Spain’s Transformation: War, Revolution, and Loss (1808-1833)
Crisis of the Old Regime (1808-1833)
The triumph of the revolutionaries in France conditioned all diplomatic, foreign, military, and internal decisions of the Spanish government during the reign of Charles IV. They also had to face the irreversible financial, institutional, and ideological collapse of the absolutist monarchy of the Ancien Régime.
Subsequently, the invasion by Napoleon’s French troops hastened the start of a revolutionary political process. This resulted in a radical break with the royal absolutism of the past and the adoption of the liberal Constitution of Cadiz in 1812. However, the contrast between Spanish liberals and reformers became a violent armed struggle during the reign of Ferdinand VII (1814-1833). This period was marked by economic bankruptcy, ineffective government, the interventionism of the military in political confrontation, and the loss of almost all the territories that Spain had in America.
The War of Independence and the Cortes of Cadiz
The beginning of the Modern Age in Spain was marked, from a political point of view, by the French Revolution. At the turn of the eighteenth to the nineteenth century, Charles IV reigned in Spain. During his reign (1788-1808), significant events troubled the Spanish rulers because of the French revolutionaries. Although the king’s first advisers were enlightened and, therefore, sympathetic to the idea of ending the *estamental* society and the privileges of the clergy and nobility, they did not question the *absolutist* character of the monarchy—that is, the total power of the king without any limitation. This concept was challenged by the French revolutionaries, who defended that power emanated directly from the people and not the Crown.
The outbreak and the unexpected triumph of the French Revolution determined diplomatic positions and military activity. During the government of Charles IV, we can distinguish two phases in Spanish foreign policy:
- Initially marked by confrontation with France (1789-1795).
- A second period characterized by a return to the alliance with France (1796-1808).
In the first period, starting in 1789, the goal of the government, led by Floridablanca, was to isolate Spain from the revolutionary contagion. However, when the French revolutionary government proclaimed the Republic (1792) and executed King Louis XVI (1793), Spain declared war on France. This conflict, known as the War of the Convention, developed in Catalonia, Navarre, and the Basque Country, and ended in 1795 with the signing of the Peace of Basel.
From 1796, the second period began, marked by diplomatic alliances between revolutionary France and absolutist Spain. It started with the signing of the Treaty of San Ildefonso (1796), which led to war against Britain and Portugal. The alliance was renewed with the Treaty of Fontainebleau, with a new objective: to invade and divide the territory of Portugal between the two nations. Napoleon’s intended sea blockade against Britain could only succeed if the French controlled the entire Iberian Peninsula. To facilitate the attack on Portugal, Charles IV authorized 60,000 French soldiers to cross Spanish soil. By late 1807, they had succeeded in occupying the whole of Portugal.