From the end of the 15th century, Spaniards were subjects of the Spanish king, but considered themselves primarily Catalans, Aragonese, Castilians, and so on.
In early 1808, the old King Charles IV was engaged in endless negotiations with Napoleon while also struggling against his own heir Ferdinand, constantly inviting Napoleon to act as an arbiter. In spring, the French peacefully entered Madrid to place Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon’s brother, on the Spanish throne. Spanish troops were unsure what to do. Both Charles IV and Ferdinand found themselves on French territory, in Bayonne. The French began to behave like conquerors towards the local population.
On May 2, 1808, the people in Madrid revolted. Some parts of the local garrison joined them, and street fighting began. Joachim Murat, commanding the French troops, was a professional military man with skilled generals (particularly General Emmanuel Grouchy, who commanded the cavalry and had previously suppressed various popular uprisings in France and Italy). Therefore, the uprising was suppressed very quickly and harshly, despite Grouchy later writing: “We are, of course, to blame for this uprising occurring.” The city was again in French hands.
However, the uprising and especially the cruelty with which it was suppressed had unexpected consequences. Rebellions began in the provinces, and juntas began to gather, declaring that they did not recognize any Bonapartes as their royal dynasty. An armed struggle began. Napoleon Bonaparte nearly won, but in 1809 Wellington arrived in Portugal and began to take action. Gradually, the British, along with the Spanish troops, began to recapture the Iberian Peninsula, and by 1813 the French were expelled from it. In 1814, British troops under Wellington’s command advanced into French territory and moved far north towards Paris.
From the point of view of the Spaniards, it turned out that the Spanish people resisted the enemy and — with English help, but nonetheless — defended their independence. Moreover, it was precisely the Spanish people, without a monarch: Charles IV had abdicated the throne himself and gave the crown to Joseph Bonaparte, who came to his land with weapons in his hands, which, in general, meant he had betrayed his country. In 1812, in the city of Cadiz, free from the French, the Spaniards, without any king, adopted their first constitution, which established a constitutional monarchy in the country.
United France
In France, the phrase “French nation” appears in texts at least since the 16th century, but as a result of the same wars — the revolution and Napoleon — the French began to feel much more monolithic. An important factor here was the introduction of universal conscription during the revolution in August 1793.
Before this, armies in European countries were either mercenary or, as in the Russian Empire, based on a system of lifelong conscription. Conscription meant that a person would leave and never return to their community. In France, however, military service became relatively short: from three to five years. A person would leave for five years and then return, having seen the world; during this time, soldiers from different provinces inevitably developed a common language and shared cultural values, which they then brought back home. Thus, in France, a transmission of certain common attitudes began to occur.
These attitudes included the new idea of the nation’s supreme sovereignty: if earlier the “French nation” consisted of subjects of the French king, now it became the main and, in fact, the sole source of authority, beginning to consider itself a more important entity than the monarch. This is why Napoleon held a plebiscite, albeit a formal one: he bore the title “Emperor of the French” — formally with the consent of the entire nation. This is also why, when Louis XVIII returned to the throne, he quickly realized that he could not avoid granting France a parliament and a constitution. And however much he and Ferdinand VII tried to abolish this representative body, they failed.
The same thing was happening throughout the European continent at this time, and almost everywhere the Napoleonic Wars became a significant milestone for this movement. After all, what is a nation? It is a community that distinguishes itself from others. War is a very convenient moment for such separation.
This national unification always proceeded in its own way. For instance, the idea of creating a unified state in Italy is attributed to Napoleon himself: before him, there had been no unified Kingdom of Italy on the map since the time of Charlemagne.
Another example is the Czechs, who for centuries lived under the rule of the Habsburgs, maintaining greater or lesser autonomy. There was a large number of Germans on this territory, and the entire so-called Czech aristocracy consisted of people with German surnames. In the late 18th — early 19th century, the idea of a Czech nation, which opposed the Germans, emerged there for the first time.
Image of the Enemy
If a nation is formed during wars, one of the convenient ways to distinguish itself from others is to develop a stable image of the enemy. In many countries in the early 19th century, the French became that enemy.
In occupied territories, every soldier needs food and a roof under which to sleep. During the Napoleonic Wars, everyone in the French army, except the high command, was forbidden to pitch tents: they had to be set up, stretched, and then dismantled, which took time. The French fought mainly in Europe, which, as the command reasoned, usually had places to stay since it was a densely populated area. But in reality, things turned out a bit differently. During the Napoleonic period, the French troops were no longer particularly religious. The 18th century and the Revolution had generally diminished respect for religion, affecting even the lowest levels of society. And military units, entering a village or city, began to lodge in churches, as these were usually large buildings that could accommodate many people and, in case of enemy attack, served as fortifications.
If the army lacked food, theft began. Naturally, the local population was mainly robbed. According to the military code of the Napoleonic army, theft from the local population was considered the lightest form of theft, usually ignored: the commanders believed that if they could not feed the soldiers, they should not prevent them from finding food themselves. But there was also internal theft. During the war, a horse was of great value in the army: it could save you and bring supplies and ammunition. So the French protected their horses and started bringing them into churches for the night.
This happened both in Spain and in Russia in 1812. In Russia, the populated areas were few and small. Wooden buildings that survived battles were dismantled for firewood, and the only places left for soldiers to sleep were stone buildings, which were mostly churches. Seeing this, the people naturally felt offended. A horse in a temple is a common folkloric motif: the infidels will come and put their horses in the temple. In Spain and Russia, where the people were very religious, a horse in a temple was a sign that the Antichrist had arrived, and one could fight the Antichrist by any means.
Mamluks and Cossacks
Of course, it is better to portray an enemy threatening the very existence of your state, especially a godless one, as foreign as possible. In visual art, this task was complicated by the fact that French soldiers did not look very different from all the others: of course, regular troops in Europe had different uniforms, but they could generally only be distinguished by color. Even the bearskin hats initially worn by French generals were eventually adopted by the British. Therefore, efforts were made to make someone who also looked different the personification of the enemy. In Spain, a Mamluk squadron — literally a few people among the French troops occupying Madrid — conveniently fit this purpose. The Mamluks looked different; they were also Muslims, with whom the Spaniards had been at war since the Reconquista.
Moreover, like all other forming nations, the Spaniards in the 19th century showed a particular interest in their own (albeit heavily idealized) medieval history. The French became very interested in the Hundred Years’ War, portraying it as a heroic confrontation with a dangerous external enemy, England (although in the 14th–15th centuries, the ideas of “us” and “them” did not exist at all; each suzerain decided on whose side to stand in each case). The same was true of the Reconquista in Spain. So the Mamluk squadron came in very handy: the uprising on May 2 in Madrid could be portrayed not just as a struggle against an external invader but also as resistance to the eternal enemy of the Christian faith.
The French also sought ways to depict their enemies as unlike themselves as possible. Thus, the image of the Russians as bearded Cossacks gained popularity. This image remained relevant in Europe until World War I. It is especially characteristic of caricatures, where a bear often appeared next to the Cossack. The point is that in the early 19th century, Cossacks had a uniform different from other cavalrymen, but in reality, there were never enough of them. So they wore their own clothes — standardized but quite different from the military uniforms as the French imagined them. And who fights without a uniform? Only savages.
