Carlism

From Free net encyclopedia

(Redirected from Carlists)

Carlism is a traditionalist, legitimist political movement in Spain seeking, among other things, the establishment of a separate line of the Bourbon family on the Spanish throne. An exceptionally long-lived movement, it was a significant player in Spanish politics from 1833 until the demise of Franco's regime in 1977. During those years, it was the cause of several major civil wars during the 19th century, and an important factor during the most recent Spanish Civil War. Even today, many Carlists remain politically active.

Contents

[edit]

The Origins

[edit]

The dynastic issue

  • 1789, during the reign of Carlos IV of Spain, the Cortes suggest a reversal to the Siete Partidas order of succession in Castile, but for the whole of the Spanish Monarchy: women would inherit the Crown, in absence of male siblings. The suggested pragmatic sanction is not published, partly due to protests from the cadet branches (Naples, Parma) who saw their rights diminished with the new regulation, partly because those Cortes had not been called to discuss succession and representatives, therefore, had not been given powers to vote over that issue.
  • 31st March 1830, Fernando VII, at the time without issue, and with his fourth wife pregnant, publishes the Pragmatica Sanción. The 10th of October a girl, the future Isabel II of Spain is born. After several courtly intrigues, the Pragmatica Sanción is definitively approved on 1832. Fernando's brother, Infante Carlos, up to that time the heir presumptive, felt robbed of his rights, and left for Portugal. Many Spaniards thought King Ferdinand VII had no right to change the rules regarding succession, that it was something that lied beyond his royal powers; it was rather a despotic act, with no legal or binding value.
[edit]

The political landscape at the death of Fernando VII

Like many European countries, after the Napoleonic occupation, the Spanish political class was split between the "absolutists", supporters of the ancien régime, and the Liberals, influenced by the ideas of the French Revolution. Both parties had fought Napoleon side by side in the Peninsular War. Unlike most other countries, the liberal Constitution of 1812 was written by the patriotic forces.

The long war also left a large supply of experienced guerrilla fighters and an oversized army officialdom—for the most part, staunch Liberals. The perceived success of the uprising of 1808 against Napoleon left also a wide, if unconscious, belief in the validity of the right of rebellion, with a long-lasting effect on the politics of Spain and Spanish America through the 19th century and beyond.

The reign of Fernando VII proved unable to overcome the political divide or to create stable institutions. The so-called "Liberal Triennium" (1820–1823), when, after a military "pronunciamiento", the Liberals reinstated the 1812 constitution, and the succeeding "Ominous Decade" (1823–1833), ten years of absolute rule by the king, left bitter memories of persecution in both parties.

While in power, both groups had divided themselves into moderate and radical branches. The radical branch of the absolutists (or royalists), known as the Apostólicos, looked upon the heir presumptive, Carlos, as its natural head, as he was profoundly devout and, especially after 1820, staunchly anti-liberal.

In 1827, Catalonia was shaken by the rebellion of the Agreugats or Agraviados ("the Grievous"), an ultra-absolutist movement, which, for a time, controlled large parts of the region. The Infante was for the first time then hailed as King. He denied any involvement.

The last years of King Fernando saw a political realignment due to the troubles around his succession. In October 1832, the King formed a moderate royalist Government under Cea Bermúdez, which tried, almost successfully, to curb the Apostolic party and, through an amnesty, to gain liberal support for Isabella's right to succeed and for Queen Maria Cristina de Borbón, her mother, and designated regent. If only to get rid of Don Carlos, the Liberals accepted the new Princess of Asturias.

Moreover, the first years of the 1830s were influenced by the failure of the French Restoration, which meant the end of Bourbon rule in France; and the civil war in Portugal between both legitimist and liberal parties.

[edit]

Social and economical factors

Beside this political evolution, the years before the Carlist wars were marked with a deep economic crisis in Spain, partly spurred by the loss of the American provinces and by the bankruptcy of the state. The last triggered enhanced tax pressure which further fueled social unrest.

Certain economic measures proposed by the Liberals (like the Desamortización, i.e. the takeover, division and sale of the commons and Church property, initiated in 1821) were directly threatening to the viability of many small farms, which could rely on the commons to feed, at little or no cost, their mules and oxen, and caused widespread poverty and the closing down of most hospitals, schools and other charities.

One important factor was the religious question. The radical liberals (progresistas) after 1820 had grown more and more anticlerical, with special hatred for regular orders, and were suspected of being masonic shields. This policy alienated them from many sections of the (mostly deeply Catholic) Spanish people, especially in rural areas.

Incidentally, the only institution abolished in the "Liberal Triennium", which was not restored by Fernando VII, was the Inquisition. One of the demands of the radical absolutist party was its reinstitution.

Liberals had been, while in power, quite doctrinarian, and therefore uniformists. In many sections of Spain, there were intense particularist feelings, who where thus hurt. While only a secondary element at the outbreak of the first War, this anti-uniformism, exemplified in the defense of the fueros, would become in time one of the more important banners of Carlism.

[edit]

History of Carlism

The history of Carlism can be usefully divided into three different stages. (The dates are only approximative, thus the overlap is intentional).

  • (1833–1876), where the conquest of power was tried mainly by military means.
  • (1868–1936), where Carlism reverted into a peaceful political movement.
  • (1931–) From the Spanish Civil War until the present. The Carlists win the war as part of Franco's coalition but are also subverted by the dictator. After his death the movement declined into relative irrelevance.
[edit]

Carlists at war (1833–1876)

This period in which the party tried to get to power mainly through military means, is both the classical in terms of political history as, because of the wars — or the threat of them — Carlism was at the center stage; and formative as it is the period where the cultural and sociological Carlist world, that would last for well over a hundred years, took shape.

Historical highlights of this era are the

  • The Royal Marriage Affair 1845. As a mean to end the dynastic strife, Jaime Balmes started a campaign to marry Isabel (II) with Carlos VI, Count of Montemolín. It came close to success, but the political issues grounded it.
  • The 1860 expedition and its aftermath. That year Carlos VI, Count of Montemolín, tried to gain power through a pronunciamiento. He landed in San Carlos de La Rápita (Tarragona), but was quickly detained, and forced to abdicate his rights. This disaster, his behaviour after his release, and the fact that the next in the line was his liberal brother, put the Carlism on the brink of extinction, only saved by the hand of his stepmother, the Princess of Beira, and
  • The "Glorious Revolution" 1868. Isabel (II) managed to alienate almost everybody in Spain, till she was expelled that year by a progressist revolution.

At that point, Carlism, under his new head Carlos VII, became the rallying point for many political Catholics and conservatives, becoming the main group of the right-wing opposition to the ensuing governments in Spain. After four years of political activity, and some hesitations, the war option was again tried in

All three wars share a common development pattern:

  • A first stage of guerrilla activity, across all of Spain.
  • A second stage, where a territorial basis is created, and regular army units are created. The 1847 war didn't get further than this.
  • A third stage, where the basis in consolidated through conventional warfare, and State structures are created. No Carlist war went further than this.

It is remarkable that at the beginning of each war, no regular army unit was on the Carlist side, and that only the third was the result of a planned uprising.

The first war was noteworthy for being, in both sides, extremely brutal (the Liberal Army mistreated the population, for the most of them suspected of being Carlist sympathizers, to the point of, sometimes, attempted extermination; Carlists, very often, treated Liberals no better than they had treated Napoleonic soldiers and agents), up to the point that the international powers forced the warring parties some rules of war handling, namely the "Lord Eliot Agreement". Brutality didn't disappeared later, but giving no quarter was not uncommon.

The areas over which Carlism could establish some sort on territorial authority during the first war (Navarre, Rioja, rural Basque Country, inner Catalonia and northern Valencia region) would remain the main holdings of Carlism for all its history, although the movement was actively supported everywhere else in Spain.

[edit]

Carlist military leaders

[edit]

Isabelline, Alfonsine or Cristine military leaders

[edit]

Carlists in peace (1868–1936)

The desprestige and subsequent fall of Isabel (II) in 1868 plus the staunch support of Carlism to Pope Pius IX, caused that a sizable number of former isabelline conservative Catholics (Francisco Navarro Villoslada, Antonio Aparisi y Guijarro, Cándido Nocedal y Rodriguez de la Flor, Alejandro Pidal y Mon,…) joined Carlism. For a time, even beyond the start of the third war (1872), it became the most important, and best organized, "right" opposition group to the revolutionary regime (some 90 members of parliament in 1871).

After the defeat in the war, a group (led by Alejandro Pidal) left Carlism to form a moderate, non-dynastic Catholic party in Spain, which latter merged with the conservatives of Antonio Cánovas del Castillo.

In 1879 Cándido Nocedal is charged with the reorganization of the party. His main weapon will be a very aggressive press (in 1883 Pope Leo XIII publishes the encyclical Cum Multa trying to moderate it). His banner, an uncompromising hold to their political and, specially, religious principles (to the integrity of them, hence the term "integrist"). This tendency becomes so radical, that in 1888, Carlos VII has to expel from the party the group centered around Ramón Nocedal, Cándido's son, which create a small, but influential in clerical circles, Integrist Party.

Meanwhile, the Marquis of Cerralbo, builds up a modern mass party, centered around the local assembly houses (called "Círculos", of which several hundred existed all around Spain in 1936) and their social action, and in an active participation in opposition to the political system of the Restoration (participating even in wide coalitions like 1907's "Solidaritat Catalana", with regionalists and republicans).

From 1893 to 1918, Juan Vázquez de Mella y Fanjul was its most important parliamentary leader and ideologue, seconded by Víctor Pradera Larumbe, who had wide influence in Spanish conservative thinking beyond the party.

World War I was to have a special influence in Carlism. As the Carlist claimant, then Don Jaime, had close links with the Russian Imperial Family, had been unfairly mistreated by Austrian Emperor Franz Josef, and was also Head of the House of Bourbon, he favoured the Allies, but was living under house-arrest in Austria, with almost no communication with the political direction in Spain. This was, though, (specially Vázquez de Mella) rabid pro-Austrian and pro-German. As the war ended, and Don Jaime could again freely communicate with Spain, the crisis erupted, and Vázquez de Mella and others had to leave the party's direction (the so-called "mellists").

In 1920, Carlism helped to found the "Sindicatos Libres" (Catholic Labour Unions).

Miguel Primo de Rivera's dictatorship (1923–1930) was opposed, but ambiguously viewed by Carlism; which, as most parties, entered a period of slumber, only to be awakened by the coming of the II Republic in 1931.

Integrists and "Mellists" soon reunited, and a new flow of Catholics scared by the attitudes of the republican government started to come in. The two first year of the republic saw short-lived attempts of coalitions with Basque nationalists (as Catholic integrists) and/or alfonsine monarchists.

After the October 1934 Revolution, Carlism started to prepare for an armed clash with the revolutionaries.

[edit]

Spanish Civil War (1936–1939)

The Carlist requetés had been receiving military training during the Second Spanish Republic. However, the negotiations with the conspiring generals were tough. But by July 1936, Carlism unanimously supported the nationalist side on the Spanish Civil War. From the start there were serious troubles, between the Carlists, especially their then political head Manuel Fal Conde, and the military government. On 8 December 1936, Manuel Fal had to leave temporarily for Portugal, after a major clash with Franco. On 19th April 1937 their political branch was "unified" with the Falange party. Both Fal, and the regent Javier de Borbón protested this move, and, after a meeting with Francisco Franco, Don Javier was expelled from Spain. Due to the necessities of the war, actions against the Unification didn't go much further, but meant the loss of all material wealth of the party (hundreds of buildings, several newspapers, etc.).

[edit]

Carlism after the Spanish Civil War (1937–)

From this time on, the mainstream kept an uncomfortable minority position inside the regime, more often than not at odds with the official policy, but with the ministry of Justice thrice given to a loyal "Carlist", who was accordingly expelled from the Traditionalist Communion. This time was also marred by the problem of succession (see below) and internal strife on how to deal with Francoism. Franco recognized both the titles of nobility conceded by the Carlist claimants and those of the Isabelline branch.

At his death, the movement was badly split, and unable to get wide public attention again. At Montejurra, on 9 May, 1976, there was a clash between Carlos Hugo's supporters, aided by extreme left-wing militants, and Carlists led by Carlos Hugo's brother, Sixto Enrique de Borbón. Two men, neither of them a Carlist, were killed. There was also a strange third group, among whom Gladio operative Stefano Delle Chiaie Template:Ref.

In the first democratic elections on 15 June, 1977, only one Carlist senator was elected, journalist and writer Fidel Carazo from Soria, who ran as an independent candidate. In the parliamentary elections of 1979, Carlists integrated in the coalition Unión Nacional, that won a seat in Congress for Madrid; but the elected candidate was not a Carlist himself. Since then, Carlists have remained extra-parliamentary, obtaining only town council seats.

As of 2002 Carlos Hugo donated their House's archives to the Archivo Histórico Nacional, which was protested by his brother Sixtus Henry and by all Carlist factions.

[edit]

Pretenders to the throne

[edit]

Carlos V, Carlos María Isidro

(Aranjuez, 29 March 1788 – Trieste, 10 March 1855). Also known as Count of Molina. Claimant from 1833 to 1845. Head of the party during the First Carlist War. Abdicated

[edit]

Carlos VI, Carlos Luis

Son of the former (Madrid, 31 January 1818 – Trieste, 13 January 1861). Also known as Count of Montemolín. Claimant from 1845 to 1860. Abdicated, following his capture by Isabelline forces, in Tortosa.

[edit]

Juan III

Brother of the former (Aranjuez, 15 May 1822 – Brighton, 21 November 1887) Also known as Count of Montizón. Pretender from 1860 to 1868. Forced to abdicate due to his liberal leaning. By that time, the theory of "legitimacy of exercise" (not only by blood, but of deeds) was stressed.

In 1883, he became senior male by primogeniture of the Capet family, becoming legitimist claimant to the French throne.

[edit]

Carlos VII, Carlos María de los Dolores

Son of the former. (Ljubljana, 30 March 1848 – Varese, 18 July 1909) Also known as Duke of Madrid. Claimant from 1868 to 1909. Head during the Third Carlist War.

[edit]

Jaime III and I

Son of the former (Vevey, 27 June 1870 – Paris, 9 October 1931) Also known as Duke of Anjou and Madrid. Claimant from 1909 to 1931.

[edit]

Alfonso Carlos

Also known as Duke of San Jaime. Claimant from 1931 to 1936. Uncle of the former. Brother to Carlos VII (London 12 September 1849-Vienna 29 September 1936) Last of the senior male line.

[edit]

Late Pretenders

After Alfonso Carlos's death, some claimed that dynastic seniority — after the Salic law — fell upon Alfonso (XIII), former constitutional King of Spain and then in exile at Rome, therefore, at least in theory, ending the family split. But according to the theory of legitimacy in exercise, and to the causes for exclusion in Spain's traditional laws, Carlists thought that Alfonso (XIII) and his heir Juan de Borbón were radically disqualified to head the Cause.

Alfonso Carlos had named in 1936 Prince Francis Xavier of Bourbon Parma as Regent, as he was the nearest Bourbon who shared the Carlist ideals. During the Second World War, Prince Xavier returned to the Belgian army, where he had served during World War I. He was demobilized and joined the French maquis.

He was taken prisoner by the Nazis and sent to Natzweiler and Dachau, where the American troops liberated him in 1945.

In 1952, as King Javier I, he laid openly his claims to the Throne, later seconded by his eldest son Carlos Hugo, married to Princess Irene of the Netherlands.

After alienating many Carlists by his attempts of an approach to Franco (1965–1967), Carlos Hugo switched to a leftist Titoist, autogestionary socialist movement. His mother, Madeleine of Bourbon, and his brother, Sixto Enrique de Borbón (Sixtus Henry of Bourbon), stood for traditional Carlism.

In 1980, Carlos Hugo left the political arena, and abandoned the new "Partido Carlista" which he had created.

In 1958, a small group of former Carlists had recognized Juan de Borbón as their Head.

In 1960, Jaime de Borbón (Juan's eldest brother) proclaimed himself as Carlist Head (as "King Jaime IV of Spain"), as he claimed to be senior male by primogeniture of the dynasty. On May 3, 1964, Don Jaime took the title Duke of Madrid. He had no Carlist followers.

From 1943 to 1953, the Archduke Karl Pius of Habsburg-Lorraine, a maternal grandson of Carlos VII, also claimed the Headship of the House, supported by some of General Franco's officials from the Movimiento Nacional.

Beside them, there were other minor factions, which recognized neither of the above. But the vast majority of the Carlist Communion followed Francisco Javier de Borbón, first as regent and later as king, until his death in 1977. Today their Abanderado or standard-bearer is Don Javier's second son, Sixto Enrique.

Most of these events happened under Franco's regime, which skilfully played one group against the other.

[edit]

Carlist ideological landscape

Carlism or "Traditionalism" (as is also called) can be labeled as a counterrevolutionary movement. Basically, its intellectual landscape was a reaction against the basic tenets of the Enlightenment, and the French Revolution of 1789 (Laicism, individualism, egalitarianism, rationalism). In this sense, is akin to the French Reactionaries and Edmund Burke's thinking.

It's difficult, though, to give an accurate description of Carlist thinking for several reasons:

  • As traditionalists, Carlists mistrusted ideology as a political driving force. Some 19th century pamphlets expressed it in this form: against a "philosophical" constitution (the liberal, based on ideology), an "historical" constitution is proposed (based on history, and the teachings of the Church).
  • Carlism's long active history — it has been an important force for over 170 years — and the fact that it attracted a large and diverse following, makes a comprehensive categorization more difficult.
  • There has almost never been a single school of thought inside Carlism.
  • The ideas expressed inside Carlism were partly (and openly) shared with other forces on the political spectrum.
[edit]

Dios, Patria, Fueros, Rey

This four words (which can be translated as God, Fatherland, Local Rule and King), have been the motto and cornerstone of Carlism throughout its existence. What Carlism understood by this was

  • "Dios" (God): Carlism believes in the Catholic Faith as a cornerstone of Spain, and must be politically active in its defense.
  • "Patria" (Fatherland): Carlism is heavily patriotic, but not nationalist. Traditionalism sees the Fatherland as the nesting of communities (municipal, regional, Spain) united under one.
  • "Rey" (King): The concept of "national sovereignty" is rejected. Sovereignty is vested on the King, both legitimate in blood and in deeds, who effectively rules. But this power is limited by the doctrine of the Church and the Laws and Usages of the Kingdom, and through a series of Councils, traditional Cortes and state-independent intermediate bodies. The King must also be the Defender of the Poor and Keeper of Justice.
  • Fueros: Somehow similar to charters. Part of the limitation of royal powers is the acknowledgment of local and regional self rule (and of other types of communities in the political body, specially the Church). Although the result of a peculiar historical development in Spain, it converged with the concept of subsidiarity in Catholic Social Thought.
[edit]

Carlist Supporters

The areas over which Carlism could establish some sort of territorial authority during the first war (Navarre, Rioja, rural Basque Country, inner Catalonia and northern Valencia region) would remain the main strongholds of Carlism throughout its history. Specially in Navarre and parts of the Basque Provinces, Carlism was a major political force till the late 1960's.

Carlism was a true "mass movement" and drew its rank and file from all social classes, with a majority of peasant and working class elements. Thus, it is no surprise that Carlism was involved in the creation of Catholic trade unions.

[edit]

Offshots and influence

  • Cultural and political Regionalism in Spain (not to be mistaken with regional nationalism or separatism) was largely Carlist-originated. The influence of Carlist thinker Juan Vázquez de Mella in this field can still be traced today.
  • One of the founders of Basque nationalism, Sabino Arana, came from a Carlist background, and for many years competed for the same audience (Basque deep Catholics). Compare the PNV slogan "God and Fueros". Basque nationalism, however, was effectively shaped by the Liberal Engracio de Aranzadi, an admirer of Mazzini. Carlists fougth and defeated Basque nationalists in 1936-1937.
  • Catholic politics are essential for Carlism. Compare the slogan "Christ King".
  • Victor Pradera's thinking was very influential, through the group Acción Española, in Spanish authoritarian thinking in the 1930's and 1940's.
[edit]

Carlist symbols

[edit]

Carlism related words

  • Bergara/Vergara was the place of the Abrazo de Vergara, which ended the First Carlist War in the North.
  • Brigadas de Navarra were National Army units formed mainly by Requeté forces from Navarre at the start of the Spanish Civil War. They saw intensive action during the War.
  • Detente bala ("Stop bullet!") a small patch with an image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus worn on the uniform (over the heart) by most requetés.
  • Margaritas. Carlist women organization. They often worked as war nurses.
  • Ojalateros were courtiers saying Ojalá nos ataquen y ganemos ("Wish they would attack us and we won"), but doing nothing to achieve victory.
  • Requeté The armed Carlist militias.
  • Trágala, expression marking the desire to forcibly impose the ideas most hated by the opponents. Also a Liberal fighting song (chorus: "Swallow it, you Carlist, you who don't want a Constitution.").
[edit]

Carlism and Literature

The liberal Spanish journalist Mariano José de Larra opposed Carlism and published several lampoons against it. Nadie pase sin hablar al portero (1833) presents Carlists as a bunch of bandit priests.

Karl Marx mentioned the Carlists in his articles about the Spanish revolutions. A fake quotation can be found among Spanish historians, where Marx would express a view of the Carlists as a revolutionary popular movement in defence of regional liberties.

Francisco Navarro-Villoslada was a Carlist writer that published a historic novel, Amaya o los vascos en el siglo VIII, in the fashion of Walter Scott, presenting the legendary origins of Spanish monarchy as the start of Reconquista.

Ramón María del Valle-Inclán, novelist, poet and playwright, was a member of the Spanish Generation of 1898. He wrote novels about Carlism and was an active Carlist himself.

Pío Baroja wrote a novel, Zalacaín el aventurero (Zalacain the Adventurer), set during the Third Carlist War, and referred to Carlism in a not very favourable light (as he generally referred to nearly everybody) in several other works.

The Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno suffered as a child the siege of Bilbao during the Third Carlist War. Later he wrote a novel Paz en la guerra about that time. In 1895 he wrote to Joaquín Costa about his plans for an essay on the "intrahistoric" element of rural socialism within the Carlist masses.

[edit]

Note

[edit]

On line references

[edit]

Basic Bibliography

Template:Link FA

ca:Carlisme de:Carlismus es:Carlismo eo:Karlismo fr:Carlisme gl:Carlismo it:Carlismo nl:Carlisme pl:Karlizm ru:Карлисты

Retrieved from "http://www.netipedia.com/index.php/Carlism"