“Insiders Among Outsiders”: Representation of Enemies and Allies in the Texts of British Prisoners of War on the Iberian Peninsula 1808—1814

Abstract

The article is devoted to the peculiarities of the perception of enemies and allies by the British combatants who found themselves in French captivity during the war on the Iberian Peninsula in 1808—1814. The undertaken analysis of sources, including both British officers’ published memoirs, letters and diaries and the manuscript of the British soldier’s memoirs, demonstrated the multidimensionality of the images of the Spaniards and the French in the British “captivity narratives”. The authors of such narratives tended to dwell not only on the positive characteristics of the French, such their politeness or gallantry, but also on their cruelty towards the locals, as well as the tendency of French soldiers to theft and looting. The image of the Spaniards in the British “captivity narratives” on the contrary turns out to be more complimentary than in other sources left by British soldiers who were not captured. In the POWs’ texts the Spaniards are presented as good-natured and hospitable, but their two qualities — cruelty and religious fanaticism — reduce the locals from the British point of view to semi-civilized people.