Word: ordenanza
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Dates: during 1943-1943
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Scorched Earth. In the Peninsular War Wellington reestablished the ancient Portuguese military law of Ordenanza. Under this, at the approach of the enemy, all civilian men became militia, all the people left their houses, destroying all food stocks. In this dress rehearsal for the scorched earth policy which, two years later, Napoleon met in Russia, the French troops discovered "with surprise at first, then with anger, and finally with something like dismay, that they were entering a devastated country whose inhabitants had vanished. Towns and villages and hamlets were empty and ominously silent; no obsequious mayors came forward to placate...
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