The Legacy of the Glorious (Milarqui's Cut)

[Milarqui]

EL LEGADO DE LA GLORIOSA (The Legacy of the Glorious)
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Chapter 1: An End and a Beginning
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Part I: The Road to La Gloriosa

It was the second of September of the year 1868. Isabel II, Queen of Spain and all of its colonies, and the last in a long line of monarchs that descended from the Sun King and Emperor Carlos I of Spain, was walking along the La Concha Beach, in the northern city of San Sebastián. Accompanying her were her son and heir Alfonso, her four daughters Isabel, María del Pilar, María de la Paz and Eulalia, and a large group of courtesans, ready to do anything that may grant them the favour of the Queen, and thus benefits of many kinds.

They did not know that any benefits they may gain would soon turn to ashes, dust and nothing else.

Queen Isabel II of Spain and her husband Francisco de Asís
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Isabel II had risen to the throne in a tumultuous period of the history of Spain: she was just three years old when her father, the absolutist tyrant Fernando VII, nicknamed El Rey Felón (the Felon King) for his total intransigence that had ruined the start of Spanish liberalism and provoked Spanish America's independence, died from age and illness. Her crowning had been opposed by the Infante Carlos María Isidro de Borbón, who was supported by the reactionary elements of Spanish society, while the liberal politicians and troops had stepped behind her, hoping that she would be the one to bring new glory and freedom to the Spanish nation.

However, that hope was, not shattered, but eventually broken: Isabel had become a sad, capricious woman, who thought of the Crown and what it represented as her own property, to do as she wished; forced into a marriage with Francisco de Asís de Borbón, an homosexual and ambitious man she intensely disliked, both of them sought young attractive men to bed them, an attitude that was causing scandals in the nation; the political system formed by General Ramón María Narváez's Partido Moderado (Moderate Party) and also General Leopoldo O'Donnell's Unión Liberal (Liberal Union), which excluded the more liberal Partido Progresista (Progressive Party) and Partido Demócrata (Democrat Party) had stagnated, and was seen as an absolute failure, as very soon it became clear that the Presidency of the Council of Ministers was open for any high-ranking military officer that managed to seduce the Queen and sleep with her; and the Royal Court was dominated by Neo-Catholic councilors who were trying to convince Isabel to return to the Ancien Régime her father had imposed during his reign.

Not all done during Isabel's reign was bad: the relatively long periods of peace between pronunciamientos and revolts allowed for the industrialization of Spain, which had been destroyed by the Independence war and halted by the anti-liberal purges launched by Fernando VII, and a railway network was starting to expand, connecting all towns and cities of Spain to each other. Unfortunately, these economical reforms came with even more problems: Mendizábal's land seizures, while they had given much money to the Spanish battered Treasury, had culminated in the concentration of lands in the hands of a few landowners; the industrial and railroad businesses had been darkened due to great swindles forged by the richest families of the time, including the Royal Family itself; and the dissatisfaction of the lower classes with their economical situation was becoming greater as time passed.

It was all these factors that had led many military men and politicians to realize that Spain was a boiler, and that it would explode if it was not given a proper valve. One of them was other General, Juan Prim, who at the time was the leader of the Progressive Party. Seeing that, if he did not act soon, Spain would not end well, he decided to plan and execute several military uprisings, which led to several short-lived exiles to other European nations.

The last, definite impulse to the would-be revolutionaries was the European economic crisis of 1866, which acquired even greater strength in Spain due to many factors that had highlighted the many problems the economic policies of the successive governments chosen by Isabel, among them the inadequate industrialization of Spain and the concentration of the credit risk on the railroad business and in the public debt, compounded by the loss of many harvests due to floods and the First Pacific War, which had brought no benefits to Spain. The crisis would also highlight the many differences and contradictions of Spanish society, that threatened to break the nation:

• Most of the population, which worked in the agricultural sector, was given paltry wages for long hours of hard and strenuous work in the fields, while the landowning oligarchy was able to squander their riches without any care.
• The industrial and commercial bourgeoisie, which was starting to appear in the Spanish cities, had to contend with the financial oligarchy in order to manage to face the many problems they had to expand their businesses.
• The problems that already existed in Catalonia and were starting to appear in the Vascongadas and Asturias, between the bourgeoisie and a worker class who had to work in very deplorable conditions to earn enough money to feed themselves and their families.

This, and much more, would be the start of the end for Isabel's reign.

 

[Milarqui]

Chapter I, Part II: The Last Years of Bourbon Spain

June 1866 had seen the Sargentada of the San Gil Barracks, which had led to the executions of many sergeants that had tried to support another uprising. Prim was exiled to Geneva, from where he left for Ostende (Belgium): it was in this city where the Progressive Party and the Democrat Party (led by Cristino Martos and Francisco Pi y Margall) signed the Ostende Pact in August of that same year, by which both parties agreed to work together in order to force the end of Isabel's monarchy, which was destroying Spain, and replace the current regime with an actual democratic system, with a Constituent Assembly chosen by male universal suffrage deciding the future of the nation after the revolution ended.

The San Gil Barracks
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1867 say how the plans of the Ostende Pact members gave their first fruits, and, while it was yet too early to sing victory, it did allow for another step to be given in the desired direction. Leopoldo O'Donnell's death in 1867 gave the leadership of the Liberal Union to General Francisco Serrano, previously known as one of the queen's lovers, as well as being suspected to be Alfonso's father. After seeing how the Moderates were monopolizing power and how the Neo-Catholics were gaining more influence with the Queen, the Unionists believed that, in order to keep their influence in Spain, their only choice was to join the winning side, and thus they joined the opposition to Isabel's rule. Serrano was able to bring with him the support of many soldiers and army officers, as well as the generous economic aid of the Duke of Montpensier, Antoine de Orléans, who was Isabel II's brother-in-law by virtue of having married Isabel's sister Luisa Fernanda, and who aspired to become King of Spain, either by his own right or as a consort.

General Leopoldo O'Donnell and Antoine d'Orléans, Duke of Montpensier
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The definite wounding of the Isabeline regime happened in April 1868: Ramón María Narváez, nicknamed El Espadón de Loja and main defender of the monarchy, died. Isabel II decided then to support the continuity of power of the Moderates, giving the position of President to Luis González Bravo. In order to not give the Neo-Catholics or any other military man the chance to take his position, González Bravo decided to govern against everyone, slowly turning Spain into a dictatorship through repression, exile and censure, thus earning the hate of all Spaniards. González Bravo could be heard proclaiming his pride at showing how a civilian could also direct a dictatorship.

General Ramón María Narváez and Luis González Bravo, the last leaders of the Isabeline Moderate Party and of the Governments of Isabel II
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Luis González Bravo would soon become known as the last President of Isabel's reign. For this was the situation when an honorable sailor that worked with the opposition decided it was the moment to shout Enough! and initiate the revolution that would conduct them to freedom or death.

 

[Milarqui]

Chapter I, Part III: La Gloriosa

September 18th 1868. Port of Cádiz, birthplace of Spanish constitutionalism. Juan Bautista Topete, Admiral of the Spanish Fleet anchored in the city, and member of the opposition, rises up against González Bravo's government and proclaims the end of the Bourbon monarchy, represented by Isabel II.

Admiral Juan Bautista Topete, the man who initiated La Gloriosa
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During the previous sixty years of Spanish history, the Spanish Army had led many interventions against the government in order to impose order, interventions that would become part of the popular memory under the name of pronunciamientos militares. However, this was the first time that the Navy participated actively in a pronunciamiento, and not only that, but they were the ones to lead it. And this time, the uprising was being done with a clear intention: to oust Isabel II from power, to eliminate her dictatorial monarchy and to finally give to Spain the liberalization it deserved, through the recognition of citizens' rights and where national sovereignty would reside in the nation, who would choose their representatives through male universal suffrage.

A day later, Generals Juan Prim (who had arrived from his London exile after a brief stopover in Gibraltar) and Francisco Serrano (who brought with him all the generals that had been exiled in the Canary Islands by González Bravo) arrived to the city of Cádiz, from where they would take the reigns of the revolution that would initially be named the Revolución de Septiembre (September Revolution) but would become part of the history of Spain as La Gloriosa.

Generals Francisco Serrano y Domínguez and Juan Prim y Prats, the leaders of La Gloriosa
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Very soon, the revolution found great support from the people, who were fed up with Isabel's reign and wanted to gain their freedom, and rebellions rose up in Andalusia and Eastern Spain. Prim and Topete traveled from port to port along the Mediterranean coast in order to feed the fire that had been lit in the hearts of the Spaniards, while Serrano took an overland route from Cádiz to Seville, from where he would leave for Madrid at the head of an army with which he expected to invade the capital.

However, this advance was stopped in the town of Alcolea (Córdoba), when Serrano received news that troops loyal to the Queen and led by Manuel Pavía y Lacy, Marquis of Novaliches were advancing towards Andalusia. On September 28th, the two armies met: both armies had a similar number of troops, and the loyalists had more artillery, but the revolutionaries had the knowledge that the events in the rest of Spain were playing in their favour, and this gave them greater courage.

Manuel Pavía y Lacy, Marquis of Novaliches
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After an initial assault by the loyalists was repealed by Serrano's troops, Novaliches decided to personally lead a second assault in order to prevent demoralization from seeping into his men. This assault ended in complete failure, for not only were the revolutionaries able to stop it, but Novaliches was gravely injured in the face. The loyalist army was forced to retreat towards the north, allowing the revolutionaries to have free passage to Madrid, which they were able to occupy with the support of the local people.

Entry of Serrano's troops in Madrid
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When the defeat of Novaliches' troops arrived to the Court, which was staying in San Sebastián, they realized there were only two options the Queen could take: the forced exile of the Royal Family to nearby France, where they would be able to wait for news about the revolution, and perhaps the possibility of returning, or the immediate abdication of the Queen in the person of her son and heir, Prince Alfonso, perhaps saving in this way the Spanish throne for the Bourbon dynasty. The courtiers gave the queen the best advice they had, which would be forever the best they would offer, and suggested her to choose the first option. Thus, Isabel II decided to keep her historical rights to the Crown of the Catholic Monarchs, exiling herself and her family on September 30th to the city of Biarritz, France, where Emperor Napoleon III put comfortable chambers to their disposition.

The Royal Family goes into exile
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The entrance of Serrano's troops in Madrid, and the exile of the Royal Family, meant the end of the revolution. Power was locally transferred from the Isabeline authorities to Revolutionary Juntas that had been chosen by popular acclaim or through democratic elections.

Celebrations in Puerta del Sol (Madrid) after the final success of La Gloriosa
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Finally, on October 5th, the Provisional Government was formed. Its task would be long and arduous, for they would have to initiate the process for the establishment of the Constituent Assembly and the development and ratification of a new Spanish Constitution, but when that moment came, Spain would be ready.

 

[Milarqui]

Chapter I, Part IV: The Provisional Government and the Constituent Assembly

The Provisional Government was presided by General Serrano and represented, in equal parts, by Unionists and Progressives. Unionists Juan Bautista Topeta, Juan Álvarez Lorenzana, Antonio Romero Ortiz and Adelardo López de Ayala from the Liberal Union took the Ministries of the Navy, Foreign Affairs, Justice and Overseas, respectively, while Progressives Juan Prim, Práxedes Mateo Sagasta, Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla and Laureano Figuerola were chosen as Ministers of War, Home Affairs, Public Works and Treasury.

The Provisional Government. From left to right: Figuerola, Ruiz Zorrilla, Sagasta, Prim, Serrano, Topete, López de Ayala, Romero Ortiz y Lorenzana.
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The election of the Provisional Government was met with the first frictions in the coalition, as the Democrats, who were suffering an internal division between the Francisco Pi y Margall's Republicans and Cristino Martos' Monarchists, had been left out of the government, despite having been on the coalition for far more time than the Unionists.

Cristino Martos and Francisco Pi y Margall, leaders of the monarchist and republican factions of the Democrat Party
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This, fortunately, did not cause many problems save for a few complaints which were easily handled by the government, especially considering the trove of problems they had to get through: their first actions were aimed at the concession of the promises given to the people, especially those concerning public and political rights. The government also published a manifest to announce the many political reforms they had already established, as well the first economic reforms, impulsed by Minister Figuerola, that would finally allow the Spanish economy to recover from the many disasters of the past.

The local elections to select the mayors that would replace the Revolutionary Juntas would be held in December, while January 1869 would have the long-awaited national election to the Constituent Assembly. During the months between the establishment of the Provisional Government and the national election, the former approved several decrees that would be temporary replacements for the law on certain important matters, and would be legal until the Constitution was finally approved. Thus, the freedom of press, right to assemble and associate, freedom of religion and academic freedom were legislated and confirmed, while the the institution of the jury was recognized, and male universal suffrage was finally granted.

The previous problems within the Democrat Party became exacerbated when the Provisional Government chose the Constitutional Monarchy as the form of government, citing the little success republics had had in Europe, as well as the distrust a Spanish Republic would awake in the rest of Europe: the Republican faction, with Pi y Margall at the helm decided to break up with the Democrats and form their own party, the Partido Republicano, which supported a United States-like federal republic, a move also supported by some of the Revolutionary Juntas and, later, by the local governments where the Republicans had won the local elections, showing that the federalism from the pre-Bourbons' times was not dead, and their anti-militarist and anti-clerical discourse was finding many adepts and supporters.

Unfortunately for those that disliked it, the first main problem the government was forced to concentrate was the Cuban insurrection. Cuba and Puerto Rico, which for years had been treated almost as personal fiefdoms by General Captains that had almost absolute power and that were still held under the yoke of a slave-based economy, had been on the brink of exploding, which happened around the same time La Gloriosa started. The rebellion in Puerto Rico, which started five days before the Battle of Alcolea, had been easily put down by local forces, and although the rebels were condemned to death, the new governor, José Laureano Sanz, dictated a general amnesty for the rebels, some of which were nonetheless exiled.

The Cuban rebellion, which was started by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes on October 10th with the so-called Grito de Yara, was not as easy to put down due to the fact that the rebels would soon initiate a brutal guerrilla war, whose main scenario were bloody machete charges by former slaves that were liberated by the rebels, that would engulf the whole island, thanks to local support for the guerrillas. Many factors came into play, among them Spain's almost brutal economic exploitation of the island, the lack of support for the local economy, the Cuban people's complete lack of political rights and freedoms, and the existence of a society tacitly approved by the Isabeline governments consisting on a class division based on racial prejudices and the existence of slavery. In spite of the rebels' inability to take control of any great city, and the arrival of new Captain General Domingo Dulce with the new measures approved by the Provisional Government, the rebels did not surrender.

Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, initiator of the Grito de Yara and first President of Revolutionary Cuba
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Considering the situation as very alarming, the Provisional Government was forced to do what they did not want and initiate a conscription program to form an army with which the rebels could be defeated. This played into the hands of the Republicans, who supported the establishment of a Spanish federal nation where Cuba would be one state, and the popular classes started to feel a certain letdown, and considered that Cuba would become La Gloriosa's cancer if something was not done soon.

Spanish volunteers embarking to travel to Cuba
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All these problems did not mean that political life stopped: on January 15th, the Spaniards were called to the urns, so that they could vote in the Constituent Assembly. 70% of the electoral census, for the first time formed by all Spanish males, chose their representatives to the Assembly, which was formed by the following:

• Government Coalition: 236 Deputies
  • Partido Progresista: 134 Deputies
  • Unión Liberal: 69 Deputies
  • Partido Demócrata: 33 Deputies
• Republican Party: 85 Deputies
  • Federalist faction: 83 Deputies
  • Centralist faction: 2 Deputies
• Carlist Party: 20 Deputies
• Isabeline independents: 11 Deputies
• Non-elected: 29 Deputies
  • Cuban representatives: 18 Deputies
  • Puerto Rican representatives: 11 Deputies

The opening of the Spanish Constituent Courts on February 11th 1869
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After the results were made public, and desiring a continuation with respect of the Provisional Government, Serrano maintained the Presidency of Government with the support of War Minister Juan Prim and the same composition as the Provisional Government, and a Constitutional Commission was formed, consisting on equal numbers of Progressive, Unionist and Democrat politicians and legislators, whose task would be to develop a new Constitution for the Kingdom of Spain.

 

[Milarqui]

Chapter I, Part V: The New Constitution

Fortunately for the people of Spain, the Constitutional Commission worked very fast and finished the text, of medium extension, in only three months: having been finished by the end of May, it was approved on June 1st by 214 Ayes, 55 Nays and several abstentions, and finally promulgated five days later by the Constituent Assembly in the name of the Spanish Nation that had chosen them as their representatives. The text would be further expanded with the addition of the Law of June 10th of 1870, related to the election of the King.

The Constituent Courts are finally opened in the Congress of Deputies
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As many would be able to read, the Spanish Constitution of 1869 drank from many sources to write down the most important matters: the Constitution of the United States of America gave it a broad declaration of rights and freedoms, the Belgian Constitution provided the role of the Crown in the new kingdom, and, above all, the historical 1812 Constitution, La Pepa, which had a general influence in the text.

The Constitution was a clearly democratic one, a declaration based on the recognition of national sovereignty based on male universal suffrage, as well as an advocacy of individual rights as natural rights, so any posterior legislation could only regulate the bad use of those rights. This stance was opposed by Isabeline politician Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, who stated that individual rights had to be regulated and limited through legislation to prevent social disorders and the violation of those rights.

A very harsh discussion was held around the religious question, the role religion would have in the new Spain. The first days of La Gloriosa had seen the demolition of many convents by the Revolutionary Juntas, and the Provisional Government had already ordered the closure of all monasteries and religious houses built after 1837 (the year of the 1837 Constitution, which established the obligation by the nation to maintain the Catholic cult and clergy as compensation for the land expropriations of 1836) and had banned the Jesuit Company from Spanish territory.

Despite the Spanish Catholic Church's efforts to get the new government to accept the Concordat of 1851, which established Spain's religious union and Catholic denomination, broad jurisdictional attributions and the compliance of the Catholic dogma in public education, among other privileges, the government was clear in that freedom of religion would be an inalienable right, and part of the Constitution. This led to the ironic situation of liberals supporting freedom of religion with religious arguments while conservatives supported religious union with political arguments.

In the end, to keep everybody content, the maintenance of Catholic cult and clergy was kept in the Constitution, while public and private exercise of all cults was allowed for both Spaniards and foreigners, and access to public office and acquisition and exercise of civil and political rights became independent of the religion professed by the Spaniards.

The political system would also gain a complete change, as separation of powers would become effective in order to turn Spain into an actual, effective parliamentary monarchy.

Legislative power would reside in the General Courts, which would be formed by two chambers, the Congress of Deputies and the Senate. Both would be elected through male universal suffrage, and among their attributions was the control of the government's actions. Congress would be voted in every three years through direct suffrage, with each deputy representing a district, while the Senate would be chosen through indirect suffrage, would represent local interests and only a fourth of it would be renewed every three years (so one Senator would hold its position for twelve years) unless the King ordered a renovation. Although both chambers were supposedly equal in functions, Congress would be the most powerful one, as they would be the ones to approve projects of law, taxes and many others, although several other powers were reserved to the Senate to make up for this.

Executive power would, theoretically, reside in the Crown and King, but, as the person of the King was inviolable and legal non-responsibility, executive power would in practice be held by the Government, who would exercise it through the ratification system. The King would also have the power to freely appoint and dismiss his ministers (although this still required the confidence of the Courts), to call and suspend the Courts, the sanction and promulgation of laws and the legal authority and competences concerning the executive power, as well as the classical attributions of a Head of State.

Judicial power would finally become independent from the government and responsible before the law, reinforcing its members' independence through competitive examinations in the judicial career – although the King still had the power, with the approval of the Council of State, to appoint no more than a fourth of the judges of the Courts and the Supreme Court without them having to pass through examinations. Judge by jury was established for all political crimes and those crimes determined by common law. It also advocated the union of codes of law – save for the now limited military and ecclesiastical jurisdictions – which had yet to be finished from the first attempts in the Cádiz Courts.

It was also established that towns' and province's interests would correspond to the respective councils; that, after the deputies from Cuba and Puerto Rico took their seats, the government system in both islands would be reformed, and that a similar reform would be undertaken in the Philippines and the rest of the Spanish Pacific Islands.

Promulgation of the Spanish Constitution of 1869
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Now that the Constitution – the most advanced in all of Europe until then – had been promulgated, Serrano gave the Presidency of Government to Prim to become Regent of the Kingdom of Spain in June 18th. Meanwhile, Prim named a new government, formed by equal numbers of Unionists and Progressives in order to keep the coalition united, and started the difficult task that might consolidate or sink the newly formed Spanish democracy: the search for an adequate King for Spain.

THE END OF CHAPTER ONE

I hope that you liked this. If you have read the original version, you will see that this is basically the same, although I hope that you liked it. Hope to post next chapter soon. Don't forget to write your opinions!
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[Milarqui]

Now.

Chapter II: General Serrano's Regency:​

Chapter II, Part I: The Initial Problems

Serrano's appointment as the Regent of the Kingdom of Spain, and thus Head of State of the Spanish Nation until such a time that the King of Spain was finally found, was something that satisfied most everyone in the government: Serrano now found that his political ambitions had been, at least temporarily, satisfied, as being the Regent meant holding the country's highest institutional position, and, at the same time, it calmed the monarchical Democrats, who had feared that either Serrano or Prim might decide to throw it all to the wind and become worse tyrants than Isabel had been, as Serrano's position meant he lacked any actual troop command.

Unfortunately, there several problems and frictions within the Government Coalition and within the Progressive Party, divided between those led by Práxedes Mateo Sagasta who believed that reforms should now end and supported some of Cánovas del Castillo's ideas for a monarchical nation where individual rights were legislated, and those led by Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla (the Radicals) who supported the continuation of reforms, the non-legislation of individual rights and the transitional nature of the new monarchy towards a Republic. Trying to bring the balance of the Government Coalition within the Government proper, President Prim, who intended to keep the Progressives as the central party between the Unionists and the Democrats decided to replace Lorenzana and López de Ayala as Ministers of Home Affairs and Overseas with Democrats Cristino Martos and Manuel Becerra in July 1869, a move that earned him the Unionists' suspicions.

Manuel Becerra, new Minister of Overseas; Práxedes Mateo Sagasta, Minister of Governance; and Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla, Minister of Public Works
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Of course, many in the Courts claimed that this was not the time to start reshuffling the government, but of looking for the new King of Spain. Now that things within the government had, at least partially, calmed down, Prim agreed to that, and accepted the Courts' choice for the members of the commission that would be in charge of determining and controlling the Government's actions. However, this was not of much help, because, as some comic strip drawers joked, the Commission had ten candidates and nine members.

The first candidate to be considered was Antoine d'Orléans, Duke of Montpensier, who had partially financed the revolutionary cause. Unfortunately for him, despite the support of part of the Unión Liberal, among them Navy Minister Topete, Prim and many others immediately rejected him because of his kinship ties to the recently dethroned Bourbons, both by marriage to Isabel II's younger sister and by blood (as he was part of the Borbon-Orléans dynasty), as well as the fact that he had not returned to Spain from his exile in Lisbon until the revolution triumphed, despite his presence being required as General Captain of the Spanish Army.

Other potential candidates considered from Spanish dynasties were the eternal Carlist pretender Carlos María de Borbón y Austria-Este, the one naturally preferred by the Carlists and the Catholic fundamentalists, who called him Carlos VII following the the Carlist line of succession, and Prince Alfonso de Borbón, son of Isabel II. Both were, naturally, rejected by the government, the former because he would never accept being a king without any actual power (in the words of Carlos de Borbón himself, I did not fight for my rights only to become the puppet of the Parliament) and the latter because he would be clearly influenced by his mother and those who had been at the former Queen's side.

The Carlist pretender, Carlos María de Borbón y Austria-Este, and young Prince Alfonso de Borbón
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Thus, it became clear that perhaps it might be better to start looking for other candidates out of Spain. Portugal, being the nearest nation, was the first place where a potential candidate was looked for and found: former Portuguese king Fernando de Coburgo, admired for his political impartiality and his already great experience in the matter, as he had been Consort King of Maria II and then Regent for his son Pedro V, who died without issue and was succeeded by his brother Luís I. His candidacy was supported by those who believed in the idea of an united Iberia, like Republican Nicolás Salmerón, but Fernando rejected it: he disliked the idea of unifying the Spanish and Portuguese crowns against the will of the people, he knew that such an attempt would immediately bring an answer from the British and, probably, the French government, and he had just married with opera singer Elisa Hensler, with whom he wished to have a quiet life, away from institutional roles.

Former King Fernando de Coburgo and his second wife, Elisa Hensler
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Fernando's rejection meant that the search was continued, and the commission's eyes were cast at Italy, which had very recently been nearly unified by the Savoia dynasty. Two members of the family were sounded out: Amedeo di Savoia, second son of Italian king Vittorio Emmanuele II, and Tomasso Alberto di Savoia, Duke of Genoa. Amedeo, although somewhat tempted by the idea, rejected the throne, because the instability Spain had shown in the last decades made him wary of becoming the king of Spain: in everyone's mind was Maximilian I, Emperor of Mexico at France's behest, who had ended up shot by the Republicans when the Mexican Civil War ended. Meanwhile, the 13-year-old Duke of Genoa's candidacy was initially accepted by the Courts for 128 votes in favor and 52 against, and supported by the Duke of Montpensier as long as the pretender married one of his daughters, hoping to be able to have influence on the young man. However, in the end Tomasso's mother and the Italian government gave a refusal, arguing the Spanish instability as well, although some thought it could be revenge for Isabel's support of the Papal States in 1848 and the promises to Napoleon III to send Spanish troops to defend the Latium, the last territories held by the Pope.

Prince Amedeo di Savoia and Tomasso Alberto di Savoia, Duke of Genoa
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The search for the new king constrained even more the political situation, especially in the aftermath of the Duke of Genoa's rejection, because Ruiz Zorrilla started to support the possibility of starting what he called a Liberal Dictatorship, in order to develop the newest aspects of the 1869 Constitution without waiting for the new King and without Unionist support. The intra-coalition division was fostered by Treasury Minister Laureano Figuerola's economical plans, who wished to establish a free trade plan to foment industrial and commercial growth with the elimination of tariffs, but this plan was opposed by the Unionists, the Radical Progressives and the protectionist Progressives, the latter of which wished to support the Catalan industries.

Treasury Minister Laureano Figuerola and one of the first 1 Peseta coins issued by the Provisional Government
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The search for the new king was further complicated when, on March 12th 1870, the Duke of Montpensier dueled and killed Infante Enrique de Borbón, brother of former Consort King Francisco de Asís de Borbón and another rejected candidate for the crown. Montpensier was exiled because of this assassination, and thus his hopes to become the King of Spain were shattered.

Deceased Infante Enrique de Borbón, Duke of Seville
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Some deputies, angry with the failures at finding a good King for Spain, suggested that the crown was given, not to a foreign prince, but to an actual Spanish hero. Thus, Juan Prim and Pascual Madoz wrote a letter to now retired General Baldomero Fernández Espartero, who had been Regent for Isabel II and was a hero among the lower and middle classes. His advanced age and lack of issue made him the favorite candidate of the Radical Progressives and the Republicans, because, after his death, the probability of Spain becoming a Republic was a greater one. However, the general declined the offer, arguing that he had chosen to retire from politics after the events of 1856, and he did not want to leave neither his ailing wife nor his beloved Logroño.

Retired General Joaquín Baldomero Fernández-Espartero Álvarez de Toro, former leader of the Progressive Party and Spanish war hero
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Due to the string of failures, the ravages from the bloody Cuban guerrilla war and the brutal repression of a Carlist uprising and a Federal Republican insurrection that had brought furious criticizing by the Republican and Democrat deputies, the Liberal Union tried to pass a motion of no confidence against Prim on May 19th, but Prim survived the motion thanks to the support of his party and the Democrats.

Meanwhile, the Radicals in the Government (among them Ruiz Zorrilla, who had been Minister of Public Works until July 1869, when he was shuffled to Justice, and then in January 1870 he became President of the Courts) had started a labor that wished to modernize Spain through their advanced policies: they approved liberty of professorship, the secularization of Spain (civil marriage was legalized), the liberalization of the market and several administrative and judicial reforms. These measures, although approved by the Courts, were constantly rejected by the Isabeline nostalgic deputies and the Carlists, as well as arousing distrust in the conservative sectors of the Liberal Union and the Progressive Party.

The search of a king continued unabated, although unsuccessful (Prim himself would famously state Finding a democrat king in Europe is harder than finding an atheist in Heaven!), which was strengthening the Republican position. Prim tried to win them by offering Emilio Castelar and Francisco Pi y Margall the positions of Minister of Treasury and Public Works, but both of them rejected the offer, believing that soon the monarchical regime would fail and Prim would have no other choice than to accept the proclamation of a Spanish Republic.

Having failed in Southern Europe, the commission started to look for potential candidates in Central Europe. There were many possibilities initially in there, due to the many political changes the last years had brought, but the requirements placed by Prim's government (that the candidate was Catholic, that he accepted to swear allegiance to the 1869 Constitution and that he did not meddle in the Spanish political life beyond his constitutional duties) ruled out many candidates: the Habsburg dynasty that ruled in Austria, although it had ties with the monarchs that had preceded the Bourbons, was rejected because of their traditionalism and Neo-Catholicism, especially that of the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph I; the Wittelsbach dynasty of Bavaria was also rejected, but this time due to the congenital madness most of its members suffered; and the Prussian Hohenzollerns, who, although seen as perfect thanks to the titanic job they had done in the last years by turning Prussia into Europe's emergent great power, mostly thanks to Chancellor Otto von Bismarck's negotiations, and slowly managing to unify all of Germany in one sovereign state, were not desired due to the fact that they were Protestants.

Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria, and Ludwig II of Bavaria
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All of this seemed to corroborate President Prim's statement, but then, on June 21st 1870, an agent of the Spanish government in Berlin informed through telegraph of the existence of a candidate that would be perfect for the Spanish Crown.

 

[Milarqui]

Chapter II, Part II: The Prussian Candidate

The agent was a former member of the Spanish diplomatic mission in Berlin, Eusebio Salazar y Mazarredo, who had also been Deputy to Courts. Being a part of the conspiracy to topple Isabel II nearly from the start, Salazar had been, even then, projecting what he considered the perfect candidacy for the post-revolutionary Spanish throne. In summer of 1866, two years before La Gloriosa started, he met with Baron von Werthern, the Prussian ambassador to France, in the summer resort of Biarritz, where many dignitaries and rich people of the time went (the choice was not random: one of Biarritz most faithful visitors was Chancellor Bismarck, and Salazar had hoped to meet the Chancellor there) for a lunch meeting. Salazar introduced the subject of the possibility of the Spanish throne becoming vacant for any reason, and asked the Baron what was his opinion. The Prussian ambassador answered that, if that were to happen, and in his personal opinion, the best candidate for the Spanish throne was Leopold zu Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.

Eusebio Salazar y Mazarredo, the architect of Leopold's candidacy
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The Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was a Hohenzollern branch that, in the 16th Century, had planted its dominion in the region of Swabia, and had ceded their rights to their Prussian relatives after the 1848 Revolution. Karl Anton zu Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Leopold's father, had been Prussian Chancellor between 1858 and 1862, Leopold was an officer in the Prussian Army, and Karl, Leopold's younger brother, had become King of Romania in 1866 under the name of Carol I. Thus, it could not be argued that Leopold's chances did not lack precedents.

Prince Karl Anton zu Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen and his second son, King Carol I of Romania
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Besides, Leopold had several characteristics that made the idea of his becoming the King of Spain even more attractive. Most important of all, Leopold was Catholic, like his whole family, for the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen had remained faithful to Catholicism after the Protestant Reform; he was a very educated man, of great intelligence, who would surely be a great support in improving Spain; his personal fortune was among the most considerable in the continent; he was married to Portuguese Infanta Antónia de Saxe-Coburgo-Gota e Bragança, Portuguese King Luís I's sister, so that could give him the support of those that looked for a candidate that unified Spain and Portugal, and his succession was secured thanks to his sons Wilhelm (born in 1864) and Ferdinand (born in 1865), as well as, shortly after La Gloriosa's triumph, a third son, Karl Anton.

Prince Leopold zu Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, candidate to the Crown of Spain, and his wife Antónia de Saxe-Coburgo-Gota e Bragança
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Along 1869, Salazar, with the official support of the Spanish ambassador in Berlin, Count Juan Antonio Rascón, worked greatly in order to inform Bismarck of his suggestion and to win the Chancellor's support for the candidacy. Rumours of Salazar's schemes appeared in several corners in Europe, prompting newspapers to ask about them, but the protagonists managed to fake ignorance of the matter while vital contacts were developed. One of these contacts was a secret visit of President Prim to Prince Karl Anton's house, in order to propose him his son's candidacy. The candidate himself and Prussian King Wilhelm I had several doubts about this, due to both Spain's internal politics and the pro-coup philosophy developed in the Spanish Army, but the candidacy gained a great support in Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.

Count Juan Antonio Rascón, Spain's Ambassador to Prussia, and Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck
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At first sight, it seemed that Bismarck was indifferent towards the idea, in spite of his liking of the Spanish Ambassador, but his closest confidants could see that he was excited by the idea of not only gaining another ally in Europe, but also of helping to produce German unification: Bismarck was sure that the affair could be used to attract France into a war with Prussia, a war that would surely be won by Prussia. He decided that the best way to go was to wear down Wilhelm I's and Leopold's reluctance.

With that objective in mind, Bismarck managed to convince Wilhelm I and Prince Karl Anton to organize a private dinner, which would be attended by the Prussian government, General Helmuth von Moltke, Prince Leopold, the Prussian King and his son and heir, Kronprinz Friedrich. During the dinner, Leopold's candidacy was floated by Bismarck, and most of those present were in favor of it, as it would gain them France's southern neighbour as an ally. Only the King and the Kronprinz remained unconvinced, while Leopold remained ambiguous awaiting the King's settlement. That settlement would come soon after, thanks to Bismarck's sibylline pressures to convince the King, the Kronprinz and Leopold of the great opportunities the latter's accession to the Spanish throne would generate for Prussia.

From left to right: King Wilhelm I of Prussia, Kronprinz Friedrich Wilhelm and General Helmuth von Moltke
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Salazar then notified through telegraph to Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla, the President of the Courts, that he would arrive to Madrid with Leopold's acceptance of his candidacy and Wilhelm I's approval on July 6th (*), right in time to present it before the Courts, whose members were restlessly awaiting for the end of the parliamentary session period. At the same time, many secret agents of Bismarck's maximum confidence entered Spain, in order to join the agents that were already in place, in order to help the candidacy's success.

(*): This is the Point of Divergence. Leopold had accepted his candidacy, and Eusebio Salazar had sent the telegram. The Divergence happened when, by a strange and trascendental transmission mistake, the telegram received by Ruiz Zorrilla stated that Salazar would arrive on July 26th. With this information on hand, Ruiz Zorrilla decided that he could not keep the Deputies waiting for eighteen more days, especially since July 8th had been declared the last day of parliamentary sessions, and thus sent them away earlier. The delay meant that, in the meeting between French Ambassador Mercier de L'Ostende and Ruiz Zorrilla, the latter talked about Leopold, and the Ambassador notified his government. The French government's answer would eventually become the catalyst for the start of the Franco-Prussian war.

 

[Milarqui]

Chapter II, Part III: French Meddlings... ¿or not?

The Prussians were not the only ones that were spying what was going on in Spain. Among the most interested ones were the French, especially Emperor Napoleon III, who had looked at Isabel II's overthrow with a mix of interest, distrust and worry, so he had sent more agents than ever in order to be the first to know (and, thus, to be able to manipulate) what was happening in Spain.

Emperor Napoleon III of France, and his wife, Spanish-born Eugénie de Montijo
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This was not the first time France had done this. In fact, this would be but the last in the interventions France had carried out in Spain in the last decades. The most notorious, recent examples were the invasion of the Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis, who had invaded Spain in 1823 to end the constitutional experience started three years before by Liutenant Colonel Rafael de Riego and reestablish Fernando VII's absolutism, and their meddling in Isabel II's marriage in 1846, preventing the young queen from marrying Leopoldo de Coburgo, Fernando de Coburgo's younger brother, who was the British preferred candidate.

However, this time there was a great difference with previous French interventions. For starters, this time France was diplomatically isolated due to the many mistakes of Imperial France's foreign policy: French support for the Polish rebellion in 1863 had broken the alliance with Russia; lack of French support to Austria during the Seven Weeks War against Prussia offended the Habsburg; French defense of the Pope so that he could keep the Latium had greatly angered the previously friendly Italians, who had given them their Savoy and Nice possessions, after two popular referendums, in 1860; France was also seen from Istanbul as a vulture that encouraged the Ottoman Empire's disintegration through their help to the Egyptians (who showed their gratefulness by giving permission for the construction of the Suez Canal, which was inaugurated in 1869 by Eugenia de Montijo, the Spanish-born Empress) and the Greek, to keep all of their colonies; and, in the New World, the United States of America didn't forget neither the Imperial venture in Mexico nor the tentative support Napoleon III had given the Confederates during the American Civil War. By the year 1868, there were only two European nations that could be said to be amicable towards France: Isabel II's Spain, and Victoria I's United Kingdom.

Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
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Unfortunately, the United Kingdom maintained a policy of neutrality in most continental affairs, and they did not trust Napoleon III, after French pretensions to annex Belgium and Luxembourg were made public by Bismarck, and Spain was a great unknown factor due to the unexpected revolution of September 1868.

From his personal point of view, Napoleon was opposed to the possibility of Montpensier accessing the Spanish throne, whether it was directly or through his wife. Such accession could destabilize Napoleon III's internal power in France, as the Duke was one potential candidate to the French crown since he was the tenth son of Louis-Philippe I, whom Napoleon had overthrown in 1848, and his crowning as King of Spain could provoke the reemergence of the Orléanist movement.

Napoleon III's agents were the first, after the Portuguese, to hear about Fernando de Coburgo's possible candidacy. This was one Napoleon III supported, because he thought that, if he did it from its infancy, the resulting Iberian nation would become a French ally. However, Fernando's rejection was a setback for his plans and prospects.

The rumors of the Prussian candidacy were also heard in Paris, but these rumors only reached the City of Lights through the newspapers, as the Spanish and Prussian governments were denying even that any contacts existed. Both groups knew that France would be completely opposed to it, and that a French threat of war might set back all of Bismarck's efforts to convince Leopold and the Prussian King of the worthiness of the idea. On the Spanish side, it helped that France had treated Spain like dirt for many years, as well as Napoleon III's support of the Bourbon monarchy, either for Isabel II or for her son Alfonso, to whom the Queen was willing to transfer her dynastic rights due to the advice of the Isabeline monarchists. These circumstances meant that it was absolutely forbidden for anything about the secret negotiations to reach Paris. It was this, and the great disinformation effort done by the Prussian agents in Madrid, that undermined all French efforts to know the results of the search for the new King of Spain.

Mercier de L'Ostende, French Ambassador to Spain
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In a triumph of French diplomacy, the French ambassador in Madrid, Mercier de L'Ostende, managed to arrange a private dinner with President of the Courts Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla on June 4th. Dinner took place normally, with both politicians talking about trivial affairs, and when the ambassador thought the way was prepared, L'Ostende pounced on the matter as if he was a tiger pouncing on its prey. There are many accounts of what could have happened during that dinner, but the best one that could be determined was, perhaps, Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla's own account of the encounter in his autobiography, “From El Burgo de Osma to San Jerónimo”:

We had just reached the desserts when L'Ostende asked, as if he was speaking about the weather:

“How is President Prim? It is my supposition that the search for your new King must have been very bad for him. Am I right?”

“You are correct,” I answered, my wariness increasing. “I met him this morning, and he was still working on a great number of matters that had his complete attention.”

“Tell me, did he find an answer to this problem of yours?”

I resisted my nearly unconscious response of raising an eyebrow. I had known, from the moment L'Ostende had sent the petition for this encounter, that the meeting would be neither of pleasure nor of diplomacy, but an attempt to gain information. However, the Ambassador's audacity surprised me. Whomever had taught him the art of interrogation was clearly not versed in the art.

“There are... several candidates, and we hope that one of them will be of the liking of both the members of Congress and the Spanish population.” I slightly stressed the word Spanish, because I wanted to let L'Ostende know in a subtle way that we did not care about the French people's opinion.

“Such as...Montpensier, perhaps?” L'Ostende asked, in an apparent jovial tone.

I snorted. It was unavoidable.

“Monsieur Ambassador, believe me when I tell you that we did not expel Queen Isabel only to put her sister and brother-in-law in the throne. He is a buffoon, an idiot, and the most he will receive from Congress will be a few votes from his staunchest supporters in the Liberal Union. Of which there are very few, let me tell you.”

“Surely, there must be a candidate Presidente Prim prefers over the others. After all, you are a member of his Government, as well as a man of his greatest confidence.”

L'Ostende's audacity was slowly becoming an annoyance. In retrospect, I suppose that this was what he had been taught to do: if you want to get answers out of someone that does not want to give them, annoy them until they speak, even if it is to make you shut up.

I nearly told him about the Prussian candidate, Leopold. However, I stopped myself from doing so, thankfully remembering on time that any word of that candidacy would result in its end, death and burial: its success would mean France would be surrounded by their enemies, as history proved soon enough. Then, I remembered that Prim had sent Madoz to Italy, in order to restart negotiations with the Italians. This was being done as a fallback precisely in case the French heard about Leopold, who was the favorite candidate of, not only Prim, but most of the government. So I chose that as a way to misdirect L'Ostende.

“Yes, there... might be someone,” I said, slowly. It was a conscious attempt on my part: any apparent reluctance in stating who was Prim's favored candidate meant that L'Ostende would be more pliable to believe me.

“Who it is?”

“Well, it is someone who said no before, but we are restarting the negotiations with him, and we are hopeful that he might say yes. It's... Prince Amadeo de Savoya, the Italian prince. The President certainly likes him.”

It was not a lie: Prim had liked Amadeo, and that was the reason why Madoz had traveled to Italy. But it was not the whole truth, either: while we hoped that he may affirm his will to become King, we expected that negotiations would end very soon, when the first voting went on.

Fortunately, L'Ostende was satisfied. Conversation turned to more pleasing matters, and soon after we finished desserts he left for his home.

Little did we know that, soon, this gentle relationship would turn as bitter as hemlock.

The morning after their encounter, Ambassador L'Ostende went to the nearest telegraph station and communicated to the French Government and Emperor what he had found: Montpensier had no chance. None whatsoever. No mention of the Prussians who were apparently not even being considered. The favored, and most probable candidate, was Amedeo di Savoia, the Italian Prince.

 

[Milarqui]

Chapter II, Part IV: The Voting

The day after L'Ostende sent his telegram, July 6th, Eugenio Salazar y Mazarredo arrived to Madrid, carrying with him Prince Leopold's acceptance of his candidacy to the throne of Spain. Being adverted of his arrival, Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla convened an extraordinary session of the Courts for the following day. The only matter to be debated would be who would become the new holder of the Spanish crown.

The debate lasted several hours, and some angry discussions were held, but peace among the deputies was held, and Salazar's presentation of Leopold's signed acceptance was met with great applause on part of many deputies. At five PM, after a two-hour recess ordered by the President of the Courts, a voting was finally held, and the results, out of 381 Deputies, were these:

• Prussian Prince Leopold zu Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen: 210
• Proclamation of a Federal Republic: 76
• Carlos María de Borbón y Austria-Este: 20
• Antoine d'Orléans, Duke of Montpensier: 13
• Alfonso de Borbón y Borbón, Prince of Asturias: 11
• General Baldomero Fernández Espartero: 8
• Infanta Luisa Fernanda de Borbón, Duchess of Montpensier: 2
• Proclamation of an Unitary Republic: 1
• Null or none of the above: 5
• Absent: 35, including 18 from Cuba and 11 from Puerto Rico

When the result of the voting became know, the President of the Courts, Radical Manuel Zorrilla, solemnly declared Queda elegido, como Rey de la Nación Española, el señor Leopoldo de Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (It has been agreed that the new King of the Spanish Nation is Leopold zu Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen) in the middle of a thunderous ovation in the chamber of the Palace of the Courts in the Carrera de San Jerónimo, Madrid.

The next morning, July 8th 1870, all Spanish newspapers had in their front page grand titles, stating the proclamation of the Prussian candidate as new King of Spain. Most Spanish people were excited at said proclamation and about their new King, whom many newspapers compared with the man who had created the Spanish Empire, Emperor Carlos I of Spain (and V of Germany), and said that Leopold would bring new greatness to Spain, just like Carlos I had done in his time.

However, this explosion of popular joy did not prevent some jokes to appear about the King's surname, which many found difficult to pronounce, and soon Leopold was nicknamed by the Spanish people as ¡Olé, olé si me eligen! (Olé, olé if I am chosen!), referencing as well how difficult it had been the search for the new king.

This nickname was soon acquired by those sectors that had opposed Leopold's election, among them the Carlists and Isabelines, who started to use it as a derogatory way to refer to Leopold. It would be those same sectors who would start to use the international consequences of this choice as ways to prevent the Prussian Prince from taking the Catholic Monarch's throne.

THIS IS THE END OF CHAPTER TWO

Hope that you liked this chapter! I'll try to get next chapter out there soon!
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[Milarqui]

Chapter III: The Hohenzollern War​

Chapter III, Part I: Casus Belli

As the Spanish government expected, the proclamation of Prince Leopold zu Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as the new King of Spain provoked many different reactions among the main nations of Europe.

Italy and Portugal welcomed the news with great relief. Both countries had been sounded out by Spain, and they hoped now that, with this announcement, Prim would stop pressuring them to get a member of their dynasties to accept the crown, in spite of the Portuguese Iberist supporters (one of which was the Duke of Saldanha, Portugal's Prime Minister) and of Vittorio Emanuele II's ambition to place his son Amedeo in the Spanish throne. They also hoped for Spain to become politically stable once more, as well as an improvement in their bilateral relations with Spain and its new King: the Portuguese Royal Family was related to Leopold's family twice over (besides Leopold's marriage to the current Portuguese king's sister, late Pedro V had married one of Leopold's younger sisters) and the Prussian Hohenzollerns had recently helped the Italians to gain the Veneto in the Seven Weeks War from an Imperial Austria that opposed the German and Italian unifications.

​

D. João Carlos de Saldanha Oliveira e Daun, Duke of Saldanha, and Vittorio Emanuele II, King of Italy
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In London, William Gladstone's government also saw this new development as a good thing. The stabilization of the Spanish democracy meant that now Spain could become a prosperous, liberal and capitalist nation that might become a great trade partner for the United Kingdom. It also was a way to reduce France's influence in Spain, which was too great since Louis Philippe I imposed the marriage of his son Antoine to Isabel II's sister.

William Ewart Gladstone, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
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Great support also came from the Balcanic nations that had recently rebelled against the Ottoman yoke, like Romania, where Leopold's brother reigned as Carol I. Meanwhile, the Scandinavian monarchies took these news as acceptable, although Denmark would have probably preferred that it were someone other than a Hohenzollern, after being defeated by Prussia and Austria during the Second Schleswig War of 1864.

This was not to happen everywhere in Europe: the absolutist regimes of Russia and Austria-Hungary were worried about the replacement of Queen Isabel II with a constitutional monarchy of democratic features led by a Hohenzollern, as they were more sympathetic to the Carlist rebels. The presence of a Hohenzollern especially worried Emperor Franz Joseph I, because the Austrian defeat in the Seven Weeks War had meant the loss of main German nation to Prussia.

There was little surprise, however, in that the greatest opposition in Europe came from the Second French Empire. Napoleon III felt the greatest indignation when the news reached the Tuileries Palace, because he had not been told about this through diplomatic means, nor had he been told about it by his ambassadors in Berlin or Madrid. No, he had read it in the press!

The Tuileries Palace, official residence of the French Imperial Family
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The French government was also surprised by the news: they had suspected that Spain might have made negotiations with several German princes, but they would have never guessed that the chosen one would have turned out to be one of the Prussian Hohenzollerns who were challenging France's predominance in Europe.

Once his angry rant had subsided, and he was able to think rationally, Napoleon III realized that this was even worse than what it looked like: if Leopold was crowned in the Royal Palace of Madrid, France would be surrounded by the Hohenzollerns, and his government would probably choose to declare war on Prussia to end the latter's continuous provocations, in spite of his personal opposition to a war that might destabilize his consolidation of the constitutional monarchy appeared after the recent referendum of May 8th. Thus, it was clear that France had to act now, in order to prevent worse things to happen.

Mercier de L'Ostende knew this as well, and when he received a telegram from Paris, ordering him to do anything in his hands to force the Spaniards to change their minds, he went to protest before President Prim, but Prim, perfectly knowing what the ambassador wanted to talk (or shout) about, he categorically refused to meet with him. L'Ostende would have to content himself with meeting with Home Affairs Minister Sagasta, who, although received him in conciliatory tones, finally lost any sympathy for him in a meeting that lasted a few minutes and whose minutes were never found. The version of the events held by historians as the most credible was, once more, that of the Spaniard in the meeting, Sagasta, who wrote about it in his memories:

That day had started calmly enough. I had started it with reviewing several documents related to the actions of the police, who had arrested a few gentlemen that had protested in a violent manner about our choice of King. I knew this would have happened, independently of who was chosen as the new King: at least, it had not brought outright riots.

I then picked some messages sent from Seville, speaking about the state of prisons in the region and requesting money to rebuild them to a better degree. I decided to write to Laureano about this when the door opened violently.

I raised my eyes, and saw Monsieur L'Ostende, the French ambassador, entering the office without asking for permission and really furious. Behind him ran Adolfo, my secretary, who seemed to be a bit dazed and was apologizing for not being able to advert me of L'Ostende's presence. I stood up and invited L'Ostende to take a seat, while I took Adolfo outside and told him that he had nothing to fear, since it was not his fault that L'Ostende was so angry, and to take some time off to calm down.

After closing the door, I returned to my seat and faced the ambassador. Despite his obvious anger, I did not step back, and instead tried to calm him down.

“What is it that brings you here, Monsieur Ambassador? It must be a very important matter for you to come here without even asking for a meeting,” I asked him as diplomatically as I could.

“Would you explain me what the hell this means, Sagasta?” L'Ostende asked angrily, dropping a newspaper over the table and hitting it with the palm of his hand. It was La Gaceta de Madrid, an issue from two days before, that proclaimed Leopold zu Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as the new King of Spain under the name of Leopold I.

“I would say that the article is quite clear. Spain has spoken through its representatives, and has made its choice about who it want as its King.”

“France will not tolerate this insult! We will never allow a Prussian to sit in the Throne of Spain!”

It was clear that nothing was going to stop L'Ostende in his attempt to do things his way, or rather, the way of Napoleon. However, he did not count on the fact that, this time, we would not step back.

“Monsieur, please, calm down, while I tell you the reasons why France has nothing to fear. In the first place, even if you dislike our king, at least he is not Montpensier, which I am quite sure His Imperial Majesty would have been horrified with. Our Constitution only gives the King a symbolic power, which I doubt he will be able to use to declare war on France, which Spain still regards as an ally. Finally, if I am not mistaken, His Imperial Majesty and our King are distant relatives through Joachim Murat, so, please, tell your government there is no need to get overexcited.”

“Believe me when I tell you that His Imperial Majesty would rather see that buffoon of Montpensier as your pathetic King before any Prussian in the world, whether he is kin or not!”

I am a patient man, but even I have my limits. And L'Ostende, with his arrogant attitude, had consumed most of my patience.

“Monsieur L'Ostende, you, your government and His Imperial Majesty may believe that Spain is France's playground, to do or undo at your wish, but that time is over. Spain has chosen its King, and we will not tolerate any more interferences in such an important affair. Please, leave, and advice your government to take things calmly before they reach the point of no return.”

If L'Ostende was angry before, now he seemed incensed. I have to say that, for a few seconds, I feared for my life.

“I have been allowed to tell you that, if Spain continues on this stubborn path and does not reject the Prussian, it will suffer the serious consequences of not following France's suggestions.”

At the moment, I thought that France had not only gone past the point of no return, but that it did not plan to find the way to go back. However, some time later I would learn that they were already planning to cut off the candidacy from its origin, but, fortunately, in the end it was not successful. Either way, I had to show L'Ostende that, in this matter, we cared not about their opinion and 'suggestions'.

“Let me tell you a bit about our common story. In 1808, the Emperor's uncle, Napoleon Bonaparte, thought the same as you, and invaded Spain to force us his brother Joseph as our King. Four years later, Joseph was out of Spain, Napoleon's empire was shattered, and his soldiers had already retreated from Spain and Russia. History tends to repeat itself, Monsieur Ambassador, so I can tell you without any problem that, if His Imperial Majesty orders an invasion of Spain, it will end up with his empire shattered, Napoleon III exiled to Cochinchina, and the Bonapartes finished forever. Now, please, leave this office.”

Without a word of goodbye, L'Ostende stood up and left. Independently of what the future brought to Spain, it was clear that the meeting, for good or bad, was the end of the friendship between Spain and France.

Right after the meeting, L'Ostende sent a telegram with a slightly edited summary of his meeting with Sagasta to Paris. There, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Duke Antoine de Gramont, took the telegram with him to an extraordinary meeting of the Corps Législatif, the lower chamber of the Napoleonic Parliament, and claimed that the interests and the honor of the great French nation were in danger if something was not done soon to prevent what they regarded as an insult to France. The day after, the main newspapers of the Gaulish nation showed in their first pages a message from the French government:

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.

Antoine Alfred Agénor, Duke of Gramont, French Minister of Foreign Affairs
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Of course, when other nations pointed out the hypocrisy of that statement, since France was doing exactly what they were accusing Prussia of, the French government paid no attention to them, only to the many people that were claiming on mass demonstrations for a war against Bismarck and Prim, for their “audacity” in not following the suggestions of the leading European nation.

The French position, apart from sparking the reappearance of the Republicans, who had remained quiet after the voting and were now demanding that all votes in favor of Leopold were declared null and that the second most popular option, the formation of a Federal Republic, was accepted and applied as soon as possible, it only helped to reinforce General Prim's resolve to bring Leopold to Spain. Prim, a fervent Spanish nationalist, had wanted to eliminate all foreign interference in Spain, especially the French influence, so one of the factors that had become part of the search for a King was that the candidate was one disliked by Napoleon III (the only exception to that was Fernando de Coburgo). His anti-French stance was influenced by many factors, among them Prim's personal experience: the general had led the Spanish expedition to Mexico, in collaboration with France and the United Kingdom, to force the Aztec nation to pay its debts. However, the French had taken advantage of the situation to attempt to place Maximilian of Habsburg as the Mexican Emperor, a move Prim never supported, getting his troops out of Mexico as soon as all debts to Spain were paid (a choice, undoubtedly, also influenced by Francisca Agüero, his Mexican-born wife, who had important contacts in the Republic of Mexico).

Thus, on a secret session of the Spanish courts celebrated on July 9th, Prim's government announced that a general mobilization would be decreed, in order to help prepare the defenses of the Spanish nation in the case that France declared war, bringing out the continuous French insults towards Spain as a way to rile them up and bring them to his position.

In Prussia, the French demands sparked the reemergence of Leopold's and King William's doubts about putting the former in the Spanish throne, since they were not very willing to go to war over it. Leopold even thought about the possibility of immediately renouncing to the Spanish throne in order to prevent a war with France. However, he was prevented from doing by Chancellor Bismarck. The Chancellor knew that Leopold's accession to the throne would mean taking a faithful ally from the vain French, and Bismarck intended to use this to needle the French into declaring war and eventually give the definite impulse to German unification, the last step in a road that started in 1864 after the victory in the Second Schleswig War, and continued with the Seven Weeks War of 1866, that had allowed the formation of the Northern German Federation in replacement of the German Confederation.

However, the southern Catholic states (Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden and Hesse) still distrusted Protestant Prussia and did not want to join the NGF, although they felt free from the Austrian imperialism that had dominated them since the Vienna Congress.

Bismarck needed France to be the aggressor in a potential Franco-Prussian War because he had signed secret defensive pacts with the four southern German states, and only a French attack would get the Catholic states to help. Besides, he also expected that their inhabitants, on whom the memories of the Napoleonic hordes' brutalities were still heavily weighing, would trigger a wave of popular Pan-Germanic euphoria after a victory in such a war, and the people would push for integration in Bismarck's project for German unification, independently of the individual rulers' feelings.

The French reaction had been the one Bismarck expected, which he was glad for. When it became clear that the Spanish government would not follow the request to drop Leopold and choose a more acceptable candidate, Gramont decided that the best way to end such claims was at its origin, Prussia. While the different Bourbon branches pressured the French government (the most vocal being Isabel II and Carlos María de Borbón) to intervene in their favor and place their own candidate in the Spanish throne, Gramont ordered the French Ambassador in Berlin, Count Vincent Benedetti, to speak with King Wilhelm I and get verbal and written guarantees that he would vet Leopold's candidacy to the Spanish throne and would never allow it, since, as King of Prussia, he had to give his permission for any of his subjects to accept foreign commitments.

Count Vincent Benedetti, French Ambassador to Prussia
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With this objective in mind, the French diplomat left for Bad Ems' spa, where the Prussian Royal Family was resting for the summer. On July 12th, the count met with Wilhelm I, told him that the only way to avoid war with France was for Leopold to renounce to the Spanish crown, and urged him to speak with his relative and convince him to change his opinion. Three days later, Prince Karl Anton told the Ambassador that his son, although he would have liked to become a good king for the Spanish people, he renounced the Spanish crown if that was the only way to avoid war. When they received the news, Bismarck and Count Rascón felt upset, but after speaking in a meeting on the 16th, they decided to wait for France's reaction and the eventual official answer by Wilhelm I before informing the Spanish government of the events, because there was yet a possibility of saving the candidacy. By awaiting, they struck gold.

The Prussian concessions, although they may have been enough in the past, now were insufficient for the French, who felt inflamed with the idea of a war with the upstart Prussians and had felt that the latter backing down was a let down. The more hawkish and anti-liberal elements of the Imperial government (led by Gramont and the Consort Empress, who were trying to raise the Emperor's falling popularity) decided that this was not enough and decided to push the Prussians even further, so 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 be taken up again. In case this was not enough, the French Minister of War, Marshal Edmond LeBoeuf, ordered a general mobilization of the French Imperial Army, for their deployment if there was war with Prussia.

Marshal Edmond Leboeuf, French Minister of War
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The next day, July 17th, the French ambassador, who had remained in the city of Bad Ems, met again with Wilhelm I and presented him the request from the government, but the old King answered that he had nothing else to say to the ambassador, as everything had been done already, and politely ended the meeting. That afternoon, Wilhelm I sent, through his diplomatic advisor Heinrich Abeken, a telegram retelling the encounter with Count Benedetti, to Chancellor Bismarck, who was in Berlin. 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 saw it as the thing that could finally provoke the French into declaring war, so he took his quill and wrote a communication in regards to the telegram. He did not transcribe it entirely, though: he condensed the telegram's text into a few words. Only then did he send it so that it could be published on the newspapers.

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.

The actual text, as sent by Abeken, was far longer, and contained things that would have changed everything if they had become known, but Bismarck had seen the chance and taken it by the horns: this telegram, which would be known by posterity as the Ems telegram, turned what had been a polite meeting between Wilhelm I and Count Benedetti into an arrogant order of the French ambassador and a blunt royal answer before the ambassador's offensive manners.

Memorial stone to the Ems Telegram in Bad Ems
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His genial maneuver had the rewards Bismarck anticipated: in Prussia, people were angry at the arrogance the French were displaying when treating with their emergent nation, and thus did not bat an eye when the Prussian order of mobilization was given on July 19th, while the French went volcanic. Upon receiving the news about the communication, Napoleon III, incensed, gave a blunt ultimatum to the Prussian government in which he demanded immediate apologies from the Prussian King and Government for the falsities stated in the telegram, and the conformation that a Prussian would not be allowed to be candidate to the Spanish crown, ever: the alternative was war, a war the French expected to win.

Other news also appeared in Spanish newspapers, mostly because their transcendence would only affect these people: the Carlist pretender, Carlos María de Borbón y Austria-Este, had managed to meet with Duke Gramont and had asked him to support an invasion of Spain in order to reestablish the absolutist monarchy around his person, which he promised would always be a faithful ally of France. In the end, however, Napoleon III decided to show his support for Alfonso, son of Isabel II (who had, just recently, renounced to her dynastic rights in her son's favor), both because of the great friendship between Empress Eugénie and the exiled queen (so great it was, they were already planning to join their families by marrying Napoleon Eugéne, the French heir, with one of Isabel II's daughters) and the personal and political affinities Napoleon had with young Alfonso. These two political moves, although they could have worked in other circumstances, instead caused far-reaching consequences that neither the Carlist pretender nor Alfonso could have guessed.

Of course, both the Prussian and the Spanish government rejected the French ultimatum: the Prussians were not going to stand down against what was described by Prussian newspapers as the second round of the Napoleonic invasions, while Spain was also encouraging the people by both keeping legitimizing Leopold's appointment as the King (since they had not been officially notified of Leopold's renounce to the throne, which Prim had classed as pure French lies) and reminding everyone of the heroic deeds 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 who had made the French invaders' lives an absolute hell, all to remind the people that the French could be beaten and would be beaten once more.

The French government, thinking that this was the end of the rope, issued, on July 20th 1870, a declaration of war against the Kingdoms of Prussia and Spain, with the objectives of teaching the Prussians a lesson on war, annexing the Rhineland and reestablish the Bourbon monarchy in Spain.

 

[Milarqui]

Chapter III, Part II: The War Preparations

Prussia's Reaction
Prussia's initial reaction, which was equal to Chancellor Bismarck's, was joy: the war with France would finally allow Prussia to show its political and military superiority over France, who would be put into its true place, and at the same time they would be gaining a faithful ally in Spain. This was formalized when, on July 21st, all Europe woke up to an official note, sent by the Prussian government, in which Prince Leopold definitely accepted the Crown of Spain and Wilhelm I showed his support. The note added that Leopold would travel to his new country as soon as the danger for both himself and his family ended, a danger cause by the French's cocky and defying attitude as the meddled in Spain's internal affairs. Of course, the note and the attitude displayed on it did nothing but anger the French even more, which suited Bismarck just fine.

The Prussian Armed Forces could already count on the support of the Catholic German states, which had declared war against France on the 21st, and they also had two unique elements that gave them certain advantages over the French: their recruiting system was based on universal military service, which meant a great number of potential soldiers, and the existence of a branch of the army called General Staff, which so far did not exist in other armed forces and which was exclusively dedicated to administration, logistics and planning. It was something that gave them a great advantage, as the Prussians would be better able to plan a fast and organized mobilization of the great number of troops that would be required for the war against France.

Thanks to their preparations, the Prussians had 1,200,000 soldiers ready for battle eighteen days after the mobilization order was given. Due to their numerical superiority, the Prussian higher echelons of the Army, led by General Moltke, made plans that would allow them to make use of the extensive German railway network and, at the same time, force the French into traps. In the first place, they would let the French troops enter in Germany (raising, at the same time, the Southern German nations' fear of French imperialism, which also played into Bismarck's plans) and then launch massive enveloping movements that would allow them to surround and destroy the enemy formations. These maneuvers would be facilitated by the Dreyse needle gun, which was the main infantry rifle used by the Prussian troops and which had played a decisive role in the Prussian victory in the Battle of Königgrätz in the Seven Weeks War, and the famed Krupp six-pound cannon, the Prussian artillery's most distinguished weapon due to its lethal power and its average 4,500 meters of range.

The Prussian Army's main weapons, the Dreyse needle gun and the Krupp six-pound cannon.
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With these strategies in hand, their main objective would be to, first, destroy all French troops that invaded German territory, and then enter into France, where a series of debilitating victories would allow them to reach, besiege and conquer Paris, with which they hoped to force the surrender of French authorities and their acceptance of German terms.

France's Reaction
The mood in France was a bit double-sided: on one side, they were finally going to hand Prussia the defeat they deserved, and reinforce France as the great power of Continental Europe, but, on the other side, it would be a war with two fronts very far away from each other. However, all worries were brushed away in the wave of nationalism and that hit the nation, especially after certain memorandums of the French Imperial Forces stated that defeating Spain, Prussia and its German allies in a two front war was, not only possible, but almost certain.

However, soon France realized that they were completely alone, due to Napoleon III's diplomatic mistakes: Belgium and Luxembourg had made it clear to them that they would send their armies to fight the Germans nor let the French pass through, as the memory of Napoleon's willingness to annex them both was still fresh; Portugal and Italy had stated their unwillingness to fight against Spain (which both nations wished to have better relationships with) and Prussia (which had helped Italy very recently), and Italy added the French support for the Pope as another reason not to help; Denmark had learned its lesson from 1864; Russia was too far away to act fast enough in this war; and the United Kingdom had reminded them that their actions were very much against the Quadruple Alliance of 1834, by which United Kingdom, France, Spain and Portugal would agree to work together to maintain stability in the Iberian Peninsula, and thus considered France would now have to sleep in the bed they had made.

In the end, the only ally Napoleon III could find was Austria-Hungary, and their support was conditioned to the support of the German Catholic states for France, something made impossible after the former declaration of war against the latter, and Austria-Hungary stated their neutrality on July 22nd. Ironically, Austria's declining prevented the entrance of the Russian Empire in the war... on the Prussian side: a secret pact between Prussia and Russia stated that both nations would be automatically allied to each other if Austria-Hungary were to ally with France at any moment.

The French Imperial Army was a professional army, formed by about 500,000 soldiers, most of which were battle-hardened veterans from the many wars France had been part of, or started, in the last decades: the Crimean War, the colonization of Algeria, the Second Italian War of Independence or the French Intervention in Mexico, among others. The number of soldiers could be at least doubled when adding the forces of the National Guard, a reserve corps created in 1866 during the military reorganization started after the end of the Seven Weeks War. There was also the French Foreign Legion, which could be counted on to protect the colonies, as well as helping to defend Metropolitan France if there was risk of invasion of the metropolis.

Two technical inventions that had been recently introduced in the French Armed Forces were heavily weighing 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.

The Chassepot rifle and the Reffye mitrailleuse, which were expected to help France gain victory.
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The French strategy was simple: in the German front, they would invade the Rhineland, take Saarbrücken and then advance to smash the German forces before they managed to group together and use their numerical superiority as an advantage, while the Spanish front would consist of following the path the Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis had taken in 1823 to restore Fernando VII's absolutist monarchy, entering Spain through the passes of La Junquera and Fuenterrabía and advancing in three corps, one along the northern coast, the second towards the south of Spain and the third along the Mediterranean coast.

Spain's Reaction
Spanish society saw, astonished, how the election of their new king had suddenly turned into an international crisis and a declaration of war by France. At first, the people of Spain had wanted to avoid war against their northern neighbors, whom they still held (although that feeling had diminished very fast) as their allies. However, when the news that Napoleon III intended to impose 12-year-old Alfonso, Isabel II's son, as the King of Spain, the Spanish exploded in a never seen wave of French-hating popular nationalism, an explosion that many would later compare to the one that sparked the Dos de Mayo and started the Peninsular War. General Prim's government, which had decreed high levels of conscription to face the Napoleonic menace for the second time in a century, did nothing to prevent this: instead, they did as much as possible to fan the flames as high as possible, reminding the people of the innumerable French affronts to the Motherland, like their support for the hated Bourbons, their constant interventions in Spain and their blocking Spanish attempts to recover its rightful place in the world, like their pressure to force Spain to sign the Wad-Ras Treaty to establish peace with Morocco, a peace that gave Spain much less than what it deserved after the smashing victories its armies had gained (Prim conveniently “forgot” that the greatest pressure had come from the United Kingdom, not France).

Unfortunately, the war was but the last in a series of events that were preventing Prim from implementing his plan for the elimination of the unfair recruitment system of quintas (by which one out of every five men had to serve in the army, but that could be avoided by paying a certain price, which only the high-class families were able to pay) and replace it with a professional army similar to the one used by the United Kingdom and France. However, the ugly situation of the Spanish treasury and the revolts and rebellions had forced Prim to maintain conscription. The disproportionate number of officers in the army (a trend started after the First Carlist War, when the Vergara Embrace allowed the Carlist officers that accepted Isabella II to join the Royal Army with the same rank they held in the Carlist Army) and the lack of experience in foreign conflicts (save for a few honorable exceptions, such as the African War, the brief re-annexation of Santo Domingo and the First Pacific War) had weighed down on the Armed Forces and prevented their modernization. This was fortunately compensated by the construction of a powerful navy (the fourth in the world) and the use of the Berdan Rifle (a weapon between the Dreyse needle gun and the Chassepot in terms of quality) since 1867 as the Army's regulated weapon.

The Spanish Army main infantry weapon, the Berdan rifle.
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These, however, did not mean the Spanish Army should be underestimated: the hard situation, with limited economic and material resources, was balanced with how, with a little motivation, the Spanish soldiers became fearsome fighters, something that the French learned themselves during the Peninsular War.

All sides thought that Spain's role and military strategy would be only defensive, using their limited forces to prevent the entrance of French troops into Spanish territory, as they awaited for the development of events in the French-German frontline. However, things would be a bit different than what everybody expected.

 

[Milarqui]

Chapter III, Part III: Deployment

The French Plans
The French initial plans were quite ambitious, and had much promise and potential, if they managed to reach their objectives. An army formed by 350,000 soldiers would be deployed between Metz and Strasbourg and personally led by Napoleon III himself, although he would be assisted in the task of directing the army by Marshals Patrice de MacMahon and François Bazaine. Meanwhile, 150,000 soldiers would be deployed near the Pyrenées, with half of each assembled before the two only border crossings that could be used by large numbers of people at the same time: one of them would be deployed in Bayonne (western Pyrenees) and cross into the Vascongadas through Fuenterrabía, and would be led by Marshal François Certain de Canrobert, while the second army, led by General Louis Jules Trochu, would be deployed in Perpignan and enter Catalonia through La Junquera. All armies were also awaiting for the complete mobilization of the National Guard, which would allow them to increase their numbers.

From left to right: Marshals Patrice de MacMahon, François Bazain and François Certain de Canrobert and General Louis Jules Trochu
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The French mobilization was chaotic: the order of mobilization was just four days old when the declaration of war had been given, and the troops were still scattered throughout the nation, so there was a rush of movement of troops across France as they attempted to assemble the required troops in both fronts, which was doubly done in the case of Germany, as every day the attack against them was delayed was a day that they had to prepare themselves for battle. The rushing, however, contributed even more to the chaos, as many troops would arrive to their destinations without the required equipment (there were some soldiers who had not even been given their uniforms) while other soldiers remained in the different train stations due to delays.

Another important factor in the French deployment was that most officers had served in Algeria. This influenced much in the command method, because the army in Algeria had suffered constant ambushes. The French armies would thus establish lines of defensive fortresses between Metz and Strasbourg (especially to keep the control over the Lorraine region's coal deposits, which were important for the industries and the Navy) while the same was done in the cities near the Pyrenees border crossings. In this task, they were helped by some Spanish military officers that had been exiled with Isabel II, such as the Marquis of Novaliches (the defeated general in the Battle of Alcolea) and the Marquis of La Habana (who had replaced González Bravo as head of government in the few days between his resignation following La Gloriosa and Serrano's arrival to Madrid).

José Gutiérrez de la Concha, Marquis of La Habana​

The French Navy (or the part of it that was still anchored near France, as many were protecting the French fishermen near Newfoundland) would be tasked with blocking the North German coast, as the small Norddeutsche Bundesmarine could do little to oppose it, as well as protecting the French coast from the Spanish Navy. Further plans for the future, such as the potential bombardment of Spanish ports like Barcelona, Bilbao, La Coruña, Cartagena or Cádiz, or a seaborne invasion of Germany, were also developed, but many felt they would not been necessary.

The Prussian Ploys
Only General Helmuth von Moltke would have guessed that, eighteen days after Kronprinz Friedrich Wilhelm read the mobilization order to the crowd gathered in Postdam on July 19th, there would be already 1,200,000 soldiers ready to battle, and 475,000 of them already deployed on the border. The monumental task of arranging such mobilization without problems had been up to the collaboration between the General Staff Communication Department and a civilian-military committee, which worked together to secure the railways in war times. The high number of soldiers and supplies being moved around meant several problems of transport for the Germans, but thanks to the efforts of the GSCD, the committee and General Moltke's own concern about the matter meant that these problems never became as serious as the ones suffered by the French.

The German forces would be separated in three great armies, led by General Karl Friedrich von Steinmetz, Prince Frederick Charles and the Kronprinz. These armies would travel together and start to disperse after 300 kilometers, to then be separated as they met different mountain ranges. The troop disposition would allow the Germans to lead the French into their own territory, and then use their advantageous positions to cut them off from France, surround them and finally destroy them. The resulting victory would then allow for a counterinvasion of France, which would give them the chance to strike further into enemy territory.

General Karl Friedrich von Steinmetz and Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia
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The Spanish Daring
Around the same time the German troops were being deployed near the border with France, the 200,000 soldiers Prim had managed to mobilize were already near the two border crossings. General Prim himself, after temporarily delegating the Presidency of the Government to Minister Sagasta, took command of the troops that would defend the La Junquera crossing, while he was covered from the coast by a squadron led by Admiral Topete, who, despite his previous support for the Duke of Montpensier, volunteered to defend his nation and his new King.

The border crossing of Fuenterrabía would, meanwhile, be protected by troops led by Regent Francisco Serrano and placed in the Vascongadas. Their main maritime support would be the squadron led by Admiral Luis Hernández-Pinzón. There would also be another group that had decided to throw its hat in the defense of Spain: several groups of Carlists requetés. The news that Carlos VII, the man they regarded as the legitimate king, had supported the invasion of Spain and asked Napoleon III to support him to reestablish the Ancien Régime in Spain, had divided Carlism in twine. The majority compared Carlos VII's actions with the humiliating Bayonne Abdications, which had seen Carlos IV and Fernando VII abdicate in the person of Napoleon Bonaparte, and decided to side with the legitimate government they had tried to topple just several months ago, and one of Carlism greatest leaders, veteran General Ramón Cabrera, publicly declared from London “We prefer to serve the foreigner loyal to Spain before the traitor and afrancesado [1] Spaniard [2],” a sentence that gained him some popularity in Spain.

Admiral Luis Hernández-Pinzón and Carlist General Ramón Cabrera y Griñó
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Other important factor would be the Spanish Royal Navy, which had just acquired several armored frigates and was in great shape: its main missions, besides supporting the troops' defense of Spain, would be to protect Spanish waters and attack the most important French naval bases, like Brest, Marseilles, Toulon, Oran or Algiers.

[1] 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.
[2] 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 before, despite his claims to the crown.

 

[Milarqui]

Chapter III, Part IV: The War

The war between France and the German-Spanish alliance started properly on August 8th. Under a hot sun proper of the time, the French armies crossed the Rhine and entered German territory, occupying the city of Saarbrücken after a short battle where victory fell on the French side, thanks to the superiority of the Chassepot rifle and the city's isolation from the rest of Germany. This rose the French morale, and there were soon boasts that, in two months, Berlin would be taken and Prussia would be humiliated. However, the French sung victory too soon: Moltke's preparations had placed the three armies in excellent positions, and after two hard-gained victories in Wissembourg (August 10th) and Spicheren (August 12th) Germany was devoid of French soldiers. Soon, German soldiers would cross the border with France.

In the south, things went better for the French, although not as well as they expected: they had counted on repeating their walk across Spain from 1823, but the reality was that, this time, the Spanish soldiers would not surrender so easily, and very soon the French found themselves involved in a series of bloody battles in which Prim's and Serrano's armies did their best to prevent a large-scale invasion of Spain. Serrano was forced to retreat towards Vitoria after his defeat in the Battle of Fuenterrabía (August 9th-12th), opening the way of the French towards San Sebastián, but Prim would manage to stop the Gauls, first in La Junquera (August 9th) and a day later in Figueras. Trochu was forced to retreat back into Perpignan. Canrobert entered San Sebastián on the 14th, and sent his troops to take the cities of Bilbao, Vitoria and Pamplona. Their advance was turned very difficult, however, due to the Carlist requetés, which constantly attacked them in a recalling of the guerrilla tactics employed in the Spanish Independence War.

Depiction of a Carlist requeté attacking French positions
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August 18th would be nicknamed in the future “The Day of Balance”, as three battles happened simultaneously and the results were balanced between the two opposing sides: the Kronprinz's German army managed to smash Marshal MacMahon's army in the Battle of Wörth; the invasion of France launched by Prim ended in the First Battle of Perpignan against Trochu, with a stalemate, and a hurried attack by Serrano on Canrobert ended with the Spaniard's defeat and another withdrawal towards Vitoria.

Serrano would soon find himself besieged by the French troops while in Vitoria. He managed to escape towards the south, so that he could gather a new army, and the city was taken five days after the siege started. Two days before the Fall of Vitoria, Prim had been defeated in Ceret, and was forced to retreat back into Spanish territory.

The French conquest of San Sebastián allowed Prince Alfonso to return to Spanish lands, reversing the path he had taken with his mother and sisters nearly two years before, and arrived to the city. There, the so-called Manifiesto de La Concha [1] was published: the Manifiesto proclaimed Alfonso as King Alfonso XII of Spain and the restoration of the Bourbons, “against the upstart foreigners that 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.”

Proclamation of Alfonso XII as King of Spain in the city of San Sebastián
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Alfonso and the supporters that had come with him had expected that the Manifiesto would help them gain legitimate support, both from the politicians and the general population. However, although he had gained support from people like Alejandro Pidal y Mon, leader of the Moderate Party, and even the Duke of Montpensier (who was already planning the possibility of marrying one of his daughters to the young pretender [2]), the Manifiesto caused the rejection of most of the Spanish population, including those who had been before his most faithful followers, because they, like the Carlists, had been reminded of the Bayonne Abdications. Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, leader of the group that would be later be known as the Patriot Alfonsines, 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
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Meanwhile, Serrano's defeats in the north stirred the Republican minority again against the government provisionally led by Sagasta. Led by Pi y Margall and Estanislao Figueras, they claimed that the war was a great mistake and that Spain had no actual reason to participate in the French-Prussian conflict. This minority became angrier when a squadron led by Admiral Pierre-Gustave Roze with the frigate Guérriere at its head managed to avoid Topete's squadron and attacked Barcelona, the base of the Federal Republican movement, for several hours. This made the Republicans believe that the Leopoldine monarchy was finished before it even started, and tried to start a coup with the help of General Juan Contreras, the only free high-ranked officer that supported them (as all other Republican officers had been imprisoned after the Republican revolt of 1869). Thankfully, Sagasta and Zorrilla acted very fast, as did Eugenio de Gaminde and Lorenzo Milans del Bosch [4], General Captains of Catalonia and Castile, and the revolt was easily put down and its leaders were imprisoned until the trial, which would not happen until the end of the war.

For the French, August 22nd would become the start of the end: in a battle held near the town of Mars-La-Tour, Bazaine's army was soundly defeated by the troops of Prussian Generals Voigts-Rhetz and Alvensleben, and was forced to withdraw towards Metz. Two days later, a second defeat was handed to Bazaine, this time in Gravelotte, where German numerical superiority proved better than French individual weaponry superiority.

Cavalry charge led by General Adalbert von Bredow in the Battle of Mars-La-Tour​

The situation was becoming very grave for the French government, as so far the Germans had beaten back the initial attack and started a successful invasion of France, while Spain, despite the defeats in the north and the proclamation of Alfonso, were resisting like corralled animals. A choice had to be made, before no choice could actually be made. Since the northern Spanish front seemed to be the most successful one so far, and the German advance threatened Paris, Canrobert was ordered to stop his advance and consolidate his gains, while sending several troops to the eastern frontline.

This choice gave new wings to Spain: Serrano managed to gather a new army of 100,000 soldiers and attacked the French positions around the city of Vitoria, which was freed on August 26th. Prim had invaded France once more, and on the 27th he won the Second Battle of Perpignan, city that, after two centuries under French control, finally returned to Spanish hands. A series of victories in the last days of August and first days of September allowed Serrano to keep pushing the French until they could only hold San Sebastián and a narrow corridor until Fuenterrabía. On September 3rd, Prim defeated Trochu near the city of Carcassonne, and Serrano freed San Sebastián. Finally, on September 7th, Spain became free once again from French soldiers, after the Battle of Irún ended in French defeat. Alfonso XII had been evacuated days before to France, before the Spanish army could get a hold of him.

Spanish liberation of the city of Vitoria
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The situation was clearly worsening for France. Napoleon III decided that the only way to counter the string of defeats was to fight a great battle, in which they would be able to smash the Prussian armies and raise the falling French morale, after which they would be able to free all occupied territory. The Emperor decided to take personal command of the troops, assisted by Marshal MacMahon. The main army withdrew towards Sedan, where recruits from the National Guard and other reserves joined them. Napoleon III expected to win a fast victory over the Germans, and then march towards Metz, where they would defeat the force besieging the city, which was garrisoned by Marshal Bazaine's army.

This situation, however, played right into recently ascended Marshal Moltke's plans. Taking several troops from the army besieging Metz, and two other armies, he moved the troops in a pincer movement until the city of Sedan fell into a siege, isolating the troops therein from the rest of France, and continuing the siege of Metz.

By the time the French realized that they had fallen in the German trap, it was too late: the pincer had already turned into a circle, and now they were completely surrounded. The only way to save the Emperor and the highest possible number of troops was to attempt an attack on the weakest point of the German positions and withdraw towards the west. Some officers, though, contradicted that order, adding chaos to the situation that started when the German artillery started to bombard the French positions.

A few hours later, the Emperor, seeing the tragic situation his men were in, decided on a new, desperate course of action. He ordered General Charles Denis Bourbaki, commander of the Imperial Guard, to save Napoleon Eugéne, his 14-year-old son and heir, who had been accompanying him and bring him to Paris, while he personally led a cavalry charge against the German troops to distract them. In the future, the Emperor's actions led to many debates about his actual intentions, whether he intended to attack in order to give Bourbaki time to save the prince and later escape himself, or if he actually just planned to fight to death in an attempt to restore his stained honor. Either way, the only certain thing was that Napoleon III, Emperor of France, died in that charge at the last hours of September 7th 1870.

The defeated French troops at the Battle of Sedan
​

The next day, when he saw himself completely surrounded by the German enemy, without any possibility of escape, when he was told that his emperor and commander-in-chief was dead, and that Sedan would certainly fall unless external help arrived soon, which was believed impossible, Marshal MacMahon took the hard choice and surrendered his troops and himself to Marshal Moltke and the Prussian King, Wilhelm I, who had come to the frontline accompanied by Chancellor Bismarck.

[1] El Manifiesto de La Concha (La Concha Manifest) was called this way both because Alfonso XII's proclamation was done in the San Sebastian's La Concha Beach and because it was the Marquis of La Habana, General José Gutiérrez de la Concha, who proclaimed him King of Spain.
[2] RL Alfonso XII's first wife was María de las Mercedes de Orléans, the Duke of Montpensier's seventh daughter out of the ten children he had, and who died on 1878 without issue. His second wife was Mary Christine of Austria, with whom he would have three children, the latter being his only son, born several months after his father died and who would reign as Alfonso XIII.
[3] Manuel Godoy was Spain's Prime Minister in 1792-1797 and 1801-1808 (it is said he gained the position because he was Queen Maria Luisa's (Carlos IV's wife) lover) and who became infamous because of his dealings with Republican and Napoleonic France, particularly the Treaty of Fontainebleu, that stated that Portugal would be divided in three, with the southern part being given to Godoy. The invasion of Portugal that resulted from this was the start of 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. By the way, these news just in: Generalissimo Franco is still dead.

 

[Milarqui]

Chapter III, Part V: End and Consequences

The death of Napoleon III would spell the end of France, although many tried to push that death sentence back as much as possible, and perhaps even reemerge from their own ashes like the phoenix of the legends. The Imperial Parliament rushed to crown young Napoleon Eugéne as Emperor Napoleon IV of France, while his mother, distraught Dowager Empress Eugénie de Montijo, was named Regent, and a Republican coup led by Leon Gambetta was aborted. The next action made by Parliament was to send emissaries to the German and Spanish armies, asking for a ceasefire and a start of peace negotiations, which was granted. Although they started quite promisingly, the negotiations soon turned bitter as the French refused to pay the excessive compensations demanded by the allies. Negotiations broke, and the Empress felt forced to continue the war, hoping that they might be able to gain several victories that could give France a stronger position in the negotiation table.

Young Emperor Napoleon IV and French Republican leader Leon Gambetta
​

Unfortunately for France, Bazaine's army surrendered on October 30th in Metz, and the Spanish won several victories in Pau, Auch, Montgiscard and Muret, and laid siege to Toulouse. Paris itself would end up being under siege soon after Bazaine's surrender.

The naval front was another complete disaster, their only victory being the attack on Barcelona launched by Admiral Roze's squadron. Even though the Imperiale Marine was bigger than the Spanish Royal Navy and the Norddeutschen Bundesmarine put together, the coal they required to sail out of the docks could not arrive to them, and thus they had to stay put. The Spanish Royal Navy was thus able to bombard the cities of Marseilles and Oran without any punishment. The latter would be the scenario of one of Spain's most daring and risky maneuvers, when the Spanish Marine Infantry executed a landing on September 20th, possible thanks to Rear Admiral Claudio Alvargonzález Sánchez's (known as the Hero of Abtao due to his actions during the First Pacific War) ability in directing his ships. The beachhead gained with this landing allowed a whole army led by General Manuel Pavía y Rodríguez de Alburquerque [1], who bravely fought and won against the feared troops of the French Foreign Legion, a victory that allowed them to take the city of Oran.

Rear Admiral Claudio Alvargonzález Sánchez and General Manuel Pavía y Rodríguez de Alburquerque
​

Diplomatically, things were taking a turn for the worse: the United Kingdom was pressuring them to make peace as soon as possible, most of the world was telling them that it was their own hubris that had brought them their just desserts, and the number of nations that supported them was dwindling. Among the latter was the Papal States: when the Imperial Government called the French garrison in Rome to help defend France, the Kingdom of Italy took the chance that was being served to them on a silver platter and took the last fragments of the Papal States, including Rome, on September 24th,, finally unifying the whole Italian Peninsula under the same flag for the first time since the times of Eastern Emperor Justinian. It also gave birth to a curious situation, as the Pope refused to leave the Vatican Palace and did not recognize the rule of the Kingdom of Italy over Rome, despite Italian offers, so he remained “Prisoner in the Vatican”, which would not be solved until many years later.

The Open Breach in the Porta Pia that allowed the Italian troops to enter Rome
​

Rome was not enough, though: the French support for the Pope had soured previous friendly relationships, and now many Italian cities had great demonstrations, demanding that the government acted to recover what had been Italian land in the past: the regions of Savoy and Nice, which had been given to France in 1860 after referendums were held in both cities, and the island of Corsica, Napoleon Bonaparte's birthplace, which had been sold by Genoa to France some time before Napoleon himself was born.

The Imperial government, which had left for Nantes shortly before the German Army surrounded Paris, knew now that their time was ending, and ordered that the peace negotiations were restarted before it was too late to save what had yet to be lost. On November 2nd, as the Spanish troops entered Toulouse and the Germans reached the English Channel, the Dowager Empress decided to accept the conditions before Italy allied with Prussia and Spain.

On November 7th, the initial armistice between France and the German-Spanish alliance was signed, and ratified on November 15th at Versailles. The French representatives there witnessed astonished how King Wilhelm I of Prussia, who had attended the ratification with the apparent desire of being witness to it, was crowned as the first Kaiser of the Second German Reich, which brought even further to them the humiliation they had suffered. The definite peace treaty was signed on December 24th 1870 in Frankfurt (which would lead to it being nicknamed Le Charbon du Pére Noel, “Santa Claus' coal”, by the French people) and stipulated these conditions:

• France recognizes being the only responsible nation for the war that ends with this peace treaty.
• France recognizes Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as legitimate King of Spain.
• France recognizes the foundation of the German Reich, with William I of Prussia as the new German Kaiser under the name of William I of Germany.
• France recognizes the following territorial changes.
  • The regions of Alsace (save for the Belfort territory) and Lorraine become part of the sovereign territory of the German Reich.
  • The departments of Eastern Pyrenees (Rousillon) and of Oran (Oranesado) [2] become part of the sovereign territory of Spain.
• The people residing in the regions whose sovereignty has changed will have until January 1st 1873 to decide whether they wish to keep their French nationality and leave for France or remain in the region and become German or Spanish citizens, in accordance to the region. Children will have the same nationality as their parents.
• A suitable frame for the withdrawal of German and Spanish troops from certain zones will be established.
• The Empress Dowager of France, in the name of her son Napoleon IV, transfers his dynastic rights over the Princedom of Andorra to Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen and his heirs.
• France will compensate, in respect of war damages to both the German Reich and Spain, a quantity of 5,500 millions of francs to each country, along a period of time not longer than 15 years.
• Military occupation of certain zones of France by German and Spanish forces will be kept until the payments are satisfied. Costs are to be paid by the occupied country, without attributing those to the demanded compensation.
• The use of navigable channels in connection to European regions lost by France is regularized.
• Trade between France on one side and the German Empire and Spain on the other side is regularized.
• The return of prisoners of war is regularized.

The end of the war did not bring the start of peace to Europe. The definite establishment of the Hohenzollern monarchy in Spain, as well as the creation of the Second German Reich, and the territorial changes that ensued from the Treaty of Frankfurt, brought the people the confirmation that everything had changed.

The defeat caused multiple disturbs in France. Napoleon IV never had the chance to replace his mother as de facto governor of France: on February 1st 1871, a bloody revolt exploded, led by the Republicans who had been awaiting for the chance to topple the Second French Empire and pinned the blame of all of France's recent disasters on the Imperial Government. Napoleon IV and his mother managed to evacuate for London before they were caught by the rebels, who soon declared the end of the Second French Empire and the start of the Third French Republic. Notable Republican Adolphe Thiers became the President of the National Council with the support of Generals Trochu and Louis Faidherbe, and the task was soon started in the development of a new constitution for the new Republic.

Adolphe Thiers, President of the French National Council
​

This would stir up the Parisian rebels, who had established a workers' government within the besieged Paris after the government left. This government, which would be known as the Paris Commune, demanded that armed fight was restarted against the Germans and Spaniards to revert the defeats suffered in the war and recover the regions lost in the Treaty of Frankfurt.

All of this sparked the immediate mobilization of the German and Spanish armies that were still within France. To stop the possibility of war continuing, the National Council declared that the Republic accepted the Treaty of Frankfurt and ordered the Commune's dissolution, an order that was rejected as the Commune accused the Council of selling the Motherland to the enemies. In the end, the National Council had to humiliate itself once more and ask for the help of German cannons, which on June 1st managed to take Paris and dissolve the Commune, while the French government managed to establish itself again in the city.

Napoleon IV and the Dowager Empress would soon be joined in London by the one who, for a few days, had been Alfonso XII, King of Spain, and his mother and sisters. There, they would live and wait for the chance of returning to their homelands, perhaps as new kings or emperors. Duke Gramont did not have the same luck as them, for he was captured while he tried to escape Nantes and was sentenced to death by the Republic for his role in the diplomatic crisis that had ended in the defeat against Prussians and Spaniards: the war that had started as an attempt to prevent a Hohenzollern from being crowned in Madrid had ended with another Hohenzollern crowned as German Emperor in the Versailles Palace itself.

Vittorio Emanuele II and republican revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi [3] felt disappointed that they had not been able to retake Savoy, Nice and Corsica from the French, something that Garibaldi felt especially affected by, as he was from Nice. However, they could, at least, console themselves with the unification of Italy and the naming of Rome as the new capital of the Kingdom of Italy.

Meanwhile, Spain was living in a completely patriotic jubilation after the victory in the war against the French (who had been, a priori, better prepared than the Spanish troops, although the fact that French had fought in two fronts at the same time weighed in that), which had established international recognition of Leopold as their new King, and he brought under his arm the regions of Rousillon and Oranesado, which had been lost two centuries ago in the Peace of the Pyrenees and sold to the Ottoman Empire several decades before, respectively. The victory dispelled any doubts the people may have about Leopold, producing a great wave of optimism that ancient General Espartero would compare to the celebrations that followed the arrival of Fernando VII after the Spanish Independence War.

It was five months after being elected by the Spanish Courts, but, finally, on December 9th, Leopold, his family and the Spanish delegation that had traveled to Reichenhall (Bavaria) the past July to notify him of his election, and which had been stuck there due to the war, arrived to Cartagena after taking the armored frigate Numancia (which had led the attack on Marseilles) in Genoa: this route had been chosen by Leopold, who did not want to risk crossing the English Channel in case a rogue French admiral decided to drastically end with the cause of the war. When he arrived to Cartagena, he was received by General Prim and several other members of the Spanish government.

Prince Leopold zu Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen arrives to the Port of Cartagena
​

The crowd that had reunited in Cartagena's main square listened ecstatic how Leopold gave a speech in slightly accented Spanish (which he had learned before the war and had taken the time between his acceptance of the throne and his arrival to practice with the Spanish delegation, although his Germanic accent would never leave him) in which he praised Spain's great past and the great future that now awaited the nation, as well as solemnly remembering the Spanish war heroes and also led a praying for the souls of the fallen. President Prim later gave another speech, establishing the similarities between Leopold and Carlos I of Spain, emphasizing that Leopold's arrival would be the start of a new era for Spain, just like Carlos I's arrival had been on his time.

Three days later, Leopold arrived to Madrid, where he was received in front of the Puerta de Alcalá by Regent Francisco Serrano and an aroused crowd that was excited about the King's arrival. The King and Prim gave speeches similar to those that had been given in Cartagena, and Serrano similarly welcomed the King in a great speech that was several times interrupted by applause. Leopold and his companions then took a carriage that would take them to the Courts' Palace.

On the way there, a group of intransigent Republicans led by Andalusian José Paul y Angulo attempted to attack the carriage where the King was riding, with the clear intention of killing both him and perhaps the men that had campaigned for his coronation. However, their strange actions attracted the attention of several agents of the Public Vigilance Corps, and they were able to arrest the would-be kingslayers several minutes before the royal procession passed by. These agents would be later personally decorated by the King for their bravery.

Finally, on December 12th 1870, Leopold swore the Constitution of Spain in the Courts' Palace, and Manuel Zorrilla, President of the Courts, declared “From this moment thereon, Leopold zu Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen is, officially and formally, to be known as Leopoldo I, King of Spain,” to a thunderous applause among the Deputies, Senators and other people that had been allowed to enter. Thus started the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen dynasty in the Spanish throne.

Leopoldo I, King of Spain, arrives to the Royal Palace of Madrid
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[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] 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​

I hope that you have enjoyed this chapter, which is the last of the chapters written by Linense and translated by me. If you compare both texts, you will see that, in essence, they are the same, although I hope that the changes I made will not make it less enjoyable.

From now on, everything you read will be originally mine. The next chapter, which I wrote and sent to Linense while he was suffering his different health and technical problems, will show the first years of Leopoldo I's monarchy, and several problems that will hit Spain.

Just a mention of the title of one of the parts: 1873, Annus Terribilis.

EDIT: I would really love it if you guys commented.
​

 

[Milarqui]

Chapter 4 – The National Union​

Chapter IV, Part I: The New King

The Spaniards' expectations towards their new king were very high, expectations that came from the efforts that had been made around his election and crowning, among them the hard war against France. And the king had the intention to honor those expectations: he knew that his current popularity would be something temporary, and that, if he wanted to keep the throne for himself and his family, he would have to do his best so that the people were happy with him.

For Leopoldo I, King of Spain, his first months of reign were among the busiest in his life until then. One of the first things he did was to travel to the north and visit the hospitals where the injured soldiers were kept: some of them had been mutilated, as the injuries had derived into gangrene, and the only way to stop it was to cut off the rotting member.

Many burials of the deceased soldiers also received the visit of the Royal Family, which gave its support to the soldiers' relatives, praising their heroism and the great effort they had carried out. Prim's government, at the suggestion of the king, used part of the first payment of the war indemnization to pay the injured soldiers and the deceased soldiers' relatives as soon as possible, in order to alleviate their loss.

Another of the first official acts the King carried out was a visit to the recently conquered territory of Perpignan, which would become the fifth province of the region of Catalonia, which was followed with a visit to the barracks of the Spanish troops that were occupying Southern France – an occupation that would become official a few days after the King's visit, with the signing of the Treaty of Frankfurt.

The king also used part of his great personal fortune to finance the Spanish Red Cross, which had been founded seven years before under the auspices of the Knights Hospitaller, as it was playing a fundamental role in the healing of those injured in war. This move was very applauded by the population, as they could see how the king involved himself in the matter, as opposed to previous kings and queens.

The Cross of the Knights Hospitaller and the Spanish Red Cross symbol
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Leopoldo I would also decorate many of the soldiers that had distinguished themselves during the war as they did heroic and magnificent actions that had helped in achieving Spanish victory. The military leaders that had led the Army and the Navy also received great honors. Juan Prim was named Duke of Perpignan. Francisco Serrano was named Duke of Irún – it would have been Vitoria, but the Dukedom of Vitoria was still held by the descendants of the Duke of Wellington, who had helped in the expulsion of French Napoleonic soldiers from Spain during the Peninsular War. Generals Manuel Pavía y Rodríguez, Eugenio de Gaminde and Lorenzo Milans del Bosch were named Dukes of Oran, Montjuic and San Jerónimo, while General Espartero was named Prince of Vergara for his role in finishing the First Carlist War.

Generals Eugenio de Gaminde y Lafont and Lorenzo Milans del Bosch
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Two admirals were also decorated and named Grandee of Spain: Claudio Alvargonzález Sánchez was named Duke of Abtao, while Juan Bautista Topete was named Duke of Cádiz, with said title being retired from Francisco de Asís de Borbón, Isabel II's consort.

Leopoldo I worked very hard during those first months, but nobody could deny that his work was a great help to reestablish the image of the monarchy, which had been nearly destroyed by Isabel II's actions.

 

[Milarqui]

Chapter IV, Part II: The Pacto de los Heros

While the king publicly worked to aid in the reconstruction of Spain after the war, the Spanish government also worked restlessly to establish the complete institutional normality in the country, as well as a continuity respect of the government that had, until then, held the reins. Thus, General Prim consulted with the three parties that formed the Government Coalition (the Liberal Union, the Progressive Party and the Democrat Party), and, on December 30th, he presented his resignation as President of the Council of Ministers to the king, so that the first General Elections of the new kingdom were called. Leopoldo I accepted the resignation, recognizing the gesture that had come from the nation's main political and military figure, to whom he owed the privilege of occupying the Spanish throne.

The next elections were called for the following Saturday February 18th 1871. The candidacies formed by those that had showed their support for the French enemy to restore the Bourbon monarchy, as well as that of the Republicans that had tried to take advantage of the situation to launch a coup while Spanish soldiers fought and died against the French, were forbidden from taking part in the elections, as they had showed their will to betray the crown and nation.

Two days after Prim's resignation, the leaders of the Coalition parties (Prim, Sagasta and Ruiz Zorrilla from the Progressives; Serrano, Topete and Francisco Silvela from the Unionists; and Martos, Nicolás María Rivero and Manuel Becerra from the Democrats) met in the recently named Presidency Palace, which had previously been Casa de los Heros, where Serrano had been living since he was named Regent of the Kingdom of Spain. There, the nine men spent several days drawing the nation's political future, as well as that of the wide government coalition the three parties had formed since La Gloriosa. Their final agreement was set in a pact that would be known to posterity as the Pacto de los Heros.

The war with France had deeply altered the Spanish political panorama, with a deep internal crisis among those political forces that had opposed the new regime, symbolized in Leopoldo I and the coalition, which had brought the latter a grand feeling of triumph. However, Prim and the other Progressive leaders knew that this could backfire on the new regime and erode its stability, given the already existent strains within the coalition's heart, especially between its extremes. Thus, it would be ideal to start building a true two-party system, similar to the one existing in the United Kingdom, which Prim held in great esteem since his British exile.

However, the Progressive leaders also knew about Spain's recent political past, dominated by pronunciamientos, having generals turn into politicians, and the entrenched custom by which, when a political force took power, it immediately started to break down what the previous governors did without any kind of accord with the opposition, which made the construction of a stable two-party system very difficult.

Thus, and taking advantage of the current weakness of the opposition to Leopoldo's monarchy, the Progressive leaders suggested to the Unionist and Democrat leaders the possibility of making official the merging of the coalition into one great political party, which would encompass the political sensitivities of the new regime supporters. In order to prevent it from becoming a failure, the new party would have a limited life, both because they did not want the new party from turning Spain into a dictatorship and because it would be divided in two internal factions which, when well established, turn into the two parties envisioned by Prim and his followers. The idea intrigued the other members of the meeting, and soon a debate was held between all of them.

The nine leaders agreed that they would be signing a pact, by which the political forces they led compromised to continue the coalition during the following legislature, in order to reach a consensus on the next elections and strengthen Spain. Many points were strongly discussed among the three parties that would sign the pact, but, in the end, a balance was reached, by which, while it was not completely liked by everyone, at least they could feel content with their achievements. The pact would be forever remembered as the Pacto de los Heros.

One of the first points discussed was the exclusion of all active military men from politics. Given Spain's history, it was something that had to be stressed. Of course, the current legislature would be grandfathered in, because of the presence of Prim, Serrano and Topete in the government. The only exceptions would be the Ministries of War and Navy, as they were in charge of terms that competed exclusively to the military. All other political positions, especially the Presidency, would be closed for all active member of the Spanish Armed Forces starting in 1877. Of course, any retired members of the Armed Forces would be accepted.

The lack of democratic experience in the nation was also discussed in the Pact. As much as the Democrats wished the opposite, even them knew that democratic conscience was yet to take deep enough roots in the nation, although the last elections had shown that roots were growing. The Democrats accepted that, until Spain was clearly on the road, they might have to use the caciques' [1] influence to strengthen the system, and also that the parties which the future coalition party evolved into took turns into power, although they warned that this situation would only be accepted for nine years.

Also, the Armed Forces, represented by Prim, Serrano and Topete, compromised to support the government to maintain its stability, as well as cutting off any attempt of military uprising. With this, they planned the subordination of the military power respect the civil power (as it happened in the more advanced nations Spain wished to emulate) and finally erase the traces of years of suffering owed to those uprisings.

Once the Pacto de los Heros was signed, the first matter to treat was who would become the first candidate to the Presidency for the new party. Juan Prim could have continued in power, but the Liberal Union retired their support for Prim, saying that they would only accept their leader, Francisco Serrano. Some leaks to the press about a proposition made by Prim of allowing Cuba to gain its independence if the Cuban people voted in favor after a ceasefire that was negotiated with the pro-independence rebels, the Unionist intransigence became clearer, and Progressives and Democrats gave up.

General Serrano publicly announced his candidacy for the Presidency on January 7th, with the support of the recently created National Union. His candidacy, besides its continuity respect Prim's government (which had won the war against France) showed a wide program of ideas and projects with which he hoped to eliminate all (or as many as possible) problems that had surged in the last century and allow Spain to rise to the level of other world powers like the British Empire or the German Empire.

Very soon, other political parties announced their candidacies: for example, the Patriot Alfonsines formed the Conservative Party, led by Antonio Cánovas del Castillo; the moderate Carlists (those that had broken with the other Carlists after Carlos VII asked for the French to invade Spain) joined the Neo-Catholics and the Integrists to form the Catholic-Monarchic Communion, while the Republicans that remained free, led by Emilio Castelar, also offered to lead Spain into greatness.

Unfortunately for them, the influence of the National Union was too big to be offset by any other, and on February 20th 1871 the results of the elections were presented:

• 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)

With this clear victory and absolute majority achieved by the National Union in the Congress of Deputies, as well as reaching an absolute majority in the Senate, it was the start of what historians would call “The Leopoldine Era”.

[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.

 

[Milarqui]

Chapter IV, Part III: The First Legislature

After their victory in the elections, Serrano's government started to work to solve the problems the previous government had not had the time or the means to solve. Fortunately, the presence of the King gave Spain a stability that could only help the nation. Also, the war compensations France was paying helped the government to achieve many more projects than what would have been possible in other circumstances.

One of the first tasks Serrano concentrated was the reform of the Armed Forces. Both had worked very well in the war, but nonetheless there were many problems that could make their tasks more difficult if there were another war in the future.

Since the Prussian army was a great model to follow after its smashing victories against their neighbors, it was decided that the Prussian military system would be adapted to Spain in order to reform the army and make it more suitable to the time. One of the biggest problems inherited from the times of Isabel II was theexcessive number of officers when compared to the number of soldiers made future military operations not very feasible, as well as being a big hole in which money was being thrown. Many old officers would be demoted or discharged with honors. Many of those officers would be hired in the local or national Police Corps, or in the Civil Guard, whose military structure was appreciated by the military officers. The Obligatory Military Service was established for all 21-year-old men, thus ending with the complaints about the quintas; the General Staff was created, with the same attributions as its Prussian counterpart, and the Tercios Especiales were organized (see Part IV: The Special Tercios).

Symbol of the Spanish Guardia Civil
​

The Army weaponry was also modernized: to that end, the government financed the creation of a mixed capital company, Rifles Españoles Sociedad Anónima (Spanish Rifles Ltd, which would be more popularly known as RESA), which established its first factory in the town of Getafe, near Madrid. It was there where, using Spanish material, the first RESA 1871 Rifles were built. The RESA 1871, a copy under license of the famous Mauser Model 1871 (the single-shot rifles that had replaced the Dreyse needle gun in the German army) were very appreciated by the soldiers, which nicknamed it the “Escoba” (Broom), due both to its shape (long, narrow barrel and very wide butt) as well as its capacity to “sweep” the enemy from the battlefield. Other factories owned by RESA would make other kinds of weaponry, like new artillery guns, some of them based on the Krupp six-pound cannon.

The rlfle Mauser 1871, nicknamed Escoba and also built in Spain by RESA
​

Concerning the Navy, both Serrano and Admiral Topete realized that there were many things that could be improved in the service. Just like with the Army, it was decided that the most efficient system in the world would be adapted, and in that moment the whole world agreed that the British Royal Navy was, undoubtedly, the best Navy in the whole world. A reorganization of the officer corps similar to that in the army was started, and drydocks were built or expanded to build bigger and more powerful ships, something done especially to completely modernize the Spanish Navy and replace all wooden ships with ironclad steamers. Interest was also shown in the designs of submarines made by Cosme García Sáez [1] and Narciso Monturiol, and both were hired to design more submarines for the Spanish Navy, as they could be a potential great new weapon for the future.

From left to right: Cosme García Sáez, the Garcibuzo, Narciso Monturiol and the Ictíneo
​

The Armed Forces were not the only ones affected. In order to carry out Serrano's slogan, “To secure Spain, we must strengthen Spain”, the new government started to pass legislation that benefited local and national investments in the Spanish industry. This was best seen in the mining industry: two years before, the Provisional Government, in need of money, had passed a law to expropriate the subsoil, and a lot of foreign capital had arrived to the country. With the new legislation, the Government wanted to have Spanish investors reach parity with foreigner investors (as it currently happened in the Basque steel industry), and perhaps majority.

Railway legislation was also developed. In order to reduce the costs from the construction of the first Spanish railways, a plan was started to make railway tracks as straight as possible (pre-revolutionary legislation gave subsides to railway construction businesses proportional to the number of built kilometers, which tended to influence the construction more than what would be useful), increasing as well the number of connections between cities, in order to turn what had been a centralized network into a mesh net, favoring people and merchandise transport between cities, as well as communication, next to an extension of the telegraph network to reach a greater number of Spanish towns.

Another particularly thorny matter was also taken care of, that of the almost chronic illiteracy that still plagued the nation: in 1871, more than half of the sixteen millions of Spaniards was illiterate. This was owed to the disdain towards the main population's education by the high classes since the times of Carlos IV, as nobility did not want the French Revolution to expand into Spain, and considered that the best way to keep the population controlled was to restrict their access to any kind of subversive literature, a policy that had continued during Fernando VII's and Isabel II's reigns. In order to give greater backing to the strengthening of the Spanish nation and democracy, the Ministry of Public Instruction was created, which directed an ambitious program of adult literacy and child education. Most people knew that it would be a lot of time until the efforts to educate the nation gave their fruits, but they also knew that those efforts would be worth it, and that they would surely be successful.

[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.

 

[Milarqui]

Chapter IV, Part IV: The Special Tercios

Spain's relationship with Japan had relatively recent roots when compared to Spain's relationship with other nations. The first contact between Spain and Japan was established on 1549, when Jesuit Saint Francisco Javier arrived to Kagoshima in order to spread the Word of God in southern Japan. The daimyo who converted to Christianity sent shortly after the Special Mission "Tensh Ken-oh Shisetsu" to Europe, which was received by King Philip II of Spain on its way to Rome. In 1614, a similar mission led by Tsunenaga Hasekura [1] as received by Philip III. After the Tokugawa Shogunate, it would take two centuries and a half for both nations to reestablish contact, despite the relatively short distance between the Philippines and Japan: finally, in 1868, the Meiji Government decided to once more contact Spanish authorities, which eventually allowed the signing of the Spanish-Japanese Friendship and Trade Treaty.

Tsunenaga Hasekura
​

In 1871, Japan was still in the middle of restoring his control over the dominions of the daimyo, which were now just landowners, at the same time that he tried to modernize his nation to take it to a level similar to the Western powers. When the news of the Spanish-German victory in the Hohenzollerns' War arrived to the Imperial Palace, the Emperor felt intrigued by the two nations that had defeated such a great foreign power as France, and ordered his ministers to establish communications with both nations to ask for their help in modernizing Japan, as well as the possibility of having meetings with the diplomatic representatives of both nations.

Emperor Meiji
​

In order to avoid a diplomatic nightmare due to etiquette mistakes, the Spanish ambassador and some of his attachés spent several days studying the Japanese culture with the help of several local people, who helped them understand certain complicated matters. One of the military attachés was Gregorio López Jiménez [2], who, while learning about Japan, managed to establish a friendship with the man that was helping him the most. The name of the man was, unfortunately, lost in the mists of time, but what is known about him is that he was a former samurai, and that López learned much more about the Japanes culture than what he expected: among other things, he learned the Bushido, the samurai warriors' Honor Code.

The Seven Virtues of Bushido: Gi (Integrity), Rei (Respect), Yu (Heroic Courage), Meiyo (Honor), Jin (Compassion), Makoto (Honesty and Sincerity) and Chu (Duty and Loyalty)
​

The interview took place some time after, and finished successfully: the Emperor felt flattered that both Spaniards and Germans had taken great efforts to learn both the Japanese language and culture, even if that knowledge was not too great, and confirmed the friendship treaties with both nations. However, the consequences that encounter brought were greater than what would be expected.

The military attaché had to return to Spain a few days after the interview was celebrated, due to family problems. Once he was back to Spain, one of the things he did was to attend a party, one party that was also being attended by famous Carlist general Ramón Cabrera, who was visiting Spain at Prim's invitation. Gregorio López and Ramón Cabrera met, and their conversation was full of anecdotes about the former's stay in Japan, among them his discovery of Bushido.

Ramón Cabrera, who, in spite of having been away from the battlefield for twenty years, still conserved his military brilliance and inteligence, had an epiphany, a grandiose idea that could chance the concept of wars as they worked, as well as giving Spain a new weapon to use against any potential uprising, one weapon that, if used well, could help take down any enemy of Spain.

Two days later, more than enough time for Cabrera to flesh out some of his ideas, the ancient general met with Minister of War Prim. Cabrera would then present him the idea he had just had: the formation of an elite corps trained in a kind of combat not used by the regular army, that of guerrilla war. Said corps would be trained in knowing how to eliminate supply trains, hide in any place, launch hit-and-run attacks, traverse any field... and they would also hold to an honor code that would be similar to that of the samurai. This elite corps, Cabrera said, could be used as a powerful weapon against any enemy, to break down its moral through attacks that they would never know where or when they would come, but it could also be used to fight fire with fire against any uprising, such as that of the Cuban Independence supporters.

Prim felt reluctant to accept the old general's idea: on the one side, this man had fought against the legal queen, Isabel II, to instaurate the absolutist monarchy of Carlist pretender Carlos VI in 1846 - Prim may have done the same twenty years later, but at the time there had been still hope for the Queen to enforce a democracy - and had supported the pretender for years; but, on the other side, he had broken off with Carlos VI and VII, during the war with France he had been a fundamental support to prevent the Carlist to join the invaders and had, since then, exhorted all other Carlists to accept Leopoldo I as the King of Spain. Of course, that did not have anything to do with the idea, which was very attractive: as far as he knew, no other country in the world had an elite corps of soldiers similar to what Cabrera was presenting him, and, besides, the potential the idea had was impossible to calculate.

Thus, on September 29th 1871 [3], generals Serrano (as President of the Government), Prim (as Minister of War) and Cabrera met with King Leopoldo. Cabrera explained his idea again to the King, Serrano and Prim, adding several important details he had polished after his first encouter with Prim. The King and Serrano, although initially reticent, ended up enthusiasmed with the idea. Serrano, particularly, had seen on first hand the damage the Carlist requetés had caused against the French during the war, and agreed with General Prim in the formation of the new elite corps.

However, when asked to lead it, Cabrera chose to decline the honor: since twenty years before, his life was in London, next to his wife Marianne Catherine Richards, and did not want to come back to live in Spain again. He might come from time to time to check on how the group was working, but active military life was in his past, and did not want to return to it. The King accepted it, and asked him to write down his ideas and the honor code the corps would have to follow, so that the people could read it [4].

Marianne Catherine Richards, Ramón Cabrera's wife
​

Several days after, Cabrera was going back to London, and the government approved, in a secret session, the creation of the Special Tercios. Before they knew it, the Tercios would enter in action against an unexpected enemy...

[1] According to the legend, several of Hasekura's companions chose to stay in Spain, to be more exact in the town of Coria del Río, Seville. In RL, there are about 600 people in that town with the surname "Japón", Japan, who are probably the descendants of the Japanese envoys.
[2] Invented name.
[3] This is the reason why the Saint Patron of the Special Tercios is Saint Michael, General of the Holy Armies.
[4] The document written by Cabrera would be preserved in the first Special Tercios Headquarters, and nicknamed "The Tercios' Bible".

 

[Milarqui]

Chapter IV, Part V: 1873, Annus Horribilis

The first two years of Leopoldo's reign had been quite placid. The war in Cuba was still there, of course, and had yet to be solved, although the use of new weaponry and new tactics and the arrival of veteran soldiers from the Hohenzollerns' War was starting to turn things around in favor of the Spanish regular army. With the arrival of January 1st 1873, many expected that Leopoldo's reign would continue improving, and that many of the problems that plagued the nations from so much time before would soon end.

Very few could have predicted that, against what was expected, 1873 would be, without a doubt, one of the worst years of Leopoldo's monarchy: future historians would not doubt in marking 1873 as an Annus Horribilis for Leopoldo.

It all started in the mountains of northern Spain, in the Navarran Pyrenees, which during part of the nineteenth century had been one of the main scenarios of the Carlist Wars. In those mountains the last Carlists that remained faithful to Carlos VII - whom they still regarded as the legitimate King of Spain - met. The division of Carlism in two due to Carlos VII's support of a French invasion had made them stumble, and it had taken them those two years to recover from the situation and plan a meeting to decide what to do.

Carlos María de Borbón y Austria Este, self-styled as Carlos VII of Spain
​

One of the leaders of the Irredent Carlists - as they would be called later by the government, their former allies and the press - was Manuel Ignacio Santa Cruz Loidi, better known as the "Mad Priest Santa Cruz", who, in spite of being a priest, was among the most violent and cruel Carlists, not only against his enemies, but also against the innocent people whose only sin was to be near where he was and not support his cause wholeheartedly. His flag, black, with a skull and two crossed bones, and the motto "War Without Mercy", was but a symbol of his extreme brutality.

The Mad Priest Santa Cruz and his banner
​

It was Santa Cruz who suggested the idea of launching a new Carlist uprising. Since there were a great number of Spanish troops occupying southern France, and another great number in Cuba, that left few soldiers in Spain proper, so it would not be very hard to initiate an uprising, and soon their successes would bring many more people to the Cause and help topple the Prussian usurper. The remaining men in the meeting were not very sure of whether it would work, but Santa Cruz's frenzied speeches about the "traitors" - as he called Cabrera and the other Carlists that had retired their support for King Carlos - made them accept Santa Cruz's proposition. Very soon, the government started to receive messages about disturbs in Navarra and the Maestrazgo [1], as well as a great number of deaths, which could be easily attributed to the Carlists that had yet to depose their weapons.

These news could not have arrived in a worse moment for Francisco Serrano's government, as bad news were accumulating at a great speed: Barcelona and Perpignan were suffering almost weekly revolts that claimed for the establishment of a Federal Republic, which the Republicans in Congress swore they had nothing to do with, and which could hardly be contained by the police corps: the almost constant advance in Cuba in the last two years had stopped almost suddenly, as the number of machete charges, developed by independentist Máximo Gómez and feared by the soldiers due to their brutality, stepped up; in France, the Third Republic was having great internal conflicts due to the conflicts between those that supported the Republic and the increasing number of monarchical supporters, conflicts that partially affected the Spanish soldiers in southern France, while in Corsica disturbs in favor of a restablishment of the Bonaparte monarchy were becoming harder to control; and peasant revolts, due to the spread out of anarchist and marxist ideas coming from the International, were happening almost daily. The Philippines were also becoming the center of some problems due to its strategical position in the middle of the Pacific, the problems with the Moros of Mindanao and the slowness with which reforms were arriving, due to the iron-clad opposition of the elites in there, who were opposed to anything that changed the almost feudal regime which still reigned in the archipelago.

Considering the Carlist revolts as the most dangerous and immediate problem, Serrano sent several thousands of troops to the places where the two groups of Carlists were acting, in order to find them and arrest them for their posterior judging. However, the Carlist rebels' mobility was much higher than that of the regular troops: many times, the only thing the soldiers could find were burning huts and several bloodied bodies on the floor. Sometimes, they did manage to find survivors, who could tell what happened, but the information was almost always useless. A couple of times, the rebels, thinking themselves invincible, launched direct attacks against the soldiers, but the latter always ended better in this situations, as they mostly just suffered injuries while the attackers died, were captured, or ran away.

The constant bad news coming from so many fronts at the same times were slowly mining the trust of the people and the Congress of Deputies in the Government. Serrano's attempts to pass important legislation and find support for their approval were finding more and more obstacles as time passed, especially among the members of the National Union's Progressive wing, although the Democrats were also starting to make their opposition known.

The moment everyone would mark as Serrano's presidency's death spell was the "Virginius Affair". The Virginius was an old blockade-breaker that had been captured by the United States Government during the American Civil War, and had been bought by John F. Patterson, who was using it to sell contraband items to the Cuban rebels. When it was sailing near the coast of Jamaica towards Cuba, the ship was captured by the Spanish corvette Tornado on October 31st and towed to Santiago de Cuba, and its crewmen and passengers were arrested. Several of them, amongst them the Virginius captain, Joseph Fry, were judged in a military summary trial, accused of supporting the rebels and shot. Nineteen people ended up executed by death squad. Several more could have suffered the same destiny, but colder heads had prevailed and they were only condemned to prison.

Captain Joseph Fry and the Virginius
​

Either way, the diplomatic storm that was created by this affair was brutal. The United States Ambassador was demanding an explanation and apologies from the Government almost daily, and the United Kingdom protested, both because one of the executed men was a British subject and because the Spanish ship had acted near British waters. Within Spain, Congress was asking Serrano for an explanation over the matter - a matter that had caught Serrano completely by surprise, because by the time the news of the whole thing had arrived to Spain, the executions had already happened - and some deputies were even subtly indicating that they planned to aask for a motion of no confidence against the President.

Serrano, however, knew that he could do nothing to appease his critics, and decided to cut his losses before it was too late: on November 15th, he presented his resignation to the King, who accepted it. Between that day and the election day, which would be in April 1874, Prim would take charge of the Presidency.

For a few days, war between Spain and the United States seemed imminent - which was probably what the Cuban rebels, and perhaps the French, hoped for - but fortunately, in the end everything became just a diplomatic problem. On December, Spain returned the Virginius to the United States - which, ironically, sunk on its way back to its port of origin in New York - and it gave the rest of the crewmen and passengers to a United States Navy warship, although several of the Cubans that travelled in the ship remained imprisoned, as there was proof of their relation with the rebels. Finally, on January 1875, Spain indemnized the United States Government with $20,000 for the executed United States citizens, and the British Government with $2,000 for the only executed British subject.

[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.

 

[Milarqui]

Chapter IV, Part VI: The End Of All The Wars

The Virginius Affair made it clear for Prim and the rest of the government that the Cuban rebellion had to be cut off and destroyed befor the United States decided to meddle where they were not called, as well as the Irredent Carlists, who had rejected the Patriot Carlists' calls to surrender, calling them traitors to their true King.

Fortunately, many of the other problems started to be solved along 1874: the republican problems in Rousillon and Catalonia were slowly going down as the government started to expand on previous efforts to bring freedoms to the people, and the peasant revolts became finally easier to control and stop. The French situation had worsened enough for the republican government ceded to the public's pressures and resigned, allowing the election of a new government that soon proclaimed the restoration of the Kingdom of France. The old legitimist pretender, Henri V, did not see how this happened, as he had died of a heart attack two days before said proclamation. This opened the way for Philippe, son of Louis-Philippe I (who had been king during the so-called "July Monarchy" between 1830 and 1848) and older brother of the Duke of Montpensier, to become the king. Philippe accepted the government's call, and he was soon crowned Philippe VII of France, with the support of the Spanish and German government, who soon saw how the situation calmed down in France.

New King Philippe VII of France​

The island of Corsica, however, was not willing to fall once more under the control of a king that was not a Bonaparte, and rebelled. The rebellion soon smashed the few French troops in the island and formed a revolutionary government that called Napoleon IV, the last French Emperor, to lead them, which the young man and his mother accepted.

For a time, Napoleon IV dreamt with the possibility of taking control of an army and carry it to southern France, thus winning the French people for his cause just like his grand-uncle had done in 1814 when he came back from the island of Elbe, but was soon told it was impossible: the current presence of Spanish and German troops in France would smash any attempt by him to restore Napoleonic rule over France. Equally, the French government met to choose what to do with the Corse rebellion, weighing the idea of sending troops to smash the rebellion, but they realized they could not do anything, given the current situation, and chose to let Corsica take an independent route, even if officially it remained a part of France.

While the French matters took their own route, Prim knew that he had to solve Spain's own problems. The nearest was that of the Irredent Carlists, and would not be easy to solve. However, Prim now counted with a secret weapon, completely unknown by the general public, and especially the Carlists: the Special Tercios. After two years of training, the six platoons of the Special Tercios (all of them named after a Spanish military hero: Viriato, Don Pelayo, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro [1]) were itching to finally enter battle, whomever it was their objective. Their search of the Irredent Carlists would be their fire baptism, and if they managed to get through and be successful they would be sent to Cuba.

From left to right: Viriato, Don Pelayo, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro​

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. 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. The smaller squad were also trained in the uses of field medicine, so they could take care of the immediate healing of any member of their squadron that were injured. The other squads also had small specializations, like long-distance sharpshooting.

The Special 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, soon it became clear that whomever had given those orders did not have much of an idea of the great stubbornness and potential of the soldiers that formed part of what would be considered the world's first special forces.

The first (and last) news the Pamplona barracks received of the efforts of the Special Tercios to help find and arrest the Carlist rebels was when, three weeks after the Tercios arrived to the region, a messenger arrived, saying that in the outskirts of the city stood 180 soldiers watching over the 150 Carlist prisoners and 100 corpses they had brought from the Navarran Pyrenees, and were asking for help to secure the prisoners for their subsequent imprisonment. The barracks' commander could only order his secretary to send a telegram to Madrid, telling the events and asking for orders, while he personally led a 500-strong corps in order to finally imprison the arrested Carlists. Once there, he managed to identify one of the corpses as that of Santa Cruz, who had chosen a fight to death before surrendering to the troops.

Some Irredent Carlist prisoners​

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 these news arrived to Madrid, they did so in the moment Prim really needed good news, because he was in the middle of trying to solve the problem the division of the National Union Party was causing for him (see Part VII: The National Dis-Union). In the next meeting of the Congress of Deputies, he presented the news of the end of the Carlist threat, and he was met by an applause of the whole chamber. His next suggestion, that the soldiers of the Tercios received decorations and medals for their great -hazaña-, was probably the last thing all members of the Lower Chamber agreed with, and thus voted in favor of awarding every soldier special medals.

In a ceremony attended by the Spanish Royal Family, the whole government and Generals Serrano and Cabrera (the latter had come on purpose to proudly see how the soldiers of the group he had developed three years before, and that followed the honor code he had devised, finally won the first rewards for their effort), as well as the soldiers' families, the King and the Prince of Asturias [2] personally gave each soldier a Military Merit Order of the two higher classes, as well as a medal crafted especially for their role in ending the Carlist threat, denoting the great efforts all of them had spent in those three weeks.

Some of the Military Order Merit medals.​

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. His sudden death, caused by 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.

Máximo Gómez Báez, the feared leader of the Cuban troops​

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 José Antonio Maceo and Calixto García were the leaders of the Cuban independence movement. The two men, after much debate, realised 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.

José Antonio Maceo, "The Bronze Titan", and Vicente García González​

[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.