Julio Albi is licenciado in law and a member of the Spanish diplomatic corps with an obvious interest in military history. His purpose here is to present a general overview of the colonial defense system under the late Bourbons. While he has done some archival research in the preparation of this volume—principally in the Archivo General de Indias and the Servicio Histórico Militar—his major effort is to synthesize from published sources. The result is a handy introduction to the Bourbon military.
Although the central focus is the reforms of Charles III and their results to the end of the century, the volume begins with a chapter on the early defense system and a second on why that system eventually proved unsatisfactory, as shown by the fall of Havana in 1762. Chapters follow on the subsequent rethinking and readjustment of Bourbon strategy, the changing role of the regular army, the reorganized militia, and, more briefly, the function of fortifications and the navy. Albi also measures the performance of the system in those instances when it was actually tested. A final chapter assesses the role of the military on New Spain’s northern frontier.
Albi argues that the late Bourbon military apparatus worked remarkably well if measured by its ability to sustain the territorial integrity of the empire. For Spain to maintain the status quo was a victory, for Great Britain a defeat. After 1764, only Trinidad was lost to the British, while Florida was regained. The question of whether the immense sums spent on the armed forces were a sound investment from an imperialist perspective Albi leaves to others. And although the new Bourbon policy entailed a politically compromising dependence on American soldiers and finance, he regards the risk as unavoidable given the nature of the foreign menace.
This is a nicely presented, useful book. The scholarship is sound, the subject approached from a realistic perspective. Despite its modest length, the volume contains an impressive amount of factual information. It concludes with an appendix containing a comprehensive roster of the veteran and militia units operational in 1799.
