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The Triumph of Evil: Spain 1808-1945

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Meh, I just think the forums are wierd in general. I've lost count of the number of people on here from the same area of England as me. Hell, even Palisadoes is from the same town :p

Paradox certainly has a diverse fanbase, but seriously, I don't think I've even heard of a 15 year old even vaguely interested in history. 'cept me of course :D

Anyway, enough OT rubbish, when's the next update?
 
Almost missed the first update! Smashing stuff it is, even! :) A wonderfully concise yet informative summary of Spanish history, and the causes of the former empire's progressing case of dry rot. Keep it up.
 
To All: That is pretty much the only update you'll get now till after June 15th, so treasure it.

Enewald: He most probably would have won; it would have just taken longer and would have ended in more casualties. No problem for Bonaparte, but this was significantly easier and finished off two goals. 1. stop Portugal trading with Britain and 2. get rid of a pro-British Spain.

Ezdako: Glad to know I am like a Chinese basketball player :). And yes, I am not fooling around with you.

Jingle_Bombs: I do try and write informitively. I will have to do what you're doing next year, though, so there is no escape. I just have a load of GCSEs first :). 16 on June 3rd, so almost :D.

comagoosie: I think you might be right there. I am not going away from history quite yet, so yes, there is some nice partisan action coming up next, as well as some big pitched battles!

Kurt_Steiner: *finally breathes in* (aside) thank god the Spaniard thought it was ok....

Morsky: I was dearly troubled as to what to include and what to not in that. I had to keep it concise while also 'facilitating a basic understanding of the period we are studying'. A tricky formula, but to hear I did it well is a nice bonus :)
 
June 15th is so far off.

The update was very informative indeed. Very well written and I can say from first hand experience and as a *geek* in European history, your work is better than some college textbooks. And well, I guess I've also learned a few things from reading this, like the Spanish wanting to invade Portugal during the Napoleonic Wars, there's something new! Spanish Habsburg History is my Spanish forte, Bourbon Spanish history isn't. A truly great history-filled update, must have taken a lot of research, or perhaps you knew everything already! :p

Well, I will be waiting for the 15th of June Su Magestad! (I think that's Your Majesty in Spanish; it's been a while) ;)
 
Interesting, informative, much as others have already said. It's a nice perk of these boards that you can actually learn stuff while being entertained. :)

Whoops! Battery's dead! Looking forward to June 15th or thereabouts! Continued good luck with the exams!
 
To All: Your wait is almost over. I have a free day on Tuesday, but alas revision and updating CAF must come first. So you'll still have to wait until the 15th for your update. But that is only ten days away now! Get reading on your Spanish history so you can point out stuff that is wrong... I am reading a lot in advance... even a book on Barcelona to try and figure the complexities of that cities (and believe me, there are many... including Kurty).

Hardraade: You learn something new everyday, is what they say. Hope I helped with the saying :)

volksmarschall: Well don't worry that the Borbons aren't your strong point. I can assure the legacy of the Hapsburgs will continue to keep popping up right until the end of this AAR. I new a fair amount about the situation, yes, but there was about and hour, perhaps two, of research in that. Now I am reading proper books rather than scouting on the internet.

Stuyvesant: It is a nice perk. If only you'd write something... we'd learn even more! Hope you have charged up the laptop before the 15th ;)

Maximilliano: Always glad to have you along, pal.
 
This AAR about my country seems really interesting!! I can't wait!
I have ready my English-Spanish dictionary to start to read the AAR! And be careful, I'm sure there will be some Spanish readers! ;)
I can't believe yet you're only 15! You'll be a good AAR-writer!
Good luck with your exams! ;)
 
To All: Only one exam to go! Seeing I have the whole weekend basiclly free, I'll sit down and write an update tonight or tomorrow morning. A couple of days early. I will also update the House Rules with some preliminary changes I have made to the 1836 start of the game .

Salim: Always glad to have more Spaniards along with the ride. I will be careful, and I'll be sure to get my history right and my Spanish... well... as close to :) You'll have to be on your toes for the next few chapters; Spanish involvement in the Peninsular/Independence War is not my strong point!
 
robou said:
To All: Only one exam to go! Seeing I have the whole weekend basiclly free, I'll sit down and write an update tonight or tomorrow morning. A couple of days early. I will also update the House Rules with some preliminary changes I have made to the 1836 start of the game .

Salim: Always glad to have more Spaniards along with the ride. I will be careful, and I'll be sure to get my history right and my Spanish... well... as close to :) You'll have to be on your toes for the next few chapters; Spanish involvement in the Peninsular/Independence War is not my strong point!
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Great news :D

Good luck with the last exam, I'll be busy with them for the coming week too but that won't keep me from reading this :)
 
robou said:
To All: Only one exam to go! Seeing I have the whole weekend basiclly free, I'll sit down and write an update tonight or tomorrow morning. A couple of days early. I will also update the House Rules with some preliminary changes I have made to the 1836 start of the game .

Salim: Always glad to have more Spaniards along with the ride. I will be careful, and I'll be sure to get my history right and my Spanish... well... as close to :) You'll have to be on your toes for the next few chapters; Spanish involvement in the Peninsular/Independence War is not my strong point!
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Ole Ole y Ole!! :rofl:
If you need some help with your Spanish, count on me! My English is not very good... but I try it! :D
 
Salim said:
Ole Ole y Ole!! :rofl:
If you need some help with your Spanish, count on me! My English is not very good... but I try it! :D
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Lets put it this way: Your English is better than my Spanish :D I am using a very interesting book: A Modern History of Spain for the Modern Language (or something to that effect) which tells you important spanish phrases and party names from 1812-1980. Pretty useful :)
 
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robou said:
Lets put it this way: Your English is better than my Spanish :D I am using a very interesting book: A Modern History of Spain for the Modern Language (or something to that effect) which tells you important spanish phrases and party names from 1812-1980. Pretty useful :)
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:eek:
Really interesting and... at least different! :rolleyes:
I'll try to look for it and take a look at it... I want to know what I can find out!
 
Salim said:
:eek:
Really interesting and... at least different! :rolleyes:
I'll try to look for it and take a look at it... I want to know what I can find out!
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The actual name is 'Spain 1812-1996 Modern History for Modern Languages' by Christopher J. Ross.
 
Chapter I: Little Big War - Part I



Chapter I: Little Big War​

"The bands of Spanish insurgents and the English army supported each other. Without the English the Spanish would have been quickly dispersed or crushed. In the absence of Guerrillas, the French armies would have acquired a unity and strength that they were never able to achieve in this country, and the Anglo-Portuguese army, unwarned of our operations and projects, would have been unable to withstand concentrated operations."

Extract of a French Military Report on the Peninsular War, by a French officer, J. Pellet.
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Making an effective estimate for the number of guerrillas who fought in the Peninsular War, or as known in Spain the War of Independence, is practically impossible. There were no form of documentation kept by most of the partisans, and British supply records do not assist either, as they always under supplied their gallant allies, who did more to assist them than they returned in kind. Even when partisan units were formed into regular formations in the Spanish army during 1814, a great number did not enlist, so this still gives no accurate representation. But in truth, apart from the small minority who sided with Napoleon, practically the whole of Spain was behind the partisans.

Most guerrilla officers had been of the same rank in the regular Spanish Army. That is not to say they were all aristocrats; Spain’s military academies were quite accepting of people of lower classes, contrary to most belief. For example, one of the most famous and successful Guerrilla leaders was Juan Martín Díez who, for the purposes of explaining the structure and effectiveness of the guerrillas, we will focus on. He was no aristocrat, though his well trimmed beard and neat hussar uniform might tell you otherwise. In fact, he was a farmer from the little village of Castrillo de Duero, which stood almost sixty kilometres away from the nearest city; Valladolid. He had since moved to a slightly larger town, though further from Valladolid, with his wife and had settled into farming there.

Before he had married, he had been a Captain in the Army of the Pyrenees and had fought, with commendation from his superiors despite the poor performance of the Spanish army, in the disastrous Rosellón Campaign (1793-1795) against France. It is hard to tell whether his hatred of the French had come before this time; for despite being lower class, he was no egalitarian, or if it was this bloody campaign that led him to hate them. What is for certain is that the regular army’s poor performance against superior French formations had drilled him into the belief that Spain could not win a war against a powerful European enemy, like the French, by use of pitched battles alone; an alternative form of warfare had to be found. Unfortunately for him, and many others like, the Spanish were forced to co-operate with the French for fourteen long, painful and troublesome years.

However, when the 1808 invasion came about, few were ready to take up arms against the French; Díez included as he had returned to farming in the relative peace, refusing to fight in the army alongside the French. The Spanish regulars were quickly defeated, some offering no resistance whatsoever to the French columns. Barcelona had taken been taken after less than a month of hostilities and by April, Madrid had also fallen. Most of north-eastern Spain was occupied by the beginning May prompting, as we have seen above, Napoleon to replace the Spanish Royalty with his brother, and in so doing set the spark for the whole of Iberia to come alive. A council of Spanish nobles who were sympathetic to France was ‘elected’ in as a temporary Junta and unanimously accepted Joseph’s claims to the throne before being promptly dissolved.

The following events proved complex and, in general, spontaneous. On May 2nd, 1808, an angry crowd gathered near the Royal Palace in Madrid, though their actual intentions, beyond a want of restoring Ferdinand to the throne, were unknown. Marshal Murat, Napoleon’s personally appointed representative in Madrid, sent a battalion of the Imperial Guard to clear the square. It is unclear what happened next. Perhaps a stone was thrown, or an insult. Maybe the French had orders to act, or the officer in charge was jumpy or blatantly malicious. Whatever the cause, the French opened fire on the, as far as known, unarmed crowd, which quickly dispersed. News was quick to spread around the city and soon the entirety of Madrid was in revolt. Unfortunately, against well trained and unbreakable Imperial Guards and Murat’s personal Mameluke cavalry, the disorganised revolution was crushed. The Spanish Army that was in the city mostly remained neutral, but was forcibly disarmed by the French. This went mostly without flaw, apart from one artillery unit, led by Captain Pedro Velarde y Santillán that refused and, instead, joined the rebellion, and was then slaughtered.



goya_thirdofmay.png

The famous Fransico de Goya (1746 – 1828) painting 'The Third of May 1808: The Execution of the Defenders of Madrid'. He claimed he tried to "perpetuate by the means of his brush the most notable and heroic actions of our glorious insurrection against the Tyrant of Europe".​



By the following morning, the city was back in French hands at the cost of almost a thousand dead. The following repression was brutal. All people attributed to assisting the revolution, numbering well into hundreds, were shot by firing squads on May 3rd, under orders of General Grouchy, prompting Goya’s famous The Third of May, 1808. French cavalry patrols were also extended and informed that they had the use of any force whatsoever to suppress a rebellion. In the countryside, men and women who were suspected of assisting the partisans were shot without trial, and those women whose husbands had been shot were often raped and then killed too. The French had hoped this quick suppression of any revolutionary feelings would end the potentially fatal situation in Spain. In this, they proved completely wrong. The revolution in Madrid and the murders in the countryside, along with a declaration of ministers previously sympathetic to the French that all Spaniards were now in a state of war with France, prompted thousands, if not tens-of-thousands of men to leave their homes and join the increasingly popular and effective guerrillas; the regular army having disgraced itself by failing to support the rebellion in Madrid.

In Díez’s town of Fuentecén, a woman he well knew was raped by a French cavalryman, whom Díez then killed. Forced to flee, he and some of his friends and family formed a war band and went off to fight the French. Attaching themselves to the Army of León, they started their guerrilla war by acting as scouts for the Spanish Regulars, but when this army was defeated, twice, and virtually dissolved, Díez’s war began in earnest.


 
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And so the guerilla war begins :)

Barcelona had taken Barcelona after less than a
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I assume there's something wrong here? ;)
 
It is silly how long it took humankind to move from battle formations to guerilla warfare. :p
Maybe because there was no honour in ambushing enemies who could not properly even defend themselves. :D
Tyrants are only conquerors who have failed, successful conquerors remain as glorious butcherers. :rolleyes:
 
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