Key Facts
- Duration
- 1874–1931 (57 years)
- Start event
- Pronunciamento by General Martínez Campos, 29 Dec 1874
- End event
- Proclamation of Second Spanish Republic, 14 Apr 1931
- Political system
- Turnismo: alternating Liberal and Conservative parties
- Key crisis
- Military defeat at Annual (Morocco) and WWI economic fallout
- Dictatorship period
- General Primo de Rivera in power, 1923–1930
Imperial Zenith Metrics
Historical Trajectory
Phase I: Rise
On 29 December 1874, General Arsenio Martínez Campos issued a pronunciamento in Valencia, ending the unstable First Spanish Republic and restoring the Bourbon monarchy under King Alfonso XII. The architect of the new order, Conservative politician Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, designed the turno system, deliberately alternating Liberal and Conservative governments to prevent the coups and civil conflicts that had destabilised Spain for much of the nineteenth century.
Phase II: Zenith
The turnismo system delivered a period of comparative political calm and modest economic development under Alfonso XII and, after his early death, the regency of María Cristina and the reign of Alfonso XIII. Spain retained overseas territories until the disastrous 1898 war with the United States, which stripped it of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, yet the constitutional framework continued to function and industrialisation advanced in Catalonia and the Basque Country.
Phase III: Decline
Mounting social inequality, the catastrophic defeat at Annual in 1921, and postwar economic strain eroded the legitimacy of the constitutional monarchy. Alfonso XIII acquiesced to General Miguel Primo de Rivera's coup in 1923, tying the crown to authoritarian rule. Primo de Rivera resigned in 1930 under economic and political pressure, and when municipal elections in April 1931 demonstrated overwhelming republican sentiment, Alfonso XIII went into exile, bringing the Restoration to a close.
Notable Imperial Reigns
Selected rulers mapping the empire’s trajectory