|
Spain Historical Role of the Armed Forces
Permanently organized armed forces were first created
during
the reign of Ferdinand of Aragon (Spanish, Aragon) and
Isabella
of Castile (Spanish, Castilla) in the fifteenth century
(see Ferdinand and Isabella
, ch. 1). Throughout the sixteenth
and the
seventeenth centuries, the army was well organized and
disciplined, employing the most technologically advanced
weapons
of all the forces in Europe; in that period it suffered no
decisive defeat. The army was colorful, feared, and
respected.
Military careers had status, and they were sought by the
aristocracy and by the most ambitious of the commoners.
The navy was also formidable throughout much of the
same
period. The humiliation of the Armada, as the navy is
known in
Spain, in its battle against England in 1588 was a result
of
inadequate strategy and tactics, complicated by weather,
not
inferior fleet size. Its defeat did not end Spain's days
as a sea
power, but Spain was never again mistress of the seas. The
appeal
of military careers gradually declined, and the lower
ranks
became a haven for social misfits. Foreign mercenaries
outnumbered Spaniards in twenty-six of the thirty-one
brigades
formed during the reign of Philip III (1598-1621). The
Thirty
Years' War began the eclipse of Spain's international
prestige as
a military power. The occupation of Spain by Napoleon
Bonaparte
in the first decade of the nineteenth century was the last
occasion on which Spanish forces participated in a major
conflict
with those of other European powers
(see The Napoleonic Era
, ch.
1).
The War of Independence (1808-14) marked the armed
forces'
departure from unquestioning obedience to the government.
Although the government had acquiesced in the French
occupation,
and many of the army's leaders had concurred in this, a
number of
regular army units rebelled against the occupation and
responded
to the patriotic cause. After the defeat by the French,
guerrilla
units continued to resist. Composed largely of former army
personnel, these units were, in effect, fighting a
people's war
in opposition to the so-called legal government.
When the War of Independence ended, officers from the
old
army were joined by those of the resistance groups. Most
retained
their military status rather than resign or retire,
because there
were few employment opportunities in the sluggish civilian
economy of the time. The glut of officers persisted, and
it was
one of the factors contributing to the military's
continued
dabbling in the political arena.
The Carlist civil wars that occurred intermittently
between
1833 and 1876, the decadent monarchy, and the weak
governments of
the nineteenth century cemented the military's involvement
in
politics
(see
Rule by Pronunciamiento;
Liberal Rule
, ch.
1). Civilian politicians were rarely willing to turn over
power,
but they often encouraged actions by the military when
conditions
under the group in control could no longer be tolerated.
Although
not all its members shared a common ideology, the military
was
generally among the more liberal forces in society.
The armed forces were either the instigators of, or the
major
participants in, most of the governmental changes between
1814
and the Civil War of the 1930s. There were so many
military
interventions that the procedure followed a stylized
scenario,
known as the pronunciamiento (pl.,
pronunciamientos). A group of officers--usually led
by a
general--would, after exploring the "will of the people,"
seek a
commitment to rebellion from other officers, who would
pledge
their troops and agree to act upon a proper signal.
Convinced of
adequate support, the leader would then issue a
pronunciamiento, which typically would consist of
an
address to the troops or to a street gathering, taking the
form
of direct or oblique threats against the government. Both
the
military leaders and the government would then watch the
public
reaction to determine whether there had been an impressive
rallying to the rebel cause, in which case the government
would
resign. If the pronunciamiento were not greeted
with
revolutionary enthusiasm and if those who had agreed to
stage
simultaneous demonstrations failed to do so, the effort
was
quickly abandoned.
Pronunciamientos were made almost annually
between
1814 and 1868, and occasionally thereafter until the
1930s. The
last successful one brought Primo de Rivera to power in
1923.
Depite the position of the armed forces as a highly
important
factor in Spanish politics, they demonstrated deplorable
incompetence in battle. Spain's Latin American colonies
successfully broke away early in the nineteenth century.
Spain's
last colonies, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines,
were lost
during the Spanish-American War of 1898. The navy shared
the
army's disgrace; its crushing losses during the
Spanish-American
War left it with only two major combat vessels.Spain
emerged
successfully from a frustrating campaign against Morocco
(1907-27) only after painful and humiliating defeats.
Symptomatic
of the defense establishment's failure to adapt to modern
needs
was the existence of nearly 150 admirals in the navy of
the time.
Data as of December 1988
|
