Don Carlos de Bourbon
[1875-1883 A.D.]
General Martínez Campos, who, like most of the officers, was an adherent of the overturned Bourbon dynasty, on December 29th, at Murviedro, proclaimed the son of the ex-queen Isabella as King Alfonso XII of Spain. The army generally declared in favour of Alfonso, Sagasta’s ministry resigned, Serrano laid down the chief command and the presidency, a ministerial regency was formed on the 31st under Cánovas del Castillo, which informed Isabella, then living at Paris, of the elevation of her son to the throne. The latter left Paris on January 6th, 1875, landed in Barcelona, arrived at Madrid the 14th, and although he was not yet eighteen, took over the reins of government.
The inexperienced king was in a difficult position. The state treasury was almost empty; the war with the Carlists consumed enormous sums and brought few results; the close relations of the king to his godfather Pope Pius demanded especial considerations; the papal nuncio required the most extensive concessions in return for his supporting the king; he wanted to bring back the old intolerance and priesthood, and if possible to return to the Inquisition; the ex-queen Isabella, who had lost all title to respect, impatiently awaited her return to Madrid. In every direction, nothing could be seen but dangerous reefs which confronted the government.[e]
That Cánovas del Castillo should undertake the leadership of the new government was quite as much a matter of course as that the first and most imperative duty of the government should be to overthrow the Carlist rebellion. At first, it was put down in Catalonia and Aragon where its chief seat, Seo de Urgel, fell on August 26th, 1875. Thereupon all forces were directed towards the north against the Basque territories, the old citadel of Carlism. The closely besieged Pamplona was relieved on November 24th, and, when Quesada advanced with one hundred thousand men, Estella also fell on February 19th, 1876. On February 28th, the king himself entered Pamplona; on the same day Don Carlos retreated over the border to France. The victors conducted themselves humanely on the whole, although ten thousand persons were exiled, as many more lost their property, and a limitation of the old fueros of the Basque lands was planned. It was not until 1878, however, that Martínez Campos succeeded in quelling the rebellion in Cuba after important economical concessions, when the rights of a Spanish province were granted to the Cubans. [For fuller details see the history of Spanish America in a later volume.]
In the meanwhile on May 24th the newly elected cortes, which the king had opened on February 15th, 1876, had adopted the new constitution (proclaimed June 30th). This provided for a senate and house of representatives controlled by general and direct election, established freedom of the press, of religion, and of unions, but abolished trial by jury, civil marriage, and freedom of teaching, in order to win over the radicals and the clergy. Rome at first protested against the freedom of religion but gave up this point, as the Protestants were actually so limited and oppressed in the exercise of their rights that all the firm fervour of belief of men like Pastor Fliedner in Madrid was needed to endure it all and actually to establish an evangelical church in the Spanish capital where now Luther’s hymn of victory, “A firm foundation is our God,” resounds also in Spanish (“Castillo fier es nuestro Dios!”).
The republican attempts on the king’s life on October 25th, 1878, and December 30th, 1879, were only after-effects of the long period of unrest; on the whole the pacification of the country made unmistakable progress. The government exercised the utmost watchfulness against Carlist plots and even effected a papal prohibition against Spanish bishops. The opposition of Catalan manufacturers to the commercial treaty with France was summarily suppressed by the proclamation of a state of siege; a republican revolt on the part of the soldiers in Badajoz on August 5th, 1883, was energetically put down and severely punished by the king, who, wholly on his own responsibility, attempted to put a stop to the old mischief of having officers take part in political party intrigues and boldly ordered the dismissal of a large number of unsubmissive and irresponsible elements. The social democratic associations of the mano nero (the black hand) seemed very dangerous for a time. These were favoured by the severe economical decay of the last years, and grew rapidly until, divided into about three thousand groups and controlled by a central organisation at Xeres, they covered the south like a net. Since they distinguished themselves by deeds of violence of all kinds, the government at last took decisive measures, overpowered their ringleaders and caused seven of them to be executed.
ALFONSO XII AND THE EUROPEAN POWERS
