DOSSIER (coord. by Ángel Alcalde)

Presentation (Ángel Alcalde, European University Institute)

Las órdenes militares en tiempos revolucionarios. El republicanismo y la posibilidad de una aristocracia militar. Río de la Plata, Chile y Perú, 1810–1824 [Military orders in revolutionary times: republicanism and the possibility of a military aristocracy. Río de la Plata, Chile and Peru, 1810–1824]
(Alejandro Rabinovich, CONICET, Universidad Nacional de la Pampa)
This article studies the institution of military orders by the Hispano-American revolutionary regimes. Building on an initial analysis of the officer corps of the Army of the Andes, the paper addresses the foundation of the Legion of Merit in Chile and of the Order of the Sun in Peru. It is argued that, from the perspective of its founders, these orders were destined to fulfill a fundamental political role in the new independent States, providing support for authoritarian military regimes and allowing the implantation of foreign officers within a new kind of military aristocracy.

Ciudadanos y soldados. El Tiro Federal Concordia de la República Argentina, 1898–1923 [Citizens and soldiers. The Condordia’s shooting society in Argentina, 1898–1923]
(Bárbara Raiter, Universidad de Buenos Aires)
Between the last decades of the nineteenth and the first decades of the twentieth centuries, a large amount of shooting societies emerged throughout Argentina. The Tiro Federal of the city of Concordia was one of the most significant amongst them. This paper aims to analyze the values associated to the war shooting practice transmitted by the Tiro Federal of Concordia. The description of the society, its authorities, its relationship with the State, and their initiatives will allow us to understand the influence of this association on the society of the period.

Spain Is Not Different. Institutional Development and the Army in the Second Spanish Republic and Civil War
(Álvaro La Parra-Pérez, Weber State University)
This paper studies the role of the army in the Spanish institutional development. Contrary to the idea of the army as a monolithic block or other elites’ agent, I develop a new theoretical framework that relies on three insights. First, the army was an independent political agent with great influence over Spanish institutional dynamics. Second, besides the officers’ ideology, the economic and professional interests of the military influenced the stability of Spanish political regimes. Third, the army was divided into factions with opposed economic and professional interests. I finally summarize the implications of the theoretical framework for the Second Spanish Republic and the influence that the economic interests had on military factions and the side chosen by officers in 1936.

Los mutilados de Franco: el Benemérito Cuerpo y la política social en la España franquista [Franco’s disabled veterans: the BCMGP and the politics of welfare in Nationalist Spain]
(Stephanie Wright, University of Sheffield)
By 1943 the Nationalist disabled veterans’ association – the Honourable Corps of Disabled in the War for the Fatherland (BCMPG) – reportedly counted upon 50,000 members. Exploring the personnel files of disabled veterans, as well as the organisational records of the government body responsible for the war disabled, the following paper provides a preliminary exploration of the aims and limitations of this Corps. More specifically, it will analyse the BCMGP’s entry criteria, the ability of the association to guarantee a certain standard of living for its members, and its effectiveness in terms of encouraging social support for the Francoist dictatorship.

La HIAG (Asociación de Ayuda Mutua). Excombatientes de las Waffen-SS en los primeros años de la República Federal de Alemania [The “Hilfsgemeinschaft auf Gegenseitigkeit de Angehörigen der ehemaligen Waffen-SS” (HIAG). Veterans of the Waffen-SS in the early Federal Republic of Germany]
(Karsten Wilke, Universität Bielefeld)
The Schutzstaffel (SS) was pronounced guilty by the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal. The judges declared the SS a criminal organization. The verdict included the combat-SS (Waffen-SS) which with its 900.000 members was by far the largest section of the SS. The Mutual Aid Association (Hilfsgemeinschaft auf Gegenseitigkeit, HIAG) was founded as early as the late 1940s. This association claimed to represent the interests of the former members of the Waffen-SS. The article focuses on the self-perception of the organized veterans of the Waffen-SS, the process of founding the HIAG, their communication, their contact with political parties and their activities.

STUDIES

La campaña naval del Estrecho (1340–1344): el fin de la amenaza norteafricana [The Campaign of El Estrecho (1340–1344): the End of the North African Threat]
(Roberto Muñz Bolaños, UNED)
The naval campaign of “El Estrecho”, alongside with the battle of Salado (1340) is considered the culmination of the “Reconquest” process because it means the end of the issue known as “El problema del Estrecho”. Historiography has focused on the economic and political consequences of this campaign, considering it as the beginning of the Castilian and Aragonese naval armies. Our aim, however, is to explain the military development of this historical process, taking into account not only the Christian-Muslim primary sources but also the literature written about it.

Creando un héroe: el Empecinado y su propaganda durante la Guerra de la Independencia (1808–1814) [Creating a hero: the “Empecinado” and his propaganda during the Peninsular War (1808–1814)]
(Alberto Ausín Ciruelos, Universidad de Burgos)
This paper studies the genesis and evolution of propaganda about Juan Martín Díez, called the “Empecinado”, during the Peninsular War (1808–1814). During the French invasion of Spain, the “Empecinado” went from being a simple peasant to become one of the most important guerrilla leaders. This development is largely due to the talent of the “Empecinado” to make the irregular war, but also because of a massive and permanent use of propaganda.

“Por el derecho de petición que nos confiere la ley”: estrategias legales para evadir el servicio de frontera (Buenos Aires, segunda mitad del siglo XIX) [“Por el derecho de petición que nos confiere la ley”: legal strategies to evade frontier service (Buenos Aires, second half of the XIX century)]
(Leonardo Canciani, Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires)
In this paper, we will analyze the strategies of the National Guardsmen in the campaign of province Buenos Aires for free oneself of frontier service. We study the practices which they were endorsed for the national and provincial state through military law: exemption orders, personería and replacement requests.

La bibliografía gimnástica y deportiva de la educación física en el ejército español (1808–1919): textos en contexto social [The Gymnastics and Sports Bibliography Education in the Spanish Army (1808–1919): Texts in Social Context]
(Xavier Torrebadella-Flix, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
This article presents the works of gymnastics, physical education and sport that were published in Spain between 1808 and 1919 in the field of the army. The analysis of the content in situ(using primary sources) of the most significant works serves to (re)contextualise the texts in the configuration of gymnastics and sports activity in the army, and also enables the ideological and social discourse of the texts themselves to be appraised. We conclude that these works project an institutionalised and nationalistic discourse aimed to the subordination and management of civil society.

Los militares argentinos y la consolidación de la identidad nacional desde la narrativa criollista [The Argentine military and the consolidation of national identity from the creole narrative]
(Matías Emiliano Casas, Université Paris Diderot-Paris 7)
The Argentine military space showed, particularly in the thirties, a recurrent concern to define the archetype of the «ser nacional» [national being]. This article analyzes what place was attributed to the gaucho and tradition from the nationalist rhetoric of the armed forces. It focuses on studying social relations between the military and members of the traditionalist associations. These groups were recovering the rural customs as moral reservoir of nationality. We believe that the interventions of the «traditional military» were a stronghold for the consolidation of the gaucho as a symbol of the Argentine.

Przemyśl, Galicia: A Garrison Town Before, During, Between and After War (1873–1953)
(John E. Fahey, Purdue University)
The fortress town of Przemyśl, now located in Southeastern Poland, exemplifies many trends in Eastern European military history. Constructed in the 1870s and 1880s, Fortress Przemyśl was one of Austria-Hungary’s most important military centers. I trace the growth of the fortress and civilian community from the 1880s through the end of World War II, as they underwent sieges, invasion, population exchange, economic decline, and atrocities. I argue that Przemyśl illustrates the shift from multi-national to mono-ethnic communities, the increase in ethnic violence in Eastern Europe through the period of the World Wars, and the long duration of military infrastructure.

TRANLATION

¿Era la Esparta clásica una sociedad militar? [Was Classical Sparta a Military Society?]
(Stephen Hodkinson, University of Nottingham)

RESEÑAS/REVIEWS