Carlos Full of Confidence

Primo was truly the anchor that kept Spain steady.

With Primo in command, the Spanish Army naturally faced no risk of division. A united Spanish Army, when confronting the Carlist rebels, burned with a fierce desire to fight.

On February 17, 1870, the Spanish Army led by Primo encountered the Basque rebels in the La Rioja region, and both sides immediately erupted into intense combat.

Although the Spanish Army still had many shortcomings compared to the Franco-Prussian Army, when facing the Basque rebels—who were inferior in both numbers and equipment—it was like a father beating his son, leaving no room for resistance.

The Basques could scrape together over a thousand muskets, sure, but they couldn't muster even a dozen cannons.

Relying on line infantry tactics to defeat a Spanish Army equipped with abundant artillery was about as realistic as hoping the Spanish Army would just surrender outright.

But Spain wasn't Italy, and it certainly wasn't France—it had no tradition of surrender.

After a thorough bombardment by Italian artillery (cannons made in Italy), the Basques instantly fell into line.

This was the greatest difference between a regular army and a hastily assembled militia of civilians: discipline and morale.

As soon as someone panicked and started to flee, it dealt a heavy blow to the Basque forces.

The panic spread like a plague through the Basque ranks, quickly infecting the entire army's morale.

For a temporary army made up entirely of civilians, once morale collapsed, the army itself collapsed.

What followed needed no further explanation. After suffering several hundred casualties, this Basque rebel force chose to surrender outright.

Though this wasn't the entirety of the Basque rebels, for the Basque separatists, it was a crushing blow to the head.

The Basque army they had painstakingly assembled couldn't hold out against the Spanish Army for even a single day—it completely collapsed in just an hour and a half.

Of that time, artillery deployment took over half an hour; the actual combat between the two sides lasted less than an hour.

By the time news of the Basque vanguard's annihilation by the Spanish reached the Carlists, it was already the next day, February 18.

Although Carlos VII was somewhat surprised at the speed of the Basque army's collapse, he felt no regret for their losses.

In fact, far from regretting it, Carlos VII was even a little excited.

Because he believed he had discovered an opportunity to defeat the Spanish Army—a perfect chance to outflank and encircle them from the rear.

Why did Carlos VII think this?

Because the engagement between the Spanish Army and the Basques had taken place in La Rioja, which lies south of the Basque Country and Navarre.

Meanwhile, the Carlist rebels had already successfully advanced westward from Catalonia into Aragon, placing them southeast of the main Spanish force.

If the Carlist army could push through Aragon into southern La Rioja, they could join forces with the Basque army in northern La Rioja to encircle the Spanish forces.

No matter how strong the Spanish Army was, once caught in a pincer movement, they would have no escape from the Carlists' grasp.

Carlos VII grabbed a map and silently ran through his plan several times in his mind, ultimately concluding that this was an opportunity not to be missed.

Several high-ranking military officers in the Catalan army echoed Carlos VII's sentiments, filling him with confidence and leading him to believe that the Catalans' boasts about Primo's military talent were overblown.

On February 18, the Carlist rebels set out toward Zaragoza in the Aragon region.

Zaragoza, located at the heart of Aragon, could serve both as a springboard to encircle the Spanish Army in La Rioja and as a first line of defense to protect Catalonia's security.

This was another reason for Carlos VII's confidence: he thought his plan was flawless, accounting for both the possibility of a successful encirclement and failure, with corresponding solutions for each.

If Carlos VII could see these issues, could Primo miss them?

Of course not.

In fact, after Primo's main Spanish force entered the Castile and León region south of La Rioja, he immediately split his army into two columns to deal with the Basque and Catalan rebels separately.

Primo's plan was to eliminate the Basques first, then drive through Navarre and northern Aragon straight into Catalonia to complete the entire pacification campaign.

He led the main body of the Spanish Army—about thirty thousand men—north into La Rioja, where they eventually met the Basque forces.

The other, smaller detachment numbered only around ten thousand men, but they carried dozens of cannons. Their mission was to establish a defensive line in Aragon before Primo finished off the Basques, preventing the Catalan rebels from slipping through Aragon and Valencia into Castile–La Mancha and threatening Madrid, the heart of Spain.

For the same reason—Zaragoza's central position in Aragon made it crucial for both offense and defense—the detachment tasked with holding back the Catalan rebels also chose Zaragoza as their defensive focus. Upon arrival, they immediately set up their artillery positions.

From this perspective, Carlos VII did have some military insight after all.

But the fatal flaw was that Carlos VII never imagined Primo would split his forces in advance. He still believed the entire Spanish main army was concentrated in La Rioja.

By the time the Carlist rebels trudged their way to Zaragoza, they were greeted by ten thousand Spanish soldiers and dozens of cannons, fully prepared and waiting.

The Carlist rebels did have artillery of their own.

But their cannons were relics from a decade or even several decades ago, far inferior in rate of fire, range, and accuracy to the advanced new artillery the Spanish Army had recently purchased.

The exchange of artillery fire between the two sides looked lopsided, and the soldiers' experience on the ground was worlds apart.

The Spanish troops could calmly endure the enemy's bombardment, since the rebels were far behind in both the number and quality of their cannons.

For the Carlist rebels, however, the experience was far from pleasant.

Even for those Catalan separatists, watching someone blown to pieces right before their eyes was an absolute visual shock.

One glance was enough to make a Catalan separatist seriously reconsider his stance.

And for the civilians who had been brainwashed into joining the rebellion, the brutal scenes of war delivered a massive blow to their very souls.

Ordinary people had never seen anything like this—especially when it seemed they were the only ones taking the shelling.

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