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a historical summary of the regimiento de Zamora

VIII Zamora, the Faithful

“We are prepared to die rather than violate the laws of our homeland.”
(from Maccabees, cited as Lib. III, ch. 7, v. [sic])

Organization

With Spain’s military forces diverted to sustaining this nation’s political supremacy over the Italian and Flemish territories, it became necessary to create new ones to carry out the incorporation of Portugal. The Zamora Regiment traces its origin to this need. Its constituent elements were formed from several thousands of recruits raised in the western part of the Castilian provinces, and especially in that of Zamora. The creation of this unit dates to April 30, 1580. Organized as a tercio, it received at first—like many other units—the name of its first field master (maestre de campo), Don Francisco de Bobadilla, and was made up of three thousand men divided into twelve companies, each under a captain’s immediate command. Its organization does not essentially differ from that which we have already described for tercios raised in the same period; a natural consequence of tactical principles, more or less apparent, that met the needs of a civilization whose most salient feature was undoubtedly marked by advances in the military art.

The original Bobadilla tercio was called the “Department of Holland” from the year 1585, when it was transferred to that country; but as the regiment was considerably weakened by the stubborn struggle aimed at securing the Bourbon dynasty on the Spanish throne, the convenience and future of the new government advised that the veteran units be reorganized on a solid basis. The reform of April 20, 1715 sought to achieve this objective, and by virtue of it the exhausted ranks of the old Department of Holland were strengthened with the forces that had previously formed the Zamora regiment, which lent it its name upon being merged. In the same way the regiments of Mondoñedo and Compostela were amalgamated into it. Though limited in size, each of the merged corps had a historical page not lacking in brilliance. All had been born amid the first convulsions of war, and all had helped to show astonished Europe that the mutilated Spain of the eighteenth century still preserved intact the heroic spirit of sixteenth-century Spain.

The “new” Zamora regiment was formed in the province of Salamanca on February 6, 1704, by the field master Don Pedro Andrés Eraso y Borunda; it shed its blood on the fields of battle and, at the time and occasion mentioned, came to merge its glorious existence with that of another unit whose brilliant reputation allowed few comparisons.

Source: Conde de Clonard. Historia orgánica de las armas de infantería y caballería españolas, desde la creación del ejército permanente hasta el día. Tomo VIII. Madrid: Imprenta y Estereotipia de M. Rivadeneyra, 1859. (Portada).

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