In the Treaty of Fontainebleau of October 27, 1807, signed by Manuel Godoy, favorite of the King of Spain Carlos IV de Borbón, and Napoleón I Bonaparte, stipulated the joint Franco-Spanish military invasion of Portugal —which had joined England—; In addition, the passage of the French imperial troops through Spanish territory was allowed for this and the necessary logistical support would be provided. Under the command of General Junot, French troops entered Spain on October 18, 1807, crossing its territory at full speed in winter, and reached the border with Portugal on November 20. However, Napoléon's plans went further, and his troops were taking up positions in important cities and strongholds in order to overthrow the Bourbons and supplant them with their own dynasty.
Among the imperial troops that invaded the Iberian Peninsula and participated in the Spanish War of Independence there were some 20,000 Polish soldiers and officers distributed in three military formations:the Vistula Legion , the Division of the Duchy of Warsaw and the Guards Light Cavalry Regiment .
Members of the Vistula Legion
What were the Poles doing fighting under Napoleon?
In 1795, after several defeats against Sweden and internal divisions, the Republic of the Two Nations (Poland and Lithuania), also called Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth , was so battered that its neighbors/enemies (Russian Empire, Prussia and Austria) did not have many problems in reaching an agreement and dividing up the kingdom -an independent Polish state would not exist again until 1918-. Faced with the disappearance of their homeland, many Poles emigrated, especially to Italy and France. The emergence of France, with Napoleon at the helm, as a European power, and because of the saying "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", the Poles saw in the emperor a possible liberator who would allow them to restore the Polish state. The reality is that Napoleon used that patriotic feeling to make them believe that he would restore the independence of Poland and, in this way, turn those stateless, once Poles, into an inexhaustible source of recruits who formed a Polish army in exile under French command. .
The Poles stood out for their preparation, discipline and courage, and played a relevant role in the campaigns in Italy, Haiti, Russia... and Spain. In the two sieges suffered by the city of Zaragoza (Spain) in 1808 during the War of Independence, the so-called Sieges of Zaragoza , about 3,500 Poles participated among the imperial ranks. The Poles had to fight an enemy who, like them, was defending their freedom and independence, which entailed an enormous moral burden for them as they felt identified with the women and men who defended Zaragoza to the last consequences. Those who managed to survive and return home later recounted the courage of those people, putting them as an example of fighters for their freedom, just as they said they should do for Poland. Proof of this were the words of the Polish ambassador, Tomasz Arabski , and the historian Jan Stanislaw , Director of the Office of ex-combatants and victims of reprisals in Poland, when in 2013 Zaragoza paid tribute to the 300 Poles who fell in the Zaragoza sieges…
the resistance of the Aragonese people was an example of great patriotism with which some soldiers who came from far away because they tried to fight for their freedom met other young people who were fighting for the same thing. […] Never in history, the Polish soldiers had so much moral discord as here in Spain […] this intervention, in which some 300 Polish soldiers fell, became a remorse of national conscience. The courage they observed from the Aragonese people survived for years in the spirit of the Poles...
Plaque honoring fallen Poles
In fact, references to Aragonese courage were heard in Warsaw on August 1, 1944 when the Poles rose up against the Nazi invaders and did so shouting…
Pamietajcie or Saragosiee! (Remember Zaragoza!)
Monument to the Warsaw Uprising
Sources:Polish soldiers in Spain – Fernando Presa González, Pamietajcie or Saragosiee! (Blog History of Aragon), El Periódico de Aragón