begun the war of the fifth coalition which in turn dragged his old enemy the British into the peninsular. This in turn could help to credit the view that the invasion of Portugal “was an armed parade, not a war” (Noted by an observer) which in turn lulled Napoleon into a false sense of security and “made the “Spanish affair” into the blunder that finished him.” (Connelley.) There is much validity to this argument to this argument as after the dispersion of the Portuguese “A sinister calm fell over Portugal and Napoleon began preparing his next move.” (Gates – “The Spanish ulcer” pp 8-9) Napoleon had left the French army in the peninsular under the command of “General Junot, a young man of a bold, ambitious disposition, but of greater reputation for military talent than he was able to support; and his soldiers, principally conscripts, were ill-fitted to endure the hardships which awaited them.” (Napier – “History of the War in Peninsula 1807-1814” p 25) This further helps to illustrate that the poor state of military affairs that arose in Spain ultimately sprung from Napoleon’s Decision to trust the arrogant Junot, and his inexperienced troops with the capture and occupation of the peninsular. According to MacLachlan another “key factor in the failure was that Napoleon tried in vain to secure the interests of the local Spanish notables. Along with the presence of the Spanish guerrillas, this proved to be positively disabling for the French administrative forces there. (Matthew MacLachlan: Napoleon and Empire – History Review 2007) This credits the argument that Junot was outmanoeuvred by an angry populous and ultimately lacked the necessary means, in terms of well-trained troops, to counter the Guerillas in Spain. General Savary even stated that “if instead of troops consisting of war levies [raw conscripts], we had opposed to them such soldiers as those of the camp of Boulogne [the Grande Armée], which we might easily have moved in any direction and made to deploy under the enemy’s fire without any danger their being thrown into disorder”. (General Anne Savary, French General and Diplomat) This could show Napoleon’s underestimation of the Spanish due to his belief in French “political and cultural superiority” he was “inclined to regard Belgians, Dutchmen, Germans, Italians and Spaniards alike as backward, superstitious, priest-ridden and uncouth” ( Popular Resistance in Napoleonic Europe – By Charles Esdaile) which in turn lead him to undersupply and already weak army in the peninsular. In 1812 Marshall Marmont even complained to the emperor that “we have not 4 day’s food in any of our magazines, we have no transport, we cannot draw requisitions from the most wretched village without sending thither a foraging party of 200 strong; to live from day to day, we have to scatter detachments to vast distances, and always to be on the move … Lord Wellington is quite aware that I have no magazines…” Wellington would later recognise that “It is certainly astonishing that the enemy [French] have been able to remain in this country so long” despite their lack of food, weapons and morale. Although, the Spanish Ulcer cannot be credited as the sole source of Napoleon’s ultimate downf>