Soldier Emperor
Spain in the Napoleonic Wars, Part 1
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
January 2023

As the French Revolution brought a new age of turmoil to Europe, Spain stood on the brink of losing her Great Power status. During the 1740’s, Spain’s King Philip V and his queen, Elisabeth Farnese, had been driving forces in the upheaval of the War of the Austrian Succession as they attempted to carve out Italian kingdoms for their sons. But defeat in the Seven Years’ War, economic decline within Spain, the steady dwindling of the gold and silver treasures of the Spanish colonies and a feckless monarch all brought Spanish power to a low ebb.

King Charles IV had little interest in ruling, while his wife Maria Luisa ha a great deal. In 1792 she used her influence to install her favorite, the 25-year-old former Royal Guard Manuel Godoy, as First Secretary (the equivalent of Prime Minister). While it’s unlikely that Godoy had become the queen’s lover – though only 41, she appears to have been afflicted with premature menopause – Maria Luisa appreciated young Manuel’s quick wit and skills with guitar and voice.

Under the previous regime, the Spanish government had tried to replace the lost wealth of the American mines with a mercantilist trade system, one that would keep the produce of the colonies within the Spanish Empire. The flow of silver continued, though at a reduced rate, but tobacco and sugar grew in importance. Most Spanish ports gained the right to trade with the colonies, and goods would then be trans-shipped to the rest of Europe.

That emphasis brought tension with Britain, which used its naval power to threaten interference with Spanish trade while British merchants engaged in widespread smuggling that undermined the Spanish tax regime. The king’s father, Charles III, had responded with a slow but steady shipbuilding program. The cost-effective royal yard at Havana not only had slave labor for many tasks, but could draw on the vast tropical forests of Spanish America for stout teak and mahogany, with plentiful Mexican pine for masts and yards.

Ship of the line Pelayo (foreground) comes to the aid of Santisima Trinidad.

Even if Havana and the smaller shipyard at El Ferrol in Spain could churn out enough ships of the line and frigates to match the Royal Navy’s numbers, the Spanish navy would never be able to crew them. Spain’s maritime economy simply did not train nearly as many sailors as that of Britain. And so Spanish naval bureaucrats looked to superiority of type since they could not have superiority of numbers. Individual Spanish ships of the line would be huge, with the mighty four-decker Santisima Trinidad becoming the symbol of the revived Armada.

Thanks in large part to the rebuilt fleet, Spain waged a successful war against Britain in support of the American revolutionaries. This laid down a formula of great power politics that would hold for the next decades: Spain and France were no match for Britain at sea individually, but when combined they could equal or possibly exceed British sea power. The “Family Pact” between the two Bourbon monarchies had a practical side as well.

That pact came apart when the French revolutionaries overthrew and imprisoned King Louis XVI. Spain remained neutral, as Godoy tried to negotiate the release of the French king into exile. When the revolutionaries chopped off Louis’ head, Godoy yielded to pressure from the court and the general public, declaring war on France.

The war did not go well. The mass-levied armies of the French lacked skill but had a great deal of enthusiasm; the Spanish regulars had neither. The French invaded Spain at either end of the Pyrenees mountain chain dividing the two countries, and in July 1795 Godoy – also the foreign minister – made peace with the French. French armies evacuated Spain, and in exchange Godoy yielded Santo Domingo, the Spanish half of the island of Hispaniola. Both the Spanish courtiers and Spain’s allies of the First Coalition panned the deal, but Charles IV declared himself pleased and rewarded Godoy with the title “Prince of Peace.”

The Prince of Peace delivers peace to Charles IV. Pau Montana, 1796.

Britain responded to perceived Spanish treachery with noises about seizing the convoys bringing silver and other goods from the Americas to Spain. With a diplomatic channel now open (through the Swiss), Godoy began discussions on restoring a version of the Family Pact to counter British aggression. Those moved to open talks held in Spain, and the alliance became official in August 1796. This would be a full offensive and defensive alliance, though it did not prohibit either party from making a separate peace with their enemies.

Britain responded with a declaration of war and a blockade of Spanish ports. The Spanish Armada promptly lost a major fleet engagement off Cape St. Vincent, but otherwise the Spanish repelled British assaults on Tenerife in the Canary Islands and at Cadiz and El Ferrol on the mainland. While the Navy had a conservative character, the Spanish Army had been a refuge for young progressives who dominated its officer corps. Alignment with the French revolutionaries, for the moment, had the army’s approval.

Spain took the offensive in 1801, with Godoy assuming personal command of 60,000 men for an invasion of neighboring Portugal – Britain’s last ally in continental Europe. The Prince of Peace proved to have no talent for war, and the campaign moved slowly despite a massive Spanish preponderance in numbers. Godoy did personally pick oranges within Portuguese territory and send them to the queen, giving the conflict its odd title of “War of the Oranges.”

The Prince of Peace eventually negotiated an end to the conflict that resulted in Portugal breaking its alliance with Britain, barring British goods from its ports and ceding some minor border territories to Spain. Soon afterwards, Godoy helped bring about the Peace of Amiens which brought a general end to hostilities in Europe.

It would be the British who shattered the peace. From the start, the British reneged on some of their obligations, failing to withdraw from Egypt and Malta. French royalists congregated in England, and the English press conducted a virulently anti-French campaign. In May 1803 the British seized all French and Dutch merchant ships in British ports, the French retaliated by arresting all male British citizens found on French territory between the ages of 18 and 60, and the British retaliated to that with a declaration of war.

In Madrid, Godoy and Charles IV were none too eager to re-activate their French alliance and return to war. But the British made that decision for them in October, attacking a squadron of four Spanish frigates bringing silver from Buenos Aires without awaiting a declaration of war. The Spanish Navy, alongside the French, suffered a crushing defeat a year later at the Battle of Trafalgar.

In 1806 and 1807 a bizarre, unauthorized campaign by British commanders at the Cape of Good Hope to invade and capture Buenos Aires – the trans-shipment point for Andean silver headed to Spain – was beaten off by local forces. That victory actually decreased the Spanish crown’s prestige, since local forces had had to mobilize themselves to repel the invaders.

The setback at Trafalgar encouraged the Portuguese to throw off their agreements with Godoy and return to the British alliance. When Napoleon, now Emperor of the French, tried to implement his Continental System barring British goods from Europe, Godoy briefly withdrew, then agreed to help the French enforce their economic will on Portugal. To allay the Emperor’s distrust, Godoy also had to provide a division of Spanish troops for occupation duty in Denmark and northern Germany.

Spain’s Royal Regiment of Miners and Sappers, and their dog, on the march.

A French army led by Jean-Andoche Junot marched across Spain to invade Portugal, assisted by 25,000 Spanish troops. A secret agreement partitioned Portugal into a duchy in the north ruled by the 8-year-old grandson of Charles IV, a central zone including Lisbon occupied by the French, and a principality in the south for the Prince of Peace himself.

The Prince of Peace needed an escape route, as his position in Madrid rapidly crumbled. Crown Prince Ferdinand led a failed, possibly French-backed coup against Charles IV in October 1807. The king eventually pardoned his son, while the other conspirators were found not guilty, but the entire incident greatly weakened the royal government’s legitimacy. In particular, a letter from Charles IV to Napoleon requesting French assistance appears to have convinced the Emperor of the French that his Spanish ally had to be replaced.

Many of the Spanish people agreed; the presence of French troops in the country only added to the unpopularity of the king and the Prince of Peace. In March, a crowd of soldiers and peasants captured Godoy and demanded that the king fire him; when Charles IV agreed, a palace coup toppled him and placed Ferdinand on the throne. Napoleon summoned both father and son to Bayonne in southern France for mediation, where he informed them that they had both abdicated the throne in his favor, and that Napoleon would pass the Spanish crown to his elder brother, Joseph.

And then things went really wrong.

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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published a great many books, games and articles on historical subjects; people are saying that some of them are actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children, and his new puppy. He misses his Iron Dog, Leopold.

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