The was an armed

carabiniers A carabinier (also sometimes spelled carabineer or carbineer) is in principle a soldier armed with a carbine, musket, or rifle, which became commonplace by the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe. The word is derived from the identical ...

force of

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

under both the monarchy and the Second Republic. The formal mission of this paramilitary gendarmerie was to patrol the coasts and borders of the country, operating against

fraud In law, fraud is intent (law), intentional deception to deprive a victim of a legal right or to gain from a victim unlawfully or unfairly. Fraud can violate Civil law (common law), civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrato ...

and

smuggling Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. More broadly, soc ...

. As such the performed the dual roles of frontier guards and

customs Customs is an authority or Government agency, agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling International trade, the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out ...

officials. The force was established in 1829 and lasted until 1940 when it was summarily disbanded and merged with the

Guardia Civil The Civil Guard (; ) is one of the two national law enforcement agencies of Spain. As a national gendarmerie, it is military in nature and is responsible for civil policing under the authority of both the Ministry of the Interior and the Minis ...

.''Real decreto organizando el Cuerpo de Carabineros de Costas y Fronteras para impedir el contrabando, 31 de marzo de 1829 - Gaceta de Madrid nº39'', p. 153
/ref>''Real decreto sobre la organización de Carabineros de Costas. Instituto, organización, personal e inspección general del Cuerpo de Carabineros de Costas y Fronteras. 2 de abril de 1829 - Gaceta de Madrid nº40'', p. 157
/ref>

Motto and uniforms

The motto of the was: (Morality, Loyalty, Courage, and Discipline). They were stationed along all the Spanish land borders, in the maritime provinces and in

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

. Their uniform was dark blue with red

facings A facing colour, also known as facings, is a common tailoring technique for European military uniforms where the visible inside lining of a standard military jacket, coat or tunic is of a different colour to that of the garment itself.René Char ...

until the 1920s and thereafter greyish green.

Commanders

Among the notable commanders of the corps included

José Olaguer Feliú José Olaguer Feliú y Ramírez (October 25, 1857 – November 21, 1929) was a Spanish lieutenant general, Minister of War and politician. Biography Olaguer Feliú was born on October 25, 1857, in Manila, but both parents were Spanish of Ca ...

(1923–1927),

José María Galán José María Galán Rodríguez (1904–1978) was a Spanish military officer. He served in the Spanish Civil War. He was the brother of Fermín Galán, leader of the Jaca Uprising, and Francisco Galán. Before the war, he was a lieutenant of th ...

and

Gonzalo Queipo de Llano Gonzalo Queipo de Llano y Sierra (5 February 1875 – 9 March 1951) was a Spanish Army general. He distinguished himself quickly in his career, fighting in Cuba and Morocco, later becoming outspoken about military and political figures which led ...

(1934–1936).

History

First hundred years

The Corps was established as the 'Royal Carabinier Corps of the Coasts and Borders' () by a royal decree issued by King Fernando VII on 9 March 1829. It was led by Field Marshal José Ramón Rodil at the time that Luis López Ballesteros was Minister of Finance.Real decreto de organización del Cuerpo de Carabineros del Reino, 9 de diciembre 1842 - Gaceta de Madrid nº2985
/ref> Shortly thereafter, in 1833, the corps was renamed as 'Carabiniers of the Royal Finance' (). Placed under the

Finance Ministry A ministry of finance is a ministry or other government agency in charge of government finance, fiscal policy, and financial regulation. It is headed by a finance minister, an executive or cabinet position . A ministry of finance's portfolio ...

they went through a period of gradual neglect and by 1842 the were almost dysfunctional as a corps. Field Marshal Martín José de Iriarte was then entrusted with their reorganization. Thus the corps was reformed and re-organised as the 'Carabinier Corps of the Kingdom' () in order to replace the former ineffective and discredited body. At the time of the Restoration the and the , the other paramilitary Spanish corps, were placed under the War Ministry, "for a better organization and discipline", being given a military character by means of a law that developed and modified certain aspects of the 1878 Constitutive Army Law (). The latter set the functions of the Armed Forces following the

Spanish Constitution of 1876 The Spanish Constitution of 1876 (), was the constitution enacted after the restoration of the Spanish monarchy. The constitution was a conservative text. It came into effect on 30 June 1876. It remained in force until the coup d'etat by Migu ...

.Ramón Gómez Martínez, ''El Estatuto Jurídico-Constitucional del militar de carrera en España. Antecedentes, fundamento y situación actual.'' Tesis doctoral. 2008 Universidad de Granada. Facultad de Derecho, P. 111-114
/ref> In August 1923 Lieutenant General

was named General Director of the . Despite this being a time of economic hardship, he was able to improve conditions of service within the corps; reducing the daily working hours to twelve. He also achieved the expansion and improvement of the Carabinier Corps' Schools (), where recruits were trained. General Olaguer Feliu was responsible for the construction of new quarters and repairing the existing ones; for the founding of schools for the sons and daughters of the in certain locations. Finally José Olaguer Feliú provided better schooling and conditions for orphans of at the

San Lorenzo de El Escorial San Lorenzo de El Escorial, also known as El Escorial de Arriba, is a town and municipality in the Community of Madrid, Spain, located to the northwest of the region in the southeastern side of the Sierra de Guadarrama, at the foot of Moun ...

Carabinier' Orphans School (). In 1929, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the corps, a monument was built in recognition of the , at San Lorenzo del Escorial. In addition the Great Cross of the Civil Order of Beneficence () was awarded collectively to the members of the corps by King

Alfonso XIII Alfonso XIII (Spanish language, Spanish: ''Alfonso León Fernando María Jaime Isidro Pascual Antonio de Borbón y Habsburgo-Lorena''; French language, French: ''Alphonse Léon Ferdinand Marie Jacques Isidore Pascal Antoine de Bourbon''; 17 May ...

for deeds and services rendered by the in fighting fires, floods and the rescuing of shipwrecked persons.Real decreto concediendo al Cuerpo de Carabineros la Gran Cruz de la Orden civil de Beneficencia, con distantivo negro y blanco, p. 1674, 10 de septiembre 1929 - Gaceta de Madrid nº253
/ref>

Philippines

The was established by the

Captaincy General of the Philippines The Captaincy General of the Philippines was an administrative district of the Spanish Empire in Southeast Asia governed by a governor-general as a dependency of the Viceroyalty of New Spain based in Mexico City until Mexican independence when i ...

in 1842 to serve as the police force in the

Spanish East Indies The Spanish East Indies were the colonies of the Spanish Empire in Asia-Pacific, Asia and Oceania from 1565 to 1901, governed through the Captaincy General of the Philippines, captaincy general in Manila for the Monarchy of Spain, Spanish Crown, i ...

. Its role was eventually assumed by the .

Spanish Civil War

The Corps was one of the units of law enforcement where the 1936

Spanish coup of July 1936 The Spanish coup of July 1936( or, among the rebels, ) was a military uprising that was intended to overthrow the Spanish Second Republic, but precipitated the Spanish Civil War, in which Nationalists fought against Republicans for control o ...

, which led to the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

, found the least support. With the regular army divided and the almost 50-50% split of the Civil Guard, the Republican government was heavily dependent on trained and properly equipped loyalist units such as the Carabineros and the Assault Guards to fight in the first crucial battles of the war. In mid-1936 there had been a total of about 16,096 men in the corps: 3 generals, 770 officers, 1,169 sub-officers and 14,154 . Approximately a third were in the territories that fell to the rebel side (about 5–6,000 men) after the coup and the two-thirds that were in the areas controlled by the Republic (about 10,000) remained loyal to the established government. As a professional force of generally proven loyalty to the Republic, the carabineros formed an elite unit, which was integrated into the mixed brigades of the Republican Army. The Carabinier corps was increased in strength to 40,000 men. The initiative for this restructuring was taken by the then Finance Minister

Juan Negrín Juan Negrín López (; 3 February 1892 – 12 November 1956) was a Spanish physician and politician who served as prime minister of the Second Spanish Republic. He was a leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (, PSOE) and of the le ...

. Numbers of loyalist carabineros taken prisoner by the Army of Africa in August 1936 were executed in

Badajoz Badajoz is the capital of the Province of Badajoz in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Extremadura, Spain. It is situated close to the Portugal, Portuguese Portugal–Spain border, border, on the left bank of the river ...

Mixed brigades

Certain units of the People's Republican Army were entirely made up of , such as the 65th, 85th, 87th, 152nd, 179th, 211th, 222nd and 228th mixed brigades. The 3rd —the ''Tercera Brigada Mixta'' mentioned in the '' Si me quieres escribir'' song— and 5th were among the most distinguished mixed brigades of the loyalist army and saw action in most of the main battles of the civil war, including the

Jarama Jarama () is a river in central Spain. It flows north to south and passes east of Madrid where the El Atazar Dam is built on a tributary, the Lozoya River. It flows into the river Tagus in Aranjuez. The Manzanares is a tributary of the Jaram ...

Brunete Brunete () is a town located on the outskirts of Madrid, Spain, with a population of 10,730 people. History There was no military garrison in Brunete and there was no rebel attempt to seize the city during the coup of July 1936. Brunete remai ...

and the

Teruel Teruel () is a city in Aragon, located in eastern Spain, and is also the capital of Teruel (province), Teruel Province. It had a population of 35,900 as of 2022, making it the least populated provincial capital in Spain. It is noted for its har ...

battles.

End of the war and disbandment

Following the Francoist victory in 1939 the Corps was disbanded. This measure was taken by the new regime as a reprisal for the majority of the carabinier units having remained loyal to the Republic during the rising of 1936. A law was passed on 15 March 1940 by which the Spanish Dictatorship terminated the , transferring its remaining personnel and assets to the

. Article number 4 of the aforementioned law stated: Nine years after the end of Franco's dictatorship the Spanish Law 37/1984 of 22 October 1984 recognized the rights and services of those who had been part of the Armed Forces, Police and Carabiniers of the Spanish Republic (). This law gave back to the surviving members of the corps some of the rights and recognition of which they had been deprived in 1940.Ley 37/1984, de 22 de octubre, de reconocimiento de derechos y servicios prestados a quienes durante la guerra civil formaron parte de las Fuerzas Armadas, Fuerzas de Orden Público y Cuerpo de Carabineros de la República. ''"B.O.E. (Boletín Oficial del Estado del Gobierno de España)"''. Núm. 262. 1 de noviembre de 1984, pp. 31689 a 31690
/ref>

References

External links

* {{Authority control