Saturday 2 November 2013

Spanish Civil War: Requêtés


Requêté is a French word meaning a hunting call. It was also the name of the soldiers who have fought for the Spanish Carlist movement since the First Carlist War of 1839.

The Carlists were a very traditional ultra-conservative Catholic Party and to some degree they were the shock troops of Catholicism. Priests accompanied requêté battalions into combat in the Sanish Civil War. The requêté were relatively well trained by SCW standards and formed the assault groups of the Nationalist armies. Eventually the  Requêté were subsumed into the fascist Falange and their leaders driven into exile.

As a militia they wore a variety of costumes but were distinguished by a red beret with yellow tassle and their brightly coloured Navarre (a region of central northern Spain) blankets.

Carlism died out in 1975 when Spain became a modern South European country.

These figures were sculpted by Paul Hicks for Anglian Miniatures and are now marketed by Empress.

23 comments:

  1. Great miniatures beautifully painted John.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nice John. I have some of these - they're very nice figures

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That sounds like a splendid idea!

      Delete
    2. I have converted my garage to a playing room.

      Delete
    3. How's that in the winter? I managed to negotiate one of the attic rooms as my games room when we bought the new house a couple of years ago - I can get a 6x8' table in now.

      Delete
  3. I have two SCW armies as well, but not this scale. Yours look lovely.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great paintjob, very nice looking figures!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi John,

    grat paint job, but if you accept an advice from a spanish wargamer, I think that the next time is better to take a Spanish or Latin motto for the banner (I really think that very few requetes spoke English :-) ).

    Some examples here:
    http://www.requetes.com/banderas.html

    Note that this page probably is not historically or ideologically neutral, but maybe a good graphic source for painting.

    Reagards

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. PS Have you noticed how all Dr Who monsters speak BBC-English?

      Delete
    2. Of course!
      something similar is for ALL martians that try to conquer USA :-D

      Delete
  6. Well yes, the modern Spanish still mostly don't speak English but I do and I just liked the banner.

    However, I can see that this would jar with a Spanish wargamer - :) - but think of it as artistic licence.

    I will probably also use these troops for an English Catholic Army if you want a rationalisation but thanks for the useful link.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, not to speak English is a big problam to us, and the worst of it is that many spanish do not see it :( (by the way, sorry for my bad English)

      As a regular reader of your blog, I will keep an eye to see that troops fighting in England. I will be very happy to see "La Cruz de San Andres" fighting in British territory :)

      Regards

      Delete
    2. Please, your English is very good. I have no Spanish and a little French. English is the European language. French is the official language but only the French and Belgium's actually speak it. :)

      Delete