Was the Spanish 19th century army built to oppress Spaniards, not fight wars?

[Båtsman]

I recently listened to an interesting talk by Pablo Iglesias, where Iglesias mentioned that the Spanish army lost most colonial of the conflicts during the 19th and early 20th century because the Spanish army's main objective never was to fight any foreign powers. It was instead built to ensure the continued reign of the government. And while I do know that Spanish history is very atypical and bloody for the long 19th century, I wonder if this is true? (Or the whole truth, since we are dealing with a politician after all). So anyone with an insight in Spanish history would be very welcome to elaborate. Much appreciated.

 

[Semper Victor]

The Spanish Army's first task in the XIX century was to fight insurgency movements or rebellions against the government, be it in the peninsula or abroad. There were comparatively few open engagements against "regular" armies, even colonial ones. As for the "opressing" part in the sense used by Iglesias, it's not that simple. The hardest conflicts the army had to fight were against the Carlists, who were not exactly freedom fighting revolutionaries, and against the Cuban rebels, which was a conflict fought outside the Iberian peninsula.

On another side, it's true that the army, after the return of Ferdinand VII in 1814, took a liking to meddling in politics, and this became a chronical political illness in Spanish society until 1981 (date of the last "pronunciamiento"). The list of coups and military interferences in politics in this period of time is bedazzling, and has no paralells in Europe. But the army's meddling was not always synonimous with reactionary coups. Until 1868, many of the coups were actually done by "progressist" officers, seeking to topple governments perceived as "too conservative". Perhaps the best known cases are the coup of colonel Riego in 1820 and the 1868 "Glorious Revolution" led by generals Serrano and Prim and admiral Topete which toppled the Borbonic dinasty.

After 1876 though, the officer corps turned markedly more conservative, and the army began approaching the (somewhat caricaturesque) portrait laid down by Iglesias. After 1898, it aligned itself definitively with the most conservative factions of Spanish society, and its interventions in politics became again more frequent and always more "oppressive": the Law of Jurisdictions of 1906 (a clear violation of the principles of the 1876 Constitution), the Ley de Fugas (which basically allowed the police and the army to murder prisoners without trial), the 1923 coup of Primo de Rivera, the 1932 coup of general Sanjurjo (the Sanjurjada) and finally the military uprising of July 18, 1936. Although even in this late period there were examples of military uprisings which were not of a reactionary nature, like the 1930 republican rebellion of the garrison of Jaca.

 

[Båtsman]

The Spanish Army's first task in the XIX century was to fight counteinsurgency movements or rebellions against the government, be it in the peninsula or abroad. There were comparatively few open engagements against "regular" armies, even colonial ones. As for the "opressing" part in the sense used by Iglesias, it's not that simple. The hardest conflicts the army had to fight were against the Carlists, who were not exactly freedom fighting revolutionaries, and against the Cuban rebels, which was a conflict fought out of the peninsula.

On another side, it's true that the army, after the return of Ferdinand VII in 1814, took a liking to meddling in politics, and this became a chronical political illness in Spanish society until 1981 (date of the last "pronunciamiento"). The list of coups and military interferences in politics in this period of time is bedazzling, and has no paralells in Europe. But the army's meddling was not always synonimous with reactionary coups. Until 1868, many of the coups were actually done by "progressist" officers, seeking to topple governments perceived as "too conservative". Perhaps the best known cases are the coup of colonel Riego in 1820 and the 1868 "Glorious Revolution" led by generals Serrano and Prim and admiral Topete which toppled the Borbonic dinasty.

After 1876 though, the officer corps turned markedly more conservative, and the army began approaching the (somewhat caricaturesque) portrait laid down by Iglesias. After 1898, it aligned itself definitively with the most conservative factions of Spanish society, and its interventions in politics became again more frequent and always more "oppressive": the Law of Jurisdictions of 1906 (a clear violation of the principles of the 1876 Constitution), the Ley de Fugas (which basically allowed the police and the army to murder prisoners without trial), the 1923 coup of Primo de Rivera, the 1932 coup of general Sanjurjo (the Sanjurjada) and finally the military uprising of July 18, 1936. Although even in this late period there were examples of military uprisings which were not of a reactionary nature, like the 1930 republican rebellion of the garrison of Jaca.

Thanks for the reply.

 

[Narwhal]

Not sure if one can call Primo de Rivera "reactionary" tho. Opportunist hedonist seems closer to the truth

 

[Fornadan]

Isn't the main objective of most armies to keep the reigning government in power?

 

[Sleepyhead]

Isn't the main objective of most armies to keep the reigning government in power?

Indeed, unless the government is actually representative of the people, as in modern democracies, or if the army is acting in its own interest.

 

[Semper Victor]

Not sure if one can call Primo de Rivera "reactionary" tho. Opportunist hedonist seems closer to the truth

There's mo contradiction among the three traits, Primo de Rivera combined them without trouble. His "political" discourse was full of ideas like the "iron surgeon who will save Spain" and relied heavily on conservative elements within the army and the civil society. Many of the army officers and civilian leaders who would later conspirate against the II Republic either were part of his governments (Calvo Sotelo, Cavalcanti, etc) or made their military careers under him (Franco, Sanjurjo, Millan Astray, and all the "Africanist" officers).

As for his hedonism, it was neither more nor less than the one practised (within discretion, of course) by most high-ranking officers and politicians of the time. Except for the left and some honourable exceptions in the center and right, the whole upper class was corrupt to the core, and Primo de Rivera was not an especially outrageous example. He liked young girls no more than (for example) general Sanjurjo, or the king himself, who was a renowned womanizer.

His real problem was his lack of character and will to stop the worst abuses that were happening, in fact he worsened many of them. He did not solve neither the problem of the hyper-inflated officer corps (and the chronicasl embezzlement and corruption within it), nor the meterorical rise of Juan March, perhaps the greatest crook in XX century Spain. He left untouched the "social question' that had large areas of the peninsula aflame, he allowed the rightist landowners and business owners in Catalonia to form a paramilitary militia, the "somatent" with which they terrorized unruly workers and trade union leaders, he allowed the blatant abuse by the Catholic Church of the 1859 Concordate to go on, etc.

The only thing that he promised he would solve and he did solve (to a certain point) was the Rif rebellion, thanks to the French intervention. Oh, and he did build some roads, that too. Apart from that, he touched nothing in his seven years in power. If that's not reaction at its best, I don't know what it is.

 

[BaronNoir]

I can categorically say that the Spanish army pre-Civil War (well...the last one) was far less about ''defending the colonies and the kingdom'' than ''oh God, we have to keep the colonies or the army will again revolt'' (topped with ''we don't need that many units, but the generals want a big army and they have lots of officiers that need to get jobs)

 

[Semper Victor]

I can categorically say that the Spanish army pre-Civil War (well...the last one) was far less about ''defending the colonies and the kingdom'' than ''oh God, we have to keep the colonies or the army will again revolt'' (topped with ''we don't need that many units, but the generals want a big army and they have lots of officiers that need to get jobs)

The problem went along those lines, more or less. There weren't that many units actually (the army was not exactly large), but the number of officers was absolutely out of proportion to its size. Most of the military spending went into officers' salaries and retirement pensions, and even then the salaries were usually miserable unless you reached the ranks of the upper officers, or if you became entitled to further economic supplements by virtue of "war merits". This led to situations like the one between 1909 and 1921: the Spanish Moroccan Protectorate was mostly peaceful, but the Spanish government awarded an unlikely number of high military decorations to officers serving there; it was the way to keep the officers more or less happy and the army quiet and out of politics.

What needed to be done was to reform the army and cut down drastically in the number of officers, but the governments of the First Borbonic Restoration (1876-1931) did not dare to even suggest that. It would have to wait until the first democratically elected Republican government (1931-33) when its War Minister Manuel Azaña enforced a very generous program of voluntary retirement for military officers.

EDIT: for those who can read Spanish, I recommned wholeheartedly this book:

Conspiración para la Rebelión militar del 18 de julio de 1936, by the retired general of the Spanish Air Force José García Rodríguez. It gives a very detailed descrption of the (sorry) state of the Spanish Army during the first three decades of the XX century.

 

[Kgw]

I've also read the idea that the Spanish Army became detached from politics since Alfonso XII reaching the throne (by a coup, more or less). But Alfonso XIII's meddling and Primo de Rivera's coup* what get them into politics again.

About the loss of the colonies, I've always heard the tale of "we have to have a war, even if it's for losing it, so the military/conservatives won't coup us". I don't buy it,. As the war shown, the Spanish Army wasn't in condition to coup anything. They barely defeated rebels in Cuba and the Philippines and they couldn't stop the American army. Also, the conservatives huff and puff a lot, but they couldn't do anything but back the Regency.

In any case, I wouldn't take any history lesson from Pablo Iglesias.

* which wasn't really a sounding success until the King said "Ok, Primo, you win".

 

[Båtsman]

In any case, I wouldn't take any history lesson from Pablo Iglesias.

Well, it was a talk between Iglesias and Perry Anderson, probably the biggest marxist historian of western Europe today. Marxist history, and Perry Anderson in particular, fascinates me. There is something hilarious about re-interpreting corruption in terms of back-door talent recruitment.

 

[Semper Victor]

The Borbonic dinasty (in the person of Alfonso XII) recovered the throne in 1876 the same way it had lost it in 1868: by means of a military pronunciamiento (at Sagunto by general Martínez Campos). This put the new regime in an awkward situation: they wanted to protect a regime born out of a military coup from further meddling of the army into politics.

They managed it more or less for the following 25 years thanks to a series of reasons:

• The general exhaustion of the country after the agitated and bloody 8 years than had passed between 1868 and 1876, many people wanted internal peace and stability at any price.
• The first action of the new regime was to lead the army (commanded in the field by Martínez Campos) to a quick and definitive victory in the Third Carlist War.
• Then they shipped Martínez Campos, along with the best fighting units in the army, to Cuba, where the aforementioned general was able to fight the rebels to a stalemate (the Paz de Zanjón).
• With these successes, Martínez Campos' prestige in the army skyrocketed, and as he was in good personal terms with the duumvirate that controlled the (corrupt and riddled) political system of the Restoration, formed by Antonio Cánovas del Castillo and Práxedes Mateo Sagasta, stability was guaranteed.

But this was a highly personalist system, based not on institutions, but on strong personalities, subjected to the imperatives of biology. In 1895, war erupted in Cuba again, and the old general Martínez Campos failed to control it. The following year, Cánovas was murdered by an anarchist, in 1898 the disaster of Cuba and the Philippines happened and in 1902 Sagasta died. In this very moment, when crisis had shattered the self-confidence of the army, the political system of the Restoration went into a nosedive due to the death of its leaders. The Liberal and Conservative parties quickly degenerated into "taifa kingdoms" and the system rotted away into 1923, with nobody being able to take the decisive step and reform it into a true democratic, functional constitutional monarchy. Also, by this time anarchist and socialist organizations and parties began to appear and to make themselves heard in political debate, and nationalist parties appeared in Catalonia and the Basque Country. All this alarned greatly the economic and political elite of the Restoration, with whom the upper leadership of the army increasingly identified itself.

To make things worse, king Alfonso XIII came to age in this very timeframe and given the political void he took a liking to meddling into politics, especially into military affairs, clearly violating the boundaries of his powers as established by the 1876 Constitution. Had he been a responsible monarch, perhaps he would've been a benign influence, but he was a model of frivolity and irresponsibility in everything he did in life.

That the army would also step into this political void was almost unavoidable, because nobody was in a position to stop them from doing so. Also, Alfonso XIII's support for Primo de Rivera's pronunciamiento in Barcelona was almost a given from the start, because the Cortes were about to start discussing the famous Expediente Picasso, about the personal involvement of the king in the events that led to the disaster of Annual. Primo's coup saved him and kept his royal butt firmly glued to the throne for 8 more years, and right to the end the king tried to keep the army involved. The main reason why he fled after the April 1931 municipal election was that most high officers (especially general Sanjurjo, then commander of the Civil Guard) told him that they were not going to repeat Primo de Rivera's 1923 pronunciamiento to save his ass.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Not sure if one can call Primo de Rivera "reactionary" tho. Opportunist hedonist seems closer to the truth

I would call him a mix of the two. With hindsight, nowadays we call him reactionary but I think that, then, he would have been termed "(too) conservative".

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

I can categorically say that the Spanish army pre-Civil War (well...the last one) was far less about ''defending the colonies and the kingdom'' than ''oh God, we have to keep the colonies or the army will again revolt'' (topped with ''we don't need that many units, but the generals want a big army and they have lots of officiers that need to get jobs)

The funny thing about the pre-1936 Spanish army it's that it had an extraordinary out-of-proportion officers/men (IIRC,in 1910 there were 471 generals, 24,705 officers and 110.926 soldiers). In addition to this, the Spanish army had the oldest generals of any army of the world: in 1905, the average age of a Spanish General was 65. And Captains that were 55 years old... (source: Anuario Militar of 1905).

All in all, it was an outdated army and without a proper budget. And, even with all this mess, it fought quite well in Cuba in 1898.

 

[Semper Victor]

At times, it looked as if it were a pensions scheme rather than an army.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Provided that you were an officer...

 

[Semper Victor]

The funny thing about the pre-1936 Spanish army it's that it had an extraordinary out-of-proportion officers/men (IIRC,in 1910 there were 471 generals, 24,705 officers and 110.926 soldiers). In addition to this, the Spanish army had the oldest generals of any army of the world: in 1905, the average age of a Spanish General was 65. And Captains that were 55 years old... (source: Anuario Militar of 1905).

All in all, it was an outdated army and without a proper budget. And, even with all this mess, it fought quite well in Cuba in 1898.

And by 1931, the situation had degenerated even further. The army was organized in 16 divisions, for which an establishment of 80 generals would've been enough, but it had .... 800 generals . Also, the number of commanders and captains was higher than the number of sergeants. This is what gave birth to that malicious saying by the Anarchists: Curas y militares, parásitos sociales (priests and militarymen = social parasites).

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Indeed. With time, the problem only went worse, and all the attempts to reform the army simply failed, as the attempted reform by Azaña.

 

[pirro]

Well, it was a talk between Iglesias and Perry Anderson, probably the biggest marxist historian of western Europe today. Marxist history, and Perry Anderson in particular, fascinates me. There is something hilarious about re-interpreting corruption in terms of back-door talent recruitment.

A Marxist historian and Iglesias. You can't find a worse way to learn history.


Well, in my University with Francoists and similar people.

 

[Kgw]

The irony is that Franco government in fact did strip a lot of power from the military. Oh, they have a lot of name and no so long ago they have special shops, discounts and privileges (private courts), but close to zero political power. Because when you reach the power by a coup the last thing you usually want is encouraging someone to repeat it.