The Reapers War

[Txabier]

I'll take that as: a) I have horrid grammar or b)= you don't have the eyepower you used to, Cubster. What with all those minis painted and all, the sight goes dimmer and dimmer with the years.

Of course, it might very well be both a) and b).

[DOGGED]

Really I don't want to keep on this indefinitely; as Cubster implied, it's becoming too dense. But it must be said that this is an affair of great importance for Catalans and one which has been mistreated and manipulated by certain Spanish groups interested in imposing their point of view to justify outright injustice.

I'd like to clarify this, now and forever: Catalunya is not, has never been, a county. It was a territory made up of several counties and ruled, or headed, not absolutely but by consent, by the Count of Barcelona. "Primus inter pares" as I mentioned in another post. It was a Principality (read the other post for explanation please) with a constitutional regime, and was not a part of the Spanish state but was headed by the Spanish monarch by 1640.

One of its constitutions-laws impeded Catalan military intervention out of the Catalan frontiers, except at most for a little time. The Salses campaign of 1639, during which the French had conquered the fortress of Salses, was made inside Catalan borders (Roussillon).
The Catalans had a tradition of self defense, and it was such tradition they had had to revert to because of the ineptitude of the Spanish armies in Catalan soil. Fact is that those armies acted as an occupation force, putting more efforts in oppressing Catalans than resissting French invasion. So it was that the Catalan institutions demanded that the Spanish forces acted more aggressively, such pleas being ignored.

Catalan contribution for the Salses campaign was huge in human and resources forms. Again, it was misguided by Spanish inept commanders, and human loss was enormous. Such a loss was to be of great importance in future events as it prevented the Catalan rebel army to reach enough numbers and experience to check the Spanish, or to make up enough troops of their own.
So "Catalunya was protected by the Imperial army, yet it repeatedly refused to contribute to the upkeep or the levying of troops to support it" is not true. Catalunya supported its defense, in fact it was almost alone in such matter, but it was not going to contribute by any means for an invasion force, because it was basically forbidden by law.

Really there was a crisis going on, not only in Catalunya. It did not make the Catalan constitutional regime a different, worst one than it was in good times. It was still a constitutional regime. To clarify, it was more of a parliamentary regime than the absolute monarchy which was the basis of other Spanish ruled states.

And last, Olivares was infuriated for the Catlaan negative to contribute for an imperialist policy and one of aggressive, invasive campaigning. Tercios were not stationed in Catalunya to ensure Catalan rebellion, it's plain absurd. To say so if it was Olivares intrincate planning, he then was even more stupid than he was overambitious and superb, a man with an ambition well beyond his limited capabilities. But leave that for another time.

Of course the Catalan Generalitat, the parliamentary institution which governed the Principality (not the nobility), with its resources strain to the limit and simply not enough human resources, had to pay for a French army. The duration of the war brought with the French troops the same problems which had happened with the Spanish ones. The Catalan republic couldn't resist the big Spanish army, which used brutal and ruthless means (decimation, massacring, burning and treason; again, documented beyond any doubt, even by Spanish invaders) and had to resort to French alliance and overall sovereignty but it was in obedience of Catalan laws and constitutions. For some years, Catalans fought for their independence allied to the French. In the end, the Spanish monarch illegaly ceded North Catalunya to Louis XIV, who was no kind master as we all know.

One last thing: the privileges of the nobility Txabier mentions were just that. The Catalan constitutions were well beyond that and affected not only nobles but citizens as well. Txabier fails to tell that the Catalan constitutional system was, for the times, much more "democratic" and advanced than the Spanish one (point is that Olivares wanted to reduce Catalunya to the harsh Castilian law and not the other way), more in the likes of English parliament or the Netherlands. In fact, had the Catalans had enough resources, it's more than probable that today we shouldn't be having this discussion, because we'd still be free and truth wouldn't have been distorted by Spanish propaganda (only investigation and research and documentation by Catalan historians have been able to uncover the truth; and it's well documented as I said elsewhere).

I'll restrain to extend explaining for this thread. There's plenty of information and it shouldn't be a thread about Spanish misinformation, censoring and propaganda. Thanks for your attention people!
EDIT: pictures added following Cubster's suggestions. In case there are women reading these posts, included a male "visual reference"... Sorry for the size!
EDIT: pictures removed by the moderator. They're not relevant to the subject, and are a waste of bandwidth. I've added a blank line between each paragraph to make the post more readable too.

[Cubster]

I'll take that as: a) I have horrid grammar or b)= you don't have the eyepower you used to, Cubster. What with all those minis painted and all, the sight goes dimmer and dimmer with the years.

Of course, it might very well be both a) and b).

More like my attention span has been ruined by natural laziness, advancing age and the detrimental effects of modern society.

I'd find it easier if the posts had a few pictures of Alyson Hannigan or Kate Winslet scattered about.

[mikeland]

Or even better I am hoping that Ridley Scott or Peter Jackson option the rights to this thread so I can just watch the movie.

[DOGGED]

Ask, you'll be listened to...
But could not make anything for the Scott/Jackson thing, although I wouldn't be annoyed if they came to talk about rights for a movie.

[Cubster]

Uh-huh.