Before further action could be taken the cortes was dispersed by Pavia, the captain-general of Madrid, on January 3rd,[134] and a military dictatorship established under Marshal Serrano. Republican revolts which broke out in several cities were quickly suppressed and a large force was sent against the Carlists. The latter kept the important fortress Bilbao closely invested, had captured Portugalete, the port belonging to it, had forced Moriones first to take refuge on a ship, and on February 24th, 1874, when he again advanced from the west, had driven him to retreat, after being defeated at Somorrostro.
Marshal Serrano
Serrano, entitled “president of the executive power of the republic,” now hastened to the scene of action, but in the battles of March 25th and 26th he did not succeed in breaking through the firm position of the Carlists at Somorrostro. He procured reinforcements, however, renewed the attack on April 28th, and compelled the enemy on May 1st to give up its position, abandon the investment of Bilbao, and to evacuate Portugalete. General Concha, appointed commander-in-chief of the northern army, on June 25th attacked the Carlists under Dorregaray, who were firmly entrenched on the heights of Estella, but was repulsed and fell after a battle of three days. The Carlists neglected to take a strategical advantage of their victory and shot down a large number of prisoners. Don Alfonso, the brother of the pretender, did no better in Catalonia, for after conquering the Castilian city Cuenca he delivered it up to plunder, fire, and sword. The Carlist general Mendiri did not succeed in capturing the fortress Irun in the northern field of war: he was compelled to retreat on November 10th from Laserna, but he himself on December 9th forced the advancing general Loma to retreat to San Sebastian. Hereupon Serrano again hastened to the scene with the purpose of making a general attack on the enemy, at the head of four army corps, and forcing it back to the French frontier. He needed time, however, to get the necessary number of troops together.
[1874-1875 A.D.]
Serrano had one political success to rejoice over which occurred with no intervention on his own part. On the 30th of June Don Carlos had caused the Prussian ex-captain Albert Schmidt, who was at Concha’s headquarters as correspondent for German papers and had fallen into the hands of the Carlists, to be shot, although he was a non-combatant. This act in defiance of the rights of war, and the barbaric way in which the war was conducted as a whole, led Prince Bismarck to take diplomatic measures against Carlism, which was to a great extent financially supported by the legitimists in France, the feudals in Austria, and by the Jesuits in the Vatican. He thus made it possible for the remaining powers to recognise Serrano’s government officially and exerted an indirect pressure on the French government, which was rendering the Carlists all sorts of assistance on the French frontier, with the object of holding it more closely to its obligations.
All the powers except Russia decided to recognise the Spanish government and sent ambassadors to Madrid. The German ambassador was received with special marks of attention on September 12th. Two German warships were despatched to the bay of Biscay to protect the interests of the Germans living along the coast, and to prevent the smuggling in of materials of war. But Serrano’s small military success against the Carlists brought about a new turn in affairs at the end of the year 1874.
THE BOURBON ALFONSO XII ELECTED (1875 A.D.)
