Spain marks bicentenary of French war

MADRID - Spain celebrates the bicentenary Friday of the 1808-1814 Peninsular War, which ousted Napoleon's troops from the country but also sparked the loss of Madrid's empire in the Americas.
Exhibitions, reenactments, concerts and a film are planned to mark the anniversary throughout the country, but particularly in Madrid, where on May 2, 1808 thousands of citizens rose up against the French army of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Napoleon, who by then controled much of continental Europe, sent his troops into Spain in late 1807 on the pretext of supporting an invasion of Portugal.
But he quickly alienated the nation by usurping the Spanish throne for his brother Joseph in April 1808.
The spontaneous and chaotic Madrid uprising was swiftly crushed by French troops, and hundreds of citizens were shot in retaliation. But the revolution spread throughout the country.
In August of that year, Britain sent a force into the Iberian Peninsula to support its new ally Spain.
On April 10, 1814 Britain's Duke of Wellington defeated the French at Toulouse in the last battle of a conflict known in Britain as the Peninsular War, in Spain as the War of Independence and in France as the Spanish War.
The partisan struggle conducted by the Spanish allowed the British to pursue a more conventional war against the stretched forces of Napoleon. It also introduced the word "guerrilla" into the English language.
"Without Wellington, Spain would have never won against Napoleon," said historian Ronald Fraser, author of the book "Napoleon's Cursed War."
"The guerrilla war was insufficient. Wellington commanded real armies, which were required to defeat Napoleon."
The war contributed to Napoleon's abdication in 1814.
It also launched the notion of a "romantic" Spain, with partisans fighting for their freedom, a far cry from the image of the Conquistadors who ravaged South America, noted Professor Jose Alvarez Junco of Madrid's Complutense University.
But it also had unfortunate consequences for Spain, as its colonies in the Americas saw it as an opportunity to demand their independence.
Led by Simon Bolivar and Jose de San Martin, they rose up, and Spanish domination of South America was finally ended at the Battle of Ayachucho in Peru in 1824.
The war against the French also left Spain divided between the "afrancesados", who embraced the liberal ideas brought in from France, and the monarchists backed by a fundamentalist clergy.
And it led to the restoration of royal absolutism under King Ferdinand VII.
After the war came "the return of the most infamous king in Spanish history, Fernando VII, the abolition of constitutional rights, and the crushing proof that Spaniards got their enemies confused in 1808," Spanish writer Arturo Perez Reverte said in an article in the newspaper El Pais.
Reverte is the curator of a special exhibition on the Madrid uprising based on his book "A Day of Anger."
Two of Francisco de Goya's most emblematic paintings depicting the revolt-- "The Second of May, 1808: The Charge of the Mamelukes" and "The Third of May, 1808: The Execution of the Defenders of Madrid" -- have also been restored for a special exhibition at Madrid's Prado Museum.
The "Third of May" painting will also be re-created in a Madrid street spectacular that incorporates music, dance and theatre to reenact the uprising.
King Juan Carlos, Queen Sofia, other members of the royal family and Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero will also attend a ceremony on Friday in the Madrid suburb of Mostoles, where the revolt began.