An Audible Battle--"Great Cry and Little Wool"--A Carlist Court
Newsman--A Religious War--The Siege of Oyarzun--Madrid Rebels--"The
Money of Judas"--A Manifesto from Don Carlos--An Ideal
Monarch--Necessity of Social and Political Reconstruction
Proclaimed--A Free Church--A Broad Policy--The King for the
People--The Theological Question--Austerity in Alava--Clerical and
Non-Clerical Carlists--Disavowal of Bigotry--A Republican Editor on
the Carlist Creed--Character of the Basques--Drill and
Discipline--Guerilleros _versus_ Regulars.
WHEN a man's office is to chronicle war and he is within hearing of the
echoes of battle, but cannot reach a spot from which the scene of action
might be commanded, it is annoying in the extreme. Such was my strait on
the 21st of August, a few days after my arrival from San Sebastian. I
was at Hendaye, the border-town of France. From the Spanish frontier the
report of heavy firing was audible for hours, apparently coming from a
point between Oyarzun and Renteria. First one could distinguish the
faint spatter of musketry, and afterwards the undeniable muffled roar of
artillery. Then came a succession of sustained rolls as of
volley-firing. About noon the action must have been at its height. The
distant din was subsequently to be caught only at long intervals, as if
changes of position were in course of being effected; but at three
o'clock it regained force, and raged with fury until five, when it
suddenly died away.
I was burning with impatience, and made several unavailing attempts to
cross the Bidassoa. The ferryman, acting under instructions from the
gendarmes, refused to take passengers. By the evening train a delegate
from the Paris Society for the Succour of the Wounded arrived from
Bayonne with a box of medicine and surgical appliances. He, too, was
unable to pass into Spain. Meantime, rumour ran riot. Stories were
current that there had been fearful losses.
"At eleven o'clock men were falling like flies," said one eye-witness,
who succeeded in running away from the field before he fell.
Not a single medical man would leave France in response to the call of
the Paris delegate for volunteers to accompany him. Were they all
Republicans? Did they fear that Belcha might take a fancy to their
probes and forcipes? Or did they look upon the big battles and
tremendous lists of casualties in this most uncivil of civil wars as
illustrations of a great cry and little wool? If the latter was their
notion, they were right. Three days after this serious engagement, I
learned the particulars of what had taken place. General Loma, a
brigadier under Sanchez Bregua, with a column of 1,500 men, came out
from San Sebastian to cover a working-party while they were endeavouring
to throw up a redoubt for his guns on an eminence between Irun and
Oyarzun, so as to put an end to the tussle over the possession of the
latter hamlet, which was a perpetual bone of contention. The Carlists
fired upon him from behind the rocks in a gorge to which he had
committed himself, but were outnumbered. Word was sent to the cabecilla,
Martinez, at Lesaca, and he arrived with reinforcements at the double,
and encompassed Loma with such a cloud of sulphurous smoke that the
Republicans had to fall back upon San Sebastian. The casualties in this
Homeric combat were not appalling; there was more gunpowder than blood
expended. The losses on the Republican side were one killed and fifteen
wounded. On the Carlist side they were less, for the Carlists kept under
cover of the fern and furze. But then it must be considered that the
firing only lasted nine hours!
Don Carlos was not slow in calling the printing-press to his aid. One of
his first acts after his entry into his dominions was to start an
official gazette, _El Cuartel Real_, the first number of which is before
me as I write. I have seen queer papers in my travels, from the
_Bugler_, a regimental record brought out by the 68th Light Infantry in
Burmah, to the _Fiji Times_, and the _Epitaph_, the leading organ of
Tombstone City, in the territory of Arizona; but this assuredly was the
queerest. It was published by Cristobal Perez, on the summit of Pena de
la Plata, a Pyrenean peak. There might be less acceptable reading than a
_resume_ of its contents.
_El Cuartel Real_ does not impose by its magnitude. It is about
one-eighth the size of a London daily journal; but if it is not great by
quantity it is by quality. Over the three columns of the opening page
figure the three watchwords of the Royal cause, "God, Country, King."
The paragraph which has the post of honour is headed "Oficial," and has
in it a flavour of the _Court Newsman_. Here it is as it appears in the
original, boldly imprinted in black type:
"S. M. el Rey (q.D.g.) continua sin novedad al frente de su leal y
valiente ejercito.
"S. M. la Reina y sus augustos hijos continuan tambien sin novedad en su
importante salud."
As it is not vouchsafed to everyone to understand Castilian, I may as
well give a rough translation, which read herewith:
"His Majesty the King (whom God guard) continues without change at the
front of his loyal and valiant army.
"Her Majesty the Queen and her august children also continue without
alteration in their precious health."
Then _El Cuartel Real_ appends what takes the place of its leading
article--a reproduction of a letter from Don Carlos to his "august
brother," Don Alfonso, setting forth the principles on which he appeals
for Spanish support. This document is so important that I must return to
it anon. Then comes a circular from the "Real Junta Gubernativa del
Reino de Navarra," in session at Vera. The purport of this, epitomized
in a sentence, is to raise money. Next, we arrive at the "Seccion
Oficial," the most important paragraph of which announces that the
Chief, Merendon, has inaugurated a Carlist movement in Toledo, with a
well-armed force, exceeding 280 men--to wit, 150 horsemen and 130
infantry--and that he hopes shortly to gather numerous recruits. The
"Seccion de Noticias" makes up the body of the paper, and is richer in
information. We are told that the most excellent and illustrious Bishop
of Urgel, accompanied by several sacerdotal and other dignitaries,
arrived in the town of Urdaniz, at half-past seven on the previous
Wednesday evening. His Lordship rested a night in the house of the
Vicar, and left the following morning, escorted by his friend and host,
the said Vicar, Brigadier Gamundi, and Colonel D. Fermin Irribarren,
veterans of the Carlist army, for Elisondo. From that the prelate was
reported to have started to headquarters, "to salute the King of Spain,
august representative of the Christian monarchy, which is the only plank
of safety in the shipwreck of the country."
The _Cuartel Real_ warmly congratulates the Bishop on the fact of his
having come to the conviction that "the present war is a religious war,
and on that account eminently social"--(social in Spanish must have some
peculiar shade of meaning unknown to strangers, for otherwise there is
no sequence here)--and proceeds to speak with an eloquence that recalls
that wretched Republican, Castelar, of the standard of faith in which
resides Spanish honour and--here come two words that puzzle me, _la
hidalguia y la caballerosidad_; but I suppose they mean nobility and
chivalry, and everything of that kind. The next notice in the royal
gazette is purely military, and makes known that the siege of the
important town of Oyarzun has begun. "On the 20th the batteries opened
fire, and, according to report, the enemy had one hundred men _hors de
combat_." The batteries! There is a touch of genius in that phrase.
Reading it, one would imagine that the Royalists had a royal regiment of
artillery, and that eight pieces of cannon, at the very least, played
upon the unfortunate Oyarzun. A jennet with a 4-pounder at its heels
would be a more correct representation of the strength of the Carlist
ordnance.
To resume the story of the siege of Oyarzun. "On the 21st," adds _El
Cuartel Real_, "there was talk of a capitulation, and it is possible
that the place has surrendered at this hour." The paragraph that
succeeds it is a gem: "Of the 1,010 armed rebels in Eibar (Guipuzcoa),
210 betook themselves to San Sebastian, when they suspected the approach
of the Royal forces, and the 800 remaining gave up to General Lizarraga
their rifles, all of the Remington system." There is no quibble about
the latter statement. The Carlists had easier ways of procuring arms
than by running cargoes from England. But is there not something
inimitable in the epithet "rebels"? There can be no question but that
everyone is a rebel in romantic Spain--in the opinion of somebody else.
The only question is, Who are the constituted authorities? Until that is
settled the editor of _El Cuartel Real_ is perfectly justified in
treating the volunteers of liberty, in those districts where Charles
VII. virtually reigns, as armed rebels. Although this town of Eibar had
frequently risen up against the legitimate authorities named by his
Majesty, it is pleasant to learn that General Lizarraga did not impose
the slightest chastisement on the population, thus giving a lesson of
forbearance to the "factious generals." Next we are informed that on the
day the Royal forces entered Vergara, the ignominious monument erected
by the Liberals in record of the greatest of treasons (the treaty
between the treacherous Maroto and Espartero in 1839) was destroyed
amidst enthusiasm, and the parchment in the municipal archives
commemorating its erection was taken out and burned in the public
square. I may add (but this I had from private sources) that the coin
dug up from under the monument was cast to the wind as the money of
Judas. Navarre, continues _El Cuartel Real_, is dominated by our valiant
soldiers under the skilful direction of his Majesty; Lizarraga has
occupied in a few days Mondragon, Eibar, Plasencia, Azpeitia, Vergara,
and other important places in Guipuzcoa, and obtained "considerable
booty of war;" the standard of legitimacy is waving triumphantly in
Biscay, and Bilbao is blockaded. There the tale of victory ends; but we
arrive at matters not less gratifying in another sense. The
distinguished engineer, Don Mariano Lana y Sarto, has been appointed to
look after the repair of the bridges destroyed by Nouvilas. Don Matias
Schaso Gomez, a member of the press militant, has been promoted to be a
commandant for his valour at Astigarraga, and is nominated for the
laurelled cross of San Fernando; and the illustrious doctor, Senor Don
Alejandro Rodriguez Hidalgo, has been named chief of the sanitary staff,
and entrusted with the establishment of military hospitals.
The last paragraph in this curious little gazette, printed up amid the
clouds on the summit of the Silver Hill, states that the Royal quarters
were at Abarzuzu on the 17th instant, and that Estella, close by, was
stubbornly resisting, but would soon be in the power of the Royalists. A
column which had attempted to relieve the garrison was energetically
driven back towards Lerin by two battalions commanded by his Majesty in
person. But by the time _El Cuartel Real_ came under my notice Estella
had fallen, and the Carlists had put to their credit a genuine success.
As the question of Carlism is still one of prominent interest--is,
indeed, what the French term an "actuality," and may crop up again any
day, the letter of the claimant to the throne to Don Alfonso (alluded to
some sentences above) is worth translating. It is the authoritative
exposition of the aims of the would-be monarch, and of the line of
policy he intended to pursue should he ever take up his residence in
that coveted palace at Madrid. Its date is August 23rd, 1873, and the
contents are these:
* * * * *
"MY DEAR BROTHER,
"Spain has already had opportunities enough to ascertain my ideas
and sentiments as man and King in various periodicals and
newspapers. Yielding, nevertheless, to a general and anxiously
expressed desire which has reached me from all parts of the
Peninsula, I write this letter, in which I address myself, not
merely to the brother of my heart, but without exception to all
Spaniards, for they are my brothers as well.
"I cannot, my dear Alfonso, present myself to Spain as a Pretender
to the Crown. It is my duty to believe, and I do believe, that the
Crown of Spain is already placed on my forehead by the consecrated
hand of the law. With this right I was born, a right which has
grown, now that the fitting time has come, to a sacred obligation;
but I desire that the right shall be confirmed to me by the love of
my people. My business, henceforth, is to devote to the service of
that people all my thoughts and powers--to die for it, or save it.
"To say that I aspire to be King of Spain, and not of a party, is
superfluous, for what man worthy to be a king would be satisfied to
reign over a party? In such a case he would degrade himself in his
own person, descending from the high and serene region where
majesty dwells, and which is beyond the reach of mean and pitiful
triflings.
"I ought not to be, and I do not desire to be, King, except of all
Spaniards; I exclude nobody, not even those who call themselves my
enemies, for a king can have no enemies. I appeal affectionately to
all, in the name of the country, even to those who appear the most
estranged; and if I do not need the help of all to arrive at the
throne of my ancestors, I do perhaps need their help to establish
on solid and immovable bases the government of the State, and to
give prosperous peace and true liberty to my beloved Spain.
"When I reflect how weighty a task it is to compass those great
ends, the magnitude of the undertaking almost oppresses me with
fear. True, I am filled with the most fervent desire to begin, and
the resolute will to carry out, the enterprise; but I cannot hide
from myself that the difficulties are immense, and that they can
only be overcome by the co-operation of the men of notability, the
most impartial and honest in the kingdom; and, above all, by the
co-operation of the kingdom itself, gathered together in the
Cortes which would truly represent the living forces and
Conservative elements of Spain.
"I am prepared with such Cortes to give to Spain, as I said in my
letter to the Sovereigns of Europe, a fundamental code which would
prove, I trust, definitive and Spanish.
"Side by side, my brother, we have studied modern history,
meditating over those great catastrophes which are at once lessons
to rulers and a warning to the people. Side by side, we have also
thought over and formed a common judgment that every century ought
to have, and actually has, its legitimate necessities and natural
aspirations.
"Old Spain stood in need of great reforms; in modern Spain we have
had simply immense convulsions of overthrow. Much has been
destroyed; little has been reformed. Ancient institutions, some of
which cannot be revivified, have died out. An attempt has been made
to create others in their place, but scarcely had they seen the
light when symptoms of death set in. So much has been done, and no
more. I have before me a stupendous labour, an immense social and
political reconstruction. I have to set myself to building up, in
this desolated country, on bases whose solidity is guaranteed by
experience, a grand edifice, where every legitimate interest and
every reasonable personality can find admittance.
"I do not deceive myself, my brother, when I feel confident that
Spain is hungry and thirsty for justice; that she feels the urgent
and imperious necessity of a government, worthy and energetic,
severe and respected; and that she anxiously wishes that the law to
which we all, great and small, should be subject, should reign with
undisputed sway.
"Spain is not willing that outrage or offence should be offered to
the faith of her fathers, believing that in Catholicity reposes the
truth she understands, and that to accomplish to the full its
divine mission, the Church must be free.
"Whilst knowing and not forgetting that the nineteenth century is
not the sixteenth, Spain is resolved to preserve from every danger
Catholic unity--the symbol of our glories, the essence of our
laws, and the holy bond of concord between all Spaniards.
"The Spanish people, taught by a painful experience, desires the
truth in everything, and that the King should be a king in reality,
and not the shadow of a king; and that its Cortes should be the
regularly appointed and peaceful gathering of the independent and
incorruptible elect of the constituencies, and not tumultuous and
barren assemblies of office-holders and office-seekers, servile
majorities and seditious minorities.
"The Spanish people is favourable to decentralisation, and will
always be so; and you know well, my dear Alfonso, that should my
desires be carried out, instead of assimilating the Basque
provinces to the rest of Spain, which the revolutionary spirit
would fain bring to pass, the rest of Spain would be lifted to an
equality in internal administration with those fortunate and noble
provinces.
"It is my wish that the municipality should retain its separate
existence, and the provinces likewise, proper precautions being
employed to prevent possible abuses.
"My cherished thought as constant desire is to give to Spain
exactly that which she does not possess, in spite of the lying
clamour of some deluded people--that liberty which she only knows
by name; liberty, which is the daughter of the gospel, not
liberalism, which is the son of disbelief (_de la protesta_);
liberty, in fine, which is the supremacy of the laws when the laws
are just--that is to say, conformable to the designs of nature and
of God.
"We, descendants of kings, admit that the people should not exist
for the King so much as the King for the people; that a king should
be the most honoured man amongst his people, as he is the first
caballero; and that a king for the future should glory in the
special title of 'father of the poor' and 'guardian of the weak.'
"At present, my dear brother, there is a very formidable question
in our Spain, that of the finances. The Spanish debt is something
frightful to think of; the productive forces of the country are not
enough to cover it--bankruptcy is imminent. I do not know if I can
save Spain from that calamity; but, if it be possible, a
legitimate sovereign alone can do it. An unshakable will works
wonders. If the country is poor, let all live frugally, even to the
ministers; nay, even to the King himself, who should be one in
feeling with Don Enrique El Doliente. If the King is foremost in
setting the example, all will be easy. Let ministries be
suppressed, provincial governments be reduced, offices be
diminished, and the administration economized at the same time that
agriculture is encouraged, industry protected, and commerce
assisted. To put the finances and credit of Spain on a proper
footing is a Titanic enterprise to which all governments and
peoples should lend aid."
* * * * *
Here follow a repudiation of free trade as applied to Spain, and a few
well-turned periods dealing in the usual Spanish manner with the duties
of the ruler, laying down, among other axioms, that "virtue and
knowledge are the chiefest nobility," and that the person of the
mendicant should be as sacred as that of the patrician.
At the close there is a very sensible sentence, affirming that one
Christian monarch in Spain would be better than three hundred petty
kings disputing in a noisy assembly. "The chiefs of parties," continues
the letter, "naturally yearn for honours or riches or place; but what in
the world can a Christian king desire but the good of his people? What
could he want to be happy but the love of his people?"
The letter winds up by the affirmation that Don Carlos is faithful to
the good traditions of the old and glorious Spanish monarchy, and that
he believed he would be found to act also as "a man of the present age."
The last sentence is a prayer to his brother, "who had the enviable
privilege of serving in the Papal army," to ask their spiritual king at
Rome for his apostolic benediction for Spain and the writer.
If this document was written _propria manu_, by Don Carlos, he must be
endowed with higher intellectual faculties than most Kings or Pretenders
possess. It is undeniably clever, and is more progressive than one would
expect from an upholder of the doctrine of Divine right. It may be, as
Tennyson sings, that the thoughts of men (even when they are Bourbons)
are widened with the process of the suns. But I protest that there is
such a masterly mistiness in it here and there, such a careful elusion
of rocks and ruggednesses political, and such a fine wind-beating
flourish of the banner of glittering generality, that I think there were
more heads than one engaged in the concoction of the manifesto. I have
studiously refrained from the introduction of the religious topic as far
as I could in this work--it is outside my sphere; but I should be unjust
to the reader did I not give him some information (not from the
controversial standpoint) on a subject which will obtrude itself in any
discussion on the merits of the conflict which has twice distracted
Spain and may divide the country again. It is unfortunately indisputable
that religion was poked into the quarrel. The struggle was described in
_El Cuartel Real_ as a religious war; the theological allegiance of the
partisans of Don Carlos was appealed to, and their ardent attachment to
the Papacy was worked upon, as in the concluding sentence of the
proclamation of Don Carlos. In those portions of the north where Carlism
was all-powerful, the authorities were emphatically showing that those
who served under them must be practical Roman Catholics _nolentes
volentes_. An austere placard, signed by Barona, member of the Carlist
war committee, was posted in the province of Alava, and ordained among
other articles: Firstly, that the town councillors of every municipality
should assist in a body at High Mass; secondly, that the mayors should
interdict, under the most severe penalties, all games and public
diversions, and the opening of all public establishments during Divine
service; and thirdly, that all blasphemers, and all who worked on a
holiday, who gave scandal, or who danced indecently, should be
_scourged_. The first of these articles is lawful enough in a country
which is almost exclusively Roman Catholic. In England nothing can be
said against it, seeing that British soldiers of all denominations are
compelled to attend Church parade, and the prisoners in all gaols have
to register themselves as belonging to some religion. There is just
this theoretical objection, however--the article implies that municipal
honours are to be limited to members of one creed, which is intolerant.
That which underlay the antipathy of numerous Conservatives outside
Spain to the Royalist cause, was the belief entertained that the success
of Don Carlos would lead to the re-assertion of clerical preponderance,
would destroy liberty of conscience as understood in most European
nations, and would set up a political priesthood. The manifesto of Don
Carlos does not deal with those points in the full and categorical
manner desirable. I was told there were two parties in the Carlist camp,
the clerical and--for want of a better name, let it be called--the
non-clerical The former, the Basques, and those who gave Carlism its
great primary impulsion, were as zealously Roman Catholic as ever Manuel
Santa Cruz was. They looked forward to the re-acquisition of the
ecclesiastical domains and the re-establishment of the Catholic Church
in all its ancient supremacy of wealth and power. The non-clericals knew
that the Basques, even assuming them all to be Carlists, were but
660,000 in number, a small minority of the population, and that the
existence of a State unduly influenced by a Church--things temporal
controlled by personages bound to things spiritual--was antagonistic to
the feelings of the majority of Spaniards.
Having met a nobleman distinguished for his services to Carlism, I put
it to him bluntly, "Would Don Carlos on the throne mean a relapse into
religious bigotry?"
He answered me with candour, "I am a Roman Catholic, and if I thought so
I should be the last man to lend a penny to his cause."
"But," I urged, "that is the general impression in England, where he is
trying to negotiate a loan, and if it is left uncorrected it does him
injury. Why does he not repel the impeachment?"
"The truth is," he said, "Don Carlos has made too many public
explanations."
I returned to the charge, challenging my acquaintance to deny that many
of the supporters of Don Carlos would fall away if they had not the
thorough belief that his cause was as much identified with the triumph
of Roman Catholicism as with that of legitimacy. His reply was not a
denial, but an admission of the fact, with the addition that in war one
must not be too particular as to the means of enlisting aid, and
stimulating the enthusiasm of supporters, which is an argument as true
as it is old. Don Carlos, in his manifesto, goes on the assumption that
the Republicans are all atheists, or something very like it. It is only
fair to let the Republicans speak for themselves, and explain what is
the Republican estimate of the Carlist religion. The San Sebastian
newspaper, _El Diario_, may be assumed to be a fair exponent of the
sentiments of the anti-Carlists, and thus emphatically, and not without
a spice of antithesis, it delivers itself:
"The religion which has the commandment, 'Thou shalt not kill,' forbids
murder.
"The religion which has the commandment, 'Thou shalt not steal,' forbids
robbery.
"The religion which is peace, obedience, and love, is no friend of war,
rebellion, and massacre.
"Resigned and joyous in other days, its martyrs went to death in the
amphitheatre of Rome, and on the plains of Saragossa, pardon in their
souls and prayer on their lips; to-day pardon is exchanged for wrath,
and prayer for reproach. Instead of the martyr's palm, we have the
Berdan breech-loader and the flash of petroleum.
"Anointed of the Lord, ministers of Him who died invoking blessings on
His enemies, kindle the fires of fratricidal strife, which they call a
sacred war, and lead on and inflame their dupes by the pretence that the
gates of Paradise are to be forced open by gunshot.
"Meanwhile the bishops are silent, Rome is dumb, the moral law sleeps,
the canon law is forgotten; and these pastors, transforming their flocks
into packs of wolves, scour the plains, blessing murder and sanctifying
conflagration.
"'King by Divine right,' they cry, like the legists of the Lower Empire;
'Die or believe,' like the sons of the Prophet. Apostles without knowing
it, they seek to achieve the triumph of a Pagan principle by a Saracenic
process.
"They say that religion is lost, because it is shorn of the honour and
power their kings gave it; that the portals of heaven are barred,
because they have forfeited their tithes and first-fruits, their rents
and fat benefices; and they try to convince us by discharges of musketry
that our whole future life depends, on the one hand, on a question of
vanity, and on the other, on a question of stomach.
"Holy Apostles, disciples of Him who had not a stone whereon to lay His
head, you who conquered the earth with no arms but those of word and
example, oh! would you not say if you returned here below, 'Those who
preach by the voice of platoons; those who evangelize from the mouth of
cannon; those are not, cannot be, our disciples and successors, for they
are not fishers of souls, but fishers of snug posts under government'?
"And you, glorious martyrs of the Roman circus and Saragossan fields,
oh! would you not say, 'No, this Christianity, which goes about sowing
battle; desolation, tears, and blood wherever it passes, is not
ours--no, this Christianity at the bottom of the slaughter of Endarlasa,
of the hecatomb of Cirauqui, of the sack of Igualada, and of a hundred
other cruelties, is not ours. Our religion says "Kill not," and this
murders; says "Steal not," and this robs. No, this is not the
Christian, but the Carlist religion'?"
That is a good specimen of the rhetorical school of writing popular in
Spanish newspapers; but all that is written is not gospel. From personal
observation it was evident to me that these Republicans of the Spanish
towns of the north were not so scrupulous in the outward observances of
religion as the tone of this indignant Christian leading article would
convey; neither were the Carlists the "packs of wolves" they were
represented to be.
Let us see how this inflamed sense of so-called religion affected the
rank and file among the adherents of Don Carlos.
Indubitably the Royalists, with a very few exceptions, were more than
moral--they were sincerely pious, and esteemed it a grateful incense to
the Most High to kill as many of their Republican countrymen as they
could without over-exertion. They bowed their heads and repeated prayers
with the chaplains who accompanied them; as the echoes of the Angelus
bell were heard they were marched to Divine worship every evening, when
they were in the neighbourhood of a church; they were palpably impressed
with deep devotional convictions, and yet they were not sour-faced like
the grim Covenanters of Argyle, nor puritanically uncharitable like the
stern propounders of the Blue Laws of Connecticut. Their beads returned
to the pocket or the prayers finished, they laughed and jested, were
frolicsome as schoolboys in their playhour, and the slightest tinkle of
music set them dancing. Hospitable and fanatic, faithful and ignorant,
temperate and dirty--such are some prominent traits in the character of
the brave Basque people of the rural districts who wished to govern
Spain, but who were Spaniards neither by race, nor language, nor
temperament, nor feeling.
Taken all in all, they are a right manly breed, and, with education to
correct inevitable prejudices, would be capable of great things. But
before they could become efficient soldiers, they needed a severe course
of training. In the flat country, south of the Ebro, it would be cruel
and foolish to oppose them to regular troops. As guerrilleros, they
were without parallel, being content with short commons, and ever ready
to play ball after the longest march; but they were ignorant of
soldiering as technically understood. In the copses and crags of their
own provinces they were invincible, and could carry on the struggle
while there was a cartridge or an onion left in the land. But where the
tactics of the "contrabandista" no longer availed, where surprises were
impossible and mysterious disappearances not easy, and where the bulk of
the people were not willing spies, the aspect of affairs was different.
They were mediocre marksmen with long-range arms of precision, and had
no proper conception of allowances for wind or sun. Target-practice was
not encouraged, and yet it was not through thrift of ammunition, for the
waste of powder in every skirmish was extravagant, and one could not
rest a night in a village held by the Carlists without being disturbed
by frequent careless discharges.
With the bayonet, as far as I could learn, they were impetuous in the
onset, and stubborn, especially the Navarrese. But bayonet-charges
cannot carry stone walls or mud-banks; and in the face of the almost
incessant peppering of breech-loaders, rushes of the kind have become
slightly old-fashioned. To the Carlists, in any case, was due the credit
of readiness to have recourse to the steel whenever there was a rift for
hand-to-hand fighting. Their military education unfortunately confined
itself to the rudiments of the drill-book. They fell in, dressed up,
formed fours by the right, extended into sections on column of march and
went through the like movements very well--so well that it was a pity
they had not an opportunity of adding to their stock of knowledge. They
had an instinctive aptitude for skirmishing, and were expert at forming
square, the utility of which, by the way, is as questionable nowadays as
that of charging.
More attention was paid to discipline than to drill. Pickets patrolled
the towns into which they entered, and repressed all disorder after
nightfall; outpost duty was strictly enforced; "larking" was not
tolerated, and punishments were always inflicted for known and grave
breaches of order.