The previous March, Marshal Murat, the newly named Grand-Duke of Berg and the 'Lieutenant of the Emperor',[3] had also done so at Chamartín at the head of a large body of cavalry, under Grouchy, who would be appointed the military governor of Madrid during this first period,[4] and 20,000 infantry.

[5] That first period of "occupation" under Murat would lead to the violent reaction of the Second of May Uprising and, ultimately to King Joseph, proclaimed monarch the following month,[1] almost immediately ordering the evacuation of the French garrison and civil administration, which was completed by 1 August.

[14] That same day, the Junta of Defence was set up, presided over by the Duke of the Infantado, which included Morla and Castelar, and "a large and heterogeneous mass of colleagues... and prominent citizens forming an unwieldy body very unfit to act as an executive council of war".

Under cover of night, thirty guns were located opposite the weak earthworks defending Madrid's Retiro Heights, with smaller artillery in front of several of the northern and eastern gates of the city.

[20] Other people arrested included Arias Mon who, since May had been interim president of the Council of Castile,[21] the Duke of Sotomayor,[Note 3] and some thirty other leading citizens: some of whom were sent to France, while others were allowed to go free after swearing allegiance to King Joseph.

[1] Meanwhile, on 11 December, and still unaware that Madrid had capitulated, Sir John Moore, with 22,500 British infantry, 2,500 cavalry and 66 guns headed northeast from Salamanca[23] to carry out his plan of creating a "red herring"[24] to draw Napoleon away from besieging the capital to deal with the threat to Valladolid, a city critical to the French communications.

In volume 1 of his A History of the Peninsular War, 1807-1809 (1902), British military historian Charles Oman refers to the capitulation and Napoleon's motives as follows:Looking at the preposterous clauses which he had allowed to be inserted in the document, there can be no doubt that this was his intention at the very moment when he ratified it.