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At Vitoria, Spain, a formidable allied force comprising British, Portuguese, and Spanish troops, led by British General Arthur Wellesley, achieved a decisive victory over the French, effectively bringing the Peninsular War to a close.
The conflict began on February 16, 1808, when French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Spain under the guise of sending reinforcements to the French army in Portugal. This marked a significant phase of the Napoleonic Wars, which raged across Europe from 1792 to 1815. In the early stages of the invasion, French forces swiftly captured Pamplona and Barcelona, forcing King Charles IV of Spain to abdicate on March 19. Just four days later, the French entered Madrid under the command of Joachim Murat. In May, Madrid revolted, sparking a general anti-French uprising throughout the Iberian Peninsula.
In August, a British expeditionary force commanded by Arthur Wellesley, later known as the Duke of Wellington, landed along the Portuguese coast with the aim of expelling the French from the Iberian Peninsula. While Portugal was successfully liberated by mid-1809, Spain proved to be a more challenging adversary. The subsequent years witnessed a protracted series of campaigns, marked by alternating fortunes, between the French and British forces in Spain. The British were assisted by Spanish irregular units called guerrillas.
Finally, on June 21, 1813, an allied army of 80,000 troops led by Wellesley decisively defeated the 66,000-strong forces of Joseph Bonaparte and Marshal Jourdan at Vitoria, located 175 miles northeast of Madrid. By October, the entire Iberian Peninsula had been liberated, prompting Wellesley to launch an invasion of France. The allied forces advanced into France and reached as far as Toulouse when news of Napoleon's abdication in April 1814 reached them, effectively bringing an end to the Peninsular War.
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