Kevinmeath

Do you mean by the Spanish? if so I would agree on the whole or those that were taken were left to rot in prison hulks.

I think Wellingtons army took POWs, the prison conditions when they got to Britain would be variable but that was just the prison system not simple for them.

I think the French also took British POW's.

xander.XVII

Yes I second that.
I meant that Peninsular War was like a "Eastern Front" compared to Napoleonic wars.
I heard of French prisoners (dragoons I think) flayed alive by portuguese during Soult's invasion in 1809.

Rongo

Yeah, it was a brutal guerrilla war with horrible atrocities committed on both sides. I read about another French soldier who was crucified upside down on a barn door and a fire lit under his head.

I think very few soldiers could come across the remains of their comrade treated like that and not want savage revenge. The story has been repeated many, many times in human history.

xander.XVII

I read that episode as well in Napoleon's biography of Max Gallo!
I wholeheartedly agree with you.
Atrocities provoked will of revenge that leads to other rampages and so on.

irishcrusader95

i forget the name of the corps leader but wasn't there a whole french corps of 20,000 that got cut off in the early years of the peninsula war and had to surrender. they were i think repatriated by the british which seems odd but perhaps they felt it was too many prisoners then were worth trying to hold on to.

what became of the almost 100,000 strong austrian army under General Mack that was captured at Ulm during the 1805 campaign, were they released after the war?

Rongo

That was Dupont. He surrendered basically without a fight, on the conditions that the British would provide his troops transport back to France. The British said "Hell, yeah!"

xander.XVII

It was Dupont de l'Etang at Bailén who surrendered to 22,000 Spaniards of general Castanhos.

Kevinmeath

Pierre Dupont surrendered 18,000 (in 1808) to the Spanish general Castanos at Bailen, many were then massacred and those who weren't left to rot in terrible conditions on prison hulks.

The same year after the battle of Vimerio won by the future Duke of Wellington but then the junior commander behind Sir Hugh Dalyrmple and Sir Harry Burrard (who were safely and snugly aboard ships when the French attacked), the defeated French commander Junot negotiated the Convention of Cintra by which he agreed to surrender but would be transported home in British ships. Wellington signed with great reluctance

There was uproar in Britain and all three generals were recalled to face an enquiry, only Wellington came out favourably.

the Chief

Did they give their parole?

Nemowork

I think parole is just for individual officers who are already captive, the French army hadnt surrendered but had negotiated a ceasefire and their withdrawal.

That wasnt what bugged the general public, it was that they had been allowed to board with all their artillery and the loot they had stolen in spain and portugal. Allowing a defeated enemy safe passage for political and military gain is one thing, to allow them to retreat in good order and able to claim they hadnt been defeated was another.
To have to allow them to do it on your own ships was simply the crowning insult to national pride.