Diplomatic Reaction to Spain’s Troubles

The condition of Spain in the year 1822 gave ample encouragement to those who longed to employ the arms of France in the Royalist cause.

Continuing Spanish Demand Constitution,
our selection from History of Modern Europe by Charles A. Fyffe published in 1890. The selection is presented in six easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in Spanish Demand Constitution.

Time: 1812-1820

It was the boast of the Spanish and Italian liberals that the revolutions effected in 1820 were undisgraced by the scenes of outrage which had followed the capture of the Bastille and the overthrow of French absolutism thirty years before. The gentler character of these southern movements proved, however, no extenuation in the eyes of the leading statesmen of Europe: on the contrary, the declaration of soldiers in favor of a constitution seemed in some quarters more ominous of evil than any excess of popular violence. The alarm was first sounded at St. Peters burg. As soon as the Czar heard of Riego’s proceedings at Cadiz, he began to meditate intervention; and when it was known that Ferdinand had been forced to accept the Constitution of 181 2, he ordered his ambassadors to propose that all the great powers, acting through their ministers at Paris, should address a remonstrance to the representative of Spain, requiring the Cortes to disavow the crime of March 8th, by which they had been called into being, and to offer a pledge of obedience to the King by enacting the most rigorous laws against sedition and revolt. In that case, and in that alone, the Czar desired to add, would the powers maintain their relations of confidence and amity with Spain.

This Russian proposal was viewed with some suspicion at Vienna; it was answered with a direct and energetic negative from London. Canning was still in the Ministry. The words with which in 1818 he had protested against a league between England and autocracy were still ringing in the ears of his col leagues. Lord Liverpool’s government knew itself to be unpopular in the country; every consideration of policy as well as of self-interest bade it resist the beginnings of an intervention which if confined to words, was certain to be useless, and, if supported by action, was likely to end in that alliance between France and Russia which had been the nightmare of English statesmen ever since 1814, and in a second occupation of Spain by the very generals whom Wellington had spent so many years in dislodging. Castlereagh replied to the Czar’s note in terms which made it clear that England would never give its sanction to a collective interference with Spain. Richelieu, the nominal head of the French Government, felt too little confidence in his position to act without the concurrence of Great Britain; and the crusade of absolutism against Spanish liberty was in consequence postponed until the victory of the Ultraroyalists at Paris was complete, and the overthrow of Richelieu had brought to the head of the French State a group of men who felt no scruple in entering upon an aggressive war.

The condition of Spain in the year 1822 gave ample encouragement to those who longed to employ the arms of France in the Royalist cause. The hopes of peaceful reform, which for the first few months after the revolution had been shared even by foreign politicians at Madrid, had long vanished. In the moment of popular victory Ferdinand had brought the leaders of the Cortes from their prisons and placed them in office. These men showed a dignified forgetfulness of the injuries which they had suffered. Misfortune had calmed their impetuosity and taught them more of the real condition of the Spanish people. They entered upon their task with seriousness and good faith and would have proved the best friends of constitutional monarchy if Ferdinand had had the least intention of co5perating with them loyally. But they found themselves encountered from the first by a double enemy. The more violent of the liberals, with Riego at their head, abandoned themselves to extravagances like those of the club-orators of Paris in 1791, and did their best to make any peaceable administration impossible. After combating these anarchists, or exaltados, with some success, the Ministry was forced to call in their aid, when, at the suggestion of the papal nuncio, the King placed his veto upon a law dissolving most of the monasteries (October, 1820).

Ferdinand now openly combined with the enemies of the constitution and attempted to transfer the command of the army to one of his own agents. The plot failed; the Ministry sent the alarm over the whole country, and Ferdinand stood convicted before his people as a conspirator against the constitution which he had sworn to defend. The agitation of the clubs, which the Ministry had hitherto suppressed, broke out anew. A storm of accusations assayed Ferdinand himself. He was compelled at the end of the year 1820 to banish from Madrid most of the persons who had been his confidants; and although his dethronement was not yet proposed, he had already become, far more than Louis XVI of France under similar conditions, the recognized enemy of the revolution and the suspected patron of every treason against the nation.

The attack of the despotic courts on Naples in the spring of 1821 heightened the fury of parties in Spain, encouraging the “Serviles,” or “Absolutists,” in their plots, and forcing the Ministry to yield to the cry for more violent measures against the enemies of the constitution. In the South of Spain the ” Ex-altados” gained possession of the principal military and civil commands, and openly refused obedience to the central Administration when it attempted to interfere with their action. Seville, Cartagena, and Cadiz acted as if they were independent republics, and even spoke of separation from Spain. Defied by its own subordinates in the provinces, and unable to look to the King for any sincere support, the moderate governing party lost all hold upon the nation. In the Cortes elected in 1822 the Ex-altados formed the majority, and Riego was appointed president. Ferdinand now began to concert measures of action with the French Ultraroyalists.

More information here and here, and below.

We want to take this site to the next level but we need money to do that. Please contribute directly by signing up at https://www.patreon.com/history