The Legacy of the Glorious (Milarqui's Cut)
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There are some differences, but they are mostly cosmetic, on the way the sentences are written and several photographs (for example, Montpensier's photo is now on the part about the candidates to the crown, instead of chapter I with the supporters of La Gloriosa, and it is one with a younger him). Chapter III should be more or less that same way, but on Chapter IV you should be able to see some changes. Chapter V is still on the reworks.
Chapter III, Part I (revised)
Chapter III: The Hohenzollern's War
Chapter III, Part I: Casus Belli
As expected by the Spanish and Prussian governments, the announcement of the proclamation of Prince Leopold zu Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as the new King of Spain sparked different reactions among the European nations.
Italy and Portugal, which had been searched out for potential candidates for the throne, saw the news with relief, in spite of Vittorio Emmanuele II's personal ambition to place his son Amedeo in the Spanish throne, and the existence of many Portuguese supporters of an united Iberia, amongst them Portugal's Prime Minister, the Duke of Saldanha. With Leopold's accession to the throne, they expected that Spain would become politically stable and a good friend of them. This was especially probable for them, as Leopold was twice related to the Portuguese Royal Family (besides Leopold's marriage to the Portuguese King's sister, late Pedro V had been married with Leopold's sister Stephanie), and Prussia had supported Italy in their gaining the Veneto after the Seven Weeks War against an Imperial Austria opposed to both unifications.
King Vittorio Emanuele II of Italy and João Carlos de Saldanha Oliveira e Daun, Duke of Saldanha
The attitude from London was pretty similar: Prime Minister William Gladstone hoped that Spain became stabilized, and thus a potential trade partner for the industrialized United Kingdom, always in search of new markets. It would also be a way to reduce France's influence in Spain, too great since Isabel II's and her sister's marriage to Francisco de Asís and Antoine d'Orléans.
William Ewart Gladstone, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Other nations, such as Romania and the other nations in the Balkans that were rebelling against the Ottoman yoke, greatly supported Leopold's future accession to the throne. The Scandinavian monarchies also took the news as very acceptable, with only Denmark making some token protests, since they still remembered their defeat at the hands of Prussia and Austria in the Second Schleswig War of 1864.
Of course, not all of Europe was happy to see this. Russia, still an absolutist monarchy – although slowly evolving out of it thanks to Aleksandr II's reforms – was worried about the replacement of Queen Isabel II with a democratic constitutional monarchy led by a Hohenzollern, while Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Josef I was especially worried, because the success of Bismarck's political campaign meant that Austria-Hungary was steadily losing the status of main German nation to Prussia, and nothing could be done to prevent it.
Aleksandr II The Liberator, Tzar of Russia
Meanwhile, in the Americas, the United States of America saw this with mixed eyes: on one side, a more stable Spain meant that the war in Cuba might soon end, and thus be open to possible commercial expansion, but, on the other side, it meant that Spain would still hold territories in Cuba and Puerto Rico, and that pretty much ran against the United States' own ambition to hold influence over the islands, as per the Monroe Doctrine.
There was little to no surprise that the main opposition in Europe came from the Second French Empire. To Napoleon III's great indignation, the news about the Spanish choice arrived to the Tuileries Palace, not through diplomatic means, nor through his ambassadors in Berlin or Madrid, nor his agent network in Spain. No, the news had to reach him through the press!
The Tuileries Palace, residence of the French Imperial Family
The news were also a surprise for the French government: they had suspected that Spain would have made negotiations with several German princes, but never, in a century, they would have guessed that the chosen prince would turn out to be one of the Hohenzollerns that were challenging France's predominance in Europe from their seat in Prussia.
As angry as he was after the bad news were received, it was when his rant subsided that Napoleon III realized the situation was even worse than what it looked like at first sight: if a Hohenzollern was crowned in the Royal Palace of Madrid, France would be not only isolated in the continent, but surrounded by her enemies, and that might spark war against Prussia, a war he was personally opposed to since he still needed time to stabilize his rule after the recent referendum of May 8th. Thus, France had to act as soon as possible, lest worse things happen and leave her in a deeper hole. Napoleon III then ordered a message to be sent to the French Ambassador in Madrid.
Mercier de L'Ostende, who had also realized what might be the consequences of Leopold's crowning, received the Emperor's message: the message ordered him to do anything in his hands to force the Spaniards to change their minds. That same day, he demanded for a meeting with President Prim himself. However, Prim, perfectly knowing what the ambassador desired to speak (or, rather, shout) about, categorically refused to meet with him, under any circumstances.
L'Ostende would have to content himself with a rather improvised meeting with Home Affairs Minister Práxedes Mateo Sagasta, who, although received him in conciliatory tones, finally lost any sympathy or patience for him in a meeting that lasted a few minutes. Given that there were no witnesses, historians would turn to the only first hand testimonial of the encounter: Sagasta's memories, in which he spoke about the encounter with the enraged French Ambassador:
Antoine Alfred Agénor, Duke of Gramont
As soon as he left the Ministry, L'Ostende went straight to the nearest telegraph station, sending a telegram to Paris with a slightly edited summary of his meeting with Sagasta, pretty much denoting the Minister as an arrogant man unwilling to follow France's lead in the current situation. With the telegram on his hands, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Duke Antoine de Gramont, asked for an extraordinary meeting of the Corps Legislatif, the French counterpart to the Congress of Deputies, and used the telegram as “proof” that the interests and honor of the great French nation were in danger if something was not done to give an adequate answer to the insult the Spanish government had sent to France. The following day, the main newspapers of the Gaulish nation showed a message from the French government in their first pages:
We, the Government of France, wish to state our repulse and worry over the fact that the Prussian prince Leopold zu Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen has been proclaimed King of Spain by its government this past July 6th. We stand with the brave Spanish people, our allies, against those foreign dynasties that wish to meddle in Spain for their own benefit and upset the European political balance, and will do everything in our hand so that a proper king is crowned in Madrid.
Ignoring the rightful accusations of hypocrisy (since what France intended to do was pretty much the same as they were accusing Prussia of) other nations threw at them, the French government only paid attention to their people, who were now claiming for a war against the upstarts Bismarck and Prim, for their “audacity” in choosing to not follow the lead of the main European nation.
In Spain, the French position initiated a reappearance of the Republicans, who had remained quiet since the voting, and now were demanding that the votes for Leopold were declared null, thus making the second most voted option, the formation of a Federal Republic, the only acceptable one, and thus had to be accepted and applied as soon as possible. However, General Prim did not intend to let the Republicans get their wish, and it remained his intention to bring Leopold to Spain.
Prim, a fervent Spanish nationalist, had been looking forward to erasing all foreign interference in Spain, especially if it came from France. His anti-French stance, which had been the reason why he had tried to find a candidate Napoleon III would dislike, was influenced by, among other things, the French attempt to force Maximilian of Hapsburg as Mexican Emperor during the European expedition to Mexico to force it to pay its debts. Prim had chosen to leave as soon as the debts to Spain were paid, a choice that had also been influenced by Francisca Agüero, his Mexican-born wife.
Francisca Agüero y González, Marchioness of Los Castillejos
In order to help prepare Spain if France were to declare war (not probable so far, but the chance existed), Prim announced on a secret session of the Spanish Courts celebrated on July 9th his order to initiate a general mobilization of the army, using the constant French insults towards Spain to rile them up and bring them to his side.
Meanwhile, in Prussia, Leopold's and King Wilhelm's doubts reemerged after the French demands were made public. Leopold even thought that, if he were to renounce to the Spanish throne, war would be avoided. However, Bismarck, who did not want to see his plans for German unification blow up and saw a war with France as the best way to finish it, stopped him from doing it. The only obstacle between Prussia and Germany laid with the southern German Catholic states (Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden and Hesse), which still distrusted Protestant Prussia, but Bismarck had, in a stroke of diplomatic genius, managed to get them to sign secret defensive pacts with Prussia, which would be activated only in the event of a French attack. If war happened, and Prussia were to win that war, he was sure that the wave of euphoria in those states would be the spark for the final unification of Germany in one nation.
Back in France, when they saw that Spain would not follow their request to drop Leopold, Gramont chose to exert diplomatic pressure to end the claims at its origin, in Prussia. While the different Bourbon branches (particularly Isabel II and Carlos María de Borbón) pressured the French government to intervene in their favor and place their candidate on the Spanish throne, Gramont ordered Count Vincent Benedetti, French ambassador to Prussia, to speak with King Wilhelm I and get verbal and written guarantees that he would vet Leopold's candidacy and would not allow it, since, as King of Prussia, any of his subjects required his permission to accept foreign commitments.
Count Vincent Benedetti, French Ambassador to Prussia
With this objective in mind, the diplomat traveled to Bad Ems, where the Prussian Royal Family was resting for the summer. On July 12th, the count and the King met, and the former urged the latter to speak with his relative and convince him to change his opinion in regards to the Spanish throne, as that would be the only way to prevent war. Three days later, Prince Karl Anton told the ambassador that Leopold would renounce to the crown if it was the only way to avoid war. However, Bismarck and Count Rascón chose not to officially inform the Spanish government of the changes until later, knowing that, as long as there was no official reaction, the French would be nervous and might be provoked into acting in a way that would save the candidacy.
In the past, the concessions given by the Prussians might have been enough. Now, with the idea of a glorious war to put the upstart Prussians in their place pervading many French minds, they were not enough. The more hawkish and anti-liberal elements of the Imperial government, led by Gramont and the Consort Empress, decided this was not enough, and sought a way to further humiliate the Spaniards and the Prussians. On July 16th, they ordered Benedetti to ask for a written confirmation, with Wilhelm I's Royal Seal on it, that the Prussian candidacy would be dropped and never taken up again. Also, Marshal Edmond Le[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Bœuf[/FONT], French Minister of War, ordered a general mobilization of the French Imperial Army, for their deployment in case of war.
Marshal Edmond Le[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Bœuf[/FONT]
The next day, Benedetti, who had remained in Bad Ems knowing what might happen, met once more with Wilhelm I and presented him his government's request, but the old King answered that he had nothing else to say to the ambassador and politely ended the meeting. That afternoon, Wilhelm I sent a telegram to Minister President Bismarck through his diplomatic advisor Heinrich Abeken, retelling the encounter with Count Benedetti. The telegram arrived that night to the Berliner Wilhelmstrasse Palast, where Bismarck was dining with General Helmuth von Moltke.
As soon as he read the telegram, Bismarck shrewdly realized the goldmine he had in his hands and what might cause if correctly presented, so he took his quill and wrote a communication for the press regarding it. He, however, condensed the telegram's text into a few sentences, so that it might provoke the desired reaction, before sending it for its publication.
On July 18th, the main Prussian newspapers showed in their first pages the communication sent by Bismarck:
After the news of the renunciation of the Prince von Hohenzollern had been communicated to the Imperial French government, the French Ambassador in Ems made a further demand on His Majesty the King that he should authorize him to telegraph to Paris that His Majesty the King undertook for all time never again to give his assent should the Hohenzollerns once more take up their candidature. His Majesty the King thereupon refused to receive the Ambassador again and had the latter informed by the Adjutant of the day that His Majesty had no further communication to make to the Ambassador.
Memorial stone to the Ems Telegram in Bad Ems
The telegram's condensation had meant that several things that would have changed the meaning of the entire telegram were lost, and that had been Bismarck's intention when he wrote the communication: the telegram, which would be known by posterity as the Ems telegram, turned a polite meeting between the French Ambassador and the Prussian King into an arrogant order of the former and a blunt royal answer by the latter.
This sparked exactly the reaction Bismarck had anticipated. The Prussian people became angry at the French arrogance, and thus did not bat an eye when the Prussian order of mobilization was sent a day after the telegram went public. Meanwhile, the French, who were already angry, went volcanic.
Napoleon III was informed of the communication the same afternoon it was published, and, incensed, gave a blunt ultimatum to the Prussian government, thus committing himself and his nation: either the Prussians apologized for the falsities stated in the communication and confirmed that no Prussian would ever be allowed to seat on the Spanish throne, or France would declare war.
While these news were the most spoken about ones in all of Europe, there were still other news that surprised the people. Two of these would, in theory, only affect the Spanish people: Carlos María de Borbón y Austria-Este had managed to personally meet with Duke Gramont and had stated that, if France invaded Spain and reestablished an absolutist monarchy around his person, Spain would always be a faithful ally of France. However, Napoleon III decided that young Alfonso, who had just inherited the dynastic rights to the throne after his mother Isabel II renounced to them, was more akin to his interests, both because of the friendship between his wife and the exiled Spanish queen (both women were already planning to unite their families by marrying Napoleon Eugéne, the French heir, with one of Isabel II's daughters) and the personal and political affinities the Emperor had with the young prince. Both news would, instead, cause far-reaching consequences that neither the French nor the two Spanish pretenders could have guessed.
Of course, Prussia and Spain rejected the French ultimatum: the Prussians were not going to stand down against what the Prussian newspapers were already calling the second round of the Napoleonic invasions, while the Spanish government was also encouraging the people by both maintaining Leopold as the King (denouncing the news of Leopold's renounce as French lies) and reminding them of the great deeds of the Independence War, of the leadership of Generals Castaños and Reding, of the Battle of Bailén, of Agustina de Aragón and the Sieges of Zaragoza, of the Siege of Cádiz and of the guerrilleros that had turned French occupation of Spain into a living hell, everything to remind them that France had been defeated, could be defeated and would be defeated again.
Thinking the situation to be irrevocable, the French government finally issued its last communication: as of July 20th 1870, the Second French Empire declared war on the Kingdoms of Prussia and Spain, and would fight to teach the Prussians a lesson in war, annex the Rhineland and reestablish the Bourbon monarchy in Spain.
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Chapter III, Part II (revised)
Chapter III, Part II: Preparing for War
The Warring States' Reaction
Prussia's reaction to the declaration of war was pretty similar to that of Bismarck: joy, as the war would allow them to show their political and military superiority in Europe, as well as gain a faithful ally in Spain. The alliance was finally formalized when, on July 21st, all of Europe woke up to an official note, sent by the Prussian government: Prince Leopold definitely accepted the Crown of Spain, with Wilhelm I's approval, and would travel with his family to Spain as soon as the danger caused by the French's cocky and defying attitude as they meddled in Spain's internal affairs.
Of course, the note did nothing but anger the French, who felt a bit double-sided in the current situation, as, although they were certain of their victory, it would be a two-front war, with both fronts far apart from each other. All worries were brushed away in the wave of nationalism that shook France, especially after several memorandums were made public, stating that defeating Spain, Prussia and their German allies was an almost certainty. However, they realized a bit too late that they were completely alone in this war: all of their neighbors had chosen to show their unwillingness to help in the battle, for one reason or another. Only Austria-Hungary showed any willingness to aid, but after the southern German states chose to join the war next to Prussia, they declared neutrality, thus unwittingly preventing Russia's entrance in the war on the Prussian-Spanish side.
Meanwhile, in Spain, the people were shocked to see how the election of their new king had turned into an international crisis and a declaration of war by France. At first, they still held a (rapidly diminishing) feeling of brotherhood with their northern neighbors, who had been their allies. However, when the news of Napoleon III's intention to impose Prince Alfonso as the King of Spain, a wave of French-hating popular nationalism spread out like fire, similar to the one sparked from the Dos de Mayo. General Prim's government, which had decreed conscription to face the Napoleonic menace for the second time in the century, did nothing to prevent it: in fact, they actually fanned the flames as high as possible, reminding the people of the many affronts of the French to the Motherland, always blocking Spanish attempts to recover its rightful place in the world.
Preparing for an Unexpected War
Spain's readiness for the war, started on July 9th, being earlier than what others had, was offset with the fact that the Spanish army was not in the best state: the unfair system of conscription known as quintas [1] was still in place, and the army suffered from the disproportionate number of officers inherited from the First Carlist War and the almost complete lack of experience in foreign conflicts, which had also prevented the army's modernization. Fortunately, their soldiers were, since 1867, armed with a weapon, the Berdan Rifle, that was powerful enough to face the enemy, and Spain had the fourth greatest navy of the world, which compensated the army's antiquated situation. However, the greatest weapon the Spanish soldiers had was that, with a little motivation, they became fearsome fighters, able to overcome the enemy in any circumstances.
The Spanish Army main infantry weapon, the Berdan Rifle
The French army was formed by 500,000 professional soldiers, most of them battle-hardened veterans from the several wars France had involved itself with. That number could be doubled if the National Guard, a reserve corps created in 1866, was added, and be even greater if the French Foreign Legion was counted, although they could only fight in metropolitan France if there was risk of invasion. These soldiers were armed with two great weapons that heavily weighed in the French generals' conviction that victory would fall on their side: the Chassepot rifle, a single-shot breech-loading rifle with the highest power, accuracy and penetration amongst the existent rifles at that time; and the Reffye and Bollée mitrailleuses, static weapons that were able to shoot 100 rounds per minute at 2000 yards.
Two French weapons: the Chassepot rifle and the Reffye mitrailleuse
As for the Prussians, eighteen days after the mobilization orders were given, 1,200,000 soldiers were ready for battle, recruited through their universal military service. They also had the support of the Catholic German states, which had declared war on France on the 21st, and they counted on the work of a branch of the army, the General Staff, which was exclusively dedicated to the administration, logistics and planning of the army and which did not exist in other armed forces so far. The latter allowed them to organize their mobilization at a faster pace, as well as being able to organize a number of troops greater than that deployed by the French. Those troops were armed with the Dreyse needle gun, which was state of the art when the Prussians won the Battle of Königgrätz in the Seven Weeks War, but now was somewhat outdated in the face of the weapons employed by the other armies; this was compensated by their artillery, formed by, among other pieces, the Krupp six-pound cannon, which had a lethal power and an average range of 4,500 meters.
The Prussian Dreyse needle gun and the Krupp six-pound cannon
Soldiers and Strategy
Due to their different war aims, number of soldiers and territories, France, Prussia and Spain would follow different strategies in the future war.
France's plans were simple: in the German front, they would invade the Rhineland and take Saarbrücken, to then advance and smash the German forces before they could group and use their numerical advantage; meanwhile, to invade Spain, they would follow the same path the Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis had used in 1823, crossing through La Junquera and Fuenterrabía, to then advance in three corps, one along the northern coast, the second towards Zaragoza and then Madrid, and the latter to Barcelona and Valencia.
Germany had an approximate idea of what France might do, and would use that to their own advantage: after letting the French troops enter in Germany (raising, at the same time, the Southern German nations' fear of French imperialism), they would launch an initial enveloping movement to destroy the enemy invasion force. They would then counter-invade France proper, using their better mobility and superiority in numbers to defeat successive French armies, and finally besiege and take Paris, with which they hoped to force France's surrender and their acceptance of Prussia's terms.
As for Spain, their initial plans were very much in consequence with their limited forces: using them to defend the Pyrenees passes, thus preventing the entrance of French troops in Spanish territory, and distracting as many of them as possible while the Germans fought the main body. However, due to circumstances no one thought about, things would end up quite different from what was expected.
[1] The quintas were the Spanish recruitment system, by which one out of every five men had to join the army.
Chapter III, Part III (revised)
Chapter III, Part III: Deployment
The French Plans
The French generals had made plans that were very ambitious, and if they managed to reach their objectives, then the rewards would be great. A 350,000-strong army would be deployed between Metz and Strasbourg, led by the Emperor himself with the assistance of Marshals Patrice de MacMahon and François Bazaine. Two more armies, each of 75,000 soldiers and led by Marshal François Certain-Canrobert and General Louis Trochu, would be deployed near the Pyrenees: Canrobert's army would initiate its march in Bayonne and cross Fuenterrabía into the Vascongadas, while Trochu's army would be based in Perpignan and enter Catalonia through La Junquera.
However, the French mobilization was very chaotic: only four days had passed between the order of mobilization and the declaration of war, and this had caught many troops scattered throughout the nation. The troops were, thus, rushed along the railways so that they reached their deploying destinations, as every day the attacks were delayed (especially in Prussia's case) was a day their enemies would have to prepare for battle. Unfortunately, it was soon clear that the rushing only contributed to the chaos, because many soldiers arrived to their destinations without the required equipment, and sometimes not even their uniforms, while others had to await until the right train could leave.
The experience of Algeria also affected the decisions taken by the staff: there, the army had suffered constant ambushes, and thus, to prevent it, lines of defensive fortresses were established nearby the frontlines, especially to help keep control over Lorraine's coal deposits. They also counted on the help of some Spanish generals that had been exiled with Isabel II: among them were the Marquis of Novaliches (the defeated general in the Battle of Alcolea) and the Marquis of La Habana (who had been acting President after González Bravo resigned following La Gloriosa).
Meanwhile, the French navy (the part that was still anchored near France; many ships were near Newfoundland, protecting French fishermen) would have a relatively easier task: the small Norddeutsche Bundesmarine, the Prussian Navy, was too small to be able to oppose the French navy in any way, so it would be tasked with blocking the North German coast, as well as protecting France from the Spanish Navy. In the future, as the army advanced, the navy would be tasked with the bombardments of Spanish ports or aid in possible seaborne invasions of Germany, although it was felt unnecessary.
The Prussian Ploys
Eighteen days before the mobilization order was publicly read by Kronprinz Friedrich Wilhelm, 475,000 soldiers had already been deployed to the border with France, and 725,000 more were ready for battle. The monumental task of arranging such mobilization had been successful thanks to the efforts of the General Staff and a civilian-military committee that was in charge of making sure that the trains ran on time. The great number of soldiers and supplies being moved around caused some transport problems, but the previous planning meant that they were not as serious as the problems the French went through.
Three armies, led by General Karl Friedrich von Steinmetz, Prince Frederick Charles and the Kronprinz, were sent to the border. The armies were separated by different mountain ranges, yet they would be able to aid each other in their movements and maneuvers. When the French stroke deep into Germany, the armies would be able to use the French penetration against them, cutting them off from the border and thus allowing for a relatively quick destruction of the enemy, before they themselves invaded France.
General Karl Friedrich von Steinmetz, Kronprinz Friedrich Wilhelm and Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia
The Spanish Daring
Thanks to being the first to initiate the mobilization of troops, the Spanish army was able to place two armies nearby the border with France, with each army numbering 100,000 soldiers. After delegating the Presidency of the Government to Minister Sagasta, General Prim took personal control of the army that would defend La Junquera. In this task, he would be supported by a squadron commanded by Admiral Topete, who, despite his previous support for the Duke of Montpensier, volunteered to defend his nation and his new King from the northern invaders.
The second army, placed nearby Fuenterrabía, would be led by Regent Serrano. Their maritime support would be the squardon led by Admiral Luis Hernández-Pinzón. Serrano would also be able to count on an unexpected aid in the form of several groups of Carlist requetés [1]. After it became known that the self-styled Carlos VII had asked for Napoleon III to invade and place him as the King, the Carlist movement, which supported Carlos VII as the legitimate monarch, had been divided in twine. The majority of the group had, disgusted, compared Carlos' actions with the humiliating Bayonne Abdications of 1808, where Carlos' great-great grandfather and great-grand uncle abdicated the crown in the person of Napoleon Bonaparte. Faced with the evidence that Carlos was not worthy of being the King, they chose to side with the legitimate government they had planned to topple just a few months before. One of Carlism's greatest leaders, veteran General Ramón Cabrera, publicly declared from London “We would rather serve the foreigner loyal to Spain before the traitor and afrancesado [2] Spaniard [3],” a sentence that gained him some popularity in Spain.
Admiral Luis Hernández-Pinzón and Carlist General Ramón Cabrera
The Spanish Royal Navy, which had recently acquired several armored frigates, would be not only in charge of supporting the two armies defending Spain, but they would also have to protect Spanish waters from the French navy and, if it were possible, raid the main French naval bases, like Brest, Marseilles, Toulon, Oran or Algiers.
[1] The requetés were small units of guerrilla warfare the Carlists deployed during the First and Second Carlist Wars.
[2] The afrancesados were the Spaniards and Portuguese that supported the French invasion of Iberia and the appointment of Joseph Bonaparte as King of Spain in 1808, hoping that he would lead Spain away from the Enlightened absolutism of the Bourbons. The defeat of the Napoleonic troops in the Peninsular War led to the exile of most of them and the persecution of anyone that was suspected of collaboration with the French (even those that were offered the choice but rejected it), persecution that lasted for many years after the end of the war. Amongst them were famed painter Francisco Goya and dramatist Leandro Fernández de Moratín.
[3] Ironically, Carlos de Borbón was no more Spanish than Leopold: he had been born in Ljubljana, which is in RL Slovenia, and had never put a foot on Spain despite his claims to the crown.
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Chapter III, Part IV (revised)
Chapter III, Part IV: The War
The first steps into the war between France and the German-Spanish alliance were given on August 8th. Under the hot sun proper of the time, French troops crossed the border with Germany and launched an attack against the city of Saarbrücken, taking it after a short battle where the Chassepot rifle and the city's isolation from the rest of Germany proved to be decisive for the French victory. In the south, French expectations to be able to repeat their walk across Spain from 1823 were soon dashed after Spanish troops faced them nearby the two border passes. French morale started to rise, as the early victories proved possible that they could defeat the alliance. A few people even boasted that Berlin would be taken in two months and Prussia would be humiliated.
However, these hopes would soon be cracked. The army led by Juan Prim near La Junquera was able to defeat Trochu's army on the 9th, and a day later Trochu was forced to retreat back into France after a second defeat in Figueras, being followed by Prim's army. That same day, the German armies were able to defeat their French counterparts in Wissembourg, and two days later they defeated them again in Spicheren, thus helping to expel all French soldiers out of German lands and allowing the initiation of the counter-invasion of France. It was also on August 12th when the brutal Battle of Fuenterrabía ended, with Serrano being forced to retreat towards Vitoria, paving the way for Canrobert to take the city of San Sebastián on the 14th and then send expeditions to take the cities of Bilbao, Vitoria and Pamplona, expeditions that were harassed on the way by Carlist requetés, in a way similar to that of the Independence War.
Carlist requetés assault a French position
On August 18th, three battles happened simultaneously, with results balanced between the opposing sides of the war, so the day would be nicknamed “The Day of Balance” in the future: the Kronprinz's army managed to smash Marshal MacMahon's army in the Battle of Wörth; Prim's invasion of France was halted after the First Battle of Perpignan ended in a stalemate, and an attempt by Serrano against Canrobert nearby San Sebastián ended with the Spaniard's defeat and a new withdrawal towards Vitoria.
It seemed to be a bad moment for Spain, as Vitoria itself would become besieged by French troops, and Serrano hardly managed to escape the city before it was surrounded by the French, in order to gather a new army to take the offensive again. Prim was defeated in Ceret on August 21st and had to retreat back into Spain, and Vitoria fell on the 23rd.
Prince Alfonso de Borbón is proclaimed King Alfonso XII of Spain
That same day, Prince Alfonso and former Queen Isabel II judged the situation in France under control, so the Prince traveled to San Sebastián, reversing the path he had followed two years before with his family. On the 24th, under heavy guard by French soldiers and surrounded by his staunchest supporters, Alfonso was proclaimed King Alfonso XII through the Manifiesto de La Concha [1], which also proclaimed the restoration of the Bourbons “against the upstart foreignersthat confuse popular sovereignty with the Spanish historical sovereignty, declaring themselves the saviors of the Motherland, when they can only fill it with blood, pain and tears, because of their affronts against the true holders of the Crown of the Catholic Monarchs.”
If Alfonso and his supporters had expected the Manifiesto to help them gain legitimate support from politicians and the general population alike, they were disappointed: although a few politicians like Alejandro Pidal y Mon, leader of the Moderate Party, and the Duke of Montpensier (who suggested the possibility of marrying one of his daughters to the young pretender [2]), supported him, the Spanish population majorly rejected Alfonso, with some of those that had been his most faithful followers joining the majority. Like the Carlists, they had been reminded of the Bayonne Abdications, and chose to stand with their king rather than with the collaborator. Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, who had until then been Alfonso's main defender in Spain, famously declared “I will never be a new Godoy!” [3], a sentence that would become part of Spain's history.
Alejandro Pidal y Mon and Antonio Cánovas del Castillo
The invasion also brought the awakening of the Republican Party once more. Led by Francisco Pi y Margall and Estanislao Figueras, the Republicans called the war a great mistake and said that Spain had no reason to participate in the French-Prussian conflict. They felt vindicated when a French squadron, led by Admiral Pierre-Gustave Roze at the helm of the frigate Guérriere, managed to avoid Topete's squadron and bombarded Barcelona, base of the Federal Republican movement. The Republicans believed that this was the signal that the Leopoldine monarchy was finished before it even started, and tried to initiate a coup with the help of General Juan Contreras, the only Republican high-ranked officer still free (all others had been imprisoned after the 1869 Republican revolt), but the speedy answer by the Government, as well as that of Eugenio de Gaminde and Lorenzo Milans del Bosch [4], General Captains of Catalonia and Castile, helped put the coup down in a few days.
Unknown to them, the French were on their way towards defeat, for on August 22nd, Bazaine's army was soundly defeated by troops led by Generals Voigts-Rhetz and Alvensleben near Mars-La-Tour, forcing the former's retreat towards Metz. On the same day Alfonso proclaimed himself King of Spain, Bazaine was defeated again in Gravelotte, with German numerical superiority proved to be the edge against French superior weaponry.
The Battle of Mars-La-Tour
With the situation in the east worsening, and Spain resisting like a corralled animal despite the defeats in the north, the French government was forced to make a decision, knowing that soon they would be left with nothing to choose. As the German advance was the main threat to France, and the Spanish western front seemed to be stabilized, Canrobert was ordered to stop his advance in order to consolidate his gains, while several of his troops were sent to the eastern front-line.
This choice, unfortunately for the French, gave new wings to Spain: Serrano, after gathering a new 100,000-strong army, launched a daring attack around the city of Vitoria, freeing it on the 26th. In the meantime, Prim had been busy with a new invasion of France, and finally managed to earn a grand victory in the Second Battle of Perpignan on the 27th, with the city returning to Spanish hands after two centuries under French control. The last days of August saw Serrano winning once more, and pushing the French out of Spanish territory. By September 1st, the French only held San Sebastián and a narrow corridor to Fuenterrabía, a corridor that became narrower as time passed, so Alfonso was evacuated back into France. San Sebastián was finally freed on September 3rd, as Prim defeated Trochu near Carcassonne, and on the 7th, the only French soldiers in Spain were those that had become POWs, after the Battle of Irún ended in a French defeat.
Spanish soldiers liberate Vitoria from French occupation
With France's national territory invaded, and the news of defeats reaching his (and all soldiers') ears, the Emperor made the fateful choice of personally leading the army into a great battle, where the Prussian armies would be smashed and the French falling morale would be raised, to then free all occupied territory. The main army withdrew towards Sedan, where recruits from the National Guard and other reserves joined them, while the Emperor called for the French Foreign Legion to come to France. Napoleon III, however, expected not to need the Foreign Legion's aid, as he planned a fast victory over the Germans, to then march towards Metz, where they would lift the siege over the city, garrisoned by Marshal Bazaine's army.
However, the Emperor unwittingly played right into recently ascended Marshal Moltke's plans. Using two armies, Moltke had the troops move in a pincer movement around the city of Sedan, turning the battle the Emperor expected into a siege, isolating the French army from the rest of France.
It was too late when the French realized they had fallen in a trap: the pincer had become a full circle, and now the army was completely surrounded. Now, the only way to save the Emperor and as many troops as possible was to attack the weakest point of the German positions. However, when orders were sent, several officers sent contradictory orders: this added to the chaos as the German artillery started to bombard them.
Prussian assault on the village of Bazeilles
Several hours later, the Emperor decided to go on a new, desperate course of action, in order to save the army. After ordering General Charles Denis Bourbaki, commander of the Imperial Guard, to save his 14-year-old heir Napoleon Eugéne (who had been accompanying him) and bring him to Paris, he personally led a cavalry charge against the German troops, in order to lead their attention away from his son.
Napoleon Eugéne, heir of the French Imperial Crown and future Napoleon IV
In the future, there would be many debates about the Emperor's actual intentions when he charged against the German positions. Was he planning to give Bourbaki time to save the prince before escaping himself from the carnage of the battle? Or was it an attempt to restore his stained honor through a battle to death? No one would ever know the truth: the only certain thing was that Napoleon III, Emperor of France, died in that charge in the last hours of September 9th.
The next day, in the aftermath of the battle, Marshal MacMahon saw that there was no way out of the encirclement. When he was told that his Emperor and Commander-in-chief was dead, and that any help would arrive too late to aid the besieged, MacMahon had to take the hard choice and surrendered to Marshal Moltke and Prussian King Wilhelm I, who had come to the front-line accompanied by Minister President Bismarck.
[1] So-called because it was done from La Concha Beach and because one of Alfonso's advisors was General José Gutiérrez de la Concha, Marquis of La Habana.
[2] In RL, Alfonso XII was first married with María de las Mercedes de Orléans, Montpensier's seventh daughter out of ten children, and who died in 1878 without issue. His second wife, María Cristina de Austria, gave him three children, the last of which was born posthumously and was his only son, reigning as Alfonso XIII.
[3] Manuel Godoy, Spain's Prime Minister in 1792-1797, and then 1801-1808, became particularly infamous for his dealings with Napoleonic France, particularly the Treaty of Fontainebleu, which became the eventual spark for the Peninsular War.
[4] Ironically, he is the grandfather of Jaime Milans del Bosch, one of the 23-F coup d'état leaders, which tried to finish the Spanish democratic system that had surged after Franco's death.
Chapter III, Part V (revised)
Chapter III, Part V: End and Consequences
Napoleon III's death spelled the end of France, although many tried to push the sentence back, and perhaps even reemerge from their own ashes like the phoenix of legend. The Imperial Parliament rushed to crown Napoleon Eugéne as Napoleon IV of France, while his mother, the Dowager Empress Eugénie de Montijo, was named Regent, to prevent the French Republicans from trying to use the crisis in their favor. Their next action was to send emissaries to the invader armies in order to ask for a ceasefire and initiate peace negotiations. However, the French representatives to the negotiations refused to accept what they considered excessive compensations demanded by the allies, and the Empress felt forced to continue the war with the hope of gaining enough victories to give France a stronger position in the negotiating table.
Bazaine's army surrenders at Metz
Unfortunately, it was not to be: Bazaine's army surrendered on September 30th in Metz, and soon Paris would be under siege by the German army. Meanwhile, the Spaniards were able to win victories in Pau, Auch, Montgiscard and Muret, later laying siege to Toulouse, while turning the naval front into a complete French disaster, as they bombarded Marseilles and Oran unopposed. The latter city would be the scenario of one of Spain's most daring maneuvers, when the Spanish Marine Infantry executed a landing on October 2nd nearby while protected by a fleet led by Rear Admiral Claudio Alvargonzález Sánchez, theHero of Abtao. The beachhead gained with this landing allowed an army led by General Manuel Pavía y Rodríguez de Alburquerque [1] who fought and won against the French Foreign Legion, taking the city of Oran on October 15th.
Diplomatically, France was only seeing how any support they may call for was dwindling, as the United Kingdom was pressuring to make peace as soon as possible and most of the world told them that they would have to sleep in the bed they had made. Even worse, the Papal States, who was one of the few supporters of France and had been left unprotected when the French garrison had been ordered back home, was invaded by the Kingdom of Italy on October 3rd, unifying the entire Italian Peninsula under the same flag for the first time since the times of Justinian. It would also give birth to the issue of the “Prisoner in the Vatican”, since the Pope refused to leave the Vatican and never recognized the rule of the Kingdom of Italy over Rome despite many offers by the Italian government to restore his rule over part of the old city.
The Open Breach in the Porta Pia that allowed Italian troops to enter Rome
Italian ambitions were not enough, though: as the relationship with France had soured enormously in the last decade, there were feelings of wanting to recover all Italian lands in French hands, such as the regions of Savoy and Nice, given to France after referendums were held in both cities in 1860, and the island of Corsica, Napoleon Bonaparte's birthplace, sold by Genoa to France some time before Napoleon himself was born.
Knowing they were at the end of the rope, the Imperial government, now in Nantes, had orders sent for the peace negotiations to be restarted, before it was too late to save what had yet to be lost. On November 2nd, as Spanish troops entered Toulouse and the Germans reached the English Channel, the Dowager Empress decided to accept the conditions laid on the table before Italy decided to join the war on the alliance's side.
The initial armistice between France and the German-Spanish alliance was signed on November 9th, and finally ratified a week later, November 16th, at Versailles. It was at this ceremony where King Wilhelm I of Prussia, who had attended it with the apparent desire of being a witness, was crowned as Kaiser Wilhelm I of the Deutsches Kaiserreich, bringing even greater humiliation to the French, who saw how their attempt to prevent a German from being crowned as King of the Spaniards in Madrid had ended with another German being crowned as German Emperor in the palace of the French kings.
The definite peace treaty was signed on December 24th 1870 (which led to the treaty being nicknamed le Charbon du Pére Noel, “Santa Claus' Coal”, by the French people). The Treaty of Frankfurt stipulated that:
- France recognized being the only responsible nation for the war.
- France recognized Leopold zu Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as legitimate King of Spain.
- France recognized the foundation of the Deutsches Reich, with Wilhelm I of Prussia as its Kaiser under the name of Wilhelm I of Germany.
- France recognized the following territorial changes:
- The regions of Alsace (save for Belfort) and Lorraine would become part of the Deutsches Reich.
- The departments of Eastern Pyrenees (Rousillon) and of Oran (Oranesado) would become part of the Kingdom of Spain.
- The people residing in the aforementioned territories would have until January 1st 1873 to decide whether to keep their French nationality and leave for other French territories or accept their new nationality and remain in their homes. Children would have the same nationality as their parents.
- The Empress Dowager of France, in the name of her son Napoleon IV, would transfer the French Crown's dynastic rights over the Princedom of Andorra to the Spanish Crown, now represented by Leopold zu Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.
- France would pay 5,500 millions of francs-gold, in concept of war damages, to both Germany and Spain in a period of time no longer than 15 years.
- German and Spanish troops would withdraw from certain zones, but military occupation of other zones would continue, in order to ensure that the war damages' payments were made, with costs to be paid by France without them being attributed to the compensation. Occupation would be dismantled as payments were duly made.
- The use of navigable channels in connection to the European territories lost by France was regularized.
- Trade between France on one side, and Germany and Spain on the other side, was regularized.
- Exchange of prisoners of war would take place in the following month.
However, the end of the war was not the start of peace. In France, the defeat caused multiple disturbs, which derived into a bloody revolt on February 1st 1871. The Republicans, who had been awaiting for the chance to topple the Second French Empire, saw now the chance and led the revolt, pinning the entire blame of all of France's recent disasters on the incompetence and tyranny of the Imperial Government, promising to bring France back to glory.
Adolphe Thiers, President of the French National Council
Napoleon IV and his family barely managed to leave Paris for London a few steps before the rebels. Versailles saw then the proclamation of the end of the Second French Empire and the birth of the Third French Republic. The Duke of Gramont, who had been one of the main causes of the diplomatic crisis that led to the war, was captured while he tried to escape from Nantes and executed. Notable Republican Adolphe Thiers would be proclaimed President of the National Council with the support of part of the Army, and soon, work was started to develop a new Constitution for a new France.
The Commune returns pawned workmen's tools
The situation in Paris soon went out of control, though. In there, the rebels would turn to the National Guard, which had been protecting the city from German attacks during the siege, and declared themselves a Commune independent from the Republican government, which they saw as ineffective and unwilling to fight back against the unfairness of the peace treaty. In the few weeks of its existence, the Paris Commune would manage to organize itself and initiate several reforms they thought were indispensable.
However, it was not to be. In order to prevent the German and Spanish armies from mobilizing again and marching into Paris, Adolphe Thiers ordered the Army to attack the city and put down the rebellion. The assault was initiated on March 20th, and after two months of bloody fighting, the last communard [3] position was taken by government troops on May 17th. Thousands of communards were executed, and many more were either condemned to prison or exiled: a few managed to escape to foreign nations before being caught.
Commune Prisoners marched to Versailles
In London, Napoleon IV, Dowager Empress Eugénie de Montijo and her daughters welcomed the one who, for a few days, had been King Alfonso XII of Spain and his family, which had escaped from Biarritz thanks to an offer of haven given by the British government. In that city, the two king teenagers would await for the chance of returning to their homelands, perhaps as the new kings, but after everything that had happened, they knew those chances were slim at best.
In the Eternal City, now the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, Vittorio Emanuele II and republican revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi [4] shared their disappointment in regards to the surrender of the French Empire: both of them had wanted to take the chance of entering the war in order to recover Savoy, Nice and Corsica, a matter that affected Nice-born Garibaldi in a special way. The only thing that could console them was that now Rome was part of the unified Kingdom of Italy.
Meanwhile, the Spanish were living in great patriotic jubilation. The victory against France (which had, a priori, been better prepared than Spain for the war) had established international recognition of Leopold as the new King, and he brought with him Rousillon and the Oranesado, which had been lost two centuries before in the Peace of the Pyrenees and sold to the Ottoman Empire a few decades before, respectively. The victory also dispelled any doubts that people may have had about the King, prompting celebrations that ancient General Espartero compared to those that happened after the arrival of Fernando VII after the Spanish Independence War.
Prince Leopold zu Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen arrives to Cartagena
On December 9th, five months after being elected as King of Spain, Leopold, his family and the delegation that had traveled to Germany to inform him about his new role, arrived to the city of Cartagena from Genoa by means of the armored frigate Numancia (which had led the bombardment of Marseilles) after taking the train in Reichenhall. The route had been chosen by Leopold, who rightly feared the possibility of a rogue French admiral trying to drastically end with the cause of the war, and had thus preferred not to risk a crossing of the English Channel.
In Cartagena, he was received by President Prim and several other members of the Spanish government, and it was in Cartagena where Leopold gave his first speech of many. The crowd was delighted to hear him speak in perfect, although still strongly German-accented, Spanish, give a speech in which he praised Spain's great past and the magnificent future that awaited for her, as well as solemnly remembering the Spanish war heroes and leading a praying for the souls of the fallen. Prim gave then a second speech, remembering the sacrifices Spain had gone through, and emphasizing that Leopold's crowning would be like Carlos I's crowning had been on his time, the beginning of a new era of prosperity and greatness.
Three days later, the group arrived to Madrid, where Leopold was received in front of the Puerta de Alcalá by Regent Francisco Serrano and an aroused crowd, eager to hear more about their new King. Leopold and Prim gave speeches similar to those they gave in Cartagena, and Serrano welcomed the King in a magnificent speech that was interrupted several times by the enthusiastic applause of the people. It was after this that Leopold and his companions took a carriage that would take them to the Courts' Palace.
Tragedy nearly struck when a group of intransigent Republicans, led by Andalusian José Paul y Angulo, prepared to attack the carriage the King was riding, with the intention of killing him and the men that had campaigned for his coronation, expecting to be able to spark the transformation of Spain into a Republic. However, their actions attracted the attention of several agents of the Public Vigilance Corps, who were able to arrest the would-be king-slayers just a few minutes before the royal procession passed by. When he was informed of the events, the King insisted on personally decorating the agents for their bravery.
King Leopoldo I of Spain arrives to the Royal Palace in Madrid
Finally, on December 12th 1870, Leopold swore the Constitution of Spain both in his name and that of his six-year-old heir Wilhelm, now Prince of Asturias, and Manuel Zorrilla, President of the Courts, declared A partir de este momento, el señor Leopoldo de Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen será conocido oficial y formalmente como Leopoldo Primero, Rey de España, to a thunderous applause from the Deputies, Senators and other people that had been allowed to enter. Thus started the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen dynasty's rule in the Spanish throne.
[1] Not to be confused with Manuel Pavía y Lacy, Marquis of Novaliches.
[2] Rousillon had been part of Spain until the Pyrenees Peace of 1659, and the African city of Oran (capital of the Oranesado) had been property of Spain since 1509 until Charles IV decided to sell the strategical city to the Ottoman Empire in 1797.
[3] Communard was the name given to the members of the Commune. The Latin root for Commune is the same as that of the word Communist.
[4] In OTL, the Second French Empire was toppled during the war, and Garibaldi changed from supporting the Prussians to supporting the Third French Republic. Here, the Empire falls a month after the end of the war, and so Garibaldi does not feel the need to support the nation that stole his birthplace.
END OF CHAPTER THREE
Well, there you go, the remodeled chapter three. You can notice the changes around now. There is going to be a change in terms of something related to France in the next chapter, but otherwise it will be the same. Chapter IV will be up tomorrow.
Well, there you go, the remodeled chapter three. You can notice the changes around now. There is going to be a change in terms of something related to France in the next chapter, but otherwise it will be the same. Chapter IV will be up tomorrow.
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Razgriz 2K9
Banned
You would think that Garibaldi supporting the Germans would set Italy down the path to supporting them to claim Savoy and Nice.
So Andorra is now in a personal union with the Monarch of Spain and the Bishop of Urgell?
I am wondering if this revision will include the Corsican kingdom. Napoleon III dying in battle for France will certainly improve the Bonaparte legacy over OTL. Along with the Paris Commune it looks like the Third Republic will be shakier this time.
Glad to see this return.
I am wondering if this revision will include the Corsican kingdom. Napoleon III dying in battle for France will certainly improve the Bonaparte legacy over OTL. Along with the Paris Commune it looks like the Third Republic will be shakier this time.
Glad to see this return.
@Razgriz 2K9: yes, it was possible. However, the French did agree to the German peace terms before Italy got into the war. If war had lasted 2 extra months, then Italy would have probably joined and taken the two cities.
@Herr Frage: someone pointed out that, since Andorra was ruled by two Spanish princes, it was tantamount to making it part of Spain. Andorra's fate appears in the rewritten chapter IV. About Corsica... yes, hell yes. I still have yet to decide what should be the flag of Corsica. The best idea I had was something similar to Sardinia's flag, but replacing two of the Maure's heads with crowns similar to those in the French Imperial coat of arms. As for France, her fate is going to be quite similar to the one before, but with a couple of changes, including the new flag...
@Herr Frage: someone pointed out that, since Andorra was ruled by two Spanish princes, it was tantamount to making it part of Spain. Andorra's fate appears in the rewritten chapter IV. About Corsica... yes, hell yes. I still have yet to decide what should be the flag of Corsica. The best idea I had was something similar to Sardinia's flag, but replacing two of the Maure's heads with crowns similar to those in the French Imperial coat of arms. As for France, her fate is going to be quite similar to the one before, but with a couple of changes, including the new flag...
Glad to hear it. I have a romantic soft spot for the Mediterranean isles getting independence. Involving a Bonaparte makes it even more fun.
If I might make a request concerning this development? The Corsican kingdom in the original was something of a blank spot. We learned little about its government structure, how democratic or autocratic it was. Or its government's relation/popularity with the people. Or if it was more French or Corsican, Taiwan analogue with exile dominated government? Or how strong and/or well managed the kingdom was.
I know that is asking a lot, but curiosity simply abounds.
Interesting idea for the Corsican flag. And while I agree the Moor's Head is not a viable national banner, it should have some role to appease the locals. Maybe as the banner for some elite military units or such?
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Chapter IV, Part I (revised)
Chapter 4 – The National Union
Chapter IV, Part I: A New King For A New Nation
Chapter IV, Part I: A New King For A New Nation
All Spaniards now had great expectations towards their new king, due to the efforts that had been made around his election and crowning. Leopoldo I had the full intention of honoring those expectations: he knew that all his current popularity was temporary, and thus, if he wanted to remain in the good eyes of the Spanish nation, he would have to do his best so that the people were happy with him.
For the King, his first months of reign were among the busiest in his life until then. One of his first actions was to travel to the north, in order to visit the hospitals were injured soldiers were being healed. For several of them, the life as a soldier was at an end, as they had suffered injuries that had gangrened, and thus had lost the rotting member to mutilation.
Several burials of the deceased soldiers also received the visit of the Royal Family, which gave its support to the soldiers relatives and praised their heroism and the great effort they had helped carry out. Prim's government, at the King's instance, used part of the first French payment to compensate the injured soldiers and the deceased's relatives for their loss, and started a program to make sure that those that had to leave the army could have an employment.
Perpiñán's coat of arms
The King also visited the city of Perpiñán, which was going to become the capital of the fifth province of the region of Cataluña. This visit was followed with another to the barracks of the Spanish troops that were now occupying Southern France, an occupation that would become official a few days after the King's visit.
Leopoldo I would also attempt to practice what he preached, and spent part of his personal fortune to finance the Spanish Red Cross, founded seven years before by the Knights Hospitalier. This move was very welcomed by the population, which could see how the king was personally involved in the matter, unlike previous kings and queens.
The Spanish Red Cross symbol
During those months, several ceremonies were held to decorate the soldiers that had distinguished themselves during the war through heroic actions that had helped the Army to achieve victory. The Generals and Admirals that had led the army were named Grandees of Spain and given new titles: Prim became the Duke of Perpignan, Serrano the Duke of Irún (as the Dukedom of Vitoria was held by the descendants of the Duke of Wellington), Manuel Pavía y Rodríguez the Duke of Orán, Eugenio de Gaminde the Duke of Montjuic, Lorenzo Milans del Bosch Duke of San Jerónimo, Alvargonzález became Duke of Abtao, and Topete was now the Duke of Cádiz, the title being taken from Francisco de Asís. Espartero was also recognized with the title of Prince of Vergara for his role in finishing the First Carlist War.
Claudio Alvargonzález Sánchez, Duke of Abtao
After those first months, nobody could deny that Leopoldo I was becoming a near paragon of what a monarch had to be, and it was clear to see that his actions were helping to restore the image of the monarchy, nearly destroyed by Isabel II. Now, what remained to be seen was how Spain was changed as time passed and Leopold became used to the throne.
Flag of Hohenzollern Spain
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Chapter IV, Part II (revised)
Chapter IV, Part II: The Pacto de los Heros
The King was not the only one working to help rebuild Spain; the government was also working restlessly to establish complete institutional normality in the country, as well as continuity with the current government. Thus, President Prim, after consulting with the three parties of the Government Coalition, presented his resignation to the King on December 30th, in order for the first general elections to be held as soon as possible. Leopoldo I accepted the resignation, recognizing the gesture of Spain's main political and military figure, to whom he owed his throne.
The next elections were called for the following Saturday February 18th 1871, with many people presenting their candidacies. The only ones not allowed to present themselves for being part of Congress were the ones that had supported the French and Alfonso XII, like Moderate Alejandro Pidal y Mon, or those that had tried to take advantage of the war to push forward their own agendas, like Republican Francisco Pi y Margall.
On January 1st, the leaders of the three Coalition Parties (Prim, Sagasta and Ruiz Zorrilla from the Progressives; Serrano, Topete and Francisco Silvela from the Unionists; and Cristino Martos, Nicolás María Rivero and Manuel Becerra from the Democrats) held a secret meeting in the Casa de los Heros, where Serrano had been living since becoming Regent of the Kingdom of Spain, and had recently been designated the official residence of the President of the Council of Ministers, much like the White House was for the President of the United States. In that house, the nine men spent several days drawing up what they considered should be Spain's political future, as well as the role the coalition would play in it.
Francisco Silvela y de Le Vielleuze
The war with France had greatly altered the political panorama, with the parties in the opposition beset by an internal crisis that had not affected the coalition. However, the Progressive leaders knew that it could backfire on the regime, due to the already existent strains within the coalition, so they, Prim especially, thought that it would be fundamental to start building a true two-party system like the one existing in the United Kingdom.
Unfortunately, the Progressive leaders also knew that Spain's political past, with pronunciamentos dominating the scene, generals becoming politicians and the breakdown of everything a governor did when an opposing political force took power, made the construction of a stable two-party system a very difficult thing.
Thus, considering that all opposition to the monarchy was weakened after the war, Prim, Sagasta and Ruiz Zorrilla suggested the possibility of formalizing the merging of the coalition into one great party that would encompass the political sensitivities of the new regime's supporters. In order to prevent the party from turning the nation into a dictatorship, the party would have a limited life, enough to strengthen the Spanish democracy, and since it would be internally divided in two factions, the party would derive into the two parties envisioned by Prim and his followers. The other members of the meeting were intrigued by this idea, and soon they were immersed in a debate over it.
One of the points discussed was the role of military men in politics. Everyone agreed that that was to end: too many times a general had taken the reins of the civilian government, and that had to end. The current legislature would be grandfathered in, due to the presence of Prim, Serrano and Topete in the government, but, from that moment on, no other active member of the Spanish Armed Forces would be allowed to form part of the Government save for the Ministries of War and Navy, given that they were exclusively dealing with the military, and the three men swore to retire from politics beginning in 1877. Of course, any retired members of the Armed Forces would be allowed to present his candidacy.
Also, the Armed Forces, represented by Prim, Serrano and Topete, compromised to support the government, maintain stability and cut off any attempt of military uprising, thus subordinating military power to civil power and finally erase the traces of years of suffering from the pronunciamientos.
Another point was the lack of democratic experience Spain had. As much as the Democrats wished the opposite, even they knew that democratic conscience was yet to take deep enough roots in the nation. Thus, they accepted that, for no more than nine years (that is, three elections), in which time they expected that Spain would be on the road they desired, that they would have to make use of the caciques' [1] influence to strengthen the system and ensure that the parties that came out of the coalition took turns in power.
The final agreement, containing this and other related terms, was set in a pact that would be known to history as the Pacto de los Heros, after the house where it was signed.
With the Pacto signed, the first matter to treat was who would become the first candidate to the Presidency for the new party. Prim could have easily continued in power, but the Liberal Union members said they would only accept their leader, Francisco Serrano. After some leaks to press about a proposition made by Prim about giving independence to Cuba if the Cuban people voted in favor after a ceasefire with the rebels, Progressives and Democrats gave up and stood behind Serrano.
The existence of the National Union was made public a week after the Pacto de los Heros was signed, as well as General Serrano's candidacy for the Presidency. Besides its continuity respect Prim's government, Serrano presented a wide program of ideas and projects that, he expected, would allow Spain to rise to the level of other world powers like the British Empire or Germany.
Other political parties soon announced their candidacies as well: the Patriot Alfonsines, led by Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, formed the Conservative Party; the moderate Carlists (those that had supported Leopoldo after Carlos VII asked for the French to place him in the throne), the Neo-Catholics and the Integrists [2] merged into the Catholic-Monarchic Communion, while Emilio Castelar and those few Republicans that had not taken part in the uprising formed the Spanish Republican Party and offered to lead Spain into greatness.
Emilio Castelar, candidate to the Presidency for the Republican Party
Unfortunately for all of the latter, the National Union's influence was too great to be offset, and the February 18th 1871 elections gave these results:
- National Union: 283 deputies
- Republican Party: 35 deputies
- Conservative Party: 30 deputies
- Moderate Party: 29 deputies
- Catholic-Monarchic Communion: 8 deputies
- Montpensierist Party: 6 deputies
- Non-established: 29 deputies (Cuba and Puerto Rico)
[1] The caciques were men with great influence in many towns and districts of Spain. In RL, they had affiliations to the two parties that took turns in the Spanish government, the Liberal and the Conservative Parties, and used their influence to make sure that the chosen deputy was the one either they or the government wanted. What happened was that the current government resigned, the King gave the government to the leader of the other party and it was them who decided which districts would be won by which party. Many times, the deputy had little to nothing to do with the district, and probably had never put a foot in there until they were chosen as deputies: this was known as encasillamiento.
[2] Integrism was a movement that sought the continuation of tradition within the Catholic Church and opposed any attempt to “modernize” it. In Spain, they were part of the Carlist Party until 1888, when Carlos VII expelled them from the Catholic-Monarchic Communion.
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Chapter IV, Part III (revised)
Chapter IV, Part III: The First Legislature
The victory in the election had showed that a great number of the Spanish population trusted Serrano to do what was needed. Now, the new government would have to act fast in order to make sure that said trust was not misplaced. Fortunately, the stabilization the King gave to Spain and the war compensation coming from France allowed the government to achieve the needed and even more.
Being a general, and a veteran of several wars, Serrano knew that the Armed Forces required an urgent reform: although they had done a great work in the war, Serrano knew that there were many things that would have to be improved if the Spanish Army and Navy were to stand their ground more efficiently.
Using the Prussian army as a model, one of Serrano's first laws was to impose the universal military service, allowing for every male over 21 to be trained in the use of weapons and ending the hated quintas, although he also ordered the formation of a standing, professional army, in order to ensure that Spain would always be ready to defend itself while more soldiers were recruited. A General Staff, with the same attributions as its Prussian counterpart, was created as well.
Symbol of the Spanish Guardia Civil
The state of the officer corps was also worked on: a problem inherited from the times of Isabel II was the excessive number of officers in regards to the number of soldiers, so it made future military operations difficult and it was a big hole in which money was being thrown. Several officers would be demoted or discharged with honors, and of the latter, many were hired by the Police Corps and the Guardia Civil, whose military structure was appreciated by the officers. A few others, those that were young enough and had proved great ability, were instead suggested to join the recently created Tercios Especiales (see Part IV).
The weaponry was also modernized: in order to capitalize on it, the government financed the creation of a mixed capital company called Rifles Españoles Sociedad Anónima (Spanish Rifles Limited), which would become popular as RESA. The first RESA factory, established in the industrial town of Getafe, used Spanish materials to build the rifle RESA R-1, a licensed copy of the Mauser Model 1871 that had replaced the Dreyse needle gun in the German Army. The RESA R-1, nicknamed “Escoba” (Broom) by the soldiers due to its shape (long, narrow barrel and very wide butt) and its capacity to “sweep” the enemy from the battlefield, became the main infantry weapon. Soon, RESA became the main purveyor of weaponry for the army, with other factories building revolvers for short-distance action or artillery for punishing the enemy from afar.
Mauser Model 1871
The Navy was also affected: under the direction of Admiral Topete, the Navy was reformed to be slightly more like the British Royal Navy, the best in the entire world. The officer corps went through a reorganization similar to that of the Army, and drydocks were built or expanded to build bigger and more powerful ships, with the idea of eventually phasing out all the wooden ships that still remained in the Fleet with ironclad steamers. Great interest was also shown in a new weapon, the submarine: Cosme García Sáez [1] and Narciso Monturiol, both of which had offered great designs for the Navy, were hired to make more designs and work for the Navy to implement it in the future.
Cosme García Sáez and Narciso Monturiol
Not only the Armed Forces were affected by the government's activities. One of Serrano's slogans during the campaign was “To secure Spain, we must strengthen Spain”, and, in order to carry out that slogan, the government started to pass legislation to strengthen the national economy. The mining industry was one of the most affected: the Provisional Government, in need of money, had passed a law to expropriate the subsoil like the 1836 expropriations had done the same with the land, and much foreign capital had arrived to the country. With the new legislation, Spanish investors would be supported so that they reached either parity with foreign investors or the majority.
Railway legislation was also reformed: in order to reduce costs, railway tracks were to be as straight as possible (eliminating the problem that supposed the pre-revolution legislation, which subsidized railway construction businesses proportionally to the number of built kilometers, thus having the companies try to make railways as long as possible even if it was not useful), and many more connections would be built between cities and towns, turning the centralized network into a mesh net, thus helping to increase transport of people and merchandise between cities as well as communication, aided by the extension of the telegraph network.
The education system also went through a great revamping: in 1871, more than half of the sixteen millions of Spaniards was illiterate, and something had to be done to revert the tendency that began in the end of the 18th century, when king Carlos IV and the nobility decided to prevent the French Revolution from expanding into Spain by restricting the main population's access to any potentially subversive literature, a policy that had continued during Fernando VII's and Isabel II's reigns. In order to give greater backing to the democracy's strength, Serrano ordered the creation of the Ministry of Public Instruction, which directed an ambitious program of adult literacy and child education. Everyone knew it would take a lot of time to give fruits, but everyone hoped it would be successful.
Women aspiring to become schoolteachers learn new things
As for the nation itself, it went through a small reorganization. The new provinces of Perpiñán and Orán were added to the nation, gaining representation in the Congress and Senate. Andorra, which now had two Spanish princes, was asked in referendum whether they wished to remain independent or form part of Spain, either as a new province or as part of the province of Lérida. The vote went, in the end, massively in favor of becoming a new Spanish province (around 71% of the Andorrans voted in favor of the proposal), thus rising the number of current provinces to 51 (not counting those in Cuba, Puerto Rico or Philippines).
[1] Cosme García Sáez is one of Spain's forgotten geniuses. Born in Logroño in 1818, he was the first Spaniard to invent a submersible, the Garcibuzo. Its first trials happened in 1859, the same year Narciso Monturiol made his first trials with the Ictíneo I. García Sáez devised many improvements and built many machines of different kinds, working in the Spanish Royal Mint. One of his greatest inventions was a great quality breech-loading carbine that could shoot more than 3,000 times without having its mechanism fail or requiring to clean the weapon. Due to the lack of support, first from Isabel II and then from the Provisional Government, he ended up poor and living from alms, dying in 1874. Of course, in this Alternate History García Sáez has a job and lives beyond 1874 as he recovers the hope and excitement in life.
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Chapter IV, Part V (revised)
Chapter IV, Part V: 1873, Annus Horribilis
The first two years after the war and Leopoldo's crowning had been placid. The war in Cuba, although still raging, had a potential end in sight as veteran soldiers and new weaponry arrived to the island, and the many crisis that had nearly sunk Spain in the last decade seemed to be solving themselves. As January 1st 1873 dawned, many expected that Leopoldo's reign would continue to improve Spain, and that the problems that still plagued the nation would soon peter out and end.
Very few could have predicted that, against the expectations, 1873 would become one of the worst years of Leopoldo's monarchy: future historians would not doubt in marking 1873 as an Annus Horribilis for Leopoldo.
The beginning of the horrible year could be traced to the Navarran Pyrenees, which, during the first half of the nineteenth century, had been an scenario of the Carlist Wars. Hidden among those mountains met the Irredent Carlists, the last Carlists that remained loyal to Carlos VII, whom they still regarded as the legitimate King of Spain. The division of Carlism after Carlos VII's support of the French invasion had made them stumble heavily, and it had taken them two years to recover from the situation and begin planning.
The Mad Priest Santa Cruz
One of the leaders was Manuel Ignacio Santa Cruz Loidi. He had been a priest in a small town near San Sebastián, and after La Gloriosa he joined the Carlist cause. During the short-lived 1870 Carlist uprising, he had made a name for himself as the “Mad Priest” due to his cruelty against any that might face him, cruelty symbolized by his banner, black, with a skull and two crossed bones and the motto “War Without Mercy”. Since the beginning of the Hohenzollerns' War, he had remained hidden to avoid being caught by Spanish authorities, and preparing for the future.
It was Santa Cruz that suggested the idea of starting a new uprising. He argued that, with a great number of troops in southern France, and even more in Cuba, the usurper (Leopoldo)'s armies in Spain were probably undermanned, and it should not be hard to successfully initiate an uprising: he was sure that, as soon as the group had several successes, the people would flock to the Cause and help topple the Prussian usurper, to then welcome the legitimate king back. The others were quite reluctant about the idea, but the Mad Priest's frenzied speeches about the “traitors” (as he called Cabrera and the other Carlists that now supported Leopoldo) convinced them to take that course of action.
Very soon, the government started to receive disturbing messages about death and destruction rampaging through Navarra and the Maestrazgo [1]. Eyewitnesses' testimonies did not leave any doubt: the Carlists were, once more, rising up in arms in an attempt to topple the government and the Crown.
General Máximo Gómez
These news could not have arrived in a worse moment for Francisco Serrano's government: the war in Cuba, which had been proceeding well, all advance had stopped as new General Máximo Gómez ordered an increase in the number of machete charges against the Spanish soldiers, who feared the charges for their brutality; Barcelona and Perpignan, the main base of the Republican movement, were beset by weekly demonstrations that claimed for the establishment of a Federal Republic, as well as revolts hardly contained by the Police Corps and which the Republicans in Congress sower they had to do nothing with; peasant revolts were taking place in Andalusia, Catalonia and the north, due to the spread out of anarchist and Marxist ideas coming from the International; the Philippines were also becoming the center of some problems due to its strategical position in the Pacific, a revolt initiated by the Moros of Mindanao and the slowness with which reforms were arriving to the archipelago due to the iron-clad opposition of the colonial elites, opposed to anything that might cause a change to the almost feudal regime in which they reigned; in France, the Third Republic was suffering from internal conflicts between the Republicans and the increasing number of Monarchy supporters, conflicts that affected the Spanish soldiers in the south; and, in Corsica, pro-Bonaparte disturbs were happening almost daily, and becoming harder to put down.
As the Carlists were considered the most dangerous and immediate problem, Serrano sent the Army to Navarra and the Maestrazgo, expecting the soldiers to be able to put down the revolt. However, the Carlist rebels were more used to the terrain, and used it to move faster through forests and hills. Many times, when the soldiers arrived somewhere, the only things they could find were burning huts and bloodied bodies on the floor. Sometimes, survivors were found, but mostly they were either so young that the rebels had not paid attention to them, traumatized or had just not seen it, so any information they could get was almost useless. A couple of times, the rebels tried to attack the columns directly, believing themselves invincible, but those times the soldiers were able to gain the upper hand, only suffering injuries while the attackers died, were captured or ran away.
All these bad news, and many more, were slowly mining the trust the people and Congress had in the Government. Serrano's attempts to pass important legislation were finding more obstacles as time passed, especially from the left wing of the National Union, increasingly opposed to his rule, although fortunately things were still calm. However, all of that changed on October 31st.
The Virginius was an old blockade-breaker, captured by the United States Navy during the American Civil War, and bought by John F. Patterson, who was using it to bring contraband items to the Cuban rebels. When it was sailing between Jamaica and Cuba, the ship was captured by the Spanish corvette Tornado, and towed to Santiago de Cuba. Its crewmen and passengers were arrested, and several of them, among them its Captain, Joseph Fry, were shot, accused of supporting the rebels in a military trial. Nineteen people were executed in this way, and only the prevalence of cooler heads prevented more executions.
Captain Joseph Fry and the Virginius
Either way, the diplomatic storm was brutal: the United States Ambassador was demanding an explanation and apologies for the actions almost daily, as did the United Kingdom Ambassador, both because one of the executed was a British subject and because the Spanish ship had acted near British waters. Within Spain, many explanations were demanded about the incident, which had caught Serrano completely by surprise, since by the time the news arrived to Spain, the executions had already been carried out. Some deputies were even hinting that, if things were not fixed soon, they would be starting a motion of no confidence against the President.
However, Serrano knew that there was nothing he could do to appease the criticism, so he decided to cut his losses: on November 15th, he resigned from his office and returned to his position as General. Prim would take charge of the Presidency until the elections of April 1874.
For a few weeks, the world held its breath. Would the United States declare war over the Virginius Affair, as it was called by some journalists? Would they demand the independence of Cuba, or its becoming part of the United States? Would they invade the islands? The Cuban rebels hoped a war would begin soon, for it would provide the aid they needed to cast away the Spanish yoke. Curiously, this feeling was repeated in France, where the government hoped that a war between the United States and Spain would force the evacuation of all Spanish troops from southern France.
It was not to be, though: on December, Spain, the United States and the United Kingdom wrote an agreement to end the crisis. Spain gave all the United States and British crewmen and passengers to a United States Navy warship (the Cubans remained imprisoned due to their status as Spanish citizens) and the Virginius was returned to its owner for what ironically turned out to be its last voyage, sinking near the coast of Florida. The Spanish government gave $20,000 to the United States government and $2,000 to the United Kingdom as compensation for their citizens.
Prim breathed deeply as he avoided a bullet, but knew that he would have to act soon if he wanted to solve the Cuban crisis before the United States, or other country, tried to meddle in the situation.
[1] The Maestrazgo is a region in eastern Spain, divided between Aragon, Catalonia and the Valencian Community, full of mountains and forests. This region had also been a place where Carlists acted in the First and Second Carlists Wars.
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Chapter IV, Part VI (revised)
Chapter IV, Part VI: The End Of All The Wars
The Virginius Affair left behind, it still gave the government a big message: unless they wanted the United States to meddle where they were not called, they had to cut off and destroy the Cuban rebellion, as well as the Irredent Carlists, who had rejected the Patriot Carlists' calls to surrender, calling them traitors to their true King.
Several of the other problems finally started to be solved on their own: the pro-Republican revolts in Cataluña slowly disappeared as freedoms were expanded; the peasant finally petered out, becoming easier to control; and, in France, the Third Republic had fallen victim of public pressure and been replaced with a new Kingdom of France. The old Legitimist pretender, Henri, Count of Chambourd, who had been passed over when Louis-Philippe I was crowned in 1830, would make his claim to the throne clear: for a moment, it was thought he might be, once more, passed over in favor of Louis-Philippe I's grandson, Philippe d'Orléans, but in the end a compromise was accepted, and Henri became King Henri V of France, with the tricolore modified to include the fleur-de-lys as the flag of the new Kingdom. Philippe d'Orléans would become the Prince of Anjou, as Henri V had no children.
The flag of the Kingdom of France
Corsica, however, was not willing to fall once more under the control of a Bourbon King, so the island rebelled, and the few French troops in the island were either smashed or convinced to join the rebellion. The rebels formed a government that then called Napoleon IV, the last French Emperor, to become the new king of Corsica: Napoleon accepted the offer, and soon he was in Ajaccio, the capital of the island, where he was crowned as Napoleon IV, King of Corsica.
For some time, Napoleon dreamed of the possibility of repeating his grand-uncle's great deed, of recruiting a grand army and carry it to southern France, hoping to win the French people for his cause. Reality soon set in his mind: this was not 1814, the French people were fed up of war, Corsica did not have enough people to sustain such a great army and France was occupied by Spanish and German troops. This also prevented the French government from acting to put down the rebellion and arrest Napoleon IV, as the occupying troops would look at any French movements with suspicion. In the end, although they decided to let Corsica pursue an independent route, even though they would still claim Corsica as a “province in rebellion”.
Meanwhile, Prim set out to solve Spain's problems. The nearest was that of the Irredents, and it would not be easy to work out: the army Serrano had sent was proof of that. However, this time Prim had a secret weapon, completely unknown by the general public, and especially by the Carlists: the Tercios Especiales.
One platoon of the Special Tercios was formed by 60 soldiers, divided in four squadrons of 15 soldiers each, and each squadron was divided in three squads of 4 soldiers and one squad of 3. Squad 1 took the point position in assaults, Squad 2 was the tracker group, Squad 3 was mostly formed by sharpshooters and Squad 4 was trained in field medicine. All of them were armed with RESA 1871 rifles and ammunition for several combat days, as well as a pistol and a saber for melée combat, although they had been trained to be able to use any weapon, so they would be able to take the enemies' weapons and use them against them.
After two years of training, six platoons (called Viriato, Don Pelayo, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro [1]) were itching to finally enter battle and put their skills to use. Their fire baptism would be locating the Irredents, and if the test was successful, they would go to Cuba.
The Tercios' first mission started in January 1874. Platoons Viriato, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba and Hernán Cortés were sent to Navarra to deal with the Carlist rebels in the zone, especially the group led by Santa Cruz, which was considered the most dangerous and problematic, while platoons Don Pelayo, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar and Francisco Pizarro went to the Maestrazgo. Their main orders were to find the hideouts, count how many fighters the Carlists had in the zone and then send a messenger to the nearest Army barracks, so that a group of soldiers big enough to face the Carlists was sent to their hideout, while the Tercios made sure that the rebels did not catch wind of what was happening.
However, the ones giving the others had not an idea of how stubborn the soldiers were, nor of the actual potential the world's first special forces had.
The Pamplona barracks were the headquarters of the army that was going after the Carlist in Navarra. The first, and last, news they received about the Tercios' efforts to locate the rebels was when, three weeks after the Tercios arrived to Navarra, a messenger arrived, saying that the three platoons sent to the region were a few kilometers away, watching over 150 prisoners and 100 corpses they had brought from the Pyrenees, and were asking for aid to secure the prisoners. The commander could only send a soldier to the telegram office, in order to tell Madrid what had happened and asking for orders, while he led a 500-strong corps to finally imprison the arrested Carlists.
Some time later, the city of Teruel (the one nearest to the Maestrazgo) received a similar visit, with 200 prisoners and 75 corpses: the proportion between prisoners and dead was higher because the Carlists in the zone did not have Santa Cruz's fighting spirit, and several of them chose to surrender when they realized that running away or winning would be impossible.
When Prim received the news about the success of the Tercios, it did so when he needed good news, being as he was in the middle of solving the problems the National Union's split was causing for him (see Part VII). When Congress met, and Prim officially announced the end of the Irredents, he was met with great applause from the entire chamber, even from the former Carlist deputies. His next suggestion, to decorate the Tercios for their great deed, was probably the last thing all members of the legislature's Lower Chamber agreed with, and unanimously voted in favor of awarding medals to all the soldiers.
Order of Military Merit with White Decoration
In a ceremony attended by the Royal Family, the government and Generals Serrano and Cabrera (the latter coming to Spain on purpose to proudly see how the Tercios, which he had developed three years before, were rewarded for the first time for their effort), the King and the Prince of Asturias [2] personally gave each soldier a Order of Military Merit as well as a medal crafted especially for their role in ending the Carlist threat, denoting the great effort they had spent in those three weeks.
Festivities were short, as they soon were put into a ship to Cuba. The long travel between El Ferrol and Cuba was incredibly boring for all of them, so, as soon as they disembarked in the port of Santiago de Cuba, they established a base and jumped to the interior of the island so that they could fulfill their orders.
Their first success arrived very soon: an incursion towards the interior of Sierra Maestra, nearby Santiago, allowed them to capture Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, who had been the leader of the Cuban independence movement until october of 1873, and his son Carlos Manuel. Both were soon taken to the city of La Habana. There, the old general's bad health and blindness and their nearly null importance for the rebels' government - obvious because the Céspedes had not had any kind of protection - made the judge take compassion of them both and condemn them to several months of home arrest in a home of La Habana. This capture would, however, be used by the Spanish Government and the troops as propaganda, because Céspedes had been the one who had started the Cuban rebellion after the Grito de Yara and yet the rebels had badly mistreated the man, who could only now count on the compassion offered to him by the Spanish people.
Some time after, Dominican Máximo Gómez, who had taken control of the rebel forces after Céspedes was dismissied, fell dead: he had been the last victim of the ability of one of the Special Tercios' sharpshooters. The sudden death of something they had not seen caused panic among the Cuban troops that were near Gómez when he was killed. This panic was taken advantage of by an army that had been organized especially for the capture of Gómez's troops, and very soon most of them had died or been captured.
The next weeks did not bring any more important deaths: however, that did not mean that the Special Tercios were not active. Far from it, they continued with their campaign of putting traps, ambushing and killing from afar to continue undermining the rebels' confidence and they capacity to make war. The regular army, animated by the victories they were obtaining and the support of the Tercios, managed to take the initiative in the war once more.
It took four months since the arrival of the Special Tercios to Cuba, by which time Jose Antonio Maceo and Calixto García where the leaders of the Cuban independence movement. The two men, after much debate, realized that their position was becoming untenable, and surrendered to the evidence, sending a message to La Habana, asking for an armistice between the rebels and the Spanish government so that a peace treaty could be signed. In those four months, a government had fallen and another had taken the reins of power, but few could say that those four months would be among the most important in the history of Spain.
[1] Viriato (or Viriathus) was a Lusitanian warrior who fought the Roman Republic when they invaded Iberia; Don Pelayo was the Asturian noble who defeated the Arabs in Covadonga, allowing the establishment of a Christian redoubt in northern Spain, which would be the beginning of the Reconquista; Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar was the famous Cid Campeador, who was portrayed by Charlton Heston in the film El Cid (although that film is mostly based on the Cantar de Mío Cid); Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba was more commonly known by his nickname, El Gran Capitán (The Great Captain), who fought in the conquest of Granada and in Italy and is considered by many as the Father of Trench War; Hernán Cortés was the Conquistador that took on the Aztec Empire and defeated it, and Francisco Pizarro was the Conquistador that took the Incan Empire down.
[2] The heir of the Spanish Crown.
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