought to protect the old regime in Navarre and their established position within it.

from the book: "That unfortunate war destroyed me; it divided my forces, multiplied my obligations, undermined my morale. . . . All the circumstances of my disasters are bound up in that fatal knot.--Napoleon Bonaparte on the Spanish war

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Yes, you can access The Fatal Knot by John Lawrence Tone in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & European History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover Page
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Contents
  5. Acknowledgments
  6. Introduction
  7. 1. Guerrilla Country
  8. 2. Economy and Politics in Navarre
  9. 3. The Invasion and Revolution of 1808
  10. 4. The Failure of Revolution in Navarre
  11. 5. The Land Pirates
  12. 6. The Division of Navarre
  13. 7. Rebuilding the Division
  14. 8. The Guerrilla Kingdom
  15. 9. Why Navarre Fought
  16. Epilogue
  17. Notes
  18. Bibliography
  19. Index