MAGAZINE
525 th ANNIVERSARY
SPRING 2020
of the creation of the SERGEANT RANK in the SPANISH ARMY
By Command Sergeant Major Angel J . BROSEL , Spanish Army , NRDC-ESP
During the year 2019 , the Spanish Army celebrates the 525th Anniversary of the creation of the Sergeant rank .
Five hundred and twenty-five years , which is like saying the whole life of our Army , born in the late fifteenth century as a result of the creation of the first permanent army of the known world , the Sergeant has been , is and will be the soul of the Noncommissioned Officers Corps , the spirit that permeates history and tradition with its way of being and existence . At the end of the fifteenth century , there are three historical circumstances that influence the creation of the Sergeant rank : the end of the Reconquest , the discovery of America and the creation of permanent armies . There is a change in military art - empowerment of infantry to the detriment of cavalry . The Company appears as the basic organization of infantry , the castration is performed , the artillery is reformed , the portable weapons are delivered to the soldier and the evolutions are normalized . Even “ specialists ” appear as the people who are trained to perform a profession or trade of a technical nature . The Catholic Monarchs organize the first permanent army . Fernando with his war experience and Isabel who was visionary in what we would call the Intendance , in logistics and , in the promotion of the first field hospitals and apothecaries . The first reference to the rank of Sergeant is in a Royal Provision of 1493 , when the Catholic Monarchs create a corps of cavalry
44 troops called “ Old Guards of Castile ”, in which each company , under the command of a Captain , include a Sergeant , This is the first appearance of the rank . A year later , in 1494 King Fernando “ El Católico ” signs his ordinances of what would become the first regular and permanent military units of the Spanish Army , and in which the figure of the Sergeant is already part of the military organization . The chronicles say that it was the Captains who asked the King to create the rank of Sergeant since those first companies only had a Captain and a Second Lieutenant ( alférez ). Below them were the Corporals . The Captains and Lieutenants were in charge of nearly 800 men , already with a variety of weapons . This First Sergeant - one per company - was the third officer of the unit . This rank had a wide range of responsibilities , including missions , highlighting logistics , administrative duties and training .
In 1534 , Carlos I included the Sergeant in an Infantry unit , when he created the “ Spanish Tercios ” of Naples and Milan . He would shake half of the world for his limitless courage , his knowledge of Military