Wellington's Soldiers and the Women of the Iberian Peninsula: the Gender Aspect of the War 1808—1814

The article focuses on the relationships between British soldiers who took part in the military conflict on the Iberian Peninsula in 1808—1814 and Spanish and Portuguese women. Based on personal sources — letters, diaries and memoirs of British soldiers — the main forms of interaction between Wellington’s soldiers and officers with local women are identified. It was possible to establish that the combatants’ texts are characterized by an emphasis on relationships with women as “heroes” and “liberators”, while the facts of violence committed by British soldiers against local women are often hushed up in the sources. In addition, the article focuses on comparing different types of sources when studying the love affairs, romances and relationships of British army soldiers and officers with women from the Iberian Peninsula.