Spain since 1812

Christopher Ross

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781134640508
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Languages
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Spain since 1812 is an ideal introduction to the history of Spain. The chapters are arranged chronologically and each begins with an overview of major events and movements in Europe as a whole. Emphasis is placed on understanding major developments, their causes, and the relationships between them. Spanish terms associated with key concepts and figures are introduced and explained throughout the text. Extracts from key Spanish texts, in Spanish and in translation, enable students to see, first hand, the mood of the time. Chapters end with topics for discussion to encourage critical thinking. This new edition has been revised and updated to take account of events since the Socialists' return to power in 2004. It looks at the new government's social reforms, its attempts to end ETA's violence and its response to Catalan demands for further autonomy. Also considered are changes in the country's political climate and external relationships, as well as the crisis facing Spain's economy. Written in an accessible style and assuming no prior knowledge, the books in this series address the specific needs of students on language courses, as well as anyone with an interest in modern history. Approaching the study of history via contemporary politics and society, each book offers a clear historical narrative and sets the country or region concerned in the context of the wider world.

Chapter 1

A liberal century? (1812–1898)

The approval of the 1812 Constitution placed Spain in the vanguard of European liberalism; in fact, its architects were the first men to be dubbed ‘liberals’. However, they and their successors proved unable to implement the massive reforms the country needed, or even maintain a minimal state of order. These failings allowed the Spanish Army, already unusually predisposed to political intervention, to play a major role in the country’s affairs, a role that became increasingly conservative as the century wore on. During its last quarter a regime was finally implanted that appeared to combine stability with liberal principles. But appearances were deceptive.

In western Europe the nineteenth century was the golden age of liberal ideas. Broadly speaking, liberalism wished to remove the widespread restrictions on economic and political freedoms typical of absolute monarchy, while its rise went hand in hand with industrialisation and the emergence of a commercially-minded middle class. In Britain, these processes advanced relatively quickly. On the continent, however, they were initially held back by the restoration of absolute monarchies at the end of the Napoleonic Wars and by the defeat of the Europe-wide revolutionary outbreaks of 1830 and 1848. By the 1870s, however, most western European states, including newly-united Italy, had adopted parliamentary constitutions with fairly broad (male) franchises. Liberal influence was also apparent in the establishment of a legal framework for capitalist economic activity and in state promotion of economic development. The results were a second, more sophisticated wave of industrialisation and a significant rise in general living standards, assisted in some countries by the exploitation of colonies. A further feature of the century’s last decades was a massive expansion of education provision, with universal primary schooling becoming the norm.

Liberals before their time

The Spanish liberal movement (liberalismo) was weak from the outset, lacking a strong social basis and confronted with powerful enemies. It was also divided into two main strands with widely differing views of what liberalism meant in practice. While both were able to secure some significant advances, these were undermined by the fact that neither was ultimately prepared to practise the constitutionalist principles it preached. As a result, more than forty years after the Cadiz Constitution was passed Spain continued to be governed by principles very different from those set out in it.

The changes this envisaged represented a truly radical break with the old order (pxvi) and covered a wide range of political, social and economic aspects. While the monarch was to remain head of state, effective power would pass to a single-chamber Parliament (Cortes) elected mainly by universal (male) suffrage. Previous restrictions on the right to buy and sell land were abolished along with various barriers to trade within Spain, such as internal customs barriers. Also struck down were the special privileges enjoyed by the aristocracy, the Catholic Church and particular towns or districts. Finally, the Constitution established a range of freedoms, in particular that of expression, previously denied, one result being the emergence of a lively – and highly partisan – press.

At the time, such measures would have been seen as extremely advanced almost anywhere: in Spain they were frankly utopian. Having fallen steadily behind its neighbours, the country had generated very little commerce or industry, elsewhere the breeding ground of liberal ideas. The vast bulk of the population continued to eke an uncertain living from the land – famines and epidemics were to remain common almost to the century’s end – in a state of ignorance and illiteracy. Repeated wars (pp3,8) imposed the further burdens of taxation and conscription.

The result was a constant mood of popular discontent, even anger, that left little room for inevitably disruptive reforms. Moreover, powerful influences remained resolutely opposed to liberalism per se, never mind the maximalist version whose 1812 triumph was possible only thanks to the exceptional circumstances of the Peninsular War (pxvii). As soon as the French were driven out of Spain, the wind changed dramatically.

Thus, when Ferdinand VII (pxvi) set aside the Constitution and re-assumed absolute powers in 1814, he was virtually unopposed. But merely restoring absolutism was insufficient to satisfy many conservatives. When financial reality forced the royal authorities into a mild rationalisation of the country’s administration and economy, they triggered off a series of minor uprisings. Significantly, these often enjoyed clerical backing, as did the French invasion that – again with negligible resistance – put an end to the next, three-year constitutional interlude (trienio constitucional) in 1823. And, indeed, it was the Spanish Church that would prove liberals’ most implacable opponent, threatened as it was not just by the spread of their ideas, but also by concrete measures such as the abolition of tithes, expulsion or restriction of the monastic orders and the loss of its lands.

Matters came to a head in 1833 when Ferdinand died leaving the crown to his infant daughter, who now became Queen Isabella II. His brother Charles promptly claimed the throne for himself and led his reactionary supporters in armed revolt. The battle cry of these Carlists – ‘God, King and the old laws’ – invoked the three main pillars of the old order in Spain. Backed by the Pope, they enjoyed considerable support among the deeply Catholic northern peasantry, where liberal attacks on local privileges were also resented, above all in Navarre and the Basque Country. Elsewhere, though, their extremist message found little resonance and after a bloody seven-year war the Carlists were forced to concede defeat.

Carlistas

Carlists

The original Carlists were so named because they supported the claim of ‘Charles V’, as they called him, to the throne of his dead brother, Ferdinand VII. Extreme conservatives, they advocated a return to the old order (pxvi), in which cause they staged three armed rebellions during the nineteenth century (1833–40, 1846–49 and 1872–76). Their main support came from the Church and rural areas in Aragon, Catalonia and, above all, Navarre and the Basque Country, where the retention of traditional local privileges was a major issue. After its third defeat, the Carlist movement (carlismo) split, the most reactionary elements (integristas) abandoning the claim of Charles’s heirs to the throne in favour of demands in other areas, especially regarding the Church’s status. The movement was later reunited as Traditionalism (p66) and played a significant role during the Civil War of the 1930s (p73) and under the Franco regime (p85). When democracy returned after 1975 the official Carlist pretender bizarrely adopted extreme left-wing ideas, splitting his followers again and confirming the end of Carlism as a serious political player even in its Navarrese heartland.

See also: monarquistas (p56)

fueros

traditional local privileges; old laws

Under the old order (pxvi), many towns and districts in Spain enjoyed traditional privileges, such as exemption from taxes or military service. By the 1830s, most had been abolished, as much in the interests of administrative efficiency as from liberal principles. However, the three Basque provinces (Alava, Guipúzcoa, Vizcaya) and Navarre retained a number of special features. In particular, Spanish tariffs on imports and exports did not apply to goods entering these areas from outside, while the provincial authorities were entitled to levy customs duties on goods coming and going from the rest of Spain; in effect, the four provinces constituted a duty-free zone. This and some other privileges – or ‘old laws’, as they were known in Basque – were suppressed following the defeat of the Carlists’ first uprising and the remainder abolished after the movement’s final defeat in 1876.

See also: concierto económico (p9)

Ironically, their revolt forced the royal authorities to turn to the liberals, or more precisely a group of the least radically-minded, to form a government. These Moderates (Moderados), as they became known, wished essentially to implement the provisions of the Cadiz Constitution removing the innumerable restrictions then constraining business activity. Above all, they were anxious to permit, or even require, the sale of common lands, aristocratic estates and Church properties. From this process of disentailment (desamortización) many Moderates profited handsomely.

Having done so, their interest was less in promoting further, political reform than in avoiding social unrest. Yet for that very reason they appreciated the need for some change. Over the next two decades Moderate governments therefore introduced substantial reforms to the administration of justice and government. Most importantly, they overhauled the tax system to place it on a sounder and more rational footing, thus at last providing Spain’s rulers with an assured income, albeit a meagre one.

Meanwhile, liberalism’s political aims, in particular the extension of voting rights, were kept alive by the movement’s more radical wing, the Progressives (Progresistas). However, on the brief occasions when their leaders managed to reach power they tended to forget these commitments. Instead, the Progressives’ greatest achievement was to provide Spain with a legal framework for modern business activity during the period 1854–1856 (bienio progresista). At the same time, they pushed through a further major tranche of disentailment, as they had in 1837. In neither case, though, did they even attempt to ensure a more equitable distribution of disentailed land, something else they had always preached.

Worse, the Progressives – like the Moderates – consistently made nonsense of the constitutionalist principles they purported to uphold. In power, both liberal factions adopted partisan constitutions tailored to their own interests. In the 44 years after 1812, Spain was blessed with a further four, none as radical as the original, at least in their political aspects. Even under those drawn up by the Progressives, the monarch retained significant powers and the franchise was severely restricted. Similarly, both factions routinely resorted to election-rigging (fraude electoral), an absurdly easy practice since votes were cast in public but counted in secret.

Anomalies were especially widespread under the Moderate governments of 1843–1852, a regime that verged on dictatorship (p6). These conditions further strengthened the notion espoused by Progressives and more radical elements of lawful revolution (revolución legal) and local uprisings continued to be frequent. All were rapidly crushed, however, their main effect being to create a dread of radicalism among the better-off and also the Church, whose personnel and property were often the subject of verbal and physical attack.

Such anticlerical violence widened the breach between Catholics and the liberal Left opened by the provisions of the 1837 Progressive Constitution, which asserted the state’s authority over the Church in all temporal matters. On the other hand, the Moderates became ever more conscious that the stability they craved would hardly be served by the Church’s destruction as a social institution. As well as declaring Catholicism Spain’s sole religion, their 1845 Constitution restored tithes, halted disentailment and confirmed the Church in the possession of its remaining lands. The rapprochement was taken a step further in 1851, when the Moderate government signed a Concordat with the Vatican that, in...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface to First Edition
• Preface to Second Edition
• Preface to Third Edition
• Chronology of main events
• Prologue
• 1. A liberal century? (1812–1898)
• 2. Change frustrated (1898–1917)
• 3. Change imposed (1917–1931)
• 4. A troubled democracy (1931–1936)
• 5. An unequal struggle (1936–1939)
• 6. Back to the future (1939–1959)
• 7. The bottle half-uncorked (1959–1975)
• 8. A delicate operation (1975–1982)
• 9. Back to the mainstream (1982–1993)
• 10. Between regionalism and globalisation (1993–2004)
• 11. A second transition? (2004–2008)
• Afterword
• Further reading
• Index/Glossary