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First Spanish Republic
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The First Spanish Republic started with the abdication as King of Spain on February 10 1873, of Amadeo I, following the Hidalgo Affair, when he had been required by the radical government to sign a decree against the artillery officers. The next day, February 11, the republic was declared by a parliamentary majority made up of radicals, republicans and democrats. It lasted twenty-three months, between February 11 1873, and December 29 1874, and had five presidents: Estanislao Figueras, Pi i Margall, Nicolás Salmerón, Emilio Castelar and Francisco Serrano.
The Republican leaders planned the establishment of a federal republic, but did not declare it immediately, and instead planned a Constituent Cortes to write a federal constitution.
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The First Spanish Republic started with the abdication as King of Spain on February 10 1873, of Amadeo I, following the Hidalgo Affair, when he had been required by the radical government to sign a decree against the artillery officers. The next day, February 11, the republic was declared by a parliamentary majority made up of radicals, republicans and democrats. It lasted twenty-three months, between February 11 1873, and December 29 1874, and had five presidents: Estanislao Figueras, Pi i Margall, Nicolás Salmerón, Emilio Castelar and Francisco Serrano.
The Republican leaders planned the establishment of a federal republic, but did not declare it immediately, and instead planned a Constituent Cortes to write a federal constitution. The radicals preferred a unitary republic, and once the republic had been declared the two parties turned against each other; initially the radicals were largely driven from power, joining those who had already been driven out by the revolution of 1868 or by the Carlist War.
Subversion in the army, a series of local cantonalist risings, instability in Barcelona, failed anti-federalist coups, calls for revolution by the International Workingmen's Association, the lack of any broad political legitimacy, and personal in-fighting among the republican leadership all weakened the republic.
The Republic effectively ended on January 3 1874, when the Captain General of Madrid, Manuel Pavía, pronounced against the federalist government and called on all parties except Federalists and Carlists to form a national government. The monarchists and Republicans refused, leaving the unitary Radicals and Constitutionalists as the only group willing to govern; again a narrow political base. General Francisco Serrano formed a new government and was appointed President of the Republic although it was a mere formality since the Cortes had been dissolved.
Carlist forces managed to expand the territory under their control to the greatest extent in early 1874, though a series of defeats by the republic's northern army in the second half of the year might have led to the end of the war had it not been for bad weather. However the other monarchists had taken the name of Alfonsists as supporters of Alfonso, the son of the former Queen Isabel, and were organised by Cánovas del Castillo.
This period of the Republic lasted until Brigadier Martínez Campos pronounced for Alfonso in Sagunto on 29 December 1874, and the rest of the army refused to act against him. The government collapsed, leading to the end of the republic and the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy with the proclamation of Alfonso XII as king.
Proclamation of the Republic
King Amadeo I abdicated from the Spanish throne on February 11, 1873. His decision was mainly due to the constant difficulties he had to face during his short tenure, as the Ten Years War, the outbreak of the Third Carlist War, the opposition from alfonsino monarchists, which hoped for the Bourbon Restoration in the person of Alfonso, son of Isabella II, the many republican insurrections and the division among his own supporters.
The Spanish Cortes, which were assembled in a joint and permanent session of both the Congress of Deputies and the Senate, declared themselves the National Assembly while waiting for any final notice from the King. The overwhelming majority was with the monarchists from the two dinastic parties that had exercised the government until then: the Radical Party of Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla and the Constitutional Party of Práxedes Mateo Sagasta. There also was a small republican minority in the National Assembly, ideologically divided between federalism and centralism. One of them, federalist parliamentarian Francisco Pi y Margall moved the following proposal:
In his speech for the proposal, Pi y Margall, himself a federalist, renounced for the moment to establish a federal republic, hoping the would-be-assembled Constituent Cortes to decide over the issue, and announced his acceptance of any other democratic decision. Then another republican, Emilio Castelar took the floor and said:
After the powerful speech, a modified motion was passed with 258 votes in favour and only 32 against, declaring the Republic:
In the same session, the first government of the Republic was elected. Federal republican Estanislao Figueras became the first "President of the Executive Power", an office incorporating the heads of State and Government. No "President of the Republic" was ever elected, as the Constitution creating such office was never enacted. The passage of these resolutions surprised and stunned most Spaniards, as the recently-elected Cortes (now National Assembly) had a wide majority of monarchists. Ruiz Zorrilla spoke in these terms:
For most monarchists, though, the impossibility of restoring Isabella II as Queen, and the youth of the future Alfonso XII made the Republic the only, though transitory, viable course of action, particularly given the inevitable failure that awaited it.
Figueras Government
The first Government of the Republic was integrated by federalists and progressives, which had already been in power during the monarchy, and in particular four ministers had served with king Amadeo: Echegaray (Finance), Becerra (War), Fernández de Córdoba (Navy) and Berenguer (Infrastructures).
Their beginnings were plagued by a terrible economic situation, with a 546M peseta budgetary deficit, 153M in debts requiring immediate payment and only 32M available to fulfill them. The Artillery Corps had been dissolved in the most virulent moment of the Carlist and Cuban wars, for which there were not enough soldiers, equipments nor money to purchase them. Besides, Spain was going through a deep economic crisis matching the Panic of 1873 and which was exacerbated by the political instability. In previous years, unemployment had risen steeply amongst field and industrial workers, and proletarian organizations countered with strikes, demonstrations, protest rallies and the occupation of abandoned lands.
On February 23, the just-elected Speaker of the National Assembly, radical Cristino Marcos, plotted a failed coup d'etat in which the Civil Guard occupied the Ministry of Governation and the National Militia surrounded the Congress of Deputies, in order to establish an unitary republic. This prompted the first remodelation of the government in which the progressives were ousted and replaced with federalists. Twelve days after the establishment of the Republic, compulsory military service was removed and voluntary service set up with a daily salary of 1 peseta. A Republican volunteers corps was also established with a similar retribution.
The second Figueras government had to face the attempt of proclamation of the Estat Catalá inside the Spanish Federal Republic on March 9, which was overcome by a series of telegraphic contacts between the government and the Catalan leaders. On April 23, a new attempt of coup was set in motion; this time by a collusion of alfonsino monarchists, members of the old Liberal Union and monarchic sectors of the Army; but failed when several units refrained from supporting it.
Francisco Pi y Margall is usually considered the heart of the government, which had to face several problems already endemic to the Republic, as the Third Carlist War, separatist insurrections (this time from Catalonia), military indiscipline, monarchic plots, etc. The Government dissolved the National Assembly and summoned Constituent Cortes for May 1. On April 23, Cristino Martos, Speaker of the old National Assembly, attempted a new coup, now supported by the Civil Governor of Madrid: a platoon of militians took positions along the Paseo del Prado, and four thousand armed voluntaries more gathered near the Independence Square under the pretext of pasar revista. Having heard from the plot, Pi i Margall mobilized the Civil Guard, while the Minister for War appointed a new Captain General for Madrid and ordered him to march on the militians. The coup failed as soon as it started, and the Government dissolved the military units participating and the Permanent Committee of the Assembly.
The writs were issued for Constituent Cortes elections on May 10. The elections themselved developed in a quite unorthodox environment, and the resulting representativity was ridiculous, as most factions in Spain did not participate: the carlists were still waging war against the Republic, while the alfonsino monarchists of Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, the unitary republicans and even the incipient workers' organization close to the First International all called for abstention. The result was clearly favourable to the federal republicans, which captured 343 of the 371 seats, but turnout was probably the lowest in Spanish history, with about 28% in Catalonia and 25% in Madrid.
The Federal Republic
On June 1, 1873 the first session of the Constituent Cortes was opened, so the motion of proposals begun. The first one to be passed was moved on June 7, and read:
The resolution was passed the next day, June 8, by a vote of 219-2, and the Federal Republic was thus declared. Most of the federalists in parliament supported a Swiss-like confederative model, with regions directly forming independent cantons. Famous Spanish writer Benito Pérez Galdós, aged 21 at the time, wrote about the Cortes in this terms:
The situation reached such levels of surrealism that, while presiding over a Cabinet session, Estanislao Figueras yelled: "Gentlemen, I can't stand this any more. I am going to be frank with you: I'm fed up with all of us!" So fed up that on June 10 he left his resignation letter in his office, went for a walk through the Parque del Buen Retiro and, without telling anyone, boarded the first train departing from the Atocha Station. He would only step down upon arrival to Paris.
Pi i Margall Government
After Figueras' flight to France, the power vacuum created was tempting general Manuel Sodas into starting a pronunciamiento when a Civil Guard colonel, José de la Iglesia, showed up at Congress and declared that nobody would leave until a new President was elected. Figueras' fellow federalist and government minister Francisco Pi y Margall was elected, but on his speech to the Assembly he declared he was at a complete loss and without a program. The main efforts of the new government focused on the drafting of the new Constitution and some social-related bills:
- Apportionment of disamortized lands among lessees, settlers and aparceros.
- Reestablishment of the regular Army, with mandatory conscription.
- Separation of Church and State, which had been deeply intertwined under Ferdinand VII and only slightly separated by Isabella II.
- Abolition of slavery throughout the nation. Though the 1812 Cádiz Constitution had already took some steps on the issue, the colonies remained opposed to the move from mainland Spain. Also, plans were made to limit child labor.
- Establishment of a system ensuring free and compulsory education.
- Legalization of the right of syndication, creation of mixed workers-managers juries and establishment of the 8 hours work day.
On June 16 a 25-member Committee was set up by the Cortes to study the draft Constitution of the Federal Republic of Spain, the redaction of which is mainly attributed to Emilio Castelar, with debate starting the following day. On June 28, Pi i Margall renewed the composition of his Government, but due to the slow pace of the constitutional debates in the Cortes, events came crashing down on the government at a stunning pace. On June 30, the City Council of Seville passed a motion declaring the town a Social Republic, and the next day many federalist deputies left the Cortes in protest. About a week later, on July 9, Alcoy followed suit, in the midst of a wave of murders sparked by a revolutionary strike directed by local leaders of the First International. It was just the beginning: shortly after, the cantonal revolution swept across Spain with strikes, murders of officers by soldiers, lynching of city mayors and over a hundred casualties.
The federalist sentiment did not give rise to autonomous States, bursting into a constellation of independent cantons instead. Uprisings were daily news in the South-Eastern area of Levante and Andalusia. Some cantons were provincial in nature, like Valencia or Málaga, but most comprised just a city and its surroundings, like the more localised cantons of Alcoy, Cartagena, Seville, Cádiz, Almansa, Torrevieja, Castellón, Granada, Salamanca, Bailén, Andújar, Tarifa and Algeciras. Even smaller were the village-based cantons of Camuñas (in Albacete) and Jumilla (in Murcia). The latter is said to have issued a manifesto stating:
There is, however, no record of such a manifesto, nor of any similar declaration, in the municipal archives; and the proceedings of the time seemed to be within normality. This has motivated several historians to deny the authenticity of the manifesto and even the very existence of the Jumilla canton, stating that its invention was merely a form of anti-republican propaganda.
The most active – and known – of the cantons was that of Cartagena, born on July 12 at the city naval base under the inspiration of the federalist congressman Antonio Gálvez Arce, known as Antonete. The Cartagena would live six months of constant wars, and even minted its own currency, the duro cantonal.
The first deed of the Cartagenan cantonalists was the capture of the Saint Julian castle, which motivated a strange telegram sent by the city's captain-general to the Minister of the Navy: «Saint Julian castle shows Turkish flag». Such "Turkish flag" was in fact the cantonal flag, the first red flag in Spanish history. Gálvez's passionate speeches allowed him to gain control of the Navy ships docked in the city, which at that time were among the best in the Spanish Navy. Under his command, the fleet wrecked havoc on the nearby Mediterranean shore, causing the Madrid government to declare him a pirate and set a bounty on his head. Back on land, he led an expedition towards Madrid that was defeated at Chinchilla.
Two cantonal frigates, the Almansa and the Vitoria, set sail towards a foreign power (the Spanish city of Almería) for fund-raising. As the city would not pay, it was bombarded and taken by the cantonalists. General Contreras, commanding officer of the cantonal fleet, ordered the Marcha Real to be played as he unboarded. Afterwards, the deed would be repeated in Alicante, but on the trip back to Cartagena they were captured as pirates by the armored frigates HMS Swiftsure and SMS Friedrich Karl, under the UK and German flags respectively.
Even worse a problem was the Third Carlist War, in which the rebels controlled most of the Basque Country, Navarre and Catalonia without opposition, and sent raid parties throughout the Peninsula. The Carlist pretender, Charles VII, had formed a rival government in Estella with his own ministers and was already minting currency, while the French connivance allowed him to receive external aid and fortify his defences. Between the Carlists and the cantonal revolution, the actual territory in which the short-lived Republic exerted undisputed authority did not extend much further than the province of Madrid itself and North-Western Spain, as cantonal uprisings took place as North as Ávila.
Due to the rapid pace of the events, and without time for the new Constitution to be passed by the Cortes, Pi i Margall found himself between a rock and the proverbial hard place of the cantonal revolution. However, the effective Commander in Chief of the Republic rejected all calls, from both military and political instances, to exert repression on the cantonal uprisings, as he argued they were just following his very own doctrine. Thus, he was forced to resign on July 18 after just 37 days in office. He would later sorely describe his experience as premier:
Federal Constitution Project
See also
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