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Spain History - 2nd Decline - (1868 - 1931)
The question of government between the various sides was basically translated
into allowing each side to alternatively share power. This system led to an
erratic power base and representation of each side was devoted to rigging the
voting. It is recorded that the final results of votes in one area was actually
published in a paper the day prior to the counting! Somewhat surprisingly,
during the next politically difficult three decades the country again blossomed
economically and culturally. The people of each region, the Catalans, the Basques
and the Andalusians, all developed their own industry and commerce and found
political freedom - Liberals, Nationalists, Republicans, Socialists, Communists,
and the party of the Anarchist CNT.
After the death of his first wife King Alfonso took for his new bride the Austrian
Maria Cristina. Several strong earthquakes were felt in 1885
that caused severe damage in the eastern Andalucía. The King who experienced poor
health insisted in touring the damaged areas and subsequently caught a lung
infection and died at the age of 28. Queen Maria Cristina stepped into the shoes
as Queen Regent to rule Spain for 17 years. Happily for all concerned she was
with child and 1886 to great rejoicing she gave birth to a son, the future Alfonso
XIII. As she ruled as a Regent she left the political power to the two men of the
time, Antonio Cánovas del Castillo and Sagasta. In 1897 Cánovas was assassinated
and shortly Sagasta died of old age. These two manipulators left behind a corrupt
and confused Spain which found itself then involved in the Spanish-American
War (1898).
The Spanish representative ruler of Cuba, General Weyler, had turned his Island's
inhabitants against him with his strong armed policy. The United States decided to
give support to the Cubans and sent in the navy by sending the battleship Maine
into Havana harbour. A questionable explosion ripped open the Maine and killed 260
of her sailors which was blamed on the Spanish and war was declared. It lasted
three months until Admiral Dewey destroyed the Spanish Squadron at Santiago de
Cuba. In this quick and disastrous event by the Treaty of Paris
(1898) Spain lost Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and
the Philippines, and with it they lost their Empire which dated back to 1492.
In1902 Alfonso XIII became of age and
took his place on the throne dispensing with his mother as Regent.
Unfortunately, with the often displaced confidence of youth he
actively assumed political interests and soon led the country into
instability. Within the first four years of his rule there were 33
changes of government under no less than 8 different Prime Ministers
of his choosing. Soon, he had to resort to a dictatorial style of
monarchy in order to maintain his throne and for which he fortunately
found strong support within his army. To some extent he bought
this support by increasing the army allowance on a regular basis
until it became approximately half of Spain's total budget. In
1905 the army gained considerable power by a new law that allowed
military courts to judge civilians critical of the state.
After the American debacle Spain attempted to regain some
international respect by turning to their possessions in northern
Africa. Spain had the two very small colonies of Melilla and Ceuta
on the Mediterranean coast. In 1880 the lonely Rio Ouro on the
Atlantic coast was added and in 1906 at the Algeciras Conference
both Spain and France were given "control" over the
country of Morocco. Their eventual slice of Morocco turned out to be
ungovernable due to lack of communications and constant warring
tribes. When an army column was destroyed by the Berbers in 1909
Spain attempted to raise an army of reservists in Catalonia to send
to Morocco. The result of this idea was the infamous "Tragic
Week" in Barcelona when a general strike was organised by the
inhabitants with street barricades. Churches and convents were
damaged, and their occupants treated to severe physical abuse to the
point of death. Police and army took swift revenge starting by
shooting 175 workers as participants in the revolt. Catalonians at
first cowered under the pressure but their strong resentment was to
smolder into occasional strong outbursts over the following years.
With the outbreak of the 1st World War (1914-1918) the King kept the
divided public opinion reasonably content by keeping the country in
a state of neutrality. It is to be remembered that his mother was
Austrian and his wife Princess Victoria Eugenia,
a grandchild of Queen Victoria of England. This marriage of love had
brought with it many royal relations in Europe which included his
brother-in-law, Kaiser Wilhelm II.
As in many European countries the post-war period brought Spain
unemployment and more civil unrest. In 1917, a previously created Union by army officers and known as the "Juntas de
Defensa" with the aim to defend the state, decided to turn
against its own ruler and talked about mounting a "coup".
Labour unions taking advantage of the confusion called a General
Strike only to be ruthlessly crushed by the "Juntas de
Defensa" who instead defended their original principals. An
anarchist labour Union (CNT) whose membership was 14,000 in 1914
increased its number to 700,000 by 1919. Barcelona in particular
became a constant hotbed of unrest with assignations and gang
warfare, with an estimated some 1,000 people from different sides
being killed in a five year period. In 1921 in Madrid, the then
Prime Minister Eduardo Dato was gunned down in the street.
In the same year of 1921 an event in Spanish Morocco was to herald
the end of Alfonso XIII's reign. A force of about 10,000 soldiers led
by General Silverstre was slaughtered in an ambush in a nondescript
place named Anual by a meager force of Berbers. After two years a
report was eventually ready which placed a major part of the blame
on the shoulders of the King and his interference in army matters.
Anticipating the content of the report was General Primo de Rivera
who led an army revolt in favour of the king four days before its
presentation. Although Rivera did not have the general support of
all the army the King accepted his offer and the government
resigned. The king appointed
Rivera as Prime Minister and then refused to hold the required
constitutionally election within three months. This temporary
appointment lasted for a period of six years.
Rivera was from a landowning family at Jerez de la Frontera in
Andulucía. He had an absolute belief in his own ability as a "righter
of wrongs", and a passionate desire to live social life to its
full in most respects. He won initially considerable public support
throughout Spain by using a "fatherly" style in his
frequent speeches on a recent popular invention named
"radio". He was to introduce under the mainly uninterested
umbrella of the king a mixture of good and bad projects. In his
favour was the construction of decent main roads, harbours, dams,
electric power plants, improved rail system, and most importantly,
he never executed one person although censorship was rigidly
applied. He even had the foresight to introduce the concept of
"Paradors" which was to prove so important later in
developing tourism. On the bad side he had no idea of balancing
financial accounts and the country tottered along on loans from any
source he could discover. His financial mismanagement seems to have
been a copy of his own personal life where he was completely
unpredictable, but beneath this surface impression there must have
been a relentless strength. Like most Spanish army generals he
disliked any independent movements and singled out the Catalans.
Rivera created a strong reaction by banning even the special
"sardana" style of folk dance, a tradition essentially a
part of any Catalan celebration. By wily politics he kept the
Catalans with their ardent and many labour movements from taking
control of the province.
In 1927 by crushing a strong Berber revolt in Morocco at Alhucemas
he achieved a major success for his flagging nation's pride and in
particular for its army. When the rebelling Berbers first showed
their intentions Rivera's decided to negotiate much to the disgust
of his younger army officers. However, he changed his plans when he
discovered a plot within his army to revolt and instead set out to
crush the Berbers. Involved in this whole event was the new Spanish
Foreign Legion which included a young ambitious officer named
Francisco Franco Bahamone (1892-1975).
Primo de Rivera's final scenes of triumph were in 1929 with the two
important International Exhibitions held in Seville and Barcelona.
Both again were magnificent displays of grandiose leaving in their
tail another large hole in the states finance. This coincided in the
same year as the famous "Wall Street Crash" and a
shattering devaluation of the Spanish "peseta". Added to
this on the home front was his clash with the army Artillery Corp
over promotions. Alfonso XIII dismissed the now old general in 1930
who then retired to live in Paris for three months, reportedly
dividing his time between a local church and a local brothel before
dying.
Alfonso appointed General Berenguer to take Rivera's place but to no
avail. In August of 1930, leaders of anti-Alfonso created a Pact of
San Sebastian and this proved to be the beginnings of the Second
Republic. An attempted coup by the army was squashed in December of
the same year and in 1931 when Alfonso mounted Municipal elections
46 out of the 50 provincial capitals voted for Republicans. The
Great Depression which was beginning to sweep Europe did little to help the
situation and the Catalans declared an independent
republic. Accepting the inevitable King Alfonso wisely agreed to
abdicate and left for exile in France and later Italy.
Curiously, during this past period as Spain declined in
both international power and suffered internal political confusion
there were waves created by cultural movements from which appeared
outstanding Spanish artists of all walks whom were to have a decided
and permanent international impact. In the realm of architecture Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926) left his creations for prosperity. From the world of music came
Joseph Anseim Clavé (1824-1874) and later names such as Enrique Granados
(1867-1916),
Isaac Albeniz (1860-1909), Manuel de Falla (1876-1946), and of course Pablo Casals
(1867-1928), the
world's greatest known cello player . In the realm of architecture
Antonio Gaudi (1852-1926) stands apart and his many creations can
best be seen in Barcelona. A young artist from Málaga held his
first exhibition in Barcelona in 1900 and his name was Pablo Ruiz
Picasso (1881-1973). The landscape artist Joaquim Sorolla (1863-1923),
the artist and co-founder of the Cubist movement Juan Gris (1883-1927), Joan Miro (1893-1983), Salvador
Dali (1904-1989) and Antoni Tàpies (1923-). For literature the 1904 Nobel Prize
writer José Echegaray (1832-1916), the 1922 Nobel Prize writer Jacinto Benavente
(1866-1954), the 1956 Nobel Prize writer Juan Ramon Jimenez (1881-1959),
and the writings of .
Among other writers, phylosophers and poets, are Miguel de Unamuno
(1864-1936), Vicente Blasco Ibañez (1867-1928), Pio Baroj (1872-1956), Antonio Machado
(1875-1939), José
Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) and Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936).
The film director Luis Buñel
(1900-1983).
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