The history of Carlism can be usefully divided into four different stages, whose dates are only approximate (thus the overlap is intentional): • 1833–1876: factions pursued power mainly by military means. • 1876–1936: Carlism reverted to a peaceful political movement. • 1936–1975: During the
Spanish Civil War, Carlists were part of
Franco's coalition. During the Franco regime, some government ministers were drawn from Franco's Carlist supporters, but the movement as a whole was gradually marginalized by the generalissimo. • 1975–present: After Franco's death, the Carlist movement declines into near irrelevance.
Carlist Wars (1833–1876) , near Bilbao during the first war. in the first war. (1839) in
Miranda de Ebro The period of the
Carlist Wars, during which the party tried to attain power mainly through military means, is both classical Carlism, because the wars – or the threat of them – placed Carlism on the centre stage of Spain's political history, and formative, as Carlism evolved the cultural and sociological form it would retain for well over a hundred years. Historical highlights of this era are the: •
First Carlist War (1833–1840)—a civil war in Spain from 1833 to 1840, fought between factions over the succession to the throne and the nature of the
Spanish monarchy. It was fought between supporters of the regent,
Maria Christina, acting for
Isabella II of Spain, and those of the late king's brother,
Carlos de Borbón (or
Carlos V). The Carlists' goal was the return to an absolute monarchy. Portugal, France and the United Kingdom supported the regency, and sent volunteer and even regular forces to confront the Carlist army. •
Affair of the Spanish Marriages (1846) was a series of intrigues between
France,
Spain, and the
United Kingdom relating to the marriages of
Queen Isabella II of Spain and her sister the
infanta Luisa Fernanda. •
Second Carlist War (1847–1849)—was a minor
Catalan uprising. The rebels tried to install
Carlos VI on the throne. In
Galicia, the uprising was on a smaller scale. The war was ostensibly fought to facilitate the marriage of Isabella II with the Carlist pretender,
Carlos de Borbón (or
Carlos VI), but Isabella II was instead wed to
Francisco de Borbón. • The 1860 expedition and its aftermath. That year the Count of Montemolín tried to seize power through a
pronunciamiento. He landed in
Sant Carles de la Ràpita (
Tarragona), but was quickly detained, and forced to renounce his rights. This calamity, his behaviour after release, and the fact that the next in the line was his liberal brother, drove Carlism to the brink of extinction. It was only saved by the hand of his stepmother, the
Maria Theresa of Braganza, Princess of Beira; and • The "
Glorious Revolution" 1868. Isabella II managed to alienate almost everybody in Spain, until she was expelled that year by a progressivist revolution. At that point, Carlism, under its new head
Carlos VII, became the rallying point for many political Catholics and conservatives, becoming the main bloc of right-wing opposition to the ensuing governments in Spain. After four years of political activity, and some hesitation, the martial option was again tried in • The
Third Carlist War (1872–1876).
Points of convergence All three wars share a common development pattern: • A first stage of guerrilla activity, across all of Spain. • A second stage of territorial resistance is created, with regular army units created. The 1847 war did not get further than this. • A third stage of territorial stability achieved through conventional leads to the creation of State structures. No Carlist war went further than this. At the beginning of each war, no regular army unit was on the Carlist side, and only the third was the result of a planned uprising. The first war was noteworthy for being, on both sides, extremely brutal. The Liberal army mistreated the population, most of whom it suspected of being Carlist sympathizers, to the point of, sometimes, attempted extermination; Carlists, very often, treated Liberals no better than they had treated Napoleonic soldiers and agents, to such an extent that the international powers forced the warring parties to recognize some
rules of war, namely the "
Lord Eliot Convention". Brutality did not disappear completely, and
giving no quarter to one's enemy was not uncommon. The areas over which Carlism could establish some sort of territorial authority during the first war (Navarre,
Rioja, the rural Basque Country, inner Catalonia, and northern Valencia) would remain the main bulwarks of Carlism throughout its history, although there were active supporters of the movement everywhere else in Spain. Especially in Navarre, Asturias, and parts of the Basque Provinces Carlism remained a significant political force until the late 1960s.
Carlist military leaders •
Tomás de Zumalacárregui •
Manuel Santa Cruz Loidi •
Ramón Cabrera Tomás Zumalacárregui (portrait).jpg|Tomás de Zumalacárregui Image:Ramón Cabrera.jpg|Ramón Cabrera Curasantacruz.png|Manuel Santa Cruz
Carlists in peace (1868–1936) The loss of prestige and subsequent fall of Isabel II in 1868, plus the staunch support of Carlism by Pope
Pius IX, led a sizable number of former Isabelline conservative Catholics (e.g.,
Francisco Navarro Villoslada,
Antonio Aparisi,
Cándido Nocedal,
Alejandro Pidal) to join the Carlist cause. For a time, even beyond the start of the third war (1872), it became the most important, and best organized, "right-wing" opposition group to the revolutionary regime, with some 90 members of parliament in 1871. After the defeat, a group (led by Alejandro Pidal) left Carlism to form a moderate, non-dynastic Catholic party in Spain, which later merged with the conservatives of
Antonio Cánovas del Castillo. In 1879 Cándido Nocedal was charged with the reorganization of the party. His main weapon was a very aggressive press (in 1883 Pope
Leo XIII published the encyclical
Cum multa, trying to moderate it). His stance was an uncompromising adherence to the Carlists' political and, especially, religious principles (hence the term "
integrist"). This tendency became so radical that in 1888, Carlos VII had to expel the group centred around
Ramón Nocedal, Cándido's son, which thus gave rise to another small, but in clerical circles influential,
Integrist Party. , at Villa Arbelaiz in
Saint-Jean-de-Luz. From left to right:
Joaquín Lloréns, marqués de Córdoba, Tirso de Olazábal y Álvarez de Eulate,
Tirso de Olazábal, conde de Arbelaiz,
Jaime III and
Francisco de Melgar, conde de Melgar del Rey. Meanwhile,
Marquis de Cerralbo built up a modern mass party, centered around the local assemblies (called "Círculos", of which several hundred existed throughout Spain in 1936) and their social action programmes, and in active opposition to the political system of the Restoration (participating even in broad coalitions, such as 1907's "Solidaritat Catalana", with regionalists and republicans). During
electoral campaigns the Carlists,
except Navarre, achieved little success. From 1893 to 1918,
Juan Vázquez de Mella was its most important parliamentary leader and ideologue, seconded by
Víctor Pradera, who had wide influence on Spanish conservative thinking beyond the party.
World War I had a special influence on Carlism. As the Carlist claimant, then
Jaime, Duke of Madrid, had close ties to the
Russian Imperial Family, had been mistreated by Austrian Emperor
Franz Josef, and was also Head of the House of Bourbon, he favoured the
Allies, but was living under house arrest in Austria, at
Schloss Frohsdorf, with almost no communication with the political leadership in Spain. As the war ended and Don Jaime could again freely communicate with Spain, a crisis erupted, and
Vázquez de Mella and others had to leave the party's leadership (the so-called "
Mellists"). In 1920, Carlism helped to found the "
Sindicatos Libres" (Catholic Labour Unions) to counter the increased influence of leftist trade unions over the working class, clinging to a difficult balance between labour claims and the interests of the upper-class, to whom Carlism was so attached.
Miguel Primo de Rivera's dictatorship (1923–1930) was opposed but ambiguously viewed by Carlism, which, like most parties, entered a period of slumber, only to be awakened by the coming of the
Second Republic in 1931. In the run-up to the proclamation of the Republic, the Carlists got together with the re-founded
Basque Nationalist Party within the pro-
charters Coalición Católico Fuerista in the core areas of Carlism, the
Basque region, thus providing the springboard for the draft Basque Statute. In October 1931, Carlist claimant to the Spanish throne
Duke Jaime died. He was succeeded by the 82-year-old claimant
Alfonso Carlos de Borbón, reuniting under him the integralists led by
Olazábal and the "Mellists". They represented a region-based Spanish nationalism with an entrenched identification of Spain and Catholicism. The ensuing radicalized Carlist scene overshadowed the "Jaimists" with a Basque inclination. The Basque(-Navarrese) Statute failed to take off over disagreements on the centrality of Catholicism in 1932, with the new Carlist party
Comunión Tradicionalista opting for an open confrontation with the Republic. The Republic established a secular approach of the regime, a division of Church and state, as well as freedom of cults, as France did in 1905, an approach traditionalists could not stand. The
Comunión Tradicionalista (1932) showed an ultra-Catholic, anti-secular position, and plotted for a military takeover, while adopting far-right apocalyptic views and talking of a final clash with an alliance of alleged anti-Christian forces. The most extreme proponent of these views was
Juan Vazquez de Mella, who argued that Jewish capital had financed the liberal revolution and was now behind the Communist revolution in order, in union with the "Muslim hordes" (even the native
tribesmen of the Rif fighting for their freedom), to destroy Christian civilization and impose a "Jewish tyranny on the world". At the time, a
Rothschild-
Marx link and a bridgehead laid over Spain was being cited in the far-right circles to found these claims. In Navarre, the main Carlist stronghold, the movement revolved around the newspaper
El Pensamiento Navarro, read almost exclusively by the clergy and second in circulation to
El Diario de Navarra, another ultra-Conservative daily with an anti-
Basque streak. The dormant paramilitary
Requeté of the early 20th century was activated. As early as May 1931,
Jaime del Burgo (father of the 1979 UPN
namesake party leader) and other
Jaimist young members organized arms smuggling from
Eibar to distribute them among "defence" parties called
Decurias, counting on the financing of wealthy personalities (big landowners, etc.). In 1932, the first coup d'état attempt took place against the Republic in the
Sanjurjada, with a Carlist inspiration. The
October 1934 Revolution cost the life of the Carlist deputy
Marcelino Oreja Elósegui, with
Manuel Fal Condé taking over from young Carlists clustering around the AET (Jaime del Burgo and Mario Ozcoidi) in their pursuit to overthrow the Republic. The Carlists started to prepare for an armed definite clash with the Republic and its different leftist groups. From the initial defensive
Decurias of Navarre (deployed in party seats and churches), the
Requeté grew into a well-trained and strongest offensive paramilitary group in Spain when Manuel Fal Condé took the reins. It numbered 30,000
red berets (8,000 in Navarre and 22,000 in Andalusia).
Spanish Civil War and Franco regime (1936–1975) During the war (1936–1939) near Madrid, built by Republican prisoners of war used as forced labour , where General Mola held preparatory conspiracy meetings with Carlist leader
Manuel Fal Conde and other plotters (July 1936) , home to one of the darkest episodes of the Civil War in Navarre The Carlist militia, the
Requetés, had been receiving military training during the
Second Spanish Republic but had significant ideological differences with many of the conspiring generals. With the July 1936 revolt and the ensuing Spanish Civil War, the Carlists fell naturally if uneasily on the side of the
Nationalist rebels.
General Mola, known for his openness on his no-holds-barred, criminal approach, had just been relocated away to Pamplona by the Republican authorities, ironically to the very heart of the far-right rebellion. In May 1936, the General met with
Ignacio Baleztena, a Navarrese Carlist figure at the head of the
Requetés, offering the participation of 8,400 volunteers to support the uprising, turned into a counter-revolutionary reaction. The principles divide between
Manuel Fal Conde and Mola (basically a
Falangist) almost broke the understanding for a Carlist allegiance to the coup on 4 July 1936. However, rebellious cooperation against the legitimate Republican government was restored by the intervention of
Tomás Domínguez Arévalo, count of Rodezno. The highest Carlist authority, Duke Alfonso Carlos, did not approve of the pact, but all the same, by then Mola was negotiating directly with the Carlist Navarre Council (
Junta Navarra), one that opted for the support of the uprising. On 19 July, the state of war was declared in Pamplona and the Carlist corps (
tercio) in the city took over. In a few days, just about all of Navarre was occupied by the military and the
Requetés. There was no front. Immediately the rebels, with a direct participation of the
Requetés and the clergy (the Carlist core in Navarre), engaged in a brutal repression to stamp out dissent that affected all inconvenient, mildly progressive, or Basque nationalist inhabitants and personalities. The killing in the rearguard took a direct death toll (extrajudicial executions) ranging from 2,857 to .
A bleak scene of social humiliation and submission ensued for those surviving. The Carlists' prospects in Gipuzkoa and Biscay were not auspicious. The military coup failed, and Carlist units were overwhelmed by forces loyal to the Republic, i.e. different leftist forces and the Basque nationalists. Many crossed the front line to make themselves safe in the rebel zone, and added to the Carlist regiments in Álava and Navarre. Pamplona became the rebel launching point for the
War in the North. On 8 December 1936, Fal Conde had to leave temporarily for Portugal after a major clash with Franco. On 19 April 1937 the Carlist political bloc was "
unified" with the
Falange under the pro-Franco, umbrella nationalist party,
FET y de las JONS (Falange Española Tradicionalista de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista). Unwilling to leave the Nationalist movement, but unhappy with the merger, the new Carlist claimant
Javier, prince de Borbón-Parma, condemned those Carlists who joined the new party. He was expelled from the country, while Fal Conde was not allowed to return to Spain until after the war. Low-level Carlists, with the notable exception of those in Navarre, generally distanced themselves from the workings of the new party and in many cases never joined at all.
Francoist Spain Henceforth, the mainstream kept an uncomfortable minority position inside the regime, more often than not at odds with its official policy, although the Ministry of Justice was thrice given to a
loyal "Carlist" (who was accordingly expelled from the Traditionalist Communion). This time was also marred by the problem of succession and internal strife over Francoism. Carlist ministers in Franco's August 1939 cabinet included General
José Enrique Varela at army, and
Esteban Bilbao at justice. At the same time, two of nine seats in the Junta Política were given to Carlists. Of the hundred-member National Council of the FET, seven seats were occupied by Carlists. Carlists continued to clash with Falangists, notably in an incident at
Bilbao's
Basilica of Begoña on 16 August 1942. Accounts of the violence vary, but a Carlist rally (where some allegedly shouted anti-Franco slogans) was targeted by two grenades hurled by Falangists. While alleged fatalities and the number of those injured have long been disputed, the incident led to a shakeup of the Franco cabinet and the judicial conviction of six Falangists (one, Juan José Domínguez, was executed for the crime). In 1955, Fal Conde resigned as Jefe Delegado of the movement and was replaced by
José María Valiente, who formally assumed the title in 1960. The change marked a shift from opposition to collaboration with Francoism, and the rapprochement ended in 1968 when Valiente left office. Franco recognized both the titles of nobility conceded by the Carlist claimants and those of the Isabelline branch. At his death, the movement was badly split, and unable to get wide public attention again. In 1971,
Don Carlos Hugo, prince de Borbón-Parma founded the new
Carlist Party based on the
confederalist vision for
Las Españas ("the Spains") and socialist
autogestion (then promoted in
Yugoslavia). At
Montejurra, on 9 May 1976, adherents of the old and new versions of Carlism brawled. Two Hugo supporters were killed by far-right militants, among whom was
Stefano Delle Chiaie. The Carlist Party accused Hugo's younger brother,
Don Sixto Enrique de Borbón-Parma, of aiding the militants, which collaboration the Traditionalist Communion denies.
Post-Franco period (1975–present) In the
first democratic elections on 15 June 1977, only one Carlist senator was elected, journalist and writer Fidel Carazo from
Soria, who ran as an independent candidate. In the parliamentary elections of 1979, rightist Carlists integrated in the far-right coalition
Unión Nacional, which won a seat in the Cortes for Madrid; but the elected candidate was not himself a Carlist. The Carlists have since remained extra-parliamentary, obtaining only town council seats. In 2002, Carlos Hugo donated the House's archives to the
Archivo Histórico Nacional, which was protested by his brother Don Sixto Enrique and by all Carlist factions. Into the 21st century, there are three political organizations which claim the Carlist identity: •
Traditionalist Communion •
Traditionalist Carlist Communion •
Partido Carlista ==Carlist claimants to the throne==