Napoleon in 1812

The place where Napoleon Bonaparte celebrated New Year’s Day in 1813 in this world was the the Palace of Madrid, in the former capital of the Spanish kingdom.

Charles V^[1], king of the Holy Roman Empire and king of the Spanish Kingdom, had had the most crowns and titles in European history as a result of marriages.

Philip II^[2], who succeeded him in Spain’s heyday, moved the capital of his kingdom from Toledo to Madrid.

Madrid had since evolved over 250 years as the political, economic, administrative and cultural center of the Spanish kingdom.

The suburban war that burned our lands and took away our families is a great ordeal throughout the kingdom. Despair! The five-color kingdom flag is losing its light every minute, and the lion’s symbol of the royal family is getting worn out!

But the palace of El Cid will not lose its splendor and grandeur, but will burn the heart of the kingdom forever! Wise citizens should always remember their longing for the glorious past of their country!

It was the main character’s line from the Spanish modern literary work ‘El Gasco’s Youth’. As everyone knew, the country mentioned in this work was Spain, the suburban war meant the war on the Iberian Peninsula, and the palace of El Cid was Madrid.

‘El Gasco’ expressed the contents of the work by comparing it to reality, like resistance literature to enlighten and inspire people, and the palace of El Cid was described as still alive despite the fact that the entire kingdom was sucked into the ravages of war.

Coincidentally, so did Madrid’s palace. Napoleon, who was drying his sweat in the winter wind after finishing his early morning exercise to take care of himself, unconsciously scanned the image of Madrid’s royal palace.

There had been several fierce battles between the French and the coalition to capture Madrid.

However, the luxurious palace, built by Philip II himself, was not damaged at all, as if it had escaped from the fires of war. He looked at the sun beginning to rise in this new year, the high-rise terrace of the palace, the glass dome cupola, and the tricolor flag fluttering in the wind.

It was truly an astonishing sight. It was a magnificent view that could only be found in intact buildings with history, tradition, and culture.

“Have you finished today’s exercise, Your Majesty? I’m done preparing for the bath and cleansing.”

Baron Fain, Napoleon’s chief secretary, came out of the morning service at Almudena Cathedral, a cathedral inside the Madrid Palace.

As Napoleon woke up early every day and exercised at dawn, Baron Fain and the other secretaries also woke up earlier.

Their faces were covered with fatigue, which Napoleon always felt sorry for.

“I will take a bath after breakfast.”

“I see. Then I’ll tell the chef to prepare the meal first.”

Baron Fain handed him a towel to wipe off his sweat and disappeared with quick steps. Napoleon briefly fell into sentimentality as he wiped away the sweat from the dawn exercise.

It had been half a year since he was pushed into this damn world. In that short and long time Napoleon really did a lot of things.

He immediately stopped the delusions of Nabot, the original owner of this body, and prevented a catastrophe by subduing the Empire of the frozen lands on the battlefield.

Since then, the government had carried out reforms to remove the accumulated and stagnant evils inside France, and had rebuilt the nation’s foundation by achieving innovation for national progress and development.

He had appointed again François Carnot and Lizarmont Victor Colin, and those who were demoted by Nabot’s stubbornness returned to their original positions.

The defeat of the Allies and the advancement of Iberia’s front line was also one of Napoleon’s achievements.

The days that he spent trying to revitalize old and sick France passed by…

Napoleon still felt lacking. The enemy remained strong and the future of France was still overshadowed by dark clouds.

‘I still don’t know what the being who sent me here wished for. But as the French leader, there’s only one thing I can do.’

Napoleon greeted the guards with encouragement and salutes, and walked around the Madrid palace, where the cold air of dawn fell.

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Napoleon was headed for the multipurpose room of the Madrid Palace in the time remaining until breakfast was ready.

Followed by secretaries and guards, he passed through the central hall and entered the room. In the middle of the table was a map of the Iberian Peninsula, full of complex notes, information papers, and orders.

This was the masterpiece that Napoleon and his staff had suffered for nearly two months to complete, in order to launch a punitive operation against the guerrilla units belonging to the Spanish Resistance.

Napoleon, who briefly removed some complicated notes, reached out to new letters and reports that had arrived here overnight and were waiting to be opened.

In order to suppress the resistance spread throughout the Iberian Peninsula, Napoleon came up with a strategy of organizing numerous detachment and support units and dispatching them to each province. Since there were so many detachment and scouts dispatched, he had a lot of reports to read from them.

‘Found traces of José de Palafox y Melci^[3], the deputy commander of the Spanish Resistance, in Calatayud.’

‘In the Lohane Mountains, repelled the 11th Guerrilla Brigade of the Resistance, captured Caracas Bagane alive.’

‘Fought with coalition forces in Palensia, temporarily retreating. Their numbers are estimated to be about 12,000.’

He read them quickly and put the information in his head. There were both good news and bad news.

As soon he put the letters and reports aside on the table, the secretaries arranged them and began marking them on the central map of the Iberian Peninsula.

All of this was, in a word, preliminary work for intuitively understanding information across the peninsula.

This allowed him to infer how far the Resistance’s eradication had progressed so far, where the expected Resistance’s route was, and when they would meet the coalition forces for supply.

In the past, this huge map had been full of Burgundy’s crosses (the Spanish flag). But now much of the space was being replaced by tricolor flags.

‘Now I’m getting some outlines. I’ve never had such a muddy fight in my life.’

Napoleon sighed quietly as he saw additional details being added on the map of the peninsula whenever the secretaries’ hands moved. Fighting a battle with a hunter’s approach caused him considerable fatigue.

With the defeat of Wellesley’s Corps against Napoleon accross the Arlanzón River, the Allies lost the power to move to the north. Not missing that moment, Napoleon moved the corps of Suchet, Masséna, and Jourdan.

The other troops of the coalition lost their momentum and were pushed back incessantly after their main corps was defeated. As the corps of Suchet, Masséna, and Jourdan continued to advance to the south, the occupation of the peninsula was almost back to how it had been in early 1812.

The marshals wanted to end the war in one go by using this opportunity, but Napoleon rejected it without a second thought.

Napoleon also wanted to push down his enemies and take over the entire Iberian Peninsula to declare the end of the war at once, but he could not do it like this. It was because of the existence of the Spanish resistance forces in the shadows.

‘I order all troops sent to the peninsula. Expanding the front line across the country is forbidden until all guerrilla units present in the occupied territory are destroyed. Maintain the front line based on the main stronghold and fortress!’

To hunt wolves, they had first to limit their radius of action and narrow the front line a little bit.

The Napoleon-style guerrilla operation, which had been prepared since the beginning of the expedition, resembled the hunter’s way to hunt wolf.

Napoleon, who had been observing and analyzing the Iberian war for a considerable amount of time since the end of the war with Russia, decided that it was required to overthrow the Spanish resistance to win this war, and acted in that sense.

The guerrilla warfare, a brutal irregular warfare, targeting the supply units at the rear was very painful to the French army.

But the cooperation and solidarity of the Spanish people themselves were even deadlier. The terrible antipathy, hatred, anger of the Spanish people towards France… The resistance had been growing by eating those feelings.

The people fully provided the resistance with their supplies and information, and some even joined them directly with guns.

In fact, the entire Spanish country had become enemies of the French and Napoleon. The card that Napoleon pulled out to break this situation was ‘division’.

The majority of the Spanish people were waving anti-French flags, but in fact, the number of people cheering for the revolution and transformation brought by the French army was not small.

Napoleon actively recruited them. He seduced those who wanted money with money, titles with titles, and honor with honor.

They were willing to be loyal to France for noble convictions or for their own personal achievement. Napoleon even started a loyalty competition.^[4]

The intelligence and infiltration capabilities of spies composed of locals were different from those of outside spies. They handed over information about the Spanish resistance forces when they were offered a heavy reward.

If the Spanish resistance launched guerrilla operations with the help of the anti-French population, Napoleon could wipe their units out with the help of hired pro-French locals.

These pro-French locals were, of course, treated as traitors in the Spanish community and were extremely ostracized.

If they were caught handing over information to the French, they would often be severely punished by a people’s court. And this was also what Napoleon wanted.

‘Continuous doubt, conflict, and division. The realization that your enemies are not the French, but the neighbours living next to you.’

The more ruthless the anti-French oppression of pro-French people, the more extreme the confrontation between the two sides. The Spanish Resistance would no longer be able to trust their people (to be precise, the pro-French locals hiding among the people).

The conflicts opposing France to Britain, Spain and Portugal would intensify into conflicts opposing France and pro-French Spain to Britain, Portugal and anti-French Spain. This was the ultimate goal of Napoleon’s strategy.

“This is the result of doing everything we could to clean up those barbaric swarms of mosquitoes. I couldn’t do otherwise for the French victory, but… it’s quite sad.”

Seeds of indelible division were now being sown among the Spanish people. There was also news that the Spanish were stabbing each other in the areas occupied by the French army.

Now even if the war ended, Spain would still go through endless conflicts with unsealed wounds. Maybe even a civil war would break out.

In the other world, Spain was able to reign as a European power with huge overseas colonies in friendly relations with France.

However, the damage and devastation of the Iberian Peninsula war in Spain were too great. The aftereffects would devour the whole country.

Napoleon had once cared and loved the people of Spain so much that he thought of them as a second nation. But now for those people, he became the one who caused the worst disaster.

Perhaps the Spanish people would later think of Napoleon as the devil. Napoleon was really sorry about this reality.

“If Nabot hadn’t been foolishly greedy, this war, tragic for both countries, would not have happened in the first place. It’s too bitter to be the result of one individual’s wrong choice.”

Napoleon remembered the year that had past.

[1] Charles V

[2] Philip II

[3] José de Palafox y Melci

[4] I don’t know if this is clear enough, it means that Napoleon competed again the Spanish resistance to gain the loyalty of the locals.