Alfonso's grandfather Carlos María Isidro (1788-1855) was engaged in dynastical feud with his brother over inheritance, though the conflict overlapped with major social and political cleavages.

[5] Their attempt to settle in Venice, resulting from health concerns, was aborted due to the Italo-Austrian war; they spent the years of 1864-1867 shuttling between Innsbruck, Vienna and Graz.

[6] Both teenagers were raised in very pious ambience; their religious mother and equally devout but more strong-willed step-grandmother, María Teresa de Braganza, made sure the boys received a profoundly Catholic, Carlist and anti-liberal education.

[30] During the summer he developed acute conflict with Savalls;[31] in October 1873 via France[32] Alfonso moved to Navarre to discuss problems in command chain with his brother.

His father, descendant to exiled branch of Spanish royals, abandoned the family; as a commoner he resided in England and lived off a pension, paid by relatives of his estranged wife.

In the early 1930s their status improved slightly; political changes in Austria produced less restrictive policy,[66] and as king Alfonso was aided financially by the Carlist organization in Spain.

[91] In the 20th century they maintained closer links with Alfonso's nephew and the Carlist claimant, Don Jaime; owner of the Frohsdorf palace near Vienna, he used to visit his uncles en route to and from Paris.

[95] From one of their Africa journeys Alfonso and María brought a black girl named Mabrouka;[96] over time she assumed a role in-between a servant and a family member.

[98] Alfonso considered himself above all a Spaniard and identified with Spain as "my country";[99] he believed in the Spanish mission in America, where highly spirited Hispanidad was to oppose the mean Anglo-Saxon culture.

[112] In a few countries Alfonso Carlos co-founded and animated leagues against dueling,[113] in some cases he ensured royal patronage, wrote a book which advanced the cause and published a few related articles.

[115] However, also social-democratic legislation of republican Austria gained his furious criticism, with successive Austrian authorities referred to as "communist" and "bolsheviks" ruling over "the country of thieves who have respect neither for law nor for justice nor for property"; even the Christian-democratic president Miklas was dubbed as "red".

[123] Since 1870 he was relegated to the second position, as upon future death of his older brother the claim was supposed to pass to his newly born son and Alfonso's nephew, later known as Don Jaime.

Hence, for over half a century within mainstream Carlism Alfonso was viewed as a collateral member of the royal family who gallantly contributed to the cause in the early 1870s, but who would not play any role in the future.

The dissenting factions tended to look towards Alfonso as to a would-be dynastical counter-proposal to either his brother or his nephew almost every time when Carlism suffered from internal crisis.

[125] In the late 1890s a faction pressing violent action against the Spanish monarchy faced caution and skepticism on part of the claimant; again, their speculations tended to focus on Alfonso.

In the mid- and late 1910s followers of Juan Vázquez de Mella decidedly favored Germany during the Great War; as Don Jaime sympathized with the Entente and Alfonso supported the Central Powers, the latter again became subject of dynastical speculations.

[140] He confirmed en bloc all earlier personal party nominations of Don Jaime;[141] however, in late 1931 for few months he settled in France to discuss things in detail.

[156] Following death of the party jefé Marqués de Villores in 1932 he appointed a moderate successor, Conde Rodezno, and with little enthusiasm authorized his tactics of entering into ongoing political parliamentary co-operation with Alfonsists in the National Bloc.

Since late 1935 he resided in Guéthary in southern France[161] and until early summer of 1936 he supervised personally Carlist conspiracy plans and their negotiations with the military,[162] approving of conditions that Fal presented to head of rebellious generals, Mola.

[163] On 28 June, and for reasons which are not entirely clear, he left Saint Jean de Luz and headed for Vienna,[164] leaving prince Xavier to manage daily politics.

[166] Following vague agreement reached in talks with Mola, the final order to rise was issued by prince Xavier in name of Alfonso Carlos.

[167] Alfonso Carlos issued a royal decree which dissolved all Carlist regular executive structures and replaced them with wartime Juntas de Guerra, including the central one.

One of the very last of his documents was the telegram message with greetings to the requeté detachment known as "40 de Artajona", which on 13 September as the first Nationalist unit entered the captured city of San Sebastián.

When crossing Prinz Eugen Strasse, with the garden nearby on the other side of the street, the 87-year-old behaved erratically; he stopped in the middle of the tram track, then attempted to run, and was eventually hit by a car approaching from Schwarzenbergplatz.

[180] In the 1890s a series of popular pamphlets Los crímenes del carlismo by José Nakens repeatedly presented Alfonso Carlos as instigator of various bloody episodes.

When in 1931 the Spanish press reported on his assumption of the Carlist claim, most titles felt it appropriate to explain to their readers who the person in question was; some noted literally that "there is an uncle of Don Jaime alive, named Alfonso de Borbón, who lives in Austria".

[190] On the other hand, the Traditionalist propaganda machinery launched a campaign of exaltation, hailed "nuestro augusto caudillo"[191] and constructed a panegyric mediatic image of the pretendent.

The Javieristas used to refer to his 1936 regency decision as to legitimization of Don Javier's leadership; some others concluded that with death of Alfonso, the Carlist dynasty extinguished and Carlism came to the end.

[193] In the Francoist propaganda he was absent and did not feature in the gallery of Nationalist heroes, as the regime was cautious to enforce official unity and to contain excessive Carlist idolization.

Until the early XXI century it remained the only monograph dedicated to the claimant;[197] Alfonso Carlos failed to trigger historiographic interest and is missing even in detailed accounts on recent history of Spain.