"Guipúzcoa defendida de los insultos de una audaz ignorancia", por su Secretario Manuel Ignacio Aguirre (1751)sobre la invasión de Guipúzcoa en la Guerra de La Cuádruple Alianza (1717-1720).

Abstract

This study focusses on the invasion of Gipuzkoa during the so-called “War of the Quadruple Alliance”, an armed conflict that occurred between 1717 and 1720 in Europe and which set the Spanish Monarchy under Philip V against a coalition formed by the Holy Roman Empire, the French Monarchy, the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands as a result of the policy pursued by Cardinal Julio Alberoni (a Minister of Philip V). The account of it produced by Vicente Bacallar, Marquis of Saint Philip, in his Comentarios de la guerra de España (Comments on the Spanish War) prompted the Secretary of the Province Manuel Ignacio de Aguirre to write a long letter to an Argentine friend expressing his concern about the poor image of Gipuzkoa projected by the Sardinian author. It is the perspective of a figure who describes the War from inside in impressive detail, while eschewing any responsibility in the invasion of the Province, in a War the consequences of which Alberoni had been unable to predict or remedy.