14 May 2014

Conferences

IMAGES OF CARLISM

Graphic chronicle of the blockade of Pamplona (1874-1875)

D. Ignacio Urricelqui Pacho.
Museum of Carlism

The lecture focused on the blockade to which the Carlist troops subjected Pamplona between September 1874 and February 1875, when the place was liberated by the troops of General Moriones, an episode that is part of the second Carlist war (1872-1876) that pitted government troops against the supporters of the pretender Charles VII. Without being a blockade comparable to others such as that of Bilbao, the blockade of Pamplona subjected the city's inhabitants to extreme conditions during the winter of 1874 and 1875, as is reflected in different testimonies, including the volume Memories of a Civil War. Album of the blockade of Pamplona, kept in the Royal and General Archive of Navarre ( file ). This volume was compiled by the brothers Aniceto and Nemesio Lagarde and contains different testimonies of the last carlistada in Navarre (documents, press cuttings, photographs, stamps, etc.), together with an important issue of watercolours, mostly produced by the latter, representing views, types and scenes relating to the events that took place in Pamplona, Navarre and other neighbouring areas.
 

Watercolour by Nemesio Lagarde taken from Recuerdos de una guerra civil. Album of the blockade of Pamplona (1874-1875)
file Royal and General of Navarre
 

The fact that Nemesio Lagarde was an officer in the government army facilitated his mobility through the different scenarios and, thanks to his ability with drawing and watercolour, he acted as a graphic war chronicler. But his work went even further, as he sent some of his drawings to La Ilustración Española y Americana, which were published as lithographs, thus becoming a true "war correspondent". Although in this respect he did not reach the level of figures such as José Luis Pellicer or Daniel Viergé, this facet of Nemesio Lagarde's work should be vindicated. Some of the scenes produced by Nemesio Lagarde were synthesised in a full page that appeared in La Ilustración Española y Americana on 8 January 1875, which publicised the Carlist blockade of the capital of Navarre throughout Spain and abroad.
 

Nemesio Lagarde, Episodes from the Pamplona Blockade
La Ilustracion española y americana, 8 January 1875

The lecture was structured in two parts. Firstly, the images dedicated to the outskirts of the city were analysed, some of them taken by Aniceto Lagarde, highlighting certain views and scenes such as the one depicting the death of the Civil Guardsman Nicolás Oñate, the first victim of the blockade, who died on 30 October in the vicinity of Pamplona, or the death of a Carlist officer in the San Nicolás glasis, which took place on 25 November 1875. Attention was then turned to the scenes that narrate events that took place inside the place, where some episodes were highlighted, both military and, especially, those of the civilian population, who suffered from the shortage of food and fuel, reaching extreme situations. The parallelism between the watercolours in the album and the documentary testimonies provided in some diaries and accounts, such as those of Eusebio Rodríguez Undiano and José Sánchez del Águila, Commander Mariano Ballesta and Leandro Nagore, was highlighted.