The History Of the Carlists

As a history major and American of Hispanic background, I have been fascinated with reading the history of Spain. Carlism is an interesting topic to learn about in regards to Spanish history and politics. To understand the history of Carlism, we must first understand the ideology. Carlism is a monarchical traditionalist and legitimist movement of Spanish origins that seeks a separate line of the Bourbon family on the Spanish throne. The motto of the Carlists is Dios, Patria, Fueros, Rey (God, Fatherland, local rule, King). British historian Henry Kamen explains in his book, The Disinherited, the essence of Carlism:

“Their central doctrine was male dynastic legitimacy: the Spanish throne should go to the male line heirs of Ferdinand VII, namely his brother the Infante Carlos, rather than to his female-line heirs (who included Queen Isabella II). Beyond the dynastic question, Carlism was in essence a traditionalist movement that developed both reactionary and revolutionary tendencies. It supported the Catholic Church against Liberalism, called for the restoration of the Inquisition, and defended regional rights (the ‘fueros’, mainly of the Basques and Catalans) against central government. The broad base gave it immense support throughout northern Spain, and triggered several small civil wars.”[1]

The First Carlist War in Spain lasted from 1833-1839, and the war was triggered over an issue of succession to the Spanish throne between two factions after the death of Ferdinand VII. Kamen writes:

“At the king’s death in 1833 the country was effectively thrown into a period of dynastic civil war, between on the one hand the partisans of young queen Isabella and her mother the regent María Cristina, and on the other supporters of the late king’s brother, Don Carlos. The followers of Don Carlos, known as ‘Carlists,’ backed his right to succeed to the throne, and set in train a powerful armed movement that played a significant part in the politics of northern Spain for nearly a century.”[2]

Before his death, Ferdinand VII issued the Pragmatic Sanction of 1830 to allow his daughter, Isabella II, to become Queen of Spain. This Pragmatic Sanction removed the right for his brother and Isabella’s uncle, Don Carlos, to inherit the throne. The Carlists were those who supported the claims of Carlos to the throne while the Isabellines or Cristinos were those who supported the regent Maria Christina while acting for Queen Isabella II (whom was a baby when the conflict happened). Chodakiewicz wrote in Spanish Carlism and Polish Nationalism:

“In 1830 King a Fernando VII and his wife, María Cristina, became the parents of a baby girl, Isabel. According to principles of the Salic Law,* which the Bourbon dynasty from their own French heritage had introduced into Spain during the eighteenth century, no female could inherit the throne. Such a posture was alien to Spanish history, nevertheless there had been no queen reigning in Spain since Isabel I more than three hundred years earlier. Thus, Fernando VII named his infant daughter heir to the throne, as Princess of Asturias. Upon the king’s death in the fall of 1833 Isabel became Queen Isabel II, with María Cristina serving as Queen Regent for her young daughter until 1845.”[3]

Chodakiewicz wrote discusses how during the Cristino regime started confiscating church property:

"Massive confiscations of municipal and ecclesiastical property and a new form of taxation helped launch capitalism. Many bishops were forced into exile, most male religious orders were outlawed, social services provided by the Catholic Church disappeared, peasants were driven off their lands their families had farmed for generations, and the clergy and modest classes were disenfranchised for lack of property. Carlism emerged during this difficult time, essentially, as a defense of the legacy of the past."[4]

Chodakiewicz also discusses many facts surrounding the First Carlist War:

"The First Carlist War was the most serious of the five major fratricidal conflicts of the nineteenth century. Traditionalists fought against an international coalition of four states bent on transforming the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal, Great Britain, and France of Louis-Philippe sent men, weapons, ammunition, and funds to Regent María Cristina's government (1833-40) in Madrid. Portugal and France patrolled their respective borders with Spain, and the British navy blockaded the coasts controlled by the legitimists. The Carlists received moral support from seven or eight governments and token financial aid. The two most generous European rulers were from small Italian states. No foreign troops were sent to help the Carlists. Nevertheless, several hundred Realist volunteers from different countries made their way to Spain individually to defend Europe's old Christian order on the Spanish front and to serve the pious Carlos V. Many were Frenchmen-sons of veterans of the Vendée and former officers in Charles X's Royal Guard who retired when their king was deposed in 1830. A good number of this small group were Portuguese who arrived after King Michael I lost his throne to his revolutionary brother Dom Pedro and little niece Maria II da Gloria in 1834. The efforts made by four governments were not able to defeat the Carlists. Well over half a million Spaniards alone fought the legitimists over a seven-year period. Some 100,000 of these men died in battle. The Carlists finally lost the war because they were sold out by one of their own key military commanders."[5]

Kamen mentions how as punishment for their rebellion, during the civil war, the Spanish government deported many Carlists and their supporters to Spanish holdings in the New World:

“The government tried to root out its popular support by deporting activists to the New World. In 1836 there were around 2,200 Carlists languishing in Cuba, most of them young peasants from the mountains of Navarre. Prisoners were also sent to Puerto Rico. In theory they were meant to serve a six-year exile to allow them to cool off, after which they could make their way back.”[6]

After the end of the war, many Carlists left Spain:

“At the end of the First Carlist War in the summer of 1839 possibly over 30,000 left the country and crossed the Pyrenees into France, but most were ordinary soldiers with neither the resources nor the inclination to stay in another country, and they returned in 1840 after the queen issued an amnesty.”[7]

Also, the leader of the Carlists, “…Don Carlos himself, left Spain in 1839 and spent the rest of his life in exile, first in France and then in Italy.”[8]

Even though the Carlists lost, they would continue being a major influence in Spanish politics throughout the 19th century and 20th century. The Second Carlist War from 1846-1849 was a minor Catalan uprising, while the Third Carlist War lasted from 1872-1876.

During the Spanish civil war (1936-1939), Spanish general Francisco Franco formed the Nationalist band with the merging of the Carlists and Falangists (Spanish fascists) to fight against both the Communists and the Second Spanish Republic. While the Carlists and Falangists had similarities such as support for the Catholic Church, social conservatism and anti-Communism, they both differed on the role of the State. The Falangists wanted a strong centralized Spanish nationalist government while the Carlists supported the fueros (local rule) in order to preserve local culture and regional autonomy. As the civil war ended and Franco would stay as Spain’s dictator until 1975, the Carlists like the Falangists were weakened politically.

Austrian classical liberal and Catholic Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn explained that the Francoist government in Spain contained leftist tendencies, which would come as a shock in his book, Leftism Revisted:

“…certain features of the Franco government have a leftist character as, for instance, the strong centralizing tendencies, the restrictions placed on languages other than Castilian, the censorship, the monopoly of the state-directed syndicates. As for the first two failings -leftist tendencies are failings-one has to remember the effects of the immediate historic past.”[9]

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn explores more on the Carlists’ opposition to centralization:

“Nationalism (in the European sense) is leftism; and Catalonian, Basque, and Gallegan (Galician) nationalism naturally assumed a radically leftist character opposing ‘Castilian’ centralization. Hence, in Madrid, almost all movements promoting local rights and privileges, be they political or ethnic, are suspect as leftist, as automatically opposed to the present regime as well as to the unity of Spain. (Spain is ‘Una, Grande, Libre’!) Oddly enough~but understandable to anybody with a real knowledge of Spanish history-the extreme right in Spain, represented, naturally, by the Carlists and not at all by the Falangists, is federalistic (‘localistic, ' anticentralistic) in the European sense. The Carlists are opposed to the centralizing tendencies of Madrid and when late in 1964 the central government made an effort to cancel the privileges of Navarra, the fueros, the Carlists of Navarra, nearly issued a call to rebellion-at which point the government quickly declared its own preparatory steps as a ‘mistake’ and backed down.”[10]

The Carlists were basically traditionalist Catholic monarchists who sought a decentralized government with the fueros in order to preserve regional and cultural autonomy.

References:

*Spain never had the Salic Law completely in its country, but rather elements of it. It had the semi-Salic law in which women would only succeed at the extinction of all male descendants in the male line.

[1] Henry Kamen, The Disinherited: Exile and the Making of Spanish Culture, 1492-1975, pg. 211

[2] Kamen, The Disinherited, pg. 188

[3] Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, Spanish Carlism and Polish Nationalism: The Borderlands of Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries, pg xi

[4] Chodakiewicz, Spanish Carlism and Polish Nationalism, pg 10

[5] Chodakiewicz, Spanish Carlism and Polish Nationalism, pg 12

[6] Kamen, The Disinherited, pg. 212

[7] Kamen, The Disinherited, pg. 212

[8] Kamen, The Disinherited, pg. 212

[9] Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihin, Leftism Revisited: From de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Pol Pot, pg. 41

[10] Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihin, Leftism Revisited, pg. 41-42

Bibliography:

Chodakiewicz, Marek. Spanish Carlism and Polish Nationalism: The Borderlands of Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries. 1st ed. Charlottesville: Leopolis Press, 2003. Print.

Kamen, Henry. The Disinherited: The Making of Spanish Culture, 1492-1975. 1st ed. Harper, 2007. Print.

Kuehnelt-Leddihin, Erik von. Leftism Revisited: From de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Pol Pot. 1st ed. Arlighton House Publishers, 1974. Print.