It is said that by the end of the war there were soldiers who had, in their fashion, served in as many as ten different corps during the six years of the struggle. Summing up the faults of the Spanish army, its depleted battalions, its small and incompetent cavalry force, its insufficient proportion of artillery, its utter want of commissariat, we find that its main source of weakness was that while the wars of the French Revolution had induced all the other states of Europe to overhaul their military organization and learn something from the methods of the French, Spain was still, so far as its army was concerned, in the middle of the eighteenth century. The national temperament, with its eternal relegation of all troublesome reforms to the morrow, was no doubt largely to blame. But Godoy, the all-powerful favourite who had also been commander-in-chief for the last seven years, must take the main responsibility. If he had chosen, he possessed the power to change everything; and in some ways he had peddled a good deal with details, changing the uniforms, and increasing the number of battalions in each regiment. But to make the army efficient he had done very little: the fact was that the commander-in-chief was quite ignorant of the military needs and tendencies of the day: all his knowledge of the army was gained while carpet-soldiering in the ranks of the royal bodyguard. It was natural that the kind of officers who commended themselves to his haughty and ignorant mind should be those who were most ready to do him homage, to wink at his peculations, to condone his jobs, and to refrain from worrying him for the money needed for reforms and repairs. Promotion was wholly arbitrary, and was entirely in the favourite’s hands. Those who were prepared to bow down to him prospered: those who showed any backbone or ventured on remonstrances were shelved. After a few years of this system it was natural that all ranks of the army became demoralized, since not merit but the talents of the courtier and the flatterer were the sure road to prosperity. Hence it came to pass that when the insurrection began, the level of military ability, patriotism, and integrity among the higher ranks of the army was very low. There were a few worthy men like Castaños and La Romana in offices of trust, but a much greater proportion of Godoy’s protégés. One cannot condone the shocking way in which, during the first days of the war, the populace and the rank and file of the army united to murder so many officers in high place, like Filanghieri, the Captain-General of Galicia, Torre del Fresno, the Captain-General of Estremadura, and Solano, who commanded at Cadiz. But the explanation of the atrocities is simple: the multitude were resenting the results of the long administration of Godoy’s creatures, and fell upon such of them as refused to throw in their lot immediately with the insurrection. The murdered men were (rightly or wrongly) suspected either of an intention