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416 Miguel Ángel de Bunes Ibarra

Evidently, the organisation of large, amphibious operations was
only in its initial stages, but the Tunis campaign enables us to see
clearly that the Spanish Monarchy was already creating the necessary
mechanisms to cater for the needs of campaigns of great magnitude
and complexity. The attempts by historians such as Ramón Carande,
James Tracy and René Quatrefages to give an overall estimate of the
cost of the campaign, despite using different sources and
methodologies, confirm the evidence of the fragmentary information
we have added: that the whole structure was entirely dependent on
the decisions taken by the sovereign, and transmitted by him and the
Council of War. But it also gives us a glimpse of how the proveedurías,
the different officials charged with procurement, were evolving in order
to meet the requirements of the Monarchy’s enormous offensive-
defensive engagements in the Mediterranean.

Mediterranea - ricerche storiche - Anno XVII - Agosto 2020
ISSN 1824-3010 (stampa) ISSN 1828-230X (online)