The Third Carlist War (Spanish: Tercera Guerra Carlista), which occurred from 1872 to 1876, was the last Carlist War in Spain. It is sometimes referred to as the "Second Carlist War", as the earlier "Second" War (1847–1849) was smaller in scale and relatively trivial in political consequence.
Leading up to the war, Queen Isabella II abdicated the throne in 1868, and the unpopular Amadeo I, son of King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, was proclaimed King of Spain in 1870. In response, the Carlist pretender, Carlos VII, tried to earn the support of various Spanish regions by promising to reintroduce various area-specific customs and laws. The Carlists proclaimed the restoration of Catalan, Valencian and Aragonese fueros (charters) which had been abolished at the beginning of the 18th century by King Philip V in his unilateral Nueva Planta decrees.
The call for rebellion made by the Carlists was echoed in Catalonia and especially in the Basque region (Gipuzkoa, Álava, Biscay and Navarre), where the Carlists managed to erect a temporary state. During the war, Carlist forces occupied several inland Spanish towns, the most important ones being La Seu d'Urgell and Estella in Navarre. They also laid siege to the cities of Bilbao and San Sebastián, but failed to seize them.
The Third Carlist War saw a series of regime changes in Spain, beginning with the declaration of the First Spanish Republic after the abdication of Amadeo I in February 1873. Over one year later, in December 1874, a military coup installed a new Bourbon monarch, Alfonso XII, marking the beginning of the Bourbon Restoration in Spain.
After four years of war, on 28 February 1876, Carlos VII was defeated, and went into exile in France. On the same day, King Alfonso XII of Spain entered Pamplona. After the end of the war, the Basque charters (fueros/foruak) were abolished, shifting the border customs from the Ebro River to the Spanish coast. In the chartered territories, home rule provisions, left over from the resolution of the First Carlist War, were abolished, and conscription of youth in the Spanish army became compulsory.
The war resulted in between 7,000 and 50,000 casualties.
Introduction
The Third Carlist War began in 1871, after the overthrow of Isabella II in La Gloriosa revolution in 1868 and the subsequent coronation of Amadeo I of Savoy as King of Spain in 1870. The selection of Amadeo I as King instead of the Carlist pretender, Carlos VII, was considered a great insult to the Carlists who had strong support in northern Spain, especially in Catalonia, Navarre and the Basque Provinces (Basque Country)
After some internal dissensions in 1870–1871, ending with the removal of Ramón Cabrera as the head of the Carlist party, the Carlists started a general uprising against Amadeo I's government and its Liberal supporters. The Third Carlist War became the final act of a long fight between Spanish progressives (centralists) and traditionalists which started after the Spanish Peninsular War (1808–1814) and the promulgation of the constitution of Cadiz in 1812 which ended the ancien regime in Spain. Mistrust and rivalry among members of the royal family also enlarged the conflict. The three Carlist wars were started for diverse reasons: the establishment of the Pragmatic Sanction of Ferdinand VII caused the First Carlist War, the inability to find a compromise led to the Second Carlist War, and the proclamation of a foreign king as Spanish monarch sparked the Third Carlist War.
Some contemporary authors described the Third Carlist War as deadly, especially for civilians on the sidelines of the conflict.
The bell rings to the dead across the heroic town of Igualada...Horrible details...People [killed] by bayonets, burned houses, factories attacked at dawn, robberies, rap[es], insults...
About the Carlists' entrance on Vendrell thousands atrocities are told, done by the followers of absolutism... If our brothers fell to the edge of the Carlist dagger, why we the liberals have to be considered with them?... It is necessary to fight the war with war and to employ all kind of resources to exterminate the bandits that burn, steal and kill in the name of a religion and a peace.
— La Redención del Pueblo, March 6, 1874, about the entrance of the Carlists in the town of Vendrell (Tarragona)
Opposing parties
Carlists
The Carlist party was formed in the last years of Ferdinand VII's (1784–1833) reign. Carlism is named after the infant Carlos Maria Isidro (1788–1855), count of Molina and Ferdinand's brother. The pragmatic sanction, published by Ferdinand in 1830, abolished the Salic Law, allowing women to be queens of Spain in their own right. This meant that Isabel, Ferdinand's daughter, became heir instead of Carlos, his brother.
Carlos almost instantly became a cause around which Spain's conservative groups could unite. The anti-liberalism of authors such as Fernando de Zeballos, Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro and Francisco Alvarado during the 1820s was a precursor to the Carlist movement. Another important aspect of the Carlist ideology was its defense of the Catholic Church and its institutions, including the Inquisition and the special tributary laws, against the comparatively more liberal crown. The Carlists identified themselves with Spanish military traditions, adopting the Burgundian cross of the 16th- and 17th-century tercios. This nostalgia for Spain's past was an important rallying point for Carlism. There was also a perceived support for the feudal system displaced by the French occupation, although this is disputed by historians. The Carlists summarized their beliefs in the motto: "For God, for the Fatherland and the King."
In the deeply religious and conservative atmosphere of 19th century Spain, Carlism attracted a large number of followers, particularly among sections of society which resented the growing liberalism of the Spanish state. Carlism found most of its supporters in rural areas, especially in places which had previously enjoyed special status before 1813, such as Catalonia and especially the Basque Country. In these parts of the country, Carlists enjoyed support from the Catholic peasantry and minor nobles, with occasional support from the major nobility.
Liberals
After Ferdinand VII's death in 1833 without a male heir, the succession was disputed, despite the abrogation of the Salic law in 1830. As the new queen Isabel was only a child, her mother, Maria Cristina, became regent until Isabel was ready to reign in her own right. Because conservatives backed Carlos, Maria Cristina was forced to side with the Liberals, who sympathized with the ideals of the French Revolution. Liberals were well-represented in the high echelons of the army and among the large landowners, and drew some support from the middle classes.
The Liberals promoted industrialization and social modernization. Reforms included the confiscation and sale of church lands and other institutions that supported the old regime, the establishment of elected parliaments, the construction of railways and the general expansion of industry throughout Spain. There was also a strong current of anti-clericalism among them.
Background
First and Second Carlist war
First Carlist War
After Ferdinand's death, the government undertook a division of Spain into provinces and "historic regions" with the 1833 territorial division of Spain. The division overruled the traditional administration of the Basque districts, who held a specific autonomous status within Spain. For example, Navarre was still a Basque-based kingdom with its own decision-making bodies and customs on the Ebro river. The unilateral decision was regarded as a hostile government move by the Basque people, precipitating a general uprising in the Basque Provinces and Navarre in support of the traditionalist Carlists, resulting in the First Carlist War. The resulting success allowed Carlists to gain control of the countryside, although cities like Bilbao, San Sebastián, Pamplona and Vitoria-Gasteiz stayed in Liberal hands. The insurrection spread to the Castilla la Vieja, Aragon and Catalonia, where Carlist armies and guerrillas operated until the end of the war. Expeditions outside these areas resulted in limited success.
The Basque Country was subdued on August 31, 1839, with the Convenio de Vergara and Abrazo de Vergara signed between the Liberal general Baldomero Espartero and the Carlist general Rafael Maroto. Carlos, the pretender, crossed the Bidasoa river into France for exile, but Carlists in Catalonia and Aragon continued fighting until July 1840, when they escaped to France led by the Carlist general Ramón Cabrera.
Prominent figures emerged on both sides during the war. On the Liberal side, Baldomero Espartero rose to prominence and replaced Maria Cristina as regent in 1840, although his subsequent unpopularity meant that he was later overthrown by a coalition of politicians and moderate military figures. On the Carlist side, Ramón Cabrera rose to become the head of the Carlist party, a position he would hold until 1870. His future move to change his allegiance to the Spanish regime during the Third Carlist War would prove crucial to the government's success.
Second Carlist War
The Second Carlist War started in 1846, after the failure of a scheme to marry Isabel II with the Carlist claimant, Carlos Luis de Borbón. Fighting was concentrated in the mountains of South Catalonia and Teruel until 1849. The context was an agricultural and industrial crisis that hit Catalonia in 1846, together with unpopular taxes and military service laws introduced by the government of Ramon Maria Narvaez.
Another critical factor was the presence of lingering trabucaires, or Carlist fighters, from the First Carlist War who had neither surrendered to the government nor fled to exile. Those circumstances resulted in the creation of the first Carlist parties in 1846, usually consisting of no more than 500 men and always directed by a cabecilla, or chief, often a veteran from the first war. These groups attacked politicians and military units.
As 1847 ended with an escalation of fighting, Carlists, backed by progressives and republicans, gathered 4,000 men in Catalonia. In 1848, Carlists rose up in many parts of Spain, especially in Catalonia, Navarre, Gipuzkoa, Burgos, Maestrat, Aragon, Extremadura and Castille. The uprisings failed in almost all parts of Spain except for Catalonia and Maestrat, where Ramón Cabrera arrived in mid-1848 to create the Ejército Real de Cataluña, or the Royal Army of Catalonia. However, Carlist failures in the rest of Spain, in addition to the campaign conducted by government commander Manuel Gutiérrez de la Concha to weaken the Carlist presence in Catalonia during fall 1848, condemned the Carlist cause to failure. In January 1849, the Liberal army in Catalonia numbered 50,000, while the Carlist army numbered only 26,000. The detention of the Carlist pretender, Carlos VI, on the frontier when he was attempting to enter Spain put an end to the uprising in April 1849. Outnumbered, without a leader and having failed to achieve a victory in all fronts, Ramón Cabrera and the Carlists in Catalonia fled to France in April and May 1849. Later, an amnesty announced by the government convinced some to return to Spain, but most stayed in exile.
Spain's political situation before the war
Amidst opposing political ideals in Spain, the growing Industrial Revolution and constant conflict in Spanish politics, the Third Carlist War was a culmination of a long political process. The political appearance of the conflict, exemplified by the struggle for the Spanish crown, masked a more crude reality. The growth of liberal ideals after Napoleon Bonaparte's occupation of Spain and Spain's subsequent fight for independence alarmed Spain's traditional groups, who decided to fight for their beliefs. Tumultuous reigns of monarchs Ferdinand VII, Isabel II and Amadeo I exemplified the political unrest present in Spain, and resulted in the loss of traditionalist predominance, especially during the reign of Isabel II.
Political reforms, carried out between 1833 and 1872 by moderate liberals such as De la Rosa, Cea Bermudez and Baldomero Espartero, as well as the government formed after "La Gloriosa", left Carlists and other traditional circles in a weakened position. The expropriations of ecclesiastic property carried out by Mendizábal (1836), followed by those of Espartero (1841) and Pascual Madoz (1855), were considered an attack on the Catholic Church and the nobility. Many nobles and Church lost real estate, which in turn was sold to high-ranking Liberals, contributing to unrest among those two important parts of Spanish society. However, the Church and the nobility were not the only important groups to feel threatened by the advance of new bourgeois liberalism—in both its economic and political forms. The drive for Spanish centralization (a rising Spanish nationalism) collided with long-running sources of authority other than the Spanish centralist constitution based in Madrid.
Institutions specific to certain territories, such as the fueros of the Basque Country, were removed by the liberal 1812 Constitution proclaimed in Cádiz, but were largely restored on the installation of Ferdinand VII of Spain to the Spanish throne in 1814. The conflict over home rule in the Basque Country (Basque Provinces and Navarre) was an important point of confrontation. Catalonia and Aragon had lost their specific institutions and laws during and after the War of the Spanish Succession due to the Nueva Planta decrees of 1707–1716, and wanted to win them back. Carlists upheld these former institutions during the two major Carlist wars, resulting in Catalonia and the Basque Country becoming the epicentres of fighting.