The Napoleonic prisoners were the focus of this encounter which took place on the 20th November 2020 at Research Centre CITCEM in Porto, Portugal. Spanish and Portuguese soldiers and engineers were the protagonists of great adventures from 1800 to 1816 in England, Russia, or France. This International Seminar joined several experts on the subject to speak about the renewed Social History of Prisoners of War (POWS): Astbury, Martínez-Radío, Mikaberidze, Martins Ribeiro, and Zozaya.
It has been coordinated by Evaristo Martínez-Radío at CITCEM under the title «Reflections on Prisoners of War between the 18th and 19th Centuries. An Iberian perspective» («Reflexões acerca dos prisioneiros de guerra entre os séculos XVIII e XIX. Uma perspectiva ibérica»).
Spanish POW’s in the UK along the 18th Century. Peculiarities and generalities (video not available) Evaristo C. Martínez-Radío, CITCEM.
«The prisoners of war in Portugal, during the Napoleonic intervention (1807-1812)»
Jorge Martins Ribeiro, University of Porto, Portugal.
«Affections, sociability, and religiosity to create the image of the enemy and motherland among Spanish POWs in France, 1808-1915»
María Zozaya-Montes, CIDEHUS- University of Évora, Portugal
«French prisoner-of-war theatre in Spain and England during the Napoleonic era»
Katherine Astbury, University of Warwick, England.
«Napoleon’s Lost Legions: The Prisoners of the Grande Armée in Russia, 1812-1814»
Alexander Mikaberidze, Louisiana University, USA
ABSTRACTS & CVs
EVARISTO C. MARTÍNEZ-RADÍO GARRIDO
«Spanish POWs in the UK along the 18th Century. Peculiarities and generalities»
«Spanish POW’s in the UK along the 18th Century. Peculiarities and generalities despite the almost continuous conflicts between the Spanish and British Crowns throughout the 18th century, the study of the conditions and location of Spanish prisoners in England in that period is an unknown field in Spain and even in the UK. They depended on the type of captive, with two major differentiation between combatants and non-combatants, including civilians, as they could be those passengers captured by a privateer. The prisoner would receive different treatment and would be lodged in one place or another, basically varying between depots and pontoons or as a captive on parole. The depots were concentrated mainly on the south coast of England. It is especially active in the area among the Isle of Wight, Portchester, Tavistock, Southampton, Plymouth, and Portsmouth. As for the treatment and maintenance dispensed, it cannot be said that it was not correct or expected, although this would depend on the context determined both by the war and by the place where the prisoners were.»
MARTÍNEZ-RADÍO´s CV
Doctor in History from San Pablo CEU University (Madrid), specializing in Military History during the Ancien Régime, including the Peninsular War. Up to this moment, he has been a Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Warwick developing an international research project on prisoners of war between the Bourbon nations and the United Kingdom during the 18th Century. In 2007, he was awarded the research award “Padre Patac” for a study on the War of the Spanish Succession. He has developed his career in different universities in Spain, Hungary, and the UK. Researcher of the CITCEM, he also organized and led several activities in the Academic Area. He has published several monographs and articles dealing with social-military History and prisoners of war.
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KATHERINE ASTBURY
«French prisoner-of-war theatre in Spain and England during the Napoleonic era»
«French prisoner-of-war theatre in Spain and England during the Napoleonic era During the Napoleonic wars there were tens of thousands of French prisoners of war in Britain and Spain. Whether out on parole, held in prisons, in hospitals, or on prison hulks, the theatre was a common feature of their experiences. This article compares and contrasts the on-board theatricals that prisoners of war performed on the prison hulks in Spain and Britain with those that took place in the purpose-built theatres on Cabrera and at Portchester Castle as well as with those put on by officers held on parole in towns across Britain. In so doing, it explores the extent to which theatre was perceived by the prisoners as a particularly French response to difficult circumstances and as a conduit for reinforcing their national identity.»
KATHERINE ASTBURY´s CV
Professor of French Studies at the University of Warwick and Head of the School of Modern Languages and Cultures. Between 2013 and 2017, she led an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project on French Theatre of the Napoleonic Era as part of which one of her PhD students, Devon Cox, looked at prisoner of war theatricals produced by a group of Napoleonic conscripts captured at Bailen in 1807. She is the author of two monographs, The Moral Tale in France and Germany 1750-1789 (Oxford, SVEC, 2012) and Narrative Responses to the Trauma of the French Revolution (Oxford, Legenda, 2012), and dozens of articles about literature and theatre in the long 18th century. In 2015 she co-curated an online exhibition for the bicentenary of Napoleon’s return from Elba: The Last Stand: Napoleon’s 100 days in 100 objects.
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ALEXANDER MIKABERIDZE
«Napoleon’s Lost Legions: The Prisoners of the Grande Armée in Russia, 1812-1814»
«Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 was a calamitous event that shook the French Empire to its foundation and led to its eventual collapse just a year and a half later. Much has been written about this subject and the recently held bicentennial celebrations once again showcased a continued interest in this campaign. It is usually acknowledged that Napoleon had entered Russia with some half a million men and, losing tens of thousands of men, fled six months later with less than 50,000. The purpose of this paper is to offer a glimpse into their fate based on the most recent archival studies in Russia. The surviving documents show that aside from tens of thousands who perished on the battlefields or died of privation and cold weather, the Grande lost over 110,000 prisoners of war during the six-month-long campaign. The harsh winter, as well as popular violence, malnutrition, sickness, and hardships during transportation, meant that two-thirds of these men (and women) perished within weeks of captivity while the rest were moved to detention centers scattered across the Russian empire.»
ALEXANDER MIKABERIDZE´s CV.
Professor of European History at Louisiana State University at Shreveport, where he is also Ruth Herring Noel Endowed Chair for the Curatorship of the James Smith Noel Collection. He is the author and editor of over a dozen books on the Napoleonic Wars that have been translated in several languages. Among his most recent publications are La batalla de Borodinó: Napoleón contra Kutúzov (Madrid: Desperta Ferro Ediciones, 2018), Bitwa nad Berezyna, 1812: Wielka ucieczka Napoleona (Warsaw: Napoleon V, 2019) and The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).
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MARÍA ZOZAYA-MONTES
«Affections, sociability, and religiosity to create the image of the enemy and motherland among Spanish Prisoners in France, 1808-1815».
«This research analyses emotional relationships developed during the Napoleonic invasions of Spain. We focus on Spanish prisoners on parole in France (1808-1814). We concentrate on three elements regarding their private life: emotional friendship bonds, religious feelings, and sociability relationships. We associate those elements to various concepts dominant in the public sphere: the image of the enemy, the concepts of homeland, honor, and beliefs. We want to apprehend the experience of the non-commissioned prisoners because in Spain it was hidden since the return of Fernando VII, and was undercovered by official versions of various policies regarding the creation of the nation-state. In conclusion, there was a big change in affectivities originated by the strength of ties based on friendship, the Catholic religious community, and the sociability developed in the French prison cities. All that in the end, modified the mutual concept of enemy.»
MARÍA ZOZAYA-MONTES´s CV
Maria Zozaya-Montes studied History at the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain), where she received the BA prize (1999) and the Ph.D. Extraordinary Prize for a doctoral dissertation in History (2009). She obtained several research grants at CSIC (IH, Madrid, 1998-2008), she had a Juan de la Cierva research contract in Valladolid´s University (2008-2011). She also received the awards: RMR Ronda (1999); History Society AHS (2007), and PVM Antonio Maura (2008). Currently working as a researcher and teacher at CIDEHUS-Évora University (Portugal). She has written five books and given many conferences about sociability spaces and elites. She has a book (Viaje y Prisión de José María Román) and several writings on POWS, and the site: https://ingenieros.hypotheses.org/ ISSN 2444-8060.
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JORGE MARTINS RIBEIRO.
The prisoners of war in Portugal, during the Napoleonic intervention (1807-1812)
«In this paper, we intend to call attention to the study of Prisoners of War,
before the 20th century, a theme that has not been object of much research in Portugal. It is important however to know the conditions in which they were detained and the way the captors treated them. If the jailors treated them with dignity, even if they had to work, or as slaves who had to endure forced labour. We shall deal with the case of captured militaries in a country, in this case, Portugal; they invaded, plundered and caused death and destruction. We also had to analyze critically the sources we used in this paper, as in some cases victims can exaggerate what they endured during captivity. One way of doing this is to compare with other documentation of the same epoch. In the case of the Napoleonic reality. In fact, in a proclamation of General Arthur Wellesley, future Duke of Wellington, to the Porto inhabitants, dated of the 13th May 1809, he asked the Portuguese not to take revenge on the wounded hospitalized French soldiers left behind, by their army.
JORGE MARTINS RIBEIRO ´s CV
Assistant Professor of the Faculty of Arts of Porto University. Ph. D. Porto University, Modern and Contemporary History, 1997; M.A. Porto University, Modern History, 1987; B.A. Porto University, History, 1980; Coordinator of the Master’s Degree in History, International Relations, and Cooperation, since 2007; Researcher of the Transdisciplinary Research Centre of Culture, Space and Memory– University of Porto/ University of Minho (CITCEM); Main research: History of International Relations late 18th and early 19th centuries. The Ph.D. dissertation was about the bilateral relations between Portugal and the United States and the MA thesis was about the British in Porto during the Napoleonic invasions. Has other papers on Portuguese-American relations, on the Peninsular War, and on other foreign merchants established in Portugal.
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Abstracts and CVs: Courtesy of the authors and CITCEM.Credits of the image: Warwick University, Theater of Spanish POWs at Porchester (the subject of the research of Katherine Ausbury).
Quote Suggestion:
María Zozaya-Montes (ed.), Napoleonic Iberian POWs at CITCEM, 2020, Ingenieros Prisioneros, ISSN 2444-8060. Disponible en: https://ingenieros.hypotheses.org/822
