"Spanish organisation 1811 ish" Topic
4 Posts
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Alan M | 15 Jan 2015 1:56 p.m. PST |
I have heard some suggestions that the Spanish moved from a 4 company battalion to 6 sometime during the war. When did this happen and what was the company organisation, i.e. similar to the French – 4 centre, 2 flank? Ta |
Major Bloodnok | 15 Jan 2015 4:32 p.m. PST |
Officialy July 1st, 1810 the Spanish Line were ordered into three bn. reg'ts, each with six coys per bn. 1 Granadero Coy, 1 Cazador Coy., 4 Fusilier Coys. I believe the third bn. was to be a depot. Granadero Coy: 115 rank & file. Cazadore Coy.: 106 rank & file. Fusilier Coy.: 164 rank and file. In 1812 the reg'ts became single bns. of six coys. This is taken from The Armies of Sapin and Portugal by George Nafziger |
Alan M | 16 Jan 2015 10:20 a.m. PST |
Marvellous, thanks for that. |
Teodoro Reding | 18 Jan 2015 4:31 a.m. PST |
Hi Alan. Nafziger is simplifying a lot. Here is the detail: -In October 1808, the Army of Galicia introduced light companies into the battalions of all regiments that had two or more battalions – but then grouped the result in the Vanguard Division as just another light infantry battalion. Not very logical. -In 1809, there was an attempted reform, according to Sanudo Bayon: 2 battalions of 8 companies including grenadiers and cazadores. Often, however, the battalions were so small that the unit operated as one (e.g. Irlanda at Albuhera in 1812 is shown on older Spanish maps as one unit; it was 600 strong, theoretically 2 battalions), many units were raised as single battalions and never produced a second, .and other units did still have 3 battalions operating together (e.g. Principe, Saragossa and Navarra in October 1809 for the Tamanes campaign) -On 4th January 1810 came another attempted reform – to 3 battalions, as Nafziger mentions (Gomez Ruiz & Alonso Juanloa) the aim of which was to reduce the number of (newly raised single battalion) regiments by grouping them with regular regiments, but as Esdaile points out this reform was resisted by the provincial Juntas who saw there patronage threatened. In this reform Nafziger says 6 coys (of which one grenadier and one cazador), Gomez Ruiz & Alonso Juanloa say 5 coys (4 fusilier and one grenadier). The Provincial militia were to have two battalions, the first of 4 fusilier and one grenadier coy, the second of (4 fusilier and one cazador.). - On 1st July 1810 there was a more detailed new regulation – perhaps because the first had meet with such resistance, (Gomez Ruiz & Alonso Juanloa). This stipulated: 8 battalions of grenadiers – based on the 8 battalions of Provincial Grenadiers from 1808, 121 line regiments – including the Provincial Militia regiments, which added "Second" to their title if the name of their province was already the name of a line regiment. Grenadiers had 5 coys of grenadiers and 1 of cazadores. Line regiments wee to have 3 battalions of six coys, (I gren, 1 caz and 4 fusilier). Light regiments had one battalion as previously, 6 coys like line. The 4 Legions of Catalunia (created 1809 to reform all the troops there) were excluded from the reform. -All this was fiction, however. The Cadiz government's territory consisted only of Galicia, Asturias (contested), Valencia and Murcia. There was no money – all the American colonies were in revolt. -On 8th May 1812 a new decree, more in touch with reality, stipulated that all regiments were to amalgamate to create, and only keep/create second battalions IF the first was up to strength. These were single battalions of 10 companies like British – and in practice Portuguese, which combined their 2 batts of 5 coys into a 10 coy tactical unit too (Sanudo again, Gomez Ruiz & Alonso Juanloa , Esdaile p167,). This is the only decree that seems to have really been put into practice, as part of the reanimation of the Spanish army to reconquer the country after the initiative had passed to the Allies. Spanish battalions in 1812-14 tend to be larger again (by 1811 they had often been down to 3-400 men). Two battalion regiments occurred (e.g. Tiradores de Doyle and Legion Extremena – both new units raised by British officers) but this was very rare. Summary: - look at (Oman) Orders of Battle to see how many battalions there were; - assume that battalions under 300 or so of the same regiments would be merged into one tactical unit throughout the war. (Even in 1808 the 6 fusilier coys of a 2 battalion regt at the front fought as one tactical unit once its two coys of grenadiers had been stripped off to form grenadier battalions, like the Austrians; the battalion was never necessarily a tactical unit.) |
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