General Sir James Leith in Spain, 1808
By Paul Thompson
Major-General Sir James Leith (Thomas Heaphy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
In a previous article I surveyed the life and career of Leith, one of Wellington’s most capable divisional commanders. The bulk of that essay concentrated on Leith’s early life, his time in the Iberian peninsula from 1809 onwards, and his later governorship of the Leeward Islands. The intelligence mission he undertook when British commitment to the Peninsular War was still in its infancy, by contrast, received short shrift. The purpose of this present paper is to examine the role Leith played in helping cement relations with Spain in 1808. It was by no means a given that Anglo-Hispanic cooperation would take effective root. The efforts of men such as James Leith helped foster the military alliance that would, in time, induce Napoleon’s ‘Spanish ulcer’, and ultimately propel the Allies to victory beyond the Pyrenees and into the heart of southern France. Not only is this an insufficiently considered passage in the career of James Leith, but one also frequently overlooked by historians of the war in general. Charles Oman only deals with these events cursorily, as does Robert Southey, while Andreas Schepeler, the Conde de Toreno, Arteche y Moro, David Gates and Charles Esdaile scarcely mention it at all. William Napier, however, is an exception, and analyses this preliminary British intervention in some detail. Moreover, Napier takes a very dim view of the affair. This I shall address in the article.
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