Titel: SV: Piculell
Skrivet av: Paul Bergström skrivet 2017-07-07, 10:25
Hej!
Som de flesta känner till så var Nederländerna länge en del av det Habsburgska väldet och i dess sydligare del, Flandern, hade Habsburgarna länge en mer eller mindre stående armé under namnet "Flanderska armén". Denna rekryterades främst med folk från övriga länder under Habsburg, så som Spanien, Österrike och Neapel.
Det finns en ambitiös Wikipedia-sida om denna armé: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_Flanders
Ett litet utdrag om situationen för armén efter Vestfaliska freden 1648 följer här:
After the end of the Thirty Years' War, a financially constrained Spanish government steadily reduced the size of the Army of Flanders; this trend continued after the end of the Franco-Spanish war that continued after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The Battle of the Dunes in 1658, resulting in a defeat for the Army of Flanders at the hands of the French, produced a renewed peace.[62]
Recent scholarship has highlighted the deep seated problems emerging in the Spanish state and military from the 1630s onwards. The Count-Duke of Olivares, the key advisor to King Philip IV, had attempted to re-energise the Army of Flanders by injecting increasing numbers of the aristocracy into the senior ranks; the results had included rank inflation, a fragmented system of command and a raft of temporary appointments.[63] By the 1650s, the officer-to-man ratio in the Army had reached the unsustainable levels of one to four.[63] Recruitment had steadily shifted; by the mid-17th century, troops were increasingly being raised less by contractor and contractors, and more by either capturing men or selecting them as levies from cities and towns via lotteries (quintas or suertes).[64] The infrastructure and support services were considerably improved, but not as much as elsewhere, and Army was increasingly perceived as a 'broken force' in European affairs.[65] With money continuing to be tight, visitors to the provinces in the second half of the century reported seeing the Army in an appalling state, with soldiers begging and short of food.[66] Despite this, there was no return to the mass mutinies of the preceding century.
By the end of the century, the final days of the Army of Flanders were not far away. The War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14) saw French and Allied invasions and the disintegration of central Spanish authority in the peninsula, which destroyed the basis of the Army of Flanders – it was formally disbanded in 1706.
För något år sedan var teorin uppe här på Anbytarforum för en koppling mellan den napolitiska adelssläkten (de) Piccolellis och släkten Piculell. Denna teori har i vart fall inte försvagats om vi tänker oss en värvning av Steffen Piculell från en desillusionerad flandrisk armé.