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No after Anthony Brooke's ascension to the throne the Kingdom organized the tribes into military encampements and made the nation highly militarized and formation of a military-industrial complex. This led eventually to the conquest of the inevitable Malayan Archipelago.
The premature death of President Óscar Carmona in 1945 paved the way for the restoration of the Portuguese monarchy the following year. Prime Minister Salazar had been preparing for the restoration upon the inevitable death of the President for years; and by 1946 the Duke of Bragança had become a respectable figure in Portuguese society, famous for outfitting and commanding the Royal Volunteer Brigade on the behalf of the White forces during the Soviet Civil War.
As His Most Faithful Majesty, Duarte II was proficient in letting Salazar quietly rule the country with an iron fist while the King himself ate up media attention. Much of the late 40s and early 50s were devoted to the notion of "Lusotropicalism", the theory by noted Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre which posited a multi-racial, pluricontinental Portuguese identity constructed upon a basis of the shared Roman Catholic religion and Lusophone language. Salazar aggressively promoted this idea and used it to justify a spate of legislation directed towards the colonies, culminating in the the landmark Colonial Reform Act of 1956, which granted Angola and Moçambique their own home assemblies and directly incorporated the cities of Goa and Macao into Portugal with representation in the National Assembly. These colonies had all seen vast improvements in infrastructure and living standards after the implementation of the Portuguese Colonial Commissions recommendations; and the passage of the Reform Act was hailed as the "dawn of a truly Portuguese society, from the shores of the motherland to the Indian Ocean".
A parade in Luanda celebrating Angolan home rule
The war with Brazil (which became popularly known in Portugal as the War of the Children after Salazar's famous condemnation of Brazil as "a fussy and impotent nation of children, tugging at their father's coat-sleeves") broke out after a Brazilian ship exploded at anchor in Lisbon in July of 1959. The Brazilian government promptly accused His Majesty's Government of perpetuating the attack and declared war immediately. This went poorly for Brazil, still riding high on a wave of military optimism due to Brazilian participation in the Soviet Civil War. An attempt to beach in Moçambique and exploit supposed colonial discontent failed spectacularly as the Brazilian forces were warmly welcomed by colonial forces feigning sympathy with the Brazilian cause long enough to slaughter them; while a cursory British naval bombardment of Rio was enough to bring Brazil to the table. Out of spite, but to the immense pleasure of the Portuguese people, Dom Duarte II officially added the former title "King of Brazil" to the style of the Monarch, becoming His Most Faithful Majesty D. Duarte II of Portugal, the Algarves, and Brazil.
The death of Salazar in 1970 and that of the King a few years later lead to what historians refer to as "the Age of Transition," as the Estado Novo gradually gave way to a more democratic state. National Party stalwart and former Admiral Américo Tómas was appointed as interim Prime Minister by Duarte II and continued as such under his son Duarte III after he came to the throne in 1974. It soon became apparent however that Prime Minister Tómas was not made of the same stuff as his predecessor, lacking in all charisma and drawing sharp criticism for allowing the sale of Guinea Bissau (which was not affected by the Colonial Reform Act and had remained a colony alongside Timor) to Germany in 1976. Dom Duarte, reading the writing on the wall, soon forced Tómas into retirement and called for free elections in 1978. These saw the ruling National Union reduced to a mere 46 seats from their previous supermajority of 158 seats; and the opposition Democratic Party gaining 116 while Portuguese Labour gained 81 seats and the Communists picking up the seven remaining.
Portugal's first truly democratic government in decades was formed by a Democratic-National Union coalition as the King asked Democratic politician Francisco de Sá Carneiro to form a government. de Sá Carneiro's ministry was a long and successful one, quelling the Timorese insurgency and leading Portugal through the Economic Crisis of the early 80s. Enshrined alongside Salazar as one of the great men of Portuguese politics he and the coalition he represented were continuously elected until 1985 when he announced his retirement from politics.
Francisco de Sá Carneiro, the first Prime Minister of Portugal post-Estado Novo
The retirement of the Prime Minister left his coalition, by now branded the National Bloc, by surprise and without a leader. Thinking they could do better on their own and maybe recapture some of the party's former vigorous the National Union withdrew from the coalition and ran separately in the '85 elections. This quickly turned out to be a mistake as the Centre Bloc, composed of Portuguese Labour and the Communists, picked up the slack and managed to capture enough former Democratic Party seats to win the election. Mário Soares was begrudgingly asked to form a government by King Duarte.
Luckily for the former National Bloc however, the Labour government was dogged by issues. The Minister-President of Angola, who was Labour, was brought down by a particularly filthy sex scandal -- which reflected negatively on the party in a big way in a majority-Catholic country -- and it was only with effort that the Centre Bloc was able to maintain a majority in the elections of 1991. But it was during this, Soares' second ministry, that the real trouble hit. In 1992 in late August a string of bombs went off throughout Lisbon, killing dozens and injuring hundreds. Two terrorist groups took credit for the assault, the Frente de Libertação dos Açores and the Frente de Libertação do Arquipélago de Madeira. Both radical separatist groups were animated by a communist ideology and for months afterwards waged a campaign of terror on the mainland. The government, being leftist itself, was divided on how to respond and was eventually forced to grant the Azores and Madeira their independence; collapsing soon afterwards.
The elections of 1995 saw the dissolution of the flimsy caretaker government which had existed since the collapse of the Centre Bloc and the triumphant return of a reunited National Bloc, garnering a working majority of 117 seats and leading to Democratic Party chair Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa being asked by the King to form a government. This he did gladly, promising a stable and prosperous future for all Portuguese whether they reside in Lisbon or Macao. As Portugal entered into a new century, she was guided by her ancient crown and at the center of a truly pluricontinental empire as the great Salazar had dreamed. Forward went Portugal, and boldly so.
