The Armies
Contemporary generals frequently had no precise idea of how many men they commanded, often, they merely guessed, counting battalions and multiplying by 500 (or less on a bad campaign), counting squadrons and multiplying by 100 or 150, were were many reasons why official regimental strengths bore no resemblence to reality. In the English army, some men, usually 100 or more, were meant to be fictional, their pay used to cover the costs of widows' pensions, officers' servants, hospitals, and other regimental services; corrupt officers (or ones who had not been paid themselves for years) would keep dead men on the books and pocket their money, prisoners remained on the regimental strength as their pay had to be handed over to the capturing power for their upkeep; and officers might be absent serving on staff positions.
Much has been made of desertion in this period; much more should be made of sickness, for soldiers were an unhealthy and unfit lot. Often insufficient food (and what they bad, nutritionally poor), no exercise to build up stamina, bad clothing, long marches on appalling roads - all contributed to large numbers of sick, men falling by the wayside, leaving because they could take no more. Most armies were in a similar position; some, such as the Spanish who had been building a new army almost from scratch, had it worse than others, but on the Allied side, Erie claimed to have lost 500 men during his march to join Galway in early April his men had still not fully recovered from the privations of their long sea voyage. Normally, cavalry did better than infantry: they creamed off the better quality recruits to begin with, and they had better pay and higher prestige, when infantry battalions would plummet to 300 men or less, cavalry squadrons might still be at 80 or 100 men.
ALLIED ARMY
The strength of the Allies was later the subject of two investigations by the British Parliament, but both were for party-political reasons and produced no real answers - little having changed in nearly 300 years! Contemporaries gave Galway's force as 42 battalions (one order of battle says 44) and 53 squadrons, which might have been expected to form around 26,000; however, the actual strengths were given out at the time as 11,000 foot and 4,500 horse "effectives" (probably meaning rank-and-file only), for a total of under 16,000, excluding officers and N.C.O.s. Hawley, who with the Adjutant-general counted the troops as they filed through the pass at the tower of Don Enrique, gave the Allies 13,400 rank-and-file; since in weak units officers and N.CO.s would form an unusually high proportion, this probably meant 16,000 total. Burton's careful calculations in his thesis produce 4,500 for the cavalry at an estimated 80 per squadron, and 13,000 for the infantry, based on 300 per battalion for the English and Portuguese and 250 for the Dutch who had not received recruits for a longer time. In the light of Hawley's figures, these totals seem excessive; if we allow 250 per battalion for the less efficient Portuguese as well, this brings us as near to the truth as we are likely to get.
BOURBON ARMY
Most accounts give Berwick 76 squadrons and 52 battalions, though there are some variations. 'Me order of battle quoted in Wijn shows 76 and 51, but it lists only one battalion for Berwick's Regiment whereas the unit is described as large enough for two battalions, which may explain the discrepancy. Usually, Berwick's total is estimated at 25-25,000, and Parnell states the French contingent formed 11,900 of this. If correct, this would give about 300 to a battalion and 100 to the squadron, leaving the Spanish (heavily recruited over the winter) fairly close to their official strengths of 500 and 100. This average could conceal substantial variations, however: lists of the Spanish army in 1705, admittedly a bad time, show line battalions between 50 and 500 men, while the Guards were more stable at 600 for the Spanish (then a single-battalion unit) and 440 in each of the two battalions of the Walloon. Cavalry lists for 1708, on the other hand, show cavalry consistently around the correct strength per squadron
More Battle of Almansa 25th April 1707
Back to 18th Century Military Notes & Queries No. 5 Table of Contents
Back to 18th Century Military Notes & Queries List of Issues
Back to Master Magazine List
© Copyright 2001 by Partizan Press
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com