Includes bibliographical references (pages 412-416).

Introduction (Napoleon's Europe, 1807 ; Arms and the men) -- The French initiative, October 1807-May 1809 (Napoleonic aggression ; British intervention ; Napoleon and Sir John Moore ; The second French invasion of Portugal) -- The war in the balance, June 1809-December 1811 (Talavera and Ocana ; Adalusia and the siege of Cadiz ; The third French invasion of Portugal ; The watershed) -- The British initiative, 1812 (The fortresses ; Salamanca ; Madrid and Burgos ; Retreat to Portugal) -- The liberation of Spain, January-September 1813 (Across the Ebro ; Vitoria ; San Sebastian and the Pyreness ; British operations on the east coast of Spain, 1812-1813) -- The invasion of France, October 1813-April 1814 (Across the Pyrenees ; Nive ; The occupation of Gascony ; Victory).

The Peninsular War is often eclipsed by the spectacular individual battles by sea and land of the Napoleonic Wars, but it was the decisive struggle in which the Emperor's troops faced defeat for the first time. Michael Glover seeks to give the basic skeleton of facts and to flesh it out with first-hand accounts of what it was like to march and fight, to eat and be wounded, to command and be commanded at the start of the 19th century. Stress is laid on the technological limitations of warfare during this period, when all the movement was limited to the pace of a heavily-laden infantryman moving across country.