Spanish Military Strength for WW1

[Glabro]

I have to whine a bit about Spanish military capability: I enlisted Spain to my (Central Powers) cause, hoping to put some pressure on the French industry near the Pyrennees. Little did I know that Spain with its 20 million people (the equal of Turkey) can only muster 3 corps and 8 detachments to the war and NO hqs at all!

This is essentially much weaker than even Bulgaria with 4 corps, 5 detachments, 1 cavalry and 2 HQs, and that country only had 5.5 million people, almost four times as little.

I'm afraid the Entente will simply walk over the weakling Spain while I concentrate on Russia and capture a huge amount of MPPs for my folly of daring to think that Spain would prove a good ally, I saved up a lot of MPPs for them.

Even though they have unrest going on, one would think those take only a small minority of the potential recruitable armies and at least some sort of leadership would be possible.

So maybe Spain should be a more expensive but militarily stronger minor nation.

[Glabro]

I should point out, since there seems to be little interest towards this, that irrespective of Diplomacy the Entente can easily conquer Spain if the CP doesn't pressure them, this is something that not many realize. Spain has a pretty high income for the minimal effort required.

[Bill101]

Hi Glabro

I will take a look at this again. I must admit that finding out a suitable name for a Spanish HQ proved rather difficult when I was doing so a while back, but I will have another go. It must be possible!

Thanks for mentioning this, I have a few ideas on where to look and I'll see what I can do.

Bill

[lettowvorbeck]

I must say that thoughts of Spain in any capacity never came up in any of my games...Ha. Glabro is thinking outside the box on that one.

[Ivanov]

That's an really interesting idea, however usually Entente is quite overstretched, so opening a new front that would require few corps and a HQ support may be difficult. I think it may be an option when CP player focuses on Russia, so the French and Brits have more of a free hand in the West.

[Ivanov]

But I have to agree that the Spanish military capacity has to be increased. There has to be at least one HQ in Madrid. I'm sure this has been overlooked in the scenario.

[Happycat]

Hi Glabro

I will take a look at this again. I must admit that finding out a suitable name for a Spanish HQ proved rather difficult when I was doing so a while back, but I will have another go. It must be possible!

Thanks for mentioning this, I have a few ideas on where to look and I'll see what I can do.

Bill

Two guys who were generals in 1914 are Sajurjo and Mola. Mola is probably your best choice, because he was definitely a general by the time of WW1, and had been decorated for distinctive service during the Rif war in Morocco in 1910.

You might recognize those names, as they were the leaders of the Spanish Army revolt (Spanish Civil War) in 1936 along with Franco. In fact, if they both hadn't died in plane crashes during the war, one of them (probably Sajurjo) would have been dictator rather than Franco.

Army size would be about three corps and three detachments, no air to speak of but I'm sure they would have developed something during the war if they had been involved. Spain also used French armoured cars in that era, so the ability to build one tank unit would be realistic.

In 1898 they had a good sized navy, until the US Navy finished with them in the Philippines.

But the advantage, I suppose, of losing most of your navy is that you get to build new ships and modernize almost overnight. Here is a link to a list of ships:

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-fornv/spain/sp-name.htm

It seems accurate enough, as far as it goes, but they are missing a couple of newer ones, the battleships Alfonso XIII (launched in 1913 and which replaced the Alfonso XII they show) and the Espana.

Anyway, there should be enough there for you to work with

[Glabro]

Wait wait, you mean three corps and three detachments per field army or a TOTAL armed forces of three corps and three detachments? That's pretty...bad for 20 mil people and a big country. But would they really have entered the war with that little if mustered through diplomacy or invaded? Surely conscripting would have begun and at least their force pool would be bigger, with 2 HQs and such. Needs must, and so on.

[Habari]

Having had a look around, it seems the Spanish army was the size of the Belgian and the quality of the Ottoman in 1914. This was even with some national service. The country was very unstable, neutral because it was split between the 2 sides, and suffered increasing strikes and social unrest, to the point of military coup even without joining in the war.

In short, the present force pool seems about right for the army. NM would be very low and revolution / civil war likely.

[Glabro]

The force pool? Why? I can understand initial troops, but why would a country with 20mil people be unable to muster more despite instability with massive foreign aid?

Just implement conscription!

Besides, I'm sure if someone had invaded, they could have done better. Right now it seems like it's food on Entente's platter! That is, unless the CP does West first, which I'm dubious about.

[Bill101]

Hi Glabro

I will make some changes but Spain had the strongest revolutionary movement in Europe, it was slightly pro-Entente but neutral, and would have vigorously opposed any attempts to increase the army through conscription.

The right wing favoured the Central Powers slightly, but again not that much, and the thought of a rapprochement by the right and left to fight together against the invader probably wouldn't have got far. The seeds of the civil war of 1936-39 were already very firmly in place.

But I definitely agree that without a HQ Spain may well be too vulnerable to invasion, and I guess that if the player wants to invest MPPs in increasing the army, some leeway can be allowed for that too.

It would therefore be up to the player whether to risk raising new Spanish units, that may not even deploy in time before the country falls.

Bill

[Glabro]

That is good.

Maybe then if the army can be expanded, the ongoing revolution would be represented by partisans?

I suppose there is some sort of a US mobilization penalty for invading Spain, so it was my folly in using diplomacy on Spain. I should have just checked their strength beforehand, but I might have just lost the game on that if the Entente basically reaps a lot of MPP per turn while I've lost at least a thousand or more on diplomacy and troops there. We'll see.