Restoration (Spain)

The Restoration (Spanish: Restauración) or Bourbon Restoration (Spanish: Restauración borbónica) was the period in Spanish history between the First Spanish Republic and the Second Spanish Republic from 1874 to 1931. It began on 29 December 1874, after a pronunciamento by General Arsenio Martínez Campos in Valencia ended the First Spanish Republic and restored the Bourbon monarchy under King Alfonso XII, and ended on 14 April 1931 with the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic.

After nearly a century of political instability and several civil wars, the Restoration attempted to establish a new political system that ensured stability through the practice of turno, an intentional rotation of liberal and conservative parties in leadership, often achieved through electoral fraud. Critics of the turnismo system included republicans, socialists, anarchists, Basque and Catalan nationalists, and Carlists. However, the relative stability to the turnismo system outlived its creator, the Conservative politician Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, and characterised the era with comparative peace, despite great social inequalities in the agricultural areas of Spain, and sporadic unrest relating to military defeats abroad.

During the interwar period, the Bourbon monarchy tied itself to the dictatorship of General Miguel Primo de Rivera in 1923, an event that succeeded by means of both a military coup d'état and the acquiescence of King Alfonso XIII. It took the protracted political turmoil in the wake of economic depression, caused by the aftermath of the First World War, and the Spanish defeat at the Annual in Morocco for the restored monarchy to be swept away with Rivera's dictatorship, ending with the general being forced to resign in 1930 and the king's voluntary dethronement and exile to Fascist Italy in 1931.

The Restoration period was characterized by political instability, economic challenges, and social unrest. Key issues that defined the period include:

On 29 December 1874, General Arsenio Martínez Campos's pronunciamiento overthrew the First Spanish Republic by triumphal entry on behalf of Alfonso XII into Valencia, and thereby restored the monarchy, crowning Alfonso XII, son of the exiled Isabella II, as King of Spain. Having returned from Paris where his mother had abdicated de jure in 1870 in exile, he was crowned early in 1875. Having been educated at the Theresianum in Vienna and Sandhurst in Britain, he was cosmopolitan and well groomed to reign.

The Constitution of 1876 was soon established; it remained in force throughout the Restoration. This constitution established Spain as a constitutional monarchy with a bicameral legislature (Cortes Generales) consisting of an upper house (Senate) and a lower house (Congress of Deputies). The King held the power to appoint senators and to annul laws at his discretion. He was given the honorific title of Commander-in-Chief of the army. The Liberal Party, led by Práxedes Mateo Sagasta, and the Conservative Party, led by Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, alternated in power through the controlled process of turnismo, or el turno pacífico. Local figures, known as caciques, manipulated the election results, fueling growing resentment of the system. This led to the formation of major nationalist movements and unions in Catalonia, Galicia, and the Basque Country. However the relative stability of this system after the upheavals of the Liberal Sexennial (1868–1874) gave him the nickname of El Pacificador ("the Peacemaker").

Alfonso XII had lost his first wife, María de las Mercedes of Orléans, in 1878, mourning her at the royal hunting lodge of the Palace of Riofrio, and then died in November 1885 from a recurrence of dysentery. At that time, his second wife Maria Cristina was pregnant. Their son Alfonso XIII was born on 17 May 1886, and a Regency was formed, headed by the Queen Mother Maria Cristina.

The new reign was initially popular with the subjects of el rey niño ("the child-king"), and a Le Figaro article described Alfonso XIII in 1889 as "the happiest and best-loved of all the rulers on Earth". However, wars of national liberation fought by anti-imperialist revolutionaries in the Caribbean (Cuba and Puerto Rico) and Pacific Ocean (Guam and the Philippines) against the Spanish Empire (1833–1898) continued to drain resources, and domestic discontent meant that Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, architect of the turnismo political system, was assassinated by a Spanish anarchist in 1897. Eventually, the Spanish–American War led to the loss of Spain's last major overseas colonies in 1898. This rapid collapse devastated Spain and damaged the credibility of the government and its associated ideologies. It also nearly caused a military coup d'état led by General Camilo García de Polavieja. This event marked the beginning of the country's political and economic decline, giving rise to numerous conflicting opposition movements at local and national levels. Alfonso XIII came of age in May 1902 and was crowned on 17 May 1902, ending the regency of the Queen Mother.