page_title: Spanish invasion of Portugal (1762)
section_title: Collapse of Franco-Spanish army
hierarchical_section_title: Spanish invasion of Portugal (1762) / Invasions / Second invasion of Portugal (Beira) / Collapse of Franco-Spanish army
context_page_description: The Spanish invasion of Portugal between 5 May and 24 November 1762 was a main military episode of the wider Seven Years' War, where Spain and France were heavily defeated by the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance. It initially involved the forces of Spain and Portugal, before the French and British intervened in the conflict on the side of their respective allies. The war was also strongly marked by a national guerrilla warfare in the mountainous country, cutting off supplies from Spain, and a hostile peasantry that enforced a scorched earth policy as the invading armies approached, leaving the invaders starving and short of military supplies.
  During the first invasion, 22,000 Spaniards commanded by Nicolás de Carvajal, Marquis of Sarria, entered the Province of Alto Trás-os-Montes having Oporto as their ultimate goal. After occupying some fortresses they were confronted with a national uprising. Taking advantage of the mountainous terrain, the guerrilla bands inflicted heavy losses on the invaders and practically cut off their communication lines with Spain, causing a shortage of essential supplies.
context_section_description: During the retreat, the Franco-Spanish army – weakened by hunger, disease, and torrential rains – collapsed. Thousands defected (the Portuguese government was offering 1, 600 reis for each Spanish soldier who deserted and 3,000 reis to those who enlisted in the Portuguese Army), while their stragglers and wounded suffered a slaughter at the hands of the peasants:
  "... Yesterday and the day before, I spent passports to 45 [Spanish] deserters; and taking into consideration what they tell us, the Spanish army fell into the abyss; they talk of 7,000 deserters, 12 000 men sick in hospitals, in addition to the many who have died (letter of 27 October) ... and [the number of deserters] would be higher, they say, if they were not afraid of [being killed by] our irregulars (letter of 31 October)."
  — (letters sent by Miguel de Arriaga – the army’s secretary – to the Portuguese prime minister, Marquis of Pombal, during the chase of the remnants of the Franco-Spanish army).
  The Scottish Colonel John Hamilton wrote in a letter dated 24 October 1762, that the army of Charles III was in a "most ruinous shattered condition", while Lippe would add in his Mémoir (1770) that the Bourbon army was "decimated by starvation, desertion and disease", his cavalry suffering a "debacle". The total losses of the Franco-Spanish army during the first two invasions of Portugal -according to a report of British ambassador in Portugal, Edward Hay, to Pitt’s successor, the 2nd Earl of Egremont (8 November 1762)-, was around 30,000 men (half of them deserters, many of whom became prisoners), representing almost three quarters of the initial invading army.
  More recently, French historian Isabelle Henry wrote about these losses: "Disappointed, facing incredible resistance and losing everything in the field, the Spaniards abandoned the fight and left behind twenty-five thousand men ..."
  For its part, the American historian Edmund O'Callaghan estimated that the Spanish army had already lost half of their men even before withdrawing: "Harrassed , dispirited, and reduced to almost one half of their original numbers, the Spanish troops retired within their own frontier".
  Spanish military historian José Tertón Ponce wrote that since the beginning of the first invasion of Portugal up to the middle of the second invasion – immediately before the Bourbon retreat from Abrantes – the invading army had already suffered 20,000 casualties. There were additional losses during the retreat and third invasion.
  Dumouriez, who traveled into Portugal and Spain, collecting testimonies from participants in the invasion of 1762, reported to Madrid and Paris, in 1766, that the Spaniards had lost 15,000 men during the second invasion of Portugal (province of Beira), plus 10,000 soldiers during the first invasion of Portugal (Province of Trás-os-Montes), of whom 4,000 died in the Hospital of Braganza of injuries and sickness. This chronicler makes no estimate of the Spanish casualties in the third invasion of Portugal (province of Alentejo). The Franco-Spanish disaster was summarily captured in these much quoted contemporary words:
  "... the Court of Spain ordered 40,000 men to march into Portugal (p. 247)... The Spanish forces, when they arrived at the frontier, were reduced to 25,000 men, and never did troops experience a more horrible campaign [2nd invasion]. The sick and the stragglers were almost all of them massacred by the peasants ... the ill-success of the campaign in Portugal; it covered Spain with dishonour, and exhausted her to such a degree as to keep her quiet till the peace (p. 254)."
  — (Excerpt from the report of French General Dumouriez, who came to Portugal to study the causes of the Franco-Spanish defeat and develop an effective new plan to attack Portugal. His report was presented to the Spanish king in November 1766 by the French ambassador Ossun, who omitted the passages of the text that mentioned the effectiveness of the Portuguese guerrillas over the Spaniards. It was also sent to the French foreign minister Choiseul).
  Comparatively, during the Napoleonic campai
caption: Napoleon's withdrawal from Russia, a painting by Adolph Northen. The Russians in 1812, similarly to the Anglo-Portuguese in 1762, did not need to win one single battle to defeat the invading army -Indeed, they lost all the battles and all the main cities of the Russian empire (including Moscow).Yet, and again like the Anglo-Portuguese in 1762 and 1810,[152][153] the Russians, using a scorched-earth policy and the guerrillas to disrupt the enemy's supply lines, compelled Napoleon to retreat with an even greater proportional loss than that experienced by Aranda in Portugal in 1762.
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