History of Spain (1808–1874)

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Spain
España
1808–1873
Motto: 
Plus Ultra
("Further Beyond")
Anthem: Marcha Real
("Royal March")
(1813–1822; 1823–1873)

Congress of Deputies
Historical era19th century
1 July 1808
1822
1833
• Disestablished
1873
Currency
ISO 3166 codeES
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Napoleonic Spain
Spanish Republic
United Provinces of New Granada
United Provinces of the Río de la Plata
Paraguay
Chile
First Mexican Empire
Gran Colombia
Protectorate of Peru
Republic of Spanish Haiti
  1. as First Secretary of State
  2. as President of the Council of Ministers
Part of a series on the
History of Spain
HISPANIAE ET PORTUGALIAE REGNA
Prehistory
Early history
Roman Hispania
Early Middle Ages
Middle Ages
Early modern period
Peninsular War
Absolutist restoration
Reign of Isabella II
Sexenio Democrático
Restoration Spain
Second Republic
Francoist Spain
Contemporary history
Topic
Timeline

Spain in the 19th century was a country in turmoil. Occupied by

Ferdinand VII, who repealed the 1812 Constitution for the first time in 1814, only to be forced to swear over the constitution again in 1820 after a liberal pronunciamiento, giving way to the brief Trienio Liberal
(1820–1823).

Economic transformations throughout the century included the privatisation of communal municipal lands—not interrupted but actually intensified and legitimised during the Fernandine absolutist restorations[1] —as well as the confiscation of Church properties. The early century saw the loss of the bulk of the Spanish colonies in the New World in the 1810s and 1820s, except for Cuba and Puerto Rico.

The regency of

1868 Glorious revolution deposed Isabella and installed a provisional government, leading up to the election of a constituent assembly under universal manhood suffrage that elaborated the 1869 constitution. The brief spell of Amadeo of Savoy as constitutional monarch was followed after his abdication by the proclamation of the First Spanish Republic, which was replaced after a 1874 coup by the reign of Alfonso XII
, bringing the Bourbon dynasty back to power.

Abdications of Charles IV & Ferdinand VII (1808)

The reign of

Bayonne Constitution, Spain's first, which Joseph I signed. Although the constitution never came into full force, the fact that it provided for representation from regions of Spain and elsewhere in the Spanish Empire
, namely Spanish America and the Philippines, set an important precedent.

Napoleon's 1808 invasion and Spanish resistance, (1808–1814)

Main articles: Peninsular War and Spain under Joseph Bonaparte

Although there were a few Spaniards who supported Napoleon's seizure of power in Spain, many regional centers rose up and formed juntas to rule in the name of the ousted Bourbon king, Ferdinand VII. Spanish America also created juntas to rule in the name of the king, since Joseph I was considered an illegitimate sovereign. Bloody warfare raged in Spain and Portugal in the Peninsular War, much of which was fought using guerrilla tactics.

Spain's first national assembly (1810–1814)

Main articles: Cortes of Cádiz and Spanish Constitution of 1812
The first Spanish Constitution was established by the Cortes of Cádiz
Constitution of 1812

The Cortes of Cádiz was the first national assembly to claim sovereignty in Spain and the Spanish Empire. It represented the abolition of the old kingdoms and the recognition of overseas components of the Spanish Empire for representation. The opening session was held on 24 September 1810.

In November 1809, the army of the Central Junta was routed at the Battle of Ocaña. French forces took control of southern Spain and the Junta retreated to Cádiz. Cádiz was besieged by the French from 5 February 1810 to 24 August 1812 but never captured. The Central Junta dissolved itself on 29 January 1810, and set up a five-person Regency. The five regents then convened the meeting of the "Cortes of Cádiz", operating as a government in exile.

The delegates to the Cortes were to be representatives of the provinces and colonies, but the Regency was unable to hold elections in much of Spain or the Americas. The Regency therefore tried to establish interim territorial representation in the assembly, which approved a decree that it represented the Spanish nation, with sovereignty over Spain and Americas.

The Cortes opened its session in September 1810 on the Isle of Leon. The Cortes consisted of 97 deputies, of whom 47 were Cadiz residents serving as alternates.

The Spanish Constitution of 1812 was established on 19 March 1812 by the Cortes of Cádiz. It abolished the Inquisition and absolute monarchy, and established the principles of universal male suffrage, national sovereignty, constitutional monarchy, and freedom of the press, and supported land reform and free enterprise.

Reaction (1814–1820)

Ferdinand VII of Spain
(r. 1808, 1814–1833)

On 24 March 1814, six weeks after returning to Spain, Ferdinand VII abolished the constitution. King

Pedro Gómez Labrador, Marquis of Labrador) starting a year later would cement international support for the old, absolutist
regime in Spain.

The

the French
or Spaniards.

Trienio Liberal (1820–1823)

Main article: Trienio Liberal
The cortes of the Trienio Liberal (1820–1823), a period of liberal rule in Spain

A conspiracy of liberal mid-ranking

Constitution of 1812 be restored. Before the coup became an outright revolution, King Ferdinand agreed to the demands of the revolutionaries and swore by the constitution. A "Progresista
" (liberal) government was appointed, though the king expressed his disaffection with the new administration and constitution.

Three years of liberal rule (the

industrialization alienated ancient trade guilds. The Inquisition—which had been abolished by both Joseph Bonaparte and the Cortes of Cádiz during the French occupation—was ended again by the Progresista government, summoning up accusations of being nothing more than afrancesados (Francophiles), who only six years before had been forced out of the country. More radical liberals attempted to revolt against the entire idea of a monarchy, constitutional or otherwise, in 1821; these republicans
were suppressed, though the incident served to illustrate the frail coalition that bound the Progresista government together.

The election of a

radical liberal government in 1823 further destabilized Spain. The army – whose liberal leanings had brought the government to power – began to waver when the Spanish economy failed to improve, and in 1823, a mutiny in Madrid had to be suppressed. The Jesuits (who had been banned by Charles III in the 18th century, only to be rehabilitated by Ferdinand VII after his restoration) were banned again by the radical government. For the duration of liberal rule, King Ferdinand (though technically head of state) lived under virtual house arrest
in Madrid.

The

Spanish War of Independence
were not fulfilled.

The "Ominous Decade" (1823–1833)

Main article: Ominous Decade
Ferdinand VII, after his restoration as absolute monarch
in 1823, took repressive measures against the liberal forces in his country.

Immediately following the restoration of absolutist rule in Spain, King

Jesuit Order and the Spanish Inquisition were reinstated once more, and some autonomy was again devolved to the provinces of Aragon, Navarre, and Catalonia. Although he refused to accept the loss of the American colonies, Ferdinand was prevented from taking any further action against the rebels in the Americas by the opposition of the United Kingdom and the United States, who voiced their support of the new Latin American republics in the form of the Monroe Doctrine
. The recent betrayal of the army demonstrated to the king that his own government and soldiers were untrustworthy, and the need for domestic stability proved to be more important than the reconquest of the Empire abroad. As a result, the destinies of Spain and her empire on the American mainland were to permanently take separate paths.

Although in the interests of stability Ferdinand VII issued a general

El Himno de Riego
, more than a century later.

The remainder of Ferdinand's reign was spent restoring domestic stability and the integrity of Spain's finances, which had been in ruins since the occupation of the Napoleonic Wars. The end of the wars in the Americas improved the government's financial situation, and by the end of Ferdinand VII's rule the economic and fiscal situation in Spain was improving. A revolt in Catalonia was crushed in 1827, but at large the period saw an uneasy peace in Spain.

Maria Cristina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies
, Queen Consort (1822–1833) and Queen Regent (1833–1840) of Spain

Ferdinand's chief concern after 1823 was how to solve the problem of his own succession. He was married four times in his life, and bore two daughters in all his marriages; the

Roman Catholic Church. Though surely not a liberal, Ferdinand VII was fearful of Carlos's extremism. War had broken out in neighboring Portugal in 1828 as a result of just such a conflict between reactionary and moderate forces in the royal family – the War of the Two Brothers
.

In 1830, at the advice of his wife,

Isabella, rather than to his brother Carlos. Carlos – who disputed the legality of Ferdinand's ability to change the fundamental law of succession in Spain – left the country for Portugal, where he became a guest of Dom Miguel
, the absolutist pretender in that country's civil war.

Ferdinand VII died in 1833, at the age of 49. He was succeeded by his daughter Isabella under the terms of the Pragmatic Sanction, and his spouse, Maria Christina, became regent for her daughter, who at that time was only three years of age. Carlos disputed the legitimacy of Maria Christina's regency and the accession of her daughter, and declared himself to be the rightful heir to the Spanish throne. A half-century of civil war and unrest would follow.

Spanish American independence (1810–1833)

Main article: Spanish American wars of independence
The Caracas junta replaces the Spanish Captaincy General, 19 April 1810

Already in 1810, Caracas and Buenos Aires juntas declared their independence from the Bonapartist government in Spain and sent ambassadors to the United Kingdom. The British alliance with Spain had also moved most of the Latin American colonies out of the Spanish economic sphere and into the British sphere, with whom extensive trade relations were developed.

The victory of General José de San Martín over Spanish forces at the Battle of Chacabuco, 12 February 1817

Spanish liberals opposed to the abrogation of the Constitution of 1812 when Ferdinand VII's rule was restored, the new American states were cautious of abandoning their independence, and an alliance between local elites, merchant interests, nationalists rose up against the Spanish in the New World. Although Ferdinand was committed to the reconquest of the colonies, along with many of the Continental European powers, the British government was opposed to the move which would hinder her new commercial interests. Latin American resistance to Spanish reconquest of the colonies was compounded by uncertainty in Spain itself, over whether or not the colonies should be reconquered; Spanish liberals – including the majority of military officers – already disdainful of the monarchy's rejection of the constitution, were opposed to the restoration of an empire that they saw as an obsolete antique, as against the liberal revolutions in the New World with which they sympathized.

The Battle of Ayacucho, 9 December 1824. The defeat of the Spanish army at Ayacucho was the definitive end of Spain's empire on the South America mainland.

The arrival of Spanish forces in the American colonies began in 1814, and was briefly successful in restoring central control over large parts of the Empire.

Andes Mountains from Argentina to Chile, and went on to defeat Spanish royalist forces at the Battle of Chacabuco
in 1817.

Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, and Central America still remained under Spanish control in 1820. King Ferdinand VII, however, was dissatisfied with the loss of so much of the Empire and resolved to retake it; a large expedition was assembled in Cádiz with the aim of reconquest. However the army was to create political problems of its own.

Junin and Ayacucho, where the entire Spanish Army of Peru and the Viceroy were captured. The Battle of Ayacucho signified the end of the Spanish Empire
on the American mainland.

Although

Isidro Barradas
tried to recapture Mexico from Cuba in 1829. With the king Ferdinand VII's death in 1833 Spain finally abandoned all plans of military re-conquest.

The Carlist War and the Regencies (1833–1843)

Main article: First Carlist War
Spanish throne
.

After their fall from grace in 1823 at the hands of a French invasion, Spanish liberals had pinned their hopes on Ferdinand VII's spouse

Infante Carlos of Spain
.

Carlos, who declared his support for the ancient, pre-

Ebro River
, with the exception of the fortified ports on the northern coast.

Basque
, saved the Carlist cause from the brink of disaster in 1833.

The position of the government was growing increasingly desperate. Rumors of a liberal coup to oust

Louis-Philippe in 1830, was sympathetic to the Cristino cause. The Whig governments of Viscount Melbourne were similarly friendly, and organized volunteers and material aid for Spain. Still confident of his successes, however, Don Carlos joined his troops on the battlefield. While Zumalacárregui
agitated for a campaign to take Madrid, Carlos ordered his commander to take a port on the coast. In the subsequent campaign, Zumalacárregui died after being shot in the calf. There was suspicion that Carlos, jealous of his general's successes and politics, conspired to have him killed.

Having failed to take Madrid, and having lost their popular general, the Carlist armies began to weaken. Reinforced with British equipment and manpower, Isabella found in the progressista general

Jesuits – expelled during the Trienio Liberal and readmitted by Ferdinand VII
– were again expelled by the wartime regency in 1835.

Spanish progresista statesman Juan Álvarez Mendizábal. Mendizábal proposed the sale of church property (desamortización) by the state as a solution to Spain's financial woes.

The Spanish government was growing deeper in debt as the Carlist war dragged on, nearly to the point that it became insolvent. In 1836, the president of the government,

Ecclesiastical Confiscations of Mendizábal, that involved the confiscation and sale of church, mainly monastic, property. Many liberals, who bore anti-clerical sentiments, saw the clergy as having allied with the Carlists, and thus the desamortización was only justice. Mendizábal recognized, also, that immense amounts of Spanish land (much of it given as far back as the reigns of Philip II and Philip IV) were in the hands of the church lying unused – the church was Spain's single largest landholder in Mendizábal's time. The Mendizábal government also passed a law guaranteeing freedom of the press
.

After Luchana, Espartero's government forces successfully drove the Carlists back northward. Knowing that much of the support for the Carlist cause came from supporters of regional autonomy, Espartero convinced the Queen-Regent to compromise with the fueros on the issue of regional autonomy and retain their loyalty. The subsequent Convention of Vergara in 1839 was a success, protecting the privileges of the fueros and recognizing the defeat of the Carlists. Don Carlos again went into exile.

Freed from the Carlist threat, Maria Cristina immediately embarked on a campaign to undo the Constitution of 1837, provoking even greater ire from the liberal quarters of her government. Failing in the attempt to overthrow her own constitution, she attempted to undermine the rule of the municipalities in 1840; this proved to be her undoing. She was forced to name the progressista hero of the Carlist War, General Espartero, president of the government. Maria Cristina resigned the regency after Espartero attempted a program of reform.

In the absence of a regent, the cortes named

Francisco Serrano
, who finally overthrew Espartero in 1843, after which the deposed regent fled to England.

Moderado rule (1843–1849)

Salustiano Olózaga, President of the Council of Ministers

The cortes, now exasperated by serial revolutions, coups, and counter-coups, decided not to name another regent, and instead declared that the 13-year-old

Salustiano Olózaga was named the first president of the Council of Ministers after Espartero's fall. His commission to form a government was, however, highly unpopular with the cortes; he allegedly received the authority to dissolve the cortes from the queen, but the queen within days withdrew her support for the plan, and cast her lot behind Olózaga's opponent in the cortes, the Minister of State Luis González Bravo. Olózaga was accused of obtaining the order of dissolution by forcing Queen Isabella to sign against her will. Olózaga had to resign, having only been president of the Council of Ministers for an ephemeral fifteen days. Olózaga, a liberal, was succeeded by Luis González Bravo, a moderate, inaugurating a decade of moderado rule. President Luis González Bravo was Isabella's first stable president during her effective kingdom, ruling for 6 straight months (from that moment on he would remain loyal to the queen until the end of her kingdom, acting as her very last president decades later at the outbreak of the 1868 Revolution
). Isabella's kingdom was to include unstable administration, policies, and governments, due to the various opposition parties that continuously wanted to take over her government – in 1847, for instance, she went through five Presidents of the Government.

Guardia Civil
, a force merging police and military functions to retain order in the mountainous regions that had been the Carlists' base of support and strength, so as to defend Isabella's rightful kingdom from her enemies.

Isabella II of Spain
(r. 1833–1868). Isabella's rule was a chaotic and troubled chapter in Spain's history, wracked by civil wars, coups, and scandal that ended with a successful revolution against the monarchy.

A new constitution, authored by the moderados was written in 1845. It was backed by the new Narváez government begun in May 1844, led by General Ramón Narváez, one of the original architects of the revolution against Espartero. A series of reforms promulgated by Narváez's government attempted to stabilize the situation. The cortes, which had been uneasy with the settlement with the fueros at the end of the First Carlist War, were anxious to centralize the administration. The law of 8 January 1845 did just that, stifling local autonomy in favor of Madrid; the act contributed to the revolt of 1847 and the revival of Carlism in the provinces. The Electoral Law of 1846 limited the suffrage to the wealthy and established a property bar for voting. In spite of Bravo and Narváez's efforts to suppress the unrest in Spain, which included lingering Carlist sentiments and progressista supporters of the old Espartero government, Spain's situation remained uneasy. A revolt led by Martín Zurbano in 1845 included the support of key generals, including Juan Prim, who was imprisoned by Narváez.

Narváez ended the sale of church lands promoted by the progresistas. This put him into a difficult situation, as the progresistas had had some progress in improving Spain's financial situation through those programs. The Carlist War, the excesses of

Alejandro Mon, who embarked on an aggressive program to restore solvency to Spain's finances; in this he was remarkably successful, reforming the tax system which had been badly neglected since the reign of Charles IV
. With its finances more in order, the government was able to rebuild the military and, in the 1850s and 1860s, embark on successful infrastructure improvements and campaigns in Africa that are often cited as the most productive aspects of Isabella's reign.

Isabella was convinced by the cortes to marry her cousin, a Bourbon prince,

fall of Louis-Philippe in 1848.[2][3][4]
Fury raged in Spain over the queen's nonchalance with the national interest and worsened her public image.

The builders of the first railway in Peninsular Spain, the Barcelona–Mataró line, which was inaugurated in 1848. Another railway—the Havana–Güines line—had been already opened in Cuba in 1837.[5]

Partly as a result of this, a major rebellion broke out in northern

Infante Carlos of Spain. The rebellion grew, and by 1848 it was relevant enough that Carlos sponsored it himself and named Ramón Cabrera as commander of the Carlist armies in Spain. A force of 10,000 men was raised by the Carlists; in response to fears of further escalation Narváez was again named President of the Council of Ministers in Madrid in October 1847. The biggest battle of the war, the Battle of Pasteral (January 1849) was inconclusive; Ramón Cabrera, however, was wounded and lost confidence. His departure from Spain caused the rebellion dissolve by May 1849. The Second Carlist War, though contemporaneous with the revolutions of 1848, is rarely included as part of the same phenomenon, since the rebels in Spain were not fighting for liberal or socialist
ideas, but rather conservative and even absolutist ones.

Rule by Pronunciamento (1849–1856)

Alejandro Mon
's financial reforms in the preceding decade. A serious effort to build a rail network in Spain was begun by the Murillo government.

Murillo, facing the issue of anti-clericalism, signed a

Roman Catholicism remained the state religion of Spain, but that the contribution of the church in education would be regulated by the state. In addition, the state renounced desamortización, the process of selling church lands. Murillo's negotiations with the Papacy were aided by Narváez's role in the Revolutions of 1848 in the Italian states
, where he had led Spanish soldiers in the pope's defense against revolutionaries.

Murillo, flush with economic and international successes, announced a series of policies on 2 December 1852 to the cortes. Prominent among the reforms he suggested were the reduction of the powers of the cortes as a whole in favor of Murillo's office as President of the Council of Ministers, and the ability for the executive to legislate by decree in times of crisis. Twelve days later, the cortes successfully convinced the queen to sack Juan Bravo Murillo and find a new minister.

The next President of the Council of Ministers,

Luis José Sartorius, the Count of San Luis, to be named President of the Council of Ministers. Sartorius – who had gained power only by betraying Luis González Bravo and following the fortunes of General Narváez
– was notorious for falsifying election results in favor of his co-conspirators and himself. His appointment as President of the Council of Ministers drew violent agitation from the liberal wing of the Spanish government.

Episode of the 1854 revolution in Puerta del Sol, by Eugenio Lucas Velázquez.

In July 1854, a

major rebellion broke out bringing together a wide coalition of outrages against the state. The Crimean War, which had broken out in March of that year, had led to an increase in grain prices across Europe and a famine in Galicia. Riots against the power loom erupted in the cities, and progresistas outraged at a decade of moderado dictatorship and the corruption of the Sartorius government broke out in revolution. General Leopoldo O'Donnell took the lead in the revolution; after the indecisive Battle of Vicálvaro, he issued the Manifesto of Manzanares that pronounced himself in favor of Spain's former progresista dictator, Baldomero Espartero
, the man that O'Donnell had actively rebelled against in 1841. The moderado government collapsed before them and Espartero returned to politics at the head of an army.

Espartero was appointed as President of the Council of Ministers, this time by the very queen for whom he had been regent ten years before. Espartero, indebted to O'Donnell for restoring him to power but concerned about having to share power with another man, tried to get him installed to a post as far away from Madrid as possible – in this case, in Cuba. The attempt failed and only alienated Baldomero Espartero's colleague; instead, O'Donnell was given a seat in Espartero's cabinet as war minister, though his influence was greater than his

portfolio
.

The two

Unión Liberal
", as it was called, attempted to forge a policy based on progress in industry, infrastructure, public works, and a national compromise on constitutional and social issues.

Baldomero Espartero attempted to rebuild the progresista government after ten years of moderado reform. Most of Espartero's tenure was absorbed into promulgating the new constitution he intended to replace the moderado constitution of 1845. The resistance of the cortes, however, meant that most of his term was spent deadlocked; the coalition that Espartero relied on was built on both liberals and moderates, who disagreed fundamentally on the ideology of the new constitution and policies. Espartero's constitution included provisions for the freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and, most importantly, a more liberal suffrage than the Constitution of 1845 allowed for. Even before the constitution had been passed, Espartero endorsed Pascual Madoz's desamortización against communal lands in Spain; the plan was strongly opposed not only by the moderados in the cortes, but also by the queen and General O'Donnell. Espartero's coalition with O'Donnell collapsed, and the queen named Leopoldo O'Donnell President of the Council of Ministers. He too proved unable to work with the government in any meaningful way; he attempted to compromise Espartero's constitution with the 1845 document by, in a bald assertion of power, declaring the 1845 constitution restored with certain specified exceptions, with or without the approval of the cortes. The act led to O'Donnell's ousting; the "Constitution of 1855" was never successfully put into place.

The end of the old order (1856–1868)

Ramón Narváez
's hardline moderado faction.

Again,

Francisco Javier Istúriz. Istúriz, though Isabella admired him, lacked any support from the conservative wing of the government, and was adamantly opposed by Juan Bravo Murillo
. Isabella was then disgusted with the moderados in any form; O'Donnell's faction was able to give the Unión Liberal another chance in 1858.

This government – the longest-lasting of all of Isabella's governments – lasted nearly five years before it was deposed in 1863. O'Donnell, reacting against the extremism that came from Espartero's government and the moderado governments that followed it, managed to pull some results from a functional Unión Liberal coalition of centrist, conciliatory moderados and progresistas, all of whom were exhausted from partisan bickering. Leopoldo O'Donnell's ministry was successful enough in restoring stability at home that they were able to project power abroad, which also helped to pull popular and political attention away from the cortes; Spain supported the

Jews back onto Spanish territory for the first time since the Alhambra Decree in 1492, or he would do so in 1868.[6][7]

Mariano Fortuny. The government of Leopoldo O'Donnell launched a series of successful campaigns against Morocco, Vietnam, Mexico, and Santo Domingo
in the early 1860s

The coalition broke apart in 1863 when old factional lines broke O'Donnell's cabinet: the issue of desamortización, brought up again, antagonized the two wings of the Unión Liberal. The moderados, sensing an opportunity, attacked O'Donnell for being too liberal, and succeeded in turning the queen and cortes against him; his government collapsed on 27 February 1863.

The moderados immediately took to undoing

Ramón Narváez, in 1864 to make certain that things did not get out of hand; this only infuriated the progresistas, who were promptly rewarded for their agitation by another O'Donnell government. General Juan Prim
launched a major uprising against the government during O'Donnell's administration that prefigured future events; the rebellion was crushed brutally by O'Donnell, prompting the same sort of criticism that had toppled Espartero's government years earlier. The queen, listening to the opinion of the cortes, again sacked O'Donnell, and replaced him with Narváez, who had just been sacked two years earlier.

Narváez's support for the queen by this time was lukewarm; he had been sacked and seen enough governments thrown out by the queen in his lifetime that he, and much of the cortes had great doubts about her ability. The consensus spread; since 1854, a Republican party had been growing in strength, roughly in step with the fortunes of the Unión Liberal, and indeed, the Unión had been in coalition with the Republicans at times in the cortes.

Sexenio Democrático (1868–1874)

Main article: Sexenio Democrático

Glorious Revolution

Main article: Glorious Revolution (Spain)
The Puerta del Sol in Madrid during the 1868 Revolution

The 1866 rebellion led by Juan Prim and the revolt of the sergeants at San Gil barracks, in Madrid, sent a signal to Spanish liberals and republicans that there was serious unrest with the state of affairs in Spain that could be harnessed if it were properly led. Liberals and republican exiles abroad made agreements at Ostend in 1866 and Brussels in 1867. These agreements laid the framework for a major uprising, this time not merely to replace the President of the Council of Ministers with a liberal, but to overthrow Isabella herself, whom Spanish liberals and republicans began to see as the source of Spain's ineffectuality.

Her continual vacillation between liberal and conservative quarters had, by 1868, outraged moderados, progresistas, and members of the Unión Liberal and enabled, ironically, a front that crossed party lines. Leopoldo O'Donnell's death in 1867 caused the Unión Liberal to unravel; many of its supporters, who had crossed party lines to create the party initially, joined the growing movement to overthrow Isabella in favor of a more effective regime.

The die was cast in September 1868, when naval forces under admiral

Manuel Pavía
were defeated by General Serrano. Isabella then crossed into France and retired from Spanish politics to Paris, where she would remain until her death in 1904.

Provisional Government

Main article: Provisional Government (1868–1871)
The Provisional Government in 1869, by J. Laurent.

The revolutionary spirit that had just overthrown the Spanish government lacked direction; the coalition of liberals, moderates, and republicans were now faced with the incredible task of finding a government that would suit them better than Isabella. Control of the government passed to Francisco Serrano, an architect of the revolution against Baldomero Espartero's dictatorship. The cortes initially rejected the notion of a republic; Serrano was named regent while a search was launched for a suitable monarch to lead the country. A truly liberal constitution was written and successfully promulgated by the cortes in 1869 – the first such constitution in Spain since 1812.

The search for a suitable king proved to be quite problematic for the cortes. The republicans were, on the whole, willing to accept a monarch if he was capable and abided by a constitution.

Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen would trigger the Franco-Prussian War
.

In August 1870, an Italian prince,

Victor Emmanuel II of Italy
, Amadeo had less of the troublesome political baggage that a German or French claimant would bring, and his liberal credentials were strong.

Reign of Amadeo

Amadeo, just landed in Spain, standing before the corpse of his main supporter in the country, Juan Prim.

Amadeo was duly elected King as Amadeo I of Spain on 3 November 1870. He landed in Cartagena on 27 November, the same day that Juan Prim was assassinated while leaving the cortes. Amadeo swore on the general's corpse that he would uphold Spain's constitution.

However, Amadeo had no experience as king, and what experience his father as King of Italy could offer was nothing compared to the extraordinary instability of Spanish politics. Amadeo was instantly confronted with a cortes that regarded him as an outsider, even after it had elected him King; politicians conspired with and against him; and a 1872–1876 Third Carlist War erupted, chiefly in the north of the Iberian Peninsula. In February 1873, Amadeo declared the people of Spain "ungovernable" and abdicated.

First Spanish Republic (1873–1874)

Main article: First Spanish Republic

Following Amadeo's abdication, the cortes proclaimed the First Spanish Republic.

Economic and social impact

The Napoleonic wars had severe negative effects on Spain's economic development. The Peninsular war ravaged towns and countryside alike. There was a sharp decline in population in many areas, caused by casualties, outmigration, and disruption of family life. The demographic impact was the worst of any Spanish war. The marauding armies seized farmers' crops; more important, farmers lost much of their livestock, their main capital asset. Severe poverty was widespread, reducing market demand.[8]

The disruption of local and international trade, and the shortages of critical inputs, seriously hurt industry and services. The loss of a vast colonial empire reduced overall wealth. Spain by 1820 had become one of Europe's poorest and least-developed societies. Illiteracy characterized three-fourths of the people. Natural resources such as coal and iron existed but the transportation system was rudimentary, with few canals and navigable rivers. Road travel was slow and expensive. British railroad builders were pessimistic about the potential for freight and passenger traffic and did not invest. Eventually a small railway system was built radiating from Madrid, and bypassing the natural resources.[8]

The government relied on high tariffs, especially on grain, which further slowed economic development. For example, eastern Spain was unable to import inexpensive Italian wheat, and had to rely on expensive homegrown products carted in over poor roads. The export market collapsed apart from some agricultural products. [8]

See also

References

  1. ^ Naval flag, introduced as the national flag in 1843.

Citations

  1. ^ Linares Luján 2020, p. 109.
  2. ^ Agnes de Stoeckl, King of the French: A Portrait of Louis Philippe, 1773–1850 (New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1957) pp. 146–160.
  3. ^ Albert Guèrard, France: A Modern History, p. 286.
  4. ^ Georges Duveau, 1848: The Making of a Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1968) p. 7.
  5. Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes
    .
  6. ^ "Spain Virtual Jewish History Tour". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org.
  7. ISBN 9781845191818
    .
  8. ^ a b c Leandro Prados de la Escosura and Carlos Santiago-Caballero, "The Napoleonic Wars: A Watershed in Spanish History?" ["EHES Working Papers In Economic History, No. 130" 2018]

Bibliography

Further reading

Historiography

  • Hamnett, Brian. "Spain and Portugal and the Loss of their Continental American Territories in the 1820s: An Examination of the Issues." European History Quarterly 41.3 (2011): 397–412.
  • Luengo, Jorge, and Pol Dalmau. "Writing Spanish history in the global age: connections and entanglements in the nineteenth century." Journal of global history 13.3 (2018): 425–445. online[dead link]
  • Simal, Juan Luis. "«Strange Means of Governing»: The Spanish Restoration in European Perspective (1813–1820)." Journal of Modern European History 15.2 (2017): 197–220.
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