The+Peninsular+War

= The Peninsular War = = = = With the thought of what will happen after his death, Napoleon was always worried about who will be the next king to maintain his empires strength. His current wife Josephine failed to bear him a child, because of this he divorced and married Marie Louise. She gave birth to his son, Napoleon II who later became king of Rome. The start to Napoleons Empires Downfall started when he developed the continental system. Napoleon set up a blockade to prevent all trade and communication between Great Britain and France. Napoleon's blockade wasent strong enough, British smugglers brought cargo from Britain into Europe. Britain in return set up their own blockade which was much stronger because they had a stronger navy. = = In 1808 Napoleon made a second costly mistake, In an effort to get Portugal to accept the Continental System, he sent an invasion force through Spain. Napoleon removed the Spanish king because Spanish people protested against his actions. Napoleon proclaimed his brother Joseph king of Spain Several days later. The Spanish were all very upset and cautious of his actions due to napoleon’s previous history with France. He had previously run an attack through the Church and weakened their beliefs. For six years various Spanish peasant fighters also known as guerrillas, attacked French armies in Spain. These fighters would work in small group’s hat ambushed French that would fled into hide. Napoleon would go to lose about 300,000 during the Peninsular War. Due to the abused feeling of a foreign conquer the Spanish guerrillas, and others conquered for example the Germans and Italians, which lead to the invasion of Russia. As history would call Napoleon’s “most disastrous mistake.” With the help of Alexander I Russians seized all sales of grain to Britain. The French and Russians would also be suspicious of others having competing designs on Poland. With this Napoleon, would invade Russia. With this Alexander pulled his troops not willing to be lured in a unequal battle. With the retreat, the Russians would practice the scorched-earth policy, the policy that would involve the burning of grain fields and killing stock to leave the enemy to nourish.=

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