CUBA 001 Spanish infantry officer service cap

During the nineteenth century, the Spanish recruitment system allowed young people of military age, with the economic capacity to pay 2000 pesetas of the time, to be freed from military service.

That made the bulk of the Spanish armed forces basically composed of members of the most disadvantaged classes, who nevertheless did their duty admirably on the most diverse fronts of the already agonizing Spanish Empire.

However, the officers assigned to these places, such as Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Philippines and North Africa, were volunteers, moved by a sincere patriotic spirit and by the ease of promotion serving in the most dangerous places.