It took Miguel Primo de Rivera just one year to become the man of a Catalan bourgeoisie frightened by a labor movement in effervescence, with great social tension that translated into strikes, sabotage and all kinds of violent acts. The general arrived in Barcelona in 1922 as captain general of Catalonia appointed by the conservative government of José Sánchez Guerra with the reputation of having implemented a strong hand in Valencia to confront “terrorism and revolutionary unionism.”
And he did not hesitate to export the formula of supporting what today could well be called State terrorism, protecting, together with the civil governor, Severiano Martínez, and the superior chief of the Police, Miguel Arlegui – both also military -, an armed gang that protected the interests of the large owners.
Aware of the plot, the Government dismissed the civil governor and the police command, leaving Primo de Rivera as a reference of that dirty war and, between May and June 1923, as the defender of law and order that the new liberal Government of Manuel García Prieto seemed unable to maintain during the transport strike.
Faced with the Executive, which did not agree to grant him the declaration of a state of war to assume full powers and manage in his own way, García Prieto decided to remove him from office, although King Alfonso XIII refused to deny his dismissal, leaving the Government in an unprecedented situation. situation of weakness and elevating the soldier who had become a hero for conservative Catalan society.
Whether or not the King was aware of the rebellion that Primo de Rivera would lead from Barcelona and the monarch’s role in it is a debate that historians maintain a century after his pronouncement. The fact is that the events were brought forward due to the riots that occurred in the tribute to Rafael de Casanova’s sculpture on the Diada of 1923.
That September 11, a group carrying a stelada shouted against Spain and against the Army and in favor of the rebellion of Abdelkrim, the Riffian leader who led what for Spain was the Annual Disaster. The arrests of the nationalists did not calm the general’s desire for rebellion, who quickly pulled his strings and in the early hours of September 13 he declared a state of war in Catalonia and took power without opposition.
Alfonso made public that same day through the press in his Manifesto to the country and the Army, which we reproduce in full.
“Spanish people:
“The moment has arrived for us, more feared than expected (because we would have always wanted to live legally and for it to govern Spanish life without interruption) to gather our desires, to attend to the clamorous request of those who love the country and see no other way for it.” salvation than freeing it from political professionals, from men who for one reason or another offer us the picture of misfortunes and immoralities that began in the year 98 and threatened Spain with an upcoming tragic and dishonorable end.
”The dense network of the politics of concupiscence has caught itself in its meshes, kidnapping it, even the royal will. They often seem to ask that they govern those whom they say they do not allow to govern, alluding to those who have been their only, although weak, brake and brought to the laws and customs the little healthy ethics, the tenuous tinge of morality and equity that they still have: but in Reality easily and happily agrees to the turn and the distribution and among themselves they designate the succession.
”Well, now we are going to collect all the responsibilities and govern ourselves, civil men who represent our morality and doctrine. Enough of the tame rebellions that, without remedying anything, damage so much and more to the discipline that is serious and virile to which we launch ourselves for Spain and for the King.
”This movement is for men: those who do not feel masculinity fully characterized, let them wait in a corner, without disturbing, the good days that we prepare for the country. Spaniards: long live Spain and long live the King!
”We do not have to justify our act, which healthy people demand and impose. Murders of prelates, former governors, agents of authority, employers, foremen and workers; audacious and unpunished robberies; currency depreciation; spree of millions of reserved expenses; suspicious tariff policy due to the trend and more because whoever manages it flaunts blatant immorality; low political intrigues using the tragedy of Morocco as a pretext; uncertainty in the face of this very serious national problem; social indiscipline, which makes work ineffective and null, agricultural and industrial production precarious and ruinous; unpunished communist propaganda; impiety and lack of culture; justice influenced by politics; blatant separatist propaganda; tendentious passions around the problem of responsibilities and, finally, let’s be fair, a single point in favor of the Government, on whose sap it has been living for nine months thanks to the inexhaustible kindness of the Spanish people, a weak and incomplete persecution of the vice of gambling.
”We do not come to cry pities and shame, but to provide a prompt and radical remedy, for which we require the collaboration of all good citizens. For them, and by virtue of the trust and mandate that they have placed in me, a military directory will be established in Madrid, on a provisional basis, in charge of maintaining public order and ensuring the normal functioning of the ministries and official organizations, requiring the country so that in a short time it offers us upright, wise, industrious and honest men who can constitute a ministry under our protection, but in full dignity and power to offer them to the King in case he deigns to accept them.
”We do not want to be ministers nor do we feel any ambition other than to serve Spain. We are the Somatén of legendary and honorable Spanish tradition, and like him, our motto is ‘Peace, peace and peace’; but dignified peace outside and peace founded on healthy rigor and just punishment within. Neither surrender nor impunity. We want a reserve Somatén and brother of the Army for everything, even for the defense of the country’s independence if it were in danger; But we want it to organize and frame good men and for their adherence to strengthen us. It will only take hours for the organizational decree of the Gran Somatén Español to come out.
“We intend to avoid bloodshed, and although logically there will be no clean, pure and patriotic one that will turn against us, we announce that faith in the ideal and the instinct for self-preservation of our regime will lead us to the greatest rigor against those who fight it.” .
”We want to live in peace with all peoples and deserve from them the consideration of Spaniards today, and admiration tomorrow, for their culture and virtues. We are neither imperialists nor do we believe that the honor of the Army, which vindicates it with its daily courageous conduct, is pending a third effort in Morocco. For this, and when that Army has fulfilled the orders received (absolutely unrelated to this movement, which, even though it is so elevated and noble, should not disturb the august mission of those who are in front of the enemy), we will seek a solution to the problem of Morocco. prompt, dignified and sensible.
”The country does not want to hear more about responsibilities, but rather to know that they are demanded promptly and fairly and we will entrust this, with a limited deadline, to courts of moral authority and dispassionate about everything that politics or ambition has poisoned until now. We sanction the collective responsibility of the political parties with this total separation to which we condemn them, even recognizing justice that some of their men dedicated to the noble desire to govern their talents and their activities, but they did not know how or never wanted to purify and give dignity to the environment in which they have lived.
”We do want to, because we believe it is our duty, and in the event of any properly founded complaint of prevarication, bribery or immorality, we will open a process that relentlessly punishes those who committed crimes against the country, corrupting and dishonoring it. We guarantee the most absolute confidentiality for complainants, even if they are against those of our property and caste, even if it is against ourselves, for which there are accusations that honor.
”The process against Mr. Santiago Alba [Minister of State] is of course open, since the unanimous voice of the country denounces him and the one who, being head of the Government and having heard from solvent people and invested with authority, is also being prosecuted. accusations against his depraved and cynical minister, and even attending them, he has succumbed to his influence and political skill without the character or virtue to persecute him, not even to remove him from the Government.
”More details are not admitted in a manifesto. Our work will soon be known and the country and history will judge it, that our conscience is very clear of the intention and purpose.
”Dispositive part: when the state of war is declared in each region, the captain general or whoever takes his place will dismiss all civil governors and entrust the governors and military commanders with their functions. They will seize all communication centers and media and will not allow, apart from family and commercial ones, those of any other authority that does not serve the new regime.
”Of all the important developments that occur, they will give duplicate knowledge to the generals in Madrid and Barcelona, ??resolving the difficulties promptly and energetically.
”The most suitable places will be occupied, such as communist or revolutionary centers, stations, prisons, banks, electricity plants and water tanks, and suspicious and unremarkable elements will be arrested. In everything else, efforts will be made to give the sensation of a normal and calm life.
“As long as order is not assured and the nascent regime triumphant, the services of organization, surveillance and public order will be the priority attention of the military in all its grades and classes, and any instruction or act that hinders these purposes must be suspended, without this meaning hand over the troops to the mob or abandon the professional mission.
”Above all warnings are the measures that patriotism, intelligence and enthusiasm for the cause suggest each day in moments that are not about hesitating but about risking everything for everything; that is, life for the country.
”Just a few more words: we have not conspired; We have collected the popular desire in full light and atmosphere and we have given it some organization, to channel it to a patriotic goal free of ambitions. We therefore believe that no one will dare to take us on and that is why we have omitted to request the help of our colleagues and subordinates one by one.
“In this holy enterprise, the working and honest people in all their classes, the Army and our glorious Navy, both even in their most modest categories, are associated in the first place, which we had not seen previously consulted without relaxing ties of discipline, but which well Known for his fidelity to command and his sensitivity to patriotic desires, we are assured of his valuable and effective assistance.
“Although we are born from a formulaic indiscipline, we represent true discipline, the one due to our dogma and patriotic love, and we must understand, practice and demand it, not forgetting that since we are not stimulated by ambition, but, on the contrary, by spirit of sacrifice we have the highest authority.
”And now again: Long live Spain! and Long live the king! And all of you receive a cordial greeting from an old soldier who asks you for discipline and fraternal union in the name of the days he shared military life with you in peace and in war and who asks the Spanish people for trust and order, in the name of the efforts to dedicated to his prosperity, especially this one in which he offers and ventures everything to serve him.”
