TheCarlist wars

The dynastic war betweenIsabelline liberalism andCarlism was a savage civil war between urban liberalism and rural traditionalism, between the poorly paid and poorly equipped regular army of the liberal governments, supporting Isabella, and the semi-guerrilla forces of the Carlists. The Carlist strength lay in the north, especially in theBasque provinces andNavarre, where there was strong support for thefueros against liberal centralism and for the traditional Roman Catholic order represented by the religiousbigotry ofDon Carlos and his circle. But the Carlists could not break out of their bases in the north to capture an important city. The great Carlist leaderTomás Zumalacárregui y de Imaz was killed in an attempt to captureBilbao, and Don Carlos’s expedition to Madrid failed (1837). In 1839 Rafel Maroto, the Carlist commander, staged a mutiny against the clerical court of Don Carlos and came to terms withBaldomero Espartero, the most successful of Isabella’s generals.

María Cristina allied with liberalism out ofmilitary necessity, not fromconviction. She would have preferred to grant administrative reforms rather than consent that her daughter should become aconstitutional monarch. But only the liberals could save her daughter’s throne from the Carlists, and the minimum demand of all liberals was a constitution. As regent from 1833 to 1840, she therefore consistently supportedconservative liberals against the radicals. TheRoyal Statute (1834) represented this alliance between respectable upper-middle-class liberals and the crown.

This conservative constitution, with its steep property franchise and the great powers it gave the crown in the choice of ministers, could not stop the drift toward the leftimplicit in liberalism itself. The radicals, who were the heirs of theexaltados of 1820–23, were installed in power first by a series of provincial town uprisings in 1835 and later, after a short-lived conservative reaction, by an army mutiny that forced María Cristina to accept the constitution of 1812. The radical politicians, however, accepted a more moderate compromise constitution—that of 1837. Of more enduring importance was the sale of church lands to finance the war. The great disentailment carried out by Prime Minister Juan Alvarez Mendizábal and his successors profoundly altered the social structure of Spain by putting on the market large quantities of land, most of which were bought by large landowners or prosperous peasants.

Moderates, progressives, and the generals

The Carlist wars left civilian politicians discredited, and generals became the arbiters of politics not, as in 1814–20, as intruders but as part of the political machinery. They became the “swords” of the two main political groups. Themoderados (moderates), who were upper-middle-class oligarchic liberals fearful of democratic violence and upholders of theprerogatives of the crown, represented the conservative stream in liberalism. Their rivals, theprogresistas (progressives), were the heirs of theexaltados and represented a lower stratum of the middle class; theprogresistas were prepared to use the discontent of the urban masses in order to bring pressure on the crown to give them office. Their instrument was theUrban Militia. General Espartero used his military faction and his supporters among the youngerprogresista politicians and their artisan followers in the great cities to oust María Cristina and establish himself as regent (1841–43). Espartero proved a disappointment to the radicalprogresistas, who now allied with his conservative opponents under his military and political rival,Ramón María Narváez. In 1843 Espartero was ousted by apronunciamiento.

Narváezjettisoned hisprogresista allies through a court intrigue, and between 1844 and 1854 he and his fellow generals dominated domestic politics as representatives of themoderados. Their administrative, educational, and financial measures and the formation of theCivil Guard were lasting achievements; however, the generals could not stabilize their rule on the basis of their constitution of 1845, a conservative revision of the constitution of 1837. The period was disturbed by a series ofprogresista military risings.

To the left of theprogresistas, who were prepared to accept themonarchy if it gave them office, developed a Democratic Party, which was prepared to dethrone Isabella II, who was declared of age to rule in 1843. Never strong in numbers outside the towns, the Democrats radicalized politics. Orthodoxprogresista politicians were embarrassed by their extremist attitudes but could not neglect their potential role as urban revolutionaries.

It was not the Democrats but a group of discontented generals led byLeopoldo O’Donnell who successfully revolted in 1854. They were prepared to sacrifice thedynasty because the queen and her mother favored a rigid courtconservatism that effectively excluded them from influence. The rebellious militaryoligarchs were forced to call in civilian and radical support. This turned theirpronunciamiento into a mild revolution. Isabella survived only through Espartero’s political timidity. Unprepared to accept the backing of the Democrats as the “George Washington of Spain,” he accepted an alliance with O’Donnell, who was determined to arrest the drift to radicalism. In 1856 he broke with Espartero, defeated a demonstration in his favour, and dissolved the National Militia, the instrument of the left-wing Progressives. The radical thrust was thus defeated.

Economic expansion

The “revolutionary” period of 1854–56 saw no important constitutional change, but the further extension of disentailment to the lands belonging to the municipalities (the Land Reform of Madoz [1855]) and the new law for limited companies provided the legal structure for a rapid expansion of the economy. To promote this expansion, there were new injections of foreign credit—particularly French—and new banks. This capital allowed construction to begin on the railroad network that was to provide the transportinfrastructure for a national market. The textile industry ofCatalonia flourished as a modernwool manufacture grew up; in theBasque Country the second pole of an industrial economy developed slowly around iron. The still-dominant agricultural sector expanded as the church and common lands provided new fields for wheat, the easiest of cash crops; the growth of such towns asBarcelona created a market for vegetables, wines, and fruit.

Expansion resulted in the classic expression of 19th-century liberalism—the hautebourgeoisie of finance and industry. Members of this new class ranged from solidCatalan manufacturers demanding protective tariffs to safeguard their gains to daring speculators such as José, marqués deSalamanca, a railway financier who took an active part in political life and the urbanization of Madrid. It also included successful generals ready to forget their humble origins. Together with the large landowners, these groups formed theoligarchy of liberalism.

The government that presided over this prosperity was O’Donnell’sLiberal Union, which was an attempt to fuse all dynastic parties in a broad-based coalition. It provided a long period of stable government (1856–63), and, had the Progressive politicians been less afraid of losing their left wing to the Democrats and had the queen been willing to grant Progressives power, the dynasty might have survived. Instead, she excluded the Progressives and forced them first to withdraw formally from political life and then to contemplate revolution. Their “sword,” GeneralJuan Prim y Prats (a pharmacist’s grandson and a striking example of thesocial mobility of the liberal army), was a resolute conspirator and the ablest of the political generals of the 19th century. When Isabella’s court ministers alienated O’Donnell’s followers, a powerful coalition was formed, and Prim dropped his alliance with the Democrats. A series ofmediocre ultraconservative governments, a growth in democratic agitation among universityintellectuals (whose main concern was the hold of the church over education), and an economic slump caused by bad harvests gave wide support to the military rising against Isabella. Her armies would not defend her, and she was forced to leave forFrance in September 1868.