Upon the death of the childless King Carlos II (1661-1700), his will passed the Spanish crown to the Bourbon Philippe, Duc d’Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV of France, who succeeded as Philip V. When this succession was contested by other powers, Louis had to send French forces to help his grandson keep his new throne, but most of the Spanish people and their army accepted Philip, and so fought for the Bourbon cause over the following few years. Numerous attempts by Grand Alliance forces to force their candidate onto the Spanish people all failed, including short-lived occupations of Madrid and a more successful capture of Barcelona, but the Spanish forces had to fight long and hard for their young king before peace treaties in 1713 finally confirmed him on his throne.

At the start of the 18th century the Spanish Army was in a poor condition, but as so often happens, war forced it to modernise and expand, and in particular during the years 1704 to 1707 it improved greatly, shedding its old-fashioned appearance and adopting a look much like that of other European armies. This included the adoption of the tricorn, as we see on these figures, so apart from the first few years of the war, these figures largely cover the whole of the conflict. Therefore they have the usual appearance of the day, which was a large coat closed at the front and with large cuffs, but no collar or lapels. Breeches, stockings and shoes covered the legs, and the shirt was visible at the neck. Infantry often wore an epaulette or cords (called dragoneras) on the right shoulder, but this was not worn by all units or throughout the period, and none of these figures have such a device. Two of the poses in this set are grenadiers (third row), and these wear a form of the grenadier cap that was unique to the Spanish. This consisted of a stocking cap with stiffened front, and a fur ring round the base of the whole cap. The men wear their hair in a queue, but the sergeant and other officers wear wigs. The sergeant has a jaunty plume in his hat, and a cane hanging from a button on his coat as a symbol of his rank, while the musician has a more elaborately decorated coat, as you might expect. The ensign and officer would also have had better coats, and a sash as a mark of rank – round the waist for the ensign and across the body for the officer. Both also have more decoration on the hat, and the senior man has a gorget at his throat.

The men are all armed with a musket with socket bayonet fixed, and all have a basic sword suspended from a waist belt. They correctly have an ammunition pouch on the front of their waist belt, and carry a powder flask from a string across their body. In addition, the two grenadiers also have a large pouch held by a belt over their left shoulder, which held grenades (at least in theory), and behind this is stowed a hatchet. None of the command figures carry any sort of a firearm, but all have a sword of course, doubtless of better quality than that of the men. The sergeant carries a partisan, as does the senior officer, so in all respects both the costume and equipment of these men is correctly depicted in this set.

All the poses here are showing their bayonet in a defensive posture, with two basic poses of holding the musket diagonally across the chest or horizontally across the shoulders or waist. There are small differences in the poses, which makes for a more natural and realistic group when placed together, and there are enough here to make a very reasonable large formation without any obvious repetition. The command figures are not of course actively engaged in combat, but the sergeant may well be using his partisan to straighten the ranks and help ‘remind’ the men to stand fast. Perfectly good poses all.

The style and quality of these figures matches well with the rest of this range from Strelets, so it consists of figures that are not quite as elegant or refined as some, but are nonetheless nicely detailed and well made. The faces are particularly nice, so these are good figures to look at. The thinnest items like bayonets and scabbards are a bit chunkier than they could have been, and one man has lost much of his scabbard, which presumably was not filled in the mould and so may vary between copies of the set. Equally, we found some of the strings holding the powder flasks had breaks in them, but this too may vary between copies. The only extra plastic is occasionally between man and scabbard, but these are very clean models, with almost no flash, so are almost good to go straight out of the box. The lack of a flag for the ensign means customers must provide their own, which many prefer, but the available length of staff for such a device (i.e. clearance above the figure’s head) is only about 16 mm.

The musician is a mystery to us as he seems to be holding a cor anglais, although this instrument was not first documented until the 1720s. Generally, infantry regiments had drummers and fifers, although the use of the hautbois was widespread in Europe at this date, including France, and so its use in Spain seems very probable too. So, cutting off most of the curved bocal would produce an acceptable hautbois, making this figure much more accurate.

Naturally Philip V remodelled his army on that of the French, and this is what we see in this set. So for most of the War of the Spanish Succession, his Spanish troops looked like these figures, which are accurate and nicely done, if a shade too tall. The choice of poses defending with the bayonet clearly limits the uses to which these men can be put, but as their uniform and equipment is mostly identical to that of other European armies, and therefore in many other Strelets sets, they can be employed for other countries, and supplemented by other Strelets sets, merely by selecting the appropriate uniform colours and adding a suitable flag. It is great to see this range expand ever further, and it is particularly good to see recognition of the contribution of states other than France, Austria, England and the Netherlands. Since the reason for the war was, at least nominally, about the future of the Spanish crown, the actions and sacrifices of the Spanish themselves need to be remembered, and the many interesting campaigns carried out on their land deserve at least as much attention by modellers and historians as those elsewhere, which hopefully this fine set will encourage.