It is not necessary to go into the details of the six year conflict, which ended only with the fall of Napoleon in 1814, although the French had been expelled from Spain by the close of the preceding year. English historians, with a pardonable pride, have been wont to make it appear that this achievement was primarily a British feat of arms under the leadership of Sir Arthur Wellesley, the later Duke of Wellington, and, to be sure, English history does not record a more brilliant series of campaigns than that of the so-called Peninsula War. It is unlikely that the Spaniards, unaided, could have driven the French from Spain, for their armies almost invariably proved unable to defeat the enemy in the open field, even though they displayed fanatical courage in the defence of their homes,—as witness the two sieges of Saragossa, desperately resisted by General Palafox, and the stubborn opposition of General Álvarez in Gerona to the French, who had to waste 20,000 men to take that post. On the other hand Wellington’s victories would have been impossible but for the indirect aid of the Spanish soldiery. Speaking of the situation at the close of the year 1810 Oman says: “Enormous as was the force—over 300,000 men—which the Emperor had thrown into Spain, it was still not strong enough to hold down the conquered provinces and at the same time to attack Portugal [where the British army was stationed]. For this fact the Spaniards must receive due credit; it was their indomitable spirit of resistance which enabled Wellington, with his small Anglo-Portuguese army, to keep the field against such largely superior numbers. No sooner had the French concentrated, and abandoned a district, than there sprang up in it a local Junta and a ragged apology for an army. Even where the invaders lay thickest, along the route from Bayonne to Madrid, guerilla bands maintained themselves in the mountains, cut off couriers and escorts, and often isolated one French army from another for weeks at a time. The great partisan chiefs, such as Mina in Navarre, Julian Sanchez in Leon, and Porlier in the Cantabrian hills, kept whole brigades of the French in constant employment. Often beaten, they were never destroyed, and always reappeared to strike some daring blow at the point where they were least expected. Half the French army was always employed in the fruitless task of guerilla-hunting. This was the secret which explains the fact that, with 300,000 men under arms, the invaders could never concentrate more than 70,000 to deal with Wellington.” This is a fair statement of the general situation throughout the war. It would seem that the Spaniards accounted for rather more than half of the French troops, even when practically every province of the kingdom was theoretically occupied by the enemy. In so doing they rendered a service not only to themselves but also to Europe, for they detached enough troops from the main body of Napoleon’s armies to enable the allies to swing the balance against the emperor in his northern European campaigns. Incidentally it was quite evident that Spain could give scant attention to her American colonies while fighting for her very existence as an independent nation; indeed, it was not until 1815 that Spain turned to a consideration of the American wars.
Spanish government in the early years of the war and the calling of the Cortes.
Meanwhile, events of a political nature had been going on in Spain which were to determine the whole course of Spanish history in the nineteenth century. It was several months after the original outbreak before the various local juntas were able to agree upon a supreme authority during the enforced absence of Ferdinand VII, who was regarded as the legitimate king. Late in September the somewhat unwieldy Junta Central of at first twenty-four, afterward thirty-five, members was created, sitting at Aranjuez. Two months later when Napoleon himself advanced upon the capital the Junta fled to Seville, and joining with the junta of that city remained in session there for over a year. It was there that the Junta declared, in January, 1809, that the overseas possessions of Spain were an integral part of the kingdom, refuting the colonial claim of a connection merely through the crown. Driven out again by the French the Junta took refuge in Cádiz, where, in January, 1810, it appointed a Regency of five men to arrange for the calling of a Cortes representative of Spain and the Americas. The Junta thereupon resigned. Fearful of the radical tone that a Cortes might adopt, the Regency postponed its summons as long as it could, but at last issued the call, and the Cortes met in September, 1810. Very little was known at the time as to the exact status and powers of the various Cortes of earlier centuries, but nothing was more certain than that the Cortes of 1810 was like no other which had ever met in the peninsula. It was a single chamber body, designed to consist of elected deputies from the towns with a traditional right of representation, from the provincial juntas, from groups of 50,000 population, and from the Americas. Since the American deputies could not arrive in time, and since a still greater number of Spanish deputies could not be chosen by the complicated elective machinery provided, with the land mostly in the possession of the French, their places were supplied by persons from those regions happening to be resident in Cádiz. Thus the Cortes came to be made up of men who did not in fact reflect the conservative temperament of the interior districts, but, rather, stood for the radical views of the people of the coast. Most of them dreamed of founding a representative body which should combine the supposed virtues of the French Revolutionary Assembly with those of the British House of Commons and the earlier Cortes of the peninsula kingdoms.
The Liberal Cortes of 1810 and the constitution of 1812.
One of the earliest acts of the Cortes was to accept the resignation of the conservative Regency and to appoint a new body of three of that name responsible and subservient to the Cortes. Soon the Cortes declared itself to be the legislative power, and turned over the executive and judicial authority to the Regency, following this up by declaring itself to have sovereign power in the absence of the king. When it became clear that these measures, which were bitterly opposed by the church and the other conservative elements, were also distasteful to Ferdinand, the Cortes decided that all acts or agreements of the king during his captivity were to be regarded as invalid. The greatest innovation of all, however, was the famous constitution of 1812. Under a belief that they were returning to the system of the past the members of the Cortes broke sharply from all the precedents of Spanish history, enthroning the people through their representatives, and relegating the crown and the church to a secondary place in the state. Among the several hundred items of this ultra-democratic document were the following: sovereignty was declared to rest with the people, to whom, therefore, was reserved the right of legislation; the laws were to be made through the popularly elected Cortes; the king was to be the executive, but was prevented from doing much on his own initiative by the requirement that his decrees should be countersigned by the ministers of state, who were responsible to the Cortes; all Spaniards in both hemispheres were declared a part of the Spanish nation; all Spanish men over twenty-five years of age were entitled to vote for members of the Cortes, of whom there was to be one for each group of 60,000 people; various paragraphs included a Bill of Rights, a complicated elective machinery, and the abolition of exemptions from taxation. In only one respect did a conservative tone appear in the document,—the Catholic faith was declared to be the religion of Spain, and the exercise of any other was forbidden. Nevertheless, both before and after the adoption of the constitution, the Cortes had shown itself to be distinctly anti-clerical, as witness its overthrow of the Inquisition, its restriction of the number of religious communities, and the expulsion of the papal nuncio when he protested against some of these laws. It was not by their workings in practice, however, that the constitution and the laws of the Cortes became important; rather it was that they constituted a program which became the war-cry of the democratic faction in Spain for years to come. The constitution of 1812 eventually got to be regarded as if it would be the panacea for all the ills of mankind, and was fervently proclaimed by glib orators, who could not have stated the exact nature of its provisions.
Despotic rule of Ferdinand VII and the revolution of 1820.
Early in 1814 Ferdinand VII was freed by Napoleon, and allowed to return to Spain. It was inevitable that he should adopt a reactionary policy, toward which his own inclinations, the attitude of other continental monarchs, and the overwhelming majority of the clergy, nobles, and the people themselves of Spain impelled him. He had hardly reached the peninsula when he declared the constitution of 1812 and the decrees of the Cortes of no effect. This was followed by the arrest of the Liberal deputies and by the beginning of a series of persecutions. All might have been well, but the personal character of the rancorous, cruel, disloyal, ungrateful, and unscrupulous king and the blindness of the absolutists drove the reaction to extremes. Ferdinand not only restored absolutism, but also attempted to undo the enlightened work of Charles III for the economic and intellectual betterment of the people. Liberalism in every form was crushed, and in accomplishing it such ferocious severity was displayed that the government of Ferdinand was discredited both at home and abroad, even in countries where the reactionary spirit was strongest. Back of the established forms of the restored absolutism stood the unofficial camarilla (small room), or “kitchen cabinet,” of the king’s intimate friends, but back of all was the king. So suspicious was Ferdinand that more than thirty royal secretaries, or ministers, were dismissed from office between 1814 and 1820, and dismissal was usually accompanied by a sentence of exile or imprisonment. Periodical literature of a political character was suppressed, although the bars began to be let down for magazines of a scientific or literary type. Despite the rigors of the administration—in a measure because of them—there were insurrections each year from 1814 to 1817, all led by military chieftains of Liberal ideas. They were put down, for in no case was there a popular uprising; the people were as yet little affected by the new doctrines. Meanwhile, secret plots against the government were fostered, in part as the result of Spanish American influences which desired to prevent the sending of troops to suppress the revolutions of the new world, but more largely related to the Liberal ideal in Spain. This activity seems mainly to have been the work of societies of Freemasons, in which military men were strongly represented. Many other elements had also become pro-Liberal by this time, including prominent representatives of the middle class, almost all of the patriots who had organized the resistance to the French in 1808, and the young men of education. The storm broke when orders were given in 1819 for the assembling of an army at Cádiz for the extremely unpopular service of the wars in the Americas. Colonel Riego raised the standard of revolt on January 1, 1820, proclaiming the constitution of 1812. The government seemed paralyzed by the outbreak. Uncertain what to do it waited. Then late in February the example set by Riego was followed in the larger cities of northern Spain. The king at once yielded, and caused an announcement to be made that he would summon a Cortes immediately and would swear his adhesion to the constitution of 1812. Thus, without a battle, it seemed as if the revolution had triumphed.
The Liberal Cortes of 1820 and the triumph of the reaction.
In July, 1820, the Cortes met. Its earliest measures aimed to restore the legislation of the Cortes of 1810, together with other laws of a similar character. The Cortes of 1820 has been charged with being anti-clerical, as indeed it was, for the church was the most serious opponent of Liberalism, still able to dominate the opinions of the masses. Notwithstanding all it accomplished, the Cortes of 1820 satisfied nobody. Like most new-born democracies Spain found herself splitting on the rock of divergent opinions. The Liberals broke up into various well-defined groups: the Radicals felt that the Cortes had been too moderate and cautious; the Moderates found the new laws dangerously radical; still others wished for a reform of the constitution in the direction of yet greater moderation than most of the Moderates desired. These were only a few of the groups to spring up. Meanwhile, the king and the absolutists, who had never intended to abide by the revolution, began to turn these divisions to account. Armed bands favorable to the king were formed, while others representing other factions also came into existence, and a state of anarchy ensued. The crisis was settled from abroad, however. From the first, Ferdinand had sent appeals to the reactionary kings of Europe, representing himself to be a prisoner, much as Louis XVI had been at the outbreak of the French Revolution. At length his appeals were listened to, and France, Russia, Austria, and Prussia joined together to restore matters to the situation they were in prior to 1820. It was as a result of this decision that a French army invaded the peninsula in the spring of 1823. No effective resistance was offered; indeed, the country seemed rather to second the French efforts and to facilitate their advance. No better proof could be furnished that the revolution of 1820 did not represent the sentiment of the people; the masses were yet steeped in ignorance and weighed down by traditional influences, so that they rejected a system intended for their benefit in favor of one which had lost even the benevolent disposition of the eighteenth-century Bourbons; the intellectual elements which had promoted the revolution had shown an incapacity to face realities or to compromise with the full meed of their ideals. Thus had the revolution of 1810 been re-enacted. The example was to be many times repeated in the course of the next two generations. The constitution and the laws of the Cortes were abolished, and savage persecution of Liberalism began. From 1823 to 1829 the political history of Spain was a series of alternations between terrorism and a relaxation of coercive measures, according as one group or another prevailed with the king, but the dominant note was at all times that of absolutism. It is to be noted that Spain had scarcely had a moment’s respite from domestic difficulties since the invasion of Napoleon in 1808. In the meantime, between 1810 and 1824, the American colonies of the mainland had seized their opportunity to separate from the mother country forever.
María Cristina and the Carlist wars.