The blow was very rough. The monarchy with Gaul lost its center; and not only did he not have the strength to win her back, but he saw his very existence in danger. The Iberian Peninsula, on which by now he had to rely almost exclusively, was a country of too recent conquest to be able to immediately become its valid support. Moreover, since Clovis’s conversion to Catholicism had given…
Read MoreSpain History – The Visigothic Comination Part I
After numerous attacks, finally overcoming the resistance of the Basques, who have been staunch defenders of the independence of their land for many years, in 409, to the Vandals, some ranks of Alani and a branch of the Swabians, he managed to cross the Pyrenees gorges. Much of the Iberian Peninsula was sacked; and then, around 411, the invaders thus divided the country: the Swabians and the Asdingi Vandals took…
Read MoreCivil Wars in Spain Part III
On the other hand, what became more and more acute was the gap between the regions forming the Castilian monarchy and those constituting the Catalan-Aragonese: the accession to the Aragonese throne of Ferdinand el de Antequera having changed the situation very little, although it could in some way prepare the country to accept closer dynastic ties; because at the moment of the marriage between Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of…
Read MoreCivil Wars in Spain Part II
Miserably failed the dream of Alfonso X of León and Castile, who had hoped to be crowned emperor (and in his mad attempt he had destroyed the state treasury and strengthened the opposition to the enterprise that was not considered to be of national interest in the country with the unpopular measures he had been forced to take to make up for the lack of money, with his tendencies towards…
Read MoreCivil Wars in Spain Part I
The era of civil wars in Spain and the Catalan-Aragonese expansion in the Mediterranean. – It was in such conditions, when the great military enterprises against the Muslim world ended with the deaths of Ferdinand III of León and Castile and of James I of Aragon. In fact, if the war, which continued especially from Castile, lasted another seventy years until the battle of the Río Salado, on the other…
Read MoreSpain History – The Age of Enlightenment in Spain Part III
But foreign policy did not yield equally satisfactory results. During his government, Ferdinand VI, urged by the British and the French to make common cause with one of them, had preferred a policy of peace, had also entered into an agreement with Austria and had declared himself neutral at the outbreak of the war of the Seven years. On his death, Charles III was linked to France with the “family…
Read MoreSpain History – The Age of Enlightenment in Spain Part II
Then it seemed that Spain wanted to turn in on itself and heal the infinite evils that troubled it and which were a consequence of the internal and foreign policy followed by its Austrian monarchs. The movement had already begun during the reign of Philip V, under the influence of the court of Versailles which regulated the work of D’Orry and Amelot and for the activity of the Italians and…
Read MoreSpain History – The Age of Enlightenment in Spain Part I
The peaces of Utrecht (1713) and of Rastatt (1714) – which closed the war of the Spanish succession (1700-14) and gave the throne of Spain to Philip V of Bourbon (1700-46), grandson of Maria Theresa daughter of Philip IV and wife of Louis XIV of France – marked the beginning of a new life for the Iberian monarchy. They did not take away its political independence, because, contrary to what…
Read MoreSpain Military Operations During the Civil War Part IV
The Battle of Teruel. – From the synthetic narration of the events which took place in 1937 in Spain, it can be seen that the same year was about to close for the Marxists with a clearly passive balance sheet. The government of Valenza therefore felt the need to try a big blow in the hope that a victory, even a limited one, could strengthen the confidence of the masses…
Read MoreSpain Military Operations During the Civil War Part III
According to ASK4BEAUTY.COM, the plan studied by the national command initially provided for the termination of the pocket and the conquest of the Cantabrian watershed which runs parallel to a short distance from the base of the pocket itself; at a later time the attacking columns had to proceed swiftly and decisively on Santander. The battle, preceded by rigorous air and artillery preparation, began on 14 August. While in the…
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