This volume presents a detailed narrative of the opening phase of the Peninsular campaigns (1807–1809), tracing diplomatic maneuvering, popular uprisings, and the military operations that followed the French interventions. It synthesizes official dispatches, private diaries, memoirs, and intercepted reports to reconstruct movements, sieges, retreats, and political decisions, and supplements the account with maps, plans, and portraits to clarify dispositions and actions. The focus lies on operational detail, the interaction between political events and battlefield choices, and the variety of contemporary Spanish, French, and British perspectives that illuminate the early course of the conflict.