Iberia Won; A poem descriptive of the Peninsular War

Iberia Won; A poem descriptive of the Peninsular War - With impressions from recent visits to the battle-grounds, and copious historical and illustrative notes

Of all the great achievements which make up the sum of British glory, the Peninsular War and its results form one of the grandest, brightest, and most unimpeachable. These gigantic efforts were made in the holy cause of Freedom; they were disinterested in a high and unparalleled degree; their success was uniform, brilliant, and startling; and their guerdon was the liberation and advancement of mankind. For six years England had constantly employed in the Spanish Peninsula from thirty to seventy thousand of her troops, who besides sustaining combats innumerable, took four great fortresses, attacked or defended in ten important sieges, and were decisively victorious in nineteen pitched battles, killing, wounding, or making prisoners, two hundred thousand of the enemy. She liberally subsidized Spain and Portugal, and maintained the troops of both countries, regular and irregular, with supplies of ammunition, clothing, and arms, while upon her own military operations she expended upwards of one hundred millions sterling. Twice she expelled the French from Portugal, and finally drove them from Spain besides, surmounting and winning step by step the terrific bulwark of the Pyrenees. With her naval squadrons she repeatedly harassed the Invader by well-combined descents upon the coasts, and rescued or preserved Lisbon and Cadiz, Alicante and Carthagena.[2] Her land forces tracked the enemy from Vimieiro to Busaco, from Busaco to Navarre, over some of the most frightfully broken ground in Europe, signally defeating them wherever they came in collision, and sweeping them at times like a wreck before the ocean-wave; and forty thousand of her children fell in the Peninsula to attest her devotion to the cause of Freedom. In this most memorable liberation of Spain from the French invader, it is the glory of England to have realized with singular exactness the splendid encomium of Livy: Esse aliquam in terris gentem qu su impens, suo labore ac periculo, bella gerat pro libertate aliorum. Nec hoc finitimis, aut propinqu vicinitatis hominibus, aut terris continenti junctis prstet. Maria trajiciat: ne quod toto orbe terrarum injustum imperium sit, et ubique jus, fas, lex, potentissima sint.Hist. lib. xxxiii. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 53855
Author: Hughes, T. M. (Terence McMahon)
Release Date: Jan 1, 2017
Format: eBook
Language: English