The Conquistador

The Conquest of Mexico is a legendary chapter in the annals of military history. Accounts vary, but all portray the fall of the Aztec Empire as a super-human feat achieved against hordes of superstitious savages by only a few hundred Spaniards armed with superior weaponry and guided by the military genius of Cortes. Nevertheless, as heroic as this legend has been portrayed in popular writing, the reality of those events is even more astounding. This volume explodes the myth of the Conquest of the New World by examining what factors led to the emergence of the Spanish citizen-soldier as the most effective killer Europe had seen since the Roman legionnaire. The author seeks to shed light on Cortes and his highly-trained men, as well as their finely-tuned killing methods. He examines how the machine of war had evolved so far that a new campaign almost had to be found to keep the hordes of soldiers occupied. The volume also gives a "soldier's eye view" of the Conquest, through the story of one of the many foot soldiers, who felt compelled to write down his experiences in later years.