Military history of Portugal
On 24 and 25 July 1803, in Campo de Ourique, Lisbon, a regiment of infantry commanded by liberal army man Gomes Freire de Andrade and the Legion of Light Troops commanded by the also liberal-leaning Marquis of Alorna mutinied against the state authorities, entering in confrontation with the then recently created Royal Guard of the Police.
[2] In 1805, then Princess regent (soon afterwards Queen) Carlota Joaquina promoted a conspiracy in Mafra with the objective of removing her husband Prince João from regency by claiming him to be mentally incapable, assuming regency on her own in his place, being aided in the attempted coup by the Count of Sabugal, the Marquis of Ponte de Lima, the Count of Sarzedas, the Marquis of Alorna and Francisco de Melo.
[3] The riots of Saint Torcato was a popular uprising in the Portuguese country side with a strong mixture of religious influence and zealotry.
In 1807, after the Portuguese government's refusal to participate in the Continental System, French troops under General Junot invaded Portugal, taking Lisbon.
Meanwhile, the general revolt against the French in Spain led to the landing of Sir John Moore in the north of that country, forcing Napoleon himself to lead an army into the Peninsula.
Portugal itself, however, remained independent of the French, and Napoleon left things in the Iberian Peninsula in the hands of Marshal Soult.
However, the Portuguese held on, giving the British the impetus to send Wellesley back with additional regiments of troops to help recover the Iberian peninsula.
The Anglo-Portuguese Army managed to halt the French advance at the fortifications of Torres Vedras and successfully defeat Masséna's troops, and slowly recovered the Iberian peninsula.
The King took refuge aboard the British ship Windsor Castle, with the aid of the Portuguese diplomatic corp, while grandes of the kingdom like the Duke of Palmela were arrested in Belém, being then moved to imprisonment in Peniche, with the then intendent-general of police Baron of Rendufe being persecuted by the Miguelist rise-up, which then turned its attentions to the Count of Vila Flor (later more famous for his future title of Duke of Terceira) and the Count of Paraty.
On 13 May, D. Miguel was finally forced to leave for exile on board the frigate Pérola towards France, while on the following day D. João returned to Bemposta, and impeached the brutal pro-Miguelist Minister of Justice José António de Oliveira Leite de Barros, replacing him by Friar Patrício da Silva, and the Duke of Palmela was promoted to Minister of the Kingdom.
To assert the cause of the rightful Queen, his daughter Maria da Glória, Pedro sailed from Terceira in the Azores with an expeditionary force consisting of 60 vessels, 7500 men including the Count of Vila Flor, Alexandre Herculano, Almeida Garrett, Joaquim António de Aguiar, José Travassos Valdez and a volunteer British contingent under the command of Colonels George Lloyd Hodges and Charles Shaw and effected a Landing at Mindelo on the shores north of Porto.
Meanwhile, Miguel's fleet was comprehensively defeated by Pedro's much smaller squadron, commanded by Charles Napier, in the fourth Battle of Cape St. Vincent.
A conspiratorial movement in Lisbon and Coimbra in August 1848, inspired by the popular and students' uprising of Paris from 22 to 24 February 1848 (which led to the fall of King Louis Philippe I and the proclamation of the Second Republic).
During the counterinsurgency campaigns in Angola and Mozambique, Portugal was significantly aided by intelligence provided by native residents who did not support revolutionary forces.
The Portuguese Army keeps soldiers in Iraq, Jordan, Mali, Central African Republic, Somalia, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe, Kosovo and Baltic states.
