62 Facts About Portuguese Army

1.

Portuguese Army is the land component of the Armed Forces of Portugal and is its largest branch.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,470
2.

Portuguese Army is commanded by the Chief of Staff of the Army, a subordinate of the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces for the operational matters and a direct subordinate of the Ministry of National Defense for all other matters.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,471
3.

Presently, the Portuguese Army is an entirely professional force made of career personnel and of volunteer personnel .

FactSnippet No. 1,407,472
4.

Currently, the Portuguese Army maintains forces or elements deployed in the following international missions:.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,473
5.

Currently, the Portuguese Army maintains elements deployed in the following CTM missions:.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,474
6.

Portuguese Army has a long history, directly connected to the history of Portugal since its early beginnings.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,475
7.

Portuguese Army has its remote origins in the military forces of the County of Portugal that allowed its ruler, Afonso Henriques, to obtain its independence from the Kingdom of Leon and to enlarge its territory in the 12th century.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,476
8.

Portuguese Army forces were involved in the Reconquista, successively advancing south to reconquer territories occupied by the Moors and expand the territory of Portugal.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,477
9.

Occasionally, for certain military campaigns, like the siege of Lisbon, the Portuguese Army forces were reinforced by Crusaders from the Northern Europe, who happened to be passing by the Portuguese Army coasts, on their way to the Holy Land.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,478
10.

Organization of the Portuguese Army military developed during the Middle Ages, leading to a more complex structure and the consequent creation of new command offices.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,479
11.

Advanced organization of the Portuguese Army forces was not sufficient to avoid the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Alcacer Quibir with the death of the young and childless King Sebastian.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,480
12.

Portuguese Army forces were mobilized to fight for Spain in its campaigns in several theatres.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,481
13.

The Portuguese Restoration War then started, with the Portuguese Army defeating the Spanish Army in a series of military campaigns, until achieving the final victory in 1668.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,482
14.

Second line was made up of the auxiliary troops that formed the reserve of the Portuguese Army, being able to assume the same role as the troops of the first line, if necessary.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,483
15.

In 1707, with the Portuguese Army engaged in the War of the Spanish Succession, King John V decreed a reform of the military organization.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,484
16.

Under French occupation, the Army was disbanded and its most important units were integrated into the Portuguese Legion raised by order of Napoleon, that would fight for him in the campaigns of Germany, Austria and Russia.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,485
17.

The first major battle of the Anglo-Portuguese Army was the Battle of Bussaco in 1810, the success of which gave the inexperienced Portuguese troops confidence in their abilities.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,486
18.

Portuguese Army underwent a major reorganization in 1807, being focused mainly on the territorial military division of the country, for recruitment, mobilization and training purposes, taking advantage of the data obtained in the 1801 census about the number and distribution of the Portuguese population.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,487
19.

In 1809, following the Battle of Corunna, the Portuguese Army was reconstituted under the initiative of the Secretary of War Pereira Forjaz and re-trained by the British under the direction of Lieutenant General William Beresford.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,488
20.

The lack of experienced Portuguese officers was mitigated by the inclusion of a number of British officers in the several Army units, in a way that most of them had a Portuguese commanding officer and a British second in command or vice versa.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,489
21.

In 1815, Brazil is raised to the status of Kingdom, with the whole Portuguese Army Monarchy becoming the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,490
22.

In 1816, the Portuguese Army forces invaded again the Banda Oriental, defeating the forces of Artigas in a series of battles.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,491
23.

The Portuguese Army divided itself by the two sides, although most of its units aligned on the side of Michael.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,492
24.

The Liberals raised the so-called "Liberator Portuguese Army", made up mainly of newly raised units, but incorporating some units of the regular Portuguese Army that passed to their side.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,493
25.

The NatioGuard was however not part of the Portuguese Army, being instead subordinated to the civil administrative authorities.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,494
26.

For several years, the Portuguese Army would be involved in a number of internal civil conflicts that erupted as remnants of the Liberal Wars.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,495
27.

The first line of the Portuguese Army thus included eight cavalry, 16 infantry, four cacadores and three artillery regiments, the Engineers Battalion and the Telegraph Corps.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,496
28.

Portuguese Army raised by the Liberals to fight the Miguelites came to be known as the "Liberator Portuguese Army" .

FactSnippet No. 1,407,497
29.

Transformation of the Liberator Army into the new Portuguese Army occurred by the organization established in July 1834.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,498
30.

Besides the previous referred corps and units, the Portuguese Army included the fortresses staffs, the secretariats, the academies, the Military College, the arsenals and trains, the Telegraph Corps, training depots, the Veterinary School, veterans, invalids and fortress garrisons.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,499
31.

Until the 1840s and to face the internal troubles caused by the political instability that followed the Liberal Wars, the Portuguese Army continued to be reinforced with units of volunteers, generically referred as the "national battalions".

FactSnippet No. 1,407,500
32.

So, most of the Portuguese Army units were frequently requested by the local administrative authorities to maintain public order and to perform other police duties, employing in these services an important part of their personnel.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,501
33.

In 1901, the units of Portuguese Army included one engineering regiment, three engineering independent companies, six mounted artillery regiments, one horse artillery batteries group, one mountain artillery batteries group, six garrison artillery groups, four garrison artillery independent batteries, 10 cavalry regiments, six cacadores battalions and 27 infantry regiments.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,502
34.

Besides these, the Portuguese Army included a number of service support units, schools and other establishments.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,503
35.

The Field Portuguese Army included a commander-in-chief and its headquarters, four active army divisions, active army independent troops, active army train and garrison and reserve troops.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,504
36.

In India, the Portuguese Army had to face several uprisings of local military units.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,505
37.

Military forces of the Portuguese Overseas, continued to constitute separate organizations, distinct from the so-called Army of Portugal or Army of the Kingdom.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,506
38.

The Portuguese Army would engaged in combat against the Germans in the European Western Front, in the South-West Africa and in the East Africa campaigns.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,507
39.

Republican reform of the Portuguese Army implemented between January and May 1911 did not change deeply the organization of the last years of the Monarchy, the changes being especially the honors, disciplinary and conscription systems, with the transformation of a mainly professional army into a mainly militia army.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,508
40.

The Portuguese Army troops included the active troops, the reserve troops and the territorial troops.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,509
41.

An aviation unit would integrate the Portuguese Army Forces campaigning in East Africa and Portuguese Army pilots would fight in the Western Front integrated in French aviation squadrons.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,510
42.

From 1936 on, a number of Portuguese Army volunteers offered to fight in the Spanish Civil War on the Francoist nationalist side.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,511
43.

The militia-type Portuguese Army Legion is formalized as being part of the military structure.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,512
44.

The Military Aeronautics arm – although continued to be administratively part of the Portuguese Army – gained a high level of operational autonomy, starting to have its own central command, what transformed it into an almost separate branch of service.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,513
45.

Besides this, the Portuguese Army authorities received intelligence about the existence of both Axis and Allied plans to occupy the islands, to use them to control the North Atlantic.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,514
46.

However, at the same time, the Portuguese Army activated a small light aviation service for artillery observation and maintained it until 1955, when it was disbanded and its aircraft transferred to the Air Force.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,515
47.

The Portuguese Army continues to have however a highly administrative and logistical autonomy, including its own ministry and a network of territorial commands.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,516
48.

The new doctrines and military technological requirements of the Cold War led to the creation of new corps in the Portuguese Army, including the Materiel Service, the Military Police, the Communications arm and the Signal Intelligence Service.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,517
49.

Besides the cacadores units, the Portuguese Army raised and fielded regimental-level battlegroups headquarters and a number of specialized units .

FactSnippet No. 1,407,518
50.

The Portuguese Army raised special forces and was involved in the organization of a number of irregular forces.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,519
51.

The Portuguese Army continued to be mainly staffed with conscripts, framed by a core of professional officers and NCOs.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,520
52.

The Portuguese Army Ministry was formally disbanded in 1974, but its structure continued to exist, with some adjustments, under the management of the Chief of Staff of the Portuguese Army, who gained the status of minister.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,521
53.

Involvement of Portugal in a series of multinational and even national peace operations in foreign countries led the Portuguese Army to become again a mainly expeditionary oriented force.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,522
54.

Since the end of the 20th century, the Portuguese Army participated with national deployed forces in numerous foreign operations, including in Angola, Mozambique, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, East Timor, Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,523
55.

The regiments of the Portuguese Army became again designed by numbers and not anymore by the place where they were based.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,524
56.

The FRI includes the ground, the special operations, the naval and the air components, with the Portuguese Army assuring the first component and participating in the second one.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,525
57.

The Portuguese Army provides a special operations detachment to the initial core of the special operations component.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,526
58.

Accordingly, with this organization, the Portuguese Army is commanded by the Chief of Staff of the Portuguese Army and includes:.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,527
59.

Portuguese Army Staff is the body of study, conceiving and planning of the Portuguese Army activities, for the decision support of the CEME.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,528
60.

The regiments are the base units of the Portuguese Army and integrate the structure for the readying of forces and logistical support.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,529
61.

The system of forces of the Portuguese Army itself includes a fix component and an operational component.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,530
62.

Fix component of the system of forces of the Portuguese Army is constituted by the base bodies, which guarantee the training, the sustainment and the general support of the Portuguese Army.

FactSnippet No. 1,407,531