This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1916 edition. Excerpt: ...Sir Francis Drake had sailed into the harbour and captured it twice--was nearly impregnable against a land attack, especially if The French Armies in Spain 305 the command of the sea was held, as was the case in 1810, Watershed by an Allied Power. When describing the topography of the Peninsula we ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1916 edition. Excerpt: ...Sir Francis Drake had sailed into the harbour and captured it twice--was nearly impregnable against a land attack, especially if The French Armies in Spain 305 the command of the sea was held, as was the case in 1810, Watershed by an Allied Power. When describing the topography of the Peninsula we mentioned a chain of mountains which branch from the Maritime Pyrenees abutting ou the Bay of Biscay, and run in a west-north-west, south-south-east direction towards the Mediterranean. In this chain the Douro and Tagus rivers rise, and about midway between the Bay of Biscay, and the Mediterranean, there is another chain, which passes generally in a westerly line towards the frontier of Portugal. This latter chain separates the basins of the Douro and Tagus. It extends in a westerly direction up to the frontier of Portugal, then turns south-westwards, and runs down in many spurs to the Atlantic through the little town of Torres Vedras, 25 miles to the north of Lisbon, and thence, in what is known as the Cintra range, meets the sea to the west of Lisbon. The chain of mountains which runs east and west across the centre of Spain for 400 miles divides the basins of the two rivers by a barrier so immense as to separate the provinces on either side, except in four or five places where roads have been cut through the mass of rocks, as effectually as if they were different countries. It thus came about that armies operating in the basins of the Douro and Tagus were practically separated. In a lesser degree the same conditions applied to the Mass6na-Wellington Campaign of 1810 in Portugal. During the winter, 1809-10, the French armies in Spain French were continuously augmented until they amounted in the ArTMiei in summer to 360,000. Professor Oman...
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