weak and weedy privates, my national pride was humbled.” This was in light of the French army’s composition of inexperienced military conscripts, a stark contrast to the composition of the army commanded by Napoleon in the East or at the Battles of Austerlitz and Ulm. The guerrilla nature of war in Spain meant that by the time the war was in full swing Napoleon’s troops who had conquered Austerlitz and Jena previously were now dead. Furthermore “simultaneously, troop quality declined further as veterans suffered some of the nearly 100,000 casualties sustained in the peninsular” (James Arnold) Despite this “No matter how grave affairs became in Spain Napoleon considered them of secondary importance” according to Lachoque. This was illustrated by a letter from Napoleon to his brother Joseph on the 15th of January where he stated “If nothing prevents it, I shall return towards the end of February… The court of Vienna is behaving badly. They shall live to regret it. Don’t worry about anything.” Napoleon’s letter clearly shows how the war in the Peninsular was not of primary importance to him, so much so that he left his brother, an inexperienced military leader in charge which further illustrates how easy the war should have been to win. This gives more validity to Lachoque’s argument. Also this meant that Napoleon once again began to reduce the number of veterans in the Peninsula in order to face the “Principal danger” which “lay in the east” and this identifies Napoleon’s dismissal of the threat from both the Guerrillas and Wellington. Soon “…the empire was obliged to recruit less skilled men, so that infantry tactics were at once less sophisticated and more wasteful in terms of lives. In battle troops were used increasingly to batter a way through the enemy lines, whilst artillery were used in greater quantities” according to Goodlad. This meant that the French in the Peninsular would experience a constant lack of resources, constant uncertainty and constant threat. Consequently the British would see Spain liberated by 1814 and Napoleon defeated finally in 1815. Per contra, Napoleon’s underestimation of opposition became far more >