When Alfonso XIII was born, in 1886, Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja was a teenager who had left Jerez to train at the Toledo Military Academy. There were three decades left before their lives would intersect on a path of no return, begun with the coup d’état of 1923. But the family’s relationship with the dynasty went back a long way.
In this saga of military men, we should highlight Fernando Primo de Rivera y Sobremonte (1831-1921), paternal uncle of the future dictator, who had contributed to the restoration of the Bourbons to the throne after the First Republic, by not opposing the pronouncement of Martínez Campos when he was captain general of Madrid. Alfonso XII granted him the title of Marquis of Estella after he took the homonymous city in the last Carlist war.
Fernando Primo de Rivera maintained a very paternal relationship with his nephew, whom he served as a guide and protector while he developed his career. She was his aide-de-camp on several occasions, but the ties became closer in 1908, when Miguel Primo de Rivera became a widower. His uncle was at that time Minister of War in the government of the conservative Antonio Maura, which must have widened the circle of his social relations, also in the political sphere. The young soldier already had a worthy record of service, since he had been stationed in Melilla, Cuba and the Philippines.
Miguel Primo de Rivera was entrusted with greater responsibilities during the crisis of 1917, when he had already been promoted to general. Then, the octogenarian Marquis of Estella was called again to occupy the War portfolio, this time by President Eduardo Dato, and he chose to entrust his nephew with the negotiations with the military of the Defense Juntas.
At first, uncle and nephew were against their demands – like Alfonso the future. It seems that some of these soldiers called their uncle “the mummy.”
There were clear ideological affinities between Alfonso Firstly, due to social origin and training, they obviously shared the conservative ideology, more authoritarian than liberal, and in constant prevention regarding the revolutionary threat. Furthermore, they saw themselves as the ultimate interpreters of the popular will and the interests of the country.
They also professed a patriotic Catholicism closely linked to a “menendezpelayista” reading of the Spanish nation. And, finally, it is worth mentioning some lesser-known concerns, such as the desire to strengthen cultural ties with Latin America.
Other issues, however, distanced them, such as the position towards Morocco. Alfonso XIII, not by chance nicknamed the African, had business and personal interests there. But the general began to doubt the advantages of the colonial adventure. Until he made public a controversial abandonment that the monarch should not have shared in any way. As military governor of Cádiz, in March 1917 he gave a speech in favor of exchanging Gibraltar for the African possessions, and even sent copies of the text to the king, for which he was dismissed the next day.
Meanwhile, when the decomposition of the restorationist system intensified, the elderly Fernando Primo de Rivera proposed to Alfonso XIII a temporary dictatorial solution, lasting two years. He did so in 1920 in a letter where he maintained that, “without changing the constitutional regime, but suspending it completely for some time, an attempt could be made to form a government of technicians who, under the presidency of a man of integrity and character, would undertake the work. through decrees that had the force of laws, to channel in Spain everything that is out of control.” A government, he added, “of a markedly civil character but supported by military force.”
It could be believed that this is the origin of a thought that was accentuated in Miguel towards the year 1923, but there are also those who, like the historian Alejandro Quiroga, do not rule out that the nephew himself could have influenced its writing.
The rapprochement with the king seemed to increase in this turbulent period. In May 1921, Alfonso Those days, at almost ninety years of age, his uncle Fernando died, leaving him as an inheritance the title of Marquis of Estella, proof of the esteem professed to him by someone who had been his main supporter.
Another family loss was added that summer, when the Jerez native’s little brother, Lieutenant Colonel Fernando Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja, stationed in the Alcántara Cavalry Regiment, died in Monte Arruit. The king later presided over the funeral procession and posthumously awarded him the Laureate Cross of San Fernando.
The relevance of Miguel Primo de Rivera increased since he was named captain general of Catalonia in 1922. He then moved to Barcelona, ??where social struggles and gunfights were raging.
Meanwhile, the authoritarian whims of the monarch had been increasingly manifested, initially through private channels. Already in 1917 he had acknowledged to the politician Francesc Cambó that he saw no other solution to the political crisis than a coup that brought about a government “supported by the King and bayonets.”
In May 1921, bordering on his institutional role, he did so in public: he gave a notorious speech in Córdoba that represented an attack on Parliament, to which he blamed the country’s ills, also questioning the politicians. And he wouldn’t be the last. It seems that, in informal conversations, he continued to slip the idea that a military government was needed without constitutional and parliamentary obstacles, as he confessed in July 1923 to Joaquín Salvatella, Minister of Public Instruction.
By then, Miguel Primo de Rivera was enjoying a streak of popularity and was already gathering support for the statement. By early September, his most loyal officers in the Barcelona garrison were ready, and rumors of military intervention were increasing.
On the eve of the coup, the president of the government, García Prieto, contacted the king, who was spending the summer in San Sebastián, to warn him about Primo de Rivera’s plans. Alfonso XIII simply considered it an exaggeration and invited him to talk to him to dissuade him. When the pronouncement was finally announced, on the 13th, the king continued the entire day in the Cantabrian city.
The garrison of Madrid joined the movement and also that of Zaragoza, but for the most part they waited for the king’s orders. Primo de Rivera had telegraphed him assuring him of the maintenance of public order and loyalty to the Crown. On the contrary, he believed that ministers should “be thrown out of the window.” The manifesto assured that the movement began “for Spain and for the King”, whom the text also cheered a couple of times.
Alfonso At the end of the month, the French ambassador was surprised by “the happy and satisfied attitude” of the king, according to the diplomatic notes exhumed by the historian José Luis Gómez-Navarro: “He gave the impression of having emerged from a nightmare, of feeling freed from annoying obstacles.”
By endorsing the coup d’état, the monarch failed to comply with the constitutional mandate. The idea that he will convey later is that there was no option or that, at least, he chose the most prudent one. Many contemporaries, however, were convinced that he was involved, even if it were due to his inaction, since he was still the supreme commander of the Army, and, in his capacity as a soldier-king, he could have tried to stop the pronouncement.
Ángel Ossorio y Gallardo, who had been Minister of Public Works a few years before, stated in his memoirs: “That the coup d’état was arbitrated by the king is something that no one no longer denies or ignores.” For his part, a man of the king’s confidence like the Count of Romanones, who had been president of the Council of Ministers on several occasions, did not see it so clearly: “I could not find out to what extent Don Alfonso had knowledge of what “It was brewing.”
Current historiography tends to consider that, at least since September, he was aware of the preparations, but he let them do so while maintaining a prudent distance, and, therefore, his actions were decisive for the triumph of the conspiracy.
Be that as it may, the destinies of both figures now revealed themselves to be inseparable. It was a “dictatorship with a king” in which the president of the Directory and the head of state collaborated, regularly dispatched and appeared in public together.
The fate of the monarchy was tied to that of the new regime, and disillusionment spread among many of the sovereign’s former supporters, to such an extent that many converted to republicanism.
Supporting the dictatorship also meant supporting all the measures that were promoted, starting with the cancellation of rights and freedoms. Although there were those that undoubtedly benefited the sovereign, such as paralyzing the thorny process over Annual’s responsibilities, which could have ended up involving him himself.
In the words of Javier Moreno Luzón, the king had to “learn to live” with the dictator, whom he “called a peacock.” In turn, Miguel Primo de Rivera contemptuously called the monarch “el Señorito.” This type of diarchy entailed a reduction in royal power and its prominence.
There are authors who consider that, since the two were accustomed to commanding and imposing their will, a certain rivalry arose, and the relationship never became completely cordial, with the king being, in some way, a “prisoner” of the dictator. The UK ambassador put it very well: “Each, in a sense, depends on the other and both probably dislike their position.”
Primo de Rivera sent him decrees and the king signed them. The powers were not perfectly defined, but, in the first two years, everything was simple. When there were discrepancies or tensions (the landing at Al Hoceima, the crisis with the artillerymen or the convocation of the National Assembly), Alfonso XIII did not fail to sign what the dictator submitted to him, because the opposite would have been the crisis of the regime.
Back in 1926, the British ambassador stated: “There are only two men who count in Spain: the King and General Primo de Rivera.”
Starting in 1926, the dictatorship experienced clear wear and tear and opposition and conspiratorial plots increased. In 1929 the exhaustion of the regime was already evident. Alfonso XIII was convinced of the need for political change to save the monarchy, and his environment also influenced this. The palace aristocracy viewed Primo as an upstart. But it was not so easy to get rid of him, according to Romanones: “Primo de Rivera resisted the friendly advice that Don Alfonso gave him, and he believed that he could hold his own against him.”
Relations had also become strained. The general wanted to test the high military hierarchies, and it became clear that he no longer enjoyed the trust of his comrades-in-arms. In the opinion of Miguel Maura, those consultations constituted “a manifest insult to the King”, for seeking support behind his back; But both the dictator and his son, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, saw it the other way around: the monarch had been ungrateful, to whom they blamed the “devious” maneuver that led to his removal from power.
Thus, on January 28, 1930, Primo de Rivera resigned for health reasons and went to Paris quite resentful. For some it was not the last grievance, because when he died, a few weeks later, the coffin was not allowed to pass through the center of Madrid on its way to Jerez de la Frontera. Sanjurjo considered it an affront to the king.
In any case, nothing was going to repair the monarch’s image. At that point, he was more alone and isolated than ever.