Fernando Primo de Rivera

Fernando Primo de Rivera y Sobremonte (Seville, 1831-Madrid, 1921) was a Spanish soldier and politician who, in addition to being Governor on two occasions of the Captaincy General of the Philippines, served between 1907 and 1909 and in 1917 as Minister of War in two conservative governments chaired by Antonio Maura and Eduardo Dato. He held the noble titles of i Marquis of Estella and i Count of San Fernando de la Union.

Biography

Caricatured in 1897 by Mecachis in relation to his role during the Philippine insurrection.

Born in Seville on July 24, 1831, he was the son of the sailor José Primo de Rivera.

A combatant in the third Carlist war, after the capture of Estella Alfonso XII granted him the title of Marquis of Estella, in 1877. Between 1880 and 1883 he was Captain General of the Philippines and that last year he obtained the title of Count of San Fernando de la Unión. Returned to Spain from the Philippines in 1883, his figure marked his young nephew Miguel Primo de Rivera, who saw in him a successful model to imitate.

In 1897 he was appointed captain general on the islands again, replacing Camilo García de Polavieja, where he managed to push the troops of Emilio Aguinaldo into the mountains, with whom he signed the Pact of Biak-na-Bato in 1897, for which the Filipino insurgent promised to go into exile in Hong Kong. In 1898, during his stay in the Philippines, he was awarded the fifth-class Laureate Cross of San Fernando with a pension of 10,000 pesetas. In 1898 he would be relieved of the position and replaced by Basilio Augustín y Dávila.

He was interim Minister of War in 1874 and 1875, at the beginning of the Restoration; years later he officially held the post during the conservative governments of Antonio Maura in 1907 and Eduardo Dato in 1917.

He died around half past two in the morning of May 23, 1921, at his home at Calle de Serrano, 25, in Madrid. The burial took place the following day in the Sacramental de San Isidro and he was attended by personalities such as Antonio Maura, the Count of Romanones, Valeriano Weyler, Joaquín Milans del Bosch, José Bascarán and Federic, his nephew Miguel Primo de Rivera, Diego Arias de Miranda or Manuel de Burgos y Mazo.