Bailén and a soggy Andalucia
Bailén is a small town in the Jaen province of Andalucia with a population of about 18,000. On a sodden Saturday morning it didn't look that interesting. We were there to check out another one in my series (a series of two and a half so far) of important Spanish battle sites. You may remember that Napoleon was a pretty successful military commander and that in his brief time as Emperor of France (1804-1815) his Grande Armeé gave most of the European powers a good hammering. The French Army got the reputation of being invincible, unstoppable. Of all the European armies that might stop the French in their tracks one of the most unlikely was the Spanish but that's exactly what happened. Napoleon had manged to install his brother on the Spanish throne and the Spaniards didn't like it. They were in open revolt and, what's more, they seemed determined not to fight fairly. The Spanish used what we now describe as guerilla tactics. It's a name that comes from the way...