"Authoritarianism in Europe should not be tolerated"

The EU may be reluctant now but it will inevitably accept to mediate in the separation of Catalonia from Spain and the presence of the new Catalan state within the EU, Joan Maria Piqué told EURACTIV in an interview.
Joan Maria Piqué is the director of international communications for the Government of Catalonia.
He spoke to EURACTIV’s Senior Editor Georgi Gotev.
What are your plans? Is independence going to be declared on Monday?
We haven’t decided yet. A lot of things are under consideration. The transition law that was approved by the Catalan parliament is clear and we will fulfil it, but the president, the government and the parliament will decide how they accomplish what is stated in the law. On Monday the parliament will be in session, President [of the government] Puigdemont is called to explain to the chamber the results of last Sunday’s referendum, and then the parliament will decide.
In what terms is he going to explain the results? I’m asking because it looks like there is no majority of people who have voted for independence, given the turnout.
I have to disagree. The result is clear for us. Every analysis shows there is a majority for the independence of the country. I can understand your doubts, but they are not your responsibility, they are the responsibility of the brutal aggression by the Spanish government, who sent riot police to beat and humiliate, and to torture peaceful voters. Their only crime was that they wanted to cast a vote. This should be the shame of Europe.  Of course, this is the shame of Spain. Nothing like that has ever happened in a Western democratic country – riot police to be sent to beat, not even peaceful demonstrators, but peaceful voters. People who were just queuing in front of a polling station and wanted to cast a vote. This should not be tolerated. Europe should take a stance. Every country, every leader should take a position so that this never happens again.  Authoritarianism in Europe should not be tolerated.
The vote took part with normality in almost 95% of the polling stations, and the others suffered the aggression of the Spanish military police. The turnout at the places where there was no aggression was 50-60-70%. And the majority for independence was clear. And the Spanish government knew it was going to lose the referendum if it were to take place in normal conditions. This explains the harsh brutality of the Spanish police, the images are there for all to see, we don’t need to add anything to that.
I understand your way of presenting the case, but at the same time, the referendum is illegal according to the Spanish constitution…
I’m sorry, but I have to disagree. The referendum was not illegal. Calling a referendum is not illegal under Spanish law. The Constitution says nothing about referendums. And in the penal code, there is nothing about calling a referendum illegal. [Former PM] Zapatero took this out from the penal code. And in any democracy, when something is not in the penal code, it’s not illegal. That’s how it should be. This is our first point. Our second point is that it was not illegal, because there was a law in the Catalan parliament that governed it. But even in the case that it would be considered illegal by some, which it is not, and I insist, this does not justify beating, mistreating, insulting people, as the Spanish police did.
The three major political forces in the European Parliament are siding with Madrid on the issue of the constitutionality of the referendum. ALDE leader Guy Verhofstadt calls the referendum irresponsible, he says it will create a fracture in your society that is impossible to heal…
Saying that democracy creates fractures is the favourite argument of the totalitarians. This was an argument being used very intensively by Franco. This is why they didn’t vote in Spain for 40 years. This is pure nonsense. We know that Europe is not fast in adapting, we remember all the warnings Europe sent to the Baltics, or to Slovenia, or to other new countries that arose in the 20th century in Europe, against proclaiming independence. But most of those countries are now EU members and even preside the EU when is their due time.
But in the case of Catalonia, it will be the other way around. If your independence becomes effective one day, Catalonia will find itself outside the EU.
I completely reject this affirmation.
But this affirmation comes from the Commission…
I’m sorry, but these are personal opinions from spokespersons from the Commission who are expressing their personal views. The European Commission has never pronounced itself by text, and there is no memorandum about this, because no country has asked for such a position.
I can send you a text recently published by the Commission…
You can send me lots of personal opinions by spokespersons, by Romano Prodi, by Barroso…
In any case Margaritis Schinas said…
I know Margaritis Schinas and we have a good personal relationship, but he is nothing more than an employee of the European Commission.
Would it make a difference if Commission President Juncker repeated it?
What would make a difference is if the Commission gets an official petition from a member state, asking what would happen if a member state split, what would happen with the two parts of it. And then the Commission should make an official statement, and a lot of analyses and a paper on that, this would be an official position. Apart from that, everything else is personal opinions intended to scare voters, because we understand that Europe doesn’t want another problem on the table. But the situation is that 80% of the Catalan people want to vote in a referendum about self-determination. This referendum took place last Sunday, it was clearly won by the ‘Yes’ side, and now the Catalan government, the Catalan parliament, have a mandate from the Catalan people.
Catalonia could be expelled from the European Union only if Spain recognises it as an independent state. But this would mean there is an agreement between Catalonia and Spain, because recognition comes from an agreement. But if there is such an agreement for recognition, what is the point of expelling Catalonia from the EU? It’s in the benefit of no-one. It’s not for the benefit of Spain – 55% of all exports of Spain go through Catalonia. Are they going to pay tariffs? There are 9,000 multinationals in Catalonia, most of them European. Are they going to pay tariffs? What is the point of expelling 7.5 million Europeans from a country that is a net contributor to the EU budget? Expelling a country that has Barcelona, the most dynamic and attractive city in the south of Europe? The only point would be revenge. But revenge doesn’t serve the common interest. So this is not going to happen.
I’m not so optimistic, because the situation is likely to worsen, and the only thing that can prevent a very serious aggravation is mediation. And it looks like your government would like the EU to be involved, although the EU doesn’t want to, because Spain is a member country and such mediations have never been the case before.
They never thought of bailing out Greece and they didn’t have a mechanism to do this, they never thought of approving sanctions against Austria, they never thought of changing the prime minister in Italy. The EU has done a lot of things they thought they will never do. And again, they have done them. Because this is what reality is all about. Reality is not something contained in textbooks. Reality is something that is in motion. The EU will do what it has done always, with initial reluctance and after that, with pragmatic acceptance. Remember how Cyprus entered the European Union – it’s a country that is divided. And how Eastern Germany joined, overnight, without complying with any of the European regulations. The EU always finds a solution for every problem. And they will do it when they see the interests of the member states are at stake.
We are starting to realise that the respect for fundamental values, for democracy, civil rights, are not in the core business of the EU anymore. And it is in the hands of the EU to change this perception. In the end, things are very simple. If there is a majority of the Catalan people who want Catalonia to become an independent state, this will happen. Full-stop. Because in a democratic Europe the will of the people cannot be forced. You cannot tell the Catalans they are forced to stay with Spain, a country that sent its riot police to beat them when they wanted to vote, with a country whose head of state makes shameful statements, aligning himself with one party in government. You cannot force the Catalans to remain with Spain because this is not democracy. If the EU is not about democracy, what is it about?
I’m really not sure the EU believes a majority of Catalans want independence.
OK, this I can understand…
Therefore many consider that what you are doing is like a coup d’état…
This is pure nonsense. How do you do a coup d’état with ballot boxes and peaceful voters? A coup d’état was done by sending riot police to beat people.

Euroactiv

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Help Catalonia !, by Albert Sánchez Piñol

What is happening in Catalonia is terrible: an unprecedented step backwards for democracy in modern Europe. On 20 September, the Guàrdia Civil (the Spanish military police) took the Catalan institutions by surprise and arrested some twenty leaders of the Generalitat (the Catalan government), which in practice means that it placed the Catalan region and its people under a de facto state of emergency. The purpose? To forcibly prevent a democratic referendum on the independence of Catalonia. I write these lines without knowing what will happen in the next few days: it could get even worse. The question is: how have we got here? Allow me a bit of history.

Catalonia is not a simple region of Spain. It never has been. In the tenth century, it already had its own sovereigns and institutions. Until the eighteenth century, what we know today as  Spain was no more than a confederation of nations, having in common a monarch, a religion, and little else. (In the "conquest" of America or the Flanders wars of the 16th century, for example, there were no Catalans, because they were Castilian territories). Consider: Germany as a state was the result of the consensus of the various territories that came together to form it. In Spain, unity was only achieved through military terrorism. On September 11, 1714, after a long and devastating war, Barcelona fell into the hands of the Castilian troops. The Catalans never accepted the new regime. As a Spanish general from the nineteenth century said, "Barcelona must be bombarded every fifty years." (In fact they did it more often.) In 1936 the military who launched the Civil War claimed three reasons: defending the Catholic Church and fighting communism and separatism. Today communism is in the waste bin of history and the Church has lost its ancient power. But the separate Catalan identity, in spite of all the attacks and all the repression, still continues to exist.

Spain has always seen Catalan identity as a tumor. In the 21st century all Catalan demands have been rejected despite wide popular support. And all the polls point out that 80% of Catalans support a democratic referendum as a means to resolve disagreements with Spain. And so, since 2010, more than one million Catalans have taken to the streets every September 11th in support of an independent republic. You read that right. One million protesters, radically peaceful, year after year, out of a population of seven million!

The Catalan process towards independence has revealed the profound failings of Spanish democracy. An example: for the Germans, the Constitutional Court is an admirably neutral institution, which impartially resolves political conflicts. In Catalonia there are, in fact, people who believe that the Spanish Constitutional Court is impartial, but they are as few as those who think that the moon is made of cheese. In Spain there is no division of powers, at least with regard to the Catalan case. It's hard to believe, but the newspapers make the rulings public before the court even meets. The general prosecutor of the State dares to publicly accuse  Catalan citizens of being "abducted by their Government"! Can you imagine the president of the German Constitutional Court being a militant member of the governing party?

The Spanish government tries to make global public opinion see the independence supporters as a group of ignorant and fanatical nationalists. The reality is almost the opposite: bullfights, the greatest symbol of Spanishness, are prohibited in Catalonia, as they are considered an undesirable, cruel and atavistic spectacle. And here we come to the key point of this issue:

In Catalonia today, things are exactly the opposite of how the Spanish Government says they are. The propaganda of Madrid is based on putting into practice the ancient slogan: "if Hitler returned, he would accuse his enemies of Nazism." Thus, the ruling party calls the promoters of a democratic referendum: populists (!), totalitarians (!!) and even fascists (!!!). And this is a political party that was founded by ministers of the bloody dictator Francisco Franco! When the Spanish police force violates the sanctity of the postal service, they claim that it does so to "protect the rights of citizens"; when the Guàrdia Civil invades printing companies to seize ballot papers, it is acting to "guarantee the rule of law". When more than 700 Catalan mayors are threatened with prison (more than 700, when in all of Catalonia there are only 900 municipalities !!!) for the "crime" of being prepared to set up ballot boxes, it is done to "defend democracy". And finally: the government which called this referendum is a legitimate one, which has parliamentary support that goes from the liberal right to the extreme left. And, in spite of this, citizens are prohibited from voting. With what argument? With the argument that voting is undemocratic and that the referendum is a "coup d'etat". (I assure you this is not a joke.)

The break between Madrid and Catalonia can no longer be fixed. Spain has died. But the separatists did not kill it, but its own elites, with their political arrogance, their moral, mental and emotional inflexibility. When a minister from Madrid refers to the case of Catalonia, we still hear echoes of the voices of the old nobles and conquistadors. For them, the sacrosanct unity of the country is not a kind of friendly coexistence, a social pact that is renewed and modernized periodically. No. For Madrid, national indivisibility is a kind of pseudo-religious dogma. Some say that, on his death-bed, Franco the dictator told the future King Juan Carlos: "I only ask that you maintain the sacred unity of Spain." What Madrid did not understand was that the only democratic way to retain Catalonia was by respecting its culture and its institutions. (In addition, Juan Carlos was too idiotic to understand anything: he did nothing but visit prostitutes and kill elephants.)

Catalonia is not the problem; it is the solution. Spain is using armed force to retain Catalonia. Such a state has already lost all its legitimacy. You can not love someone who scares you. But in addition this obtuse strategy of force has polarized the conflict: for now the Catalan flag, the Senyera, no longer represents just one small nation against an unfriendly state. Today, this old flag brings together all the democrats who oppose authoritarianism and the massive repression of human rights. Do not be fooled: in Catalonia, right now, the battle that is being fought is precisely this, democracy versus authoritarianism.

But let's be optimistic. Europe has before it an unusual, historic opportunity. Madrid is not negotiating because it simply can not admit the existence of Catalonia as a political subject. (Do you remember what we said a moment ago about Spanish imperial arrogance?) If Europe gets involved, it will be doing democracy a favour. And, paradoxically, it will also be helping these same Spanish leaders, who are aware, deep down, of the magnitude, popularity and broad base of the independence movement. With Europe as an intermediary, the Spanish government will be able to claim to its more ultra-nationalist elements that a higher power has forced it to negotiate. In this way, Europe would have reaffirmed its fundamental values ​​and its objective of mutual support. To help Catalonia, then, is to help Spain and Europe. Abandoning it, on the other hand, would amount to renouncing Europe's commitment to the most basic human freedoms. Let us help Catalonia. After all, what is this intolerable thing that the Catalans are demanding?

The right to vote.

Albert Sánchez Piñol

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“No one forces you to speak Galician”

I always try to avoid conflicts that are condemned to gridlock from the start. But sometimes when I hear absurd things I have to respond to them.

I’m not against any language or nation, but I can’t stand hate speech and absurd phrases that are put in the heads of simple-minded people. The maxims they repeat later, even if they sound funny, can be dangerous.

Even though the following conversation I had with a Galician is pretty common, it still makes me think about things a little:

Someone approached me and asked me a question that I didn’t understand. He seemed to be a normal guy and really seemed to have a question. I could not have known that he was Galician. I guess that’s not something that I could guess by looking at his hairstyle or the way his lips moved when he said certain words, because I’m not Sherlock Holmes.

I politely told him that I hadn’t understood him and I asked if he could repeat his question. Without thinking, I asked him this in Catalan, because it’s the language I usually use around here. It had never crossed my mind that the words I spoke out of politeness were rather like bait for a fish—a fish full of hate and frustration toward the culture that this man was in the midst of.

“You make me speak Catalan,” he started to shout. “In Galicia we don’t make anyone speak Galician and here you always make everyone speak Catalan.”

“Who makes you?” I tried to figure out where his problem was coming from, but the man was just shouting and it was impossible to have a fruitful conversation.

“Speak to me in Galician or Mandarin if you know it, because the more languages we know, the richer we become.” I tried calming him down but there was no way to communicate with him, because he just kept repeating the same words. Finally, I shrugged my shoulders and I left, so we wouldn’t waste our time.

I regret not having pressed him to give me an answer to my question about who was making him speak Catalan (all Catalans, I guess...) and how exactly they were pushing him around to speak it. I surmise that neither the obligation nor the pressure to speak Catalan were very onerous, because this Galician man didn’t seem to know a single Catalan word, not even for a courteous gesture or a rude insult.

Anita Janczak

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Magnas Societas Catalanorum (The Catalan Company) in 14th century Byzantium

Roger de Flor

My acquaintance with Catalunya started with the soprano Montserrat Caballet. The magnificent lady who sang in the 1982 Barcelona Olympics with Freddie Mercury. Then I discovered that Catalunya was colonised by Ancient Greeks, who settled around the Roses area. A few miles from Roses was «El Bulli», the restaurant of Ferran Adria, another great Catalan, one of the great chefs of the world. And close to it is the ancient city of Emporion (Empuries) founded in 575 BC by Greek colonists from Phocaea with the name of Ἐμπόριον (Emporion, meaning «trading place»). It was later occupied by the Romans (Latin: Emporiæ), but in the Early Middle Ages, when its exposed coastal position left it open to marauders, the town was abandoned. I close this personal reference with Manuel Vazquez Montalban, the Catalan writer and journalist. It was not until a few days ago that I read about the Catalan Company.

Magnas Societas Catalanorum, sometimes called the Grand Company and widely known as the Catalan Company, was a free company of Almogavar mercenaries founded by Roger de Flor in the early 14th-century.

Roger de Flor

De Flor was born in 1267 in Brindisi, which was a provence of Catalonia at the time, the second son of a Brindisi’s noblewoman and German falconer named Richard von Blum (Blume means flower in German) in the service of the Hohenstaufen rulers of southern Italy.

As a boy he went to sea and became a Knight Templar.

Seal of Templar Knights

When Acre in Palestine fell to the Saracens (1291), he made his fortune by blackmailing refugees. Denounced by his grand master, he fled to Genoa and became commander of a force of almogávares (Spanish mercenaries) in service to the Aragonese king of Sicily, Frederick II, who was warring with the house of Anjou.

Coat of Arms – Hohenstaufen Family

The Almogavars

Their name is the transformation into Catalan of an Arab word, al-mogauar, which means «one who devastates». Mountain shepherds from the Pyrenees mountains of Northern Spain or forest-dwellers, these were the men who carried war to the Arab taïfa, a war made up of raids, pillaging and unstable frontiers.

They withstood the Muslim invasions of Spain in the 7th and 8th century by heading higher into the hills and fighting raider warfare in the time honored tradition of guerrillas everywhere. They were remarkable in that they were both fierce and disciplined in combat (outside combat, not so much). They could move fast through very rugged terrain, attack a Muslim settlement, and then flee before reinforcements arrived. Although they could stand against heavy cavalry, they proved very effective troops in running down the lighter Berber-style horsemen of the Iberian Muslim kingdoms.

The average Almughavar wore little to no armor, growing his hair and beards long. He carried a spear, 2 heavy javelins (called azconas), and short stabbing sword. They were the literal descendents of the Iberians that followed Hannibal into Rome, their weapons unchanged since the Romans copied them (naming them Pila and Gladius Hispaniensis).

Despite their barbarian appearance (and make no mistake, these were the hillbillies of the middle ages), the Alughavar understood two very modern principles of warfare: 1) there are no rules, and 2) defeat an enemy mentally first. Almughavars routinely held their own against European heavy cavalry because they engaged in unchivalrous tactics like aiming for a man’s horse. And before a battle, Almughavars would strike their blades against against stones, causing them to spark in the pre-dawn gloom while they chanted «Aur! Aur! Desperta Ferro!» («Listen! Listen! Iron, Awaken!»).

The battle cry of the Almogàvers

Aur! Aur! Desperta ferro!

Deus aia!

…

Veyentnos sols venir, los pobles ja flamejen:

veyentnos sols passar, son bech los corbs netejen.

La guerra y lo saqueig, no hi ha mellors plahers.

Avant, almugavers! Que avisin als fossers!

La veu del somatent nos crida ja a la guerra.

Fadigues, plujes, neus, calors resistirem,

y si’ns abat la sòn, pendrèra per llit la terra,

y si’ns rendeix la fam carn crua menjarem!

Desperta ferro! Avant! Depressa com lo llamp

cayèm sobre son camp!

Almugavers, avant! Anem allí a fer carn!

Les feres tenen fam!

Meaning:

Listen! listen! Wake up, O iron! Help us God!…Just seeing us coming the villages are already ablaze. Just seeing us passing the crows are wiping their beaks. War and plunder, there are no greater pleasures. Forward Almogavars! Let them call the gravediggers! The voice of the somatent is calling us to war. Weariness, rains, snow and heat we shall endure. And if sleep overtakes us, we will use the earth as our bed. And if we get hungry, we shall eat raw meat. Wake up, O iron! Forward! Fast as the lightning let us fall over their camp! Forward Almogavars! Let us go there to make flesh, the wild beasts are hungry!

Sicilian Vespers

Sicilian Vespers

On March 30, 1282, Peter III of Aragon waged war on Charles of Anjou after the Sicilian Vespers for the possession of Naples and Sicily. The Almogavars formed the most effective element of his army. Their discipline, ferocity and the force with which they hurled their javelins made them formidable against heavy cavalry of the Angevin armies. They fought against cavalry by attacking the enemies’ horses instead of the knights themselves. Once a knight was on the ground he was an easy victim of an Almogavar.

De Flor recruited Almogaver soldiers left unemployed with the Peace of Caltabellotta in 1302 by the Crown of Aragon who opposed the French dynasty of Anjou.

Andronicus II Palaeologus

The Battle of Bapheus occurred on 27 July 1302 between an Ottoman army under Osman I and a Byzantine army under George Mouzalon. The battle ended in a crucial Ottoman victory, cementing the Ottoman state and heralding the final capture of Byzantine Bithynia by the Turks. Bapheus was the first major victory for the nascent Ottoman emirate, and of major significance for its future expansion: the Byzantines effectively lost control of the countryside of Bithynia, withdrawing to their forts, which, isolated, fell one by one. The Byzantine defeat also sparked a massive exodus of the Christian population from the area into the European parts of the Empire, further altering the region’s demographic balance. Coupled with the disaster of Magnesia, which allowed the Turks to reach and establish themselves on the coasts of the Aegean Sea, Bapheus thus heralded the final loss of Asia Minor for Byzantium.

The Byzantine emperor Andronicus II Palaeologus had to do something about the rising threat of the Ottoman Turks.

In 1303 Roger de Flor and the Catalan Company were commissioned by the Byzantine emperor Andronicus II Palaeologus and his son the co-emperor Michael IX Palaeologus to help them fight the Ottoman Turks.

Andronicus II Paleologus (1282 – 1328),
 fresco in the Holy Monastery of Prodromos in Serres

Roger de Flor’s commission was sanctioned by the Aragonese, rulers in Sicily and southern Italy, who were quite eager to rid themselves of unemployed and unruly soldiers. Roger de Flor departed with 39 galleys and transports carrying around 1,500 knights and 4,000 Almogavars, special foot soldiers employed mainly serving the kingdom’s interests in the Mediterranean Sea, especially by the Crown of Aragon.

Roger de Flor arrived in Constantinople with the help of king Frederick III of Sicily in 1303, and married the niece of Andronicus, daughter of the Tsar of Bulgaria, and was named Grand Duke (head of the fleet).

The Catalan Company’s itineraries in Anatolia and the Balkans

Roger de Flor campaigned with his Company in Anatolia, defeating the Turks but also engaging in widespread violence and looting of the Byzantine inhabitants. By this point, the Catalans, were considered by the Byzantines to be little better than brigands and freebooters. The successes had inflated the already arrogant De Flor, leading him to entertain plans of establishing his own dominion in Anatolia.

Roger de Flor entering Constantinople

Coat of Arms of Roger de Flor

This put him at odds with the Byzantine Emperor, and the indiscipline of the Almogavars marked the end of Roger de Flor. On 30 April 1305, he was slain along with 300 cavalry and 1,000 infantry by theAlans, another group of mercenaries at the service of the Emperor. Roger had been in Adrianopolis (modern Edirne) attending a banquet offered by Emperor Michael. The emperor later attacked Gallipoli attempting to conquer the city from the remnants of the Company under the command of Berenguer d’Entença who had arrived with 9 Catalan galleys. The attack was unsuccessful, but it largely decimated the Company. Berenguer d’Entença was captured by the Genoese shortly after, and later liberated. The Company had only 206 horsemen, 1,256 foot soldiers left and no clear leader when Emperor Michael attacked, trusting in his numerical superiority, only to be defeated in Battle of Apros in July 1305.

Thus began the Catalan Vengeance. For two years, the Catalan Company raided and ravaged the Thracian countryside. They sacked Rodosto, brutally hacking apart every man, woman, and child in revenge for what was done to their brothers and their leader. Although they had no siege works and so could not sack the walled cities, no Greek army could stand against them. The emperor was forced to watch as the Catalans burnt the undefended outskirts of Constantinople. So thorough was their domination that the two year pillage of Thrace ended not because they were forced out, but because there simply was not enough places that they could pillage for food.

The Battle of Gallipoli

One fascinating episode during the vengeance was the Battle of Gallipoli. In 1306, the Catalan Company left their camp in Gallipoli and pursued the Alan force that had murdered their leader. The 9,000 Alani were fleeing north-west to their homelands. The Catalans caught up with them and butchered all but 300 in perhaps their most difficult battle.

Meanwhile, a contingent of Genoese mercenaries, at the Byzantine Emperor’s behest, attacked the poorly defended camp at Gallipoli. The Company’s quartermaster, Ramon Muntaner, had at his command 7 horsemen, 133 infantry (mostly sailors and wounded Almughavars), and all the wives of the Catalan Company. So he equipped the women and had them defend the walls under relentless Genoese crossbow barrages. One wife refused to leave her post despite being wounded five times(!) in the face(!). She stated that she would not surrender the honor of fighting in her husband’s place, except in death.

Erechteum and Frankish Tower on the Acropolis of Athens

Finally the Genoese had run out of arrows, and the general berated them for being turned back in their assault of the walls by women. Muntaner ordered his 6 remaining horsemen and 100 infantry to prepare to assault! He had them discard their heavy armor now that the enemy had run out of ammunition, and opened the gates. The surprising ferocity of their attack sent the Genoese reeling. Their general was cut down in the first attack, and the will of the attackers was broken. They fled and would have been cut down by the exhausted Catalans of Muntaner’s garrison were it not for a small company of Genoese reserves.

When the main body of the Catalan Company heard of the attack on their camp, they raced back and secured it. But now the Company was at an impasse. They had exacted what revenge they could, and the countryside was barren. Worse, despite receiving reinforcements Spain and Sicily, the lords of these reinforcements clashed with the leaders of the Company. The Catalan Company had begun to consume itself. This growing rivalry persisted as the Catalan Company decided to head west, into Thessaly and down into Greece. These struggles ended in bloodshed, and the expulsions/departure of some of the lords (including the famed Muntaner, who left more of disgust).

The Catalan Company in Athens

In 1310, Gautier or Walter V of Brienne, Duke of Athens, hired the Catalan Company to fight the Byzantine Greeks encroaching on his territory.

Coat of arms of the Aragonese Kings

After the Company had successfully reduced his enemies, he attempted to expel the Company from Athens with their pay in arrears. The Company refusing this, Walter marched out with a strong force of French knights from Athens, the Morea and Naples and Greek foot from Athens. Walter’s army met the Catalans at the Battle of Cephissus (or Halmiros or Orchomenos). On the 15 March 1311 an army of 700 Frankish Knights, 2,300 cavalry and 12,000 foot soldiers led by Walter V of Brienne, met the Catalan Company of 3,000 of which 500 cavalry. There was also a contingent of 2,000 Turks standing by, to take the side of the winners.

The day before the battle, the Company flooded the battle field with the waters of Cephissus (Kiffissos) river, and made it very difficult for the heavy knights’ cavalry to move, thus becoming prey to the agile and light cavalry of the Company.

The Catalans won a devastating victory, killing Walter and almost all of his cavalry, and seizing his Duchy of Athens, excepting only the Lordship of Argos and Nauplia.

The battle marks the beginning of the Catalan domination of Athens (1311-1388).

Coat of Arms of the Duchy of Neopatria

In 1312, the Catalan Company appealed to Frederick III of Sicily to take over the duchy and he complied by appointing his second born son, Manfred of Sicily as Duke of Athens and Neopatria. The arms seen above are those of the Aragonese Kings of Sicily under which the Duchy of Athens came. (The Duchy of Athens)

The Catalan rule was to last until 1388–1390 when they were defeated by the Navarrese Company under Pedro de San Superano, Juan de Urtubia, and allied with the Florentines under Nerio I Acciaioli of Corinth. His descendants controlled them until 1456 when they were conquered by the Ottoman Empire. By that time, like many military enterprises, the Great Company had faded out of history.

The Duchy of Neopatria 

In 1318-1319 the Catalan Company, after having conquered most of the Duchy of Athens, expanded into the territories of the Despotate of Epirus in southern Thessaly, under Alfonso Frederick, the infante of the Kingdom of Sicily. The new territories were created a duchy and united with the Duchy of Athens as new possessions of the Crown of Aragon. The Duchy was divided into the captaincies of Siderokastron, Neopatria, New Patras (modern Ypati, Υπάτη), and Salona (modern Amfissa).

The Duchy of Neopatria

Part of the Duchy’s possessions in Thessaly was conquered by the Serbs of Stefan Dusan in 1337. In 1377, the title of Duke of Neopatria was assumed by Peter IV of Aragon. It was preserved among the subsidiary titles of his successors, and is still included in the full title of the Spanish monarchs.

The attacks of the Byzantine Empire progressively diminished the territory of the duchy until what was left of it fell completely into the hands of the Republic of Florence in 1390.

The Catalan Chronicle

Ramon Muntaner, one of the ringleaders of the Catalan Company’s expedition, recounted the adventures of the Almogaver army in the eastern Mediterranean in his Chronicle.

Manuscript of the Catalan Chronicle

Ramon Muntaner (1265-1336) began to write the Crònica in 1325, at his estate of Xilvella, some sixteen years after leaving the Almogavars, and probably finished some three years later, in 1328. Muntaner’s Crònica is presented as an autobiography (in which the writer from Peralada takes on the role of counselor and political-military strategist) and, at the same time, as an historic memoir of the past of his kings (in order to justify the politics of the Crown of Aragon, the glorious past of the kingdom, and the even better future that must arrive), in which Muntaner appears as a exemplary and proud subject. (Xavier Bonillo Hoyos)

«The Catalan Chronicle is a vitally important source for warfare in northwestern Asia Minor and the eastern Balkans in the early 14th century. The author, Muntaner, was secretary and paymaster of the Catalan Company, an experienced mercenary formation that had previously fought in Sicily. His account is particularly important because, as paymaster, Muntaner had accurate daily figures at his disposal of the numbers of troops in the Company and gves plausible information about logistic problems, i.e. the acquisition of grain, other foodstuffs and fodder. The relative size of armies and their supply needs can therefore be computed from his figures with a degree of accuracy, as also casualties. There are other details often omitted from the standard accounts that deserve particular attention from Byzantinists. Firstly, the Catalans had brought their families with them to the Byzantine empire. Their ruthless fighting methods were thus a consequence of the fact that they were endeavouring to ensure the survival of a whole society that had migrated inside the frontiers of the Byzantine state. Secondly, it is apparent that the Catalan Company became the rallying point for many disaffected people who joined their fighting forces. Among them were dispossessed Greek soldiers and peasants, as well as clans of Turkish fighters from Asia Minor, who trusted the honesty of the Catalans more than that of their own political and military elites. The Catalan Company owed its successful recruitment of men to a range of grievances against the Byzantine state and its co-emperors, Andronikos II and Michael IX Palaiologos, who in Mutaner’s view had betrayed the original treaty and chrysobulls placing the Compnay under Byzantine authority. The Catalan Company was to some extent an experiment in multi-ethnic military democracy based on talent, courage and mutual need, in constrast to the divisive and grasping aristocratic politics of the Byzantine system. Third, Muntaner provides important indications about the laws of war. After Michael IX’s assassination of Catalan leader Roger de Flor, the Company challenged emperor Andronikos II to judicial combat, consisting of one, or ten, or a hundred champions on each side–the first examples of which date from the reign of the previous emperor, Michael VIII Palailogos. It is a good example of how the employment of western ‘barbarian’ mercenaries resulted in the modification (or perhaps hybridization) of the Byzantine law of war to accomodate the ‘barbarian’ systems of customary law that existed outside medieval Graeco-Roman positive and customary legal practice. «(Amazon, Dr. F. R. Trombley) 

Panathineaos 

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Interview with the Coronela (Barcelona's militia) taylor

As Catalonia moves to recover her freedom, lost by force of arms in 1714, she is also working hard to recover her military traditions and values. Liberty and responsibility are but two sides of the same coin, one cannot exist without the other, and any nation seeking to rejoin the international community as a free and equal member must be ready to do her duty when it comes to contributing to peace and security. One of the aspects of Catalonia's normalization is the return of the Coronela, her capital's militia, currently in the shape of a military re-enactment group, with the support of Barcelona City Council.

The "Coronela": Barcelona City's Militia. Made up of reservists, civilians under military discipline when called up to serve. Manning was in the hands of the city's guilds, while responsibility for equipment was shared with the Crown. Each guild provided the personnel for a company. The Coronela expanded to five battalions during the War of Spanish Succession (1701-1714), in which it played a key role in the defence of Barcelona. Other Catalan towns had similar units.

One of the key aspects of military re-enactment is the provision of accurate, historically faithful, uniforms. The following is a brief interview with Maria Victòria Verderes i Blach, who serves as taylor for the Coronela.



What is the main difficulty involved in tailoring historical uniforms?

The main one is being faithful to their design and function. The reason is that they were not just a dress to cover one's body. Instead, many also served to protect weapons, for example.
Another problem is the difficulty in finding certain items. For example, it is nowadays difficult to find stripes of a colour resembling copper, or rusty metal, which were in widespread use at the time. What we then do, in order to get this tone, is to dye them with copper-colour shoe cream. We also try not to make the excellent sewing machines we currently enjoy conspicuous. We rather try to hand-sew as much as we can. Whenever possible, we follow the patterns that we are lucky to still find, half lost and half buried, in for example some Italian museums, translating their contents to a comprehensible language.

Are you happy about your work with La Coronela?

I have only spent a short time cooperating with this institution, but I am very proud of being able to contribute with my work to help a group of people passionate about history, to make known to the public a series of deeds that until now had been buried and forgotten. Above all, we are motivated by a Patriotic feeling, a duty towards our country, so many times treated unjustly. La Coronela's goal is to reach 3,000 members, as the city guilds used to bring together united by the same wish: to fight to defend our liberties!










Are you sensing a growing interest in Catalonia's military heritage, uniforms included?

I can feel a growing interest in our historical heritage, indeed, and not just our military heritage. More widely, in our traditions, be they dances, cuisine, customs, festivals... However, what the Coronela wants to avoid is to be considered part of Catalan folklore, since we are trying it to be what it used to be: an organization under military discipline, with military ranks and rules. We want the Coronela to become, in the future, the city's honorary guard. This would amount to paying homage, 300 years later, to all those who made the ultimate sacrifice to defend Catalonia from the overwhelming attack by absolutist forces.

 

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The Catalan democratic rebellion

A longstanding sense of unfinished business in the democratisation of Spain has moved to a new stage of crisis

Just over a week ago, on 9 November, and coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world gazed at a small place on the North-East coast of the Iberian Peninsula. In this place, over 2 million people over the age of 16 (2,305,290 persons, to be exact) disobeyed the Spanish conservative government and went to vote. This ‘referendum’, which had been declared illegal repeatedly by the Spanish constitutional tribunal (a highly conservative and politically-controlled branch of the judiciary), was carried out instead under the protection of the Catalan government and with the aid of over 40,000 volunteers.

The international press focused on the results of the ballot and reported widely that 80 per cent voted in favour of Catalan independence. But in a way this missed the point. What is really important about the Catalan 9-N, as it has come to be called, is not actually the result. The thing that matters is that over two million people engaged in a non-violent act of civil disobedience in a state with a long history of authoritarianism.

This is a genuine moment of rupture in Catalonia, and to a lesser extent in Spain. We can see clearly that the crisis has accelerated what were already difficult political and fiscal relationships between Catalonia and Spain. Three inter-related aspects of this process are especially worth highlighting.

Firstly, the Catalan process, unlike the Scottish referendum, has represented the clash of two different political and democratic cultures. Spain’s historically rooted authoritarian traits have come to the fore, with a Spanish government refusing to enter into any kind of negotiation and maintaining a completely aloof attitude.

For international audiences, it is important to be clear that the separation of powers in Spain is rather fictitious – the state has a constitutional tribunal where the governing party appoints 10 of its 12 members. It’s unsurprising, then, that it tends to rule according to its prevailing political interests. For instance, in the last few months, besides the rulings against a Catalan consultation, it has ruled against an Andalusian law designed to develop social housing from the large housing stock that is held by publicly rescued banks (following large-scale evictions of people hit by the crisis). Furthermore, the same tribunal suspended another Catalan law, the aim of which was to try and alleviate the consequences of the crisis on families that are struggling to pay their heating and water bills. These two examples are not anecdotal: they reinforce the very real sense that many people in Spain now have of a move towards an increasingly authoritarian statism in Spain.

Secondly, the Catalan process has not been led by politicians, but rather by civil society via a series of mass mobilisations. Although the press constantly looks for identifiable leaders, the Catalan process has many elements of what we could more accurately call ‘new politics’. On many occasions, particularly since the demonstration by no less than 1.5 million people in the centre of Barcelona on 11 September 2012, the current Catalan president, Artur Mas, clearly came very close to retreating from his electoral promises. What has kept his political will strong has been the constant pressure from below to maintain the popular outcry for the ‘right to decide’. This highlights the necessity for a type of politics where leaders are not just given an electoral mandate for 4 or 5 years, but rather are held accountable and, if need be, supported by an organised and determined civil society. In Gramscian terms, therefore, what we are currently witnessing in Catalonia is the configuration of a successful counter-hegemonic movement which includes most Catalan political parties, civil society organisations, trade unions and social movements.

Thirdly, the economic crisis has clearly played a part in this process. Even so, I would maintain that it is not mainly the economic crisis that has deepened this movement, but rather the political crisis that Spain is also currently undergoing. The process of democratisation in Spain following the death of Franco, the fascist dictator who ruled Spain for 40 years during the twentieth century, has proven to be insufficient. The elite pact that has kept Spain together since 1978 is steadily being eroded by moves towards deeper democratisation and against the pervasive corruption that has led to the perverse form in which the global financial crisis hit and shaped Spain. Catalonians, together with other progressive social forces within Spain, are questioning the democratic legitimacy of Spain to an unprecedented extent. Fissures papered over in and since 1978 have come to the fore, articulated by newer and more confident political and social movements. The longstanding sense of unfinished business is now intertwined with a sense of a new power to change things at the grass-roots level.

To conclude, these are historical times, and an open-ended journey has started in Catalonia, which may have significant implications well beyond its borders. On Sunday 9 November, still only a few days ago, the people of Catalonia became subjects of their own political destiny. I am one of them and it’s in our hands now to ensure we maintain our strength and leadership and bring about a deepening of democracy in Catalonia and elsewhere.

Mònica Clua-Losada
@DrSaoirse
Lecturer in Political Science at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona.

SPERI. Sheffield Political Economy

Research Institute

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Free Company, a history of terrible freedom - the Catalan Grand Company

In 1305 the Catalan Company, a free association of Western European adventurers and their families, who were hired to fight the Turks on behalf of the Byzantine Empire, found themselves in a terrible employment dispute. The Byzantines had decided that these mercenaries were more trouble than they were worth, and launched a surprise attack, massacring most of them, including the commander. At this critical moment, the advantages and defects of a completely free and voluntary society exposed themselves. Every soldier had a voice in the decision making and nobody could be compelled to accept a decision with which they disagreed. In the absence of an accepted top commander, leaders of smaller groups insisted on their own solutions. Sounds a bit like this site, huh?

The Company now met in a raucous general assembly to decide whether they would attempt to escape by sea to the West, disperse the Company into smaller pirate bands, or try to fight their way from the Byzantine siege and wage war against the treacherous Greeks.

A medieval Free Company was a prototype corporation. Historiography has not progressed sufficiently for us to know whether the modern US Supreme Court would grant them free speech rights. Probably not, given the amount of time they had spent under Papal anathema (there are an unsurprising number of parallels between the medieval Papacy and the Supreme Court). While modern corporations are typically "general purpose" entities, free companies were formed for the pursuit of commercial warfare. They were composed of members who were allotted shares, which entitled them to both participate in the Company’s governance and receive a division of the revenue, which the Company proposed to generate through mercenary service and the spoils of war.

The Free Companies were extremely efficient at monetizing every aspect of human existence and then selling it back to its terrified owner. Failure to buy back your own life resulted in its swift loss, or even worse, in slow and excruciating torture of yourself and your loved ones, torture so severe that even the medieval connoisseurs of torture recoiled in revulsion. Since their numbers were infinitesimally small in comparison with the population they held hostage, they resorted to calculated acts of terror to induce the civilians to part with their wealth for fear of losing their lives. A mystique of ruthless invincibility and inhuman power and brutality was carefully cultivated in order to reduce the capacity of the numerically superior enemies to resist.

The commander of a Free Company received a third of all spoils, and exerted a commensurate share of authority, based on his battlefield performance and business acumen, but, much like a modern CEO, he was not an autocrat. An officers’ council advised his actions and debated strategy with him, and once that strategy was agreed upon, the officers as were the ones who put it into execution. Achieving some sort of consensus was critical, since the sort of men who made up a Free Company were notoriously resistant to coercion. The officers were usually captains of smaller subgroups within the Company, which had joined in order to accomplish a task for which a larger formation was required. If enough companies came together they created a Great or Grand Company capable of terrorizing an entire province and keeping at bay any defense force. These constituent companies remained able at almost all times to break away if they no longer felt the amalgamation to be in their interest, or if they disagreed with the orders of the top commander. 

The charter of the Catalan Grand Company in addition provided that a consensus vote of the officers’ council would be sufficient to veto any major decision of the general, but not sufficient to set the policy on its own. With the murder of the unfortunate Caesar Roger de Flor (whom the perfidious Greeks had crowned in order to lull his suspicions as they plotted his death), the Grand Company was without a supreme commander, which power vacuum naturally enhanced the status of the remaining senior officers.

Common members of the Company also had the right to participate in the decision making process, each in his own proportion reflecting his value to the company and the esteem in which he was held. Their main influence came not through voting – general assembly votes were rare and typically took place as referenda on major issues which had already been debated by the captains and officers. Whatever their status, every member naturally considered the problems facing their company, and had their own ideas about the solutions. If their companions did not agree with them, every member of the Company remained free to leave, and this was the most usual and the most potent way for the companions to express their preferences. Regardless of his personal power, wealth and the strength of his bodyguard, no captain or general could afford to take an unpopular decision which would be followed by the detachment of the majority of his fighting men. The necessity to keep the men motivated and fighting was the ultimate check on authoritarianism and self dealing, which were otherwise the natural tendencies of these extreme individualists.

The need to remain popular with their men also dictated that the officers, whose rank depended on the number of men willing to serve under them, acted to protect their troops from the judgment of the overall commander, which protection included shielding them from any punishment which the commander might feel they deserved. the concept of crime had little meaning to a collective formed for the explicit purpose of perpetrating extensive acts of violence, but if the violence was misdirected against the employer's own population, as often occurred, the overall commander would feel the pressure from the client to rein in his men, and there would then ensue a standoff between the general who found it necessary to enforce some sort of punishment, and the captain whose duty was to his men. 

During the Catalan Company’s earlier campaigns against the Turks, at the height of Roger de Flor’s success as general, a small company led by the Aragonese nobleman Ferdinand Eiximenis detached itself because Ferdinand did not approve of the sentence Roger passed on one of Ferdinand’s men for some crime against Greek civilians. It was typical that one’s one interest and those of one’s immediate companions and battlefield comrades outweighed those of justice or morality. Ferdinand took his company into the service of the Frankish Duke of Athens, but continued to follow the fortunes of the Company with avid interest. Now that Roger de Flor was dead, Ferdinand returned with his company to aid their comrades in their moment of need, bringing much needed ships and supplies and adding his voice to the raging debate.

There remained in the Company about two thousand fighting men. In addition, the Company had to concern itself with many thousands of women and children, related in some ways to living and dead soldiers and living off the Company’s revenues. Though in times of stress they could prove difficult liabilities, they performed vital functions for the collective. The women performed all the roles that were necessary to maintain life, cooking, cleaning, obtaining supplies, and raising children. Children were providing a continuous source of reinforcements to the Company, and it is usual to read references to the exploits of veterans undertaken with their young sons, who thus learned the trade and considered if they were suited for the life of a solider. Also present were people who were not members of the Company but had direct relationships with it –craftsmen, merchants, pimps, prostitutes, etc. 

The one thing all of those present considered beneath them was productive labor, such as farming, tending herd or otherwise producing the necessities of life for the entire population. All of their necessities were acquired through a mixture of purchase, extortion and capture that left the preexisting local population brutalized and destitute. Naturally this created a great deal of hatred in the local population, who could not tell the difference between the depredations committed by the barbarians fighting against them and the barbarians fighting to protect them. This resentment had found its expression once the Byzantine government authorized the people to exterminate the Catalans in their midst. Thousands perished in the most painful ways imaginable, torn apart by screaming mobs.

Source: Emerson Kent

Those who survived were now besieged on the Gallipoli peninsula. Here is a map, which also has the boundaries and the routes of the Catalan Company’s campaigns, though both need to be considered with a grain of salt, being in reality much less clear cut than pictured. Their route of escape was still open, and the entire Aegean was open before them for piracy. It was policed half heartedly by the Genoese and the Venetians, but there were many opportunities for profitable assault. This was the alternative favored by the nobleman Berenguer de Entenza, who was the highest ranking nobleman present, a former Mega Dux, and commanded the largest personal company. With his ships, he intended to begin raiding the coasts nearest to the peninsula. The majority of the Company favored engaging the enemy and breaking the siege. 

Though greatly outnumbered, the Catalans had no respect for the fighting qualities of the Byzantines, and like almost all fighters throughout the ages, believed that numbers were secondary to skill and the will to win. 

This disagreement showed both the strength and weakness of an entirely voluntary association, a free company where everybody is entitled to go their own way. Although the majority of the commanders and the men believed that it was imperative that they attack their besieging host as soon as possible, before famine set in among the besieged, and while everybody agreed that to divide their already small forces and risk their few precious remaining ships would be madness, Berenguer de Entenza and his retinue took their ships and departed for a series of raids against Byzantine coastal towns. Attempts to dissuade him proved fruitless and there was no other means to make him stay, even though his departure made their already weak position that much more untenable. The unilateral departure, although permitted, was accompanied with much arrogant language about the relative status of himself, a grandee of the Kingdom of Aragon, and the rest of the Company, who were little more than common brigands unfit to hold such a great lord's stirrup. This of course created a large well of resentment in those who remained, which would come back to haunt Berenguer. 

The division still could have been healed if Berenguer’s raid had been successful and he returned to the Company with additional ships and a plentitude of supplies. But unfortunately, Berenguer’s small fleet was attacked by a Genoese squadron. The Genoese were determined to rid their client state of Byzantium of this horde of locusts, and more importantly, to secure their trade routes from pirate raids such as Berenguer’s, which the Catalans would inevitably continue to launch if they remained in the region. Berenguer de Entenza, whose military ability never did match his lofty opinion of himself, was taken prisoner. Because of his high status, his captivity was a comfortable one, he was taken to Genoa and entertained as a guest. Eventually the King of Aragon, who owed Berenguer a duty of protection under the feudal code, was able to secure his release and he was able to head back to the Company. But this was only years later, and in the meantime, there would be many developments in the fortunes of the Companions. 

When Berenguer’s forces had departed, the Company, in order to buy itself some time until his hopefully swift return, had dispatched ambassadors to Emperor Andronicus to protest the violations of their contract and the murder of their companions. They offered to submit to a trial by combat to prove their innocence in the eyes of God. The Greeks politely declined, and, although they had been allowed to leave the palace with a guarantee of safe conduct, the embassy was literally butchered on the way back. On top of this news came word of Berenguer’s capture. The remaining members of the Company realized that they could expect no further help, and that their position would continue to deteriorate with every day. Already they only had several hundred horses able to take part in a battle. Hunger had taken its toll on all of them. 

Their setbacks, the betrayals and the crimes perpetuated against them, had created in them a burning venomous anger that left them only one option – a desperate assault on the main Byzantine Army, to fight to the death knowing that no mercy would be shown and no prisoners taken by either side. At this point the men were all of one mind, they all burned with the same intense desire for revenge, and the fear of what lay in store for them if they failed to somehow prevail only served as greater motivation. One can only imagine the mood of the women and children, many already bereaved, as they saw their gaunt and ill equipped men marching or riding skeletal horses outside the fortifications, to take up their battle formation, a few small groups of men dwarfed by the gigantic host which was encamped before them. The Byzantines, delighted that their enemy had decided to meet them in the open field, hurried to prepare their forces.

Marcion

First Published at Daily Kos, on MAR 03, 2010 

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