Saturday 12 May 2012

Miquelets de Girona

 The miquelets de Girona were raised in the 20th of june 1808 by order from the Junta (the emergency provintial govern created after the abdications of Bayona) as part of the effort of Catalonia in building an army practically from zero to repulse the french invader from the native soil. Each corregimiento (region) must provide a tercio of troops to defend the fatherland with a strenght above 1000 men, those units must not be confound with the corregimientos of 500 men that also were raised in each province. The first colonel of Girona was D. Ramon de Carles, the inital strenght was of 1028 men, and in  the next year were mixed in the gerona division, a 500 stenght corps of 5 companies that included diverse units too weakened by casualties for continuing independent. From 1028 men to being absorved... 1808 must have been a hard year for the miquelets.

Here a difference must be done between the Miquelets and the regular troops, since the dynastic union between Catalonia and Spain in the XV century, catalans were free from service in the spanish army, existing instead companies of volunteers called "miquelets" skilled in rough terrain fighting; those troops where widely used through the XVI, XVII, and XVIII centuries as their knowledge of the terrain and guerrilla skills were unmatched for the normal troop, both sides, spanish and catalan used them in the Spanish Sucession War that ended with the conquest of Catalonia in 1714. For such role, as the only local profession troop in the start of the war, is comprehensible that instead of wearing the normal "french style" coat of the corrigimentos they wore instead a more expensive hussar jacket with black cordons, their skill was worth of it.

Almost all uniforms from the tercios have been lost in the pages of history, arriving to us only the one of the province of Girona (avove) and of the city of Vic (with blue instead of brown with in red, and the fether in red and white).
 a five men team
the hat was easy to make, just cutting the brittish shacko by te middle and adding a circle of cartboard for the hat's wing. (easy way of making british marines too!), rosette made with greenstuff.
 the sergeant
 miquelets firing
'ere comes the frenchies!