Carlist soldiers

The photo shows a group of Carlist soldiers, Requetés, marching with other Francoist troops in 1937. 

Carlism was a Spanish version of anti-liberal absolutism that emerged and became consolidated during the 19th century. During that time, it launched three insurrections, the first of which unleashed a lethal civil war that lasted seven years, that   produced a major mobilization of its followers. Following the failure of the third revolt in 1876, insurrection lost importance as a tactic although it remained very much alive in Carlist memory. 

At the start of the 20th century, the Carlist party organized a militia, the Requeté, as other Spanish political parties would do later on. The name was also applied to the members of the militia. The arrival of the Second Republic and the Carlist opposition to its political project provided the context for the militia to grow. It spread across Spain with greater or lesser success depending on the popularity of Carlism. On the eve of the Civil War it was the most important party militia in the country and included retired army officers and Carlists who had received military training in Italy. 

In July 1936, the Carlists and their militia supported the rebels. The Requeté did not operate autonomously, but was integrated into the rebel army under the command of  

Regular officers. When the revolt began, volunteers from Navarre, the vast majority Carlists, constituted 10 per cent of the rebel forces. By the end of the war the number of Requetés had reached 20,000. And as the rebel troops advanced, new Requeté units were created in the occupied provinces, as happened in Vizcaya in 1937. Carlist units fought on a number of fronts, including Madrid. 

Of the 42 Requeté battalions (tercios), eleven came from Navarre and eight from the Basque Provinces. Given their weight in the rebel army and the use that General Mola made of them in the Basque Country, the units from Navarre and Alava played an important role in the campaign in the north.