Berenguer was born in San Juan de los Remedios, Cuba, while the island was a Spanish administrative division.

He proceeded to occupy Chaouen on 14 October 1920,[4] and Berenguer, one of the leading protegees of Alfonso XIII in Africa along Manuel Fernández Silvestre,[5] was granted the noble title of Count of Xauen in reward.

[9] An official investigation carried out by General Juan Picasso González had already been opened to determine responsibility for the disastrous military strategy vis-à-vis the 1921 collapse, and Berenguer, in his capacity as High Commissioner, found himself among those martialled.

[5] In January 1930, following the forced resignation of Primo de Rivera, Alfonso XIII tasked Berenguer with the formation of a government seeking to restore the country to its pre-1923 state, as if nothing had happened in between.

[14] During his mandate as prime minister, Berenguer repealed some of the harsher measures introduced by Primo de Rivera, earning his regime the nickname dictablanda (the toothless dictatorship, blanda meaning soft, as opposed to the preceding dictadura, dura being the Spanish word for hard).

He also faced a number of problems, such as increasing demands for the abolition of the monarchy, disorganisation among the country's political parties after seven years of repression making the calling of prompt elections an impossible task, labour unrest, and at least one military uprising.