1929 Spanish coup attempt

King Alfonso XIII attempted to mediate in the conflict by proposing a gentlemen's agreement, but Primo de Rivera vehemently opposed it, threatening to resign and reminding the monarch that the army was under his command.

Among them were Joaquín Sánchez de Toca, the Count of Romanones, Manuel García Prieto, Melquíades Álvarez, Alejandro Lerroux, Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, and Santiago Alba Bonifaz.

[6] Initially, Sánchez Guerra and Villanueva aimed to return to the 1876 Constitution and form a new government, possibly to be led by a general, likely Dámaso Berenguer, the head of Alfonso XIII's Military Household.

According to historian Eduardo González Calleja, the choice of Berenguer "can be understood as an indication of the highly probable collusion with the king, whose differences with the dictator, long evident, had intensified following the formation of the Civil Directory, the establishment of the Patriotic Union as the government's party, and the initial steps toward the implementation of a new parliamentary and constitutional system".

[9] On January 14, 1929, an agreement was reached to establish a Revolutionary Committee consisting of three members: a military figure (likely General Eduardo López Ochoa), a monarchist (Sánchez Guerra himself), and a republican (Alejandro Lerroux, proposed by Santiago Alba).

A significant addition to the platform's political program was introduced: the convocation of Constituent Cortes would be preceded by the departure of Alfonso XIII from Spain, and a referendum would be held to decide the form of government, whether monarchy or republic.

[9] According to the plan devised by the conspirators, the coup would commence in Valencia, where Sánchez Guerra would disembark on the evening of January 28, 1929, subsequently making contact with the Captain General of the military region.

[11] However, the plan began to falter when Sánchez Guerra arrived in Valencia twenty-four hours after the agreed-upon date due to a severe storm that had affected the ship transporting him.

The general López de Ochoa himself recounted these events a year later: "In very harsh terms, I accused them of cowardice and lack of determination, reminding them that not only out of camaraderie but also out of dignity, shame, selfishness, and self-interest, I believed they were obliged to act.

Furthermore, in an effort to discourage dissent, officers in the Army and soldiers were obligated to attend special lectures on military discipline, where they were reminded of the "supreme duty of never associating the name of the homeland with seditious actions of a political nature".

Finally, Primo de Rivera decreed the complete dissolution of the Artillery Corps, claiming that it harbored "outbursts of Bolshevism" and had inflicted "irreparable damage" on the nation.

[11] The artillerymen from Ciudad Real faced a court-martial, but as noted by Eduardo González Calleja, it became evident that the Army was beginning to withdraw its support from Primo, as some of the vocal members pressed for clemency in the trial (such as the General Navarro).

[18] A similar assessment is made by Shlomo Ben-Ami: "The trial in which Sánchez Guerra was acquitted by a court-martial, composed of six generals, amounted to a recognition that rebellion against an unconstitutional government was not punishable.

According to historian Eduardo González Calleja,[18]Sánchez Guerra's movement marked the beginning of the end of the monarchy, hastening the defection of the historical parties and attracting key figures to the anti-dynastic side in a hypothetical political normalization, such as Villanueva, Álvarez, Bergamín, Burgos, Mazo, and Alba.

After the failure of this new insurrectional proposal to overcome the Dictatorship, the constitutional debate irreversibly expanded not only to the throne holder but also to the viability of the monarchical regime as a whole.This is how dictator Primo de Rivera himself evaluated the outcome of the courts-martial in an article written for La Nación a few days after his fall:[17]The events in Ciudad Real and Valencia, linked in themselves, but less serious in themselves, in the way the participants in them were judged and sentenced by a General Officers' Court Martial designated in turn, gave me the discouraging impression that the Army, which had been by the side of the Dictatorship with such correctness, loyalty, and citizenship, was turning away from it.