The Legacy of the Glorious

El Legado de la Gloriosa (The Legacy of the Glorious)

Greetings to all.

This story is my first serious alternate history (more than a year ago I tried to make an uchronia about the Infant Miguel de la Paz, who could make a unification of all the Iberian kingdoms in his person, but I finally leave it) and intends to retake the story published in this forum called A Prusian of the Spanish Throne, done by Tocomocho.

My alternate history is based on the same basis as the Tocomocho's story but there will be many changes with respect to that previous alternate history.

To do this, I have obtained permission from the original author, Tocomocho, and I have received the invaluable help of Milarqui (As I was not very good at English, Milarqui is helping me to translate my uchronia from Spanish to English).

I hope you all like it.

PS: What coincidence! Just today, 143 years ago began the Glorious (la Gloriosa) in the spanish city of Cádiz.

Prologue, Part I: Pre-Revolutionary Spain

As she walked along the La Concha Beach in San Sebastian during those days of early September 1868, Isabella II didn't know that it would be one of the last days she would be in Spanish soil, soil of the motherland she had reigned in since she was only 3 years old, thanks to those liberals that had faced the absolutist troops that supported her uncle, the Infante Carlos María Isidro de Borbón: the liberal politicians and troops had seen in her the luminary that would exalt again the Spanish nation, after her father's disastrous reign, the absolutist tyrant Ferdinand VII, who through his intransigence (which had ruined the start of Spanish liberalism and had provoked the independence of Spanish America) had deservingly earned the nickname by which he would be known in history books: the Felon King, el Rey Felón.


Queen Isabella II of Spain.

However, that luminary would soon be darkened, when it was clear that the Queen had become a sad, broken doll, under the shadow of her mother Maria Cristina, who despised her; her husband, her first cousin Francisco de Asís de Borbón, an homosexual and ambitious man that hated her; and the liberal parties that, unable to work together, tried to manipulate her on their own benefit at the first chance. All these factors had directed what had once been a grand Spain towards being reigned by a capricious young woman, whose bedrooms desires were satisfied by any attractive soldier or military officer that attracted her attention, and who thought of the Crown and everything it represented as something of her property, as if it were part of her jewelry.

Meanwhile, despite the tumultuous rocking of the Spanish politics, under her reign the first foundations of the Spanish industrialization after the destruction created by the Independence War and the absolutist purges under her father's dark reign were established. However, the great land seizures that had happened had culminated in the concentration of lands in the hands of a few landowners, while the industrial and railroad businesses had been darkened due to the swindles forged by the richest families of the time, such as the Marquis of Salamanca and the Royal Family itself.

So, in the middle of the 1860s, the popular dissatisfaction against the Isabeline monarchy was becoming more obvious in the different spheres of the Spanish society: the failed political two-party system between General Ramón María Narváez's Partido Moderado (Moderate Party) and also General Leopoldo O'Donnell's Unión Liberal (Liberal Union), as well as the deliberate exclusion of the Partido Progresista (Progressive Party) and the Partido Demócrata (Democrat Party), had provoked a growing stagnation of the political system; the Queen's and the Consort's - both of which were busier attracting young, attractive men to their beds instead of their country - non-exemplary conduct was causing scandals in the nation, and the domination of the Royal Court by Neocatholic councilors who were trying to establish a reborn Ancien Régime produced no few problems amongst those that wanted the liberalization of their country.


Francisco de Asís de Borbón, King Consort of Spain.

All these factors had driven in the last years to the execution of failed military uprisings, planned by the Progressive Party led by General Juan Prim, who was trying to access to power so that he could give a truly liberal way out to the country's situation.

Then, in 1866, all Europe was hit by a grave economic crisis, which in Spain acquired greater strength due to the floods that had destroyed the harvests that year, an inadequate and slow industrialization, a very grave financial crisis coming from the excessive concentration of the credit risk on the railroad business and in the public debt, and the null benefits the First Pacific War had brought, which gave birth in an explosive way all the socio-economical tensions that had appeared during the Isabeline monarchy, showing the Spanish society's contradictions:

• The one existing between the landowning, financial and colonial oligarchy, and the rest of the country, where most of the population worked in the agricultural sector.
• A more concrete one that existed between said dominant oligarchy and the industrial and commercial bourgeoisie, in spite of the weakness the latter still suffered.
• And the one that already existed in Catalonia and started to appear in the Vascongadas and Asturias between the bourgeoisie and the worker class.

Prologue, Part II: Preparing for the Revolution

So, after the failure of the Sargentada of the San Gil Barracks, the Progressive Party decided to establish a long-lasting collaboration with the Democrat Party lead by Nicolás María Rivero and Francisco Pi y Margall: under the so-called Ostende Pact, signed in the Belgian city of the same name in August 1866, both parties declared their intention to work together to demolish the Isabeline monarchy and establish a new institutional system for Spain after Cortes Constituyentes (Constituent Courts or a Constituent Assembly) was chosen by male universal suffrage.


General Leopoldo O'Donnell, leader of the Liberal Union.

Later revolutionary attempts, executed a few months after the signing of the Ostende Pact, didn't end in the conquest of power, but managed to attract a new ally to the band opposing Isabella II: the Liberal Union. After General O'Donnell's death in 1867, the Unionists, now lead by General Francisco Serrano, who had been known previously as being one of the queen's favorite lovers several years ago - and suspected parent for the Queen's son, Alfonso - were insulted by the Moderates in power and for the involution the monarchy itself was practicing, when it gave higher power to the Isabeline Neocatholics led by Cándido Nocedal. So, the Unionists believed that, to keep their influence, they needed to change to the side that would win in a nearby future, so they entered the opposition through the Brussels Pact. Also, Serrano brought the generous economic aid of Antoine de Orléans, Duke of Montpensier and husband to the Infant Luisa Fernanda de Borbón (Isabella II's younger sister), who aspired to gaining the Spanish Crown for himself or his wife.


General Ramón María Narváez, leader of the Moderate Party.

However, the Isabeline regime was still strong enough to resist the opposition's challenges, until it was mortally wounded in April 1868 with the death of the Espadón de Loja, General Narváez, who was the main defender of the Isabeline monarchy. After such disgrace, Isabella II decided to keep trusting the Moderates in the person of Luis González Bravo, in spite of the whole readiness Nocedal's Neocatholics advertised.


The politician Cándido Nocedal, leader of the Isabeline Neocatholics.

However, González Bravo, in order to not give any argument that allowed the Neocatholics or another military man with political aspirations the chance to obtain his position, he decided to govern against everything and everyone, using an exhaustive repression against any sign of uprising against the regime (for example, the exile of all Unionist generals, with Serrano at the helm, to the Canary Islands) earning the hate of all the Spaniards that were looking for a better tomorrow for themselves and their nation, although González Bravo proclaimed being proud of showing everyone that a civilian could also direct a dictatorship.


The politician Luis González Bravo, leader of the Moderate Party after Narváez's death.

That was the situation when an honorable sailor, working with the opposing forces, decided that this was the moment to say Enough! and that the situation required an urgent and definite change.

Prologue, Part III: La Gloriosa

When, on 18th September 1868, the fleet led by Admiral Juan Bautista Topete, which was anchored in front of the city of Cádiz (considered the birthplace of Spanish constitutionalism) rose up against González Bravo's Moderate government, the end of Isabella II of Spain's crown was already written.


Admiral Juan Bautista Topete, beginner of the Glorious.

For the first time, the Navy participated in one of those interventions of the Armed Forces in the Spanish public sphere, so frequent in the previous 60 years in Spanish History, that they have entered the popular memory under the name of pronunciamientos militares (military uprisings). And it did it to reclaim the Spanish citizenship's support for a revolutionary movement whose goal was the demolition of the corrupt, immoral and dictatorial monarchy of Isabella II and implant a true liberal and parliamentary state in Spain, where the citizen's rights were observed and the national sovereignty was recognized through a Constituent Assembly chosen by male universal suffrage that decided the nation's future.


General Juan Prim y Prats, leader of the Progressive Party.

A day later, the leaders of the opposition against Isabella II - Progressive General Juan Prim, from his London exile after a brief stopover in Gibraltar, and Unionist General Francisco Serrano, leading the generals banished in the Canary Islands - arrived to Cádiz in order to start what posterity chose to call the Revolución de Septiembre (September Revolution) or La Gloriosa (The Glorious).


General Francisco Serrano y Domínguez, leader of the Liberal Union after O'Donnell's death.

Soon, that flame of true liberalism found popular support, spreading out in Andalucía, Levante and Catalonia, while its main leaders advanced through the Spanish geography: Prim was travelling from port to port along the Mediterranean coast, while Serrano travelled overland from Cadiz to Seville, and from there towards Madrid.


La Gloriosa, in the city of Cádiz.

This way, on 28th September, Serrano's troops met the Isabeline troops, lead by Manuel Pavía y Lacy, Marquis of Novaliches, at the Bridge of Alcolea (Cordoba), where a bloody battle was fought. Revolutionary troops were superior in infantry, but Novaliches's troops were superior in cavalry and artillery, as the latter had some powerful Krupp guns that seemed to would decide the outcome of the battle. However, Serrano's troops advanced and took the bridge, preventing Novaliches cavalry's attack. After two hours of combat, Novaliches was seriously wounded, as he stood with his face disfigured, and Serrano's victory was complete. Then the two oppossing armies were twinned and marched together to Madrid.


The Battle of the Bridge of Alcolea (Cordoba), on 28th September 1868.

When the defeat reached the ears of the Court, that was staying in the Basque coast, there were only two options: the forced exile of the Royal Family to nearby France, where they would await more news of the unfortunate revolution; or the immediate decision that Isabella II abdicated the Spanish Crown into her son and heir, Prince Alfonso, allowing that way to save the Spanish throne for the Bourbon dynasty. However, the faithful councilors and courtiers, knowing the conception Isabella II had over her throne as something of her property, suggested her to reject the second option, probably the best advice (for Spain and the Spanish people) they had given her since they arrived to the Court. Thus, Isabella II condemned the Bourbon monarchy's options to continue occupying the Catholic Monarchs’ throne, as she kept her historical rights while she exiled herself with her family on the 30th to neighbor France, where Emperor Napoleon III gave comfortable chambers to the illustrious exiles in the coastal city of Biarritz.


The exile of the Spanish Bourbons, on 30th September 1868.

When talking about the revolution, it was composed of two brief but well distinguished phases: the first one was basically violent, characterized by tactics typical of a military uprising (carried out mostly by the Unionists and the Progressives) and the uprising of armed civilians (used by the Democrats) that ended when the revolutionary victory at Alcolea and the exile of the capricious Queen were known. Then, the second phase started, characterized by the pacific power transfer between the Isabeline authorities and the proclaimed Revolutionary Juntas that replaced them, which had been chosen by popular acclaim or through democratic elections between its neighbors.


La Gloriosa, in Madrid's Puerta del Sol.

Finally, on the first days of October a Provisional Government was formed, which would start the steps for the establishments of a Constituent Assembly chosen by male universal suffrage.

Prologue, Part IV: The Provisional Government and the Constituent Assembly

Said Provisional Government was presided by General Serrano and formed by 4 Unionist ministers (Juan Bautista Topete in Navy, Juan Álvarez Lorenzana in Home Affairs, Antonio Romero Ortiz in Justice, and Adelardo López de Ayala in Overseas) and 4 Progressive ministers (Juan Prim in War, Práxedes Mateo Sagasta in Governance, Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla in Public Works and Laureano Figuerola in Treasury), which generated the first frictions in the Government coalition, as it left the Democrats (who were suffering an internal division between the Republicans led by Francisco Pi y Margall, Emilio Castelar and Nicolás Salmerón and the Monarchists led by Nicolás María Rivero, Cristino Martos and Manuel Becerra) out of the government.


The Provisional Government. From left to right: Figuerola, Ruiz Zorrilla, Sagasta, Prim, Serrano, Topete, López de Ayala, Romero Ortiz y Lorenzana.

The Provisional Government was going to give fast performance to the revolutionary promises concerning public freedoms and political rights. In order to achieve that, a manifest was published, where the first political reforms were announced, as well as great economical reforms that would break all obstacles to production and favored the growth of public wealth.

That way, before the year was through, several decrees that regulated the freedoms of press, right to assemble and associate and academic freedom, and several measures were being taken regarding the establishment of the freedom of religion. Also, the unity of legislation and code of law, the institution of the Jury was recognized, and, especially, the male universal suffrage, with a call under this premise for local elections in December 1868 and the long-awaited national election to the Constituent Assembly for January 1869. Meanwhile, although without any details, the economical program of the new regime was discerned as completely liberal.

Regarding the form of the new regime, the Provisional Government bet decisively for the constitutional monarchy, arguing the limited success of the republican form in other European nations and, veiled, the distrust that the establish of a republic in Spain could awake in the rest of Europe.


From left to right: the politicians Nicolás María Rivero, Cristino Martos and Manuel Becerra, leaders of the Democrat Party.

After this was made public, the initial revolutionary coalition started to break down. The Government's position provoked the definite breakup of the Democrat Party when the republicans left to form the Partido Republicano (Republican Party) which, under Pi y Margall's direction, supported a federal republic similar to the one in the United States of America. Also, many Juntas (which, in spite of their formal dissolution after the Provisional Government was established, kept working in several points of the Peninsula) were republican and had started to apply on their own the most daring revolutionary measures: the abolition of the quintas (the military service system used in Spain, which established that one of every five men had to join the army, and that was universally hated through the whole nation because young rich could escape paying a fee that only the wealthy could afford) and of the consumption tax (which was applied to the basic necessities).


From left to right: Francisco Pi y Margall, Emilio Castelar, and Nicolás Salmerón, leaders of the Republican Party.

Also, many of the local elections gave the triumph to the republicans in many province capitals, showing that the native federalism from the times of the Habsburgs still lived, in spite of the centralism prevailing since the Bourbons' arrival, and that was fed by the economical dissatisfaction and its antimilitarist and anticlerical discourse.

But, anyway, in those first months of the new regime, the main problem was the Cuban insurrection. The overseas territories, badly administrated by General Captains with absolute power and with a slave-based economy, the situation in the Spanish Antilles was very explosive, and the explosion didn't take much to arrive. The Puerto Rican Grito de Lares at the end of September was put down soon, but it didn't happen the same with the Cuban Grito de Yara, that broke out in the island's eastern region on 10th October and that soon degenerated in a brutal guerrilla war.


Carlos Manuel de Céspedes del Castillo, beginner of the Grito de Yara.

The reasons of the Cuban insurrection came mostly from different factors of economic (the economical disparity between the island's western and eastern regions; the judgment of the high tributes that Spain imposed, which also sustained a rigid commercial control that affected the island's economy and used the benefits for matters that were alien to the island, such as the funding of the Armed Forces and the development of the African colony of Fernando Poo; and the limited investment in the sugar industry's modernization), political (Spain didn't allow Cubans to hold public offices; the recent abandonment of Santo Domingo after its brief re-annexation between 1861 and 1865; the denial of the freedom of press and the rights to assemble and associate, and the metropolis's lack of concern over the situation in the Spanish Antilles, united to the maturing of an independent intellectual thinking) and social (a marked class division, based on racial prejudices, and the existence of slavery that prevented the island's economical development, as the technological development required the use of true skilled workers) factors.

However, although the supporters of the independence movement were unable to take control of any great city and the exporting of the new measures approved by the Provisional Government to the island through the new Captain General, Unionist General Domingo Dulce, the former didn't surrender and started a guerrilla war whose main scenario was based in the feared machete charges done by those black slaves that were freed during their estate occupations.


Spanish volunteers embarking for the war in Cuba

With this situation, the Provisional Government was forced to turn to conscription for the colonial army, which consolidated the republicans' distancing with the government authorities, as the former supported an antimilitarist discourse and the establishment of a Spanish federation where Cuba would be one more state. This way, the popular classes started to feel a certain letdown, which entailed that the Cuban insurrection would be considered La Gloriosa's cancer.

Meanwhile, the first General Election to the Constituent Assembly of 15th January 1869 were celebrated, where the participation reached the 70% of the electoral census, which for the first time was formed by all Spanish males over 25 years old. The electoral result was the following:

• Government Coalition: 236 Deputies (134 from the Progressive Party, 69 from the Liberal Union y 33 from the Democrat Party).
• Republican Party: 85 Deputies (83 from the Federalist wing and 2 from the Centralist wing)
• Carlist Party: 20 Deputies
• Isabeline independents: 11 Deputies
• The Deputies from Cuba (18) and Puerto Rico (11) are not included.

Opening of the Constituent Assembly on 11th February 1869.

With this electoral result, and with the support of Prim, who was the true architect and arbitrator of the Government Coalition, as well as holding the War Ministry, Serrano gained the Presidency of a Government that stopped being provisional, formed by the previous ministers, and a Constitutional Commission was formed, consisting on equal numbers by Progressive, Unionist and Democrat politicians and legislators.

I'm new to this and I'm very interested so far.
I also like the use of pictures. Helps bring it to life.

Prologue, Part V: The new Constitution

The process of elaborating the new Constitution was pretty fast, as it only took three months. The text was finished at the end of May, was approved on the 1st June by 214 Ayes, 55 Nays and several abstentions, and was promulgated on the 6th by the Constituent Courts, in the name of the Spanish Nation.

The constitutional text had a medium extension, and would be subjected to an extra addition, the Law of 10th June 1870, related to the election of the King, which was incorporated to the Constitution in express disposition of the latter.

The greatest influences on the Spanish Constitution of 1869 came mostly from the Constitutions of the United States of America (a broad declarations of rights and freedoms that would be interpreted under rationalist natural law) and Belgium (the regulation of the Crown's role in the country), as well as a general influence from the historical Constitution of 1812, nicknamed La Pepa.

This new constitutional text was characterized by its clear democratic declaration, based in the recognition of national sovereignty, as well as its logical consequence, male universal suffrage. All this under the form of government which constitutes a constitutional monarchy.


Opening of the Constituent Courts in the Congress of Deputies.

At the same time, the broadest and most complete declaration of rights and freedoms ever done in Spanish constitutional history was drafted, with a marked interpretation based in rationalist natural law, that advocated those individual rights as natural rights, so they were inalienable and previous to any other legislation. Thus, it was thought that the repression of the bad use of those rights could only be done a posteriori, a stance opposed by a Isabeline politician called Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, who stated that those rights had to be regulated and limited through legislation to prevent the generation of indiscipline, social disorder and their own violation.

It was in the religious question where the constitutional debate had its most arduous debates. Already in the first days of the revolutions, the Juntas renewed the anticlerical traditions of the Spanish left-wing, including demolitions of convents, while the Provisional Government extinguished all monasteries and religious houses built after 1837 (starting date of ecclesiastical confiscations) and banned the Jesuit Company in all the Spanish territory.

Freedom of religion had to form part of the new Constitution, although the Spanish Catholic Church tried through every means at their disposal that the Concordat of 1851 (which established the religious union, the state's Catholic denomination, broad jurisdictional attributions, the compliance of the Catholic dogma in public education, and many other privileges) was respected by the new government. That was why the Constituent Assembly saw a confrontation between the liberal thinking (catholic or not) that supported religious freedom with religious arguments, and the traditional thinking that supported religious union with political arguments.

To keep everybody content, in the end it was declared that the Nation would take charge of the maintenance of the Catholic cult and clergy (which was seen as a fair compensation for the expropriation of lands during the Isabeline confiscations), as well as guaranteeing the public and private exercise of any other cult for both Spaniards and foreigners, and the remarking that the access to public charges and the acquisition and exercise of their civil and political rights was independent of the religion the Spaniards professed.

In regards to the separation of powers, the Cortes Generales (General Courts) would be formed by two chambers, the Congreso de los Diputados (Congress of Deputies) and the Senado (Senate), which would be chosen through male universal suffrage, would control the government's actions and would hold the legislative power. However, the differences between the two chambers were great: the Congress would be chosen through direct male universal suffrage in uninominal districts, considering that a parliamentary term does not exceed 3 years; while the Senate would be chosen through indirect male universal suffrage, would represent local interests and would be renewed in fourths every time the Congress did it, unless the King ordered a complete renovation.


Promulgation of the new Spanish Constitution by the Constituent Courts, on 6th June 1869.

The King was named holder of the executive power, but given his inviolability and non-responsibility, it would be the Government who would exercise it through the ratification system. The King would have the power of free appointing and dismissal of his ministers (who would still have to require the confidence of the Courts), as well as the call and suspension of the Courts, the sanction and promulgation of the laws, the legal authority and those competences concerning the executive power and the classical attributions of a Head of State.

Finally, a judicial power completely independent and responsible before the law was established, reinforcing its members' independence through competitive examinations in the judicial career. Also, the establishment of judge by jury for all political crimes and those crimes determined by common law was foreseen. It also advocated the union of codes of law, save for the military and ecclesiastical jurisdictions, which had yet to be finished from the first attempts after the Cadiz Courts during the Peninsular War.

With this constitutional text, considered as the most advanced Constitution in all of Europe in its time, already promulgated, Serrano was designated Regent on 18th June, giving the office of President of the Government to Prim, who kept the War Ministry for himself and named on equal numbers Unionist and Progressive ministers, in order to keep the government coalition together, which, from that moment on, started a difficult task that could consolidate or sink the newly formed Spanish democracy: the search for an adequate King for Spain.

Looks good so far.

OK, I am the main translator of this TL, and I have to say that it is going well.

Just noticed a couple of mistakes that must have slipped when I was doing the translation:

The greatest influences on the Spanish Constitution of 1869 came mostly from the Constitutions of the United States of America (a broad declarations of rights and freedoms that would be interpreted under rationalist natural law) and Belgium (the regulation of the Crown’s role would exercise in the country), as well as a general influence from the historical Constitution of 1812, nicknamed La Pepa.

Click to expand...

The bolded part should be the regulation of the Crown's role in the country or the regulation of the role the Crown would exercise in the country.

Freedom of religion had to form part of the new Constitution, although the Spanish Catholic Church tried through every means at their disposal that the Concordat of 1851, which established the religious union, the state's Catholic denomination, broad jurisdictional attributions, the compliance of the Catholic dogma in public education, and many other privileges; was respected by the new government. That was why the Constituent Assembly saw a confrontation between the liberal thinking (catholic or not) that supported religious freedom with religious arguments, and the traditional thinking that supported religious union with political arguments.

Click to expand...

The bolded part would go better between parenthesis (eliminating the comma and the semicolon), or either the semicolon should be replaced by a comma.

Otherwise, I am starting to work on Part 2, which starts to deal with the search of a king and the first problems of Prim's government...

Thanks for the warning, Milarqui. These errors have been corrected.

As Milarqui has said, I will publish soon Milarqui's translations of my recent texts.

Hint: It will reveal the identity of the new Spanish king.

Subscribed!

General Serrano's Regency, Part I: Setbacks

After Serrano's appointment as Regent of the Kingdom of Spain (which satisfied his political ambition as it was the country's highest institutional position, and at the same time calmed the Democrats as that position bereft him of any troop command) and Prim's as President of the Ministers' Council, it seemed logical that the new authorities worked full-time in the search of the right king for the new Spain.


Governance Minister Práxedes Mateo Sagasta.

However, Prim also had internal affairs to deal with, like achieving the survival of the Government Coalition, and with even greater responsibility if frictions came within his own party. During the constitutional debates it could be seen that the Progressive Party was divided in two factions: one, led by Governance Minister Práxedes Mateo Sagasta, wished to put an end to the reforms to consolidate the current changes and keep the political conciliation with the Unionists; the other, led by Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla and self-named Radical, thought that the country had to be reformed fast enough to prevent the system's involution. Also, Sagasta's supporters were monarchical and defended Cánovas del Castillo's ideas of a State where individual rights were legislated and limited, while the Radicals only accepted the new monarchy as a transitional regime towards a future republican regime and defended that individual rights could not be legislated and, as such, the State should only be an instrument that suppressed the bad use of those rights.


The Radical Progressive Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla.

Thus, Prim decided that it was time that the Democrats joined the Government, so he named Cristino Martos as Home Affairs Minister and Manuel Becerra for Overseas in the government's reshuffle of July 1869, to the detriment of the Unionists, which earned him the Unionists' suspicions.

After this, the Courts entrusted a special commission for the search of the new Spanish king, which would control the Government's actions in that sense. However, the choice of the new king also rattled the wheels of the government's coalition, as every party that formed it had its favorite candidate.


The widower Portuguese king Fernando de Saxe-Coburgo-Gota.

So, the search for the new king started: first, an offer was made to the widower Portuguese king Fernando de Saxe-Coburgo-Gota (also known in Portugal as Ferdinand II), who was admired by the Progressives for his political impartiality when he was consort king for Mary II and then Regent for his eldest son Peter V, who died heirless and was succeeded by his brother Louis I. However, Fernando rejected the candidacy for political (he disliked the possibility of dynastically unifying the Spanish and Portuguese crowns if they didn't do it on their own volition both internally and internationally, and they knew that an Iberian unification would generate an immediate rejection from the British government, and probably from the French too) and personal (he had just married a famous opera singer who did not want to have any kind of institutional role) reasons, so the Iberian candidacy, which had acquired the support of even Republican Iberists like Nicolás Salmerón, came to nothing.


Antoine d'Orleans, Duke of Montpensier.

Meanwhile, some Unionists considered Antoine d'Orléans, Duke of Montpensier, the ambitious Isabella II's brother-in-law and the greatest donor to the revolutionary cause, as the ideal candidate. Unfortunately for him, despite the support from part of the Liberal Union (amongst his supporters was Admiral Topete), Prim refused to accept him for his ties of kinship to the recently dethroned Bourbons (as well as being Isabella II's brother-in-law, he was part of the Orléans dynasty, a lateral branch of the French Bourbons) and because, when the Glorious started, he was exiled in Lisbon, from where he didn't come back until the revolution triumphed, despite the fact his presence was required for the Battle of Alcolea due to his condition as General Captain of the Spanish Army (Isabella II had appointed him for that rank after he married her sister), a fact that neither Progressives nor many Unionists forgot. His hopes of being chosen were destroyed completely when Montpensier killed Infante Enrique de Borbón, Duke of Seville (the younger brother of the exiled consort king, Francisco de Asís de Borbón, and other candidate to succeed Isabella II that was vetoed by Prim's government), in a duel to the death in 12 March 1870.


Infante Enrique de Borbón, Duke of Seville.

Other candidates, supported by different groups, were the popular and already retired General Baldomero Fernández Espartero (who had been Regent for Isabella II’s underage and was the preferred candidate of some Progressives and even the Republicans), the eternal Carlist pretender Carlos María de Borbón y Austria-Este (naturally, the preferred by the Traditionalist Carlists and the Catholic Fundamentalists, who called him Charles VII following the Carlist line of succession) and Prince Alfonso de Borbón (the only son of dethroned Isabella II, who was considered a lost cause by the Isabelines due to the Spanish people’s hatred towards her).


Amedeo di Savoia, Duke of Aosta.

After the refusal of Fernando de Saxe-Coburgo-Gota, the government sounded out the Savoia dynasty, which was ending the Italian unification. The throne was offered to Amedeo di Savoia, Duke of Aosta and Victor Emmanuel II's second son, and to Tomasso Alberto di Savoia, Duke of Genoa. Amedeo rejected the throne, given the instability that existed in Spain since decades ago, but the 13-year-old Duke of Genoa's candidacy was accepted by the Courts for 128 votes in favor to 52 against, and supported by the Duke of Montpensier as long as the young pretender married one of Montpensier's daughters. In the end, both the Duke of Genoa's mother and the Italian government gave a refusal, frustrating the candidacy (the reason could have been vengeance, after the Isabeline authorities supported the papal sovereignty in the Papal States, sending troops in 1848 and promising Napoleon III to send Spanish troops that would replace the French soldiers that defended the Lazio).


Tomasso Alberto di Savoia, Duke of Genoa.

The search for a new king strained even more the political situation, which had stabilized after the compromise of the Government Coalition's parties (Liberal Union, Progressive Party and Democrat Party) of governing without too much advancement in reforms until the king was finally chosen.

But the Duke of Genoa's failed candidacy brought problems, because Ruiz Zorrilla supported on January 1870 the start of a Liberal Dictatorship, that is, to start the development of the newest aspects the 1869 Constitution established without waiting for the new king and without looking for the Liberal Union’s support. This maneuver broke the balancing role that Prim wished for the Progressive Party in the Coalition and provoked the Liberal Union’s opposition.


Treasury Minister Laureano Figuerola.

Also, this division was fostered due to the economical plans developed by Treasury Minister Laureano Figuerola, who had just established the Spanish monetary union around a new currency called Peseta and pretended to establish a free-trade plan to foment the industrial and commercial growth with the elimination of tariffs to increase the tax collection on medium term and the foreign investments, but said plan had the immediate opposition of the Unionists, the protectionist Progressives (led by former Minister Pascual Madoz and supported by Catalan industrialists) and Ruiz Zorrilla's Radical Progressives, who supported an economical model that balanced the reduction of public spending and the increase of revenues through credits and public debt emission.


First coin of 1 Peseta facial issued during the Provisional Government in 1869.

Nevertheless, in this political context, the Liberal Union had the chance to debilitate the Progressive position in the Government Coalition and presented a vote of no confidence in 19th May 1870, which Prim passed thanks to the support of his party and the Democrats.

Besides, the eroding of the revolutionary government also came from the bloody guerrilla war that had ravaged Cuba since October 1868, while a Carlist uprising happened in July 1869 and an insurrection of intransigent federal republicans in Catalonia that was in September and October 1869 were harshly repressed, an action that was furiously criticized by the Carlists and Republicans deputies and disgusted Cristino Martos' Democrats. Also, the Government started an effective campaign against the eternal banditry in Andalusia, led by civil governor Julián Zugasti.


Civil Governor Julián Zugasti.

Meanwhile the Radicals (Ruiz Zorrilla was Minister of Public Works from October 1868 to July 1869, when he was named Minister of Justice, a position he kept until January 1870, when he replaced Democrat Nicolás María Rivero as President of the Courts) carried out a labor that pretended to modernize Spain through their advanced policies, such as liberty of cathedra, the State's secularization in all its ambits (legalization of civil marriage, some attempts to seize the Catholic Church's artistic wealth for the State, a governmental order for all bishops to write lists with the names of those priests that didn't swear the Constitution), foment market liberalization and great administrative and judicial reforms (notarial public exams and massive administrative reform of the civil jurisdiction), amongst other measures. These measures were constantly rejected by Isabeline nostalgics and Carlists, as well as arousing distrust in the conservative sectors of the Unionists and the Progressives, increasing even more the political tensions existing in the new democratic system that ruled Spain.

Thus, during this Regency, laws as important as the Electoral Law, the Public Order Law, the Judicial Power Organic Law, a new Penal Code and new Municipal and Provincial Laws, amongst other measures of great reach, were approved.

General Serrano's Regency, Part II: The Election of the new King

That was the political situation in Spain when, on 21st June 1870, an agent of the Spanish government in Berlin informed through telegraph about the acceptance of Prussian prince Leopold zu Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen for the candidacy that had been gestating from some time ago so that he could occupy the Spanish throne.

After the rotund failure in extremis of the young Duke of Genoa's candidacy, there also was the flat refusal of General Espartero to become King of Spain, in spite of the popular support for his candidacy (due to his 77 years old, his lack of descendants and his wide experience in government responsibilities, many popular and political sectors saw him as the perfect candidate, especially the nostalgic Progressives, Ruiz Zorrilla's Radicals and even some Republicans) because he felt without the strength required to endure such responsibility.


Retired General Baldomero Fernández Espartero, former leader of the Progressive Party.

This situation was leading towards great tension in the political class that supported the constitutional monarchy (Prim himself stated Finding a democratic king in Europe is harder than finding an atheist in Heaven!), strengthening the Republican position. Prim tried to win them and control the Spanish Republican movement by offering Emilio Castelar and Francisco Pi y Margall the positions of Ministers of Treasury and Public Works, respectively, but both of them refused, believing that soon the new monarchical regime would fail and there would be a chance to establish a Spanish Republic.

This was why Prim's government started to sound out certain princes in Central European nations that met the minimum requirements to be crowned King of Spain: that he was Catholic, that he accepted to swear allegiance to the 1869 Constitution and that he didn't meddle in the Spanish political life beyond his constitutional duties. Those requirements ruled out the candidates from the Habsburg dynasty (due to the traditionalism and Neocatholicism that Franz Joseph I represented) and the Wittelsbach dynasty from Bavaria (due to the congenital madness it suffered).


Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph I.

Meanwhile, the Spanish representatives looked to the members of the reigning dynasty in Prussia, the Hohenzollern, as perfect, given that they had turned Prussia into Europe's emergent power and were doing a titanic job, mostly thanks to Chancellor Otto von Bismarck's negotiations, to turn into reality the dream of the German National Assembly established in Frankfurt during the 1848 Revolution: the unification of Germany in one sovereign state. However, there was a problem with that: the Hohenzollern were Protestants.

All these facts seemed to corroborate President Prim's sentence, but then the government was contacted by one of its emissaries in Berlin, Eusebio Salazar y Mazarredo, former secretary of the Spanish legislation in Berlin and later Deputy to Courts. From the first revolutionary plans to topple Isabella II, Salazar had already been projecting what he considered the perfect candidacy to the Spanish throne. In summer 1866 he met with Baron von Werthern, Prussian ambassador in Paris, in the city of Biarritz, a suitable summer resort for dignitaries and rich people of the time (amongst its most faithful visitors was Bismarck, which was probably one of the reasons for the choice of place, because the restless Spanish diplomat hoped to meet the Chancellor there) for a lunch meeting. The main conversation subject was the chance that the throne of Spain, for any reason, became vacant, and Baron von Werthern answered that, if that were to happen, the best candidate was Leopold zu Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.


Prince Leopold zu Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.

Leopold was the older son of Prince Karl Anton zu Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, head of the Hohenzollern branch that, in the 16th Century, planted their dominion in Swabia, and had given their rights in Swabia to their Prussian relatives after the 1848 Revolution. Also, Karl Anton had been Prussian Chancellor between 1858 and 1862 and was currently military governor of Rhineland and Westphalia, while Leopold was an officer in the Prussian Army and Karl Anton's second son, Karl, had been promoted in 1866 to the Romanian throne under the name of Carol I, so the possibility of Leopold accessing the Spanish throne didn't lack a precedent.

Besides, Leopold had several characteristics that made his candidacy even more attractive: for starters, Leopold was 35 years old; he was Catholic, as his whole family was (the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen had remained faithful to Catholicism after the Protestant Reform); he was a very educated man, of great intelligence; his personal fortune was one of the most considerable in the continent; he was married to Portuguese Infanta Antónia de Saxe-Coburgo-Gota e Bragança (María II and Fernando de Saxe-Coburgo-Gota's daughter), which could give him the support of those that had looked for a candidate that could unify Spain and Portugal in one sovereign state, and he had his succession secured thanks to his sons Wilhelm (born in 1864) and Ferdinand (born in 1865), as well as, shortly before the Glorious, his third son, Karl Anton.


Spanish diplomatic Eusebio Salazar y Mazarredo.

It was, thus, along 1869, that Salazar asked Prim to inform Bismarck of his intentions and for the government to officially support him through the Spanish ambassador in Berlin, Count Juan Antonio Rascón, to win the Chancellor's support for the Leopoldine candidacy.

Salazar's schemes were soon well-known in all Europe and came to the newspapers, creating a contrived situation from where the protagonists escaped faking ignorance of the matter while vital contacts of great importance were developed. Those contacts were transcribed into a secret visit of President Prim with his most trusted men to Leopold's father house, to propose him his son's candidacy to the Spanish throne. Both Leopold and Prussian King William I had doubts, given their distrust of the situation in Spain and the eternal pro-coup philosophy developed in the Spanish Army, but Otto von Bismarck was very interested in the chance of putting a Hohenzollern in the Spanish throne and became a support for the Spanish agents.


Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.

At first sight, it seemed that the Prussian Chancellor was unflappable regarding Leopold's candidacy, but his closest confidants stated he was excited with it: his apparent indifference (in spite of Count Rascón's being a person of his liking and confidence) was due to the fact that he was planning to use the affair as a pretext to attract France into a war against Prussia that would end up in German unification, as well as slowly wear down his King's and Leopold's reticence.

With that objective in mind, Bismarck convinced William I to entrust Prince Karl Anton with a private dinner which was attended by Prince Leopold, Bismarck, General Helmuth von Moltke, the main Ministers, the Prussian King, and his son and heir, Kronprinz Friedrich. All those present were in favor of Leopold's acceptance of the Crown (with the aim of gaining France's southern neighbor as an faithful ally of Prussia), save for the King and Kronprinz, while Leopold remained ambiguous, awaiting the King's settlement. Bismarck then started a series of sibylline pressures to convince William I and the pretender of the great opportunities Leopold's accession to the Spanish throne would generate, both internally and externally, for Prussia.


Prince Karl Anton zu Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.

It was then, in 21st June 1870, that Salazar notified through telegraph to the President of the Courts, Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla, Leopold's acceptance which he had been given while at the Bavarian spa of Reichenhall after William I approved it, and that he would arrive there near 6th July (*), in time to present it before the Courts, whose members were awaiting with impatience for the parliamentary session period to end, so that the candidacy was voted. The return of Salazar and his collaborators was not done unaccompanied, because, for their security and that of the candidacy, they were being accompanied by several secret agents of Bismarck's maximum confidence, who would join those that were already in Spain since before the Glorious happened.

The Prussians were not the only ones that had sent spies to operate and watch out what was going on in Spain, and mainly in Madrid. France and its Emperor, Napoleon III, looked at Isabella II's overthrow with a mix of interest and distrust, so they had sent more agents than ever in order to know what was happening in Spain at first hand. In essence, this external policy towards Spain was very common in regards to the periodical interventions that France had carried out in Spain in the last decades (the most notorious examples were the Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis, who invaded Spain in 1823 to reestablish Fernando VII's absolutism and end the constitutional experience originated in Lieutenant Colonel Rafael de Riego's 1820 uprising; and Isabella II's marriage in 1846, preventing the young queen from marrying Leopold, Fernando de Saxe-Coburgo-Gota's younger brother, as the British pretended, given that the dynasty (the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) already ruled in Belgium, Portugal and Great Britain).


King William I of Prussia.

However, there was a great difference when compared with previous French interventions, veiled or clear, in Spanish politics. The growing mistakes of Imperial France's foreign policy had left France internationally isolated: French support for the Polish rebellion in 1863 had broken the alliance with Russia; lack of French support to Austria during the Seven Weeks War against Prussia offended the Habsburgs; French defense of the Pope so that he could keep the Lazio had greatly angered the previously friendly Italians, who had given them their Savoy and Nice possessions, after two popular referenda, in 1860; France was also seen from Istanbul as a vulture that encouraged the Ottoman Empire's disintegration through their help to the Egyptians (who showed their gratefulness by giving permission for the construction of the Suez Canal, which was inaugurated in 1869 by Eugenia de Montijo, the Spanish-born Empress) and the Greeks, to obtain all Ottoman colonies; and, in the New World, the United States of America didn't forget neither the Imperial venture in Mexico nor the tentative support Napoleon III had given the Confederates during the American Civil War. France could only count on two great European powers with whom relations could be considered amicable: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, immersed in the fruitful reign of Victoria I, and Spain.


Emperor Napoleon III of France.

Unfortunately, the United Kingdom was completely centered in its vast colonial empire and avoided getting directly involved in continental affairs, as well as the fact that they didn't trust Napoleon III given the manifest French pretentions of annexing Belgium and Luxembourg during the Seven Weeks War, pretentions defeated thanks to Bismarck's skillful international diplomacy; while Spain, which had been a great French ally during Isabella II's reign, was a great unknown factor for French interests after the unexpected revolution of September 1868, an event that could change the European and worldwide political balance in considerable and permanent ways.

From his personal point of view, Napoleon III was opposed to the possibility of the Duke of Montpensier accessing to the Spanish throne, either directly or through his wife. This was because such an action would complete France's international isolation and would destabilize Napoleon III's internal power in France, given that the Duke was the tenth son of Louis-Philippe I, the king that the French Emperor had overthrown in 1848, and his crowning as King of Spain would provoke the reemergence of the Orleansist movement in the Gallic nation.


French ambassador in Madrid, Mercier de L'Ostende.

Thus, Napoleon III (on his own and on his wife's advice) ordered his agents in Spain to do the impossible so that France was the first European power that heard about the scheming of the government coalition. It was then that they managed to be the first, after the Portuguese, to hear about the Iberian candidacy that would have put Fernando de Saxe-Coburgo-Gota in the Spanish throne, a candidacy Napoleon III supported because he thought that, if he did so from the start, the resulting Iberian nation from the dynastic union of Spain and Portugal would become a firm French ally.

The failure of this candidacy was a setback for the Emperor's prospects, and the rumors of the Prussian candidacy, which the French were only hearing about through the newspapers, were denied officially by the Spanish and Prussian Governments to save the candidacy. Everybody knew that France would completely reject it, so it was forbidden to let the secret negotiations reach Paris' ears, to which it helped that France had treated Spain like dirt for years, and the establishment, by the Emperor, of a great support for the Bourbon monarchy, under the new leadership of Prince Alfonso (Isabella II abdicated his dynastic rights in his only son on 25th June 1870), who was studying in Vienna while the Isabeline monarchists called him Alfonso XII. These circumstances, and the enormous disinformation effort done by the Prussian agents, undermined French efforts to know the result of the search for the new King of Spain.


French Empress Eugenia de Montijo.

However, the French ambassador in Madrid, Mercier de L'Ostende, managed to arrange a private dinner with Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla with the objective of knowing who would be the King of Spain. Dinner took place normally, with both politicians talking about trivial affairs, and when the French thought the way was prepared enough to talk about the matter, L'Ostende asked the Spaniard if Montpensier had any chances, but Ruiz Zorrilla assured him it was impossible due to his Bourbon kinship, his political leanings, his excessive ambition and his recent killing of Enrique de Borbón in a duel, although he would probably have parliamentary support from some staunch Unionists led by Admiral Topete.

Then, the French ambassador asked the Radical leader who would be in better position of gaining the required parliamentary support based on the Law of 10th June (that required an absolute majority of all Deputies to a candidacy was accepted), and Ruiz Zorrilla, who had realized which were the French ambassador's intentions, avoided the question as best as he could. Remembering the negotiations of some members of the Government Coalition, led by former Minister Pascual Madoz, to retake Amedeo di Savoia's candidacy if Leopold zu Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen's candidacy ultimately fails, he told the ambassador that the negotiations with the Italian prince were being retaken. After knowing this, the meeting ended soon after and the ambassador returned to his house, from where he would send an special delivery to Paris announcing that there would be no problems with the Spanish succession, and that the new king would probably be an Italian prince, the Duke of Aosta.


Former Minister Pascual Madoz.

Meanwhile, and without French knowledge of it, Eugenio Salazar y Mazarredo arrived to the Courts with Prince Leopold's signed acceptance on 6th July 1870. An extraordinary session of the Constituent Courts was convened for the following day with the only reason of voting who would become the new king. The voting obtained the following result:

• Prussian Prince Leopold zu Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen: 210 Deputies.
• Proclamation of a Federal Republic: 60 Deputies.
• Antoine d'Orléans, Duke of Montpensier: 21 Deputies.
• General Baldomero Espartero: 18 Deputies.
• Carlos María de Borbón y Austria-Este, Carlist Pretender: 7 Deputies.
• Infanta Luisa Fernanda de Borbón, Duchess of Montpensier: 4 Deputies.
• Proclamation of an Unitary Republic: 2 Deputies.
• Prince Alfonso de Borbón y Borbón, Prince of Asturias: 2 Deputies.
• Null or none of the above: 13 Deputies.
• Absent: 44 Deputies, including those from Cuba and Puerto Rico (18 and 11, respectively).

Proclamation parliamentary of the results of the vote of the Prince Leopold zu Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.

With this result, the president of the Courts, Radical Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla solemnly declared Queda elegido como Rey de los españoles el señor Leopoldo de Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (It has been agreed that the new King of the Spaniards is Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen) in the middle of a thunderous ovation in the chamber of the Palace of the Courts in the Carrera de San Jerónimo in Madrid.


Journalistic portraits of the new Spanish kings published in Spanish and European press.

The next morning, 8th July 1870, all Spain awakened excited about the proclamation of the Prussian candidate as new King of Spain, whom the press classed him as the contemporaneous reincarnation of Emperor Charles I of Spain and V of Germany, because Leopold would represent the same feeling that deceased Charles represented on his time for Spain. However, all this popular joy explosion didn't prevent the fact that many people took the new king's surname as a joke, and due to the difficulty in pronouncing it correctly, they nicknamed him ¡Olé, olé, si me eligen! (Olé, olé, if I am chosen!), which was acquired by those sectors opposed to his election as a derogatory nickname to Leopold's figure. Those same sectors would soon start to devise tricks that would allow them to expel the Prussian from the Catholic Monarchs' throne.


(*): The POD starts here. Eusebio Salazar y Mazarredo sent that telegram, but a strange and transcendental transmission mistake happened and the resulting telegram expressed that Leopold's acceptance would arrive in 26th July. Ruiz Zorrilla decided that he couldn't keep the deputies waiting for 18 more days (8th July had been established as the last day of parliamentary sessions before summer holidays) and suspended the sessions early. This delay derived in the affair becoming public and became soon known to the whole world, starting with French Ambassador Mercier de L'Ostende, who angrily protested to Governance Minister Sagasta. The French press and political media registered a explosion of aggressive Gallic nationalism that led to Leopold's renunciation and to the premise Bismarck used to obtain the so-long desired war against France that would allow for Germany to be unified around Hohenzollern’s Prussia, but Leopold withdrew early his candidacy and Prim managed to convince the Duke of Aosta.

So again Oleole Simeeligen as a king ...

We´ll see, although the other was quite good we will wait before judging this one...

EDIT: France is going to be pissed what about Franco-Prussian war?

Couple of mistakes I have noticed...

In the first part, where it talks about the Radicals' legislative work, especifically the part about the Church, it should say a governmental order instead of an governmental order...

In the second part, when you speak about Espartero's age, it should say due to his 77 years of age instead of due to his 77 years old.

Also, in the last comment, where you say I guess the identity of the new king isn't very surprised to readers, it should be surprising, not surprised.

Faralis said:

So again Oleole Simeeligen as a king ...

We´ll see, although the other was quite good we will wait before judging this one...

EDIT: France is going to be pissed what about Franco-Prussian war?

Click to expand...

You mean Tocomocho's timeline? That was a master work. Hopefully, with Linense's research and my translations, we will be able to reach Tocomocho's level.
Also, yeah, France is gonna get pissed. Choosing Montpensier would have been bad enough, given that he would have had a shot at provoking a rebellion in France against Napoleon III's rule, but having a Prussian in the throne with the very clear situation that Spain will become a Prussian ally, it would not be pretty to be near the Emperor when he hears the news.

Yes, Tocomocho´s is the one I was talking about ... good luck, I will follow this one with attention ...

I liked Tocomochos Timeline. This one looks as good. Keep it up!

Milarqui your biggest single translation problem left is pretend . In english it means to claim falsely, not simply to claim. This is a regular problem for romance speakers.


keep up the good work, both of you.

Dathi THorfinnsson said:

keep up the good work, both of you.

Click to expand...

What Dathi said.

Dathi THorfinnsson said:

Milarqui your biggest single translation problem left is pretend . In english it means to claim falsely, not simply to claim. This is a regular problem for romance speakers.


keep up the good work, both of you.

Click to expand...

Thanks. Most of the work is, obviously, Linense's, but still thanks.

@Linense: Mate, when you read this, instead of pretend (which is in the paragraph about Ruiz Zorrilla suggesting the formation of the Liberal Dictatorship) write wished or wanted.