France winning the Peninsular War: The Napoleonic Sealion?

I've come through a lot of threads on this site in regards to the Peninsular War, and I've seen a common theme...well two common themes, that France would lose the Peninsular War no matter what is done, and that the only way for France to win is not to play.

Now not to sound like a wet blanket, (and I probably am), but would it be safe to say that a Napoleonic victory in the Peninsular War be equivalent in scale to say a successful Operation Seelowe in terms of plausibility?
 
Not really : Peninsular War was winnable by France (less as a big crush of rebellion, rather than a better hold for negociations), if Napoleonic geo-strategical weren't that stretched.

Eventually, I'd say that the real Napoleonic Sealion would be the preparatives for invading Britain (surprising, eh?) : France simply didn't have the means to make its armies cross the Channel and it was mostly based on wishful-thinking. Even French interventions in Ireland in 1795 or 1798 had more chances to be more successful.
 
Not exactly. The key though, is timing. As the War goes by, the harder it is to get a French victory. By the time that the Lines of Torress Vedras have turned away the French invasion of Portugal, it would probably have cost far too much to get a complete French victory over the entire Peninsular.

The best point is probably John Moore surviving Corunna and Wellington getting sidelined somehow. John Moore believed the situation to be untenable and might have been able to catch the ear of some important people. With the British abandoning Spain and Portugal to their fate, Napoleon possibly gets a very painful victory from the situation.
 
Now not to sound like a wet blanket, (and I probably am), but would it be safe to say that a Napoleonic victory in the Peninsular War be equivalent in scale to say a successful Operation Seelowe in terms of plausibility?

The French sealion would more likely be the...well the French sealion, being Napleon's plans to ship the Grand Army across the channel

The Peninsula war on the other hand is winnable to various degrees, as pointed put complete domination of both Spain and Portugal is out from early on but the French might have had various degrees of success in Spain if a few battles had gone their way there or one of the other powers had made peace elsewhere. An occupied portion of Northern Spain is the most likely of the French "win" results. The problem however as so often in losing campaigns was that Napoleon never really specified a broad objective for the whole operation leaving local commanders to interpret French policy independently as best they might from his last letter to them.
 
The French sealion would more likely be the...well the French sealion, being Napleon's plans to ship the Grand Army across the channel

The Peninsula war on the other hand is winnable to various degrees, as pointed put complete domination of both Spain and Portugal is out from early on but the French might have had various degrees of success in Spain if a few battles had gone their way there or one of the other powers had made peace elsewhere. An occupied portion of Northern Spain is the most likely of the French "win" results. The problem however as so often in losing campaigns was that Napoleon never really specified a broad objective for the whole operation leaving local commanders to interpret French policy independently as best they might from his last letter to them.

So to put simply, it would be possible to win if the French had specified an overall broad objective (like what Japan didn't do in the later Second Sino-Japanese War...)
 
Not exactly. The key though, is timing. As the War goes by, the harder it is to get a French victory. By the time that the Lines of Torress Vedras have turned away the French invasion of Portugal, it would probably have cost far too much to get a complete French victory over the entire Peninsular.

The best point is probably John Moore surviving Corunna and Wellington getting sidelined somehow. John Moore believed the situation to be untenable and might have been able to catch the ear of some important people. With the British abandoning Spain and Portugal to their fate, Napoleon possibly gets a very painful victory from the situation.

Indeed.

Up to the point where Wellington built up the Lines of Torres Vedras and revitalized Portuguese morale a French victory was entirely possible. As I understand it, he took what was considered to be a hopeless (for Britain and Portugal) and changed it into one that was hopeless for France.

Napoleon also really, really shot himself in the foot by deposing the Spanish king and replacing him with his (Napoleon's) brother. This turned a weak and almost useless ally (small net gain for Nappy) into a bleeding ulcer of guerrilla warfare (huge net loss for Nappy). Without that, it would have been easy to take Portugal before the Brits built up the defences.
 
Indeed.

Up to the point where Wellington built up the Lines of Torres Vedras and revitalized Portuguese morale a French victory was entirely possible. As I understand it, he took what was considered to be a hopeless (for Britain and Portugal) and changed it into one that was hopeless for France.

Napoleon also really, really shot himself in the foot by deposing the Spanish king and replacing him with his (Napoleon's) brother. This turned a weak and almost useless ally (small net gain for Nappy) into a bleeding ulcer of guerrilla warfare (huge net loss for Nappy). Without that, it would have been easy to take Portugal before the Brits built up the defences.

True, the French not being able to take Portugal was the true beginning of the end for their campaigns in the region. Perhaps if Napoleon had flooded the country with troops before going to Russia, it might have made a difference. But that would have required a complete re-haul of the logistics situation for them.
 
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