Napoleonic Wars War of 1808–1814, assisted by Spanish guerrilla ('little war') tactics. Anglo-Portuguese forces under Arthur Wellesley supported the Spanish, which campaigned successfully against the French armies, eventually driving them from Spain and allowing Britain to invade southern France. By 1815, the British Army played the central role in the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. Beyond minor naval actions against British imperial interests, the Napoleonic Wars were much less global in scope than preceding conflicts such as the Seven Years' War, which historians term a "world war". In response to the naval blockade of the French coasts enacted by the British
Battle of Tamatave Cape of Good Hope for the rest of the Napoleonic Wars. In August 1810, the French squadron on Isle de France (now Mauritius) achieved the most significant French naval victory of the Napoleonic Wars, when they captured or destroyed four Royal Navy frigates at the Battle of Grand Port. The battle was fought inside Grand Port, one of the harbours of Isle de France into which the French squadrons, dominant in the Indian Ocean during 1809, had been steadily pushed and blockaded by pressure from a British squadron under Commodore Josias Rowley. The British defeat had a noticeable galvanising effect