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.
CHAPTER XII.
Barbarossa—Royalist-Republicans—Squaring a Girl—At Iron—"Your Papers?"—The Barber's Shop—A Carlist Spy—An Old Chum—The Alarm—A Breach of Neutrality—Under Fire—Caught in the Toils—The Heroic Tomas—We Slope—A Colleague Advises Me—"A Horse! a Horse!"—State of Bilbao—Don Carlos at Estella—Sanchez Bregua Recalled—Tolosa Invites—Republican Ineptitude—Do not Spur a Free Horse—Very Ancient Boys—Meditations in Bed—A Biscay Storm.
Barbarossa, who had never been over the border, suggested to me that I should take a trip to Irun, which was held by the anti-Carlists. It would be incorrect to write them down as Republicans; they were sprung from the Cristinos of the previous generation, and as such were opposed to any scion of the house against which their fathers had fought for years. All of them were de facto Republicans, and had more knowledge and enjoyment of Republican freedom than those who prattled and raved of Republicanism in Madrid and the south; but they did not take kindly to the name. As my friend the late J. A. MacGahan wittily said of them—"They were the Royalist-Republicans of Spain." They were as fond of their fueros as any Carlist in the crowd, but they stood up for Madrid less that they cared for the policy or personages of the central government, than that they had a deep-seated hereditary hatred of their neighbours of the rural districts. At heart they were in favour of a restoration of the throne, and on that throne they would fain seat the young Prince of the Asturias. In those latitudes the lines of John Byrom a century before would well apply:
"God bless the King, I mean the faith's defender;
God bless—no harm in blessing—the Pretender;
But who Pretender is, or who is King,
God bless us all—that's quite another thing!"