alternatehistory.com
Chapter 1, Part I
Part I: The Road to La Gloriosa
It was the second of September of the year 1868. Isabel II, Queen of Spain and all of its colonies, and the last in a long line of monarchs that descended from the Sun King and Emperor Carlos I of Spain, was walking along the La Concha Beach, in the northern city of San Sebastián. Accompanying her were her son and heir Alfonso, her four daughters Isabel, María del Pilar, María de la Paz and Eulalia, and a large group of courtesans, ready to do anything that may grant them the favour of the Queen, and thus benefits of many kinds.
They did not know that any benefits they may gain would soon turn to ashes, dust and nothing else.
Queen Isabel II of Spain and her husband Francisco de Asís
Isabel II had risen to the throne in a tumultuous period of the history of Spain: she was just three years old when her father, the absolutist tyrant Fernando VII, nicknamed El Rey Felón (the Felon King) for his total intransigence that had ruined the start of Spanish liberalism and provoked Spanish America's independence, died from age and illness. Her crowning had been opposed by the Infante Carlos María Isidro de Borbón, who was supported by the reactionary elements of Spanish society, while the liberal politicians and troops had stepped behind her, hoping that she would be the one to bring new glory and freedom to the Spanish nation.
However, that hope was, not shattered, but eventually broken: Isabel had become a sad, capricious woman, who thought of the Crown and what it represented as her own property, to do as she wished; forced into a marriage with Francisco de Asís de Borbón, an homosexual and ambitious man she intensely disliked, both of them sought young attractive men to bed them, an attitude that was causing scandals in the nation; the political system formed by General Ramón María Narváez's Partido Moderado (Moderate Party) and also General Leopoldo O'Donnell's Unión Liberal (Liberal Union), which excluded the more liberal Partido Progresista (Progressive Party) and Partido Demócrata (Democrat Party) had stagnated, and was seen as an absolute failure, as very soon it became clear that the Presidency of the Council of Ministers was open for any high-ranking military officer that managed to seduce the Queen and sleep with her; and the Royal Court was dominated by Neo-Catholic councilors who were trying to convince Isabel to return to the Ancien Régime her father had imposed during his reign.
Not all done during Isabel's reign was bad: the relatively long periods of peace between pronunciamientos and revolts allowed for the industrialization of Spain, which had been destroyed by the Independence war and halted by the anti-liberal purges launched by Fernando VII, and a railway network was starting to expand, connecting all towns and cities of Spain to each other. Unfortunately, these economical reforms came with even more problems: Mendizábal's land seizures, while they had given much money to the Spanish battered Treasury, had culminated in the concentration of lands in the hands of a few landowners; the industrial and railroad businesses had been darkened due to great swindles forged by the richest families of the time, including the Royal Family itself; and the dissatisfaction of the lower classes with their economical situation was becoming greater as time passed.
It was all these factors that had led many military men and politicians to realize that Spain was a boiler, and that it would explode if it was not given a proper valve. One of them was other General, Juan Prim, who at the time was the leader of the Progressive Party. Seeing that, if he did not act soon, Spain would not end well, he decided to plan and execute several military uprisings, which led to several short-lived exiles to other European nations.
The last, definite impulse to the would-be revolutionaries was the European economic crisis of 1866, which acquired even greater strength in Spain due to many factors that had highlighted the many problems the economic policies of the successive governments chosen by Isabel, among them the inadequate industrialization of Spain and the concentration of the credit risk on the railroad business and in the public debt, compounded by the loss of many harvests due to floods and the First Pacific War, which had brought no benefits to Spain. The crisis would also highlight the many differences and contradictions of Spanish society, that threatened to break the nation:
EL LEGADO DE LA GLORIOSA (The Legacy of the Glorious)
Chapter 1: An End and a Beginning
Part I: The Road to La Gloriosa
It was the second of September of the year 1868. Isabel II, Queen of Spain and all of its colonies, and the last in a long line of monarchs that descended from the Sun King and Emperor Carlos I of Spain, was walking along the La Concha Beach, in the northern city of San Sebastián. Accompanying her were her son and heir Alfonso, her four daughters Isabel, María del Pilar, María de la Paz and Eulalia, and a large group of courtesans, ready to do anything that may grant them the favour of the Queen, and thus benefits of many kinds.
They did not know that any benefits they may gain would soon turn to ashes, dust and nothing else.
Queen Isabel II of Spain and her husband Francisco de Asís
Isabel II had risen to the throne in a tumultuous period of the history of Spain: she was just three years old when her father, the absolutist tyrant Fernando VII, nicknamed El Rey Felón (the Felon King) for his total intransigence that had ruined the start of Spanish liberalism and provoked Spanish America's independence, died from age and illness. Her crowning had been opposed by the Infante Carlos María Isidro de Borbón, who was supported by the reactionary elements of Spanish society, while the liberal politicians and troops had stepped behind her, hoping that she would be the one to bring new glory and freedom to the Spanish nation.
However, that hope was, not shattered, but eventually broken: Isabel had become a sad, capricious woman, who thought of the Crown and what it represented as her own property, to do as she wished; forced into a marriage with Francisco de Asís de Borbón, an homosexual and ambitious man she intensely disliked, both of them sought young attractive men to bed them, an attitude that was causing scandals in the nation; the political system formed by General Ramón María Narváez's Partido Moderado (Moderate Party) and also General Leopoldo O'Donnell's Unión Liberal (Liberal Union), which excluded the more liberal Partido Progresista (Progressive Party) and Partido Demócrata (Democrat Party) had stagnated, and was seen as an absolute failure, as very soon it became clear that the Presidency of the Council of Ministers was open for any high-ranking military officer that managed to seduce the Queen and sleep with her; and the Royal Court was dominated by Neo-Catholic councilors who were trying to convince Isabel to return to the Ancien Régime her father had imposed during his reign.
Not all done during Isabel's reign was bad: the relatively long periods of peace between pronunciamientos and revolts allowed for the industrialization of Spain, which had been destroyed by the Independence war and halted by the anti-liberal purges launched by Fernando VII, and a railway network was starting to expand, connecting all towns and cities of Spain to each other. Unfortunately, these economical reforms came with even more problems: Mendizábal's land seizures, while they had given much money to the Spanish battered Treasury, had culminated in the concentration of lands in the hands of a few landowners; the industrial and railroad businesses had been darkened due to great swindles forged by the richest families of the time, including the Royal Family itself; and the dissatisfaction of the lower classes with their economical situation was becoming greater as time passed.
It was all these factors that had led many military men and politicians to realize that Spain was a boiler, and that it would explode if it was not given a proper valve. One of them was other General, Juan Prim, who at the time was the leader of the Progressive Party. Seeing that, if he did not act soon, Spain would not end well, he decided to plan and execute several military uprisings, which led to several short-lived exiles to other European nations.
The last, definite impulse to the would-be revolutionaries was the European economic crisis of 1866, which acquired even greater strength in Spain due to many factors that had highlighted the many problems the economic policies of the successive governments chosen by Isabel, among them the inadequate industrialization of Spain and the concentration of the credit risk on the railroad business and in the public debt, compounded by the loss of many harvests due to floods and the First Pacific War, which had brought no benefits to Spain. The crisis would also highlight the many differences and contradictions of Spanish society, that threatened to break the nation:
- Most of the population, which worked in the agricultural sector, was given paltry wages for long hours of hard and strenuous work in the fields, while the landowning oligarchy was able to squander their riches without any care.
- The industrial and commercial bourgeoisie, which was starting to appear in the Spanish cities, had to contend with the financial oligarchy in order to manage to face the many problems they had to expand their businesses.
- The problems that already existed in Catalonia and were starting to appear in the Vascongadas and Asturias, between the bourgeoisie and a worker class who had to work in very deplorable conditions to earn enough money to feed themselves and their families.
- Milarqui
- Word Count: 900