Pronunciamiento

A group of military officers, often mid-ranking, publicly declare their opposition to the current government (head of state and/or cabinet, who may be legally elected civilians or the result of a previous coup).

Ordinarily, the armed pronunciamiento was a revolt by one section of the Army –sometimes a very small section– which raised the flag of rebellion in its district and hoped that its example would lead other units to rally round, or would at least break the government's nerve".

[1]Generally, a pronunciamento originated with a small number of officers motivated by fear of the current government's persecution of political dissidents, or of its perceived inability to resist invasion or revolution.

Conscription to fight a foreign occupier or invader had the effect of subjecting individuals from different corners of the multiethnic dynastic state to similar experiences, generating a practical sense of belonging to one same 'nation'.

This process in Spain has been compared to the experience of France during the same period: from Bonaparte's own military-backed coup of 1799, to the participation of liberal generals Lafayette, Gérard and Mouton in the 1830 overthrow of the Bourbon Restoration.

In Spain, the principle of a segment of the military intervening in politics through a plebiscitary gesture had been generated by the national mass mobilisation of the War of Independence against Bonapartist France.