Second French invasion of Portugal

The Second French invasion of Portugal, a campaign of the Peninsular War, commenced on 3 February 1809 with French Marshal Soult's II Corps heading down from La Coruña, in the north of Spain to occupy the capital of Portugal, Lisbon.

Napoleon later modified his original plan by ordering Marshal Victor's I Corps, based at Mérida, to send a column commanded by General Lapisse, located in Salamanca, to march westwards, first on Ciudad Rodrigo and then on to Almeida, in Portugal.

The campaign came to an end following the French defeat by Anglo-Portuguese forces at the Second Battle of Porto (12 May 1809), with Soult's army dispersed and having to abandon large amounts of equipment to flee across the mountains back into the north of Spain.

Charles Oman (1903), in his A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. II, sums up the campaign as follows:

The parting instructions of Bonaparte to Soult have already been cited: when the English should have embarked, the Duke of Dalmatia was to march on Oporto, and ten days later was to occupy Lisbon. We have already seen that the scheme of dates which Napoleon laid down for these operations was impossible, even to the borders of absurdity: Oporto was to be seized by February 1, and Lisbon by February 10! But putting aside this error, which was due to his persistent habit of ignoring the physical conditions of Spanish roads and Spanish weather, the Emperor had drawn up a plan which seemed feasible enough. [...] the task assigned to the Duke of Dalmatia did not on the face of it appear unreasonable. (Oman, 1903: pp. 171–172.)