Given the vital role of the military in the history of modern Spain, any addition to the historiography of its army is very welcome. Co-authored by several historians, De Palas a Minerva is a study of the corps of engineers in the eighteenth century. The first two parts, which concern the history and training of the engineers, are the work of Horacio Capel. The third, shared by Joan Eugeni Sánchez and Omar Moncada, examines their composition and structure, and the role which they played in the American colonies. Subjects covered include the corps’s origins, organization, professional formation, personnel, employment, and relations with the rest of the army and the Spanish government. Meticulously documented and beautifully illustrated, the work is a mine of information not simply on the engineers, but also on the entire army, as the various academies which trained engineer officers also served the other arms of the service.
Original though most of the contents are, however, the style of presentation may sometimes be felt to be too dense. Some of the information incorporated in the text could have been relegated to additional tables or appendixes, or is verging on the antiquarian, while Capel’s contribution displays an unfortunate tendency toward prolixity and diffusion. A further weakness is the lack of any concrete material on the part played by the engineers in the development of Bourbon Spain. Although Capel shows at an early stage that they were established with a definite eye toward the Bourbon policy of fomento, there is very little discussion, except to a limited extent by Moncada with regard to America, of how the engineers fulfilled this role, or with what success.
Yet De Palas a Minerva is still of merit. It is apparent, first, that the military academies were deeply involved in the Ilustración. Then, too, we are shown that the emergence of the engineers created serious tensions within the army, and that most of the formal education open to the officer corps was confined to the principles of mathematics and ignored military practicalities. Though the connection is never made by the authors, the reader is thus presented with further motives for the officer corps’s inability to maintain its professional unity in the face of the revolution of 1808, or to resist the French armies in the War of Independence. Informative and thought provoking, De Palas a Minerva is therefore most helpful.
