Sunday 28 August 2022

Flags of Spanish Infantry Regiment Galicia 1728-1768

As I had a fair number of requests here and on Facebook (via various 18th century wargames pages) for variants of these Spanish flags with the regimental badges, here are the flags of Spanish Regiment Galicia with their corner badge of a gold chalice surrounded by 8 silver crosses. If printed at a size for 28 or 30mm figures (say 3-4cms across) the detail should show but, if printed smaller, even at high resolution on a laser printer, I suspect it will not.



The regiment was descended from a tercio raised in 1566. (Information distilled here from Kronoskaf as I do not have independent sources for the Spanish army; my schoolboy Spanish is a bit too rusty for me easily to use Spanish language material anyway!)

Fairly heavily employed in the war of the Spanish Succession but after the capitulation of Ghent in 1706 which it helped defend the regiment was not to be further employed in hostilities in the Low Countries. It returned to Spain in 1713.

It was renamed Regimiento de Galicia in 1715.

It saw much service in the War of the Austrian Succession, employed in many sieges and also at the battles of Piacenza, Tedone and Tanaro.

The regiment ranked 4th in the Seven Years War. During that war it was with the Spanish army assembled for the invasion of Portugal and took part in the siege of Miranda, which capitulated on May 10th 1762. As Kronoskaf says "For the rest of the campaign, the regiment made diversionary attacks, escorted convoys and finally reinforced the extremity of the Spanish positions."

And this was the uniform in 1756:


14 comments:

  1. wonderful spanish stuff david.

    Willz.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, Willz. :-) More to come soon...

      All the best,

      David.

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  2. Super work, David! I need to switch from painting Frenc to Spanish.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, Jon. :-) Look forward to seeing your Spanish troops with these flags...

      All the best,

      David.

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  3. Another lovely flag there David. I've not seen many players field Spanish troops but with flags like these, it might push them towards doing so.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks, Steve. :-) It's pleasing that once the basic pattern is created it's then a matter of simply changing the corner badges for the different regiments. Makes my life a lot easier! I know that Jon Freitag will be using them, at least!

      All the best,

      David.

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  4. Replies
    1. Thanks, Ray. :-) Hopefully it will help inspire a few Spanish armies!

      All the best,

      David.

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  5. Hi! Greetings from Spain! It's a pleasure follow your blog :).
    One fix regarding the badge, is that the background is Blue, not Red.
    The Galicia Regiment still exists on Spanish Army, you have a link to it in Wikipedia : https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regimiento_de_Cazadores_de_Monta%C3%B1a_%22Galicia%22_n.%C2%BA_64

    (sorry the link is only in spanish, but Google translate can help and if not put me a email, will be glad to help.

    Best regards,
    Jesús

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, Jesús . I'm glad you like my blog.

      Can you tell me your source for the badge background being blue, please? An article I have in Spanish on the old army badges plus Kronoskaf both say the badge background colour was red. Hope to hear from you; thanks.

      All the best,

      David.

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    2. Hi David,
      It´s really easy indeed. The badge are the arms of the spanish region of Galicia (refered on the article as arms of Galicia) and in that arms the background is blue:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Galicia_(Spain)
      You can check also in the article i linked in my other comment to the Galicia Regiment nowadays.
      Hope it helps.
      Best regards, Jesús

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    3. Thanks for your reply, Jesús. But did you see the link from the bottom of the Wikipedia page to the article that describes the 18th century badge of the Regiment Galicia where it says: Military Flag: the Holy Grail over a red field

      In 1571 the Kingdom of Galicia sent a fleet to fight in the Battle of Lepanto against the Turks. The Galician Navy flew her own flag, which consisted of the Holy Grail surrounded by one angel on each side, over a red field. Almost two centuries later we find again the Grail over a red field in a military context as the Arms of the Regiment Galicia. This Galician regiment can be traced back to the Lombardy Troops in 1534 and has fought in wars in Scotland (allied with the Jacobites), Savoy, Piedmont, Argentina, Spain and France. The current flag of Mondoñedo, which also displays a golden Grail over a red field, is heir to a similar Galician military flag carried by the Mondoñedo Provincial Regiment during the 18th century. (The article link is: http://www.galicianflag.com/holy_grail_kingdom_galicia.htm )

      All the best,

      David.

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    4. Wow! Real surprise for me to discover that. Thanks for your research! So it's related to the Galicia Fleet! (Spanish Fleets were named tipically after the name of it's area or base).
      Best regards

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    5. Thanks. Certainly the badge with a red background does seem to have had a common use by both naval and military units associated with Galicia, unlike the regional badge with its blue background. So often there are these curious oddities!

      All the best,

      David.

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Saturday 6th June 2020 I've decided to allow comments from Anonymous Users but I'll still be moderating posts, as I'm sure the spam will probably flood in now! We'll see...