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ABSTRACT
The period 1833 to 1840 witnessed a brutal civil war in Spain waged between insurgent Carlists and the government Cristinos. The Carlists managed to secure reliable territorial control only over one part of Spain (upland Navarra and rural parts of the neighbouring Basque provinces). Although pockets of armed Carlism flourished elsewhere in Spain, especially in Catalonia, Aragón and Galicia, these insurgents were ineffective at coordinating actions. The Carlist court in the Basque country tried to break its strategic blockade by launching a series of expeditions into Cristino-held territory in the hope of destabilising the Madrid regime and consolidating distant insurrections. This article explains how and why these expeditions scored tactical victories but strategic failures. In particular it argues that Carlist raiding strategy was a failure, for its use of violence against real and imagined enemies in marginal and Cristino areas of control alienated civilian support.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. E.g. Bullón de Mendoza, Primera Guerra carlista.
2. Lawrence, Nineteenth-century Spain, 64.
3. Bullón de Mendoza, Primera Guerra carlista, 685.
4. Cruz, “Un retrat del general carlista Ramon Cabrera,” 102.
5. A.H.N., Estado, 8755: En territorio navarro, docs. 36 and 111: 14 April 1834 and 4 August 1834 letters from Viceroy of Navarra to comandante militar de armas de Puente de Reina.
6. T.N.A., FO/72/458, Doc. 92: 17 April 1836 letter from Villiers to Lord Palmerston.
7. Miraflores, Memorias del reinado de Isabel II.
8. T.N.A., FO/72/458, Doc. 92: 17 April letter from Villiers to Lord Palmerston.
9. Marichal, Spain (1834–1844), 118–123. Marichal suggests that the hostility of the peasantry in the Maestrazgo towards change was the main cause of popular Carlism here. Such contemporary liberals as Evaristo San Miguel, on the other hand, thought that “agricultural improvements” in this bleak, sparsely-populated, zone, could win over the population to liberalism (Rújula, Historia de la guerra última en Aragón y Valencia, LXXXVI-LXXXIX).
10. Rahden, Cabrera, 118.
11. Caridad Salvador, “Los carlistas de Valencia,” 181–182.
12. T.N.A., FO 72/459, Doc. 149: 18 June 1836 letter from Villiers to Lord Palmerston.
13. Cruz, “Un retrat del general carlista Ramon Cabrera,” 100.
14. Rahden, Cabrera, 77–90.
15. Diario de Barcelona, 12 August 1840.
16. Cruz, “Un retrat del general carlista Ramon Cabrera,” 101.
17. Rahden, Cabrera, 81.
18. Ibid., 110–117.
19. Ibid., 66–68.
20. Lawrence, Spanish Civil Wars, 66.
21. T.N.A., FO72/458, Doc. 51, 7 March 1836 letter from Villiers to Lord Palmerston.
22. T.N.A., FO/72/459, Doc. 107: 2 May 1836 letter from Villiers to Lord Palmerston.
23. Rújula, Cabrera, 143–44.
24. Ibid., 39.
25. Bullón de Mendoza, Primera guerra carlista, 204–206.
26. For a conceptual explanation of the Kalyvas thesis, see Kalyvas, Logic of Violence in Civil Wars; and Kalyvas, “Micro-Level Studies of Violence in Civil War,” 658–668.
27. Bullón de Mendoza, Primera guerra carlista, 213.
28. Comesaña Paz, “Armas inglesas para don Carlos,” 731–758.
29. Bullón de Mendoza, Expedición de Gómez.
30. Rahden, Cabrera, 46.
31. Pirala, Guerra Civil, III, 284–289.
32. Lawrence, Spain’s First Carlist War, 167.
33. Gaceta Oficial, 9 August 1836.
34. Lawrence, Nineteenth-century Spain, 81; and Lichnowsky, Erinnerungen, 137.
35. For a conceptual analysis of the short-term versus long-term ‘investment’ made by insurgents, see Stewart and Liou, “Do Good Borders Make Good Rebels?” 284–301.
36. Eco del Comercio, 2 January 1836.
37. Lawrence, Spain’s First Carlist War, 125.
38. Goeben, Vier Jahre in Spanien, 338.
39. Rahden, Cabrera, 220.
40. Pirala, Guerra civil, IV, 108–115.
41. Rahden, Cabrera, 49–50.
42. Lichnowsky, Erinnerungen, 238–245.
43. Dembowski, Dos años en España durante la guerra civil, 40.
44. T.N.A., FO 72/483: 1 September 1837 letter from Villiers to Palmerston.
45. T.N.A., FO 72/483, No. 269: 9 September 1837 letter from Villiers to Palmerston.
46. Pirala, Guerra civil, IV, 115–122.
47. Ibid., 127–132.
48. Ibid., 154–160.
49. Pirala, Guerra civil, IV, 144–154; and Oyarzun, Historia del carlismo, 81.
50. The battle of Villar de los Navarros is also known as the Battle of Herrera.
51. Pirala, Guerra civil, IV, 154–160.
52. See note 44 above.
53. Lawrence, Nineteenth-century Spain, 83.
54. Burgo, Historia de la primera guerra carlista, 247; and Pirala, Guerra civil, IV, 177–183.
55. Rahden, Cabrera, 60.
56. Bullón de Mendoza, Primera guerra carlista, 191.
57. Pirala, Guerra civil, IV, 193–199.
58. Oyarzun, Historia del carlismo, 79, 82–83; and Pirala, Guerra civil, IV, 206–207.
59. See note 45 above.
60. Pirala, Guerra civil, IV, 215–218.
61. Janke, Mendizábal, 250–252.
62. This charter provided one Cortes representative per 50,000 inhabitants, enfranchised all men paying at least 200 reales in annual taxes or receiving an annual private income of at least 1,500 reales, which amounted to 1 inhabitant in 48 enjoying full citizenship (whereas under the 1834 Royal Statute this figure had been 1 in 213), Palacio Atard, La España del siglo XIX, 200–202).
63. Espadas Burgos, Baldomero Espartero, 61; and Pirala, Guerra civil, IV, 431–439.
64. Aróstegui, Canal, and Calleja, Guerras carlistas, 61; Clemente, Guerras carlistas, 111; and Pirala, Guerra civil, IV, 227–228.
65. Pirala, Guerra civil, IV, 230–231.
66. T.N.A., FO 72/483, No. 272: 23 September 1837 letter from Villiers to Palmerston.
67. Holt, Carlist Wars, 172.
68. Lichnowsky, Erinnerungen, 134.
69. Burgo, Historia de la primera guerra carlista, 212–213.
70. T.N.A., FO 72/483, No. 275: 26 September 1837 letter from Villiers to Palmerston.
71. Pirala, Guerra civil, IV, 232–237.
72. Ibid., 237–239.
73. T.N.A., FO 72/483, No. 290: 7 October 1837 letter from Villiers to Palmerston.
74. Pirala, Guerra civil, IV, 237–239; for a more positive assessment of the private contractor system in the Early Modern era, see Parrott, The Business of War.
75. Pirala, Guerra Civil, II, 260–265.
76. Pirala, Guerra civil, IV, 246–255; Julio Aróstegui Sánchez, ‘La aparición del carlismo y los antecedentes de la guerra’ in Historia de España: La era isabelina y el sexenio democrático (1834–1874), 121–122; and Canal, El carlismo, 98.
77. Oyarzun, Historia del carlismo, 105–106.
78. Rújula, Historia de la guerra, LXXV-LXXVI.
79. Remírez de Esparza, Carlismo aragonés, 46–59; and Burgo, Historia de la primera guerra carlista, 185–186.
80. A.H.N., Emigrados, 8119, 29 December 1838 letter from Spanish government to British minster in Madrid.
81. Pirala, Guerra civil, IV, 408–41; and Oyarzun, Historia del carlismo, 157.
82. Cruz, “Un retrat del general carlista Ramon Cabrera,” 103–104.
83. T.N.A., FO 72/516: 6 June 1838 letter from Villiers to Palmerston.
84. T.N.A., FO 72/500: 6 December 1838 letter from Villiers to Palmerston.
85. Inbar,International Affairs, 1428–1431.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Mark Lawrence
Mark Lawrence is Lecturer in modern Hispanic and military history at the University of Kent, and Director of Military History at the University of Kent for 2019–2020. He is the author of a number of books and articles, including the award-winning Spanish Civil Wars (Bloomsbury, 2017), Nineteenth-century Spain (Routledge, 2019), and Insurgency, Counterinsurgency and Policing in centre-west Mexico, 1926–1929: Fighitng Cristeros (Bloomsbury, forthcoming).