Between a Hard Place and a Rock: A Carlist Spain in the 20th Century

[Kurt_Steiner]

24. The road to the Dictatorship (1924-1928)

​

The General Elections of 1922 resulted in a victory of the Frente de Izquierdas (Lefts Front), an alliance of the Left parties, including both the PSOE and the PCE, that defeated by a small margin the Frente Nacional (National Front): 38.10% of the popular vote vs 33.61%. The sudden crisis that the collapse of the peseta had revealed had turned the national mood. Melquíades Álvarez, the leader of the Partido Reformista (PR - Reformist Party) became the Spanish prime minister until his resignation on April 17, 1923, when he felt that he was not able to go on due to the rampaging economical crisis and the pressure that came from his Socialist and Communist allies, who had forced upon him to ran a intensely anti-clerical policy that came quite close to end up in a diplomatic fallout with the Pope.

Ironically, by April 1923 foreign observers reported the improvement of the Spanish financial market, the brilliance of the post-war literature and the revival of public morale. Then came the nine-months premiership of Alejandro Lerroux (April 17, 1923 - November 6, 1924), that was plagued by the war in Morocco and a turn for the worse of the ongoing economical crisis that led to the victory of the Frente Nacional in the elections of November 1924, when 45.18% of the Spanish voters trusted the Right Coalition while only 28.19% of them opted for the Lefts Front.

From November 1924 to the coup d'etat of 1928 there were seven changes in the leadership and in the composition of the cabinet. In fact, all went well for the first three years. Niceto Alcalá Zamora, the leader of the Partido Liberal (Liberal Party), who had been selected for the role by his predecessor, Romanones, formed an able cabinet centered around him and Miguel Maura, Minister of the Interior. He was quite lucky as during his tenure the war in North Africa came to a victorious end and the crisis began to abate, which also brought down the social resentment that had favoured he rise of the Left in 1922.

Then came the Great Depression, on February 6, 1927 (1), that brought another disaster for the Spanish economy. The change peseta-dollar went from 5,85 in March 1927 to 7,29 in December that year and to 12,32 in 1928. Because of the crisis, the Spanish economy reported an slowdown of 20%, less severe than what occurred in the US, France and Germany, but very similar to the Italian and British experiences. Industrial production fell a 20% and foreign trade and foreign investment came to a stop. Thankfully, the outdated Spanish banking system helped to reduce the damage caused by the international situation (2).

Unable to find a solution and blamed by all, Alcalá Zamora resigned on November 2, 1927. In the following three months, six governments rose and fell and, in the resulting chaos, the ghost of a crushing victory of the Left parties loomed over the country as Dolores Ibarruri preached for revolution, power to the people and a dictatorship. In the end, she got it, but no the one she wanted when, on July 23, 1928, Joaquín Milans del Bosch came back from his retirement to lead a coup d'etat as the armed forced moved forward to avoid the feared Bolshevik revolution.

(1) So many butterflies that Wall Street went mind a bit ahead of schedule.
(2) Ironically, being such a backward country was a good thin in OTL and in TTL.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

24. The Dictatorship (1928-1929)

Joaquín Milans del Bosch
(1854 - 1936)
​

The Dictatorship (July 23, 1928 - November 2, 1929) is one of the most puzzling moments of the last one hundred years of Spanish history. Milans del Bosch came to be known as the "reluctant dictator" that kept the Parliament running. No party was banned, not even the PCE. However, courts treated PCE membership as an act of treason since most judges held that its ideas as a threat against the state, and thus dozens of Communists were arrested during the first weeks after the coup d'etat, and, from time to time, the PCE would be targeted by the security forces and scores of its members were jailed for weeks and evens a few months without a trial for unnamed crimes and then freed. Milans del Bosch wanted to put an end to the economical, political and moral crisis of Spain and, in spite of his best efforts, the Dictatorship fell quite short of its marked goals.

Milans del Bosch ruled the countred while a government picked up by him made it run. The Dictator used to tell to the cabinet what he wanted and what he expected of them and then let them choose the means and the ways to achieve the goal. Failure was punished with military expediency and at once. However, Milans del Bosch was able to get his ways going.

During the 15 months that he remained in power, a reform of the educational system gave rise to an increase in the number of schools and teachers in Spain. If in 1928 there were 26,000 schools in Spain, by 1931 the number had risen to 35,000 and the number of teachers was increased in a 25% between 1928 and 1932. University education was also affected by this, with more funds and more students (from 23,000 in 1923 to 42,000 in 1930) Even if the nature of the reform was a conservative, almost archaic one, it set the structure that would led to the fast development of the Spain educatinal system in the 1930s.

Under Milans del Bosch the economical stage did not change too much. The decline of the Spanish agriculture as one of the main factors of its economy was held at bay during the Dictatorship as its goods dominated the Spanish market due to the protectionism applied by the government, a measure also extended to the industry, as it was still unable to compete abroad. Even worse, all the attempts to fix a number of deficiencies (backward technology, lack of large irrigation projects, inadequate rural credit facilities, outmoded landtenure practices) were met with failure or too little result. The Miners strike of 1928, which took place when the owners of the mines locked out the miners because they rejected the owners' demands for longer hours and reduced pay in the face of falling prices, was one of the grim moments of the Dictatorship. From then on, the coal industry would become the "sick man" of the Spanish economy. Thus, education, a few welfare activities and some road building were the only public services that had any appreciable impact on the economy during the Dictatorship.

The worldwide crisis would had also its effects upon the Spain economy, as unemployment soared during this period; from just over 10% in 1926 to more than 20% by early 1930 (it would not fall under 15% until after 1939). And just as heavy industry reached new lows, the consumer industry increased 32% between 1929 and 1941.

Electricity, gas, plumbing and telephone services became common as well during the late 1920s and the 1930s, even in some working class households. However, those living in the most remote and poorest parts of Spain were hardly affected by those changes, with many Spaniards unable to enjoy them as late as the early 1970s.

The Dictatorship came to a planned end when General Elections were held on November 2, 1929. They were also a kind of popular pleibiscite, as the Frente Nacional (National Front) included among their proposals the return of the monarchy to Spain. Also, they were dominated by the crisis, and, as the Dictatorship had failed to fight its effects, the economic problems led to the rise of radical movements who promised solutions as the traditional political parties seemed to be unable to face the situation. So, just as the PCE rose again against all the expectations of the ruling class and in spite the repression suffered, a Fascist movement rose in Spain, just mirroing what had happened in Italy, France and Germany.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

25. Meanwhile, elsewhere (1918-1929)

Bela Kun seen here during a meeting in Budapest​

The end of the Great War did not mean the end of hostilities, as the Russian Civil War was in its beginnings and Germany saw herself on the verge of another one just as the Austro-Hungarian empire came to an end as its members departed in more or less friendly ways. By the end of 1918, Hungary was acting practically as an independent nation, embarrasing somehow the occupation forces led by General Franchet d’Esperey, who had to act as a general and a diplomat at the same time and was pressed by all sides to act decisevely in their favour. The Polish majority regions of Galicia and Lodomeria also declared their independence and demanded their ethnic brethren in Russia and Germany to join their effort to create a Polish state. In Budapest Hungarian aristocrats still believed they could subdue other nationalities and maintain the "Holy Kingdom of St. Stephen" and pressed the provisional government to use the army to quell the rebellion.

Four days later, when Washington declared that the Allies were now committed to the causes of the Czechs, Slovaks and South Slavs, Budapest had to fold its wings, even more when, by late November 1918, Croatian nationalists declared the independence of the Republic of Croatia, much to the shock of Serbia and, a few days later, the same process repeated itself when the Republic of Bosnia was declared in Sarajevo, much, again, to the shock of Serbia and Croatia (And, of course, to Franchet d'Esperey, who feared that his troops may end themselves trapped in the mor ethan probable fights that would follow those declarations).

However, when Theodore Roosevelt stated in no uncertain terms the determined decision of the Allied Powers to defend the causs of the Czechs, Slovaks and South Slavs, as it had been warned a few days back, the US president knew that he was playing a dangerous game, as he was aware without a shred of doubt that neither Paris nor London were too willing to fight another war just a fedw months after ending the worldwide nightmare. However, neither Croatians nor Serbs nor Hungarian considered this possibility. Sis months later, after endless negotiations, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Croatia, Bosnia and Austria came out fom the ashes of the fallen empire.

This was not, of course, the end of troubles for the Balkans. Betwen 1920 and 1925 Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia found themselves close to declaring war on each other due to the endless srtream of border disputes as the Treaty of Laussanne that had "settled" them proved to be an useless sheet of paper. In 1921 a failed attempt to restore Karl in the Austrian throne would spring into a months of disturbances when a coup d'etat followed another one when the Republic of Austria was replaced during 48 hours by the Soviet Republic of Austria which was drowned in bloodby the counterrevolutarionary forces, which had fresh in their mind the chaos caused by Bela Kun in Hungary during the bloody chaos that lasted for six weeks after his failed attempt to proclaim a Soviet in Budapest. Just as French and Romanian forces had helped to crush the rebellion. The ensuing tension that followed when Budapest demanded the withdrawal of its troops from Transylvania to Bucharest and led to the quasi-war of 1921 was also fresh on the minds of many Austrian politicians just as German troops entered Austria to help to supress the Communist putsch.

Germany herself had its own share of unrest betwen 1919 and 1922, just as the Spartakist League rose in arms in Berlin and the Ruhr at the beginning of 1919, which opened the way for a civil war that saw French troops helped to supress and crush the Soviets in the Ruhr area and joining the following repression that was applied there and Polish troops that invaded Silesia in 1920 to supress the Communist threat there and protecting the Polish minority in the area, causing a terrible blow to the German-Polish relations that, eventually, would lead to the terrible war of 1926, when the restored German Reich of Wilhelm III invaded Poland after the May coup in Warsaw.

As a dissapointed Theodore Roosevelt stated a few days before he died, "all this bloodshed has only led to more madness". However, there was a small hope as the League of Nations had finally come to become a reality in the world politics as the guns remained silent after 1923, but for the German-Polish war, whuch proved to be the baptism by fire of the League, as we shall see.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

After some thought, I've decided to put this TL to rest for a while. I'm not entirely satisfied with the course of events so far and, instead of playing with the TL, the TL is playing with me, so it's time to hold on and to think a bit.

Now I'm divided about what to do. My first option is to begin this TL again (2.0 so to speak) and to correct the mistakes that, bit by bit, made me to diverge from my original plan. The second one is to forget about this and to start something different, which is not a good option from my point of view. Finally, the third way, what I think I'll do in the end, is to change a bit the topic to let me move away from this TL to be able to return to it in the future, if I ever get the right idea about what to do next.

So, just in case, stay tunned and forgive me if I dissapoint you for doing this.

Yours truly,
KS.

 

[Bob Gump]

Don't worry, and take your time. Are you thinking about starting the TL before in time, for example in the XIX century?

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Don't worry, and take your time. Are you thinking about starting the TL before in time, for example in the XIX century?

I was thinking about that option too, but I wanted to explore its effects on the 20th century. Perhaps I'll try that...