Spanish Troops

[stuart]

Something I've been wondering about...

As you know Mexico became independent largely by accident. The Royalists were on top right up to the moment when a regime change in Spain brought the liberals to power and drove the Royalists in Mexico to ally with the rebels in order to preserve the status quo out there, albeit at the cost of cutting their ties with home.

Anyway the Royalist army was presumably a mixture of Spanish regulars and locally recruited colonial units. Who were the regulars and what happened to them?

[steves]

Interesting question....Also poses the one how "Spanish" were they by that point? presumably they recruited locally to replace losses?.........See what you mean 'tho...Did some units suddenly disappear from the regular Spanish Army?...coo,it's just like the IX legion!
Steve

[TRK]

Stuart, have you consulted the following book?

Christon I. Archer, The Army in Bourbon Mexico, 1760-1810 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1977)

It is considered an authority on the Spanish army in New Spain during the last half-century of the colony. I don't have a copy, so I can't say if it covers the army at the end of the war of independence.

[stuart]

Not come across it thus far, but I'll look out for it thanks