[1808 - 1898] A Century of Turmoil

The year is 1808. The Spanish sun beats down on a nation not at peace with itself, but occupied. French eagles, the standards of Napoleon Bonaparte, cast long shadows over Madrid. This was not a simple change of rulers; it was an earthquake that fractured the very foundations of the old Spanish world. When Napoleon installed his own brother, Joseph, on the throne, the people of Madrid rose up. On the second of May, the city exploded in a frenzy of desperate, bloody street fighting. It was a slaughter, immortalized in the raw horror of Goya’s canvases—the chaotic charges, the summary executions by firing squad under the cold glare of a lantern. This was the birth of a new, brutal type of conflict: the “little war,” or *guerrilla*, a word Spain would give to the world. For six long years, partisans and patriots, armed with little more than knives and farm implements, bled the mightiest army in Europe white, fighting a war of attrition in the harsh mountains and arid plains. This Peninsular War would cost over 300,000 Spanish lives and leave the country shattered, but it would also forge a new, powerful idea: a nation of citizens, not subjects, capable of deciding its own destiny. That idea was enshrined in 1812 in the port city of Cádiz, one of the few corners of Spain free from French control. There, liberal thinkers drafted one of Europe's most progressive constitutions, declaring a constitutional monarchy, popular sovereignty, and the end of feudalism. It was a beacon of hope in a war-torn land. But when the French were finally driven out and King Ferdinand VII, “the Desired,” was restored to the throne in 1814, his first act was to tear it up. He crushed the liberals, restored absolute monarchy, and reinstated the Inquisition. Spain was violently wrenched backward, and the dream of 1812 curdled into a nightmare of repression. This single act set the stage for the rest of the century. The core conflict was no longer Spaniard versus Frenchman, but Spaniard versus Spaniard. It was a battle for the soul of the nation itself: would Spain be a modern, liberal state, or would it cling to the absolute power of Throne and Altar? This question would be answered not with debate, but with blood. The schism erupted into open warfare upon Ferdinand’s death in 1833. He had altered the law of succession to allow his infant daughter, Isabella, to inherit the throne, bypassing his deeply conservative brother, Don Carlos. The nation split. On one side were the Liberals, or “Isabelinos,” who backed the young queen and the idea of a constitutional monarchy. They were a mix of the rising urban middle class, intellectuals, and army officers. On the other were the “Carlists,” who rallied to Don Carlos with the cry of “God, Country, and King.” Their strength was in the deeply traditional and religious rural areas of the Basque Country, Navarre, and Catalonia. They were small landowners, peasants, and clergy who feared liberalism as a godless, foreign poison that threatened their ancient rights and way of life. For seven years, the First Carlist War raged, a conflict of unparalleled cruelty. It was a civil war that pitted villages against each other and saw prisoners executed as a matter of course. Though the Isabelinos eventually won, the Carlist cause was never extinguished. It would flare up in two more major wars later in the century, a simmering wound that refused to heal, entrenching a legacy of political violence. While the nation tore itself apart, its once-mighty global empire crumbled. The chaos of the Peninsular War had severed the links to the American colonies, which, inspired by the same ideals of liberty that animated the Spanish liberals, rose in revolt. By the 1820s, from Argentina to Mexico, the empire was gone. Only Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines remained. The loss was a staggering blow, both economically and psychologically. Spain, the nation that had once commanded a global dominion, was now an impoverished, second-rate power struggling to control its own territory. Socially, the country was a study in contrasts. A tiny, wealthy elite—a mix of old aristocrats and a new bourgeoisie enriched by banking, railways, and land speculation—lived in opulent city mansions, adopting the latest fashions from Paris. Their lives were increasingly touched by modernity; the first railway line in the Iberian peninsula opened in 1848, connecting Barcelona to Mataró, and cities slowly began to install gas lighting. But for the vast majority, life remained a desperate struggle. Over 70% of the population was illiterate. In the great estates of Andalusia, landless peasants lived in conditions of near-servitude, their lives dictated by the harvest cycle and the whim of the landowner. Life expectancy lingered around 30 years, a testament to poor sanitation, malnutrition, and endemic disease. The reign of Queen Isabella II was a whirlwind of political intrigue, military coups (*pronunciamientos*), and constant instability. Finally, in 1868, the generals had enough. In the “Glorious Revolution,” Isabella was forced into exile. But what was to replace her? The next six years descended into political chaos. Spain went shopping for a king, eventually importing an Italian prince, Amadeo of Savoy, who found the country so ungovernable that he abdicated after just two years, famously declaring the Spanish to be “ungovernable.” In his wake, the First Spanish Republic was declared in 1873. It was a noble, federalist experiment, but it lasted a mere eleven months before collapsing into anarchy as radical cantons declared their independence from the central government. By 1874, the army once again stepped in, dissolved the Republic, and restored the monarchy, this time placing Isabella’s son, Alfonso XII, on the throne. This “Restoration” ushered in a period of much-needed, if superficial, stability. A new constitution was written, and a clever political system, the *turno pacífico*, was established. The two main parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals, agreed to peacefully alternate in power. The catch was that the elections were a complete sham, managed from above by local political bosses (*caciques*) to ensure the predetermined outcome. It kept the peace among the political elite, but it was a deeply cynical and corrupt system that alienated the masses from politics entirely. While the politicians played their games in Madrid, new forces were gathering. Anarchism and socialism took deep root among the disenfranchised factory workers of Barcelona and the landless peasants of the south, who saw no hope in the corrupt parliamentary system. The seeds of a far more radical conflict were being sown. The end of this turbulent century came with a final, devastating shock. Throughout the late 1800s, Cubans had fought for their independence from Spanish rule. In 1898, the United States, citing the mysterious explosion of the USS Maine in Havana harbor, intervened. The Spanish-American War was a catastrophe. The aging Spanish navy, once the terror of the seas, was swiftly annihilated in battles in the Philippines and Cuba. The war was over in ten weeks. Spain was forced to surrender Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, the last vestiges of its great empire. The “Disaster of ’98” was more than a military defeat; it was a profound national trauma. It exposed the rot at the heart of the political system and forced a generation of intellectuals and artists to ask a painful question: What is Spain? After a century of turmoil, of civil wars, revolutions, and lost colonies, the country stood stripped bare, its glorious past a distant memory and its future a terrifying, uncertain void.