Peninsular Eyewitnesses by Charles Esdaile

Author:Charles Esdaile [Esdaile, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Modern, 19th Century, Military, General
ISBN: 9781473817159
Google: X11TAwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2008-09-30T00:27:53+00:00

To add to the general horror, the civilians who had remained beyond the protection of the Lines responded to the brutality with which they were treated in kind. From the very beginning of the campaign the existence of both a substantial force of local militia and the irregular home-guard known as the Ordenança ensured that the French encountered much irregular resistance. But the straits to which the inhabitants of such towns as Santarem were driven ensured that the French were assailed by a genuine ‘people’s war’:

In front of an isolated house we found … four bodies hanging from a tree. On going inside a hideous spectacle confronted us. On a wall was nailed up the newly flayed skin of a man. Underneath was written in Portuguese, Trench dragoon skinned alive for hanging our brothers.’271

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