Carlist wars (1834-40, 1872-6). Although the Carlist wars originated in a disputed succession to the Spanish throne, they reflected tensions between liberalism and conservatism, the Church and anticlericalism, and town and country. Female succession, recognized since the 13th century, was barred in 1713. It was re-established in 1789, but the decision was never publicized. When Ferdinand VII died in 1833 his young daughter Isabella was crowned queen, with her mother Cristina as regent. Ferdinand's brother, Don Carlos, declared himself king, and there were risings in his favour across Spain, and particularly in the Basque provinces and Navarre. Having hoped to succeed without bloodshed, in 1834 he returned to Spain to fight for his rights.
By this time Carlist forces were coalescing under Tomas Zumalacarregui, a retired colonel who proved a general of real talent. His opponents enjoyed international support, and a quadruple alliance, concluded in April 1834, bound Britain, France, and Portugal to assist Spain. However, the queen regent's relationship with a former sergeant in her guards affronted the elements in Spanish society which were likely to favour the dignified, devout, and conservative Don Carlos. A Royal Statute of 1834 produced a constitution which maintained an absolute monarchy alongside a bicameral legislature: it was a compromise which pleased few.
The first few months of fighting set the pattern for what followed. The Carlists, stronger in the countryside than the towns, dominated the north-west. They formed battalions which fought guerrilla actions until united for major battles. Weapons were captured from government forces (Cristinos) or smuggled into northern ports. Don Carlos strengthened his position by undertaking to uphold the ancient privileges (fueros) of the Basques, and foreign observers praised the quality of his volunteers—known as Requetés—with their red Basque berets. Despite their soldierly qualities, the Carlists behaved as ruthlessly as their opponents, torturing officials, shooting prisoners, and tarring and feathering women believed to sympathize with the Cristinos.
Zumalacarregui won a series of battles but, with the war going in his favour, in June 1835 he was mortally wounded in an attack on Bilbao. That month his cause suffered another blow when George de Lacy Evans, a half-pay lieutenant colonel and radical MP, was given permission to raise a British Legion of 10, 000 men for service with the Cristinos. The Legion filled its ranks easily, largely from the urban unemployed, some of them veterans of the Peninsular war. France, too, increased her support for the regency, and the French Foreign Legion reached Spain that August.
Expectations that the war would end with the relief of Bilbao proved ill-founded. While the Cristinos had two capable generals in Espartero and Córdoba, a young volunteer called Ramon Cabrera was the rising star in the Carlist firmament. The war grew increasingly bitter. Cabrera's mother was shot, and Cabrera added to his reputation for ferocity by shooting four female hostages. In 1836 the British Legion helped raise the siege of San Sebastián, and regular Royal Marines arrived to garrison a nearby port. The Carlists might have won had they launched a single-minded advance on Madrid, but despite mounting two substantial raids through Cristino territory such strategy was beyond them. In August (another) sergeant led a coup that forced Cristina to reinstitute the liberal constitution of 1812, but the Carlists were unable to turn this to their advantage, and failed in another attempt on Bilbao.
In March 1837 the Carlists won a battle at Oriamendi, the last action of the British Legion, whose enlistment term was about to expire. That summer Don Carlos mounted the Royal Expedition to Madrid. En route the Carlists had the better of several engagements, including one at Barbastro where the French and Carlist Foreign Legions fought one another. The hesitant Don Carlos reached the outskirts of the capital but fell back, and ensuing recriminations did grave damage to his cause. Sporadic fighting went on for another year, until in August 1839 the Carlist general Maroto and his opponent Espartero shared the symbolic ‘Embrace of Vergara’. Don Carlos left the country, and the last of his supporters escaped into France in July 1840.
This was not the end of Carlism. Isabella was driven from Spain in 1868, and the grandson of Don Carlos made a bid for the throne. He came close to succeeding in a vicious civil war that raged from 1872 until 1876. During the Spanish civil war the Requetés made a valuable contribution to the Nationalist cause. After it Carlism remained a political force, but the accession of King Juan Carlos in 1975 and the modernization of Spain rendered its traditionalist raison d'être an anachronistic survival with declining vitality.
Bibliography
- Holt, Edgar, The Carlist Wars in Spain (London, 1967)
— Richard Holmes
