Auxiliary Legion - History

History

Under the Quadruple Alliance, Great Britain had controlled maritime traffic along the Cantabrian coast since the beginning of the war.

In 1835 the war was not going well for the Liberal side and they asked their allies to become more involved in the war. The French sent their Foreign Legion which landed at Tarragona on 17 August with around 4,000 men and was renamed the Spanish Legion. Although the British refused to send troops directly, in June 1835, they decided to form a military volunteer corps, and that became designated an auxiliary to the Spanish Legion.

By the end of the summer of 1836 a force of 10,000 men under the command of De Lacy Evans had assembled in San Sebastian. They fought near Hernani and Vitoria, but were pushed back and had to hold the fort on Mount Urgul de San Sebastián, to prevent the Carlists from taking the city.

In November 1836 they were put under the command of Baldomero Espartero and helped to lift the siege of Bilbao.

In 1837 they suffered a serious defeat in the Battle of Oriamendi, but were successful in stopping the Expedición Real, an attempt by the Carlists to march on Madrid.

The volunteers had signed on for a tour of two years and by the end of 1837 most of the men had returned home. Some 1,000–1,500 men remained, and fought on several fronts. Their casualties were so heavy that in practical terms the unit was dissolved.

In total a quarter of the force – some 2,500 men – died, only half of them in combat. Their presence had not been well received by the Carlists; one former soldier wrote that "to our foes, we of the British Legion were the most odious of all; strangers, mercenaries, heretics, scoffers, polluters of their sacred soil; so they did term us. For us there was no quarter; in the heat of battle, or by cold judicial form, it was all the same: to fall into their hands was certainly a tortured death."