Royal Cantabres

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 6:11 pm

I saw this unit depicted in Funcken volume 1, and have searched for years for further information about them. I'm guessing that they are an ethnically Basque unit but that's about as far as I've got. Does anybody have any information about them, such as foireign service and the like?

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 3:59 pm

Hi Rob,

"Cantabrians" (or Celts) were active in both Spanish and French 18th century armies. The Spanish 'branch' were active in the New World, a tad more intel on the French branch can be found here:
http://www.drapeaux.org/France/Ancien_R ... tabres.htm

Hope this helps,

Mats

conflans · Post by **conflans** » Thu Mar 29, 2007 2:26 am

According to Susane, the Royal Cantabrians were initially raised in 1745 in the Basque country as the Voluntaires Cantabres. They initially had 2 battalions, 300 hussars, and 2 cannon. By 1747 they had the title Royal-cantabre and were reduced t 4 companies in 1749. They were then raised back to a full battalion sometime later.

I hope this helps.