Was the Spanish 19th century army built to oppress Spaniards, not fight wars?

[Semper Victor]

And he tolerated the open and blatant corruption of the officer corps. My uncle did his military service at La Seu d'Urgell, by the Andorran border. And the main tobacco smuggling ring across the border was run by the officers in the garrison and the Civil Guard. As a matter of fact, he recalls that people made lenghty queues in the street in front of the building where the commander of the Civil Guard owned a flat; he did the selling right there, in the middle of the day and in front of the whole town .

EDIT: Oh, and there was also the "Huertas Claveria scandal" in the 1970s right after Franco's death, because journalist Huertas Claveria dared to write in an article that most meublés in the city of Barcelona were run by wives or widowers of military officers . He ended up in front of a military court for that.

 

[kaoss]

And "day to day corruption" such as using conscripts to do menial jobs for officers households.

 

[Semper Victor]

Well, that was de rigueur in the Spanish army practically until the end of conscription. Another example that comes now to my memory is related to the truck driver we employ at the business that I run with my father.

He made his military service at a barracks in Barcelona, at Entença street in the Eixample. As he was a good truck driver he was forced almost daily to drive up and down in "official" convoy duty. This guy grew tired with it, and so he went to speak with the brigade commander. He told him that he wanted some reprieve from "convoy duty", and the commander told him it was his choice: either convoy duty or arrest. So he kept doing convoy duty.

One day he complained about his situation to another, more veteran soldier. This veteran soldier told him that in effect he should be receiving an extra economic supplement for doing all this driving around, to which our driver told him that he hadn't seen a penny of it. And the veteran told him that this was the reason why the commander did not want him to stop with convoy duty; he was pocketing the money himself .

And what should I do? complained our truck driver. Complain again? The veteran answered him that it was pointless, and that he should just answer in kind. The next time they went out in convoy duty, they stopped at a gas station and asked the owner for a large bill for "changing the oil in all the trucks". Of course, no oil change was made and the money was split between the soldiers and the gas station owner at the state's expense ...