Is Spain basically Vietnam?

[Roma_Victrix]

...In terms of hellish, endless, resource-draining guerrilla warfare, that is.
Napoleon Bonaparte once called the Peninsular War his "Spanish ulcer".

[This is a cross post from the Vestigia Vetustatis sub-forum, where I posted this earlier today...]

PROLOGUE: Yep, probably Vietnam
The Archaic Greeks who settled the eastern shores of Spain didn't bother to quell the interior too far beyond their major poleis such as Emporion, but they probably would have run into lots of headaches doing so. Let's take a look at a long list of reasons why invading and attempting to occupy Spain is a royal pain in the rear. It's honestly comparable to the situation the ancient and medieval Chinese often faced when attempting to conquer and hold northern Vietnam from the 2nd century BC onward, plus their failed attempts to take the Kingdom of Champa in southern Vietnam, or the colonial French and Cold War era Americans who came long after them.

For a quick summary of the Chinese domination of Vietnam, the Qin Chinese military officer Zhao Tuo established his own Kingdom of Nanyue (Nam Viet) in 214 BC over parts of southern China and northern Vietnam. China's Emperor Wu of Western Han conquered this vassal kingdom in 111 BC, but all was not well. The grueling guerrilla warfare there against the Chinese all started with the rebellion of the Trưng Sisters from 40 to 43 AD during the Eastern Han dynasty. This was followed by several rebellions over the next millennia that established native dynasties like the Early Ly (conquered by China's Sui dynasty in 602 AD) and finally the Ngo dynasty that managed to defeat the Southern Han Chinese at the Battle of Bach Dang in 938 AD. The Vietnamese won their independence! Or so they thought... The Chinese would be back for round four of their attempt to dominate Vietnam with the Ming conquest of the Ho dynasty in 1406, but true to character, the Vietnamese would use guerrilla tactics to drive out Ming dynasty Chinese troops by 1427, leading to the formation of the Later Le dynasty.

Perhaps the Chinese learned their lesson from the previous four rounds when they decided to keep it brief in the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979, taking a few cities in the north in a punitive expedition before withdrawing and declaring victory in defense of their ally Cambodia (which Vietnam was then occupying). The French were certainly determined to hold onto Vietnam despite the natives' successful use of guerrilla warfare, which the Americans would soon discover in the Vietnam War, but for the sake or brevity I'm just going to assume you know about all of that already. Now, on to the Iberian Peninsula we go!

CARTHAGINIANS, ROMANS, CELTIBERIANS, AND LUSITANIANS:
Okay, really starting to look like Vietnam, you guys
* The Carthaginians expanded their control over large parts of the Iberian peninsula under Hamilcar Barca, the father of the famous Hannibal. However, Hamilcar died in 228 BC fighting the Vettoni tribes, drowning in a river perhaps after an ambush by a false friend and erstwhile ally of the Oretani tribe. That would be somewhat of a harbinger of things to come.

* In the Second Punic War (218 - 201 BC), Carthaginian troops and authorities were chased out of Spain by victorious Romans such as Publius Cornelius Scipio, later Scipio Africanus. However, the Roman Republic would have a hell of a time trying to hold let alone conquer the rest of the peninsula. The Celtiberian Wars (181 - 151 BC) were incredibly brutal and the natives terrorized the Romans with hit-and-run tactics. Meanwhile, the Lusitanians in what is now southern Spain and Portugal were led by a famous guerrilla leader Viriathus, who defied Roman rule in Hispania Ulterior. He was only felled after being betrayed and murdered by a few so-called companions in 139 BC.

* The Numantine War (143 - 133 BC) was again another bloody insurrection against Roman rule in Hispania Citerior, but after the people of the city of Numantia committed mass suicide to avoid slaughter or enslavement after a long siege, the peninsula was rather quiet for several decades...until the Sertorian War (80 - 72 BC). The Roman statesman Quintus Sertorius carried out a civil war against his political rival Sulla and became famous for his guerrilla tactics, relying on fellow Romans as well as Iberian natives to continue the fight. Much like Viriathus, he was largely unbeatable in the field and only taken down when assassinated by Marcus Perperna Vento, who in turn was defeated by Pompey the Great.

* A few decades after the dictatorship of Sulla came that of Julius Caesar, when Roman Hispania became the last of several staging grounds for a civil war against him after he crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC. Caesar dealt with Optimates in North Africa at the Battle of Thapsus in 46 BC, but he would still have to face Titus Labienus, one of his famous officers in Gaul, and Gnaeus Pompeius, son of Pompey the Great, who were leading the insurrection against him in Spain. At The Battle of Munda in 45 BC Caesar finally defeated their forces and returned to Rome in triumph.

* It's important to note that the Romans didn't even control all of Spain at this point, either. It wasn't until the reign of Augustus (27 BC - 14 AD) that a large northern chunk of the Iberian peninsula was finally militarily subdued and slowly assimilated into Roman culture. This occurred only after marshaling together a conquering force of eight legions and auxiliaries in the decade-long Cantabrian Wars (29 - 19 BC), and afterwards two Roman legions had to be permanently stationed there to ensure the peace. This mountainous northern region that was home to the Celtic Cantabri and Astures tribes will become relevant later as we enter the Middle Ages.

SUEBI, VISIGOTHS, EASTERN ROMANS/BYZANTINES, BASQUES, ARABS/MOORS, FRANKS, AND A FOOLISH CRUSADE AGAINST ARAGON:
Okay, is Spain located somewhere in Southeast Asia, like next to Vietnam?
* The Visigoths, foederati allies of the Romans in late antiquity, fought the Suebi for control of the Iberian peninsula. Under their king Euric the Visigoths also defeated the Romans at the Battle of Arles in 471 AD. Euric, previously considered a Roman legate, was recognized as an independent king by Western Emperor Julius Nepos in 475 AD, just a year before the Fall of the Western Roman Empire.

* In his civil war against king Agila I beginning in 549, the Visigothic usurper Athanagild invited the Eastern Romans (Byzantines) under Justinian I the Great to assist him. Unsurprisingly, Justinian's reinforcements took over much of southern Spain and planned to stay there, doing so for the next several decades but ultimately unable to maintain their toehold for very long (what a surprise). Meanwhile, in 585 the Visigoths under Athanagild's brother Liuvigild conquered the Kingdom of the Suebi in Portugal and led campaigns against the rebellious Basques up north in the Pyrenees. The Basques were a non-Indo European people who would remain a perennial problem for various generations of Spanish authorities into the modern age.

* The Umayyad Caliphate conquered the Visigothic Kingdom of Spain in 711, introducing Arab Islamic rule for the first time and leading to things like the Mozarabic Romance language spoken by Christians under Muslim rulers. However, the Arabs/Berbers/Moors made the mistake of trying to focus on Frankish Gaul instead of dealing with the last remnants of rebellious Christian forces gathering in that rocky region of the north we talked about earlier. In 718, the Visigothic nobleman Pelagius of Asturias founded the defiant Christian Kingdom of Asturias in that precise region where Augustus had finally squashed the Cantabri and Astures centuries before. Almost from the very onset of Islamic rule, the Spanish Reconquista had begun.

* The Franks under Charles Martel defeated the Umayyad governor of al-Andalus, al-Ghafiqi, at the Battle of Tours in 732, while his successor Pepin the Short secured Septimania and Aquitaine in southern Gaul. This allowed the Frankish ruler Charlemagne (crowned emperor of Romans by the pope in 800 AD and founder of the Carolingian Empire) to move his forces south of the Pyrenees to establish the March of Barcelona, or the Marca Hispanica, in 795. The regions of Catalonia and Aragon were subdued, with the county of Barcelona being completely taken by 801. Charlemagne also developed a political, religious, and military alliance with Alfonso II of Asturias in their attacks on the Moors of Andalusia, now under the Umayyad Emirate of Cordoba established by Abd al-Rahman I in 756 after the fall of the Umayyads to the Abbasid Caliphate.

* After Al-Hakam I scored a victory for the Emirate of Cordoba at Pancorbo in 816, defeating the pro-Frankish forces of Asturias, the wily Basque freedom fighter Íñigo Arista of Pamplona saw his chance to rise and became the first King of Pamplona, allying with the Banu Qasi dynasty of Muladi Muslim rulers along the Ebro river. They defeated the Carolingian Franks at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 824, the same place where they had once defeated Charlemagne in 778, and secured an independent Kingdom of Pamplona in the process.

* I could go into lengthy detail about the Reconquista slogging match between Asturias' Christian successors Leon and Castile against the Emirate of Cordoba, the Almoravid dynasty, the Almohad Caliphate, the Taifa kingdoms and Emirate of Granada, with complicated figures along the way like the 11th-century warrior El Cid who fought for both Muslim and Christian rulers, but I think you get the point, this post is getting way too long, and we need to cover Napoleon, goddamn it.

* Before that, however, I will mention the Aragonese Crusade (1284 - 1285) called by Pope Martin IV against Peter III of Aragon, part of the larger War of the Sicilian Vespers. The pope guaranteed Philip III of France that his son Charles, Count of Valois, would be bestowed with the Aragonese throne, but this would not come to pass, even as Philip took Girona and Charles was crowned there without an official crown of Aragon. The French naval fleet was wrecked at the Battle of Les Formigues by the Aragonese admiral Roger of Lauria and the French army suffered dysentery, which I would love to link to invaders of Vietnam suffering from malaria, but not the same thing. The French king died of dysentery just after reentering French territory, but his withdrawing troops traveling behind him were destroyed at the Battle of the Col de Panissars. On that note, the treacherous mountain range of the Pyrenees are basically the jungles of Vietnam, aren't they? Eventually, by 1291 the pope acquiesced, relinquished claims to Aragon as a fief, and acknowledged Peter's successor Alfonso III of Aragon as rightful ruler of his kingdom in the Treaty of Tarascon.

* Again, this post is already absurdly long, so I'm going to ignore conflicts like the War of the Spanish Succession, assume you know enough, and jump right into the Napoleonic period, which I know Oda Nobunaga (the 16th-century Japanese ghost turned Venezuelan Jew who haunts these forums) is going to criticize and I actually would like to see his input and comparison to Vietnam.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, HIS DOTING BROTHER JOSEPH BONAPARTE, AND THE DREADFUL PENINSULAR WAR
So, should we rename Vietnam as Spain or España as Vietnam? Maybe a unified country called Vietespañam?

* FINALLY! The part that I know all of you have been waiting for. By the love of Jesús H. Cristo de Nazaret, where do we begin with this cluster? If Vietnam is where the presidencies of Johnson and Nixon went to die, I guess the same could be said for Napoleon Bonaparte in Spain (or Russia, take your pick). More importantly, the Peninsular War (1808 - 1814) was a conflict that truly defined guerrilla warfare and hit-and-run tactics that would be mirrored by Spanish rebels against Franco more than a century later. Woe unto the French messengers or soldiers who became captives of the ragtag bandits/militias/guerrilla fighters of Spain, because oftentimes they didn't stay captives for very long and were just tortured to death instead. The French returned the favor with their own brutal methods of suppression (encapsulated by that famous painting The Third of May 1808 by Francisco Goya). The French got to practice plenty of that before facing guerrillas in French Indo-China!

* To quickly summarize the beginning of the conflict, France and Spain were allies, they invaded Portugal together in 1807, but France turned on Spain, toppled their monarchy under Ferdinand VII of Spain in 1808 and replaced it with the rule of Joseph Bonaparte ("José I of Spain"), the older brother of Napoleon Bonaparte who had already been made King of Naples and Sicily (replaced by Joachim Murat). At least half of all Spaniards did not accept his monarchy and many would die fighting to restore the Spanish monarchy, while others would be temporarily forced or persuaded to acknowledge him as their king following fleeting victories pushing French control south into Andalusia. This threatened British Gibraltar, held since the 1704 Anglo-Dutch capture on behalf of the Habsburgs during the War of the Spanish Succession and the British were already keen on defending their centuries-long ally of Portugal if not stabbing Napoleon in his Achilles heel in southwestern Europe.

* In 1810 André Masséna, the French champion against Naples and Austria, was able to score decisive victories in Spain such as the erstwhile capture of Almeida. However, in Portugal he ran into a brick wall, or literally one of forts and trenches, with the Lines of Torres Vedras constructed outside Lisbon by the Portuguese under their British supervisor Sir Richard Fletcher, 1st Baronet. Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington eventually bested this Prince of Essling, who fled with starving troops after failing to penetrate this immense barrier and lost all of his previous gains. This earned him the ire of Napoleon, who would never again allow him to take up command of French forces.

* Masséna's reputation would hardly be the last one to die a horrible death in the Peninsular War, as various Spanish generals were humiliated by the French and their government in exile, the Cortes of Cádiz, remained under siege while the French held Madrid. However, the French failure to take Portugal or to dislodge the British meant a stalemate would last for years on the Iberian peninsula, with the French never quite being able to secure all of Spain. To make matters worse for Napoleon during his disastrous retreat from Russia in 1812, Wellington's forces, including British and British-trained Portuguese regulars, pushed deep into Spain, retaking Salamanca and Madrid. French Marshal Jean-Baptiste Jourdan was decisively defeated by Wellington and his British, Portuguese, and Spanish troops at the Battle of Vitoria in 1813.

* Remember those Pyrenees we talked about? Well goddamn it, much like the army of the French king Philip III during the Aragonese Crusade centuries before, in the early winter of 1814 Napoleon's Marshal Jean-de-Dieu Soult had to fight his way through a hail of bullets and harassment by the Brits/Portuguese/Spanish as he tried to withdraw back to France via this most treacherous of mountain ranges. Broken, tattered, lacking resources, suffering from exhaustion and starvation, the French troops finally made it back home. The French are gluttons for punishment, though, so they'd search for more of that in Vietnam more than a century later, followed by the Americans who were convinced that they would always be the punishers, not the punishees.

FERDINAND VII OF SPAIN, THE CARLIST CIVIL WARS, FRANCO AND THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
Just when you thought I was done, huh? The colonists in French Indo-China/Vietnam could relate to this one.

* Remember Ferdinand VII of Spain above, the guy who got rekt and toppled by Napoleon? Well, he was restored to power as an absolute monarch, pleasing his right wing royalists by renouncing the liberal constitution of 1812 that angered the leftists, but was forced in 1820 by a revolt led by Rafael del Riego to accept the liberal constitution. This was again reversed in 1823 thanks to the intervention of the Congress of Vienna, allowing him to clamp down on the free press and liberal elements until his death in 1833, after which another civil war broke out, the First Carlist War (1833 - 1840). In that conflict, Infante Carlos, Count of Molina ("Carlos V"), the contender for continuing absolute monarchy, was pitted against Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies, the regent over the young Isabella II of Spain, who the Carlists didn't like because she had a vagina.

* Just to make things even screwier, in comes Portugal, France, and the UK to sway the conflict in favor of the liberal side led by the regent Maria, not just sending her supplies but actually dispatching volunteers and then regular troops to confront the Carlist forces in Spain. Apparently the Carlists were a bitter bunch who just didn't take no for an answer, as evidenced by the sad, meager Second Carlist War (1846–1849) limited to Catalonia that attempted to put Infante Carlos, Count of Montemolin ("Carlos VI") on the throne and the far more serious Third Carlist War (1872–1876).

* While Amadeo I of Spain was still on the throne following the abdication of Isabella II in 1868, the Spanish elections of 1872 led to violence against Carlist candidates, leading Carlos, Duke of Madrid ("Carlos VII") to declare his rival kingship and start of a new civil war in favor of Legitimism and Catholicism as usual. Naturally, the Basque country that we mentioned earlier served as the breeding grounds for this uprising and rival state to form (of course). In the ensuing chaos, Amadeo I abdicated and in 1873 the First Spanish Republic was formed. However, a year later the Republic was overthrown as Alfonso XII was placed on the throne in a Bourbon monarchical restoration. By 1876 his rival "Carlos VII" was driven into exile in France and the Basque charters (fueros) were abolished, which the Basques obviously did not like.

* Oh boy, talk about a bunch of horrific precedents for Francisco Franco Bahamonde. Franco would rule Spain as its caudillo dictator from 1936 to 1975, during and after the brutal Spanish Civil War that lasted into 1939. The latter conflict pitted the Republicans (and communists) supported by the Soviet Union against the Nationalists of Franco supported by Nazi Germany and Portugal's dictator Salazar, ending the Second Spanish Republic and leading to the personal rule of Franco. I guess by that point guerrilla warfare was just imprinted into the Spanish (and Portuguese) DNA, or perhaps it was always that way, going back to the Celtiberians and Lusitanians. Persecutions and extrajudicial killings were carried out by both sides, but of course the greatest purge came from Franco after he took control. The remaining Spanish leftists were driven into exile in France, conveniently steamrolled by Nazi Germany a year later! Some people just can't catch a break.

[Lyathon]

ok

[Genava]

"Guerrilleros in Hispania? The myth of Iberian guerrillas against Rome"

Commonly accepted wisdom says that the ‘tribes’ that stood against the Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula were only capable of quite primitive warfare in strategic, logistical, organisational and tactical terms. If they could resist the might of the regular Roman legions for so long, it was because of the warlike nature of the peninsular peoples,because of Rome’s other, more pressing commitments elsewhere and because their style of guerrilla warfare was notoriously difficult to deal with. in fact, most of these points can be shown to be misleading or plain wrong.

https://www.academia.edu/735291/_Gue..._against_Rome_

I like to contradict you

[Roma_Victrix]

"Guerrilleros in Hispania? The myth of Iberian guerrillas against Rome"

Commonly accepted wisdom says that the ‘tribes’ that stood against the Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula were only capable of quite primitive warfare in strategic, logistical, organisational and tactical terms. If they could resist the might of the regular Roman legions for so long, it was because of the warlike nature of the peninsular peoples,because of Rome’s other, more pressing commitments elsewhere and because their style of guerrilla warfare was notoriously difficult to deal with. in fact, most of these points can be shown to be misleading or plain wrong.

https://www.academia.edu/735291/_Gue..._against_Rome_

I like to contradict you

I like a good contrarian now and then.

Did the Romans fight proper pitched battles in the field against the Iberians and normal lengthy sieges of walled towns and fortified oppida? Yes. There was plenty of that.

However, the Romans also fought against hit-and-run tactics and ambushes sprung out in the wilderness, larger but not terribly unlike those the Spanish guerrillas of the Napoleonic era used against the troops of France. For instance, when Quintus Fulvius Flaccus was ambushed at the Manlian Pass in 180 BC. Or when the troops from Segeda who fled to the Arevaci ambushed and raided the Roman troops under Quintus Fabius Nobilitor as he marched through thick forests in 153 BC. The elements are all there, you just don't want to admit it.

Also, the "guerrilla" aspects of tactical warfare is only one angle of my overall argument, which is also about draining of resources, manpower, and exhausting foreign occupiers, much like the peoples of Afghanistan managed to do throughout large parts of their history.

[Guils]

Roman soldier dying in Spain:

[Trarco]

I totally agree with Genava. Iberians fought in pitched battles and had line infantry. All of this is very well attested in both written sources and archaeological data.

BTW an ambush is not the same than a "guerrilla way to fight". The famous Celtiberian ambush you mention was a way to begin a pitched battle. For example Carthaginian armies also made ambushes but like in the Celtiberian case, the ambush was followed by a pitched battle

Curiously, during the Lusitanian War, it was Viriathus the one who tried to fight in pitched battle while the Romans refused to fight. Appian Iber., 65.

Neither Lusitanians, Celtiberians nor Iberians had a primitive way to fight based on skirmishes as the traditional historiographical hypothesises suggested. For example the Lusitanian armies were formed by thoushands of warriors that fought in pitched battles against Roman armies. In any case, the classical sources show how the Lusitanians did take advantage of their mobility to develop both ambushes and tactical retreats but the battle finished as a pitched one.

It seems you love the Iberian guerrilla myth but sorry, in EB2 the Iberian units are clearly line infantrymen

[Roma_Victrix]

Roman soldier dying in Spain:

Nice.

I totally agree with Genava. Iberians fought in pitched battles and had line infantry. All of this is very well attested in both written sources and archaeological data.

BTW an ambush is not the same than a "guerrilla way to fight". The famous Celtiberian ambush you mention was a way to begin a pitched battle. For example Carthaginian armies also made ambushes but like in the Celtiberian case, the ambush was followed by a pitched battle

Curiously, during the Lusitanian War, it was Viriathus the one who tried to fight in pitched battle while the Romans refused to fight. Appian Iber., 65.

Neither Lusitanians, Celtiberians nor Iberians had a primitive way to fight based on skirmishes as the traditional historiographical hypothesises suggested. For example the Lusitanian armies were formed by thoushands of warriors that fought in pitched battles against Roman armies. In any case, the classical sources show how the Lusitanians did take advantage of their mobility to develop both ambushes and tactical retreats but the battle finished as a pitched one.

It seems you love the Iberian guerrilla myth but sorry, in EB2 the Iberian units are clearly line infantrymen

That style of tactical retreat you are talking about and persuading enemies to chase you into an ambush is the concursare ("bustling"), which was employed by Viriathus. In either case, I'm not even strictly talking about that and I have already readily admitted there were plenty of pitched battles and proper sieges of towns and forts. However, your claim that the Iberians using guerrilla tactics is nothing but a myth is completely unsubstantiated and in fact contradicted by scholarship.

Uh oh, did Roma_Victrix learn how to read? Better watch out. The following sources make it clear that while wealthy Iberian states could furnish large field armies and prepare for lengthy sieges, the poorer Iberian tribes like the Cantabrians who stood little to no chance against the mainline infantry tactics of the larger, superior, better equipped Roman armies were basically forced to adopt guerrilla tactics in order to survive and win (however temporary that was and ultimately curbed by the end of the Cantabrian Wars as explained above). I'm not sure how well read you are on the topic, but you should read these if you still erroneously think guerrilla warfare in ancient Iberia is somehow a myth:

*Fernando Quesada Sanz (2015). "Iberians as enemies", in Encyclopedia of the Roman army. Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 505 - 508.
* Fernando Quesada Sanz (2011) [2003]. "Military developments in the 'Late Iberian' culture (c. 237-c. 195 BC)" in N. Sekunda and A. Noguero's Hellenistic Warfare I, Proceedings Conference Torun, Poland.
* Joaquín Gómez-Pantoja, Eduardo Sánchez Moreno (2007). Protohistoria y Antigüedad de la Península Ibérica II. Sílex Ediciones. ISBN 978-84-773718-2-3.
* Ramón Menéndez Pidal (1962). Historia de España: España romana. Espasa Calpe.

As Quesada Sanz clearly states, the guerrilla warfare tactics were greatly exaggerated by 19th and 20th century scholars, but nevertheless the Lusitanians and northern Iberians still employed it and irregular tactics. To be honest, this is even borne out in our mod EBII, where the Cantabrians are among the lightest and swiftest cavalry in the game, using circular shooting tactics with javelins and relying on speed, stealth, and agility rather than staying power.

[Trarco]

-Starting a pitched battle with a big ambush is not a guerrilla tactic. Hannibal did it in Italy, do you think that the Hannibalic army fought as "guerrilleros"?

-Viriathus didn't use guerrilla tactics as the written sources clearly show. He even conquered forts as Erisana.

-Saying that the Iberian guerrilla tactic is a myth is not contradicted by scholarship. At least if you are referring to modern studies. If you are referring to the studies of the XIX and early XX centuries, then yes, we can find a lot of contradictions.

-I am not sure why you quote the Fernando Quesada Sanz's studies. He is the main author who think that the Iberian guerrilla is a myth. In fact, he's the one who developed this idea.

-Cantabrians weren't poor at all (as archaeologocal data shows. Probably you are following Strabo's Augustean propaganda here). Also, they did were able to gather huge armies. Again these peoples didn't use guerrilla tactics: Astures attacked Romans in pitched battle and classical authors wrote that Cantabrians were trained like the hoplites did. Obviously the didn't fight in a Greek phalanx but they did formed a primitive phalanx mainly formed by line infantry.

-There is only one written source that speaks about a guerrilla tactic. However, it is not related neither with Lusitanians, Celtiberians,Iberians nor Cantabrians but with Vaccei.

-The modern studies (mainly Quesada and Lorrio) understand the Iberian warfare as a way to fight that include line infantry who fought in pitched battle (like for example the Hispano-Celtic peoples that used a cuneus tactic aginst Romans, the Ilergetes that clearly fought in close combat, etc.). What they also add is that these Iberian warriors used a light panoply, and that are similar to the Hellenistic thurophoroi that can develop versatile tactics.

-You ask me if I have studied this topic and the answer is yes, I have really read about this matter a lot. And of course I (and EBII and modern authors) will still defend the idea that the Iberian guerrilla tactic is a myth as the written sources and archaeological data show.

-About the Cantabrian unit of EBII. All the Iberian cavalry units were lighter and the horsemen used javelins a lot. But the line infantry is another story. Wait for the Cantabrian axemen, he is clearly line infantry

-All of this doesn't mean that Iberians didn't use skirmishers like other armies did in the Mediterranean. They used them and in EBII are represented by the Neizes but what I can't accept is the myht that says that all the Iberian warriors were skirmishers and were not able to fight in pitched battle. These Iberian skirmishers were only a small part of the whole army as it happened for example in the Roman army.

[Roadworx]

-You ask me if I have studied this topic and the answer is yes, I have really read about this matter a lot. And of course I (and EBII and modern authors) will still defend the idea that the Iberian guerrilla tactic is a myth as the written sources and archaeological data show.

yeah, but isn't it cooler to imagine roman legionaries getting shot at by the viet cong?

[sarpedon21]

welcome to the ricefields motherf@@@@er!

[Roma_Victrix]

yeah, but isn't it cooler to imagine roman legionaries getting shot at by the viet cong?

You're damn right it is!

welcome to the ricefields motherf@@@@er!

That meme never gets old for some reason.

-I am not sure why you quote the Fernando Quesada Sanz's studies. He is the main author who think that the Iberian guerrilla is a myth. In fact, he's the one who developed this idea.

Perhaps you should go back and reread his works then, because he very clearly states the following (the bold text is my own emphasis):

Primary sources and archaeology provide a different picture of western (Lusitanians) and northern peoples (Galaici, Astures, Cantabri). Although capable of open battle in mountainous terrain, Viriathus the Lusitanian and other gifted leaders of the Cantrabri seem to have favored more irregular, guerrilla-type tactics (Cass. Dio 53.25). But even then Octavius had to employ an extremely big army of at least seven legions plus auxilia to complete the conquest in the far north (27- 19 BCE).

Here it is, from the mouth of Quesada Sanz himself, telling you that guerrilla warfare existed in ancient western & northern Iberia, citing Cassius Dio as his primary source. Do you still deny it, then? His overall point is that guerrilla warfare simply wasn't the norm, not that it didn't exist at all, which is the erroneous misinterpretation you are now attributing to Quesada Sanz for whatever stubborn, unfounded reason. I would suggest that you carefully go back and reread similar sources such as Gomez-Pantoja and Menendez Pidal, most which I believe are of the same consensus as Quesada Sanz.

-About the Cantabrian unit of EBII. All the Iberian cavalry units were lighter and the horsemen used javelins a lot. But the line infantry is another story. Wait for the Cantabrian axemen, he is clearly line infantry

Excellent! That is definitely something to look forward to as I think the Iberian roster could definitely be fleshed out a bit more than it is.

[Septentrionalis]

I admire the talent and energy in Roma Victrix and contemplate what the world would be like if he put all that effort into something even more useful!

[Trarco]

No, you are the one who is making the misinterpretation. You have just read that summary and can't understand that in their first works he only focused on Iberians (ie non Indo-European eastern natives) and Celtiberians. Later, he also studied the Lusitanians. See for example "Un Héroe para Hispania. Viriato. La Aventura de la Historia 148" where he clearly shows how Viriathus didn't use guerrilla tactics. You can find it in academia.edu

Sorry but here the stubborn person are you and also the one who is misunderstanding Quesada Sanz (what is understandable if you have only read a basic paper rather than his more complex studies and thesis). What Quesada says is that the norm was the close combat with line infantry. Then there were also poorer skirmishers that supported the line infantry that did used "guerrilla" tactics like for example the velites, but it can't be applied to the whole Iberian armies! It's just a part of the army...Horsemen mainly fought as skirmishers too but they also fought as dismounted warriors in close combat if it was needed.

Again, the only written source that speaks about a guerrilla tactic (something that the own Quesada reminds) is in a Vaccei context: Vaccei threw their javelins to the Roman army but they had to run away when they consumed their javelins. So, it is in a very specif area (Vaccei-Cantabrian) where we can find this practice that cannot be applied to other peoples such as the Lusitanians as you want. And even in the Cantabrian wars when these peoples were able to gather huge armies, they favoured the pitched battles as the written sources show. In regard with this, we will have a regional infantry unit of this area in EBII that will be the only non-levy unit in the Iberian Peninsula that will have the skirmish-mode.

I challenge you to find a written source that speaks about an Iberian, Celtiberian, Lusitanian or Callaeci army using a guerrilla tactic.

Here the problem is very clear: you understand the Ancient Iberian guerrilla tactics as the following one: fast attacks made by small warbands that always avoided to fight in pitched battle. And Quesada is against that concept. When you opened this fun thread you thought that the whole Iberian peoples used guerrilla tactics but now you already say that neither Celtiberians nor Iberians used guerrilla tactics and that it was only used sometimes in the north. I am very happy because of that. It's difficult to destroy a historiographical myth, so little by little. In summary now you already know that in the best case the guerrilla tactic was not the rule in the Iberian Peninsula and that even if it was used in very specific Vaccei-Cantabrian contexts (as I said in my previous post) you can't neither speak about "Iberian guerrilla tactic" nor extend this practice to the Lusitanians or other main peoples of the Peninsula anymore

Thanks for your suggestion but I knew the Spanish bibliography about the Iberian ancient warfare very well at the university, I can suggest you some interesting studies if you want.

I agree about the Cantabrian unit. Having an axemen in the west and more specifically in the Iberian Peninsula will give more flavour to that area

[Roma_Victrix]

Um no. I never said all Iberians used guerrilla tactics; if you reread the OP, I was very delicate and deliberate in how I worded things. I just said that Viriathus was a guerrilla leader and that Sertorius used similar tactics, which as you will see below, is entirely supported by various sources. Misinterpreting things again, are we?

Could you quote these other sources by Quesada Sanz, then? I don't entirely doubt you, yet "trust but verify" is needed here, especially after you came to a very different conclusion than Quesada in his own words, who explains that pitched battles were the norm among most Iberians who could afford it, but explicitly says that irregular guerrilla tactics were used by Lusitanians and Cantabrians! You can't just ignore that or wave it away because you don't like it, even if Quesada elaborates further in other works that the seemingly guerrilla tactics should be interpreted as something else.

Perhaps it wasn't wise to challenge me to find any written source that says the Lusitanians or other Iberians used guerrilla tactics, or that Quintus Sertorius later mirrored them, because it wasn't very hard to find in mainstream scholarship, or other primary sources aside from Cassius Dio, such as Appianus:

* Francisco Queiroga. War and Castros: New Approaches to the Northwestern Portuguese Iron Age. Archaeopress, University of Michigan, 2003.

...On the other hand, Sertorius himself adopted the famous Lusitanian fighting technique of guerrilla warfare in rough terrain, and was aware of its effectiveness in that particular context.

The expedition against the Cantabrians early in 25 ВC was slow and ineffective, as the Cantabrian tactics of guerrilla warfare (Dio 53, 25, 2) did not allow direct and decisive confrontations.

* Daniel Varga. The Roman Wars in Spain: The Military Confrontation with Guerrilla Warfare. Pen and Sword, 2015.

Appianus writes that 'Lusitanian groups' who had been influenced by Viriathus, employed guerrilla tactics against Junius Brutus, who did not know how to respond to these attacks: or according to Appianus had seen no benefit in pursuing these gangs, and instead employed a scorched earth policy, and burned down crops in the fields, attacked villages and killed civilians... ...In the Cantabrian and Asturian Wars, the native warriors very skillfully used their knowledge of the mountainous terrain, with its narrow, winding valleys and gorges, of Northern Hispania. Dio Cassius recounts that in the year 26, some 180 years after Rome had launched their campaign to conquer Hispania, the Asturians and Cantabrians attacked the armies of Augustus and Agrippa, using well-organized guerrilla-warfare tactics.

* Sara E. Phang. "Spanish Wars, Course", in Sarah E. Phang, Iain Spence, Douglas Kelly, and Peter Londey (editors), Conflict in Ancient Greece and Rome: The Definitive Political, Social, and Military Encyclopedia, pp. 1218-1219. ABC-CLIO, 2016.

The late Republic's civil wars migrated to Spain. The Marian supporter Sertorius established a base in Spain, employing Celtiberians as guerrilla warriors and separating Spain from Republican control from 82-72 BC, until he was defeated by Pompey.

Now, if you want to go against the grain and argue that these irregular tactics should not be considered guerrilla ones, that's fine, but don't come in here to this thread acting astonished that I would use terminology that is still favored by academia and begrudgingly used even by Quesada Sanz. Excuse me for favoring the terminology of a PhD lecturer Sara E. Phang over someone on an EBII subforum who has yet to quote a single source to back his interpretation of primary sources.

[Jurand of Cracow]

I admire the talent and energy in Roma Victrix and contemplate what the world would be like if he put all that effort into something even more useful!

I absolutely share this admiration.

[Trarco]

I keep my challenge because I am speaking about primary written sources.

I think you are making something worst than misinterpreting me. You are just ignoring that I spoke about the existence of guerrilla tactics in the Vaccei northern context in one of my first posts, and then you try to distort my main message: the fact that guerrilla tactic is only attested in a northern-Vaccei context and that you cannot extend this practice to the whole Iberian Peninsula (something you did).

It seems you are the typical person who always want to be completely right. In your first post you said that Celtiberians used hit and runs tactics against Roman armies. And even you suggest that Greeks would have had problems with the inner peoples becauase of similar reasons (ignoring that Emporion united with an Iberian people through a synoecism and that both Greeks and Iberians developed a symbiotic trade). In general terms you did think that the whole Iberian peoples used guerrilla tactics. And it's okay because it is an stereotype and all we know that stereotypes are easily accepted.

Then you read the Quesada's paper that is against that idea. So, you accepted that neither Iberians nor Celtiberians (as you said in the first post) used guerrilla tactics. But you needed to be right. So, you forgot your initial ideas in order to focus mainly in Lusitanians and Cantabrians. Here is where the problem begins. You began to suggest that I was stubborn and indirectly a bad historian because I intentionally ignored some sources.

However, you are the one who is intentionally ignoring my posts. First of all, you ignore that Quesada is my main source and you ignore that I do accept that the practice of the guerrilla tactics existed in a specific northern-Vaccei context (the only area where it's attested).

Finally, you intentionally ignore my quotes that support the fact that Viriathus was not a guerrilla commander as you say. So, why do you ask for more papers and quotes rather than focusing on the ones I provide?

- Viriathus had a huge army of thousands of warriors (instead of small warbands). He conquered cities such as Erisana (something that cannot be done by a guerrilla commander) and also tried to fight in pitched battle when Romans avoided it (Appian Iber., 65)

-The own Quesada Sanz supports the fact that Viriathus didn't use guerrilla tactics. "Un héroes para Hispania. Viriato". La aventura de la Historia 148, 2011". It's in academia edu, read it.

So prove me that Viriathus was a guerrilla commander. What are your sources? Of course first you would have to read the Quesada's paper (since you still use Quesada to defend that Viriathus was a guerrilla commander when Quesada himself is against that idea).

The main message is that the guerrilla tactics weren't used by neither Celtiberians, Iberians nor Lusitanians, the main groups that fought against Rome and that traditionally it's thought that did use guerrilla tactics. Don't distort my message (that is the same that is supported by Quesada).

The north is badly known and the only context where we can find this practice. See my second post where I mention this fact that you intentionally ignore.

Finally, I am not here to stroke your ego. Maybe some day you will want to understand my message but belive me, I am not going to insist on this matter because of several matters: I haven't got a good English level (I always need to write you using a dictionary for some words) and I haven't got much free time (I am focused on my public exams and I prefer to use my scarce free time in developing a new fun government system with a lot of choices for Lusitanians).

PS. I haven't got any problem with you, in fact I like your fun posts and your activity as a player of EBII. It's just that I think you are being stubborn with this matter.

[QuintusSertorius]

I prefer to use my scarce free time in developing a new fun government system with a lot of choices for Lusitanians.

You heard it here first, major revamp of the Lusitanians coming in the next full release (not the upcoming patch).

[Roma_Victrix]

It seems you are the typical person who always want to be completely right. In your first post you said that Celtiberians used hit and runs tactics against Roman armies. And even you suggest that Greeks would have had problems with the inner peoples becauase of similar reasons (ignoring that Emporion united with an Iberian people through a synoecism and that both Greeks and Iberians developed a symbiotic trade). In general terms you did think that the whole Iberian peoples used guerrilla tactics. And it's okay because it is an stereotype and all we know that stereotypes are easily accepted.

A stereotype...you make it sound like it's just popular misconception or public imagination rather than the scholarly consensus Quesada Sanz is going against, including (as you will see below) additional authors such as Walter Laqueur and Max Boot. For instance, you don't publish something with the Princeton University Press if all you are doing is relaying stereotypes, like when Timothy P. Wickham-Crowley, in his Guerrillas and Revolution in Latin America: A Comparative Study of Insurgents and Regimes Since 1956, Princeton University Press, 1992, says on p. 3 that Viriathus among others "employed guerrilla warfare against the Roman imperial forces in ancient Europe."

Also, you're stretching my argument farther than I ever did and inserting things into it that I actually didn't say in the OP, but yes, given the sources I have generally read, guerrilla warfare was a feature of the Iberian peninsula. Yet ancient and medieval Vietnam had professional mainline infantry armies as well, it wasn't all just guerrilla tactics. I mean obviously. Saying otherwise is absurd given how they fought back several Chinese empires and even invaded southern China during its Song dynasty. Saying it was all just a bunch of guerrilla fighting was NEVER the argument I made for either Vietnam or Spain, so again, please do not misconstrue my argument, a large part of which is about the Pyrenees and comparing it to jungles of Vietnam, if you read the entire OP.

Then you read the Quesada's paper that is against that idea. So, you accepted that neither Iberians nor Celtiberians (as you said in the first post) used guerrilla tactics. But you needed to be right. So, you forgot your initial ideas in order to focus mainly in Lusitanians and Cantabrians. Here is where the problem begins. You began to suggest that I was stubborn and indirectly a bad historian because I intentionally ignored some sources.

What? I didn't accept that at all, pal, especially since Sara E. Phang explicitly states that Quintus Sertorius used Celtiberians as guerrilla fighters. Obviously not all Celtiberians fought this way, but you're denying the very existence of guerrilla warfare, which is contradicted by the authors and their quotes that I supplied above for you.

However, you are the one who is intentionally ignoring my posts. First of all, you ignore that Quesada is my main source and you ignore that I do accept that the practice of the guerrilla tactics existed in a specific northern-Vaccei context (the only area where it's attested).

You keep mentioning the Vaccei, which is nice, but I'd rather see you address the three authors above aside from Quesada Sanz who tell you in no uncertain terms that not only Viriathus but also Quintus Sertorius used guerrilla tactics in Iberia, and more generally the Cantabrians as well.

You want more authors? Try Walter Laqueur's Guerrilla: A Historical And Critical Study, Routledge, 2018 [1976], which not only relays Theodor Mommson's opinion that Viriathus was "chief of the guerrillas", but says that Quintus Sertorus led "a revival of guerrilla warfare in the peninsula" about fifty years after the death of Viriathus. Laqueur also explains how Roman historians occasionally used phrases like street robbers and highwaymen (latro-listes) to describe Iberian insurgents, even though Iberians were clearly capable of raising armies and fighting in normal pitched battles in the field.

Laqueur's work is a little bit dated, but in addition to the sources in my previous post, why don't you try Max Boot and his scholarly boots on for size. Max Boot's Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present, Liveright Publishing (W.W. Norton & Company), 2013, states the following on p. 22:

"...Viriathus, a shepherd who became the leader of a guerrilla army, had inflicted one setback after another on the legions during the preceding eight years. Operating from mountain strongholds, he perfected a tactic beloved of primitive warriors everywhere: he would pretend to flee before Roman forces in order to draw them into an ambush. This stratagem paid off in 146 BC when his Lusitanian tribesmen, armed with spears and curved swords, managed to kill four thousand Romans out of an army of ten thousand...Catching the rebel leader proved impossible. He and his men traveled light on 'very agile horses', the Greek historian Appian wrote, 'while the Romans were unable to pursue him in the same way because of the weight of their armor, their ignorance of the routes and the inferiority of their horses'."

If Quesada Sanz wants to argue that this example above is not guerrilla warfare because it is attached to a larger field battle, he might have an argument, but all the elements of guerrilla warfare are there, picking off smaller units while luring them out into unfamiliar paths away from the main force and using speed and agility to harass and destroy them while always being able to flee back into the wilderness. That's like guerrilla warfare 101.

- Viriathus had a huge army of thousands of warriors (instead of small warbands). He conquered cities such as Erisana (something that cannot be done by a guerrilla commander) and also tried to fight in pitched battle when Romans avoided it (Appian Iber., 65)

Yes, I'm not going to argue against that, but it still doesn't change the interpretation of his overall tactics as mentioned by Varga, Laqueur, Boot, and other academics.

-The own Quesada Sanz supports the fact that Viriathus didn't use guerrilla tactics. "Un héroes para Hispania. Viriato". La aventura de la Historia 148, 2011". It's in academia edu, read it.

Okay, I'll check it out, if you insist on not sharing a single passage of it even though I've bothered to share quotes for you from multiple sources. In either case, Quesada Sanz' minority opinion doesn't change what Phang (2016), Varga (2015), and Queiroga (2003) have written about guerrilla warfare in Iberia, all of whom I've already quoted above for you. Why don't you take a bold stance and argue those three are all wrong, plus Boot (2013) and Laqueur (1976), and Quesada Sanz is the only one who's right? No? Not confident enough to do that? Varga explicitly states that Viriathus used guerrilla tactics (read his quote above), and now Laqueur and Boot say it as well. You honestly need more?

So prove me that Viriathus was a guerrilla commander. What are your sources? Of course first you would have to read the Quesada's paper (since you still use Quesada to defend that Viriathus was a guerrilla commander when Quesada himself is against that idea).

This might be Quesada Sanz's argument and he has every right to challenge scholarly consensus if he has conflicting evidence, but it certainly clashes head on with Francisco Queiroga (2003) and Daniel Varga (2015), both of whom I already quoted for you above. Did you just selectively ignore them or something, again because you don't like them?

That's not a winning argument you've got there, especially when Varga explicitly says Viriathus used guerrilla tactics and Queiroga says it was a "famous" one among the Lusitanians. Unsurprisingly, both Queiroga and Varga mention the Lusitanians and Cantabrians in a similar context. You're not blind and in need of Braille text; you along with everyone else can see the quotes I provided above as plain as day.

The main message is that the guerrilla tactics weren't used by neither Celtiberians, Iberians nor Lusitanians, the main groups that fought against Rome and that traditionally it's thought that did use guerrilla tactics. Don't distort my message (that is the same that is supported by Quesada).

"Traditionally"...that's not very generous of you considering how I quoted an encyclopedia published as recently as 2016 that explicitly states that Quintus Sertorius used Celtiberians as guerrilla warriors.

PS. I haven't got any problem with you, in fact I like your fun posts and your activity as a player of EBII. It's just that I think you are being stubborn with this matter.

I don't have a problem with you either, just your argument, refusal to share one quote from any source, and over reliance on Quesada Sanz when other very recent academic authors clearly contradict his alleged argument with their chosen phrasing. Good luck with your modding, of course, and I look forward to seeing your Iberian units, which I will use as mainline infantry as Quesada Sanz suggests! Trying to imitate guerrilla warfare in EBII isn't my thing, way too messy and too many variables to look after.

You heard it here first, major revamp of the Lusitanians coming in the next full release (not the upcoming patch).

May the Iberian sky father Candamius be praised! Sing his praises and worship him, he who provides bounties of new Iberian units!

[Genava]

[Trarco]

Sorry, I cannot share passages because I am writting with a mobile phone and I won't be at home until next week (where I have my computer).

The scholary consensus use traditional sources whose historiographical orgin dates back the XIX/early XX centuries. This is why I use terms as "stereotype". Now modern historiography is refuting this "scholary consensus". The English studies you have quoted aren't focused on the Iberian Peninsula and it seems they aren't using the Spanish updated bibliography. For example, Max Boot's quote says that Lusitanians used curved swords (falcata) and that Viriathus was a serphed. Sorry but it shows a limited knoweldege of the ancient Iberian Peninsula. His Spanish sources are the traditional ones that defend stereotypes. The falcatas were very rare in Lusitania (it's mainly a weapon from the Iberian Bastetania and Contestania/ SE of the Iberian Peninsula). Instead, the typical swords used in Lusitania were Alcacer do Sal-type and Arcobriga-type whose blades were straight. Also, Viriathus was not a sherped. That is clearly a Roman interpretation strongly influenced by Stoic philosophy. An anthropological-historian exercice can show that these Lusitanian "shepherds" were actually aristocratic lords of cattle. Something that is also attested in the Vettonian archaeology (Warfare, redistribution and society in western Iberia. Eduardo Sánchez-Moreno in Warfare, Violence and Slavery in Prehistory. Proceedings of a Prehistoric Society conference at Sheffield University, 2005).

As you can see Boot is using obsolete sources when he speaks about the western Iberian Peninsula. The guerrilla tactic is just one of the stereotypes he's using.

About Timothy P. Wickham-Crowley's publication. It dates back to 1992. At that year, the anti-guerrilla historiographical bibliography wasn't "consolidated". In fact it's when these ideas were appearing for the first time. Anyway, what are his primary sources? IMO this is not a valid argument.

About the quotes of your previous post:

-Sara E. Phang: She is not speaking about a Pre-Roman context but uses the term "Celtiberian guerrilla". This concept has been excellently refuted by Quesada (Los Celtíberos y la guerra: tácticas, cuerpos, efectivos y bajas. Un análisis a partir de la campaña del 153, Fernando Quesada Sanz, in Segeda y su contexto histórico. Entre Catón y Nobilior. F. Burillo, Zaragoza, 2006).

This study uses both written sources and archaeological data to show that Celtiberians didn't use guerrilla tactics. What is true is that Celtiberian armies did have skirmishers to support the line infantry like in the case of Roman and Carthaginian armies. However that cannot be understood as guerrilla tactics. Just one example (you can find a lot of them in the above quoted paper also available on Internet): written sources used the term "iusta legio" to name the Celtiberian line infantry that was part of a Celtiberian army recruited by Carthaginians. This army also had "levis armatura" (the minority of the army and skirmishers). (Livy 28, 1, 5).

-Francisco Queiroga: when he speaks about a Pre-Roman context, he writes about a Cantabrian context. That is the same northern-Vaccei context that I have mentioned several times. So, nothing to add here for my part.

-Daniel Varga:

1-This author is comparing two different areas that must be studied separately. His opinion shows a poor knoweldege about the ethnogenesis of the western Iberian Peninsula: Viriathus acted to the south of the river Tagus and the Brutus's campaign happened to the north of the river Tagus. These areas were not inhabited by the same Lusitanian peoples. The Viriathus' lands were inhabited by Lusitanian groups that must be understood as a supra-ethnic category formed by different substrates (Tartessian, Atlantic, Indo-European and even Punic). To the north of the river Tagus the Lusitanian groups were much more related with the Callaeci (Proto-Celtic/Atlantic substrate).

2- The part that says that the Lusitanian bands of the north of the river Tagus were "influenced by Viriathus" is really ambiguous. You can understand with the following meaning "they used the Viriathus's tactics" but what it actually means is that these bands were inspired by Viriathus or that they occupied the power vacuum after the Viriathus's death. So, these bands (similar to the ones that fought against Caesar) cannot be understood as the same (southern) Lusitanians that fought in the Viriathus' War whose area of influence wasn't in the north of the river Tagus but in the Baeturia and northern Baetica.

3- So, the robbers of the north of the river Tagus aren't the same peoples that formed the Viriathus's pluriethnic army. As you can see this doesn't prove the guerrilla tactic among the southern Lusitanians who fought in the Lusitanian War. BTW, in this campaign Callaeci fought against Brutus in order to support northern Lusitanians. They gathered 60.000 warriors and lost 50.000. Obviously the number is exaggerated but the number of warriors and losses reveal a pitched battle. Only in a pitched battle the losses could be so high (Oros. V, 5, 12; Livy. per. 56; Flor. I, 33, 12).

I don't agree with you about Viriathus's using guerrilla tactics. First of all he didn't use small bands but a huge army. He could divide it in order to take advantage of their mobility but after that all the warriors were gathered to fight. You could say that the ambushes would be guerrilla tactics but once the ambush was made, it became a pitched battle like Hannibal did in Italy and like Celtiberians did against Nobilior. This is not guerrilla tactics but an ambush on a large scale that is followed by a pitched battle. (Un heroe para Hispania. Viriato. Fernando Quesada Sanz, 2011).

You still ignore Appian, Iber. 65. Why when sources clearly speak about Iberian armies fighting in pitched battles (in this case Viriathus) are not valid? That is a stubborn way to think.

BTW, the sources that qualify my evaluation of the Daniel Varga's passage:

Lusitania. Historia y etnologia. Luciano Pérez Vilatela, Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 2000. Specially pp. 218-227.

Imperialism and multipolarity in the Far West: Beyond the Lusitanians (237-146BC), Eduardo Sánchez Moreno in War, Warlords, and Interstate Relations in the Ancient Mediterranean.

It is true that Quesada is my main source to defend the fact that guerilla tactics weren't the rule in the Iberian Peninsula and specially among Iberians (non-indoeuropean eastern peoples), Celtiberians and Viriathus/southern Lusitanians. But there are more authors who follow this idea (and they are more expert than the authors you have quoted). In regard with this matter my quotes have a better quality because these authors are really specialised in military matters.

Some suggestions:

Las panoplias numantinas y romanas. Alberto J. Lorrio Alvarado and Fernando Quesada Sanz in Numancia eterna. 2150 aniversario: la memoria de un simbolo. Junta de Castilla y Leon. Consejeria de cultura y turismo, 2017.

Los antagonistas en las guerras numantinas: Mitos, concepción y practica de la guerra y efectivos. Fenando Quesada Sanz in Schulten y el descubrimiento de Nvmantia, 2017.

El armamento de influencia La Tène en la península ibérica (siglos V-I a.C.) Gustavo Garcia Jimenez. Universitat de Girona, 2011.

Edit: thanks for your kind words about my modding of the Iberian Peninsula. I think that the new Lusitanians will be great and fun.