Coup d'état in Spain of 1926
The coup d'état in Spain of 1926, also known as Sanjuanada because it was scheduled for the night of June 24, the night of San Juan, was a coup State that failed in its attempt to put an end to the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, established in Spain through another coup in September 1923. It was the first attempted coup against the dictatorship.
Background: the military policy of the Primo de Rivera Dictatorship
As Eduardo González Calleja has pointed out, the military policy of the Dictatorship "resulted chaotic and contradictory" as could be seen in the question of Morocco —first defending the "abandonista" position, supported by the junteros military and questioned by the Africanistas military, and then the interventionist one, defended by the Africanists and criticized by the junteros— and in the promotion policy, converted "into the kingdom of contradiction and arbitrariness&# 34;.
Managing promotions had always been a highly controversial issue, especially in the Infantry Arms, since the junteros defended that only seniority be taken into account, while the africanistas They sponsored war merits. Progressively, the Dictatorship was taking control of the Classification Board of generals and colonels, so it was Primo de Rivera who ultimately decided the promotions, rewarding the like-minded military and punishing the critics. A Royal Decree of July 4, 1926 established that it was not necessary to communicate the reasons why certain bosses and officials had not been promoted and, furthermore, any possibility of appeal was denied to them. The resulting arbitrariness in the promotions —which became evident especially after the landing at Al Hoceima, when there was a flood of promotions for war merits— motivated the distancing of some bosses and officers who began to conspire against the Dictatorship by contacting politicians from the parties of the turn evicted from power. "Many of the memoirs and political works written by the military during these years and in subsequent years reveal personal grievances, rather than an anti-dictatorial militancy founded on deep ideological convictions," says González Calleja.
The Conspiracy
The first serious plot against the Dictatorship was organized in 1925 by the cavalry colonel Segundo García García, although he could only count on a prominent soldier, General Eduardo López Ochoa. The conspirators, among whom were prominent members of the "old politics" like the count of Romanones and Melquíades Álvarez (presidents of the Chambers that had been closed), they tried to restore the Constitution of 1876 and convene the Cortes suspended in 1923, under the slogan, devised by Romanones, “no reaction, no revolution; Monarchy and parliamentary regime", although López Ochoa disagreed and considered that the objective should not be the return to the situation prior to Primo de Rivera's coup, but the convocation of Constituent Cortes. The conspiracy was discovered very soon, but Primo de Rivera did not impose harsh sentences on those involved, treating them "as if they were naughty cadets," according to historian Gabriel Cardona. "He had not understood that it was a disturbing symptom," adds Cardona.
Colonel García, from the military casino in Madrid, where he was being held in an attenuated prison, continued conspiring, and came into contact with the recently constituted Alianza Republicana that brought together the republican parties and that had been promoted by the professor of the José Giral Central University. This conspiracy was joined by politicians from the Restoration, such as the reformer Melquíades Álvarez and the liberal Count of Romanones. The conspiracy became important when it was joined by the two most senior generals in the Spanish Army: Valeriano Weyler—apparently prompted by the former regent María Cristina de Habsburgo-Lorena, who was concerned about the identification of her son, King Alfonso XIII, with the Dictatorship—and Francisco Aguilera y Egea. Finally, it was the latter who led the conspiracy, due to Weyler's advanced age, he was around 90 years old, and also because Primo de Rivera had removed him from his positions as chief of the Central General Staff, State Councilor and president of the Board of Classification, when he received news of the interviews he had had with María Cristina de Habsburgo. Some of the meetings of the conspirators were held at Weyler's house in Madrid.
Most of the officers involved in the conspiracy were from the Artillery Corps. These were against the decree published on June 9, 1926 by which the promotion systems were unified in all the Arms and Corps of the Army, which left out the "closed scale" that the artillerymen defended and that consisted of promotions taking place exclusively by seniority. The decree also prohibited a common practice among Artillery Corps officers of exchanging war merit promotions for decorations.
General Aguilera's objective was, once Primo de Rivera was overthrown, to form a liberal government headed by himself or by Melquíades Álvarez, and in which the Count of Romanones would occupy the Ministry of State, Niceto Alcalá-Zamora the Ministry of Grace and Justice and Manuel de Burgos y Mazo the Ministry of the Interior. However, the younger generals committed to the coup, such as López Ochoa, Riquelme or Queipo de Llano, were not satisfied with the restoration of the Constitution of 1876 Rather, they advocated the convening of Constituent Cortes that would decide the form of government, and the younger officers, such as Commander Ramón Franco or Captain Fermín Galán, went much further as they defended the proclamation of the Republic.
The aborted coup
The plan of the conspirators was that General Aguilera would move to Valencia and there he would rise up, counting on the support of a revolutionary Committee headed by Lieutenant Colonel Bermúdez de Castro —the reason for choosing Valencia was that it was about an equidistant point from Madrid, Barcelona and Zaragoza, three fundamental enclaves of the Army. Next, the committed soldiers of the capital would rise up in Madrid, with General Riquelme taking charge of assuming command of the general captaincy —the conspirators also had the support of General Domingo Batet, military governor of Tarragona, and General Gil Dolz de Castellar, Captain General of Valladolid, although he backed down at the last moment, as well as groups of soldiers in Galicia, Andalusia, Aragon and Catalonia. Immediately Melquíades Álvarez and the Count of Romanones would visit the king to demand the dismissal of Primo de Rivera and the appointment of Aguilera as the new head of government, a position in which he would be for a short time to make way for a civilian cabinet. The date set for the uprising was the night of June 24, the night of San Juan.
Melquíades Álvarez was entrusted with drafting the manifesto of the coup directed "To the Nation and the Land and Sea Army", which stated, among other things:
The Army cannot tolerate them using its flag and its name to keep a regime that strips the People of its rights.[...] [We commend] the restoration of constitutional legality. Reintegration of the Army, for the best defense of its prestige, to its peculiar ends. Maintenance of order and measures to ensure the establishment of a freely elected Court and, as sovereign, they need to express genuine national will.
Following the agreed plan, General Aguilera, accompanied by Colonel Segundo García, moved to Valencia where he arrived on the afternoon of June 23, but when he met in Godella, a few kilometers from Valencia, with The local leaders of the coup verified that the forces involved were very small —some conspirators had been detained by the police and others had disassociated themselves from the coup due to the police action. Despite everything, Aguilera decided to continue, but Lieutenant Colonel Bermúdez de Castro was arrested for which the planned assault on the general captaincy was frustrated. Then Aguilera decided to go to Tarragona, with the intention of revolting there, with the support of the military governor, General Domingo Batet, also involved in the uprising. But the Civil Guard detained them both at the Tarragona hotel where they met. The Civil Guard found in General Aguilera's luggage more than two hundred copies of the Manifesto to the Nation and the Land and Sea Army that Melquiades Álvarez had drawn up, and that it was signed by General Aguilera himself and by General Weyler.
Meanwhile in Madrid, on the night of San Juan, the Manifesto of the coup was read at the Ateneo de Madrid "in a climate of euphoria," according to Gabriel Cardona, but the security forces controlled the capital and the civil guard arrested the group of engineering students who, led by Antonio María Sbert, were going to take over the Palace of Communications in Plaza de Cibeles, to take over the telegraph service.
One of the keys to the failure of the coup was that the plan was known to the king, because some of the conspirators had contacted people close to the monarch —Aguilera himself had informed the queen mother María Cristina—, and Alfonso XIII "He decided to bet on Primo de Rivera, who seemed safer and, of course, more comfortable" and because "he suspected that, if the Dictatorship fell, it would be very difficult to establish a stable government," says Gabriel Cardona.
Consequences
In addition to Generals Aguilera and Batet, arrested in Tarragona, and Lieutenant Colonel Bermúdez de Castro, arrested in Valencia, Captain Fermín Galán, one of Colonel Segundo García's liaisons, and various politicians and trade unionists involved, including Ángel Pestaña. General Weyler was later arrested, when he returned to Madrid after having retired to his house in Majorca, awaiting events.
On June 26, the newspapers published an "Unofficial Note" from the Government in which it gave its version of what happened:
A short number of people, blinded, without a doubt, by passions, ambition or despair, had been trying for a few weeks to organize a plot, basing it on that it is going on a long time without enjoying the freedoms or the pure constitutional regime. They yearn, as far as we can see, the times before 13 September when they enjoyed that and, in addition, terrorism, separatism, impiety, monetary discredit, global disdain, the imbalance in Morocco and the ruin and abandonment of agricultural and industrial production. There they look. The vast majority of Spain demonstrates on a daily basis wanting the perseverance of the regime and the current government. [...]
The Chief of Security, which so brilliant services has been providing, has made the scandal abort in the project, documenting enough to know the people who plotted this absurd plot. [...]
The mosaic of the conspirators cannot be more abhorred and grotesque: a group of trade unionists, another of Republicans and of anarchist intellectuals, qualified for their constant demolishing action, some people who, for their age, category and position, no one would believe them capable of marching in such company and the dozens of discontented and rebellious military agents, who are always the exception of the class, and [...] The conspirators, of course, have found no echo in any social sector and, judging by the mistake in which they have incurred, they should not be intelligent people to appreciate the national circumstances and the most powerful reasons, for which a people and an army, except that it can be given once a century, give their heat and support to a change of political regime, which is quite different from a vulgar pronouncement to the old, moved by the contempt of ambition.
It does not appear necessary to anticipate the measures that the Government will take disciplinary and governmental measures, without prejudice to the penalties imposed by the Tribunals in their day; public opinion will be known to them, and it is to be hoped that it will be satisfied with the vigor with which the Government takes care of social tranquillity and guarantees disturbances to the national development.
Without waiting for the trial, Primo de Rivera imposed large fines on those involved, proportional to their respective fortunes. Thus the Count of Romanones was fined 500,000 pesetas (a fortune for the time), General Aguilera 200,000; General Weyler, Gregorio Marañón and former Senator Manteca with 100,000; General Batet with 15,000, and others with smaller amounts. In Weyler's sanction it was said that he was applied for "his proven intervention or concomitance, more or less accentuated, in the preparation of events that could cause serious damage to the Nation and for frequently promoting restlessness in the spirit with his omens and words public, and difficulties for the Government of the Country. General Aguilera, for his part, refused to pay the fine, so the government ordered the seizure of all his assets and his salary.
On April 18, 1927, the court martial was held in which Generals Weyler and Batet, along with 17 other people, were declared innocent — despite this, Primo de Rivera ordered that Weyler's name be withdrawn from the streets or squares that would take it. General Aguilera was only sentenced to six months and one day. Instead, Colonel Segundo García, sentenced to 8 years; Lieutenant Colonel Bermúdez de Castro, sentenced to 6 years and one day; and captains Fermín Galán y Perea and lieutenant Rubio Villanuevas, sentenced to 4 years.
The dictator Primo de Rivera tried to minimize the importance of the coup, but as the Republican politician Alejandro Lerroux pointed out, "don't say that it was a blunder: on the accused bench was the Army Captain General [Weyler] and the lieutenant general number 1 of the scale, who had just resigned from the position of president of the Supreme Council of War and Navy [Aguilera]». On the other hand, and despite the failure, Melquiades Álvarez, the editor of the Manifesto of the coup, saw something positive in Sanjuanada: «It is bad and unpleasant news; but we are already on the road to victory. The movement already has its head and its idol. The Republic is the work of a very short time."
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