Unfortunately, the yoke of the foreigner came in more invidious guise.  From the death of Ferdinand and Isabella to the year 1800, the sons of Spain were immolated to serve causes which were of no account to her, to protect the interests of sovereigns who had nothing in common with her provinces, to add to the power of the Austrian Hapsburgs and the French Bourbons.  We have seen how the people whom Napoleon had believed to be sunk in fanaticism, dead to all national aspiration, the mere slaves of a despicable King, and the sport of his debauched Queen and her lover, sprang to arms and drove the invader from their land.  So would it be to-day if the country were even threatened by foreign invasion.  “The dogs of Spain,” as Granville called them, know well how to protect their soil.

Within comparatively recent years the campaign in Morocco, and the expeditionary force sent to Cochin-China, showed that the Spanish army was not to be despised.  It has been the misfortune of Spain that her soldiers have too often had the melancholy task of fighting against their own people, or those of their colonies, both of whom have been excited and aided in insurrection for years by foreign contributions of arms and money.  In these unhappy fratricidal struggles the fighting has never been more than half-hearted, and during the numerous military pronunciamientos it has often been necessary to keep the troops from meeting, as they could never be trusted not to fraternise; and after the first abortive attempt by Prim to effect the revolution which later freed the country, the curious spectacle was afforded of Prim and his soldiers marching quietly out of one end of a village, while the troops of the Queen, sent in pursuit, were being purposely kept back from marching too quickly in at the other.

The army of Spain would seem to suffer from a plethora of officers, especially those of the highest rank.  In the time of Alfonso XII., there were ten marshals, fifty-five generals, sixty-six mariscales de campo, and one hundred and ninety-seven brigadiers; adding those on the retired list liable for service, there were in all five hundred and twenty generals, four hundred and seventy-two colonels, eight hundred and ninety-four lieutenant-colonels, 2113 commandants, 5041 captains, 5880 lieutenants, and 4833 sous-lieutenants.  With such an array of officers, it is scarcely to be wondered at that promotion in the ordinary way was looked on as impossible, and the juggle of military pronunciamientos was regarded as almost the only means of rising in the army.  It was no uncommon thing to promise a rise of one grade throughout a whole corps to compass one of these miniature revolutions.  However, all that is happily past.  General Weyler,—­whose name indicates alien blood at some period of his family history,—­the present Minister of War, has taken the thorough reform of the army in hand, though it is too soon to say if he will be as successful as is generally expected from his known energy and common sense, since the work is only now in progress.