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Spanish crisis of 1917
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Spanish crisis of 1917
The crisis of 1917 is the name that Spanish historians have given to the series of events that took place in the summer of 1917 in Spain. In particular, three simultaneous challenges threatened the government and the system of the Restoration: a military movement (the Juntas de Defensa), a political movement (the Parliamentary Assembly, organized by the Regionalist League of Catalonia in Barcelona) and a social movement (a general strike). These events coincided with a number of critical international events that same year. However, in world history this period is not typically referred to as a crisis, and the term is instead reserved for specific issues relating to World War I, such as the conscription crisis in Canada and the crisis of naval construction in the United States. Spain remained neutral throughout the conflict.
In Russia, the February Revolution of 1917 had overthrown the Tsarist autocracy. The Kerensky government was attempting to build a democratic system while continuing the war against the Central Powers, a disaster in military, economic, and human terms. The Bolsheviks took advantage of the growing discontent to seize power in the October Revolution that year.
World War I had entered a phase of uncertainty, since Germany's advantage on the eastern front was offset by the United States entering the war on 6 April and destabilizing the western front.
Although its effects had yet to manifest during the Crisis of 1917, the Spanish Flu was developing in the winter of 1917–1918, and would become the deadliest pandemic of the Late Modern Period. It received its name because Spanish newspapers, free from wartime censorship due to Spain's neutrality, were the first to report on it. The death toll of 50 to 100 million would greatly surpass the deaths of World War I, which contributed enormously to the spread of the epidemic around the world at a scale and speed never before experienced. The effects on Spain were dire: 8 million infected and 300,000 dead, although official statistics put the number of dead at 147,114.
Spain's neutrality in World War I increased a number of its exports, from agricultural and mineral raw materials to manufactured goods from the emerging industrial sector, particularly Catalonian textiles and Basque ironworks. The balance of trade grew from a deficit of more than one hundred million pesetas to a surplus of five hundred million pesetas. This economic boom favored the industrial and commercial middle class and the financial and land-owning oligarchy, but also produced rising inflation while salaries stagnated. As profits were experiencing extraordinary growth rates, standards of living decreased significantly for the general populace, especially for the urban and industrial proletariat, although they were able to maintain pressure to achieve higher wages. In the countryside the situation was different: inflation had a greater impact, but more direct food availability lessened its effects on small landowners and tenants, predominant in the agrarian structure of northern Spain. It was quite the opposite, however, for landless laborers, a fundamental part of the workforce in the southern half of Spain, especially in Andalusia and Extremadura. The result of the process, already acutely visible in 1917, was a radical redistribution of national income, both between social classes and among territories. Rural exodus and disproportionate development between the industrial and agricultural sectors progressively worsened rural-urban tensions and the center-periphery.
The Defence Juntas (Juntas de Defensa) were a military union movement created without the approval of the Spanish legislature, and represented a clear challenge to the liberal government of Manuel García Prieto, who, unable to control them, was forced to resign. His replacement, the conservative Eduardo Dato, legalized the Juntas.
The Juntas selected a name that was common among Spanish institutions and had credibility from its use in the popular uprising of the War for Independence. They claimed that their purpose was to defend the interests of mid-ranking military officials, but their goal of political intervention was clear.
The military's obsession with national unity had become one if its greatest mobilizing factors, manifesting in the 1905 attack on the satirical Catalan publication, ¡Cu-Cut!. After the attack, the governor attempted to appease them by passing the Law of Jurisdictions, which gave the military jurisdiction over "oral and written offenses against national unity, the flag, or the military's honor." Members of the military found themselves in a peculiar social situation: soldiers in almost every other world military were experiencing great social mobility on the merits of war and the need to recruit huge numbers of soldiers, while Spanish soldiers were reduced to inaction. They could not even be compensated with stations in the colonies, since those had been lost in the Spanish–American War of 1898. In fact, the Spanish military had an overabundance of officers, with 16,000 officers per 80,000 soldiers, compared to France's 29,000 officers per 500,000 soldiers. Resentments within the army were developing between the only colonial destinations in Morocco and the rest. Inflation continued to diminish the buying power of military salaries, which were set by the rigid state budget, unlike the more flexible contracts of workers.
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Spanish crisis of 1917
The crisis of 1917 is the name that Spanish historians have given to the series of events that took place in the summer of 1917 in Spain. In particular, three simultaneous challenges threatened the government and the system of the Restoration: a military movement (the Juntas de Defensa), a political movement (the Parliamentary Assembly, organized by the Regionalist League of Catalonia in Barcelona) and a social movement (a general strike). These events coincided with a number of critical international events that same year. However, in world history this period is not typically referred to as a crisis, and the term is instead reserved for specific issues relating to World War I, such as the conscription crisis in Canada and the crisis of naval construction in the United States. Spain remained neutral throughout the conflict.
In Russia, the February Revolution of 1917 had overthrown the Tsarist autocracy. The Kerensky government was attempting to build a democratic system while continuing the war against the Central Powers, a disaster in military, economic, and human terms. The Bolsheviks took advantage of the growing discontent to seize power in the October Revolution that year.
World War I had entered a phase of uncertainty, since Germany's advantage on the eastern front was offset by the United States entering the war on 6 April and destabilizing the western front.
Although its effects had yet to manifest during the Crisis of 1917, the Spanish Flu was developing in the winter of 1917–1918, and would become the deadliest pandemic of the Late Modern Period. It received its name because Spanish newspapers, free from wartime censorship due to Spain's neutrality, were the first to report on it. The death toll of 50 to 100 million would greatly surpass the deaths of World War I, which contributed enormously to the spread of the epidemic around the world at a scale and speed never before experienced. The effects on Spain were dire: 8 million infected and 300,000 dead, although official statistics put the number of dead at 147,114.
Spain's neutrality in World War I increased a number of its exports, from agricultural and mineral raw materials to manufactured goods from the emerging industrial sector, particularly Catalonian textiles and Basque ironworks. The balance of trade grew from a deficit of more than one hundred million pesetas to a surplus of five hundred million pesetas. This economic boom favored the industrial and commercial middle class and the financial and land-owning oligarchy, but also produced rising inflation while salaries stagnated. As profits were experiencing extraordinary growth rates, standards of living decreased significantly for the general populace, especially for the urban and industrial proletariat, although they were able to maintain pressure to achieve higher wages. In the countryside the situation was different: inflation had a greater impact, but more direct food availability lessened its effects on small landowners and tenants, predominant in the agrarian structure of northern Spain. It was quite the opposite, however, for landless laborers, a fundamental part of the workforce in the southern half of Spain, especially in Andalusia and Extremadura. The result of the process, already acutely visible in 1917, was a radical redistribution of national income, both between social classes and among territories. Rural exodus and disproportionate development between the industrial and agricultural sectors progressively worsened rural-urban tensions and the center-periphery.
The Defence Juntas (Juntas de Defensa) were a military union movement created without the approval of the Spanish legislature, and represented a clear challenge to the liberal government of Manuel García Prieto, who, unable to control them, was forced to resign. His replacement, the conservative Eduardo Dato, legalized the Juntas.
The Juntas selected a name that was common among Spanish institutions and had credibility from its use in the popular uprising of the War for Independence. They claimed that their purpose was to defend the interests of mid-ranking military officials, but their goal of political intervention was clear.
The military's obsession with national unity had become one if its greatest mobilizing factors, manifesting in the 1905 attack on the satirical Catalan publication, ¡Cu-Cut!. After the attack, the governor attempted to appease them by passing the Law of Jurisdictions, which gave the military jurisdiction over "oral and written offenses against national unity, the flag, or the military's honor." Members of the military found themselves in a peculiar social situation: soldiers in almost every other world military were experiencing great social mobility on the merits of war and the need to recruit huge numbers of soldiers, while Spanish soldiers were reduced to inaction. They could not even be compensated with stations in the colonies, since those had been lost in the Spanish–American War of 1898. In fact, the Spanish military had an overabundance of officers, with 16,000 officers per 80,000 soldiers, compared to France's 29,000 officers per 500,000 soldiers. Resentments within the army were developing between the only colonial destinations in Morocco and the rest. Inflation continued to diminish the buying power of military salaries, which were set by the rigid state budget, unlike the more flexible contracts of workers.