← Previous revisionRevision as of 23:46, 17 October 2026 Line 70: Line 70: The {{lang|es|Guardia Civil}} was also given the political task of restoring and maintaining land ownership and servitude among the peasantry of Spain by the King, who desired to stop the spread of [[anti-monarchism|anti-monarchist]] movements inspired by the [[French Revolution]]. The end of the [[First Carlist War]] combined with the unequal distribution of land that resulted from prime minister [[Juan Álvarez Mendizábal]]'s first [[Desamortización]] (1836–1837) had left the Spanish landscape scarred by the destruction of civil war and social unrest, and the government was forced to take drastic action to suppress spontaneous revolts by a restive peasantry. Based on the model of light infantry used by [[Napoleon]] in his European campaigns, the {{lang|es|Guardia Civil}} was transformed into a military force of high mobility that could be deployed irrespective of inhospitable conditions, able to patrol and pacify large areas of the countryside. Its members, called '{{lang|es|guardias}}', maintain to this day a basic patrol unit formed by two agents, usually called a "{{lang|es|pareja}}" (a pair), in which one of the '{{lang|es|guardias}}' will initiate the intervention while the second '{{lang|es|guardia}}' serves as a backup to the first.{{Citation needed|date=February 2021}} The {{lang|es|Guardia Civil}} was also given the political task of restoring and maintaining land ownership and servitude among the peasantry of Spain by the King, who desired to stop the spread of [[anti-monarchism|anti-monarchist]] movements inspired by the [[French Revolution]]. The end of the [[First Carlist War]] combined with the unequal distribution of land that resulted from prime minister [[Juan Álvarez Mendizábal]]'s first [[Desamortización]] (1836–1837) had left the Spanish landscape scarred by the destruction of civil war and social unrest, and the government was forced to take drastic action to suppress spontaneous revolts by a restive peasantry. Based on the model of light infantry used by [[Napoleon]] in his European campaigns, the {{lang|es|Guardia Civil}} was transformed into a military force of high mobility that could be deployed irrespective of inhospitable conditions, able to patrol and pacify large areas of the countryside. Its members, called '{{lang|es|guardias}}', maintain to this day a basic patrol unit formed by two agents, usually called a "{{lang|es|pareja}}" (a pair), in which one of the '{{lang|es|guardias}}' will initiate the intervention while the second '{{lang|es|guardia}}' serves as a backup to the first.{{Citation needed|date=February 2021}} Under the pre-1931 monarchy, relations between {{lang|es|[[Gitanos]]}} and the Civil Guard were particularly tense.{{Citation needed|date=September 2023}} Under the pre-1931 monarchy, relations between {{lang|es|[[Romani people in Spain|Gitanos]]}} and the Civil Guard were particularly tense.{{Citation needed|date=September 2023}} ===Spanish Civil War (1936–1939)=== ===Spanish Civil War (1936–1939)===