Spanish crisis of 1917

The Kerensky government was attempting to build a democratic system while continuing the war against the Central Powers, a disaster in military, economic, and human terms.

[3] Spain's neutrality in World War I increased a number of its exports, from agricultural and mineral raw materials to manufactured goods from the emerging industrial sector, particularly Catalonian textiles and Basque ironworks.

[4] This economic boom favored the industrial and commercial middle class and the financial and land-owning oligarchy, but also produced rising inflation while salaries stagnated.

As profits were experiencing extraordinary growth rates, standards of living decreased significantly for the general populace, especially for the urban and industrial proletariat, although they were able to maintain pressure to achieve higher wages.

In the countryside the situation was different: inflation had a greater impact, but more direct food availability lessened its effects on small landowners and tenants, predominant in the agrarian structure of northern Spain.

Inflation continued to diminish the buying power of military salaries, which were set by the rigid state budget, unlike the more flexible contracts of workers.

The Juntas’ activities began in the first quarter of 1916, due to part of Governor Conde de Ramanones’ modernization program, which would require soldiers to pass aptitude tests to qualify for promotions.

Facing this denial, and the impossibility of using ordinary parliamentary channels because the sessions of Congress had not convened, a large part of the deputies elected by the Catalan constituencies (48, all except those of the dynastic parties), met in the so-called Assembly of Parliaments of Barcelona at the beginning of July 1917.

It was highly unlikely the Assembly could connect its movement to the economic discontent of the low-ranking officers in the Juntas de Defensa, but they made their attempt to do so explicit in a proclamation which declared: The act committed by the Army on the first of June will be followed by a profound renovation of Spanish public life, undertaken and achieved by political elements.Even though the Assembly represented less than 10% of the total deputies, a pre-revolutionary atmosphere persisted, which questioned the fundamentals of the political system of the Restoration: the turno of the dynastic parties founded by Cánovas and Sagasta, the clear predominance of the executive branch over the legislative, and the king's arbitration role.

Socialists and anarchists employed peaceful tactics such as strikes, as well as direct actions which sometimes took the form of indiscriminate attacks, like the 1893 bombing of the Liceu in Barcelona.

The agreement on a general strike was made in Madrid at the end of March 1917 by UGT members Julián Besteiro and Francisco Largo Caballero and CNT members Salvador Seguí and Ángel Pestaña, and included an extensive manifesto:[7] With the goal of holding the ruling classes to those fundamental changes of the system that guarantee the public, at minimum, decent living conditions and the development of their self-emancipation, the proletariat of Spain must employ a general strike, with no specified end date, as the strongest weapon that it possesses in reclaiming its rights.In spite of objections from the anarchists, negotiations began with the bourgeois parties, namely Alejandro Lerroux's republicans.

[12] Even so, the strike initially managed to halt activity in almost every major industrial zone (Biscay and Barcelona, as well as some smaller one like Yecla and Villena), urban centers (Madrid, Valencia, Zaragoza, A Coruña), and mines (Río Tinto, Jaén, Asturias, and León), but only for one week in total.

However, the army rapidly carried out the government's orders and suppressed the strike within three days, with exception to some areas such as Asturia's mining basins, where the conflict lasted nearly a month.

The intervention of the army, in addition to its violence against the strikers, resorted to extreme measures with little respect to institutional norms, such as the violation of the parliamentary immunity of a republican deputy detained by the Captain General of Cataluña.

García Prieto once again presided over the government, which included Cambó and committed to holding elections in February 1918, the outcome of which was uncertain, with no clear majority for any party.

The scandal of keeping deputies with parliamentary immunity in prison led to their release after an extensive campaign that counted among its supporters intellectuals such as Manuel García Morente, Gumersindo de Azcárate, and Gabriel Alomar.

Large parts of the population, including intellectuals and the working and middle classes, became increasingly disaffected with the political system, which had received many regenerationist criticisms since the end of the 19th century, such as Joaquín Costa's calls for an iron surgeon.

As the institution with the greatest display of power, the army produced the iron surgeon in the person of the Captain General of Barcelona, Miguel Primo de Rivera.

The Slava , a Russian warship, crippled by the Germans in the Baltic Sea.
The Valencian garden shed. These poor, traditional, rural constructions represented the structural backwardness of agriculture in Spain and the miserable living conditions of most of the population. Vicente Blasco Ibáñez denounced these conditions in his novels, La Barraca (1898) and Cañas y Barro (1902). Emigrants to urban and industrial areas such as Catalonia, Basque Country, and Madrid were becoming a more organized, class conscious proletariat.
Alfonso XIII in a Hussar Captain's Uniform , by Joaquín Sorolla . Although this portrait was painted in 1907, ten years before the crisis, it demonstrates the young Bourbon's attempt to identify himself with the army. Alfonso XIII was the posthumous son of Alfonso XII , the Peacemaker, who was crowned by military proclamation after the Sexenio Democrático . Alfonso XIII was crowned when he reached adulthood in 1902 and married in 1906. He survived an assassination attempt after the wedding, when anarchist Mateo Morral threw a bomb at the wedding procession on Calle Mayor in Madrid.
Cartoon of President Eduardo Dato in La Campana de Gracia of Barcelona, titled "The Political Death of Mr. Dato." The caption reads: "You can't escape this one, Eduardito."