[262] On September 13, 1923, General Primo de Rivera rose against the parliamentary regime in Barcelona; two days later, the king invited him to Madrid to form a military government. The successful military pronunciamiento resolved the struggle over civil supremacy that had opened in 1917 in favor of the army, effectively thwarting the political evolution of Spain for another seven years. The number of active military conspirators in 1923 was small; had they tried to overcome the government with force, the coup would probably have failed. But Primo's pronunciamiento -- like its many predecessors in the nineteenth century -- was a "negative pronunciamiento," relying less on a display of superior force than on the passivity of a majority of the army and of most significant social groups in the country. By 1923 few Spaniards, civilian or military, felt much loyalty to the parliamentary regime. The hesitant movement toward political reform had achieved too little for some, posed too great a threat for others. Divided in their perceptions of the need and direction of change, most Spaniards were united in their impatience and anger against the state. Bereft of support either in the officer corps or in the country, the parliamentary system could not offer effective resistance to even a handful of determined plotters.

Crucial to the outcome of events was the attitude of the king, Alfonso XIII, since most officers remained loyal to the monarchy whatever their misgivings about the parliamentary regime. The considerable political power granted the Crown under the Constitution of 1876 was never more evident than in 1923, when it became the moderating power between two competing sovereignties, the army and the parliament. By casting his lot with the military, Alfonso thought he was securing his throne. In reality, he placed the Crown in bondage to military opinion. Having destroyed its constitutional underpinnings, the monarchy would lack the means to resist Republican pressure after the army withdrew its support in 1931.

[263] Precipitants of the Revolt

Ironically, the cabinet formed in desperation on September 3 to save the parliamentary system triggered the pronunciamiento by convincing the military conspirators that the regime might continue to stagger from one crisis to the next without succumbing unless the army delivered the coup de grace. Equally important was the rash of antiwar demonstrations in response to the government's announcement of new operations. ⁽¹⁾ With the Sánchez Barroso pardon fresh in their minds, Primo de Rivera and the Quadrilateral were not certain that the government would honor its recent commitment to the African army. The politicians of the parliamentary regime seemed at worst capable of any betrayal; at best, incapable of effective leadership. With the army temporarily in control, the war in Morocco would be speedily ended and order restored in the peninsula.

Alongside their concern over Morocco, the impending report of the Responsibilities Commission was of little significance to the military conspirators, partly because it was a divisive issue. Although none of the Quadrilateral was sympathetic to the investigation of responsibilities, many of the junteros who composed Primo de Rivera's clientele in Barcelona were. On the other hand, the outcome of the parliamentary investigation was of exceptional interest to Alfonso XIII, who must have appreciated its implications for the future of the monarchy. Contrary to what has often been asserted, it was clear by September 1923 that the king would not be implicated in the Anual disaster. The Commission had begun to subpoena witnesses in late July, and although the hearings were closed, most of the testimony had been leaked to the press. The parade of military and political officials had been skilfully questioned by the members of the Commission most interested in uncovering political responsibilities -- principally, the three Socialists and the Republican, Domingo -- but the mountain of testimony had revealed no more than the Picasso report about specific acts of negligence or about the involvement of the king. ⁽²⁾ Like the Picasso report, the Commission's findings indicted an entire system based on apathy and indecision; otherwise, the hearings had provided little more than a forum for the special pleadings of old rivals.

The expectation surrounding the report was not based on anticipation of a spectacular accusation, but on whether any accusation would be made at all. If the Liberals used their majority to support an indictment by the Congress and a formal trial in the Senate, it would mean the destruction of the system of elites that had governed the country since 1875. A new political configuration, skewed to the left, might lead [264] to Constituent Cortes or to a military coup. In either case, the throne would be endangered. It was more likely, however, that the Liberals would lack the courage to vote a bill of indictment. During the September cabinet crisis, the Commission had met to assemble its report. As the skeptics had predicted, the Conservatives had attempted to block any concrete accusations, and the Liberals had continued to show little inclination to provide vigorous leadership. It appeared probable that only the antidynastic minority would support an indictment against the Conservative ministers. ⁽³⁾

Nevertheless, the Responsibilities Commission still posed a threat to the throne, for an inconclusive outcome would expose the natural limitations of the evolutionary approach to political reform. The antidynastic parties could be counted on to interpret this as further proof of the necessity of revolution, particularly since the Liberals had shown little reluctance to betray their commitments to the left during the previous nine months. Thus, in trying to preserve the traditional system by avoiding a confrontation over responsibilities, the dynastic parties might inadvertently destroy it. The renewal of operations in Morocco might well be the signal for a revolutionary uprising against the regime.

For Alfonso, then, the future was as uncertain as it was for the military conspirators. When, after the formation of the new cabinet on September 3, General Saro informed the king that the army was prepared to end the existing chaos, he received no discouragement. Instructing the prime minister, García Prieto, to deal with the generals, Alfonso discreetly left with Santiago Alba for his summer residence at San Sebastian. ⁽⁴⁾ Impatient to act, and lacking a better candidate, the Quadrilateral summoned Primo de Rivera to Madrid on September 7. When Primo returned to Barcelona two days later, they had agreed to rise against the government on September 14.

The conspirators had few active supporters in the officer corps. Significantly, however, those in on the secret represented a broad cross-section of military opinion. The heart of the movement in Madrid was the africanista Quadrilateral, which could count on additional support from the Undersecretary, Luis Bermúdez de Castro, and the Military Governor, the Duque de Tetuán, as well as on the official neutrality of two key officers in the capital -- the War Minister, General Aizpuru, and the Captain General, Diego Muñoz Cobo. ⁽⁵⁾ Further africanista support was assured in Morocco and in Saragossa, where General Sanjurjo was Military Governor. In Barcelona, however, Primo's confidants were primarily junteros. Before his trip to Madrid, he had solicited the aid of all colonels with commands in the Barcelona regiments, [265] including the former president of the Infantry Advisory Commission, Colonel Godofredo Nouvilas. ⁽⁶⁾ After returning to Catalonia, Primo approached the two brigadiers in the garrison, Generals López de Ochoa and Mercader. With his usual opportunism, Primo told López de Ochoa, who had republican and Catalan sympathies, that the army would rule only until a more responsive civil government could be formed, while assuring Mercader, a devoted palaciego, that the rising was necessary to save the king. ⁽⁷⁾ Both agreed to support the movement.

Absent from the circle of conspirators were the senior generals -- either active or retired -- whose careers had been made during the palmy days of the turno. "Princes of the militia," like Aguilera, Weyler, Marina, or even Luque, could rally the officer corps on the basis of sentiment and traditional habits of deference; furthermore, several of the senior generals occupied key positions as captains general in the provinces. But the conspirators did not even inform the senior hierarchy of their plans. Too loyal and too well-rewarded to be tempted into rebellion, the Restoration generals were an integral part of the system against which the pronunciamiento was directed. Primo, too, was intimately connected to the network of political and professional favoritism that a younger generation of officers mistrusted. But he was counting less on his uncertain personal prestige than on the widely acknowledged alienation in the officer corps. Officers continued to be divided by professional issues, but they were temporarily united in their sense of injury and impotence. If they abstained from defending the government, the success of the pronunciamiento was assured.

While the conspirators consolidated their support, the government did nothing, choosing to ignore Alfonso's confidential remarks of September 4. On the twelfth, however, Alba, the minister on duty with the king in San Sebastian, received a telegram from a government official in Barcelona, warning him that the imminent rebellion posed a threat to his personal safety. ⁽⁸⁾ Unable to avoid the unpleasant facts any longer, the cabinet met at 6:00 P.M. and asked the War Minister to dismiss Primo de Rivera at once. Aizpuru, however, refused, promising instead to dissuade him from his plans over the telephone. ⁽⁹⁾ At eleven o'clock that night he placed the call. At approximately the same hour, in San Sebastian, Alba resigned and made plans to escape. Before leaving, he wrote García Prieto, essentially echoing Maura's advice to Alfonso a month earlier: "their error cannot be appreciated and exposed, even by themselves, except in the course of time. They speak in the name of sentiments that are legitimate in their origin and pose solutions which it would perhaps be best to let them try out, but [266] 'under the public and constitutional responsibility' of those who defend them." ⁽¹⁰⁾ The following day, with the benevolence of local military authorities, he drove across the frontier into France. ⁽¹¹⁾

The Manifesto of September 13

Alba did well to hasten his departure, for General Aizpuru found Primo de Rivera totally unamenable to persuasion when he telephoned him the night of September 12. Indeed, separatist manifestations in Barcelona had encouraged him to advance his coup by one day to take advantage of the outrage in the local garrison. On September 10, the eve of the Catalan national holiday, huge crowds had surged through the streets shouting vivas to Catalonia and the Rif Republic, while at a nationalist banquet, visiting Basque and Gallegan dignitaries denounced the Spanish state. The following day, thirty people had been wounded during a confrontation between separatists and police. ⁽¹²⁾ On September 12 La Correspondencia Militar had exploded:

No jails, no penitentiaries, no courts-martial. An emergency law, approved by the Parliament, under which anyone who writes against the Fatherland, delivers separatist speeches, or offers cheers that wound national dignity, shall be expelled from Spain, with the loss of all rights of citizenship in perpetual exile, confiscation of property, and with the absolute prohibition against possession of property or industries of any kind in Spain. ⁽¹³⁾

In style and content, the manifesto reflected Primo's aspirations for the new movement as well as the professed motives for his rebellion. ⁽¹⁵⁾ In many ways typical of his generation of officers, Primo shared their frustrations, values, and political notions. If the simplicity and frankness of the language suggested that his intentions were generally [267] good, if somewhat misguided, the document also revealed how unprepared the military was to assume the responsibilities of government.

It was immediately apparent that Primo de Rivera envisioned his pronunciamiento as part of the regenerationist movement that had grown out of the crisis in Spanish political life after the defeat of 1898. The first section of the manifesto justified the army's rebellion against the "dense network of the politics of concupiscence" that had ensnared even the royal will. Primo stressed the provisional character of the movement, which would maintain order only until the country could bring forth "just, wise, laborious, and honest" men to govern. The catalog of sins to be redeemed by the army was likely to be approved by most sectors of Spanish opinion: few people favored assassinations, bank robberies, monetary depreciation, suspicious tariff policies, political intrigue, impiety, illiteracy, biased justice, gambling, or separatist propaganda. And only the left -- still a political minority -- supported what Primo labeled "social indiscipline, communist propaganda, and tendentious passions on the question of responsibilities." On the whole, the list of grievances was one that could be readily adopted by an impatient and disoriented middle class -- both civilian and military. The postwar struggle to reform the political system had fostered political instability while diverting national energies from pressing economic and social problems. It was unrealistic to expect decisive action until the political system could be restructured, but neither the officer corps nor the Spanish electorate was in general noted for its political realism. Inexperienced and uninformed after years of turno politics, they succumbed easily to the tempting belief that an iron surgeon and a return to discipline would suffice to solve the national crisis.

The naiveté of the illusion was evident in the manifesto itself. Primo had little concrete to offer as solutions to the most troublesome national problems -- social disorder, the Moroccan war, and responsibilities. His panacea for social unrest was the creation of a Great Spanish Somatén, "the reserve and the brother of the Army in everything." Modeled on the Catalan Somatén, from which it would borrow the motto, Peace, Peace, Always Peace, the proposed militia clearly reflected the conviction, shared by the army and the Catalan bourgeoisie, that the social question was merely one of public order. On Morocco, Primo was even more vague, promising only to search for the "swift, honorable, and sensible solution" that had eluded governments since 1909. Africanistas could take little comfort in his assertion that the honor of the army did not depend on a "stubborn persistence in Morocco," an intimation of the abandonista policy he would attempt to [268] implement in 1924. As for responsibilities, Primo pointed out that the collective guilt of the political parties was being discharged by his abolition of them. Specific political crimes would be dealt with promptly by the courts. Revealing his weak grasp of civil rights, Primo guaranteed anonymity to anyone who would inform on "prevarication, bribery, or immorality." He also assured his audience -- in particular, the officer corps -- that the "cynical and depraved" Santiago Alba would be tried immediately for his crimes. This was no more than a ploy to exploit Alba's lurid reputation in the army for financial and ethical corruption. As Primo undoubtedly knew, Alba was one of the least corrupt of dynastic politicians. Tried in absentia, he would later be absolved of any wrongdoing by the Supreme Court.

Aside from these blemishes, the tone of the manifesto was generally positive. What Primo lacked was not goodwill, but a specific program of reform. Like many officers, Primo believed that honest men could find simple solutions to complex problems; he claimed that only "those whose masculinity is not well-defined" would find little to applaud in his methods. What he failed to perceive was that virility could provide the style but not the substance of reform. The tragic flaw in the Dictatorship was presaged in its first manifesto.

The Subtle Art of Pronunciamiento Politics

At the same time that he issued the manifesto, Primo declared martial law and exhorted his troops to prepare to meet armed resistance with force. Invoking the fallen heroes of the past, Primo dramatically announced that he was willing to die for his cause. ⁽¹⁶⁾ But despite the rhetorical bravado, Primo de Rivera was aware that a successful pronunciamiento was a matter of time and patience, not pitched battles. As the government in Madrid discovered during the early morning of the thirteenth, most officers in the peninsula were unwilling to commit themselves one way or the other, for fear of dividing the army against itself. For the cabinet, there were some encouraging signs, to be sure. Artillery officers in the capital had pledged to attack the rebels if ordered to do so; General Weyler, vacationing in Mallorca, had agreed to assume the Captaincy General of Catalonia. The navy having remained loyal to the government, he set sail for Barcelona on the morning of the thirteenth. ⁽¹⁷⁾ Shortly afterwards, the cabinet announced its intention to resist the rebellion with force. ⁽¹⁸⁾

The government's attitude, too, was based on bravado, for the future of the regime lay clearly in the hands of Alfonso XIII, who was [269] still in San Sebastian. With the exception of the Captains General of Valencia and Seville, who had sworn loyalty to the government, most officers, including the Captain General of Madrid, Muñoz Cobo, had indicated that they would await the orders of the king. Alfonso, unfortunately, was not willing to throw his support behind the parliamentary regime at the risk of alienating the officer corps. Although his presence in Madrid was urgently required, he lingered in San Sebastian, and, during an afternoon telephone conversation with García Prieto, refused to authorize the dismissal of all the implicated officers unless the prime minister could guarantee the loyalty of the Madrid garrison. When García Prieto hesitated, Alfonso indicated that his primary allegiance was to "his" army. ⁽¹⁹⁾ Later in the day, the head of the Military Household, General Milans del Bosch, arrived from San Sebastian to reconnoiter the situation in the capital. His first interviews were with the Quadrilateral and the Captain General, who recommended that the king accept the government's resignation. Thus, owing to Alfonso's dilatory tactics, the waiting game had begun to turn in favor of the conspirators by the evening of September 13.

In the meantime, Primo had used the day to consolidate his support in Barcelona. In spite of the tension provoked by the nationalist demonstrations, the army and the Catalan bourgeoisie were united in their belief that the government's inability to maintain order was the root cause of social unrest in Barcelona. ⁽²⁰⁾ When Primo appeared to inaugurate the Furniture Exposition in place of the Minister of Development (who had been sent back to Madrid on an early train), he was greeted enthusiastically, particularly after a tactful speech in praise of the Catalan language. ⁽²¹⁾ The same day, the military censor allowed La Veu de Catalunya to report that the Captain General had decided to resolve the "internal problem of Spain" by giving "the regions all the strength and all the liberty that are compatible with the existence of state unity." ⁽²²⁾ In response, the Promotion of National Labor, representing the Catalan employers, endorsed the pronunciamiento and hailed the proposal for a Great Spanish Somatén as a "sure guarantee of the respect for law and for the tranquility of the citizenry." ⁽²³⁾

Finally arriving in Madrid on the morning of September 14, Alfonso was at last master of the political situation. He had already decided to abandon the government. When García Prieto asked him to sign the decrees dismissing Primo de Rivera and Sanjurjo, he begged for time to consult his military advisers. As he had expected, this provoked the immediate resignation of the entire cabinet. But the king was in no hurry to confer power on General Primo de Rivera. He may have considered governing alone, particularly after General Muñoz Cobo [270] assured him that all his decisions would be supported by the Madrid garrison. In any event, after receiving the resignation of García Prieto, the king informed the Captain General that he was going to solicit the traditional consultative notes from the dynastic parties. ⁽²⁴⁾ Since it was obvious that a normal political solution was out of the question, this could be no more than a pretext to gain time in order to confirm the extent of his support in the army.

Informed by Muñoz Cobo of Alfonso's indecision, Primo quickly cut short the king's dalliance with the idea of personal power. Through Muñoz Cobo, he warned the king that he had hoped to "make the revolution under the sign of the monarchy," but that if opposed, he would not hesitate to consider the alternatives. ⁽²⁵⁾ Lacking the stomach for a test of wills, Alfonso instructed Muñoz Cobo to send for Primo. In the interim, he appointed the Captain General and the four members of the Quadrilateral to a provisional Military Directory. When Primo arrived in Madrid on September 15, he was made president of a formally constituted Military Directory composed of eight relatively unknown brigadier generals. ⁽²⁶⁾ The royal decree characterized the new government as "a brief parenthesis in the constitutional progress of Spain, to be reestablished as soon as the country offers us men uncontaminated by the vices we attribute to political organizations." ⁽²⁷⁾ With this decree, Alfonso deliberately destroyed the parliamentary regime and inadvertently destroyed the monarchy as well.

Later Alfonso would argue that he had saved Spain from civil war by avoiding a confrontation between two factions of the army. He also insisted that he had been forced to deal with a fait accompli, having had no prior knowledge of the coup. ⁽²⁸⁾ Neither argument is convincing. At best, Alfonso was only technically innocent of plotting against the government: if he was unaware of the details of the conspiracy, he had nonetheless been informed on September 3 of the army's intention to act. Far from discouraging the plotters, Alfonso had spared no effort to publicize his own disaffection from the government and to emphasize his solidarity with the army. With every justification, Primo and the Quadrilateral had proceeded as if they had the consent of the king.

Furthermore, Alfonso's contention that he averted a civil war conveniently ignores the fact that the coup might well have failed had the king decisively supported the government from the beginning. Primo was not prepared to fight; he had neither the forces nor the temperament for a bloody coup. His success rested on the refusal of the officer corps to risk a civil war in defense of a political system from which most of them were alienated. By publicizing his own disaffection, the [271] king encouraged their neutrality. Alfonso did not save Spain from a civil war; he destroyed her parliamentary system.

Although Primo de Rivera's pronunciamiento might have been frustrated, a military dictatorship was probably inevitable sooner or later. In retrospect, the turning points seem to have been the successful rebellion of the Juntas de Defensain June 1917 and the disaster at Anual in July 1921. The failure to assert civilian control over the Juntas encouraged the army as a whole to continue to blackmail the dynastic parties, particularly after the explosion of labor unrest in Barcelona and the renewal of the Moroccan war in 1919. By the time of the defeat at Anual, the dynastic politicians were so dependent on the military that they were unable to alter the relationship. Yet Anual made political reform -- particularly with regard to civil-military relations -- unavoidable, by awakening large sectors of the middle class to the necessity of meaningful change. Although the dynastic parties made an effort to transform the regime, their efforts were hampered by their lack of broad support in the nation and by the steady resistance of the military to any reduction of its privileged position within the state. Democratic reform and administrative modernization could lead only to personnel cutbacks, smaller budgets, and a reduced role in Morocco. Out of self-preservation, the army had to halt the process of political reform.

Public Reaction to the Pronunciamiento

The military dictatorship was made possible by the alienation of most Spaniards -- civilian and military -- from the parliamentary regime. Since 1898, but especially since 1917, Spaniards had lived from one crisis to the next: ministerial instability, inflation, scarcity, labor unrest, terrorism, and military disaster -- all had contributed to the atmosphere of national crisis and disintegration. On the whole, the traditional political elites had responded poorly to the challenge, defending their right to rule even as they undermined that right by their demonstrated incapacity for change. And the parties of opposition were too divided, by class and regional interests, to provide coherent or effective leadership. United only in their opposition to the status quo, by September 1923 many Spaniards had abandoned hope in the possibility of gradual democratic reform.

Because of the widespread disaffection, the pronunciamiento was welcomed by a broad spectrum of political opinion. Predictably, La Correspondencia Militar hailed the movement as a "positive hope of [272] salvation" and invoked the "patriotic and disinterested personality of the unforgettable General Pavía," the only other general in Spanish history to replace civilian government with a military dictatorship. ⁽²⁹⁾ The rest of the right-wing press, which had been clamoring for dictatorship for at least nine months, was also gratified, even though Primo discouraged journalistic attempts to compare him to Mussolini. ⁽³⁰⁾ Among the Catalan bourgeoisie, too, the dictatorship was received warmly, although Cambó, vacationing in Greece, warned the Lliga to remain aloof from the new government. ⁽³¹⁾ In any event, their enthusiasm was short-lived. Under intense pressure from his fellow officers, Primo would be forced to follow a repressive policy with regard to Catalan nationalism. The Lliga would emerge from the Dictatorship with its moral force spent.

More surprising, perhaps, was the optimism of some of the bourgeois left, which hailed the pronunciamiento of 1923 as it had hailed the Juntas de Defensa in 1917. After years of denouncing militarism, neither El Sol nor El Liberal sprang to the defense of civil supremacy. El Liberal found little of value in the manifesto of September 13, ⁽³²⁾ but its renovationist editors seemed to agree with Ortega y Gasset at El Sol that

the system of equilibrium had been broken in 1917; a new one to replace it had not been created. May God grant that it now be achieved, with the coming of a Spain more noble and fertile than the old and ruinous Spain in which we were born. On the Army will fall the honor of having given the final push, and of course [on the Army] falls the responsibility of having initiated the battle and all its consequences. In this initial moment, we ask for swiftness of resolution; any delay is useless and dangerous. ⁽³³⁾

The other social forces that had demanded change since 1917 were too divided in 1923 to offer more than verbal resistance to the Dictatorship. ⁽³⁴⁾ Neither the Socialists nor the Anarchosyndicalists would join the one-day general strike initiated by the Communists in Bilbao. Nor would the Socialists -- especially the cautious UGT leaders, Iglesias and Largo Caballero -- support the CNT proposal for a general strike to save the regime and to protest the renewal of the war in Morocco. The failure of the working-class left to resist the military usurpation of power was made easier by their ambivalent attitude toward the parliamentary monarchy. It also reflected their own doubts about the revolutionary potential of the Spanish working class. Like the Communist leader Pérez Solís, many leftists believed military dictatorship would provide the necessary incubation period for the proletarian revolution. [273] The passivity with which the Spanish left greeted the Dictatorship would be followed by seven years of further division and ambivalence. Driven underground, anarchosyndicalism would be captured by the extreme terrorist wing of the movement. The Socialists, on the other hand, would be divided by the decision of the trade union leaders to collaborate with the Dictatorship. ⁽³⁵⁾

Not unnaturally, those who condemned the pronunciamiento most uncompromisingly were those who had benefited most from the parliamentary regime. Both the dynastic politicians and the political generals were too closely identified with the Restoration system, which had decently hidden the naked reality of military power under the cloak of civil supremacy, to welcome the idea of direct military rule. Since at least 1917, the civilian and military politicians of the turno had been forced to confront the fiction of their own control over the army and had struggled, unsuccessfully, to assert the authority of the state over the unwieldy and obstreperous institution they had created. The pronunciamiento of Primo de Rivera was proof that they had failed.

Still, the dynastic politicians made no effort to resist the coup with force. Repeating Maura's words of 1917 like an incantation, they now agreed that direct military rule would force the army to bear the responsibility for its own decisions. García Prieto had greeted the rebellion with a mixture of cynicism and relief, remarking that he had "a new saint to whom to commend myself: Saint Miguel Primo de Rivera, because he has relieved me of the nightmare of governing." ⁽³⁶⁾ The more responsible dynastic politicians, however, viewed the military dictatorship as an inevitable but temporary evil. Convinced that the army would quickly discredit itself, they preferred to remain aloof until the parliamentary regime could be restored. What they, like Alfonso, failed to recognize was that the old system could never be re-created. Primo's coup had cut short the political transformation of the parliamentary regime. Deprived of its natural growth, the parliamentary monarchy could not serve as an adequate vehicle for the expression of popular sovereignty once the military dictatorship had disappeared.

1. El Liberal, Sept. 7, 1923, p. 1.

2. The report of the Responsibilities Commission was published in 1931 by the Constituent Cortes of the Republic. There is also a typewritten transcript in SHM-A, 4-1-11-24. I was unable to compare the two texts together, in toto, but a study of my notes suggests that they are identical.

3. See El Liberal, Sept. 5, 1923, p. 1.

4. Sir Charles Petrie, King Alfonso XIII and His Age, pp. 172-73.

5. Ramón Martínez Sol, De Canalejas al tribunal de responsabilidades, p. 71.

6. CM, Sept. 1, 1923, p. 2, reports a meeting of these officers in the Captaincy General of Barcelona on August 29.

7. Eduardo López de Ochoa, De la dictadura a la república, pp. 24-26.

8. Santiago Alba, L'Espagne et la Dictature, pp. 13-14.

9. Aizpuru later denied his involvement in the conspiracy before the Responsibilities Commission of the Second Republic. See Martínez Sol, D Canalejas al tribunal, p. 31.

10. In Alba, Dictatura, pp. 17-19.

11. Ibid., pp. 24-29. Alba's escape was aided by two Artillery officers, colleagues of his brother.

12. El Sol, Sept. 11 and 12, 1923, pp. 2, 1.

13. CM, Sept. 12, 1923, p. 1.

14. Manuel Tuñón de Lara, Estudios sobre el siglo XIX español, p. 222.

15. The complete manifesto is in CM, Sept. 13, 1923, pp. 1-2.

16. Ibid., p. 2.

17. Julio Romano, Weyler, el hombre de hierro, p. 182.

18. CM, Sept. 13, 1923, p. 1.

19. Petrie, Alfonso XIII, p. 174.

20. The moderate Anarchosyndicalist leader, Angel Pestaria, later believed that Anarchist terrorism was a primary cause of the Dictatorship. Gerald Meaker, The Revolutionary Left in Spain, 1914-1923, p. 459.

21. Manuel Ribé, Memorias de un funcionario, p. 115.

22. Francisco Hernández Mir, La dictadura ante la historia, p. 111.

23. Joaquín Maurín, Los hombres de la dictadura, pp. 123-24.

24. Carlos Seco Serrano, Alfonso XIII y la crisis de la restauración, p. 160.

25. Ibid., p. 161.

26. The Directory contained one brigadier general for each military region: Adolfo Vallespinosa Vior, Luis Hermosa Kith, Luis Navarro y Alonsode Celada, Ramiro Rodríguez Pedré, Antonio Mayandía Gómez, Francisco Gómez-Jordana Souza, Francisco Ruíz del Portal y Martínez, and Mario Muslera Planes. Secretary of the Military Directory was Colonel Nouvilas, the former president of the Infantry junta. CM, Sept. 17, 1923, p. 1.

27. Ibid.

28. Julián Cortes Cavanillas, La caída de Alfonso XIII, p. 67.

29. CM, Sept. 13, 1923, p. 1.

30. El Liberal, Sept. 14, 1923, p. 1.

31. Jesús Pabón, Cambó, 2 (1):459-60; Maurín, Hombres, p. 124.

32. El Liberal, Sept. 14, 1923, p. 1.

33. El Sol, Sept. 14, 1923, p. 1.

34. See the joint PSOE-UGT manifesto in El Liberal, Sept. 14, 1923, p. 1.

35. Meaker, Revolutionary Left, pp. 472-77.

36. Quoted in Gabriel Maura Gamazo and Melchor Fernandez Almagro, Por qué cayó Alfonso XIII, p. 435.