THE NATIONAL HISTORY of Spain dates back to the fifth century A.D., when the Visigoths established a Germanic successor state in the former Roman diocese of Hispania. Despite a period of internal political disunity during the Middle Ages, Spain nevertheless is one of the oldest nation-states in Europe. In the late fifteenth century, Spain acquired its current borders and was united under a personal union of crowns by Ferdinand of Aragon (Spanish, Aragon) and Isabella of Castile (Spanish, Castilla). For a period in the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, Portugal was part of that Iberian federation.
In the sixteenth century, Spain was the foremost European power, and it was deeply involved in European affairs from that period to the eighteenth century. Spain's kings ruled provinces scattered across Europe. The Spanish Empire was global, and the influence of Spanish culture was so pervasive, especially in the Americas, that Spanish is still the native tongue of more than 200 million people outside Spain.
Recurrent political instability, military intervention in politics, frequent breakdowns of civil order, and periods of repressive government have characterized modern Spanish history. In the nineteenth century, Spain had a constitutional framework for parliamentary government, not unlike those of Britain and France, but it was unable to develop institutions capable of surviving the social, economic, and ideological stresses of Spanish society.
The Spanish Civil War (1936-39), which claimed more than 500,000 lives, recapitulated on a larger scale and more brutally conflicts that had erupted periodically for generations. These conflicts, which centered around social and political roles of the Roman Catholic Church, class differences, and struggles for regional autonomy on the part of Basque and Catalan nationalists, were repressed but were not eliminated under the authoritarian rule of Nationalist leader Generalissimo Francisco Franco y Bahamonde (in power, 1939-75). In the closing years of the Franco regime, these conflicts flared, however, as militant demands for reform increased and mounting terrorist violence threatened the country's stability.
When Prince Juan Carlos de Borbon became king of Spain following Franco's death in November 1975, there was little indication that he would be the instrument for the democratization of Spain. Nevertheless, within three years he and his prime minister, Aldolfo Suarez Gonzalez (in office 1976-81), had accomplished the historically unprecedented feat of transforming a dictatorial regime into a pluralistic, parliamentary democracy through nonviolent means. This accomplishment made it possible to begin the process of healing Spain's historical schisms.
The success of this peaceful transition to democracy can be attributed to the young king's commitment to democratic institutions and to his prime minister's ability to maneuver within the existing political establishment in order to bring about the necessary reforms. The failure of a coup attempt in February 1981 and the peaceful transfer of power from one party to another in October 1982 revealed the extent to which democratic principles had taken root in Spanish society.
West European governments refused to cooperate with an authoritarian regime in the immediate aftermath of World War II, and, in effect, they ostracized the country from the region's political, economic, and defense organizations. With the onset of the Cold War, however, Spain's strategic importance for the defense of Western Europe outweighed other political considerations, and isolation of the Franco regime came to an end. Bilateral agreements, first negotiated in 1953, permitted the United States to maintain a chain of air and naval bases in Spain in support of the overall defense of Western Europe. Spain became a member of the United Nations in 1955 and joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1982.
HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish
Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL
MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and
Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under
Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD
Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the
Post-Franco Period
The people who were later named Iberians (or dwellers along the Rio Ebro) by the Greeks, migrated to Spain in the third millennium B.C. The origin of the Iberians is not certain, but archaeological evidence of their metallurgical and agricultural skills supports a theory that they came from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The Iberians lived in small, tightly knit, sedentary tribal groups that were geographically isolated from one another. Each group developed distinct regional and political identities, and intertribal warfare was endemic. Other peoples of Mediterranean origin also settled in the peninsula during the same period and, together with the Iberians, mixed with the diverse inhabitants.
Celts crossed the Pyrenees into Spain in two major migrations in the ninth and the seventh centuries B.C. The Celts settled for the most part north of the Rio Duero and the Rio Ebro, where they mixed with the Iberians to form groups called Celtiberians. The Celtiberians were farmers and herders who also excelled in metalworking crafts, which the Celts had brought from their Danubian homeland by way of Italy and southern France. Celtic influence dominated Celtiberian culture. The Celtiberians appear to have had no social or political organization larger than their matriarchal, collective, and independent clans.
Another distinct ethnic group in the western Pyrenees, the Basques, predate the arrival of the Iberians. Their pre-Indo- European language has no links with any other language, and attempts to identify it with pre-Latin Iberian have not been convincing. The Romans called them Vascones, from which Basque is derived.
The Iberians shared in the Bronze Age revival (1900 to 1600 B.C.) common throughout the Mediterranean basin. In the east and the south of the Iberian Peninsula, a system of city-states was established, possibly through the amalgamation of tribal units into urban settlements. Their governments followed the older tribal pattern, and they were despotically governed by warrior and priestly castes. A sophisticated urban society emerged with an economy based on gold and silver exports and on trade in tin and copper (which were plentiful in Spain) for bronze.
Phoenicians, Greeks, and Carthaginians competed with the Iberians for control of Spain's coastline and the resources of the interior. Merchants from Tyre may have established an outpost at Cadiz, "the walled enclosure," as early as 1100 B.C. as the westernmost link in what became a chain of settlements lining the peninsula's southern coast. If the accepted date of its founding is accurate, Cadiz is the oldest city in Western Europe, and it is even older than Carthage in North Africa. It was the most significant of the Phoenician colonies. From Cadiz, Phoenician seamen explored the west coast of Africa as far as Senegal, and they reputedly ventured far out on the Atlantic.
Greek pioneers from the island of Rhodes landed in Spain in the eighth century B.C. The Greek colony at Massilia (later Marseilles) maintained commercial ties with the Celtiberians in what is now Catalonia (Spanish, Cataluna; Catalan, Catalunya). In the sixth century B.C., Massilians founded a polis at Ampurias, the first of several established on the Mediterranean coast of the peninsula.
HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish
Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL
MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and
Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under
Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD
Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the
Post-Franco Period
After its defeat by the Romans in the First Punic War (264-41 B.C.), Carthage compensated for its loss of Sicily by rebuilding a commercial empire in Spain. The country became the staging ground for Hannibal's epic invasion of Italy during the Second Punic War (218-201 B.C.). Roman armies also invaded Spain and used it as a training ground for officers and as a proving ground for tactics during campaigns against the Carthaginians and the Iberians. Iberian resistance was fierce and prolonged, however, and it was not until 19 B.C. that the Roman emperor Augustus (r. 27 B.C.-A.D. 14) was able to complete the conquest of Spain.
Romanization of the Iberians proceeded quickly after their conquest. Called Hispania by the Romans, Spain was not one political entity but was divided into three separately governed provinces (nine provinces by the fourth century A.D.). More important, Spain was for more than 400 years part of a cosmopolitan world empire bound together by law, language, and the Roman road.
Iberian tribal leaders and urban oligarchs were admitted into the Roman aristocratic class, and they participated in governing Spain and the empire. The latifundios (sing., latifundio), large estates controlled by the aristocracy, were superimposed on the existing Iberian landholding system.
The Romans improved existing cities, established Zaragoza, Merida, and Valencia, and provided amenities throughout the empire. Spain's economy expanded under Roman tutelage. Spain, along with North Africa, served as a granary for the Roman market, and its harbors exported gold, wool, olive oil, and wine. Agricultural production increased with the introduction of irrigation projects, some of which remain in use. The HispanoRomans --the romanized Iberians and the Iberian-born descendants of Roman soldiers and colonists--had all achieved the status of full Roman citizenship by the end of the first century A.D. The emperors Trajan (r. 98-117), Hadrian (r. 117-38), and Marcus Aurelius (r. 161-80) were born in Spain.
Christianity was introduced into Spain in the first century, and it became popular in the cities in the second century. Little headway was made in the countryside, however, until the late fourth century, by which time Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire. Some heretical sects emerged in Spain, but the Spanish church remained subordinate to the Bishop of Rome. Bishops who had official civil, as well as ecclesiastical, status in the late empire continued to exercise their authority to maintain order when civil governments broke down in Spain in the fifth century. The Council of Bishops became an important instrument of stability during the ascendancy of the Visigoths, a Germanic tribe.
In 405 two Germanic tribes, the Vandals and the Suevi, crossed the Rhine and ravaged Gaul until the Visigoths, drove them into Spain. The Suevi established a kingdom in the remote northwestern corner of the Iberian Peninsula. The hardier Vandals, never exceeding 80,000, occupied the region that bears their name--Andalusia (Spanish, Andalucia).
Because large parts of Spain were outside his control, the western Roman emperor, Honorius (r. 395-423), commissioned his sister, Galla Placidia, and her husband Ataulf, the Visigoth king, to restore order in the Iberian Peninsula, and he gave them the rights to settle in and to govern the area in return for defending it. The highly romanized Visigoths managed to subdue the Suevi and to compel the Vandals to sail for North Africa. In 484 they established <"http://worldfacts.us/Spain-Toledo.htm"> Toledo as the capital of their Spanish monarchy. The Visigothic occupation was in no sense a barbarian invasion, however. Successive Visigothic kings ruled Spain as patricians who held imperial commissions to govern in the name of the Roman emperor.
There were no more than 300,000 Germanic people in Spain, which had a population of 4 million, and their overall influence on Spanish history is generally seen as minimal. They were a privileged warrior elite, though many of them lived as herders and farmers in the valley of the Rio Tajo and on the central plateau. Hispano-Romans continued to run the civil administration, and Latin continued to be the language of government and of commerce.
Under the Visigoths, lay culture was not so highly developed as it had been under the Romans, and the task of maintaining formal education and government shifted decisively to the church because its Hispano-Roman clergy alone were qualified to manage higher administration. As elsewhere in early medieval Europe, the church in Spain stood as society's most cohesive institution, and it embodied the continuity of Roman order.
Religion was the most persistent source of friction between the Roman Catholic Hispano-Romans and their Arian Visigoth overlords, whom they considered heretical. At times this tension invited open rebellion, and restive factions within the Visigothic aristocracy exploited it to weaken the monarchy. In 589 Recared, a Visigoth ruler, renounced his Arianism before the Council of Bishops at Toledo and accepted Catholicism, thus assuring an alliance between the Visigothic monarchy and the Hispano-Romans. This alliance would not mark the last time in Spanish history that political unity would be sought through religious unity.
Court ceremonials--from Constantinople--that proclaimed the imperial sovereignty and unity of the Visigothic state were introduced at Toledo. Still, civil war, royal assassinations, and usurpation were commonplace, and warlords and great landholders assumed wide discretionary powers. Bloody family feuds went unchecked. The Visigoths had acquired and cultivated the apparatus of the Roman state, but not the ability to make it operate to their advantage. In the absence of a well-defined hereditary system of succession to the throne, rival factions encouraged foreign intervention by the Greeks, the Franks, and, finally, the Muslims in internal disputes and in royal elections.
HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish
Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL
MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and
Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under
Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD
Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the
Post-Franco Period
Early in the eighth century, armies from North Africa began probing the Visigothic defenses of Spain and ultimately they initiated the Moorish epoch that would last for centuries. The people who became known to West Europeans as Moors were the Arabs, who had swept across North Africa from their Middle Eastern homeland, and the Berbers, inhabitants of Morocco who had been conquered by the Arabs and converted to Islam.
In 711 Tariq ibn Ziyad, a Berber governor of Tangier, crossed into Spain with an army of 12,000 (landing at a promontory that was later named, in his honor, Jabal Tariq, or Mount Tariq, from which the name, Gibraltar, is derived). They came at the invitation of a Visigothic clan to assist it in rising against King Roderic. Roderic died in battle, and Spain was left without a leader. Tariq returned to Morocco, but the next year (712) Musa ibn Nusair, the Muslim governor in North Africa, led the best of his Arab troops to Spain with the intention of staying. In three years he had subdued all but the mountainous region in the extreme north and had initiated forays into France, which were stemmed at Poitiers in 732.
Al Andalus, as Islamic Spain was called, was organized under the civil and religious leadership of the caliph of Damascus. Governors in Spain were generally Syrians, whose political frame of reference was deeply influenced by Byzantine practices.
Nevertheless, the largest contingent of Moors in Spain consisted of the North African Berbers, recent converts to Islam, who were hostile to the sophisticated Arab governors and bureaucrats and were given to a religious enthusiasm and fundamentalism that were to set the standard for the Islamic community in Spain. Berber settlers fanned out through the country and made up as much as 20 percent of the population of the occupied territory. The Arabs constituted an aristocracy in the revived cities and on the latifundios that they had inherited from the Romans and the Visigoths.
Most members of the Visigothic nobility converted to Islam, and they retained their privileged position in the new society. The countryside, only nominally Christian, was also successfully Islamized. Nevertheless, an Hispano-Roman Christian community survived in the cities. Moreover, Jews, who constituted more than 5 percent of the population, continued to play an important role in commerce, scholarship, and the professions.
The Arab-dominated Umayyad dynasty at Damascus was overthrown in 756 by the Abbasids, who moved the caliphate to Baghdad. One Umayyad prince fled to Spain and, under the name of Abd al Rahman (r. 756-88), founded a politically independent amirate (the Caliphate of Cordoba), which was then the farthest extremity of the Islamic world. His dynasty flourished for 250 years. Nothing in Europe compared with the wealth, the power, and the sheer brilliance of Al Andalus during this period.
In 929 Abd al Rahman III (r. 912-61), who was half European-- as were many of the ruling caste, elevated the amirate to the status of a caliphate. This action cut Spain's last ties with Baghdad and established that thereafter Al Andalus's rulers would enjoy complete religious and political sovereignty.
When Hisham II, grandson of Abd al Rahman, inherited the throne in 976 at age twelve, the royal vizier, Ibn Abi Amir (known as Al Mansur), became regent (981-1002) and established himself as virtual dictator. For the next twenty-six years, the caliph was no more than a figurehead, and Al Mansur was the actual ruler. Al Mansur wanted the caliphate to symbolize the ideal of religious and political unity as insurance against any renewal of civil strife. Notwithstanding his employment of Christian mercenaries, Al Mansur preached jihad, or holy war, against the Christian states on the frontier, undertaking annual summer campaigns against them, which served not only to unite Spanish Muslims in a common cause but also to extend temporary Muslim control in the north.
The caliphate of Cordoba did not long survive Al Mansur's dictatorship. Rival claimants to the throne, local aristocrats, and army commanders who staked out taifas (sing., taifa), or independent regional city-states, tore the caliphate apart. Some taifas, such as <"http://worldfacts.us/Spain-Seville.htm"> Seville (Spanish, Sevilla), Granada, Valencia, and Zaragoza, became strong amirates, but all faced frequent political upheavals, war among themselves, and long-term accommodations to emerging Christian states.
Peaceful relations among Arabs, Berbers, and Spanish converts to Islam were not easily maintained. To hold together such a heterogeneous population, Spanish Islam stressed ethics and legalism. Pressure from the puritanical Berbers also led to crackdowns on Mozarabs (name for Christians in Al Andalus: literally, Arab-like) and Jews.
Mozarabs were considered a separate caste even though there were no real differences between them and the converts to Islam except for religion and liability to taxation, which fell heavily on the Christian community. They were essentially urban merchants and artisans. Their church was permitted to exist with few restrictions, but it was prohibited from flourishing. The episcopal and monastic structure remained intact, but teaching was curbed and intellectual initiative was lost.
In the ninth century, Mozarabs in Cordoba, led by their bishop, invited martyrdom by publicly denouncing the Prophet Muhammad in public. Nevertheless, violence against the Mozarabs was rare until the eleventh century, when the Christian states became a serious threat to the security of Al Andalus. Many Mozarabs fled to the Christian north.
HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish
Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL
MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and
Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under
Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD
Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the
Post-Franco Period
Resistance to the Muslim invasion in the eighth century had been limited to small groups of Visigoth warriors who took refuge in the mountains of Asturias in the old Suevian kingdom, the least romanized and least Christianized region in Spain. According to tradition, Pelayo (718-37), a king of Oviedo, first rallied the natives to defend themselves, then urged them to take the offensive, beginning the 700-year Reconquest (Spanish, Reconquista), which became the dominant theme in medieval Spanish history. What began as a matter of survival in Asturias became a crusade to rid Spain of the Muslims and an imperial mission to reconstruct a united monarchy in Spain.
Pelayo's successors, known as the kings of Leon, extended Christian control southward from Asturias, tore away bits of territory, depopulated and fortified them against the Muslims, and then resettled these areas as the frontier was pushed forward. The kingdom's political center moved in the direction of the military frontier.
In the tenth century, strongholds were built as a buffer for the kingdom of Leon along the upper Rio Ebro, in the area that became known as Castile, the "land of castles." The region was populated by men--border warriors and free peasants--who were willing to defend it, and were granted fueros (special privileges and immunities) by the kings of Leon that made them virtually autonomous. Castile developed a distinct society with its own dialect, values, and customs shaped by the hard conditions of the frontier. Castile also produced a caste of hereditary warriors whom the frontier "democratized"; all warriors were equals, and all men were warriors.
In 981 Castile became an independent county, and in 1004 it was raised to the dignity of a kingdom. Castile and Leon were reunited periodically through royal marriages, but their kings had no better plan than to divide their lands again among their heirs. The two kingdoms were, however, permanently joined as a single state in 1230 by Ferdinand III of Castile (d. 1252).
Under the tutelage of the neighboring Franks, a barrier of pocket states formed along the range of the Pyrenees and on the coast of Catalonia to hold the frontier of France against Islamic Spain. Out of this region, called the Spanish March, emerged the kingdom of Aragon and the counties of Catalonia, all of which expanded, as did Leon-Castile, at the expense of the Muslims. (Andorra is the last independent survivor of the March states.)
The most significant of the counties in Catalonia was that held by the counts of <"http://worldfacts.us/Spain-Barcelona.htm">Barcelona. They were descendants of Wilfrid the Hairy (874-98), who at the end of the ninth century declared his fief free of the French crown, monopolized lay and ecclesiastical offices on both sides of the Pyrenees, and divided them--according to Frankish custom--among members of the family. By 1100 Barcelona had dominion over all of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands (Spanish, Islas Baleares). Aragon and the Catalan counties were federated in 1137 through the marriage of Ramon Berenguer IV, count of Barcelona, and Petronilla, heiress to the Aragonese throne. Berenguer assumed the title of king of Aragon, but he continued to rule as count in Catalonia. Berenguer and his successors thus ruled over two realms, each with its own government, legal code, currency, and political orientation.
Valencia, seized from its Muslim amir, became federated with Aragon and Catalonia in 1238. With the union of the three crowns, Aragon (the term most commonly used to describe the federation) rivaled Venice and Genoa for control of Mediterranean trade. Aragonese commercial interests extended to the Black Sea, and the ports of Barcelona and Valencia prospered from traffic in textiles, drugs, spices, and slaves.
Weakened by their disunity, the eleventh-century taifas fell piecemeal to the Castilians, who had reason to anticipate the completion of the Reconquest. When Toledo was lost in 1085, the alarmed amirs appealed for aid to the Almoravids, a militant Berber party of strict Muslims, who in a few years had won control of the Maghreb (northwest Africa). The Almoravids incorporated all of Al Andalus, except Zaragoza, into their North African empire. They attempted to stimulate a religious revival based on their own evangelical brand of Islam. In Spain, however, their movement soon lost its missionary fervor. The Almoravid state fell apart by the mid-twelfth century under pressure from another religious group, the Almohads, who extended their control from Morocco to Spain and made Seville their capital. The Almohads shared the crusading instincts of the Almoravids and posed an even greater military threat to the Christian states, but their expansion was stopped decisively in the epic battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212), a watershed in the history of the Reconquest. Muslim strength ebbed thereafter. Ferdinand III took Seville in 1248, reducing Al Andalus to the amirate of Granada, which had bought its safety by betraying the Almohads' Spanish capital. Granada remained a Muslim state, but as a dependency of Castile.
Aragon fulfilled its territorial aims in the thirteenth century when it annexed Valencia. The Catalans, however, looked for further expansion abroad, and their economic views prevailed over those of the parochial Aragonese nobility, who were not enthusiastic about foreign entanglements. Peter III, king of Aragon from 1276 until 1285, had been elected to the throne of Sicily when the French Angevins (House of Anjou) were expelled from the island kingdom during an uprising in 1282. Sicily, and later Naples, became part of the federation of Spanish crowns, and Aragon became embroiled in Italian politics, which continued to affect Spain into the eighteenth century.
Castile, which had traditionally turned away from intervention in European affairs, developed a merchant marine in the Atlantic that successfully challenged the Hanseatic League (a peaceful league of merchants of various free German cities) for dominance in the coastal trade with France, England, and the Netherlands. The economic climate necessary for sustained economic development was notably lacking, however, in Castile. The reasons for this situation appear to have been rooted both in the structure of the economy and in the attitude of the Castilians. Restrictive corporations closely regulated all aspects of the economy--production, trade, and even transport. The most powerful of these corporations, the mesta, controlled the production of wool, Castile's chief export. Perhaps a greater obstacle for economic development was that commercial activity enjoyed little social esteem. Noblemen saw business as beneath their station and derived their incomes and prestige from landownership. Successful bourgeois entrepreneurs, who aspired to the petty nobility, invested in land rather than in other sectors of the economy because of the social status attached to owning land. This attitude deprived the economy of needed investments and engendered stagnation rather than growth.
Feudalism, which bound nobles to the king-counts both economically and socially, as tenants to landlords, had been introduced into Aragon and Catalonia from France. It produced a more clearly stratified social structure than that found in Castile, and consequently it generated greater tension among classes. Castilian society was less competitive, more cohesive, and more egalitarian. Castile attempted to compensate through political means, however, for the binding feudal arrangements between crown and nobility that it lacked. The guiding theory behind the Castilian monarchy was that political centralism could be won at the expense of local fueros, but the kings of Castile never succeeded in creating a unitary state. Aragon- Catalonia accepted and developed--not without conflict--the federal principle, and it made no concerted attempt to establish a political union of the Spanish and Italian principalities outside of their personal union under the Aragonese crown. The principal regions of Spain were divided not only by conflicting local loyalties, but also by their political, economic, and social orientations. Catalonia particularly stood apart from the rest of the country.
Both Castile and Aragon suffered from political instability in the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries. The House of Trastamara acquired the Castilian throne in 1369 and created a new aristocracy to which it granted significant authority. Court favorites, or validos (sing., valido), often dominated their Castilian kings, and, because the kings were weak, nobles competed for control of the government. Important government offices, formerly held by members of the professional class of civil servants who had urban, and frequently Jewish, backgrounds, came into the possession of aristocratic families who eventually held them by hereditary right. The social disruption and the decay of institutions common to much of Europe in the late Middle Ages also affected Aragon, where another branch of the Trastamaras succeeded to the throne in 1416. For long periods, the overextended Aragonese kings resided in Naples, leaving their Spanish realms with weak, vulnerable governments. Economic dislocation, caused by recurring plagues and by the commercial decline of Catalonia, was the occasion for repeated revolts by regional nobility, town corporations, peasants, and, in Barcelona, by the urban proletariat.
HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish
Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL
MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and
Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under
Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD
Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the
Post-Franco Period
The marriage in 1469 of royal cousins, Ferdinand of Aragon (1452-1516) and Isabella of Castile (1451-1504), eventually brought stability to both kingdoms. Isabella's niece, Juana, had bloodily disputed her succession to the throne in a conflict in which the rival claimants were given assistance by outside powers--Isabella by Aragon and Juana by her suitor, the king of Portugal. The Treaty of Alcaçovas ended the war in September 1479, and as Ferdinand had succeeded his father in Aragon earlier in the same year, it was possible to link Castile with Aragon. Both Isabella and Ferdinand understood the importance of unity; together they effected institutional reform in Castile and left Spain one of the best administered countries in Europe.
Even with the personal union of the Castilian and the Aragonese crowns, Castile, Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia remained constitutionally distinct political entities, and they retained separate councils of state and parliaments. Ferdinand, who had received his political education in federalist Aragon, brought a new emphasis on constitutionalism and a respect for local fueros to Castile, where he was king consort (1479- 1504) and continued as regent after Isabella's death in 1504. Greatly admired by Italian political theorist Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), Ferdinand was one of the most skillful diplomats in an age of great diplomats, and he assigned to Castile its predominant role in the dual monarchy.
Ferdinand and Isabella resumed the Reconquest, dormant for more than 200 years, and in 1492 they captured <"http://worldfacts.us/Spain-Granada.htm">Granada, earning for themselves the title of Catholic Kings. Once Islamic Spain had ceased to exist, attention turned to the internal threat posed by hundreds of thousands of Muslims living in the recently incorporated Granada. "Spanish society drove itself," historian J.H. Elliot writes, "on a ruthless, ultimately self-defeating quest for an unattainable purity."
Everywhere in sixteenth-century Europe, it was assumed that religious unity was necessary for political unity, but only in Spain was there such a sense of urgency in enforcing religious conformity. Spain's population was more heterogeneous than that of any other European nation, and it contained significant nonChristian communities. Several of these communities, including in particular some in Granada, harbored a significant element of doubtful loyalty. Moriscos (Granadan Muslims) were given the choice of voluntary exile or conversion to Christianity. Many Jews converted to Christianity, and some of these Conversos filled important government and ecclesiastical posts in Castile and in Aragon for more than 100 years. Many married or purchased their way into the nobility. Muslims in reconquered territory, called Mudejars, also lived quietly for generations as peasant farmers and skilled craftsmen.
After 1525 all residents of Spain were officially Christian, but forced conversion and nominal orthodoxy were not sufficient for complete integration into Spanish society. Purity of blood (pureza de sangre) regulations were imposed on candidates for positions in the government and the church, to prevent Moriscos from becoming a force again in Spain and to eliminate participation by Conversos whose families might have been Christian for generations. Many of Spain's oldest and finest families scrambled to reconstruct family trees.
The Inquisition, a state-controlled Castilian tribunal, authorized by papal bull in 1478, that soon extended throughout Spain, had the task of enforcing uniformity of religious practice. It was originally intended to investigate the sincerity of Conversos, especially those in the clergy, who had been accused of being crypto-Jews. Tomas de Torquemada, a descendant of Conversos, was the most effective and notorious of the Inquisition's prosecutors.
For years religious laws were laxly enforced, particularly in Aragon, and converted Jews and Moriscos continued to observe their previous religions in private. In 1568, however, a serious rebellion broke out among the Moriscos of Andalusia, who sealed their fate by appealing to the Ottoman Empire for aid. The incident led to mass expulsions throughout Spain and to the eventual exodus of hundreds of thousands of Conversos and Moriscos, even those who had apparently become devout Christians.
In the exploration and exploitation of the New World, Spain found an outlet for the crusading energies that the war against the Muslims had stimulated. In the fifteenth century, Portuguese mariners were opening a route around Africa to the East. At the same time as the Castilians, they had planted colonies in the Azores and in the Canary Islands (also Canaries; Spanish, Canarias), the latter of which had been assigned to Spain by papal decree. The conquest of Granada allowed the Catholic Kings to divert their attention to exploration, although Christopher Columbus's first voyage in 1492 was financed by foreign bankers. In 1493 Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia, a Catalan) formally approved the division of the unexplored world between Spain and Portugal. The Treaty of Tordesillas, which Spain and Portugal signed one year later, moved the line of division westward and allowed Portugal to claim Brazil.
New discoveries and conquests came in quick succession. Vasco Nunez de Balboa reached the Pacific in 1513, and the survivors of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition completed the circumnavigation of the globe in 1522. In 1519 the conquistador Hernando Cortes subdued the Aztecs in Mexico with a handful of followers, and between 1531 and 1533 Francisco Pizzaro overthrew the empire of the Incas and established Spanish dominion over Peru.
In 1493, when Columbus brought 1,500 colonists with him on his second voyage, a royal administrator had already been appointed for the Indies. The Council of the Indies (Consejo de Indias), established in 1524 acted as an advisory board to the crown on colonial affairs, and the House of Trade (Casa de Contratacion) regulated trade with the colonies. The newly established colonies were not Spanish but Castilian. They were administered as appendages of Castile, and the Aragonese were prohibited from trading or settling there.
Ferdinand and Isabella were the last of the Trastamaras, and a native dynasty would never again rule Spain. When their sole male heir, John, who was to have inherited all his parent's crowns, died in 1497, the succession to the throne passed to Juana, John's sister. But Juana had become the wife of Philip the Handsome, heir through his father, Emperor Maximilian I, to the Hapsburg patrimony. On Ferdinand's death in 1516, Charles of Ghent, the son of Juana and Philip, inherited Spain (which he ruled as Charles I, r. 1516-56), its colonies, and Naples. (Juana, called Juana Loca or Joanna the Mad, lived until 1555 but was judged incompetent to rule.) When Maximilian I died in 1519, Charles also inherited the Hapsburg domains in Germany. Shortly afterward he was selected Holy Roman emperor, a title that he had held as Charles V (r. 1519-56), to succeed his grandfather. Charles, in only a few years, was able to bring together the world's most diverse empire since Rome.
Charles's closest attachment was to his birthplace, Flanders; he surrounded himself with Flemish advisers who were not appreciated in Spain. His duties as both Holy Roman emperor and king of Spain, moreover, never allowed him to tarry in one place. As the years of his long reign passed, however, Charles moved closer to Spain and called upon its manpower and colonial wealth to maintain the Hapsburg empire.
When he abdicated in 1556 to retire to a Spanish monastery, Charles divided his empire. His son, Philip II (r. 1556-98), inherited Spain, the Italian possessions, and the Netherlands (the industrial heartland of Europe in the mid-sixteenth century). For a brief period (1554-58), Philip was also king of England as the husband of Mary Tudor (Mary I). In 1580 Philip inherited the throne of Portugal through his mother, and the Iberian Peninsula had a single monarch for the next sixty years.
Philip II was a Castilian by education and temperament. He was seldom out of Spain, and he spoke only Spanish. He governed his scattered dominions through a system of councils, such as the Council of the Indies, which were staffed by professional civil servants whose activities were coordinated by the Council of State, which was responsible to Philip. The Council of State's function was only advisory. Every decision was Philip's; every question required his answer; every document needed his signature. His father had been a peripatetic emperor, but Philip, a royal bureaucrat, administered every detail of his empire from El Escorial, the forbidding palace-monastery-mausoleum on the barren plain outside Madrid.
By marrying Ferdinand, Isabella had united Spain; however, she had also inevitably involved Castile in Aragon's wars in Italy against France, which had formerly been Castile's ally. The motivation in each of their children's marriages had been to circle France with Spanish allies--Habsburg, Burgundian, and English. The succession to the Spanish crown of the Habsburg dynasty, which had broader continental interests and commitments, drew Spain onto the center stage of European dynastic wars for 200 years.
Well into the seventeenth century, music, art, literature, theater, dress, and manners from Spain's Golden Age were admired and imitated; they set a standard by which the rest of Europe measured its culture. Spain was also Europe's preeminent military power, with occasion to exercise its strength on many fronts--on land in Italy, Germany, North Africa, and the Netherlands, and at sea against the Dutch, French, Turks, and English. Spain was the military and diplomatic standard-bearer of the CounterReformation . Spanish fleets defeated the Turks at Malta (1565) and at Lepanto (1572)--events celebrated even in hostile England. These victories prevented the Mediterranean from becoming an Ottoman lake. The defeat of the Grand Armada in 1588 averted the planned invasion of England but was not a permanent setback for the Spanish fleet, which recovered and continued to be an effective naval force in European waters.
Sixteenth-century Spain was ultimately the victim of its own wealth. Military expenditure did not stimulate domestic production. Bullion from American mines passed through Spain like water through a sieve to pay for troops in the Netherlands and Italy, to maintain the emperor's forces in Germany and ships at sea, and to satisfy conspicuous consumption at home. The glut of precious metal brought from America and spent on Spain's military establishment quickened inflation throughout Europe, left Spaniards without sufficient specie to pay debts, and caused Spanish goods to become too overpriced to compete in international markets.
American bullion alone could not satisfy the demands of military expenditure. Domestic production was heavily taxed, driving up prices for Spanish-made goods. The sale of titles to entrepreneurs who bought their way up the social ladder, removing themselves from the productive sector of the economy and padding an increasingly parasitic aristocracy, provided additional funds. Potential profit from the sale of property served as an incentive for further confiscations from Conversos and Moriscos.
Spain's apparent prosperity in the sixteenth century was not based on actual economic growth. As its bullion supply decreased in the seventeenth century, Spain was neither able to meet the cost of its military commitments nor to pay for imports of manufactured goods that could not be produced efficiently at home. The overall effect of plague and emigration reduced Spain's population from 8 million in the early sixteenth century to 7 million by the mid-seventeenth century. Land was taken out of production for lack of labor and the incentive to develop it, and Spain, although predominantly agrarian, depended on imports of foodstuffs.
Source: U.S. Library of Congress
See also <"http://worldfacts.us/Spain.htm">Facts about Spain
The seventeenth century was a period of unremitting political, military, economic, and social decline. Neither Philip III (r. 1598-1621) nor Philip IV (r. 1621-65) was competent to give the kind of clear direction that Philip II had provided. Responsibility passed to aristocratic advisers. Gaspar de Guzman, count-duke of Olivares, attempted and failed to establish the centralized administration that his famous contemporary, Cardinal Richelieu, had introduced in France. In reaction to Guzman's bureaucratic absolutism, Catalonia revolted and was virtually annexed by France. Portugal, with English aid, reasserted its independence in 1640, and an attempt was made to separate Andalusia from Spain. In 1648, at the Peace of Westphalia, Spain assented to the emperor's accommodation with the German Protestants, and in 1654 it recognized the independence of the northern Netherlands.
During the long regency for Charles II (1665-1700), the last of the Spanish Habsburgs, validos milked Spain's treasury, and Spain's government operated principally as a dispenser of patronage. Plague, famine, floods, drought, and renewed war with France wasted the country. The Peace of the Pyrenees (1659) ended fifty years of warfare with France, whose king, Louis XIV, found the temptation to exploit weakened Spain too great. As part of the peace settlement, the Spanish infanta Maria Teresa, had become the wife of Louis XIV. Using Spain's failure to pay her dowry as a pretext, Louis instigated the War of Devolution (1667- 68) to acquire the Spanish Netherlands in lieu of the dowery. Most of the European powers were ultimately involved in the wars that Louis fought in the Netherlands.
HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish
Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL
MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and
Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under
Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD
Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the
Post-Franco Period
Charles II, the product of generations of inbreeding, was unable to rule and remained childless. The line of Spanish Habsburgs came to an end at his death. Habsburg partisans argued for allocating succession to the Austrian branch of the Habsburg dynasty, but Charles II, in one of his last official acts, left Spain to his nephew, Philip of Anjou, a Bourbon and the grandson of Louis XIV. This solution appealed to Castilian legitimists because it complied with the principle of succession to the next in the bloodline. Spanish officials had been concerned with providing for the succession in such a way as to guarantee an integral, independent Spanish state that, along with its possessions in the Netherlands and in Italy, would not become part of either a pan-Bourbon or a pan-Habsburg empire. "The Pyrenees are no more," Louis XIV rejoiced at his grandson's accession as Philip V (r. 1700-24; 1725-46). The prospect of the Spanish Netherlands falling into French hands, however, alarmed the British and the Dutch.
HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish
Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL
MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and
Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under
Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD
Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the
Post-Franco Period
The acceptance of the Spanish crown by Philip V in the face of counterclaims by Archduke Charles of Austria, who was supported by England and the Netherlands, was the proximate cause of the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-14), the first "world war" fought by European powers. In 1705 an Anglo-Austrian force landed in Spain. A Franco-Castilian army halted its advance on Madrid, but the invaders occupied Catalonia. Castile enthusiastically received the Bourbon dynasty, but the Catalans opposed it, not so much out of loyalty to the Habsburgs as in defense of their fueros against the feared imposition of French-style centralization by a Castilian regime.
The War of the Spanish Succession was also a Spanish civil war. Britain agreed to a separate peace with France, and the allies withdrew from Catalonia, but the Catalans continued their resistance under the banner "Privilegis o Mort" (Liberty or Death). Catalonia was devastated, and Barcelona fell to Philip V after a prolonged siege (1713-14).
The Treaty of Utrecht (1713) brought the war to a close and recognized the Bourbon succession in Spain on the condition that Spain and France would never be united under the same crown. The Spanish Netherlands (which become known as the Austrian Netherlands and later as Belgium) and Spain's Italian possessions, however, reverted to the Austrian Habsburgs. Britain retained Gibraltar and Minorca, seized during the war, and received trade concessions in Spanish America. Spain emerged from the war with its internal unity and colonial empire intact, but with its political position in Europe weakened.
Philip V undertook to modernize Spanish government through his French and Italian advisers. Centralized government was institutionalized, local fueros were abrogated, regional parliaments were abolished, and the aristocracy's independent influence on the councils of state was destroyed.
HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish
Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL
MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and
Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under
Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD
Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the
Post-Franco Period
Charles III (r. 1759-88), Spain's enlightened despot par excellence, served his royal apprenticeship as king of Naples. He was one of Europe's most active patrons of the Enlightenment, a period during which attempts were made to reform society through the application of reason to political, social, and economic problems. Despite Charles's attempt to reform the economy, the impact of the Enlightenment was essentially negative. Anticlericalism was an integral part of Enlightenment ideology, but it was carried to greater lengths in Spain than elsewhere in Europe because of government sponsorship. Public charities financed by the church were considered antisocial because they were thought to discourage initiative, and they were therefore abolished. The state suppressed monasteries and confiscated their property. The Jesuits, outspoken opponents of regalism, were expelled. Their expulsion virtually crippled higher education in Spain. The state also banned the teachings of medieval philosophers and of the sixteenth-century Jesuit political theorists who had argued for the "divine right of the people" over their kings. The government employed the Inquisition to discipline antiregalist clerics.
Economic recovery was noticeable, and government efficiency was greatly improved at the higher levels during Charles III's reign. The Bourbon reforms, however, resulted in no basic changes in the pattern of property holding. Neither land reform nor increased land use occurred. The rudimentary nature of bourgeois class consciousness in Spain hindered the creation of a middleclass movement. Despite the development of a national bureaucracy in Madrid, government programs foundered because of the lethargy of administrators at lower levels and because of a background rural population. The reform movement could not be sustained without the patronage of Charles III, and it did not survive him.
HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish
Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL
MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and
Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under
Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD
Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the
Post-Franco Period
Charles IV (r. 1788-1807) retained the trappings of his father's enlightened despotism, but he was dominated by his wife's favorite, a guards officer, Manuel de Godoy, who at the age of twenty-five was chief minister and virtual dictator of Spain. When the French National Assembly declared war in 1793, Godoy rode the popular wave of reaction building in Spain against the French Revolution and joined the coalition against France. Spanish arms suffered repeated setbacks, and in 1796 Godoy shifted allies and joined the French against Britain. Godoy, having been promised half of Portugal as his personal reward, became Napoleon Bonaparte's willing puppet. Louisiana, Spanish since 1763, was restored to France. A regular subsidy was paid to France from the Spanish treasury, and 15,000 Spanish troops were assigned to garrisons in northern Europe. Military reverses and economic misery caused a popular uprising in March 1808 that forced the desmissal of Godoy and the abdiction of Charles IV. The king was succeeded by his son, Ferdinand VII (r. 1808; 1814-33). The French forced Ferdinand to abdicate almost immediately, however, and Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's brother, was named king of Spain. A large French army was moved in to support the new government and to invade Britain's ally, Portugal, from Spanish soil. The afrancesados, a small but influential group of Spaniards who favored reconstructing their country on the French model, welcomed the Bonapartist regime.
To ingratiate himself with the afrancesados, Joseph Bonaparte proclaimed the dissolution of religious houses. The defense of the Roman Catholic Church, which had long been attacked by successive Spanish governments, now became the test of Spanish patriotism and the cause around which resistance to the French rallied. The citizens of <"http://worldfacts.us/Spain-Zaragoza.htm"> Zaragoza held out against superior French forces for more than a year. In Asturias, local forces took back control of their province, and an army of Valencians temporarily forced the French out of Madrid. The War of Independence (1808-14), as the Iberian phase of the Napoleonic wars is known in Spanish historiography, attained the status of a popular crusade that united all classes, parties, and regions in a common struggle. It was a war fought without rules or regular battlelines. The Spanish painter, Goya, depicted the brutality practiced on both sides.
The British dispatched an expeditionary force, originally intended to occupy part of Spanish America, to the Iberian Peninsula in 1808. In the next year, a larger contingent under Arthur Wellesley, later duke of Wellington, followed. Elements of the Spanish army held Cadiz, the only major city not taken by the French, but the countryside belonged to the guerrillas, who held down 250,000 of Napoleon's best troops under Marshal Nicholas Soult, while Wellington waited to launch the offensive that was to cause the defeat of the French at Vitoria (1813).
From the first days of the War of Independence, juntas, established by army commanders, guerrilla leaders, or local civilian groups, appeared in areas outside French control. They also existed underground as alternatives to the French-imposed government. Unity extended only to fighting the French, however. Coups were frequent, and there was sometimes bloody competition among military, partisan, and civilian groups for control of the juntas. A central junta sat in Cadiz. It had little authority, except as surrogate for the absent royal government. It succeeded, however, in calling together representatives from local juntas in 1810, with the vague notion of creating the Cortes of All the Spains, so called because it would be the single legislative body for the empire and its colonies. Many of the overseas provinces had by that time already declared their independence. Some saw the Cortes at Cadiz as an interim government until the Desired One, as Ferdinand VII was called by his supporters, could return to the throne. Many regalists could not admit that a parliamentary body could legislate in the absence of a king.
The delegates at the Cortes at Cadiz formed into two main currents, liberal and conservative. The liberals carried on the reformist philisophy of Charles III and added to it many of the new ideals of the French Revolution. They wanted equality before the law, a centralized government, an efficient modern civil service, a reform of the tax system, the replacement of feudal privileges by freedom of contract, and the recognition of the property owner's right to use his property as he saw fit. As the liberals were the majority, they were able to transform the assembly from interim government to constitutional convention. The product of the Cortes' deliberations reflected the liberals dominance for the constitution of 1812 came to be the "sacred codex" of liberalism, and during the nineteenth century it served as a model for liberal constitutions of Latin nations.
As the principal aim of the new constitution was the prevention of arbitrary and corrupt royal rule, it provided for a limited monarchy which governed through ministers subject to parliamentary control. Suffrage, determined by property qualifications, favored the position of the commercial class in the new parliament, in which there was no special provision for the Church or the nobility. The constitution set up a rational and efficient centralized administrative system based on newly formed provinces and municipalties rather than on the historic provinces. Repeal of traditional property restrictions gave the liberals the freer economy they wanted.
The 1812 Constitution marked the initiation of the Spanish tradition of liberalism; by the country's standards, however, it was a revolutionary document, and when Ferdinand VII was restored to the throne in 1814 he refused to recognize it. He dismissed the Cadiz Cortes and was determined to rule as an absolute monarch.
Spain's American colonies took advantage of the postwar chaos to proclaim their independence, and most established republican governments. By 1825 only Cuba and Puerto Rico remained under the Spanish flag in the New World. When Ferdinand was restored to the throne in Madrid, he expended wealth and manpower in a vain effort to reassert control over the colonies. The move was unpopular among liberal officers assigned to the American wars.
HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish
Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL
MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and
Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under
Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD
Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the
Post-Franco Period
In 1820 Major Rafael de Riego led a revolt among troops quartered in Cadiz while awaiting embarkation to America. Garrison mutinies were not unusual, but Riego issued a pronunciamiento or declaration of principles, to the troops, which was directed against the government and which called for the army to support adoption of the 1812 constitution. Support for Riego spread from garrison to garrison, toppling the regalist government and forcing Ferdinand to accept the liberal constitution. The pronunciamiento, distributed by barracks politicians among underpaid members of an overstaffed officer corps, became a regular feature of Spanish politics. An officer or group of officers would seek a consensus among fellow officers in opposing or supporting a particular policy or in calling for a change in government. If any government were to survive, it needed the support of the army. If a pronunciamiento received sufficient backing, the government was well advised to defer to it. This "referendum in blood" was considered within the army to be the purest form of election because the soldiers supporting a pronunciamiento--at least in theory--were expressing their willingness to shed blood to make their point. A pronunciamiento was judged to have succeeded only if the government gave in to it without a fight. If it did not represent a consensus within the army and there was resistance to it, the pronunciamiento was considered a failure, and the officers who had proposed it dutifully went into exile.
French intervention, ordered by Louis XVIII on an appeal from Ferdinand and with the assent of his conservative officers, brought the three years of liberal government under the 1812 constitution--called the Constitutional Triennium (1820-23)--to an abrupt close. The arrival of the French was welcomed in many sectors. Ferdinand, restored as absolute monarch, chose his ministers from the ranks of the old afrancesados.
Ferdinand VII, a widower, was childless, and Don Carlos, his popular, traditionalist brother, was heir presumptive. In 1829, however, Ferdinand married his Neapolitan cousin, Maria Cristina, who gave birth to a daughter, an event followed closely by the revocation of provisions prohibiting female succession. Ferdinand died in 1833, leaving Maria Cristina as regent for their daughter, Isabella II (1833-68).
Don Carlos contested his niece's succession, and he won the fanatical support of the traditionalists of Aragon and of Basque Navarre (Spanish, Navarra). The Carlists (supporters of Don Carlos) held that legitimate succession was possible only through the male line. Comprised of agrarians, regionalists, and Catholics, the Carlists also opposed the middle-class-- centralist, anticlerical Liberals who flocked to support the regency. The Carlists fielded an army that held off government attempts to suppress them for six years (1833-39), during which time Maria Cristina received British aid in arms and volunteers. A Carlist offensive against Madrid in 1837 failed, but in the mountains, the Basques continued to resist until a compromise peace in 1839 recognized their ancient fueros. Sentiment for Don Carlos and for his successor, remained strong in Navarre, and the Carlists continued as a serious political force. Carlist uprisings occurred in 1847 and again from 1872 to 1876.
HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish
Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL
MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and
Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under
Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD
Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the
Post-Franco Period
The regency had come to depend on liberal support within the army during the first Carlist war, but after the end of the war against the traditionalists, both the Liberals and the army tired of Maria Cristina. They forced her to resign in 1840, and a liberal government assumed responsibility for the regency.
The Liberals were a narrowly based elite. Their abstract idealism and concern for individual liberties contrasted sharply with the paternalistic attitudes of Spain's rural society. There was no monolithic liberal movement in Spain, but anticlericalism, the touchstone of liberalism, unified the factions. They theorized that the state was the sum of the individuals living within it and that it could recognize and protect only the rights of individuals, not the rights of corporate institutions, such as the church or universities, or the rights of the regions as separate entities with distinct customs and interests. Because only individuals were subject to the law, only individuals could hold title to land. As nothing should impede the development of the individual, so nothing should impede the state in guaranteeing the rights of the individual.
Liberals also agreed on the necessity of a written constitution, a parliamentary government, and a centralized administration, as well as the need for laissez-faire economics. All factions found a voice in the army and drew leadership from its ranks. All had confidence that progress would follow naturally from the application of liberal principles. They differed, however, on the methods to be used in applying these principles.
The Moderates saw economic development within a free market as the cure for political revolution. They argued for a strong constitution that would spell out guaranteed liberties. The Progressives, like the Moderates, were members of the upper and the middle classes, but they drew support from the urban masses and favored creation of a more broadly based electorate. They argued that greater participation in the political process would ensure economic development and an equitable distribution of its fruits. Both factions favored constitutional monarchy. The more radical Democrats, however, believed that political freedom and economic liberalism could only be achieved in a republic.
The army backed the Moderates, who dominated the new regency in coalition with supporters of Isabella's succession. Local political leaders, called caciques, regularly delivered the vote for government candidates in return for patronage and assured the Moderates of parliamentary majorities. The Progressives courted the Democrats enough to be certain of regular inclusion in the government. State relations with the church continued to be the most sensitive issue confronting the government and the most divisive issue throughout the country. Despite their anticlericalism, the Moderates concluded a rapprochement with the church, which agreed to surrender its claim to confiscated property in return for official recognition by the state and a role in education. Reconciliation with the church did not, however, win the Moderates conservative rural support.
Modest economic gains were made during the administration of General Leopoldo O'Donnell, an advocate of laissez-faire policies, who came to power in 1856 through a pronunciamiento. O'Donnell had encouraged foreign investors to provide Spain with a railroad system, and he had also sponsored Spain's overseas expansion, particularly in Africa. Little economic growth was stimulated, however, except in Catalonia and the Basque region, both of which had already possessed an industrial base. Promises for land reform were broken.
O'Donnell was one of a number of political and military figures around whom personalist political parties formed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Most of these parties failed to survive their leaders' active political careers. O'Donnell, for example, formed the Liberal Union as a fusion party broad enough to hold most liberals and to counter the drift of left-wing Progressives to the Democrats. After several years of cooperating with the one-party parliamentary regime, the Progressives withdrew their support, and in 1866 a military coup toppled O'Donnell.
In 1868 an army revolt, led by exiled officers determined to force Isabella from the throne, brought General Juan Prim, an army hero and popular Progressive leader, to power. Isabella's abdication inaugurated a period of experimentation with a liberal monarchy, a federal republic, and finally a military dictatorship.
As prime minister, Prim canvased Europe for a ruler to replace Isabella. A tentative offer made to a Hohenzollern prince was sufficient spark to set off the Franco-Prussian War (1870- 71). Prim found a likely royal candidate in Amadeo of Savoy, son of the Italian king, Victor Emmanuel II. Shortly after Amadeo's arrival in Spain, Prim was assassinated, leaving the new king, without a mentor, at the mercy of hostile politicians. The constitution bequeathed to the new monarchy did not leave Amadeo sufficient power to supervise the formation of a stable government. Mistrustful of Prim's foreign prince, factional leaders refused to cooperate with, or to advise, Amadeo. Deserted finally by the army, Amadeo abdicated, leaving a rump parliament to proclaim Spain a federal republic.
The constitution of the First Republic (1873-74) provided for internally self-governing provinces that were bound to the federal government by voluntary agreement. Jurisdiction over foreign and colonial affairs and defense was reserved for Madrid. In its eight-month life, the federal republic had four presidents, none of whom could find a prime minister to form a stable cabinet. The government could not decentralize quickly enough to satisfy local radicals. Cities and provinces made unilateral declarations of autonomy. Madrid lost control of the country, and once again the army stepped in to rescue the "national honor." A national government in the form of a unitary republic served briefly as the transparent disguise for an interim military dictatorship.
HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish
Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL
MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and
Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under
Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD
Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the
Post-Franco Period
A brigadier's pronunciamiento that called Isabella's son, the able British-educated Alfonso XII (r. 1875-85), to the throne was sufficient to restore the Bourbon monarchy. Alfonso identified himself as "Spaniard, Catholic, and Liberal," and his succession was greeted with a degree of relief, even by supporters of the republic. He cultivated good relations with the army (Alfonso was a cadet at Sandhurst, the British military academy, when summoned to Spain), which had removed itself from politics because it was content with the stable, popular civilian government. Alfonso insisted that the official status of the church be confirmed constitutionally, thus assuring the restored monarchy of conservative support.
British practices served as the model for the new constitution's political provisions. The new government used electoral manipulation to construct and to maintain a two-party system in parliament, but the result was more a parody than an imitation. Conservatives and Liberals, who differed in very little except name, exchanged control of the government at regular intervals after general elections. Once again, caciques delivered the vote to one party or the other as directed--in return for the assurance of patronage from whichever was scheduled to win, thus controlling the elections at the constituency level. The tendency toward party fracturing and personalism remained a threat to the system, but the restoration monarchy's artificial two-party system gave Spain a generation of relative quiet.
Alfonso XIII (r. 1886-1931) was the posthumous son of Alfonso XII. The mother of Alfonso XIII, another Maria Cristina, acted as regent until her son came of age officially in 1902. Alfonso XIII abdicated in 1931.
HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish
Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL
MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and
Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under
Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD
Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the
Post-Franco Period
Emigration to Cuba from Spain was heavy in the nineteenth century, and the Cuban middle class, which had close ties to the mother country, favored keeping Cuba Spanish. Cuba had experienced periodic uprisings by independence movements since 1868. Successive governments in <"http://worldfacts.us/Spain-Madrid.htm"> Madrid were committed to maintaining whatever armed forces were necessary to combat insurgency. Hostilities broke out again in 1895. The United States clandestinely supported these hostilities, which required Spain to send substantial reinforcements under General Valerio Weyler. Reports of Weyler's suppression of the independence movement, and the mysterious explosion of the battleship U.S.S. Maine in Havana harbor, stirred public opinion in the United States and led to a declaration of war by the United States in April 1898. The United States destroyed antiquated Spanish naval units at Santiago de Cuba and in Manila Bay. Despite a pledge by Madrid to defend Cuba "to the last peseta," the Spanish army surrendered after a few weeks of hostilities against an American expeditionary force. In Paris that September, Spain gave up Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines.
The suddenness and the totality of Spain's defeat as well as the country's realization of its lack of European support during the war with the United States (only Germany had offered diplomatic backing) threw Spain into despair. The disaster called forth an intellectual reevaluation of Spain's position in the world by the so-called "Generation of 1898," who confronted Spaniards with the propositions that Spain had long since ceased to be a country of consequence, that its society was archaic, and that its institutions were outworn and incapable of moving into the twentieth century. These words were painful for the proud nation.
The traumatic events of 1898 and the inability of the government to deal with them prompted political reevaluation. A plethora of new, often short-lived, personalist parties and regional groups on both the left and the right (that broke the hegemony of the two-party system and ultimately left the parliamentary structure in disarray) sought solutions to the country's problems. By 1915 it was virtually impossible to form a coalition government that could command the support of a parliamentary majority.
Some politicians on the right, like the conservative, Antonio Maura, argued for a return to traditional authoritarianism, and they blamed the parliamentary regimes (kept in power by caciques) for corrupting the country. Maura failed in his attempt to form a national Catholic party, but he inspired a number of right-wing groups with his political philosophy.
Regionalist movements were organized to free progressive Catalonia, the Basque areas, and Galicia from the "Castilian corpse." Whether on the left or on the right, residents of these regions stressed their distinct character and history. An electoral coalition of Catalan parties regularly sent strong parliamentary contingents to Madrid to barter their votes for concessions to Catalonian regionalism.
Alejandro Lerroux was an effective, but demagogical, political organizer who took his Liberal splinter group into the antimonarchist camp. He formed the Radical Republicans on a national, middle-class base that frequently allied itself with the Catalans.
The democratic, Marxist-oriented Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol--PSOE), founded in 1879, grew rapidly in the north, especially in Asturias, where a trade union, the General Union of Workers (Union General de Trabajadores--UGT), had most effectively organized the working class.
The Federation of Iberian Anarchists (Federacion Anarquista Iberica) was well organized in Catalonia and Andalusia and had many members, but in keeping with anarchist philosophy, they remained aloof from participation in the electoral process. Their abstention, however, had a telling effect. They practiced terrorism, and the anarchist trade union, the National Confederation of Labor (Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo--CNT), was able on several occasions to shut down Barcelona. The aim of the anarchists was not to take control of the government, but to make government impossible.
Spain was neutral in World War I, but the Spanish army was constantly engaged from 1909 to 1926 against Abd al Krim's Riff Berbers in Morocco, where Spain had joined France in proclaiming a protectorate. Successive civilian governments in Spain allowed the war to continue, but they refused to supply the army with the means to win it. Spanish losses were heavy to their fierce and skillful enemy, who was equipped with superior weapons. Riots against conscription for the African war spread disorder throughout the country, and opposition to the war was often expressed in church burnings. Officers, who often had served in Morocco, formed juntas to register complaints that were just short of pronunciamientos against wartime inflation, low fixed salaries for the military, alleged civilian corruption, and inadequate and scarce equipment.
Conditions in Morocco, increased anarchist and communist terrorism, industrial unrest, and the effects of the postwar economic slump prompted the pronunciamiento that brought a general officer, Miguel Primo de Rivera (in power, 1923-30), into office. His authoritarian regime originally enjoyed wide support in much of the country and had the confidence of the king and the loyalty of the army. The government lacked an ideological foundation, however; its mandate was based on general disillusionment with both the parliamentary government and the extreme partisan politics of the previous period.
Once in power, Primo de Rivera dissolved parliament and ruled through directorates and the aid of the military until 1930. His regime sponsored public works to curb unemployment. Protectionism and state control of the economy led to a temporary economic recovery. A better led and better supplied army brought the African war to a successful conclusion in 1926.
The precipitous economic decline in 1930 undercut support for the government from special-interest groups. For seven years, Primo de Rivera remained a man on horseback. He established no new system to replace parliamentary government. Criticism from academics mounted. Bankers expressed disappointment at the state loans that his government had tried to float. An attempt to reform the promotion system cost him the support of the army. This loss of army support caused him to lose the support of the king. Primo de Rivera resigned and died shortly afterward in exile.
HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish
Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL
MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and
Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under
Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD
Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the
Post-Franco Period
Antimonarchist parties won a substantial vote in the 1931 municipal elections. Alfonso XIII interpreted the outcome of the elections and the riots that followed as an indication of imminent civil war. He left the country with his family and appealed to the army for support in upholding the monarchy. When General Jose Sanjurjo, army chief of staff, replied that the armed forces would not support the king against the will of the people, Alfonso abdicated.
A multiparty coalition in which regional parties held the balance met at a constitutional convention at San Sebastian, the summer capital, to proclaim the Second Republic. The goals of the new republic, set forth at the convention, included reform of the army, the granting of regional autonomy, social reform and economic redistribution, the separation of church and state, and depriving the church of a role in education. Niceto Alcala Zamora, a nonparty conservative, became president and called elections for June.
The first general election of the Second Republic gave a majority to a coalition of the Republican Left (Izquierda Republicana--IR)--a middle-class radical party led by Manuel Azana, who became prime minister--and labor leader Francisco Largo Caballero's PSOE, backed by the UGT. Azana pledged that his government would gradually introduce socialism through the democratic process. His gradualism alienated the political left; his socialism, the right.
Azana's republicanism, like nineteenth-century liberalism and Bourbon regalism before it, was inevitably associated with anticlericalism. His government proposed to carry out the constitutional convention's recommendations for complete state control of education.
In 1932 the Catalan Generalitat gained recognition as the autonomous regional government for Catalonia. The region remained part of the Spanish republic and was tied more closely to it because of Madrid's grant of autonomy. Representatives from Catalonia to the Madrid parliament played an active role in national affairs. Efforts to reform the army and to eliminate its political power provoked a pronunciamiento against the government by Sanjurjo. The pronunciamiento, though unsuccessful, forced Azana to back down from dealing with the military establishment for the time being.
Azana's greatest difficulties derived from doctrinal differences within the government between his non-Marxist, bourgeois IR and the PSOE, who, after an initial period of cooperation, obstructed Azana at every step. Opposition from the UGT blocked attempts at labor legislation. The PSOE complained that Azana's reforms were inadequate to produce meaningful social change, though there was no parliamentary majority that would have approved Largo Caballero's far-reaching proposals to improve conditions for working people. Azana's legislative program may not have satisfied his ally, but it did rally moderate and conservative opinion against the coalition on the eve of the second general election in November 1932.
Azana's principal parliamentary opposition came from the two largest parties that could claim a national constituency, Lerroux's moderate, middle-class Radical Republicans and a rightwing Catholic organization, the Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right (Confederacion Espanola de Derechas Autonomas-- CEDA). Lerroux, who had grown more conservative and tolerant since his days as an antimonarchist firebrand, capitalized on the left's failures to reach a compromise with the church and to deal with industrial unrest and with the extragovernmental power of the UGT and the CNT. He appealed for conservative support by showing that Azana was at the mercy of the unions--as he was when in coalition with Largo Caballero.
CEDA was a coalition of groups under the leadership of Jose Maria Gil Robles, a law professor from <"http://worldfacts.us/Spain-Salamanca.htm"> Salamanca who had headed Popular Action (Accion Popular), an influential Catholic political youth movement. As a broadly based fusion party, CEDA could not afford a doctrinaire political stance, and its flexibility was part of its strength. Some elements in the party, however, favored a Christian social democracy, and they took the encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII as their guide. CEDA never succeeded in establishing a working-class base. Its electoral strength lay in the Catholic middle class and in the rural population. Gil Robles was primarily interested in 1932 in working for a settlement favorable to the church within the constitutional structure of the republic.
In the November election, the IR and the PSOE ran separately rather than placing candidates on a common slate. Combined electoral lists, permitted under the constitution, encouraged coalitions; they were intended to prevent parliamentary fragmentation in the multiparty system.
The government parties lost seats, and CEDA emerged as the largest single party in parliament. CEDA's showing at the polls was taken as a sign of conservative Spain's disenchantment with the Republic and its anticlericalism. But there was no question that the Catholic right was being called on to form a government. President Zamora was hostile to CEDA, and he urged Lerroux to head a minority government. Lerroux agreed, but he entered into a parliamentary alliance with CEDA a little more than a year later. Lerroux did not welcome the center-right coalition; however, he knew the coalition presented the only means by which a parliamentary majority that included his party could be obtained. Gil Robles was appointed minister for war, with a role in maintaining public order, in the new government.
Unions used strikes as political weapons, much as the army had used the pronunciamiento. Industrial disorder climaxed in a miners' strike in Asturias, which Azana openly and actively supported. The police and the army commanded by Franco crushed the miners. The strike confirmed to the right that the left could not be trusted to abide by constitutional processes, and the suppression of the strike proved to the left that the right was "fascist." Azana accused Gil Robles of using republican institutions to destroy the republic.
The Lerroux-Gil Robles government had as its first priority the restoration of order, although the government's existence was the chief cause of the disorder. Action on labor's legitimate grievances was postponed until order was restored. The most controversial of Gil Robles's programs, however, was finding the means to effect a reconciliation with the church. In the context of the coalition with Lerroux, he also attempted to expand his political base by courting the support of antirepublican elements. The government resigned in November 1935 over a minor issue. Zamora refused to sanction the formation of a new government by CEDA, without the cooperation of which no moderate government could be put together. On the advice of the left, Zamora called a new general election for February 1936.
The Asturian miners' strike had polarized public opinion and had led to the consolidation of parties on the left from Azana's IR to the Communist Party of Spain (Partido Comunista de Espana-- PCE). The PSOE had been increasingly "bolshevized," and it was difficult for a social democrat, such as Largo Caballero, to control his party, which drifted leftward. In 1935 Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had sanctioned communist participation in popular front governments with bourgeois and democratic socialist parties. The Left Republicans, the PSOE, the Republican Left of Catalonia (Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya), the communists, a number of smaller regional and left-wing parties, and the anarchists, who had boycotted previous elections as a matter of principle, joined to present a single leftist slate to the electorate.
The Spanish Popular Front was to be only an electoral coalition. Its goal was not to form a government but to defeat the right. Largo Caballero made it clear that the Socialists would not cooperate in any government that did not adopt their program for nationalization, a policy as much guaranteed to break Spain in two and to provoke a civil war as the appointment of the CEDA-dominated government that Zamora had worked to prevent.
The general election produced a number of irregularities that led the left, the right, and the center to claim massive voting fraud. Two subsequent runoff votes, recounts, and an electoral commission controlled by the left provided the Popular Front with an impressive number of parliamentary seats. Azana formed his minority government, but the front's victory was taken as the signal for the start of the left's long-awaited revolution, already anticipated by street riots, church burnings, and strikes. Workers' councils, which undertook to circumvent the slow-grinding wheels of the constitutional process, set up governments parallel to the traditional bodies. Zamora was removed from office on the grounds that he had gone beyond his constitutional authority in calling the general election. Azana was named to replace him, depriving the IR of his strong leadership.
HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish
Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL
MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and
Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under
Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD
Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the
Post-Franco Period
Gil Robles's influence, as a spokesman for the right in the new parliament, waned. The National Block, a smaller coalition of monarchists and fascists led by Jose Calvo Sotelo, who had sought the army's cooperation in restoring Alfonso XIII, assumed CEDA's role. Calvo Sotelo was murdered in July 1936, supposedly in retaliation for the killing of a police officer by fascists. Calvo Sotelo's death was a signal to the army to act on the pretext that the civilian government had allowed the country to fall into disorder. The army issued a pronunciamiento. A coup was expected, however, and the urban police and the workers' militia loyal to the government put down revolts by army garrisons in Madrid and Barcelona. Navy crews spontaneously purged their ships of officers. The army and the left rejected the eleventh-hour efforts of Indalecio Prieto (who had succeeded Azana as prime minister) to arrive at a compromise.
The army was most successful in the north, where General Emilio Mola had established his headquarters at Burgos. North-central Spain and the Carlist strongholds in Navarre and Aragon rallied to the army. In Morocco, elite units seized control under Franco, Spain's youngest general and hero. Transport supplied by Germany and Italy ferried Franco's African army, including Moorish auxiliaries, to Andalusia. Franco occupied the major cities in the south before turning toward Madrid to link up with Mola, who was advancing from Burgos. The relief of the army garrison besieged at Toledo, however, delayed the attack on Madrid and allowed time for preparation of the capital's defense. Army units penetrated the city limits, but they were driven back, and the Nationalists were able to retain the city.
A junta of generals, including Franco, formed a government at Burgos, which Germany and Italy immediately recognized. Sanjurjo, who had been expected to lead the army movement, was killed in a plane crash during the first days of the uprising. In October 1936, Franco was named head of state, with the rank of generalissimo and the title el caudillo (the leader).
When he assumed leadership of the Nationalist forces, Franco had a reputation as a highly professional, career-oriented, combat soldier, who had developed into a first-rate officer. Commissioned in the army at the age of eighteen, he had volunteered for service in Morocco, where he had distinguished himself as a courageous leader. Serious, studious, humorless, withdrawn, and abstemious, he had won the respect and the confidence of his subordinates more readily than he had won the comradeship of his brother officers. At the age of thirty-three, he had become the youngest general in Europe since Napoleon Bonaparte.
Franco opposed Sanjurjo in 1932; still, Azana considered Franco unreliable and made him captain general of the Canaries, a virtual exile for an ambitious officer. Though by nature a conservative, Franco did not wed himself to any particular political creed. On taking power, he set about to reconcile all right-wing, antirepublican groups in one Nationalist organization. The Falange, a fascist party founded by Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera (the dictator's son), provided the catalyst. The Carlists, revived after 1931, merged with the Falange in 1937, but the association was never harmonious. Jose Antonio's execution by the Republicans provided the Falange with a martyr. The more radical of the early Falange programs were pushed aside by more moderate elements, and the Nationalists' trade unionism was only a shadow of what Jose Antonio had intended. The Nationalist organization did keep its fascist facade, but Franco's strength lay in the army.
Nationalist strategy called for separating Madrid from Catalonia (which was firmly Republican), Valencia, and Murcia (which the republic also controlled). The Republicans stabilized the front around Madrid, defending it against the Nationalists for three years. Isolated Asturias and Vizcaya, where the newly organized Basque Republic fought to defend its autonomy without assistance from Madrid, fell to Franco in October 1937. Otherwise the battlelines were static until July 1938, when Nationalist forces broke through to the Mediterranean Sea south of Barcelona. Throughout the Civil War, the industrial areas--except Asturias and the Basque provinces--remained in Republican hands, while the chief food-producing areas were under Nationalist control.
The republic lacked a regular trained army, though a number of armed forces cadres had remained loyal, especially in the air force and the navy. Many of the loyal officers were either purged or were not trusted to hold command positions. The workers' militia and independently organized armed political units like those of the Trotskyite Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (Partido Obrero de Unificacion Marxista--POUM) bore the brunt of the fighting in the early months of the Civil War. For example, the anarchist UGT militia and the Assault Guards (the urban police corps established by the Republic to counterbalance the Civil Guard--Guardia Civil--the paramilitary rural police who were generally considered reactionary) crushed the army garrison in Barcelona. Moscow provided advisers, logistics experts, and some field-grade officers. Foreign volunteers, including more than 2,000 from the United States, formed the International Brigade. The communists pressed for, and won, approval for the creation of a national, conscript Republican army.
The Soviet Union supplied arms and munitions to the republic from the opening days of the Civil War. France provided some aircraft and artillery. The republic's only other conduit for arms supply was through Mexico. The so-called spontaneous revolutions that plagued the industrial centers hampered arms production within Spain.
Nationalist strength was based on the regular army, which included large contingents of Moroccan troops and battalions of the Foreign Legion, which Franco had commanded in Africa. The Carlists, who had always maintained a clandestine militia (requetes), were among Franco's most effective troops, and they were employed, together with the Moroccans, as a shock corps. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini (Fascist premier, 1922- 45) dispatched more than 50,000 Italian "volunteers" (most of them army conscripts) to Spain, along with air and naval units. The German Condor Legion, made infamous by the bombing of Guernica, provided air support for the Nationalists and tested the tactics and the equipment used a few years later by the Luftwaffe (German air force). Germany and Italy also supplied large quantities of artillery and armor, as well as the personnel to use this weaponry.
A nonintervention commission, including representatives from France, Britain, Germany, and Italy, was established at the Lyon Conference in 1936 to stem the flow of supplies to both sides. France and Britain were concerned that escalating foreign intervention could turn Spain's Civil War into a European war. The commission and coastal patrols supplied by the signatory powers were to enforce an embargo. The net effect of the nonintervention agreement was to cut off French and British aid to the republic. Germany and Italy did not observe the agreement. The Soviet Union was not a signatory. By 1938, however, Stalin had lost interest in Spain.
While the Republicans resisted the Nationalists by all available means, another struggle was going on within their own ranks. A majority fought essentially to protect republican institutions. Others, including the communists, were committed to finishing the Civil War before beginning their anticipated revolution. They were, however, resisted by comrades-in-arms--the Trotskyites and anarchists--who were intent on completing the social and political revolution while waging war against the Nationalists.
Largo Caballero, who became prime minister in September 1936, had the support of the Socialists and of the communists, who were becoming the most important political factor in the republican government. The communists, after successfully arguing for a national conscript army that could be directed by the government, pressed for elimination of the militia units. They also argued for postponing the revolution until the fascists had been defeated and encouraged greater participation by the bourgeois parties in the Popular Front. The UGT, increasingly under communist influence, entered into the government, and the more militant elements within it were purged. POUM, which had resisted disbanding its independent military units and merging with the communist-controlled national army, was ruthlessly suppressed as the communists undertook to eliminate competing leftist organizations. Anarchists were dealt with in similar fashion, and in Catalonia a civil war raged within a civil war.
Fearing the growth of Soviet influence in Spain, Largo Caballero attempted to negotiate a compromise that would end the Civil War. He was removed from office and replaced by Juan Negrin, a procommunist socialist with little previous political experience.
The Republican army, its attention diverted by internal political battles, was never able to mount a sustained counteroffensive or to exploit a breakthrough such as that on the Rio Ebro in 1938. Negrin realized that Spaniards in Spain could not win the war, but he hoped to prolong the fighting until the outbreak of a European war, which he thought was imminent.
Barcelona fell to the Nationalists in January 1939, and Valencia, the temporary capital, fell in March. When factional fighting broke out in Madrid among the city's defenders, the Republican army commander seized control of what remained of the government and surrendered to the Nationalists on the last day of March, thus ending the Civil War.
There is as much controversy over the number of casualties of the Spanish Civil War as there is about the results of the 1936 election, but even conservative estimates are high. The most consistent estimate is 600,000 dead from all causes, including combat, bombing, and executions. In the Republican sector, tens of thousands died of starvation, and several hundred thousand more fled from Spain.
HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the Post-Franco Period
The leader of the Nationalist forces, General Franco, headed the authoritarian regime that came to power in the aftermath of the Civil War. Until his death in November 1975, Franco ruled Spain as "Caudillo by the grace of God," as his coins proclaimed. In addition to being generalissimo of the armed forces, he was both chief of state and head of government, the ultimate source of legitimate authority. He retained the power to appoint and to dismiss ministers and other decision makers. Even after he grew older, began to lose his health, and became less actively involved in policy making, Franco still had the final word on every major political decision.
Ideology or political theories were not the primary motivators in Franco's developing of the institutions that came to be identified with his name. Franco had spent his life as a professional soldier, and his conception of society was along military lines. Known for his iron political nerve, Franco saw himself as the one designated to save Spain from the chaos and instability visited upon the country by the evils of parliamentary democracy and political parties, which he blamed for destroying the unity of Spain. His pragmatic goal was to maintain power in order to keep what he termed the "anti-Spain" forces from gaining ascendancy.
The political structures established under Franco's rule represented this pragmatic approach. Because he never formulated a true, comprehensive, constitutional system, Franco had great flexibility in dealing with changing domestic and international situations. Seven fundamental laws decreed during his rule provided the regime with a semblance of constitutionalism, but they were developed after the fact, usually to legitimize an existing situation or distribution of power.
The first of these fundamental laws was the Labor Charter, promulgated on March 9, 1938. It set forth the social policy of the regime, and it stressed the mutual obligations of the state and its citizens: all Spaniards had the duty to work, and the state was to assure them the right to work. Although the decree called for adequate wages, paid vacations, and a limit to working hours, it ensured labor's compliance with the new regime by labeling strikes as treason. Later legislation required Spanish workers to join vertical syndicates in which both owners and employees were supposed to cooperate for the good of the nation.
Another fundamental law, the Constituent Law of the Cortes (1942), provided the trappings of constitutionalism. This Cortes (Spanish Parliament), was purely an advisory body, and it had little in common with democratic legislatures. Most of its members were indirectly elected or appointed, and many were already part of the administration. The Cortes did not have the right to initiate legislation or to vote against the government; it could only approve laws presented by the executive. There was no vestige of power attached to this function because the law permitted Franco to legislate by decree without consulting the Cortes. The Council of Ministers, the members of which were appointed by, and presided over, by Franco, exercised executive authority. Franco had the right to dismiss these ministers.
Following the Allied victories in 1945, Franco sought to impress the world's democratic powers with Spain's "liberal" credentials by issuing a fundamental law that was ostensibly a bill of rights--the Charter of Rights. The rights granted by this charter were more cosmetic than democratic, because the government bestowed them and could suspend them without justification; furthermore, the charter placed more emphasis on the duty of all Spaniards to serve their country and to obey its laws than on their basic rights as citizens. Thus, for example, the charter guaranteed all Spaniards the right to express their opinions freely, but they were not to attack the fundamental principles of the state.
The Law on Referenda, also issued in 1945, was a further attempt by Franco to make his regime appear less arbitrary. It provided that issues of national concern would be submitted for the consideration of Spanish citizens by means of popular referenda. Franco decreed this law without having consulted the Cortes, however, and he retained the sole right to determine whether a referendum would be called. The law stipulated that after 1947, a referendum would have to be called in order to alter any fundamental law; Franco retained the right to decree such laws, however--a right which he exercised in 1958.
Additional measures that were taken in the immediate postwar years to provide the Franco regime with a facade of democracy included pardons and reduced terms for prisoners convicted of civil war crimes and a guarantee that refugees who returned would not be prosecuted if they did not engage in political activities. The regime announced new elections for municipal councils; council members were to be selected indirectly by syndicates and heads of "families." The government retained the right to appoint all mayors directly.
The Law of Succession (1947) was the first of the fundamental laws to be submitted to popular referendum. It proclaimed that Spain would be a "Catholic, social, and representative monarchy" and that Franco would be regent for life (unless incapacitated). Franco had the authority to name the next king when he thought the time was appropriate and also to revoke his choice at a later date if he so desired. The law also provided for a Council of the Realm to assist Franco in the exercise of executive power and for a three-member Regency Council to be in charge of the government during the period of transition to the Caudillo's successor. When the plebiscite was held, over 90 percent of the 15 million voters approved the measures. Although the Law of Succession ostensibly reestablished the monarchy, it actually solidified Franco's rule and legitimized his position as head of state by popular suffrage.
The sixth fundamental law, the Law on the Principles of the National Movement--which Franco decreed unilaterally in 1958-- further defined the institutions of Franco's government. The National Movement--a coalition of right-wing groups referred to as political "families"--termed a "communion" rather than a party, was designated as the sole forum for political participation. The law reaffirmed the nature of Spain as a traditional, Catholic monarchy. All top government officials, as well as all possible future successors to Franco, were required to pledge their loyalty to the principles embodied in this law (which was presented as a synthesis of all previous fundamental laws).
The final fundamental law, the Organic Law of the State, was presented in 1966. It incorporated no major changes, but was designed to codify and to clarify existing practices, while allowing for some degree of reform. It established a separation between the functions of the president of government (prime minister) and the head of state, and it outlined the procedures for the selection of top government officials. It included other measures designed to modernize the Spanish system and to eliminate vestiges of fascist terminology. Although presented as a move toward democratization, it nevertheless retained the basic structure of an authoritarian system.
Franco initially derived his authority from his victory in the Civil War. The armed forces gave his regime security; the Roman Catholic Church and the National Movement gave it legitimacy. The National Movement was the only recognized political organization in Franco's Spain. It was not a political party, and it did not have an overt ideological basis. Its membership included monarchists, Falangists, conservative Catholics, members of the armed forces, as well as business groups with (vested interests in continuity), technocrats, and civil servants. Although there was some overlap among these groups, they had distinct, and often contradictory, interests. The force that fused them together was their common loyalty to Franco. Franco was particularly skillful in manipulating each of these "families," giving each a taste of power, but not allowing any group or individual to create an independent base from which to challenge his authority.
Franco's political system was virtually the antithesis of the final government of the republican era--the Popular Front government. In contrast to the anticlericalism of the Popular Front, the Francoist regime established policies that were highly favorable to the Catholic Church, which was restored to its previous status as the official religion of Spain. In addition to receiving government subsidies, the church regained its dominant position in the education system, and laws conformed to Catholic dogma. Gains in regional autonomy were reversed under Franco, and Spain reverted to being a highly centralized state. The regime abolished regional governmental bodies and enacted measures against the use of the Basque and the Catalan languages. Further contrast between the Popular Front government and the Franco regime was apparent in their bases of support. Whereas the liberal leftists and the working class elements of society had supported the Popular Front, the conservative upper classes were the mainstay of Franco's government.
Above all, Franco endeavored to remove all vestiges of parliamentary democracy, which he perceived to be alien to Spanish political traditions. He outlawed political parties, blaming them for the chaotic conditions that had preceded the Civil War. He eliminated universal suffrage and severely limited the freedoms of expression and association; he viewed criticism of the regime as treason.
In spite of the regime's strong degree of control, Franco did not pursue totalitarian domination of all social, cultural, and religious institutions, or of the economy as a whole. The Franco regime also lacked the ideological impetus characteristic of totalitarian governments. Furthermore, for those willing to work within the system, there was a limited form of pluralism. Thus, Franco's rule has been characterized as authoritarian rather than totalitarian.
Whereas there is generally consensus among analysts in designating the regime as authoritarian, there is less agreement concerning the fascist component of Franco's Spain. In its early period, the Francoist state was considered, outside Spain, to be fascist. The Falangist program of national syndicalism reflected the pattern of fascism prevalent in Europe during those years; nevertheless, core Falangists never played a major role in the new state. Most of the key leaders of the Falange did not survive the Civil War, and Franco moved quickly to subordinate the fascist party, merging it as well as more conservative and traditional political forces into the broader and vaguer National Movement under his direct control. The links between Franco's regime and the Roman Catholic Church, as well as the course of international developments, further mitigated the fascist component. Thus, while there was a definite fascist element during the first decade of Franco's rule, most analysts have concluded that early Francoism can more accurately be described as semifascist.
HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish
Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL
MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and
Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under
Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD
Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the
Post-Franco Period
Severe repression marked the early years of the regime, as Franco sought to impose absolute political control and to institutionalize the Nationalist victory in the Civil War. The schisms that had preceded and precipitated the war were maintained as the vanquished were excluded from political participation. Franco restricted individual liberties and suppressed challenges to his authority. The regime imposed prison terms for "revolutionary activity," and executions were carried out through 1944, albeit at a decreasing rate. These repressive measures engendered an atmosphere of fear. In addition, the traumatic effect of years of internecine violence, widespread deprivations, suffering, and disillusionment had left most of the Spanish population acquiescent, willing to accept any system that could restore peace and stability.
During the first phase of the regime, the military played a major role. The state of martial law that was declared in July 1936 remained in effect until 1948. With the backing of the armed forces, Franco used his extensive powers to invalidate all laws of the Second Republic that offended his political and ethical beliefs. He banned civil marriage, made divorce illegal, and made religious education compulsory in the schools. Publications were subject to prior censorship, and public meetings required official permission. He returned most of the land nationalized under the republic's agrarian program to its original owners. The state destroyed trade unions, confiscating their funds and property. Vertical syndicates replaced the unions.
In 1939 Franco initiated a program of reconstruction based on the concept of economic self-sufficiency or autarchy. The program, aimed at increasing national economic production, favored the established industrial and financial interests at the expense of the lower classes and the agricultural regions. Acute shortages and starvation wages were widespread in the early 1940s, a period which saw the worst inflation in Spain's history. By the end of the decade, Spain's level of economic development was among the lowest in southern Europe. Furthermore, the ostracism that Spain experienced because of Franco's collaboration with the Axis powers during World War II and because of the dictatorial nature of his regime deprived the country of the benefits of the Marshall Plan, which was a major factor in the rebuilding of Europe's postwar economy.
As the 1940s drew to a close, agricultural imbalances, labor unrest, and a growing pressure for industrial development forced the regime to begin to modify its autarchic policies. Spain's need for food, raw materials, energy, and credit made it necessary for the country to establish some link to the international economy. Spain achieved this goal when the United States decided to seek the political and strategic advantages of Spanish friendship in the face of an increasingly aggressive Soviet Union. With the infusion of American capital, Spain's economy revived, and living standards began to improve. There was a degree of economic liberalization, and industrial production increased significantly in the 1950s. Economic liberalization did not result in a relaxation of authoritarian control, however. The regime swiftly repressed workers' demonstrations in the spring of 1951 and student protests in 1956.
The regime's "families" did not agree unanimously on the new economic policies, and there were clashes between the progressive and the reactionary forces. The Falange resisted the opening of the regime to capitalistic influences, while the technocrats of the powerful Catholic pressure group, Opus Dei, de-emphasized the role of the syndicates and favored increased competition as a means of achieving rapid economic growth. The technocrats prevailed, and members of Opus Dei assumed significant posts in Franco's 1957 cabinet. Although Opus Dei did not explicitly support political liberalization, it aspired to economic integration with Europe, which meant that Spain would be exposed to democratic influences.
Measures proposed by these technocrats to curb inflation, to reduce government economic controls, and to bring Spanish economic policies and procedures in line with European standards were incorporated in the Stabilization Plan of 1959. The plan laid the basis for Spain's remarkable economic transformation in the 1960s. During that decade, Spain's industrial production and standard of living increased dramatically.
Rapid economic development had political and social consequences, however. Economic expansion resulted in a larger and better educated middle class than had ever existed in Spain, as well as in a new urban working class. Furthermore, the unprecedented degree of foreign cultural influence had a marked impact on Spanish society. All of these factors contributed to an increasing level of dissatisfaction with the restrictions that Franco had imposed. These restrictions were seen as impediments to further growth and modernization.
The technocrats had hoped that greater economic prosperity would eliminate hostility toward Francoism, but tension between an increasingly dynamic Spanish society and the oppressive regime that governed it resulted in growing domestic opposition throughout the 1960s. The expanding industrial labor force became increasingly militant. Workers organized clandestine commissions, and recurrent strikes and bombings were indications that Franco would not be able to maintain his repressive grip on the labor force indefinitely.
In addition, regional discontent was giving rise to escalating violent protests in the Basque region and in Catalonia. Agitation was also growing among university students who resented the strictures of Franco's regime. There was even opposition among the members of one of Franco's former bastions of support, the clergy. The younger liberal priests in the Catholic Church in Spain had responded with enthusiasm to the Second Vatican Council, which emphasized individual liberties and progressive social policies. The priests were also increasingly vocal in their attacks on the oppressive aspects of Francoism.
The unrest of the mid-1960s did not seriously threaten Spain's stability, however, and Franco--after twenty-five years in power--felt the regime was sufficiently secure and economically booming for a slight loosening of his authoritarian control. The Organic Law of the State, which had been approved by referendum in 1966, provided this modicum of liberalization while it solidified Franco's political system. The Law on Religious Freedom, approved in June 1967, eased restrictions on non-Catholics. In the same year, the regime modified censorship laws, and a considerably wider expression of opinion followed. In July 1969, Franco provided his regime with a greater degree of legitimacy and continuity by naming as his successor a legitimate heir to the throne, Prince Juan Carlos de Borbon.
The closing years of Franco's regime were marked by increasing violence and unrest. The anticipation of the dictator's demise and his increasing incapacity destabilized the country, and there was ongoing conflict between those who sought to liberalize the regime in order to secure its survival and those of the bunker mentality who resisted reforms. As a recession in the late 1960s overtook rapid economic expansion, labor agitation heightened. An unprecedented wave of strikes and increasing rebellion in the universities moved Franco to proclaim a state of exception throughout Spain in the early months of 1969. Freedom of expression and assembly were among the constitutional rights that were suspended, and Spain appeared to be returning to the repressive conditions of the 1940s. The revival of dictatorial policies had international repercussions and threatened negotiations with the United States for renewal of an agreement on United States military bases. Franco lifted the state of exception in March 1969, but the government's efforts to achieve legitimacy had been seriously undermined. The remaining years of Franco's rule saw periods of intensified opposition to which the government responded with harshly repressive measures that merely served to broaden and to inflame the resistance, leaving the regime in a state of constant turmoil.
The most virulent opposition to the Franco regime in the late 1960s and the early 1970s came from the revolutionary Basque nationalist group, Basque Fatherland and Freedom (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna--ETA). This extremist group used terror tactics and assassinations to gain recognition of its demands for regional autonomy. The ETA's most daring act was the assassination in December 1973 of Luis Carrero Blanco, whom Franco had appointed as his first prime minister. Carrero Blanco had embodied hard-line Francoism, and he was seen as the one who would carry on the Caudillo's policies. His assassination precipitated the regime's most serious governmental crisis and interrupted the continuity that Franco had planned.
The tensions that had been mounting within the regime since the late 1960s would have made a continuation of Franco's system untenable even without Carrero Blanco's death. Conflicts between the reactionary elements of the regime and those who were willing to open the door to reform had plagued Carrero Blanco. These conflicts continued under his successor, Carlos Arias Navarro. In his first speech to the Cortes on February 12, 1974, the new prime minister promised liberalizing reforms, including the right to form political associations; however, diehard Francoists on the right, who equated any change with chaos, and radical reformers on the left, who were not content with anything less than a total break with the past, condemned Arias Navarro.
Both camps were dissatisfied with the political associations bill that eventually became law in December 1974. The law required that political participation be in accord with the principles of the National Movement and placed associations under its jurisdiction. The law offered no significant departure from Francoism. Would-be reformers saw it as a sham; reactionaries criticized it as the beginning of a limited political party system.
Opposition to the regime mounted on all sides in 1974 and 1975. Labor strikes, in which even actors participated, spread across the country. Universities were in a state of turmoil, as the popular clamor for democracy grew more strident. Terrorist activity reached such a level that the government placed the Basque region under martial law in April 1975. By the time of Franco's death on November 20, 1975, Spain was in a chronic state of crisis.
Franco's legacy had been an unprecedented era of peace and order, undergirded by his authoritarian grip on the country. While forced political stability enabled Spain to share in the remarkable period of economic development experienced by Europe in the 1960s, it suppressed, but did not eliminate, longstanding sources of conflict in Spanish society. The economic and social transformation that Spain experienced in the last decades of Francoist rule complicated these tensions, which were exacerbated as the regime drew to a close. At the time of Franco's death, change appeared inevitable. The form that the change would take and the extent to which it could be controlled were less certain.
HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish
Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL
MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and
Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under
Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD
Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the
Post-Franco Period
The overriding need to strengthen the regime determined foreign policy in the first phase of Franco's rule. Weakened by the devastation of civil war, the country could not afford to become involved in a protracted European conflict. Although Franco was deeply indebted to Germany and to Italy for their decisive contribution to his victory over the Republicans, he declared Spain's neutrality in the opening days of World War II. His sympathies, nevertheless, were openly with the Axis powers; he had, in fact, already joined the Anti-Comintern Pact and had signed a secret treaty of friendship with Germany in March 1939. There was genuine enthusiasm for the fascist cause among important elements of the Franco regime, especially the Falange.
Spain altered its policy of neutrality following the lightning success of Germany's 1940 spring offensive. The German armies appeared invincible, and Franco was eager to assure Spain a voice in the postwar settlement. In June 1940, The Spanish government adopted a policy of nonbelligerency, which permitted German submarines to be provisioned in Spanish ports and German airplanes to use Spanish landing strips. This stance was widely interpreted as foreshadowing Spain's entry on the side of the Axis powers; the German Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler, and Franco discussed this move on more than one occasion. The two dictators could never come to terms, however. The German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 presented Franco with a unique opportunity to participate in the conflict without a declaration of war and to get revenge for the Soviet Union's aid to the Republicans. Franco agreed to a Falangist request for the official formation of a Blue Division of volunteers--which reached a maximum strength of 18,000 men--to fight on the eastern front. Franco still believed that the Axis powers would win the war, and he considered the intervention of Spanish volunteers to be an inexpensive way of assuring recognition of Spain's colonial claims after the war was over.
The war turned in favor of the Allies with the entry of the United States in December 1941 and the Allied landing in Casablanca in November 1942. At that time, Spain replaced its pro-Axis policy with a genuinely neutral stance. Spain withdrew the Blue Division from the eastern front in November 1943, thus ending Franco's major collaboration with Nazi Germany. In May 1944, Spain and the Allies concluded an agreement. The Spanish government agreed to end wolfram shipments to Germany, to close the German consulate in Tangier, and to expel German espionage agents. In exchange for these actions, the Allies were to ship petroleum and other necessary supplies to Spain.
By the end of 1944, Spain had entered into a period of "benevolent neutrality" toward the Allies. Spain allowed Allied aircraft to land inside its borders and permitted Allied intelligence agents to operate in Madrid. In spite of this opportunistic policy shift, Spain was ostracized at the end of the war by the victorious powers. Although the United States president, Harry S. Truman, and the British prime minister, Winston Churchill, successfully resisted Stalin's proposals at the Potsdam Conference in July 1945 for Allied intervention against Franco, Spain was denied membership in the United Nations (UN) because its government had come to power with the assistance of the Axis powers and had collaborated with them during the war.
A resolution adopted by the second meeting of the UN General Assembly in December 1946 expressed the most severe postwar censure of the Franco regime. According to this resolution, Spain would be banned from the UN and would not be allowed to participate in any of its specialized agencies, as long as Franco remained in power. Franco did not appear seriously concerned by this censure, nor by the subsequent exclusion of Spain from the Marshall Plan. In fact, he used the international ostracism to strengthen his hold over the Spanish government. During this period of isolation, the Argentine government of Juan Peron (president, 1946-55) provided Spain with crucial economic support.
Franco was convinced that attacks on his regime were the work of communist forces, and he felt certain that the Western powers would someday recognize Spain's contribution in maintaining its solitary vigil against bolshevism. As events evolved, Spain's anticommunist stance proved to be a significant factor in the United States decision to revise its policy toward Spain in view of the Cold War.
As the United States became increasingly concerned with the Soviet threat following the fall of Czechoslovakia, the Berlin blockade in 1948, and the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, United States policy makers also began to recognize the strategic importance of the Iberian Peninsula; furthermore, they realized that ostracism had failed and that the Franco regime was stronger than ever. The United States government took steps to normalize its political and economic relations with Spain in the years 1948-50. In September 1950, President Truman signed a bill that appropriated US$62.5 million for aid to Spain. In the same year, the United States supported a UN resolution lifting the boycott on Franco's regime and resumed full diplomatic relations with Spain in 1951. As Spain became an increasingly important link in the overall defense system of the United States against the Soviet Union, the period of isolation came to an end.
Two major agreements signed in 1953 strengthened the Franco regime: the Concordat with the Vatican and the Pact of Madrid. The Concordat, signed in August 1953, was to replace the 1851 document that the republic had abrogated. The new agreement provided full church recognition of Franco's government. At the same time, it reaffirmed the confessional nature of the Spanish state; the public practice of other religions was not permitted. The agreement was more favorable to the Vatican than to Franco; it included measures that significantly increased the independence of the church within the Spanish system. The Concordat served, nevertheless, to legitimize the regime in the eyes of many Spaniards, and it was instrumental in strengthening Franco's hold over the country.
The Pact of Madrid, signed shortly after the Concordat, further symbolized the Spanish regime's rehabilitation. It also marked the end of Spanish neutrality. The Pact consisted of three separate, but interdependent, agreements between Spain and the United States. It provided for mutual defense, for military aid to Spain, and for the construction of bases there. The United States was to use these bases for a renewable ten-year period, but the bases remained under Spanish sovereignty. Although the pact did not constitute a full-fledged military alliance, it did commit the United States to support Spain's defense efforts; furthermore, it provided Spain with much-needed economic assistance. During the first ten years of the Pact of Madrid, the United States sent approximately US$1.5 billion in all kinds of aid to Spain.
Two years later, in 1955, the UN approved Spain's membership. In a visit by the United States president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, to the Spanish capital in 1959, the two generals received warm public welcomes as they toured the city together. The visit further emphasized Franco's acceptance and the end of Spain's ostracism. Franco placed a high value on Spain's relationship with the United States, for the prestige it conferred as well as for strategic reasons. This relationship continued to be a dominant factor in the development of the country's foreign policy.
Spain's European neighbors were less willing than the United States to modify their aversion to Franco's authoritarian rule. The West European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) vetoed efforts to include Spain. Spain's applications for association with the European Community (EC) were also repeatedly rejected. Although a Trade Preference Treaty between Spain and the EC signed in 1970 seemed to herald a thaw in relations, Spain's entry into the EC, continued to be a political issue throughout Franco's lifetime. Spanish membership in the Community, considered by Spanish economists and businessmen as crucial for Spain's economic development, had to await the democratization of the regime.
A more intractable problem than Spain's entry into the EC was the fate of Gibraltar, a sore point in Anglo-Spanish relations since 1713, when Spain ceded the area to Britain under the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht. The question of sovereignty, which had been dormant during the years of the Second Republic, revived in the 1960s and jeopardized otherwise friendly relations between Britain and Spain. Spain has never relinquished its claim to Gibraltar, while the British have maintained that the inhabitants of the area should determine Gibraltar's fate. The heterogeneous population of Gibraltar enjoyed local democratic self-government and an increasingly higher standard of living than that prevailing in Spain; therefore it was not a surprise when they voted almost unanimously in a referendum held in 1967 to remain under British rule. The UN repeatedly condemned the "colonial situation" and demanded--to no avail--its termination. In 1969 Spain took steps to seal off Gibraltar from the mainland and to accelerate the economic development program for the area surrounding it, known as Campo de Gibraltar. The situation continued in stalemate throughout the remainder of the Franco regime.
Franco may have been frustrated with the problem of Gibraltar, but he was optimistic about his potential for maintaining a powerful position for Spain in North Africa. As a former commanding officer of Spanish colonial garrisons in Morocco, Franco had developed close ties to the area, and during the postwar period, he placed great emphasis on maintaining Spain's position in the Arab world. Appealing to historical, cultural, and political ties, Franco endeavored to act as self- appointed protector of Arab interests and to portray Spain as an essential bridge, or mediator, between Europe and the Arab countries.
Despite the regime's position as a colonial power in northwest Africa, relations between Spain and the Arab countries became closer in the late 1940s, in part because of Spain's nonrecognition of Israel. A visit by Spain's foreign minister to the Middle East resulted in a variety of economic and cultural agreements, and the Arab states assumed a benevolent attitude toward Spain's position in Morocco. Nevertheless, France's decision to withdraw from Morocco in early 1956, following the successful struggle waged by Moroccan nationalists against French control, left little prospect of Spain's retaining its zone. (In the spring of the same year, France relinquishied the protectorate.)
In the following decades, Spain's position in North Africa eroded further. A long series of conflicts with Morocco resulted in the abandonment of much of Spain's colonial territory in the 1960s. When Morocco's Mohammed V made it clear in 1958 that he had designs on the Spanish Sahara, Spain opposed any change of status for the area. In 1975, however, Spain reversed its policy and declared its readiness to grant full independence to the Spanish Sahara under UN supervision. Following the march of 300,000 unarmed Moroccans into the territory in November 1975, Spain agreed to cede the Spanish Sahara to Morocco and Mauritania. At the time of Franco's death, Spain's only remaining presence in North Africa consisted of the Spanish-inhabited enclave cities of Ceuta and Melilla and the small garrison spot called Penon de Velez de la Gomera, all on Morocco's Mediterranean coast.
HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish
Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL
MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and
Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under
Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD
Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the
Post-Franco Period
The democratization that Franco's chosen heir, Juan Carlos, and his collaborators peacefully and legally brought to Spain over a three-year period was unprecedented. Never before had a dictatorial regime been transformed into a pluralistic, parliamentary democracy without civil war, revolutionary overthrow, or defeat by a foreign power. The transition is all the more remarkable because the institutional mechanisms designed to maintain Franco's authoritarian system made it possible to legislate a democratic constitutional monarchy into existence.
When Prince Juan Carlos took the oath as king of Spain on November 22, 1975, there was little reason to foresee that he would be the architect of such a dramatic transformation. Franco had hand-picked Juan Carlos and had overseen his education. He was considered an enigma, having publicly sworn loyalty to the principles of Franco's National Movement while privately giving vague indications of sympathy for democratic institutions. More was known of his athletic skills than of his political opinions, and observers predicted that he would be known as "Juan the Brief."
Juan Carlos confirmed Arias Navarro's continuation in office as prime minister, disappointing those who were hoping for liberal reforms. Arias Navarro had served as minister of the interior under Carrero Blanco, and he was a loyal Francoist. His policy speech of January 28, 1976, was vague--devoid of concrete plans for political reform. The hopes and expectations aroused by the long-awaited demise of Franco were frustrated in the initial months of the monarchy, and a wave of demonstrations, industrial strikes, and terrorist activity challenged the country's stability. The government responded with repressive measures to restore law and order. These measures inflamed and united the liberal opposition. At the same time, the cautious reforms that the Arias Navarro government proposed met with hostile reaction from orthodox Francoists, who pledged resistance to any form of change.
It was in this volatile atmosphere that Juan Carlos, increasingly dissatisfied with the prime minister's ability (or willingness) to handle the immobilists as well as with his skill in dealing with the opposition, asked for Arias Navarro's resignation. Arias Navarro submitted his resignation on July 1, 1976. Proponents of reform were both surprised and disappointed when the king chose, as Arias Navarro's successor, Adolfo Suarez Gonzalez, who had served under Franco and who had been designated secretary general of the National Movement in the first government of the monarchy. The new prime minister's Francoist links made it appear unlikely that he would promote major evolutionary change in Spain, but it was these links with the political establishment that made it possible for him to maneuver within the existing institutions to bring about the reforms that Juan Carlos desired.
Throughout the rapid democratization that followed the appointment of Suarez, the collaboration between the king and his prime minister was crucial in assuaging opposition from both the immobilists of the old regime and those who agitated for a more radical break with the past. Whereas Suarez's political expertise and pragmatic approach enabled him to manipulate the bureaucratic machinery, Juan Carlos's ability to maintain the allegiance of the armed forces made a peaceful transition to democracy possible during these precarious months.
In July 1976, the government declared a partial amnesty that freed approximately 400 political prisoners. On September 10, Suarez announced a program of political reform, calling for a bicameral legislature based on universal suffrage. With skillful maneuvering, he was able to persuade members of the Cortes to approve the law, thereby voting their own corporatist institution out of existence, in November. The reforms were then submitted to a national referendum in December 1976, in accordance with Franco's 1945 Law on Referenda. The Spanish people voted overwhelmingly in favor of reform: about 94 percent of the voters (78 percent of the electorate took part in the referendum) gave their approval. The results of the referendum strengthened the position of the Suarez government and of the king and represented a vindication for those who favored reform from above rather than revolution.
In the first six months of 1977, significant reforms were enacted in rapid succession. There were further pardons for political prisoners in March; independent trade unions replaced vertical and labor syndicates; and the right to strike was restored. In April the National Movement was disbanded.
Suarez and the king began to prepare the Spanish people for the first free elections--to be held on June 15, 1977--since the Civil War. The legalization of political parties began in February, and an electoral law outlining the rules for electoral competition was negotiated with opposition political forces and went into effect in March. The government adopted the d'Hondt system of proportional representation, which favored the formation of large parties or coalitions.
A major crisis appeared to be in the offing over the issue of legalizing the Communist Party of Spain (Partido Comunista de Espana--PCE). Parties of the left and the center-left demanded legal recognition, refusing to participate in the elections otherwise. Suarez feared a strong reaction from military leaders, however, if such a step were taken. Members of the armed forces had been dedicated to the suppression of Marxism since the time of the Civil War; moreover, Suarez had assured them the previous September that the PCE would never be legalized.
In a bold but necessary move, Suarez legalized the PCE on April 9, 1977. Military leaders were upset by the decision and publicly expressed their dissatisfaction with the measure, but they grudgingly accepted it out of patriotism. Juan Carlos's close relations with senior military officers were a factor in defusing a potentially explosive state of affairs. His earlier efforts to replace ultraconservative commanders of the armed forces with more liberal ones also benefited him when he took this controversial step. The moderation that the communists exercised in accepting the monarchy in spite of their avowed republicanism also helped to normalize the political situation.
As the country prepared for elections, a large number of diverse political parties began to form. Only a few of these parties gained parliamentary representation following the June 15, 1977, elections, however, and none achieved an absolute majority. The Union of the Democratic Center (Union de Centro Democratico--UCD), a centrist coalition of several groups, including Francoist reformists and moderate opposition democrats, led by Suarez, emerged from the election as the largest party, winning 34.6 percent of the vote.
The leading opposition party was the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol--PSOE), which received 29.3 percent of the vote. Having been in existence since 1879, the PSOE was Spain's oldest political party. A group of dynamic young activists, led by a Seville lawyer, Felipe Gonzalez Marquez, had taken control of the party from the exiles in 1972, and their revolutionary idealism, combined with pragmatic policies, enabled the PSOE to appeal to a broader spectrum of the electorate. Both the neo-Francoist right, embodied in the Popular Alliance (Alianza Popular--AP), and the PCE were disappointed with the election results, which gave them each less than 10 percent of the popular vote. Catalan and Basque regional parties accounted for most of the remaining votes.
The election results were a victory for both moderation and the desire for change. They boded well for the development of democracy in Spain. The domination of Spain's party system by two relatively moderate political groups marked an end to the polarization that had plagued the country since the days of the Second Republic. The political skill of Suarez, the courage and determination of Juan Carlos, and the willingness of opposition leaders to sacrifice their hopes for more radical social change to the more immediate goal of securing political democracy helped to end the polarization. The deferral of these hopes led to eventual disenchantment with the Suarez government, but in 1977 it was a key factor in the peaceful transition to democracy.
A formidable array of problems, including a growing economic crisis, Basque terrorism, and the threat of military subversion, confronted the new Suarez government. Long-range solutions could not be devised until after the new constitution had been approved, but in the interim, the socioeconomic difficulties had to be faced. It was apparent that austerity measures would have to be taken, and Suarez knew he needed to gain support for a national economic recovery program. This was achieved in October 1977 in the Moncloa Pacts, named for the prime minister's official residence where leaders of Spain's major political parties met and agreed to share the costs of, and the responsibility for, economic reforms. The parties of the left were promised an increase in unemployment benefits, the creation of new jobs, and other reforms; in return they agreed to further tax increases, credit restrictions, reductions in public expenditures, and a 20 percent ceiling on wage increases.
The new government set forth a provisional solution to demands for regional autonomy. Preautonomy decrees were issued for Catalonia in September and for three of the Basque provinces in December, 1977. The significance of these decrees was primarily symbolic, but the decrees helped to avoid potentially disruptive conflict for the time being by recognizing the distinctive political character of the regions and by promising autonomy when the constitution was ratified. The regional issue nevertheless continued to be the government's most intractable problem, and it became even more complicated as autonomist demands proliferated throughout the country. During the early months of the Suarez government, there were disturbing indications that the army's toleration of political pluralism was limited. Military unrest also boded ill for the regime's future stability.
The major task facing the government during this transitional period was the drafting of a new constitution. Since previous constitutions had failed in Spain because they had usually been imposed by one particular group and were not the expression of the popular will, it was imperative that the new constitution be based on consensus. To this end, the Constitutional Committee of the Cortes in August 1977 elected a parliamentary commission representing all the major national parties and the more important regional ones. This group began its deliberations in an atmosphere of compromise and cooperation. Although members of the group disagreed over issues of education, abortion, lock-outs, and regionalism, they made steady progress. The Cortes passed the document they produced--with amendments--in October 1978.
The new 1978 Constitution is long and detailed, because of its framers' desire to gain acceptance for the document by including something for everyone. It proclaims Spain to be a parliamentary monarchy and guarantees its citizens equality before the law and a full range of individual liberties, including religious freedom. While recognizing the autonomy of the regions, it stresses the indivisibility of the Spanish state. The Constitution was submitted to popular referendum on December 6, 1978, and it was approved by 87.8 of the 67.7 percent of the eligible voters who went to the polls.
After the king had signed the new Constitution, Suarez dissolved the Cortes and called another general election for March. It was widely predicted that the results would show an erosion of support for Suarez and the UCD (which had begun to show signs of fragmentation) and a gain for the PSOE. The PSOE was experiencing its own internal crisis, however. The party's official definition of itself as Marxist hampered Gonzalez's efforts to project an image of moderation and statesmanship. At the same time, the party's more radical members were increasingly resentful of Gonzalez's ideological moderation. Contrary to expectations, the PSOE did not improve its position when Spaniards went to the polls on March 1, 1979. The election results were not significantly different from those of 1977, and they were seen as a reaffirmation and a consolidation of the basic power structure.
HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish
Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL
MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and
Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under
Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD
Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the
Post-Franco Period
Political change was under way. The UCD was a coalition that encompassed a wide range of frequently incompatible political aspirations. Internal conflict had been muted in the interest of maintaining party unity in order to protect the transition to democracy. When the 1979 elections appeared to affirm this transition, the centrifugal tendencies broke loose. In the succeeding months, the center-right UCD moved farther to the right, and its more conservative members were increasingly critical of Suarez's compromises with the PSOE opposition on political and economic issues. At the same time, large segments of the population were frustrated that Suarez did not produce a more thorough reform program to eliminate the vestiges of authoritarian institutions and practices.
Suarez's failure to deal decisively with the regional problem further eroded his popularity. Repressive police measures met increasingly virulent outbreaks of Basque terrorism, and the ongoing spiral of repression and terror contributed to a growing impression that the government was incompetent. The mounting violence further exacerbated Suarez's relations with the military, which were already strained because of his legalization of the PCE. Army leaders, who had only grudgingly accepted political reforms out of loyalty to Juan Carlos, grew increasingly hostile to the democratic regime as ETA terrorism intensified. A coup plot had been uncovered in the fall of 1978, and the possibility of military subversion continued to be a threat.
As discontent with his leadership grew, Suarez realized that he had lost his effectiveness, and on January 29, 1981, he announced his resignation as prime minister. The king appointed conservative centrist Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo to replace him. Before the new prime minister could be confirmed, a group of Civil Guards, led by Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero Molina, marched onto the floor of the Cortes and held the representatives hostage in an attempted coup. The plan of the rebellious military leaders was to set up an authoritarian monarchy under the protection of the armed forces. That the coup failed was primarily due to the decisive action of Juan Carlos, who ordered the conspirators to desist and persuaded other military officers to back him in defending the Constitution. Juan Carlos then appeared on television and reassured the Spanish people of his commitment to democracy. The foiled coup was over by the next day, but it demonstrated the fragility of Spain's democracy and the importance of Juan Carlos to its continued survival. On February 27, more than 3 million people demonstrated in favor of democracy in the capital and elsewhere throughout Spain, showing the extent of popular support for democratic government.
HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish
Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL
MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and
Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under
Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD
Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the
Post-Franco Period
In the immediate aftermath of the coup, the various sectors within the UCD closed ranks briefly around their new prime minister, Calvo Sotelo, but internal cleavages prevented the formation of a coherent centrist party. Clashes between the moderate and the rightist elements within the UCD, particularly over the divorce bill, resulted in resignations of dissenting groups and the formation of new splinter parties and coalitions. These developments in turn led to a series of election defeats in 1981 and 1982, and by the time a general election was called in August for October 1982, the UCD's representation in the Cortes was down by one-third.
As the UCD continued to disintegrate, the PSOE gained strength; it was considered more likely than the increasingly conservative UCD to bring about the sweeping social and economic reforms that the Spanish people desired. Moreover, party leader Gonzalez had been successful in his efforts to direct the PSOE toward a more centrist-left position, as seen in his successful persuasion of PSOE delegates in 1979 to drop the term "Marxist" from the party's definition of itself. The PSOE was thereby able to project an image of greater moderation and reliability, and it became a viable governmental alternative. The PSOE also benefited from the decline of the PCE. The heavy-handed management style of PCE leader Santiago Carrillo had aggravated the dissension in the party over whether to follow a more revolutionary line or to adopt more moderate policies. As was the case with the UCD, internecine disputes within the PCE resulted in defections from the party. With the PCE apparently on the point of collapse, the PSOE became the only feasible option for left-wing voters.
When Spaniards went to the polls in record numbers in October 1982, they gave a sweeping victory to the PSOE, which received the largest plurality (48.4 percent) in the post-1977 period. The party enlarged its share of the 350 seats in the Chamber of Deputies to 202, while the UCD, with only 6.8 percent of the vote, won only 11 seats. The conservative AP took on the role of opposition party. The most significant implication of the October elections for the future of democracy in Spain was the transfer of power from one party to another without military intervention or bloodshed. The transition to democracy appeared to be complete.
HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish
Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL
MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and
Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under
Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD
Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the
Post-Franco Period
Spain's political system underwent dramatic transformations after the death of Franco, but there was nevertheless some degree of continuity in Spanish foreign policy. The return of Gibraltar to Spanish sovereignty continued to be a foreign policy goal, as did greater integration of Spain into Western Europe. In spite of frequent ongoing negotiations, neither of these goals had been accomplished by the time Gonzalez came to power in 1982. Foreign policy makers also endeavored to maintain an influential role for Spain in its relations with Latin American nations.
Spanish opinion was more ambivalent with regard to membership in NATO and relations with the United States, although defense agreements, allowing the United States to continue using its naval and air bases in Spain, were signed periodically. When Spain joined NATO in May 1982, under Calvo Sotelo's government, the PSOE leadership strongly opposed such a commitment and called for withdrawal from the Alliance. One of Gonzalez's campaign promises was a national referendum on Spain's NATO membership. In 1982 the role the new Socialist government envisioned for Spain in the West's economic, political, and security arrangements remained to be seen.
HISTORY CONTENTS
<"3.htm">IBERIA
<"4.htm">HISPANIA
<"5.htm">AL ANDALUS
<"6.htm">CASTILE AND ARAGON
<"7.htm">THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
<"8.htm">Charles V and Philip II
<"9.htm">Spain in Decline
<"10.htm">BOURBON SPAIN
<"11.htm">War of the Spanish
Succession
<"12.htm">The Enlightenment
<"13.htm">The Napoleonic Era
<"14.htm">THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
<"15.htm">Rule by Pronunciamiento
<"16.htm">Liberal Rule
<"17.htm">THE CONSTITUTIONAL
MONARCHY
<"18.htm">The Cuban Disaster
<"19.htm">The African War
<"20.htm">REPUBLICAN SPAIN
<"21.htm">THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
<"22.htm">THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
<"23.htm">Policies, Programs, and
Growing Popular Unrest
<"24.htm">Foreign Policy under
Franco
<"25.htm">THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
<"26.htm">Disenchantment with UCD
Leadership
<"27.htm">Growth of the PSOE
<"28.htm">Foreign Policy in the
Post-Franco Period