We Want Bread, Not a Republic

Seeing the Spanish Revolution spread toward Madrid as swiftly as a raging fire, Queen Isabella, whose private life was notoriously chaotic, finally panicked.

Faced with the choice between resistance and flight, Queen Isabella did not hesitate in the slightest. She hurried north to France with her family.

The Queen's flight also accelerated the Spanish Revolution. The revolutionary army entered Madrid without lifting a finger and declared the fall of the Kingdom of Spain.

On October 8, 1868, Francisco Serrano appointed himself President of the Provisional Government, while Juan Prim, who enjoyed considerable prestige within the revolutionary army, became the Provisional Government's Secretary of State for War. Spain officially entered a state of extreme chaos.

Whether this earth-shaking revolution would prove to be the savior of the people of Spain remained to be seen, but Spain's turbulent situation gave Cuba, far away in the Americas, an opportunity to fight for independence.

On October 10, the renowned Cuban plantation owner and barrister Céspedes Borja del Castillo led a group of Cuban patriots in an uprising near Yara in Oliante Province in the east. He also issued the Grito de Yara proclamation to all parts of Cuba, calling upon every Cuban to fight for freedom, equality, and independence.

This was a heavy blow to the hastily established Spanish Provisional Government, because Cuba was one of the few remaining Spanish colonies capable of generating a positive return.

Cuba's war of independence not only forced the Spanish Provisional Government to dispatch troops to suppress it, but also burdened the newborn government, already in dire financial straits, with enormous military expenditures.

But this was not the only problem facing the Provisional Government. The revolution had succeeded, yet the Provisional Government had not taken control of all Spain.

At the same time, the greatest challenge was how to stabilize the Provisional Government's rule and establish an administrative system completely different from the old absolute monarchical Kingdom Government.

Moreover, the Provisional Government was hardly a monolith. The relationships among the major classes and factions were like fire and water, and the Provisional Government's chaos was not much better than that of the former Kingdom Government.

The initiators of this revolution were Spain's upper bourgeoisie and liberals. Their original aim had been to overthrow the old absolute monarchy and establish a democratic monarchy with power concentrated in the national government.

But Spain's petty bourgeoisie, workers, and peasants had suffered enough under the oppression of the monarchy and the nobility. They wanted a federal republican government with dispersed powers but unified administration, and they favored replacing the king with a president to govern all Spain as one.

Carlo was also watching developments in Spain with great tension. The good news was that Italy and Spain faced each other across the sea, separated on land only by France, so information still traveled quickly.

What Carlo least wanted to hear was that the Spanish Provisional Government had decided to abolish the monarchy. That would mean he had completely lost all connection to the Spanish throne.

Then came November 9. The Spanish Provisional Government finally issued a decree on the establishment of Parliament and announced that parliamentary elections would be held in February of the following year, 1869.

Although the decree did not mention a single word about the future composition of the Spanish government, everyone following news from Spain understood that the result of the parliamentary election could determine Spain's fate.

If big capital and the liberal Reformists won a majority in Parliament, then the new Parliament would have the power to enact legislation on a constitutional monarchy.

Likewise, if the workers or peasant class gained a majority in Parliament, Spain's monarchy might vanish without a trace, and a republic would likely take the stage in Spain.

For now, there was still a strong chance that events in Spain would unfold as they had in history.

Primo, who supported constitutional monarchy, still held the real power in the Spanish government and was very likely to gain an advantage in the parliamentary election a few months later.

The timing of the parliamentary election was also worth pondering. Only four months lay between the establishment of the Provisional Government and the election, while less than three months lay between the issuance of the decree and the election itself.

Those three months would be hard-pressed to change the attitudes of the public in Italy, and just as hard-pressed to alter the entrenched influence of the nobility and big capital in Spain.

Still, to make his plans more secure, Carlo decided to stir up some sentiment among the people of Spain.

What sort of sentiment? Naturally, sentiment in favor of monarchy.

As for the harm the Spanish Bourbon Dynasty had inflicted upon the people of Spain, all of it could be blamed on the licentious and immoral rule of Queen Isabella.

Carlo had grounds for promoting monarchy.

The world's strongest navy was undoubtedly Britain, and Britain was a constitutional monarchy. The world's strongest army was likely France—the lingering afterglow of Napoleon—and France was also a monarchy.

The old European Great Powers, Russia and the Austrian Empire, as well as the rising Great Power, the Kingdom of Prussia, were all monarchies. Even Italy, which had only just achieved unification and joined the ranks of the Great Powers, was a monarchy.

Looking across the whole world, the United States was the only non-monarchical country among the Great Powers. Yet in the eyes of Europeans at this time, the United States was nowhere near so powerful.

The rise of the United States would have to wait until after both World War I and World War II. The America of this era did not yet possess such staggering industrial and economic scale.

Since the overwhelming majority of Europe's powerful nations were monarchies, what reason did the Spanish have to voluntarily abandon such an advanced system?

As for the monarchy's past failures, those were entirely the fault of the House of Bourbon and Queen Isabella. If anyone deserved blame, it was Queen Isabella.

Besides preserving a sliver of trust in monarchy within the hearts of the people of Spain, Carlo also wanted to make them dislike the Bourbon Dynasty and Queen Isabella as much as possible.

Only then would the Spanish be less resistant to a foreign dynasty, and Carlo's hopes of taking the throne of Spain would increase greatly.

As for the House of Bourbon, Queen Isabella, and the famed Alfonso XII, they had sucked Spain's blood for several decades already. It was time for them to make a small contribution to the people of Spain.

Besides, this could not be considered smearing the House of Bourbon. Queen Isabella's rule in Spain was known to all, marked above all by licentiousness, immorality, tyranny, and chaos.

If the Spanish could be made to no longer trust the Bourbon Dynasty, then the Carlist Wars that had long plagued Spain could also be properly resolved.

After all, the Carlists were members of the House of Bourbon as well, and they deserved part of the credit for Spain's chaos.

On November 27, 1868, the already wildly popular 24 Hours Sun Newspaper of Italy published an article titled "We Want Bread, Not a Republic," which rapidly spread throughout Northern and Southern Italy.

The article mainly discussed the superiority of monarchy at present and the success of Europe's major monarchical states. It argued that monarchy was the most rational choice for European nations, while republicanism was a malformed evolution for Europe.

Never mind whether the article actually made sense. For Europe's monarchical countries at this time, having such an article was certainly better than not having one.

Publishing such articles in newspapers was better than publishing articles that promoted republicanism, freedom, and democracy. At the very least, such reporting would not make the public dissatisfied with their monarch's throne.

With no country objecting, the report also began spreading on a small scale along the Mediterranean Sea coast, especially among the Mediterranean countries centered on Italy.

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