The Armed Forces' Origins
Although the modern Argentine military is generally recognized as having become a consolidated national institution only around the turn of the twentieth century, its origins and official traditions date back to the years immediately preceding independence. At the time of the May 1810 revolt against Spanish colonial rule, three military bodies already existed that provided the foundation of the first Argentine army.
The first of these, the Blandengues, traced its origins to the period shortly before the creation of the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata. During the early 1750s these cavalry troops, then acting under order from the viceroy of Peru, patrolled territory comprising modern Argentina and defended the newly established frontier towns against attacks by hostile Indians. The Blandengues — so named for the lack of enthusiasm with which they were said to have received a visiting representative of the Spanish crown — helped expand the territorial frontiers for settlement and trade by Spanish colonists. In many cases, duty as a frontier guard served as the training ground for those who later became the independence movement's military leaders.
By 1800 a regular colonial army, consisting only of some 2,500 Spanish soldiers, had been organized to guard Buenos Aires, the administrative seat of the new viceroyalty. The colonial troops were divided among a regiment each of infantrymen and dragoons and four companies of a Royal Artillery Corps. The principal security concerns of the city's authorities were to protect themselves against the loss of revenue to the ubiquitous British smugglers and to defend themselves against incursions by Portuguese colonists who attempted to settle as far south as the Rio de la Plata in an area that was then part of the city of Buenos Aires.
The third force, a popular militia, was hastily assembled in 1806 in the wake of Britain's invasion and occupation of Buenos Aires. Even though the viceroyalty was forewarned of the impending British invasion, it was incapable of organizing the regular colonial army to defend the city. Instead, the armed citizens of Buenos Aires — criollos as well as Spaniards — were largely responsible for the city's recapture from the 1,500-man occupying army, an event known in Argentine history as the Reconquest.
When Britain surrendered in August after controlling the city for nearly two months, the strength of the militia stood at some 1,500 to 2,000 men. By the time of Britain's second attempt on the port city in 1807, the loosely organized force already had its own elected officer corps and was receiving two hours of military training daily. It had grown to a size of some 8,000 men, roughly one-fifth of the total population of Buenos Aires, and again proved crucial in repelling the British invaders. In the Defense, as the action subsequently became known, almost two-thirds of the militia were native-born criollos.
After the second British defeat, support for the independence movement among members of porteno (pl., portenos — residents of Buenos Aires) society grew rapidly. At the same time, Spanish authorities recognized that they would be unable to contain any insurrection. The peaceful May Revolution of 1810 — in which the viceroy, forced to resign, was replaced by a criollo-led junta — brought de facto independence, but only to the city of Buenos Aires. The personnel belonging to the colonial army posted at the city, depending on their loyalty to the Spanish crown, were either dismissed or were reorganized into Buenos Aires' new military units, which were given such patriotic names as the Dragoons of the Fatherland or the Artillerymen of the Fatherland. The Blandengues were renamed the Mounted Volunteers of the Fatherland. Many Blandengues, however, resisted formal organization and became models for the later romanticized figure of the gaucho.
The presence of royalist forces elsewhere in the region continued to threaten the new government's independence and prompted the creation of military units whose mission it was to drive out the colonial army and its supporters. Between 1810 and 1815 three expeditionary forces were organized and set out on numerous campaigns — all ultimately unsuccessful — to seize control of territory encompassing modern Bolivia (then known as Upper Peru), Paraguay, and Uruguay. After the 1816 Congress of Tucumán formally declared Argentine national independence from Spanish rule, the first national military, the Army of the United Provinces of South America, was created from the remnants of the expeditionary forces.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
