The Fatal Knot by John Lawrence Tone

The Fatal Knot by John Lawrence Tone

John Tone recounts the dramatic story of how, between 1808 and 1814, Spanish peasants created and sustained the world's first guerrilla insurgency movement, thereby playing a major role in Napoleon's defeat in the Peninsula War. Focusing on the army of Francisco Mina, Tone offers new insights into the origins, motives, and successes of these first guerrilla forces by interpreting the conflict from the long-ignored perspective of the guerrillas themselves.



Only months after Napoleon's invasion in 1807, Spain seemed ready to fall: its rulers were in prison or in exile, its armies were in complete disarray, and Madrid had been occupied. However, the Spanish people themselves, particularly the peasants of Navarre, proved unexpectedly resilient. In response to impending defeat, they formed makeshift governing juntas, raised new armies, and initiated a new kind of people's war of national liberation that came to be known as guerrilla warfare. Key to the peasants' success, says Tone, was the fact that they possessed both the material means and the motives to resist. The guerrillas were neither bandits nor selfless patriots but landowning peasants who fought to protect the old regime in Navarre and their established position within it.



from the book: That unfortunate war destroyed me; it divided my forces, multiplied my obligations, undermined my morale. . . . All the circumstances of my disasters are bound up in that fatal knot. -- Napoleon Bonaparte on the Spanish war

Tone, John Lawrence: - John Tone is professor of history at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is author of the award-winning The Fatal Knot: The Guerrilla War in Navarre and the Defeat of Napoleon in Spain (from The University of North Carolina Press).

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780807821695
ISBN 10	0807821691
Title	The Fatal Knot
Author	John Lawrence Tone
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	The University of North Carolina Press
Year published	1995-01-30
Number of pages	247
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.