Royalist Army in America

This article is about the supporters of the Crown of Spain during the Hispanic American wars of independence. For the supporters of the British Crown during the American War of Independence, see Loyalist (American Revolutionary War).

Royalist Army in America

Map of the Spanish nation at the Cortes of Cádiz
War	Hispanic American wars of independence
Active	1808–1833
Objectives	Defense of the integrity of the Spains and the permanence of the unity of Spanish America and Peninsular Spain.
Organization
Part of	Armed forces of the Spanish monarchy
Leaders	Royalist leaders
Area	America and Europe
Relations
Allies	Constitutionalists and absolutists
Opponents	Pro-independence forces
Symbols
Royal Standard of Ferdinand VII of Spain	«Hispaniarum et Indiarum Rex» during absolutism, and constitutional king of «the Spains» under the Liberal regime.
Naval ensign and national flag between 1785 and 1873	Ensign used by the Spanish Navy and by fortresses and fortifications
Royal arms of Spain (1761–1843)	Displayed on the standards of its infantry regiments. Motto: "For the King, the Faith and the Fatherland"

The Royalist Army of America is an expression describing the forces formed by peninsulars, Europeans in general and Americans (mostly indigenous peoples), employed for the defense of the integrity and permanent unity of the Spanish monarchy against the Hispanic American pro-independence revolutions in the first third of the 19th century.

The dictionaries of the Real Academia have defined them since 1803 as regiarum partium sectator, one who in civil wars follows the party of the kings. In 1822 potestatis regia defensor was added, one who defends the regalia and rights of the kings. In 1832 civil war was removed, and in 1869 the supporters of absolute monarchy were added.

The use of the term royalists may be extended to the non-belligerent population or to the royalist party. The term Royalists was used in America at the conclusion of the war, during the absolutist regime of Ferdinand VII, which he maintained from 1823 until his death. In Spain, the defenders of the Ancien Régime, generally called Carlists, were also called royalists.

Situation of the Spanish monarchy

Testament of Isabella the Catholic.

At the beginning of the 19th century the Spanish monarchy and its defenders were affected by the liberal revolution through two simultaneous and parallel political processes, the Spanish constituent process and Hispanic American independence, and both processes gave rise to the new national states that marked the end of absolutism throughout the Hispanic world.

The patrimonial sense of the union of different Kingdoms (in the plural) of Europe and Overseas under a single crown, under an absolutist dynasty, which was intended to be maintained in appearance under a puppet liberal state in the Bayonne Statute of 1808 with the name of Kingdoms of the Spains and of the Indies, disappeared with the establishment of the Spanish national state, named a kingdom (in the singular) by the Cortes of Cádiz in 1810, with a temporary setback during the absolutist restoration that abolished the Constitution of Cádiz.

The Supreme Central Junta had been obeyed by the juntas formed from 1808 in Spain and America, but in the face of Napoleon's advances in 1810 it ended up taking refuge in Cádiz and dissolved itself, giving way to the formation of the Regency of Spain and the Indies and the formation of the Cortes of Cádiz in 1810. The legitimacy of the Regency was no longer recognized by the American juntas, and conversely, the juntas were treated as insurgents. The Cortes proceeded to abolish the old kingdoms, claimed to hold sovereignty over the peninsula and the American territories, and in Cádiz, besieged by Napoleon, appointed substitute deputies for America. In the opposite direction, the American juntas rejected the sovereignty of European Spain and obedience to any Spanish or French government, and based their own self-government on the retroversion of sovereignty and the traditional laws of the Siete Partidas, justifying them by the renunciation of the King at Bayonne in 1808. The radicalization of positions resulted in a military conflict that led to the declarations of independence and the triumph, within American juntism, of the republican ideas that came from the French and American revolutions.

Effects of the Hispanic American revolution on the monarchy

Constitution of Cádiz, The Promulgation of the Constitution of 1812, work of Salvador Viniegra (Museum of the Cortes of Cádiz).

Main article: Hispanic American wars of independence

Initially, almost all the American juntas proclaimed their loyalty to the Bourbon dynasty of Ferdinand VII, prisoner of Napoleon, but under projects for independent American monarchies, such as the one put into practice in the First Mexican Empire. There were also proposals for monarchies under other dynasties in the case of Peru, or of an Inca monarchy, as in Argentina. In every case these were monarchical forms which, besides being liberal, did not renounce independence either, the axis of the conflict. There were also American projects, never carried out, to support the liberal monarchical regime established in the peninsula, with the aim of halting the absolutist monarchical project of the powers of the Holy Alliance. In all cases maintaining the independence of the new Hispanic American nations.

From 1808, geographically, because of their enormous extent, the land campaigns had as their theater the continental areas of the American dominions of the monarchy, including Spanish Florida, and the islands close to the continent, such as Margarita Island or Chiloé. The islands of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Canary Islands, and ports of the Iberian Peninsula were involved in logistics and naval combat. Louisiana, ceded to the United States, and the Philippines were not affected.

Politically the conflict had at once a marked civil and international character, but always internal, without the direct intervention of other European powers. The official intervention of the European powers was limited to the defense of Spain against Napoleon's invasion and the restoration in Spain of Ferdinand VII to the absolute throne, maintaining neutrality in the conflict with respect to the American dominions of the monarchy, although permissive toward private enterprises recruiting military contingents or volunteers for the independent armies, or privateers, on the part of both sides.

Socially, both opposing positions, royalist and pro-independence, had an uncertain significance for the subjects of the monarchy. In Spain indiscriminate recruitment was used for the expeditions, generally compulsory by levy or quinta (lottery). For the American mobilization, appeal was made to the loyalism of Native American communities opposed to the nascent states, and, by one side and the other, to social improvements or promises of them, to the Amerindians and the different mixed-race colonial castes, such as mulattoes ("pardos"), cholos, etc., and even to the levy of African slaves. The criollo magnates of European origin gave their support to the royalist or the pro-independence cause in relation to the commercial positioning of each region, which could be confined to populated cities or intendancies, or include an entire viceroyalty as a whole. The Church was divided: the lower clergy was the driving force of a true social revolution in the first insurgent movement of Mexico, while most of the bishops "remained more supportive of the King than of the new governments" because of the patronage headed by the King of Spain.

Decisive for the course of the war was that the Viceroyalty of Peru, instead of collapsing like its Río de la Plata or New Granada counterparts, became the main core of the royalist forces in South America, allowing most of the provinces bordering this viceroyalty to return to monarchical rule by 1815–1816.

The government of Viceroy José Fernando de Abascal defeated all the revolutionary movements in Peru with native forces. A similar conflict took place in other regions inside and outside the influence of the Peruvian sphere: Coro, Maracaibo, Cumaná, the llaneros of the Orinoco basin, Santa Marta, Panama, Popayán, Pasto, Riohacha, Cuenca, Riobamba, Guayaquil, Montevideo, Potosí, the semi-autonomous enclaves of Chiloé and Valdivia, Talcahuano, Concepción, Chillán and the Mapuche butalmapus. The governments of New Spain, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Cádiz also held firm.

The first stages of the conflict were wars between the cities that became revolutionary centers seeking to spread their ideas across the continent, and the cores loyal to the authorities appointed from Cádiz, which sought to prevent that expansion and suppress those rebel stirrings. The few garrisons and the scant arrival of peninsular reinforcements meant that the initial years of war were fought mainly between militias loyal first of all to their native city, poorly armed and undisciplined; the later arrival of European contingents and Anglo-American weaponry strengthened the organization of the national armies.

Liberals and absolutists

Rebellion of the overseas army in the Revolution of 1820.

In the peninsula the Spanish monarchy, which governed through a regime of absolutism, was overthrown in 1808 by Napoleon, and from 1812 was controlled by the Spaniards who favored establishing a constitutional monarchy. The defense of the Spanish monarchy in America had been left almost to its own local means, with sporadic aid from Europe, until Ferdinand VII and the supporters of absolutism, after recovering the government in 1815, carried out actions of real scale, but isolated ones, such as the first overseas expedition of some ten thousand Spaniards who, under the command of Pablo Morillo, had the objective of suppressing the Hispanic American insurrection and removing the danger posed by Spain's own liberal military officers.

However, in 1820 a second overseas expedition of some twenty thousand Spaniards, which had been organized in Cádiz by the former Viceroy of New Spain, Don Félix María Calleja del Rey, never set out, because it was roused in revolt against Ferdinand VII himself and in favor of the Liberal Triennium. Subsequently, the government of the Liberal Triennium suppressed all aid to the royalists, unilaterally halted military operations, and sent negotiators to the American pro-independence forces without any result, which became de facto a renunciation of the overseas territories in conflict. The year 1820 marked the decline of the royalists.

Royalist army

Royalist Army

Battle honors

New Spain and Guatemala Battle of Cañada de Los Naranjos Battle of Calderón Bridge Battle of Zitácuaro Siege of Cuautla Battle of the Lomas de Santa María Battle of Tezmalaca Campaign against Mina Battle of the Fortín de La Barra New Granada, Venezuela, Quito Monteverde's campaign First Battle of La Puerta Siege of Cartagena de Indias (1815) Third Battle of La Puerta Portobelo campaign (1819) Battle of Pichincha Río de la Plata and Paraguay Battle of Tacuarí Peru, Upper Peru and Chile Battle of Guaqui Battle of Vilcapugio Battle of Viluma Battle of Rancagua Battle of Cancha Rayada Battle of Ica Battle of Torata Battle of Moquegua Combat of Arequipa Battle of Corpahuaico

The royalist army was not the viceregal army of the Spanish Empire; it did not have the same mission or the same organization as that army had during the period of the Viceroyalties, which was directed toward defense against enemy powers from abroad. However, the viceregal army had a strongly domestic, American character, being formed 80% by local troops from the city, and by officers settled in the country, committed to the local elite.

The Bourbon army disappeared in Spain in 1808, and during the Peninsular War an entirely new force was built to confront Napoleon in Spain and to serve overseas. When the Hispanic American revolution began, the Spanish colonial army disintegrated and large sectors of it were integrated into the pro-independence armies and came to depend on the American governing juntas. The colonial battalions behaved according to the support of the local elites for a Junta or for the Viceroy.

The royalist army in America was an improvised organization, arising from the reaction of the defenders of the Spanish monarchy, who recognized only the authority of the Spanish King through the Viceroys and the authorities installed in Spain, and its purpose was to try to halt the process of independence of the American colonies. Most of the royalist military formations were therefore newly created and were formed by American units, new for the most part, by units recycled from the dismantled American colonial army that remained loyal, and by expeditionary units formed in Spain ad hoc, which in turn would maintain their continuity only through replacements of Americans.

In 1820 the number of peninsular Spaniards fighting in America reached 9,954 men and from 1820 onward the Spanish government sent no more expeditionaries from Europe to reinforce the royalist army. Morillo in Tierra Firme had 2,000 Europeans under his command. In December 1821, 492 officers and 3,699 European sergeants, corporals and soldiers who had formed part of the dismembered Royalist Army in New Spain re-embarked from Mexico for the Iberian Peninsula.

The Viceroyalty of Peru had in 1820 a force of 7,000 men —from various countries— mostly mobilized over Upper Peru. By December 1824, the culminating point of the wars of independence in South America, a decimated European component of barely 1,500 men was distributed over the entire extent of the viceroyalty, which comprised the theaters of Charcas, Chiloé and Peru.

Sergeant of the Saboya Regiment in 1761. The Saboya regiment took part in various expeditions to the Viceroyalty of New Spain in 1768 and 1813, to the Viceroyalty of New Granada in 1770, and its 2nd battalion to the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1776.

Table of the viceregal forces in America of the Bourbon army of Spain at the beginning of the 19th century (before Hispanic American independence):

Province	Regulars	Militias	Total forces
Captaincy General of Puerto Rico Spanish Florida	9,000	2,400	4,555
Captaincy General of Cuba	2,000	3,700	5,700
Viceroyalty of New Spain	7,200	20,800	28,000
Captaincy General of Yucatán	900	2,600	3,500
Captaincy General of Guatemala	1,000	4,100	5,100
Viceroyalty of New Granada	2,000	9,000	11,000
Captaincy General of Venezuela	1,500	9,000	10,500
Viceroyalty of Peru	2,600	43,800	46,400
Captaincy General of Chile	1,550	4,500	6,050
Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata	3,000	17,000	20,000
Captaincy General of the Philippines	1,500	11,000	12,500
Total according to Mario Pereyra	24,750	127,900	152,650
Viceroyalty of New Spain	10,000	20,000	30,000
Island of Cuba	2,680	21,831	24,511
Viceroyalty of New Granada	3,600	8,400	12,000
Captaincy General of Venezuela. Viceroyalty of New Granada			11,900
Viceroyalty of Peru	12,000	49,000	61,000
Total according to Alexander von Humboldt			139,411
New Spain	9,500	24,000	33,500
Guatemala	1,083	7,560	8,643
Yucatán			2,000
Cuba			1,560
Florida			2,000
Puerto Rico			4,400
Venezuela			9,000
New Granada			11,000
Peru			11,200
Chile			3,550
Río de la Plata			21,000
Philippines			12,000
Total according to the Niles' Register			129,053

At the start of the conflict the line corps were concentrated, in the case of New Spain, in Mexico, Tlaxcala, Córdoba, Toluca, Guanajuato, San Luis Potosí, Oaxaca, Valladolid, Puebla, Querétaro and Veracruz, supported by the not very effective militia corps. Other territories of the Madrid crown also had powerful regular garrisons, especially the strategic island of Cuba, with several regiments of infantry, artillery and engineer officers. The vital port of Cartagena de Indias had an infantry regiment and two companies of artillery and engineers. Callao, two companies of infantry and another of artillerymen and engineers. Montevideo, a reinforcement regiment formed by three companies (one of artillery). Santafé de Bogotá, two companies, an infantry battalion and another company, but of artillerymen. Buenos Aires, an infantry battalion, engineers and a squadron of dragoons. Talcahuano, eight squadrons of dragoons, an infantry battalion and an artillery company. Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo, several regiments of infantry and engineers. La Guaira, a company of artillery and engineers; Guayaquil, an infantry battalion; Margarita Island, an infantry company; Maracaibo four, Guayana and Cumaná three, Quito four, Popayán one, Tarma one, Caracas a battalion of infantry and engineers, the Biobío frontier several companies of artillerymen and infantry, San Carlos de Chiloé two companies of infantry, one of artillery and dragoons, Valdivia an infantry battalion, a company of artillerymen and a squadron of dragoons, Santiago de Chile a company of dragoons and Valparaíso an artillery company. There were naval stations in Havana, La Guaira, Cartagena de Indias, Guayaquil, Callao, Buenos Aires and Montevideo.

American and European components

By their origin, two broad classes of units can be distinguished within the royalist army: the units created in America and the units created in the peninsula. By their numbers, Americans formed the immense majority of the royalist army as a whole, in the words of scholars of the royalist army, exceeding ninety percent of the troops, but their proportion in the higher commands was smaller, depending on the origin of the unit, with peninsular Spaniards making up almost one hundred percent of the Viceroys, with the exception of Don Francisco Montalvo, Viceroy of New Granada, and Don Pío Tristán, the last head of government of the Viceroyalty of Peru. The population of peninsular Spaniards in the American colonies at the end of the 18th century was 150,000 people, a figure below 1% of the total population. However, ever since the introduction of the Bourbon Reforms, the proportion of its European and American components did not vary, and stabilized at around 80–85% Americans in the veteran regiments.

Units created in America

Royalist infantry of Upper Peru in classic dark blue uniform, for the long winter coat or the short jacket —

The units created in America were formed by troops native to America, and their social and ethnic composition reflected the local population. Thus, for example, in the Viceroyalty of Peru, the officers and non-commissioned officers of the Royal Army of Peru spoke the Quechua or Aymara language to lead the Amerindian troops, since "The immense majority spoke only their native language, for which reason the officers had to know it in order to be able to lead them". These troops "of the country" were mobilized for their respective local theaters of war, and with rare exceptions left their places of origin. In this way, and likewise for the pro-independence side, the people identified with the multiple castes of mixed-race Amerindians (cholos), or of mixed-race Blacks (mulattoes or pardos), together with freed slaves, were the bulk of the royalist troops, depending on the ethnic predominance in the population. On the other hand, by their geographic mobility and their training, the American troops could be divided into militia units and veteran units. The militia battalions which, to improve them, received a core of veteran instructors, sometimes European, came to be called disciplined militias.

Units created in the peninsula

Infantry at the Battle of Maipú in brin-colored (linen) uniform, issued to the European and American expeditionaries, used in the tropics or desert climates

The Spanish monarchy had considerable experience coordinating and financing military operations to maintain its overseas dominion against other colonial powers; it had done so with varying fortune during the Seven Years' War, the American War of Independence, the War of the Roussillon, the Anglo-Spanish War (1796–1802), the Anglo-Spanish War (1804–1809) and the Napoleonic Invasion of Spain. Various expeditions were sent despite the political chaos and economic ruin of the Napoleonic war; to this end the Commission of Replacements was organized in Cádiz, an entity managed by the commerce of Cádiz and the state, which between 1812 and 1820 collected more than 300 million reales and managed to send a total of 30 expeditions to subdue the American revolts, with a total of 47,000 men (the largest and most costly was the expedition of General Pablo Morillo in 1815). However, only 30,000 men reached the continent to fight, and the rest reinforced the island of Cuba or were lost. Over the course of the whole war, seven expeditions with more than 9,000 men were sent to Mexico, five expeditions with 6,000 troops to support Peru, the South American region best preserved for the royal cause, and another five went to reinforce the ports of Havana and San Juan with 7,000 soldiers, the main stations of the Spanish Navy in the Caribbean islands and the crossroads of the routes between the metropolis and the Indies. However, the attitude changed in the following years; from 1817 the efforts of the authorities would focus on preparing the expedition that rose up led by Riego. Subsequently, from 1820, the authorities in Madrid devoted themselves mainly to directing the American royalist squadrons and armies that were fighting in the Indies.

The following table shows the dispatches of peninsular reinforcements to the royalist forces in America. Thanks to this reinforcement the royalists were able to recover most of the territory between 1815 and 1820; its decline would be key to the monarchical defeat. It also shows the places that received the highest priority in Madrid's strategy.

Year	Men	Battalions	Destination
1811	2,034	3	Montevideo and Havana
1812	5,944	8½	Veracruz, Montevideo and Havana
1813	4,564	6	Veracruz, Montevideo, Puerto Cabello and Callao
1815	12,999	11	Venezuela, Panama, Veracruz and Puerto Rico
1816	2,063	3	Panama, Callao, Puerto Rico and Havana
1817	4,839	6	Venezuela, Veracruz and Callao
1818	1,600	2	Callao
1819	2,200	2	Havana
1824	2,400	2	Havana
1825	1,400	1	Havana

The units created in Spain were the so-called expeditionary units, but from their arrival on the American continent they received a continuous flow of American troops that replaced their European casualties; that is, the longer since its arrival, the more Americanized the nominal expeditionary unit became. For example, a well-known expeditionary unit, the Burgos battalion, after the sea voyage from the Iberian Peninsula had to complete its ranks on arrival in port with one third Americans, without having even engaged in any combat. In this way only a quarter of the royal army at the Battle of Maipú was European. From 1817 no European reinforcement would arrive for the royalists of Peru, and from 1820 for no place in America. Over the whole war, between forty and fifty thousand European Spaniards embarked for America in several expeditions throughout the conflict, and of them no more than 30,000 were European soldiers who fought on American continental soil. A significant part of them, 15,000 or 20,000, remained garrisoning the strategic Island of Cuba. In 1820, the number of peninsular Spaniards fighting in all of America did not reach ten thousand men. In that same year the expeditionary units had, in general, a proportion of 50% Europeans, and Pablo Morillo stated that at that date he had some 2,000 Europeans under his command. In 1824 only 500 peninsular Spaniards formed part of the royalist army that fought at the Battle of Ayacucho.

During the first stage of the war, when few expeditions were sent, the European contingents were even smaller. Mariano Osorio reconquered Chile in 1814 with an army of 5,000 men, most of whom had been recruited in Valdivia and Chiloé, while barely 600 soldiers and officers were expeditionaries, mostly peninsulars, recruited from Lima. That same year, José Tomás Boves commanded a host of 7,000 llaneros (plus 3,000 rebel slaves of his lieutenant Francisco Rosete) but barely 160 were Europeans, divided into 60 to 80 white soldiers and 40 to 45 peninsular and criollo officers.

The characteristic attributed to the European expeditionary soldiers is a theoretically greater loyalty that would serve as cohesion for the regular units (expeditionary and of the country). But on the contrary, these European troops were more susceptible to falling ill, and without discipline they were more insubordinate than the Americans. This also applied to the thousands of British mercenaries and those of other European nations hired by the pro-independence forces for their armies.

On the performance of the peninsular forces in the theater of war of Upper Peru in the 1817 campaign, the royalist general Andrés García Camba noted:

The peninsular corps displayed in all the episodes of this most active campaign constant and resolute courage, but the lack of knowledge of this kind of war, entirely new to them, and the disadvantageous opinion that several of their members had lightly formed of the enemy, were the cause of some acts of rashness as regrettable as they were costly. The troops of the country (American) had certain advantages over the European ones, owing to the practice they had acquired, to the lesser impression made on them by the frequent variation of temperatures, and even to their inestimable sobriety.

— Andrés García Camba.

Evolution of the structure of the royalist army.

Leaders of the royalist movement

The origin of the officer corps was also diverse. Peninsular Spaniards generally occupied the posts of heads of government, and also the high-ranking posts, above all of the expeditionary corps arrived from Spain. The American officers who joined in America reached one third of the expeditionary commands: "of the officers recorded in the expeditionary units, although the majority —64%— are peninsular, the rest, a third —35%— are Americans", which facilitated the continuity of these military formations on the basis of American troops, but entailed a loss of the Iberian identity of the expeditionary battalions.

The pro-independence officer corps was 10% formed by the Bourbon army; likewise, the Juntas of Spain also displaced most of the Bourbon officer corps. The officers of the colonial army were 60% Americans, and those who were peninsulars had been residing in America for more than 30 years. Thus, the peninsular officer corps fighting in America in 1820 was made up 15% of men from the Bourbon army, and 85% were people who had been trained in the Napoleonic war.

The proportion of commanders from the country in the American units was greater, whether veteran or militia units. It is estimated that the figure for American officers was around two thirds in the veteran corps, and almost all commanders were American in the militia corps. Nor were Americans lacking in command of entire armies, or of a theater of war, as was obtained in each case by Agustín de Iturbide or José Manuel de Goyeneche.

Royalist leaders

Flags, decorations and music

Model standards of a regiment and a battalion of royalist infantry. Mottoes: «For Religion, the Fatherland and the King», «Long live Ferdinand VII».

Royal standard of the royalist cavalry

The flags of the armies of the Spanish monarchy, both for the line infantry battalions and for the light battalions, were represented by the Coronela flag, which displayed the royal standard and was issued one per regiment, being carried by the first battalion, and by the Ordenanza or Batallona flags, which displayed the Cross of Burgundy and were carried by the second and third battalions. All were accompanied by four crowns with four small escutcheons of the unit's city of origin. Ornaments and mottoes were added to the flags. The cavalry standards displayed the royal coat of arms on a crimson field.

These flags were used by both Spanish and American units. To preserve the symbols, when for any reason the battalions were merged into a single battalion of the regiment, the peninsular units superimposed both flags one on top of the other, while the American units also placed them on the same flag, but one on the obverse and the other on the reverse.

In addition to mottoes on the flags, there were distinctive marks such as colors on ribbons tied to clothing or weapons: red and black, which meant «No quarter», a fashion brought from the war in the Iberian Peninsula against Napoleon, or red and white, which meant «The union» of Spaniards and Americans. Decorations and medals were awarded to royalist commanders and troops for notable deeds, whether in actions of the army, of guerrillas or of civilians.

The royalist armies, both European and American, veteran or militia, played the same music of the royal ordinances (mp3 file), and there were no particular calls or special marches, but the expeditionary units also sang the songs brought from the Napoleonic Invasion of Spain (mp3 file). The infantry corps had posts for fifes and drums. In the light infantry corps bugles appeared from 1815, in the fashion brought by the units of Pablo Morillo. The cavalry corps carried bugles and mounted drums, such as kettledrums.

Equipment and uniform of the royalist soldier

Veteran corps — Upper Peru

From the end of the 18th century the crown tried to unify the uniforms of the colonial army of America, but always with local variants. Despite this, the viceregal army at the beginning of the 19th century had a generalized dress. From 1795 the style with a blue uniform was predominant. The differentiation of units came from the different color of collars, sleeves, waistcoats, buttons, embroidery, etc.

Thus, by a Royal Order of 1796 the militias (disciplined and urban) were uniformed, «ordering that the uniform of all the disciplined militias of the Indies be a (long) blue coat with scarlet cuffs, lapels and collar, a white chupa (short jacket) and white breeches, the infantry corps being distinguished from those of cavalry and dragoons in that the former wear gold braid on the collar and the latter silver. And that of the urban militias in the same terms and with the same differences for infantry, cavalry and dragoons, with the sole distinction between disciplined and urban ones that the latter do not wear lapels».

Around 1810 all militia units wore the regulation in force in the Madrid guías de forasteros. The English style that was regulated in Spain in 1811 may have been adopted by expeditionary units sent to the aid of Montevideo or Tierra Firme. It is documented that the Talavera arrived in Chile in 1813 with the uniform of 1811. From 1814 the use of the shako became general for all units, replacing the bicornes. Although blue remained the predominant color, some special units, above all in the cavalry, used more modern and colorful styles.

Cockade of the royalist armies.

With the arrival of the expeditionary army in 1815 came the style of uniform based on the Spanish regulations of 1815, which was extended to the rest of the units by a royal order of 1818. It is noted that only the grenadiers of line regiments used the characteristic bearskin cap. In 1816 and 1817 brin-colored (linen) uniforms appeared for summer campaigns overseas, a style not used by the Spanish army, and characteristic of the Maipú campaign.

From 1818 and 1819, owing to exhaustion and scarcity caused by the prolongation of the war, coats and jackets in lead gray and brown without lapels proliferated in the royal army, much cheaper than blue dyeing. The tails of the coats were also cut short and the short jacket became general. Some units, such as the Chiloé volunteers, wore the green uniform of chasseurs.

From 1821 the liberal Cortes laid down regulations with a blue uniform, gray trousers in winter and white in summer, and the light units in dark green with gray trousers. This was only achieved from 1823 and 1824 because of the shortages of the final years of the war.

The most common Spanish and royalist distinctive mark was the red cockade, which the soldiers wore on the shako or the bicorne. In the army, the fastening loop of the red cockade matched the color of the buttons of the coat of the military unit in question, so the loops of the cockade could be white or yellow. The cravats of the spearhead (ribbons) of the flags of the Spanish army of the period were also red.

Armament, tactics and medical services

The sizes of the so-called regular armies facing each other in the Hispanic American wars did not exceed the military formations of Division strength of the Napoleonic Wars during the Napoleonic Invasion of Spain. Strategy was strongly influenced by the loyalty and the geography of the American provinces. And the operational capability of the units depended on the conception of waging a regular or an irregular war.

Infantry in close order: in line or battle order.

Infantry in open order: in guerrilla order.

During battles, the tactics of the regular formations were determined by bladed weapons and the limitations of Napoleonic firearms (mainly muskets), which could be locally assembled or imported. The infantry used the classic close order formations: one called in line or battle order, formed by two or three lines (ranks) of fusiliers who fired simultaneously by ranks, or, in the very well-trained ones, by sections of each of the three lines, although all eventually ended with a bayonet charge. The other close formation, in square, was adopted only as an urgent defensive measure against cavalry charges. The open order formation, called guerrilla, does not refer to guerrilla fighters, but to the combat formation of elite units such as voltigeurs, tiradores (skirmishers) or cazadores (chasseurs), which deployed to fire at will, especially in wooded or mountainous terrain. The cavalry had a fundamental mission of shock or pursuit, and its use in reconnaissance was less systematic. The artillery of the time, direct-fire, was ineffective in jungles or mountainous terrain. Finally, in these large human concentrations, casualties from disease and lack of food, especially during sieges, were a constant concern of the command.

Royalist guerrillas

First, a distinction must be made between garrisons entrenched in fortresses (sometimes with a considerable civilian population inside) and provinces where the majority of the population was royalist. In the first category are Montevideo, Valdivia, Cumaná, Cartagena de Indias or Callao. In the second are Coro, Chiloé, La Frontera, Pasto, La Guajira and Huanta.

The guerrillas were groups organized on a «permanent» basis for irregular warfare. By contrast, the «montoneras» gathered «spontaneously» and abandoned the fight after the end of the uprising. As regards the guerrillas, first there are those composed of native inhabitants of the area where they operate. Very numerous and formed mainly by indigenous peasants whose communities were integrated within the viceregal territories, such as the Pastusos of New Granada, or who were on the imperial periphery, as in the cases of the Araucanians in La Frontera and the Wayuu in La Guajira. Second, there were some guerrilla formations whose origin was defeated royalist military formations that had dispersed.

All the monarchist guerrillas were located in South America. They did not arise where the regular army prevailed in the territory, as in North America; because of the social character of the revolution of Hidalgo and Morelos, the Mexican insurgency was repressed by the royalist line troops. Nor were they formed in Upper Peru, Jujuy or Salta, where the monarchist regulars fought the separatist guerrillas. The same happened where control was lost at the beginning of the emancipation process, as in Córdoba, Buenos Aires, Paraguay and the Banda Oriental.

In the region of San Juan de Pasto and Patía, after the capitulation of the line garrison of Colonel Basilio Modesto García in October 1822. With him the criollo aristocracy submitted, but loyalty to the monarchy led the local indigenous peasantry to rise in arms twice between that year and 1824 under the leadership of Agustín Agualongo, Benito Remigio Boves and Estanislao Merchán Cano. In figures of the time, the revolutionaries estimated them at 4,000 combatants, but they probably did not exceed half that number. Its strategic value lay in the fact that it was an obligatory passage on the overland route from Bogotá to Quito. The last guerrillas disappeared in 1826.

On the Caribbean coast, between La Guajira and the Ciénaga Grande, after its subjugation at the end of 1820, small bands arose that remained active until November of the following year. The movement was reactivated in October 1822, after the arrival of Morales's troops in neighboring Maracaibo. It was commanded by indigenous men such as Jacinto Bustamante and Miguel Gómez, or the Spaniard Francisco Labarcés. In January 1823 it reached its zenith, when they managed to seize Santa Marta. Although some speak of 3,000 to 4,000 Indians fighting in bands dispersed throughout the region, there were probably no more than 500. The inhabitants of the region never mobilized more than 2,000 combatants in their militias, and most of them died in the previous years of war. The Colombian response was swift and by March they had been defeated.

In Peru, the irregular bands of Ica, Huamanga and Huancavelica arose with the withdrawal of La Serna's army to his stronghold of Cuzco. Two years later, in 1823, the monarchist victories gave their arms such prestige that they were joined by the inhabitants of Tarma, Huancavelica, Acobamba, Palcamayo, Chupaca, Sicaya and other towns and villages of the central highlands. The Viceroy intervened in the organization of their militias, which served as counter-guerrillas against their pro-independence counterparts, as informants on enemy movements and as replacements for the casualties of the long war. After the Capitulation of Ayacucho, the Iquicha Rebellion broke out, affecting the district of Huanta, in the Intendancy of Huamanga, between 1825 and 1828. Its failure to take large urban centers prevented it from becoming more than a regional peasant revolt. Although some put its forces at 4,000 commoners and 400 soldiers, they were probably 2,000 to 3,000 Indians. Its main leader was Antonio Huachaca, a veteran of the subjugation of Cuzco who had risen to the rank of Brigadier. The end of the period of Peruvian political anarchy of 1823–1827 allowed the State to concentrate on definitively quelling the insurrection.

In Venezuela, after the proclamation of independence, guerrillas rose up in Siquisique under the command of Juan de los Reyes Vargas, in 1812. These numbered more than 1,000 Caquetío Indians and mestizos. His guerrilla supported the campaign of Monteverde. Reyes Vargas became the undisputed caudillo of the center-west region of the country and devoted himself to beheading the rebels in the area, around Barquisimeto and with the support of the Governor of Coro, Brigadier José Ceballos. In 1820 Reyes Vargas switched to the pro-independence side. Reduced by hunger, plague and war, the Caquetíos did not take part in the war after 1821 and after the war disappeared as a people. After their defeat at Carabobo, the surviving monarchists took refuge in Puerto Cabello and, led by Marshal Morales, continued the fight. Most were not Spanish soldiers from Morillo's expedition, but local militiamen. When he capitulated at Maracaibo, in August 1823, Morales had more than 3,000 combatants with him. After the fall of Puerto Cabello in November, guerrillas remained active in the Tuy Valleys, Aragua and Tamanaco under the command of the bloodthirsty colonels José Dionisio Cisneros, Juan Celestino Centeno and Doroteo Herrera. Spanish newspapers of the time exaggerated the number of their followers, speaking of 2,000 whites and as many pardos; in reality they were far fewer. Between 1827 and 1829 Colonel José Arizábalo brought reinforcements to prepare a support base in case an expedition arrived in Venezuela, which at that time was on the brink of a civil war between Bolívar's centralists, Páez's federalists and monarchist remnants. Cisneros continued fighting despite the capture and deportation of Arizábalo and the capitulation of Herrera and Centeno in August 1829. In the end he surrendered to Páez, in November 1831.

In the Llanos, from 1812 small bands arose under the command of Eusebio Antoñanzas and Antonio Zuazola that contributed to the fall of the First Republic. After the Admirable Campaign they arose again with greater virulence, in Apure and Barinas under the leadership of José Antonio Yáñez and Sebastián de la Calzada, mobilizing up to 3,000 horsemen; but the most important movement arose around Calabozo, a guerrilla that went on to form a semi-regular army led by José Tomás Boves and Francisco Tomás Morales, which seized the Orinoco basin and put an end to the Second Republic with little help from other Venezuelan royalists and before the arrival of Morillo's expedition. Its horde numbered between three and five thousand infantry and four to five thousand horsemen. According to some authors, these hosts were not «properly royalist armies» but groups of militiamen who defended their autonomy and interests under the command of a caudillo, always ready to change commanders. When Morillo demobilized them, they considered that their autonomy and the possibility of continuing to plunder were being closed off, and many llaneros changed sides, something decisive for the course of the conflagration.

In Chiloé there were no guerrillas, but the majority of the population was faithfully royalist and able to stand up to the revolutionary government of Santiago with scant resources. The Governor, Brigadier Antonio de Quintanilla, successfully resisted until 1826 thanks to the insular condition of his province, devoting himself to fortifying his island and to sending reinforcements to Peru and La Frontera and privateers across the South Pacific. Nineteenth-century sources speak of five thousand combatants under his command, three thousand of them local militiamen. More recent estimates reduce them to only 2,000 or 2,800 combatants (1,300 Spanish regulars and 1,300 to 1,500 criollo militiamen). Finally, it would be an expedition under the command of Supreme Director Ramón Freire that brought about its final defeat.

In La Frontera, Commander-in-Chief Vicente Benavides, colonels Juan Manuel Picó and Miguel de Senosiaín, the priest Juan Antonio Ferrebú and the leaders Vicente Bocardo, José María Zapata and the Pincheira brothers founded powerful guerrillas in alliance with the Wenteche (Arribano), Pehuenche and Voroga tribes in what would be called the War to the Death. At their moment of greatest strength, in 1820, they dominated the whole countryside of the Intendancy of Concepción. The bands were unified by Benavides until they formed a «semi-regular army» of 1,800 regulars, more than 3,000 militiamen and at least 2,000 allied Indians. By 1824 almost all were dead, Senosiaín and Bocardo, who surrendered. Shortly afterward the indigenous caciques Juan Francisco Mariluán and Juan Mangin Hueno (Arribanos) submitted and Martín Toriano (Pehuenche) died; the Vorogas had fled to the Pampa the year before. In 1825 there was talk of 10,000 guerrillas, many of them contributed by the Araucanians (during a parliament in Concepción, in October 1811, many of the Mapuche caciques pledged to defend the monarchical authorities, going so far as to offer up to 6,000 lances if necessary). By that year the surviving royalist commanders and soldiers, who had taken refuge among the Araucanians, had ceased to be regarded as troops fighting for the King's cause and were branded as armed bandits.

Military campaigns

Military campaigns of Hispanic American Independence

Initial period	Intermediate period	Final period

End of the movement and capitulation of its forces

Main article: Riego's pronunciamiento

Great Overseas Expedition

The disintegration of the royalists can be dated to January 1, 1820, with the uprising led by Rafael de Riego, which took place in Las Cabezas de San Juan and was carried out by the army ostensibly bound for Montevideo and Buenos Aires. It was the great Overseas expedition, also called the Great Expedition or the «"big expedition" to Overseas».

After the serious difficulties in organizing the expedition of Pablo Morillo, conditions were even worse for sending a second army. Regarding this first great force, it is traditionally held that it was originally to be sent against Buenos Aires, but the fall of Montevideo (the only royalist stronghold in the Río de la Plata), the chaos in Venezuela, the revolutionary successes in New Granada, and the greater geographic proximity and economic importance of these last two places caused the objective to be changed. To these factors was added the optimism produced by the victories of Rancagua and Viluma, achieved by the forces of Viceroy José Fernando de Abascal without peninsular help, which led to the belief that the Viceroyalty of Peru could put an end to the rebel Rioplatenses on its own.

Morillo set sail from Cádiz on February 15, 1815, and on May 9 King Ferdinand VII announced by decree that the fleet was going against Caracas instead of Buenos Aires, that more reinforcements would soon be sent to Panama and Peru, and that a second expedition against the Río de la Plata was being prepared. The latter would total twenty thousand infantrymen, one thousand five hundred horsemen and the corresponding artillery. Until it reached Puerto Santo, near Carúpano, in Venezuela, on April 7, the expedition caused terror, especially in Buenos Aires. As false news and rumors came and went, it came to be believed that it was heading for Peru and Chile.

From mid-1816 the second force began to be organized under the direction of the Minister of the Navy, José Vázquez de Figueroa, but the project languished. On November 2, 1816, Brigadier Francisco Mourelle was appointed Commander General of the naval forces of the expedition. Two years after Morillo's expedition, the poor results of the war had changed the government's opinion, and the Council of the Indies, on November 9, 1816, regarding the destination of Morillo's brilliant and costly expedition, acknowledged that sending it to Venezuela (Montevideo was maintained as a sham), instead of reinforcing Mexico as the most important point, since Mexican revenues represented ninety percent of all American funds at the end of the viceregal period, was a mistake that changed the course of the war:

It seemed a matter of sound judgment that, there being insurrection in both Americas and in territories quite far apart, when the Metropolis cannot attend to itself, all possible efforts should be concentrated on the most important point, and the one of least difficult success, which was New Spain. With a Viceroy of suitable qualities, with diligently sought officers, and with a small land and sea force, it would have been pacified in a short time, and with public order well sustained there, the government would gain great credit, the example would overawe the disturbers everywhere, and the Kingdom of Mexico, which is powerful in itself, would be a support for coming to the aid of other points. Far from this, an expedition was planned for the Río de la Plata, which because of its magnitude could not depart in time, and, its object having been changed, it was directed to Venezuela. AGI, Estado 88.

In 1817 only some reinforcements were assigned to Peru and Chile, which departed the following year in Russian ships. Their purchase was controversial because among the royal camarilla that bought them there were no officers of the Real Armada Española to verify their condition, which was precarious. The ships were described as outdated, inefficient and in poor sanitary and seaworthy condition; some returned to Cádiz leaking, others sank, and this provoked a mutiny on one of them, which went to surrender at Buenos Aires, providing key information for the capture of the rest.

The project of a great expedition was revived when the news of the disaster that was the Battle of Maipú reached Madrid. First, it was impossible to recover the Río de la Plata with Peruvian troops alone. Second, the Pacific coast as far as Mexico had been left unprotected. Third, the Peruvian Viceroyalty was in danger, and the King urgently convened his privy council; one of its members, Joaquín Gómez de Liaño, put forward the idea of sending at least 16,000 men to Buenos Aires. However, the lack of resources and the complications caused by the Luso-Brazilian invasion of the Banda Oriental (the Portuguese might end up confronting the expedition) led to priority being given to sending reinforcements to Havana and New Spain and warships to Lima, Havana, Veracruz and Venezuela. Another factor was the pressure of interest groups for whom the Río de la Plata was a marginal region of the monarchy and for whom priority should be given to defending trade with New Spain and the Caribbean. Finally, Spain understood after the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle that it would not have the support of the other European powers in maintaining its empire; in fact, they were more interested in seeing it collapse.

The Great Expedition was organized by the former Viceroy of New Spain and Captain General of Andalusia, Félix María Calleja del Rey. Its land forces totaled 20,200 infantrymen, 2,800 horsemen and 1,370 artillerymen with 94 field pieces, others of smaller caliber and an abundant ordnance park at the end of 1819 in Cádiz and on the island of San Fernando, but shortly afterward an epidemic of black vomit broke out. There were fourteen cavalry squadrons. The Commander of the expedition and of the army was Enrique José O'Donnell, Count of La Bisbal, a Spaniard of Irish descent, who was nicknamed «Viceroy of the Río de la Plata». Some sources maintain that O'Donnell had been replaced by Calleja. The naval forces, under the command of Francisco Mourelle, which were to escort the transports, consisted of four ships of the line, three to six frigates, four to ten brigs, two corvettes, four brigantine-schooners, two schooners and thirty gunboats. The crews were made up of 6,000 sailors. The total number of men is debated, but figures of 14,000, 20,000, 22,000, or 25,000 are given.

Key factors in the failure of the expedition were the lack of commitment of the liberals to the reconquest of the overseas provinces and the activity of the agents sent by the Argentine government. Notable in this were the actions of Tomás Antonio Lezica and Andrés Arguibel in Cádiz from 1818 and the extensive information that reached Buenos Aires. Having learned at the end of 1818 of the coming of the expedition, the Argentine central government tried to negotiate peace with the federalist José Gervasio Artigas, asked José de San Martín for help and recruited one thousand five hundred men in Córdoba as reinforcements. These last were the only ones mobilized of the eight to ten thousand that the Directory in Buenos Aires hoped to assemble.

Some historians state that the expeditionary plan was to land near Montevideo and seize the city, where there was probably still strong support for the royalist cause (even though the prisoners taken by the republicans after its capitulation had been transferred to various areas of the Viceroyalty). In this way they would have a stable base in the Río de la Plata from which to begin operations and obtain the support of local royalists. Subsequently a force would march against Buenos Aires. Once the Río de la Plata had been pacified, the Great Expedition would advance toward Chile and then go to the aid of Peru, which was besieged in the north by Bolívar and in the south by San Martín. The threat of the arrival of this royalist force had been one of the reasons why San Martín landed in Peru in September 1820 and not during 1819, even though he was materially able to do so. The plan is very similar to that of Viceroy José Fernando de Abascal, who in his Memorias lamented that Morillo's expedition had been sent to Venezuela and New Granada instead of the Río de la Plata. According to him, it was a mistake to send such a force to a place with a tropical climate and swamps to which the peninsulars were not accustomed, where the Europeans were soon decimated by malaria, yellow fever and other tropical diseases. Had the original plan been followed, they would have gone to a region with a climate similar to their own, supported by offensives from Charcas and Chile. Afterward they would have gone by sea to Quito, to penetrate the highlands of Bogotá from the south and finally finish in the tropical lands of Cartagena and Venezuela.

Others state that the Great Expedition was this time directed at Mexico, securing the most valuable part of the monarchy, and point to the Río de la Plata as another setup intended to deceive, just as happened with Morillo's Expedition to Venezuela.

Ferdinand VII returns to the old theme of subjugating us, and prepares a great expedition which he calls "of Buenos Aires"; such was the word he spread, and he made even the Argentines themselves believe it, preparing them for their defense; but in reality it was for the kingdom of Mexico. His secret camarilla had represented to him that, this part being the most precious of the monarchy because of its riches, population and greater proximity to Spain, he should secure it at all costs, leaving it to time that, once this prize was firmly held, by means of it the other possessions of both Americas would themselves be secured. Persuaded of this truth, Ferdinand entrusted the expedition to Calleja, having first honored him with the title of Count of Calderón, as the person most suited to carry out the enterprise because of his knowledge of this country.

Liberal Triennium

The rebellion of the army led by Rafael de Riego brought Spain to the so-called Liberal Triennium and America to the consolidation of the independences. The military uprising had the dual objective of restoring the Constitution of 1812 and preventing the arrival of the Great Expedition on the American continent. The coup was organized by the secret societies or Masonic lodges and the American pro-independence agents, and was promoted fundamentally by liberals from Cádiz known as veinteañistas or exaltados. The King, without military support, had to renounce his despotic absolutism and place himself under the authority of the old constitution and the new liberal Cortes. The new constitutional Spanish government, however, did not resolve to reach a peace agreement, although it unilaterally suspended military operations in support of the royalists in America, causing dejection and disaffection among those who remained loyal to Spain. The absence of the expedition and of new reinforcements at such a decisive moment guaranteed the independence of America. José de La Serna foresaw the fall of the Peruvian Viceroyalty.

Thus in New Granada and Venezuela, in December 1820, the experienced liberal officer Pablo Morillo was granted his return to Spain, which he had requested on 16 previous occasions, relinquishing command of the expeditionary army of Costa Firme. The disintegration of the army's forces in Costa Firme can also be documented through the rolls of the royal secretariat of the general staff and the lists of deserters. Apart from the expeditionary corps, which remained the most operational and cohesive, and which, as before, was doubled in number by American troops, it can be seen that there was a mass desertion of local troops from the beginning of 1821, as a result of which entire American battalions that openly threw down their arms were dissolved without fighting: Clarines, Barinas, La Reina and Cumaná.

American units. Composition of the expeditionary army of Costa Firme, February 1821	Infantry	Cavalry	Total
Local whites	633	210	843
Castes (mestizos and morenos)	3169	2209	5378
Native Indians	935	45	980

The problem was most pressing among the criollos of European origin: in that month of April 1821 alone, 230 soldiers laid down their arms, and in the lists of deserters from those dates, with first and last names and unit, of 1,600 Americans only six remained. The abandonment of combat extended to the very deployment of units on the field of the Battle of Carabobo, and thus the American militia cavalry, which grouped 1,372 Llaneros in the regiment called Lanceros del rey, deserted in its entirety without fighting. Spanish resistance in Venezuela ended at the fortress of Puerto Cabello in November 1823. The disintegration of the royalist army from the end of 1820 did not affect only the combat units of New Granada and Venezuela. Similar events occurred on all fronts of the struggle.

The disintegration of the royalists cannot be attributed to a single cause, but in New Spain the causes that gave rise to the New Spanish abandonment of the royalist ranks stand out, since, as it was a territory almost entirely pacified, it was the most drastic and notable. The struggles between absolutists and liberals that polarized Spain also divided the defenders of the Spanish monarchy in America. The Spanish officers, mostly supporters of constitutional monarchy, were in turn abandoned by the criollo caudillos, who renounced the defense of the Spanish monarchy because of their opposition to the Liberal Triennium. In this way the royalist criollos of New Spain, despite having subdued the insurgents, resolved to win over the insurrectionists and negotiate with them in 1821 the independence of the Mexican Empire with the Plan of Iguala and the Trigarante pact. The instability of the viceregal government of New Spain led the European officers and troops to re-embark at Veracruz, remaining only in the bastion of San Juan de Ulúa.

Absolutist Restoration

The French restoring army puts an end to the Spanish Liberal Triennium on August 31, 1823, at the Battle of Trocadero (Cádiz).

The situation in Spain took yet another turn in 1823, when the Spanish supporters of absolutism turned to the European powers that had triumphed over Napoleon, the so-called Holy Alliance, and obtained the aid of an army of 132,000 Frenchmen to invade Spain and suppress the Liberal Triennium, abolish the Spanish Constitution and restore Ferdinand VII to the absolute government of Spain. On October 1, 1823, Ferdinand VII, now reinstated in government, decreed the abolition of everything approved during the Liberal Triennium; this also included the appointments of military chiefs who commanded armies in America, and it unleashed a wave of insubordination and new insurrections which, like that of Pedro Antonio Olañeta and his rebellion, hindered and divided the last defenders of the Spanish monarchy.

Rafael del Riego, leader of the insurgents of Cádiz, was hanged on November 7, 1823, and the promoters of the liberal movement were executed, marginalized or exiled from Spain. The army of the Holy Alliance remained occupying Spain for several more years, until 1830, in the so-called Ominous Decade, to uphold the absolute monarchy of Ferdinand VII, which repressed the liberal leaders, such as Juan Martín Díez "el Empecinado". Definitively, no further expedition was formed in Spain, and the collapse in America was now irreversible. The surviving royalist chiefs and their armies, neglected by the misgovernment of Spain and themselves fractured by the discord between liberals and absolutists, finally capitulated after the Battle of Ayacucho, although they still held out against all odds in the archipelago of Chiloé and the Real Felipe Fortress of El Callao, until their resistance ended in January 1826, leaving only the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico in America under the sovereignty of Spain.

Naval operations and last strongholds

Military flag of the Spanish fleet and naval fortresses.

The fleets of that era were made up of:

• Larger vessels, with three masts: first the navíos, which had two or three batteries of guns along their sides, and the frigates, with one or two artillery batteries and up to 60 guns.
• Smaller vessels consisted of corvettes (theoretically with fewer than 16 guns), brigs, schooners and pailebotes, with fewer than eight guns. To these were added the smallest coastal and river craft (fuerzas sutiles), known as balandras, faluchos, flecheras and bongos, with a single gun.

In 1800 the Spanish fleet consisted of more than 50 ships of the line plus another 50 vessels between frigates and smaller craft. It was a navy whose strategy and tactics were fundamentally defensive of the maritime empire (unlike the British). But it was forced by Godoy to seek combat alongside the French fleet in the service of Napoleon. However, most of the Spanish fleet was able to survive the Battle of Trafalgar, where only seven of the ships sunk were Spanish, but subsequently the invasion of Spain by Napoleon Bonaparte led to the complete paralysis of all repair and shipbuilding activity in the Spanish shipyards, and consequently the more than 40 ships of the line and frigates of the fleet sheltering in Spanish ports were completely ruined for lack of maintenance and broken up, their artillery pieces and armament being used by the Spanish army against the French.

The Spanish ships of the line that were able to put to sea between 1808 and 1810 were the San Leandro, San Ramón (which was wrecked in 1810), San Julián, San Pedro and Asia, but they would go to Veracruz and Callao to transport funds vital for sustaining the war, along with other minor missions unsuited to a combat ship, in deficient condition and poorly armed for combat. Of the old Spanish fleet, by the final moment of the Napoleonic Invasion of Spain, in 1814, only five ships of the line and ten frigates remained fit to sail and fight. The San Pedro de Alcántara sank in 1815 off Costa Firme after the ship's magazine exploded. The remaining combat ships could not continue their seagoing life, remaining forever in dock, lacking careening, broken up, even sold as scrap. On the other hand, the abandonment of the seamen and shipyard workers was complete, without pay, in ruin. Many officers were incorporated into the land army.

In 1818, including the controversial purchase of ships made from Russia, there was one ship of the line and ten frigates, of which four were out of service. By 1822 the number of frigates had already been reduced to eight. The Minister of the Navy, Juan Jabat, in his report to the Cortes of 1820, noted that "only four -ships of the line- are armed, one to join the Dutch division in the Mediterranean"; the first was the ship of the line Guerrero, which, after the uprising of the 1819 expedition to the Río de la Plata, was sent on another mission to accompany the frigate Diana against the Barbary corsairs; the second, "whose fate is unknown, is bound for Callao," was the ship of the line San Telmo, which was wrecked in Antarctica in 1819 while trying to round Cape Horn, "and the two remaining ones to be employed in tasks Overseas." He was referring to the ships of the line Numancia, formerly Russian, which never came to sail, and lastly the Asia, which, together with the brig Aquiles, left Cádiz in 1824 on missions to support the royalists on the Pacific coasts, and which ended with its crew mutinying and handing the ship over to Mexico.

The counter-revolutionary Navy

Río de la Plata and South Pacific	Gulf of Mexico and Costa Firme
Fortifications Montevideo, until June 23, 1814 Talcahuano, until January 25, 1819 Valdivia, until February 4, 1820 Chiloé Archipelago, until January 15, 1826 Real Felipe Fortress, El Callao, until January 22, 1826 Captains José María Salazar Juan Ángel Michelena Miguel de la Sierra Jacinto Romarate Joaquín de Rocalan Tomas Blanco Cabreras Dionisio Capaz [5] Antonio Vacaro Roque Guruceta	Fortifications Angostura, Province of Guayana, until July 17, 1817 San Felipe Castle, Puerto Cabello, until November 10, 1823 San Juan de Ulúa, Veracruz, until November 18, 1825 Captains Pascual Enrile José María Chacon Ángel Laborde José Guerrero

Defense of the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico

After the loss of the Fortress of San Juan de Ulúa in Veracruz, from 1825 the garrison and the flotilla of Cuba were reinforced, and under the command of Laborde they waged a successful naval campaign against the privateers in the service of Mexico and Colombia, which helped to check their plans to invade the island. Laborde managed to disable the ships in the service of Mexico at the Battle of Mariel and later provided naval support to the last attempt to reconquer New Spain, by the Barradas expedition.

Barradas expedition

Isidro Barradas attempted the reconquest of New Spain in 1829 under false expectations of popular support for Ferdinand VII. To this end he assembled in the Cuban port of Havana an expedition of 3,586 men which, with the support of a fleet organized by Ángel Laborde, was transported to the Mexican coast, landed at Cabo Rojo and headed for Tampico, crossing the Pánuco River. It obtained no popular support, and after entrenching itself in Tampico, besieged by the Mexican army, it withstood eleven bayonet assaults in the Battle of Fortín de La Barra. Barradas negotiated the withdrawal of his expedition and capitulated on September 11, 1829. He re-embarked 47 days after his arrival in Mexico.

End of the War

After supporting the restoration in Spain of the absolutist government of Ferdinand VII in 1823, through the French intervention under the command of Louis Antoine of France, the governments of England and France also set down in that same year of 1823, in the Polignac Memorandum, their agreement not to intervene in America to aid the Spanish King. The Spanish government, however, conveyed to the foreign ministers its decision to continue the war because «The King will never consent to recognize the new states of Spanish America and will not cease to use the force of arms against his rebellious subjects in that part of the World».

In 1828 the last royalist uprising in America took place, led by Brigadier Francisco Javier de Aguilera, who occupied the town of Vallegrande, in what is today the Department of Santa Cruz, declaring himself «General in Chief of the Royal Army» and restoring the monarchy there for a few days. He was defeated shortly afterward by the prefect of Santa Cruz, Colonel Anselmo Rivas, who, after receiving news of that insurrection, marched on Vallegrande with his entire battalion of 222 men.

The Barradas expedition of 1829 would be Spain's last military effort on continental soil against Hispanic American independence. In 1830 Ferdinand VII of Bourbon lost all possibility of help from French absolutism with the fall of the Bourbon government in France and the accession to the French throne of the constitutional Louis Philippe. The Spanish navy was ordered to defend only the trade of Cuba and Puerto Rico. Finally, all Spanish plans for the reconquest of America ceased with the death of the Monarch Ferdinand VII on September 29, 1833, at which point Spain put an end to all military operations against the independence of the Hispanic American states.

Beyond the capitulation of the regular armies, the royalist guerrillas, native to each country, continued fighting for several more years.

See also

• Spanish Empire
• Spanish Monarchy
• Royal Army of Chile
• Royal Army of Peru
• Royalist Army in New Spain
• Irregular resistance in the Colombian independence process
• Military organization of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata
• Royal Corps of Engineers in the Río de la Plata

References

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• Hamnett, Brian R. (2002). “La política contrarrevolucionaria del virrey Abascal: Perú, 1806-1816”. In Las guerras de independencia en la América española. Zamora: El colegio de Michoacán. Edited by Marta Terán & José Antonio Serrano Ortega, pp. 183-192. ISBN 9789706790699.
• Luqui-Lagleyze, Julio Mario & Manzano Lahoz, Antonio (1998). "Los Realistas (1810-1826). Virreinatos del Perú y del Río de la Plata, y Capitanía General de Chile". Hombres en uniforme (in español). 5. Valladolid: Quirán. ISBN 84-87314-35-X.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)
• Luiqi Lagleyze, Julio Mario (2006). Por el rey, la fe y la patria: el ejército realista del Perú en la independencia sudamericana, 1810-1825 (in español). Madrid: Colección Adalid. ISBN 84-9781-222-0.
• Peralta Ruiz, Víctor (2006). "El virrey Abascal y el espacio de poder en el Perú (1806-1816). Un balance historiográfico". Revista de Indias (in español).
• Posada Carbó, Eduardo (2011). Colombia. Crisis imperial e independencia (1808-1830). Volume I. Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial España. ISBN 9788430616213.
• Semprún, José. Capitanes y virreyes: el esfuerzo bélico realista en la contienda de emancipación hispanoamericana (in español). ISBN 84-7823-607-4.
• Urbina Carrasco, María Ximena (2013). “La situación de Chiloé durante las guerras de independencia”. In O'Phelan, Scarlett & Georges Lomné. Abascal y la contra-independencia de América del Sur. Lima: Instituto Francés de Estudios Andinos & Universidad Católica del Perú, pp. 187-226. ISBN 9789972623820.
• Vargas Ezquerra, Juan Ignacio (2010). Un hombre contra un continente. José Abascal, rey de América (1806-1816). León: Akrón. ISBN 978-84-92814-03-9.
• Vargas Ezquerra, Juan Ignacio (2011). "Las contraofensivas realistas en el Perú (1810-1816)". In Colomer Viadel, Antonio. Las cortes de Cádiz, la Constitución de 1812 y las Independencias Nacionales en América. Valencia: Ugarit Comunicación Gráfica, pp. 539-561. ISBN 978-84-614-9259-6.
• Vargas Ezquerra, Juan Ignacio (2008). "La previsión política de un soldado: Abascal, virrey del Perú". In Navarro Antolín, Fernando. Orbis Incognitus. Avisos y legajos del Nuevo Mundo. Volume II. Universidad de Huelva, pp. 873-887. ISBN 978-84-96826-96-0.
• Viloria de la Hoz, Joaquín (2014). "Santa Marta Real". Aguaita. No. 26, December 2014: 14-24.
• Vilora de la Hoz, Joaquín (2015). "Santa Marta real y republicana: El accionar económico y político de la Provincia de Santa Marta en los albores de la Independencia, 1810-1830". Cuadernos de historia económica y empresarial. No. 36, April 2015.

External links

• Regimientos de América, website on historical South American uniforms.
• Videoconference, Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Lecture: Las Guerras de Independencia como Guerras Civiles. Historian Tomás Pérez Vejo