History of Catalonia - The Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars

In the 1790s, new conflicts arose on the French border, due to the French Revolution and the French Revolutionary Wars. In 1808, during the Napoleonic Wars, Catalonia was occupied by the troops of General Guillaume Philibert Duhesme. The official Spanish army had evaporated, but popular resistance against the French occupation occurred in Catalonia as in other parts of Spain, and eventually developed into the Peninsular War. Girona was besieged by the French and defended by its inhabitants under the direction of general and military governor Mariano Álvarez de Castro. The French finally took the city December 10, 1809, after many deaths on both sides from hunger, epidemics, and cold; Álvarez de Castro died in prison one month later.

Between 1812 and 1813, Catalonia was directly annexed to France itself, and organized as four (later two) départements.

French dominion in parts of Catalonia lasted until 1814, when the British General Wellington signed the armistice by which the French left Barcelona and the other strongholds that they had managed to keep until the last.