In December 1874, General Arsenio Martínez Campos staged a pronunciamiento in Sagunto, which delivered the coup de grâce to the Republic and brought the Bourbon Restoration.

Subversion in the army, a series of local cantonalist risings, instability in Barcelona, failed anti-federalist coups, calls for revolution by the International Workingmen's Association, the lack of any broad political legitimacy, and personal in-fighting among the republican leadership all further weakened the republic.

Carlist forces managed to expand the territory under their control to the greatest extent in early 1874, though a series of defeats by the republic's northern army in the second half of the year might have led to the end of the war had it not been for bad weather.

One of them, Federal Democratic Republican Party member Francisco Pi y Margall moved the following proposal: "The National Assembly assumes powers and declares the Republic as the form of government, leaving its organization to the Constituent Cortes."

In his speech for the proposal (to which he was a signatory, along with Figueras, Salmerón, and other opponents), Pi y Margall—himself a federalist—renounced for the moment to establish a federal republic, hoping the would-be-assembled Constituent Cortes to decide over the issue, and announced his acceptance of any other democratic decision.

For most monarchists, though, the impossibility of restoring Isabella II as Queen, and the youth of the future Alfonso XII made the Republic the only, though transitory, viable course of action, particularly given the inevitable failure that awaited it.

In previous years, unemployment had risen steeply amongst field and industrial workers, and proletarian organizations responded with strikes, demonstrations, protest rallies and the occupation of abandoned lands.

On 23 April a new coup attempt was set in motion; this time by a collusion of alfonsino monarchists, members of the old Liberal Union and monarchic sectors of the Army; but failed when several units refrained from supporting it at the last hour.

Francisco Pi y Margall is usually considered the heart of this government, which had to face several problems already endemic to the Republic, such as the Third Carlist War, separatist insurrections (this time from Catalonia), military indiscipline, monarchic plots, etc.

On 23 April Cristino Martos, Speaker of the old National Assembly, attempted a new coup, now supported by the Civil Governor of Madrid: a battalion of militiamen took positions along the Paseo del Prado, and four thousand more perfectly armed volunteers gathered near Independence Square under the pretext of passing review.

For his part, after the Minister of War appointed Baltasar Hidalgo as the new Captain General for Madrid, he ordered Brigadier Carmona and a battalion of infantry and various artillery and cavalry units, to march on the militiamen.

The elections themselves developed in a quite unorthodox environment, and the resulting representation was ridiculous, as most factions in Spain did not participate: the Carlists were still waging war against the Republic, while the alfonsino monarchists of Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, the unitary republicans and even the incipient workers' organization close to the First International all called for abstention.

Spanish writer Benito Pérez Galdós, aged 21 at the time, wrote about the parliamentary atmosphere of the First Republic: The sessions of the Constituent (Cortes) attracted me, and most afternoons I spent in the press box, enjoying the spectacle of indescribable confusion cast by the fathers of the country.

An endless individualism, the coming and going of opinions, from the most thought-out to the most extravagant, and the deadly spontaneity of most speakers, drove the spectator crazy and rendered the historic functions impossible.

It was a puerile game, which would have caused laughter if it had not been deeply sad.The situation reached such levels of surrealism that, while presiding over a Cabinet session, Estanislao Figueras yelled: "Gentlemen, I can't stand this any more.

"[a] So fed up that on 10 June he left his resignation letter in his office, went for a walk through the Parque del Buen Retiro and, without telling anyone, boarded the first train departing from the Atocha Station.

There would be no cessation of continuity in power; the life of the nation would not be suspended for a single moment; there would be no fear of deep conflicts arising between the provinces; it would be the easiest, fastest, safest way and the less exposed to contrariety... " After Figueras' flight to France, the power vacuum created was tempting general Manuel Sodas into starting a pronunciamiento when a Civil Guard colonel, José de la Iglesia, showed up at Congress and declared that nobody would leave until a new president was elected.

Figueras' fellow federalist and government minister Francisco Pi y Margall was elected on 11 June, but on his speech to the Assembly he declared he was at a complete loss and without a program.

About a week later, on 9 July, Alcoy followed suit, when during a strike directed by local leaders of the First International, the police fired to the gathered workers who responded by taking up arms and gaining control of the city.

Afterwards, the deed would be repeated in Alicante, but on the trip back to Cartagena they were captured as pirates by the armoured frigates HMS Swiftsure and SMS Friedrich Karl, under the UK and German flags respectively.

It was not about, as in other instances, replacing an existent Ministry or a form of Government in the accepted way; it was about dividing our homeland in a thousand parts, similar to the successors to the Cordoba Caliphate.

The Carlist pretender, Charles VII, had formed a rival government in Estella with his own ministers and was already minting currency, while the French connivance allowed him to receive external aid and fortify his defences.

Due to the rapid pace of the events, and without time for the new Constitution to be passed by the Cortes, Pi i Margall found himself between a rock and the proverbial hard place of the cantonal revolution.

The next day, 7 September, the man elected to occupy the presidency of the Executive Power was unitarian Emilio Castelar, professor of History and distinguished orator, by 133 votes in favor against the 67 obtained by Pi y Margall.

During his previous time as Minister of State in the government of Estanislao Figueras, Castelar promoted and achieved the approval of the abolition of slavery in the overseas territory of Puerto Rico, although not in Cuba because of the continuing war situation.

Motivated by the difficult situation through which the Republic was passing, with the aggravation of the Carlist War, Emilio Castelar commenced the reorganization of the army, announcing before the Cortes "to sustain this form of government, I need much infantry, much cavalry, much artillery, much Civil Guard, and many riflemen."

Without doubt, the chaos incited by the cantonal revolt and the worsening of the Carlist War led them to reopen the Cortes on 2 January 1874, in order to bring to a vote the management and ask for unlimited powers with which to save the Republic from complete discredit.

At the same time as the political convulsions were taking place, General López Domínguez entered into Cartagena on 12 January, replacing Martínez Campos, while Antonete Gálvez, with more than a thousand men, struggled to elude him near the border of Numancia (Numantia) and set course for Oran, (Algeria).

In this period he would strike up a strange and warm friendship with Don Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, most responsible for the Restoration, who considered Gálvez a sincere, honorable, and valiant man, although one of exaggerated political ideas.

On 29 December 1874 in Sagunto, General Arsenio Martínez Campos came out in favour of the restoration to the throne of the Bourbon monarchy in the personage of Don Alfonso de Borbón, son of Isabel II.