Catalonia against Napoleon: anti-French resistance 1808–1814
Kosykh Tatiana
In February 1808 French troops arrived in Barcelona as allies of Spain. However, the goodwill and hospitality of the locals soon gave way to suspicion and then hatred of the French, which by the summer of that year had led to mass anti-French movements throughout Catalonia. The article focuses on the formation of anti-French resistance in Catalonia in 1808, the role of the religious factor in anti-French uprisings, and the specifics of the activities of irregular armed units – somatenes and miqueletes. Based on the texts of chronicles, reports, and memoirs of French and Spanish contemporaries, the author addresses the specifics of the perception of somatenes and miqueletes, as well as the assessment of their actions from the point of view of their compatriots and representatives of the enemy army. The text of the Catalan priest Raymundo Ferrer’s chronicle, reflects the Spanish view of the Catalan militias, which connected with the glorification of the somatenes and miqueletes. However, Ferrer’s chronicle does not fully reflect the problems of recruitment into the ranks of the militias, issues of discipline and desertion among the somatenes and miqueletes. The opposite assessment of the activities of the somatenes and miqueletes is reflected in French sources, which present the Catalan volunteers as armed bandits and robbers. An appeal to the phenomenon of the somatenes and miqueletes in the conditions of the Peninsular War of 1808-1814 shows that traditional types of armed detachments were successfully at the beginning of the war, but found themselves in a state of crisis in the conditions of prolonged military actions and the French occupation of Catalonia.
The study is sponsored by the Russian Science Foundation, project № 23–18–00011 «Popular Anti-Revolution in Mediterranean 1792–1814».
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