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King Bonaparte and the Jersey Devil: Surprising Facts About a Bonaparte’s Life in America

Khalid Elhassan March 12, 2025 13 min

Bonaparte - Joseph Bonaparte had a run in with the Jersey Devil — Joseph Bonaparte had a run in with the Jersey Devil. Fine Art America

5. A Terrible Time in Spain

1059px prado los desastres de la guerra no. 44 yo lo vi — The Disasters of War during 1810-1812 by Francisco Goya. Wikipedia.

The Spanish were adamant in their refusal to put up with Joseph Bonaparte or the French, and rose in a massive revolt that drove Spain’s new king out of Madrid within three months of his arrival. Joseph begged Napoleon to let him return to Naples, where he could be more effective. L’Empereur ignored him, and sent a massive French army to restore Joseph to power. The result was a bitter and brutal guerrilla war that engulfed the country. Eventually – with the support of a British army under Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington – Joseph and the French were expelled from Spain. In the meantime, Napoleon’s empire began to crumble after his invasion of Russia ended in disaster, and allied armies steadily pushed the French back into Metropolitan France. When enemy troops entered Paris in 1814 and Napoleon was forced to abdicate, Joseph and his family fled to Switzerland.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.