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'Barbarity more suited to Savages': British Soldiers’ Views of Spanish and Portuguese Violence during the Peninsular War, 1808–1814
Citation
Daly, G, 'Barbarity more suited to Savages': British Soldiers' Views of Spanish and Portuguese Violence during the Peninsular War, 1808-1814, War and Society, 35, (4) pp. 242-258. ISSN 0729-2473 (2016) [Refereed Article]
Copyright Statement
Copyright 2016 School of Humanities & Social Sciences, The University of New South Wales
DOI: doi:10.1080/07292473.2016.1244920
Abstract
This article explores British soldiers’ reactions to the violence that Iberian
soldiers, guerrillas and civilians perpetrated against wounded French soldiers
and prisoners of war during the Peninsular War. Whilst they saw this violence as
retaliatory, and sympathized with the suffering of the occupied, British soldiers
were shocked, disturbed and outraged, often leading them to self-identify with
their very enemy — the French. On one level, this violence was seen as a
fundamental violation of customary rules of war. Yet further, in British minds
it revealed a deeper Iberian culture of violence and way of war, which set the
Iberian peoples apart from ‘civilized’ nations.
Item Details
| Item Type: | Refereed Article |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | atrocities, Britain, British army, Iberia, Peninsular War, Napoleonic Wars, violence |
| Research Division: | History and Archaeology |
| Research Group: | Historical Studies |
| Research Field: | British History |
| Objective Division: | Expanding Knowledge |
| Objective Group: | Expanding Knowledge |
| Objective Field: | Expanding Knowledge through Studies of Human Society |
| UTAS Author: | Daly, G (Dr Gavin Daly) |
| ID Code: | 115010 |
| Year Published: | 2016 |
| Web of Science® Times Cited: | 2 |
| Deposited By: | Humanities |
| Deposited On: | 2017-03-06 |
| Last Modified: | 2018-03-13 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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