RESUMEN: Este art?culo estudia el proceso de elaboraci?n de una versi?n nacionalista de la guerra que se desarroll? en la Pen?nsula Ib?rica entre 1808 y 1814. Simplific?ndose e incluso false?ndose la realidad, desde mediados del siglo XIX qued? definitivamente convertida en ?guerra de independencia ? nacional un conflicto de ra?ces complejas, pero en el que no se dirim?a en absoluto la conversi?n de la monarqu?a espa?ola en un territorio dependiente del imperio franc?s. El mito de la Guerra de la Independencia pas? a ser el eje ret?rico fundamental sobre el que girar?a el emergente nacionalismo espa?ol durante todo el siglo XIX y el primer tercio del siglo XX. ABSTRACT: This article studies the process of elaborating a nationalist versi?n of the war that took place on the Iberian Pen?nsula between 1808 and 1814. By simplifying and even falsifying reality, what was a deeply complex conflict became definitively converted into the ?War of National Independence ? in the middle of the 19th century, even though the conversi?n of the Spanish monarchy into a territory dependent on the French empire was never in question. The myth of the War of Independence became the fundamental rhetorical axis around which emergent Spanish nationalism would revolve throughout the 19th and the first third of the 20th century.