"Talamanca 1714" Topic

The catalan army tries to win some time by expelling the spanish invaders from their homeland.

Played with lasalle rulebook with some new homerules

link

Wow. Someone's blood was up!

Great photos and battle report. I have actually not seen that many duels in a battle before.

I did not see any priests to give "last rites" or where they away sampling the latest production of wine?

Cheers,

It's curious how history has been changed in the last few decades, from a dinastic war to a war for independence.

althought the concept of nationalism vas too new for the period (dating back at least from the french revolution) it fas without any doubt a struggle to defend the rights and freedoms of the kingdom of Catalunya dear Basileus

If you check the historical documents, you'll find that the offical declaration of war from the catalan government cleraly states that their fight is to defend their independent form of government against the bourbonic invasion. Next time, before speaking, better inform yourself a bit.

Dear noigrim,

1) There was no Kingdom of Catalunya (sic). It was a territory within the Crown of Aragon, and at that time it was referred to as a "Principate" or a "Province" (both terms were frequently used). The whole Crown of Aragon was a basic part of a nation that for 2 centuries then had been known as Spain. The "nation of citizens" certainly originates with the American and the French Revolutions, but Spain had been a nation (as a self-recognised human community with cultural, historical and state bonds) centuries before that. I recomend you to read Cervantes.
2) Saying that the "Spanish" invaded Catalonia is like saying that the Europeans fought against Prussia in the SYW… Catalonians were just as Spanish as were the Castilians, the Asturians or the Andalusians. And there were a good number of Catalonians who supported Philip V (and Castilians who supported the Archduke). And the Archduke partidaries were NOT fighting at all for Secession or against Spain (that is SO weird). They were fighting for Spain just as much as the other side. It was a dynastic civil war, caused mainly by an international clash of interests between France and her enemies.
3) What you call "rights and freedoms" were the Ancient Regime laws that applied in that territory (no citizenship rights, to be sure). Philip V made no initial attempt against those Old Laws, but the territories of the Crown of Aragon rebelled anyway in support of the Archduke Charles claim to the throne of Spain (only after being invaded by his forces, all being said). Philip V chastised the rebellion extending Castile´s Old Laws to the rest of Spain, as those laws allowed the monarch greater political power (and those laws proved to be very beneficial in many ways for Catalonia over the XVIIIth Century, as they brought down medieval internal barriers). Fortunately, all the Old Laws died in Spain with the liberal Constitution of 1812, but some people today manipulates History to justify their current secessionist-tribal political ideary.

What was defended were the feudal rights of the Catalonian elite. Don't get me wrong: although I would like for Catalonia to secede from Spain, I can't buy the nationalist discourse that presents the War of the Spanish Succession as a short of proto-independence war. It wasn't. It was a dinastic conflict, as can be checked in the own Archivos de la Corona de Aragón, which are in Barcelona and easily accessible, by the way. In other words, while I will celebrate the day that Catalonia secedes from Spain, I hope that it won't be based upon mis-interpretations of history.

1)While Catalonia was not a kingdom (it ad never been so), it had definitely been as a sovereign territory as every kingdom in the Iberian peninsula. It was not a territory within the Crown of Aragon, but one of the territories which shared the state head in the person of the Count of Barcelona, who was also King of Aragon, Valencia and Mallorca etc. These territories are called collectively as Crown of Aragon but they weren't by any means part of Aragon (as Aragon wasn't part of Catalonia etc.). The Spanish nation did not exist as a single entity, Spain was a state and in any case a conglomerate/composite of nations-substates. Catalonia is referred to as a nation in the assembly which declared for (resuming) war against Philip d'Anjou, even by the same Philip d'Anjou, so any debate on this matter is false. Catalonia had both legal and politic insitutions which worked on their own without any interference from other than the head of state, and then only by mutual agreement (so the king could then receive taxes and subsidies).
2) As a generic term it is not wrong to say that the Spanish invaded Catalonia, although it would be more correct to state that it was invaded by Bourbon Spanish. There were Spanish defending the Catalan rights and freedoms (see below), but by 1713-14 they had been enlisted by the Army of Catalonia and not the Imperial (Austrian) one. Those who chose to keep in Imperial service (both Spanish and Catalan) were evacuated to Imperial territories.

While it is true that from 1705 to 1713 the Imperials fought for Charles' rights to the Spanish throne (which also gave him the capability, as head of state, of ruling over the Catalan Principality), his Catalan supporters did so because of Charles' sworn respect for the Catalan laws and freedoms, which although originally dating from the medieval times (as almost each and every one law by then), were capable of being reformulated if need arose and made a legal corpus which was in all senses constitutional and which was, as the pillar of the parliamentarian system which governed Catalonia, perfectly suitable to evolve into a republican government (in fact it functionally did so at least three times in 1460, 1640 and 1713). To say that the passing of time brought laws which benefitted Catalonia is to state the obvious; but it is too to ignore that the loss of the Catalan constitutions (they were so called, to separate them from purely feudal law) was a huge step back. The modernisation brought by the 18th century was in Catalonia retarded a good some 50 years because of Philip d'Anjou. Guess it can also be said for Spain, because as joaquin99 stated the Castilian laws which were used by the Bourbons were both obsolete and repressive.

Fact is that the War of Spanish Succession in Catalonia started as a mixed dynastic and independence (not to win it but to keep the Catalan particularity) one and evolved by 1713 into a fully independence war. It is not an interpretation but the raw meaning, beyond the limitations of language, of the facts and intentions of the participants, who stated so without any possible doubt.

If the point it's about nationalism all agree that the romantic and actual sense of that starts in the american-french revolutions. Having in mind that before it's dynastic union with Castilla all the crown of Arago was a state of it's own the fight to maintain that status in 1714 is without any doubt a fight for independence. About the matter of the crown of Aragon/Catalonia there were units in the catalan army like the regiment of na senyora dels desamparats composed with people of the other kingdoms of Arago fighting for the common cause of the freedom of all three kingdoms. Holland was the first nation to secede from spain and nowadays none puts in doubt that it's a nation. About the dynastic fight it ended being so when the Austrians evaquated Catalonia breaking the obligation of protection that justified the monarchic rule in the era.

It's curious how history has been changed in the last few decades

That's what happens when you are told only one side's version, as if it was *the real* one.

I've cared to read from the start to the end the manuscript chronicle by Marquis de Quincy, who was a French general in Philip V's army. These chronicle was written in French for King Louis XIV little after the capture of Barcelona. And it shows *exactly* the same version of the war still stated as *the true one* by Spanish academicists.

Otherwise, have you ever read a chronicle written by a contemporary Catalan military? Do you know their own version of it? (Not ours own, but that of our ancestors of that time?)

Have you --or any Spaniard daring to opinate with that much authority-- ever bothered to read any of the myriad of scholar works published in the last decade by a lot of Catalan Universities professors and scholars --not just in Catalan, but also Spanish and English languages?

If reading these, you would learn for instance that the Constitutions of Catalonia had nothing to do with feudal rights, but with a whole guarantees system affecting the relationship of common citizens with Authorities, or that of these amongst them, or regarding the Crown. In a line not that different of a modern Constitution, unlike you might believe at first.

There's admittedly a revolution here in Catalonia regarding the interpretation of WSS --but its origin does not lay on any romantic, nationalistic revisionism as you might believe; but on the persistent, tenacious and tireless effort of a local scholars host.

lluís

Lluis

I have read the actual documents from the time. Not memoirs. Not studies. Not opinions. The plain and simple documents -in Catalan and in Castilian- written back then. It was part of my research for my PhD. My PhD is focused in the war against France in 1808-1814, in the guerrilla war to be more exact; but I wanted to investigate if my hypothesis that guerrilla war wasn't anything special in 1808-1814 was correct, so I also researched other previous conflicts, especially the War of the Spanish Succession and the War of the League of Ausburg in the Pyrenees. In the archives, particularly in the Archivo de la Corona de Aragón, Archivo Histórico Nacional in Madrid and in the Archivo Nacional in Simancas.

But don't get me wrong. As I said before: I fully support the independence of Catalonia. I do not feel that your country is part of my country; I feel it as a foreign country, like The Netherlands or Italy. That is the reason why I support your struggle to secede from Spain. For me the famous "Catalonia is not Spain" is totally true, even if I actually reverse it to "Spain is not Catalonia".

Seriously, do not try to link every non proBourbon Spanish version to independentism or nationalism. Spanish serious historians would not do so.

Nor I am doing it. What doesn't hold is the whole idea of the war of the Spanish Succession as other than a dinastic conflict, where Catalonia (most, as there were a lot of exceptions) supported a candidate that Catalonian elites presumed would respect the survival of their political and, especially, economic privileges. That is what I do not find correct: the whole discourse of a war for independence, when it wasn't.

But that is irrelevant for our present. Catalonia is claiming her right to secede, and I do find it logical. They don't feel Spanish and want to go their own way. I agree with them: I don't feel they are Spanish either. What I don't get nor would support is to the manipulation of the past to justify political discourses in the present. Catalonia should get her independence, but not because of an imagined past, but because her present-day population -and many Spaniards too, by the way- wants her to be a distinct country.

Don't misunderstand me; a war to keep own's independence IS a war of independence. Spain's war for independence was so after all, although it really was kind of dynastic conflict where Spanish supporters of Fernando VII allied to the British fought the Spanish supporters of Joseph Bonaparte allied to the French, coexisting with the ongoing war between the British and the French. The WSS was a dynastic war from 1705 (1701 in mainland Europe) to 1713; from 1713 to 1714, in Catalonia, it was an independence war to keep the Catalan rights and freedoms (and so its legal and politic independence, although sharing the head of state, kind of alike the modern Commonwealth but with obvious differences), although it had not ceased to be a dynastic conflict too. See the point?

See, independence in 1714 was not like independence now…

Spain's war for independence was so after all, although it really was kind of dynastic conflict where Spanish supporters of Fernando VII allied to the British fought the Spanish supporters of Joseph Bonaparte allied to the French, coexisting with the ongoing war between the British and the French.

Err… sorry, but that is not correct at all. Besides some areas in Andalucia and in Madrid, Jose I hadn't supporters in Spain. But, please, don't take my word for it. Just go to the archives and check the documents. They are enlightning.

O, and by the way, back in 1808-1814 the war wasn't known as "the war of independence"; it was known as the "war against the French". The whole idea of "independence" was an add up of the romantic historiography, later in the 1840s.

I insist: don't take my word for it; just check the documentary sources. In Barcelona you have the excellent Archivos de la Corona de Aragon. Also, many documents in the Archivo Histórico Nacional are digitalized and can be consulted on-line.

Dear basileus66, fact is that there were Spanish supporters of Joseph Bonaparte, as you yourself just confirmed. Really no need to check documentation, it is public knowledge. That they were far (very far) fewer than his detractors is more than true. But it does not rule out that they existed, and that Joseph had an army with Spanish soldiers in it, and an administration with Spanish people working for him.

Agree on the next sentence, but the war of independence stuck and can be considered as adequate; as it was later considered a war for independence, so can the Catalan 1713-14 struggle be so considered, although obviously we're not talking here of anything but an informal consideration. If historiography ever wants to consider this campaign as a related but somehow separate war, the War of the Catalan Independence would be a likely name, very descriptive. Call it romantic (it is). BTW the war against the French is still called "Guerra del Francès" (War of the French) in Catalonia.

No, fact is that José I' supporters were so few that they couldn't even form local administrations; fact is that José's Spanish army had just two regiments operative… and those were formed by non-Spanish recruits; fact is that the only regiment of Spanish soldiers in French's pay which were battle-worthy was formed by the prisoners-of-war who were in Denmark, and who never fought in Spain (Napoleon believed they would desert; probably, he was right). Fact is that the Spanish administration was so useless that it was replaced by French military administration almost in every single region, with the possible exception of the city of Madrid itself (and even that it is debatable).

Pick other period -I suggest you the Carlist Wars, or even better: the rebellion of 1640- if you want something more amiable to your independentist hypothesis, because the war of Spain doesn't fit… not even in Catalonia, where the attempt from Napoleon to use Catalanism was met with indifference, if not hostility, by most Catalans.

Look, historical method is easy: pick your hypothesis and support it with a corpus of documents. I would gladly call 1711-1714 "The War of Catalonian Independence" if the historical record supports it. So far, the majority of the documentation doesn't… Actually, the rebellion of 1640 would be a better candidate to that claim that the war of the Spanish Succession, when even the leaders of the anti-Borbon party in Catalonia claimed that their fight was to regenerate Spain and uphold the old laws of the land, not to secede from it. In 1640, there was an actual drive towards independence, while in 1700-1714 wasn't present… and still, you choose the siege of Barcelona as your rallying cry instead the Corpus de Sangre. I guess that it is part of the typical manipulation of history by the burgeoise. They can relate with the former, while the Corpus de Sangre was a peasant rebellion, and you know how much middle classes abhorrs from rebellions from below…

Before I finish I would like to make you a question: why in Heaven's name do nationalists have the need to justify their desire for independence in a presumed past instead in the actual, current desire of many Catalonians to secede? I don't understand it. Honest.

You are definitely not seeing the point. The WSS in Catalonia, 1713-14, was NOT a war for independence as we see independence now but a war to keep own rights and freedoms, to keep Catalan constitutions and autonomy against a ruler who was too oblivious of them or was plainly willing to ignore them. Thus it can NOW be called as a war for independence in an educated sense (sadly the "educated" part is willingly ignored by most of our fellow citizens both inside and outside Catalonia, both favouring or against independence). Your ongoing mistake is to link it (solely) with nationalism or independentism, just as many independentists do, when it should just be a case of nomenclature; the Catalan army CinC was Spanish, certainly he did not fight for "independence" then but for his employers; a good many soldiers and officers did not fight for "independence" then, but for their employers or for Catalan constitutionalism. I meant that that is irrelevant to the fact that now we see that fight as able to produce a practical independence of sorts, and so that war COULD be called such. FYI I am not partial to such a name as it can, as we are demonstrating, lead to misunderstanding.

The same facts you are using as arguments against Joseph Bonaparte's Spanish support are the ones which stablish that said support existed, be it vastly minoritary or even marginal. Same within Catalonia, where a majority fought against the French BUT there were many Catalans actively fighting for the new administration, be it in the field or in the office, amd trade was conducted with the new administration. On the whole we can consider that war, exactly as the WSS in Catalonia (and Spain), and the 1640 war in Catalonia (or the Carlist wars, which could be considered as dynastic conflicts), as civil wars.

What I keep trying to explain is that the name we give to a given conflict has not necessarily to be the name it had then if we use a concept to describe it. So if the practical consequences of that conflict would have been secession or independence, we can give such names to those conflicts. In the case of both the 1640-59 and 1705-14 wars the practical result could have been independence, with the difference being that the first would have seen Catalonia seceding from Spain to fall under French rule (keeping autonomy) while the second, under its final circumstances, could have ended in some sort of republic of sorts. Of course a wide margin has to be applied to both (and others) so simplified conclusions.

You are missing my point or willing to reduce it to a common nationalist or independentist posture. To answer your last paragraph, I can't understand such necessity too. I guess people at large can't understand that the will to self determination is enough to grant such capability (the result is another matter, as Quebec demonstrated). It is bilateral, you know, as one of the most used arguments against secessionism is that Catalonia never was an independent entity (false argument, even if it is not necessary; we could talk about Finland, Ireland or the USA, which were not independent until they got their independence).

Sorry for the large comments. It is really difficult to explain such a complex matter and views without the benefits of beers and terraces, you know). BTW it is anongoing debate we have when we meet at historical reenactments. I guess you would njoy it as we like to discuss things severing links to mainstream contemporary politics and putting things on plain terms about contemporary politics, really. If you can give yourself a weekend in Pamplona by end of this month I'll gladly invite you for a beer/wine and join us in our talk. I can't warrant however that it does not end in a chat about women (or men for that matter) or politicians' closet skeletons… ;-)