Guerra Peninsular – Operações a partir de Trás-os-Montes (original) (raw)

The “Transmontanos” accomplished their mission in the protracted Peninsular War, from 1808 to 1814. They were among the first to have risen against the French invader, they helped in the national revolt, and they integrated the Portuguese Armed Forces both in all their different types of units, including first line troops, militias and “ordenanças”, and as part of spontaneous fighting groups, such as local guerrillas, or simply by defending their close ones. The majority of the fighters who imposed the first defeat on French troops in the Peninsular War at the Battle Padrões de Teixeira in June 1808 had come from Trás-os-Montes. They managed to take back the first Portuguese town to have been occupied, Chaves, in 1809 and in 1810 they were the first to have engaged in combat, beyond the Portuguese border, at Puebla de Sanabria/ Spain. Up until the end of the Peninsular War, the Transmontanos, together with the remaining national forces, fought side by side with their British allies to expel the French from Spain and even defeated them in France in 1814. Meanwhile, in their own region, they ensured that nobody would attack or pass through because, as nobody should even doubt, “beyond the Marão Mountains it is the Transmontanos who rule”. Keywords: Trás-os Montes; Uprising, Battles and Campaign.