ABSTRACT
Spaniards have long felt the need to be recognized as Europeans. After a period of more than a century of no participation in the most important European events, Spaniards needed to feel they were part of Europe and no longer different. Spain’s neutrality in the First World War and Second World War, which were both mainly European wars, added to the fact that it had not participated in the previous war of 1870, and to the 40 years of greater or smaller isolation during the Franco regime, makes it necessary to go back to Napoleon’s wars in order to find the last significant implication of Spain in European affairs.
