Fair response - except that it is N that I detest; his conscript armies were his unwitting (and largely unwilling) pawns, commanded by N`s ruthless generals, who often had as much a part in destroying their own formations (by neglect and mismanagement) as did their enemies.
Conscripts were plentiful and readily available.
N`s methods of warfare were designed to enable a war to be won in weeks; there would be no need to bother to feed and house them before peace had been declared.
His orders on the cessation of any financial aid to the Army of Portugal from the moment it crossed the border into that country (in an act of hostile invasion) were cynical in the extreme and sentenced that army to be operating in a totally hostile environment from that day.
Did he not understand what a prolonged campaign would mean for his army, operating in a largely barren and increasingly hostile environment?
Did N imagine that Portugal was to be another six week wonder? Did he not know of the very limited roads and resources of the peninsula? Did he expect the Portuguese - and the Spanish - just to roll over and kiss his boots?
If he did, he was amazingly gullible, almost wilfully ignorant. Did he not expect Britain, with its powerful navy, to exploit the long coastlines of Spain and Portugal? If he did not, he was living in cloud cuckoo land.
The same was true for Spain and Russia. Indeed, in the run-up to the invasion of Russia, the Grande Armee was not too popular in Poland either.
To state that Britain and Russia should not have combatted N`s aggression is a bit silly.
The looting that accompanied Moore`s retreat gives us a wonderful example of the pressures felt by the French armies even when they were not engaged in active operations in Spain. N knew what had happened there, but he refused to learn the lesson and to set up an effective logistics system to feed his armies in Spain.
N was the enemy of my country; do you expect me to fawn on him?