The War Path
(1936-...)
Introduction: A historical overview (1710-1936)
2nd Chapter: Growin up with pain: Catalunya (1735-1900)
Taken “
Breu i concísssa Història de Catalunya”, 12th to 18th books (from 25, still unfinished), by
Jaume Vicens Mercader, Editorial Rovira, 2003, (”
A Brief Vision of the History of Catalonia”, translated by Paloma Chado and publish by the White Library, 2004)
...However, with each new political crisis, Catalonia was on the verge of becoming, again, a battlefield.
This threat was shown during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48), when Spain threatened to invade Catalonia if Austria did not evacuate the Spanish Netherlands, occupied by Vienna during the conflict. The second Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) returned Europe to the status quo ante bellum. More dangerous would be the next crisis, during the Seven Years' War (1756–63), which saw the ending of the British protection over Catalonia, as Britain was fighthing against Austria, allied (for one of those odd ironies that fate keeps from time to time) with France and Spain this time. Thus the British government finally found the excuse to free himself of the word give in Utrecht. Meanwhile, the Catalan bourgeoisie coined, during this period, their most well known motto: “
Bussines as usual”, as the war really did not threaten their economic boost and they even reached, in a quite shy way, the markets of the Spanish held America. Slowly, Catalonia began a process of industrialization, in the early 1730s, which would grow spectacularly with the arrival of the new English machines, starting from the decade of 1760s-1770s onwards. Just during the American Revolutionary War (1776-81) (1) this continous growing was, for some time, stopped.
British infantry going up against an enemy hill
Eventually Catalonia was invaded. It took place during the Borbonic Wars (1808-13), the bid for power of Spain and France, which saw the demise of both countries. The main cause was the old rivality between France and Austria and the wishes of Louis XVII to recover the Imperial dreams that the peace of Utrecht had forestalled. However, it would be Spain who took the first step, by invading Catalonia in 1808, which caught the Austrians and -somehow- even the Frenchs off-guard. This fact, combined by the (hasty) French invasion of the north of Italy, obliged the defeated Austrians to left the conflict after the Treaty of Pressburg (9 February 1808). The Treaty required that Vienna had give up to France the Kingdom of Italy and to recognize the annexation of Catalonia to Spain. For the moment, Austria agreed.
Then came the turning point of the war. The Spanish king, Ferdinand VII (1784-1833), pressed further and, decided to unify the Peninsula under his rule, invaded Portugal in 1809, which started the full war in the whole continent. As England send an army under Wellington to help the Portuguese, Prussia and Austria began to mobilize. Seeing this, Louis attacked first and defeated Prussia at Jena in March, 1809 and annexed the Rhin provinces to France. Next, he turned in might against Austria, which was defeated at Wagram (August, 1809). After this two events, Prussia would be out of the anti-French coalition until the liberation war of 1811, and Austria would need some time to recover. This chain of disasters gave rise to a desperate situation for the British Empire.
Louis XVII, in one of his "humbles" displays of Imperial Glory at the peak of his power.
The United Kingdom stood alone, and the sea –plus Portugal, where the French army was slowly pushing back Wellington’s redcoats towards Lissabon- became the major theatre of the war. With most of the French army -which had been seriously mauled at Wagram due to Louis’ dependence on frontal attacks- fighting in Portugal and garrisoning Germany and Catalonia –which had resorted to the guerrillas warfare-, Austria and Prussia took the opportunity to attempt to restore its lost territories. This fact, plus the unexpected declaration of war of Russia against France, changed the course of the war.
Louis’s army, which was almost on the verge of forcing a withdrawal of the heavily out-numbered British army from the Iberian Peninsula, had to stop his Spanish campaign and use his thinly-spread army to try to repeat the victories of 1809. It seemed, though, that Louis had managed to regain the initiative at Dresden (August 1811), when he defeated a numerically-superior Coalition army and inflicted enormous casualties, but after his defeat in the biggest battle ever seen, at Leipzig (January, 1812), he had to retreat into France. This, plus Wellesley's victory over the Combined armies in the Peninsula finally broke Louis’ power in Spain and the French had to retreat out of Spain, over the Pyrenees. Catalonia was freeded again, this time, though ironically, by an unwilling Wellington.
On his part, Louis fought a series of battles in France itself, but the overwhelming numbers of the Allies steadily forced him back, even if his generals won multiple battles against the enemy forces advancing towards Paris, they were unable to stop the Allied advance. Finally, Louis had to surrender on April 6, 1813. The Congress of Vienna would redraw the map of Europe. Louis XVII managed to keep the crown, but, for some time, France had to forget the Imperial dreams.
The last (and failed) charge of the French cavalry, when Marshall Ney unleashed Murat with 10,000 French, Italian, and Saxon cavalry against the Russian Guard and Austrian Grenadiers at Liebertwolkwitz and Wachau during the battle of Leipzig. These units lived up to their elite reputation, forming squares that blasted French cavalrymen from their horses. As Louis XVII himself said, surprised wittness of the impressive charge: "
C'est magnifique, mais ne c'est past la guerre".
The rest of the century would be an almost a quiet one for Catalonia. With the power of his two powerful enemies broken –the loss of the American Empire in the successive revolutionary wars (1811-26) was the last stroke for Ferdinand, and from then on, Spain was all but bankrupt-, Catalonia used this peaceful times to grow. Catalonians would see, amused, how their old enemies would fight against each other at Ferdinand’s death, in 1833, when the French invaded Spain "
invoking the God of St Louis, for the sake of preserving the throne of Spain to a descendant of Henry IV, and of reconciling that fine kingdom with Europe". However, it was not so amazing to see a French ruling in Madrid when Louis-Philippe, Duke of Chartres, was crowned as Luis II of Spain.
"If having two neighbouring Bourbons kings is bad, having two French kings in your borders is worse", said a Catalan saying of the time. However, if the Catalan average citizen didn’t like this new king of Spain, the new kingdom of Luis did not liked him, either, and, with the February 1838 Revolution, Luis was forced to abdicate and was replaced by Ferdinand’s younger brother, Carlos María de Borbón y Parma, Infante of Spain, who, when the French invasion of 1833, had refused to renounce his rights to the throne, which he considered to have been given to him by God. Thus, with Carlos V, the “Carlist” branch of the Spanish Borboun family would came to reign, until its extinction in 1861, when Carlos VI died without issue. His brother, Juan, Count of Montizón, who also had claims to the French crown, was a quite disgusting option to both France and the rest of the European powers, so they all agreed to have crowned Ferdinand’s grandson: Alfonso (1857–85), Duke of Cadiz, who ruled as Alfonso XII just being four years old. Whether Juan wanted to fight or not for his crown will remain as one of the biggest and unsolved mysteries of the Spanish history. He had not time to put his claim forward, as he was arrested in his very house while generals O'Donnell and Narváez proclaimed Alfonso as the new king of Spain.
Alfonso XII of Spain in 1880
During this time Catalonia kept itself busy, which, by no means, it was free from troubles. During the 1830s there was some fighting between the liberal and conservative sections of the country. As the bourgeoise wanted just peace to grow, the conflict was short and ended with the triumph of the conservative party after the Three Days of May, 1830. From then on, in the latter half of the 19th century, Catalonia became an industrial center. The fast industrial development gave rise to several social crisis, as the insurrection of 1842. The next fifty years were marked by the demographic and economic growth. By the end of the century, Barcelona returned to the first ranks of the economical world with the 1888 Universal Exhibition, promoted by an enterprising bourgeoisie. At the end of the century the future looked quite promising for Catalonia and the whole world, despiste of the Neojacobin plague.
(1) The American Revolutionary War ended with the independence of the eight revolutionary colonies of British North America (the provinces of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and the colonies of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut Colony, and Delaware Colony), while the remaining five – the Dominion of Virginia and the provinces of Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia- remained loyal to the British crown as the Southern Colonies, better known as the British Southern America, the nucleus of the future Southern Confederation (Act of Union, 1840), and, after Queen Victoria granted royal assent to the British Southern America on March 29, 1867, the Dominion of the Confederate States of America. The form of the country's government was influenced by the American republic to the north. Noting the flaws perceived in the American system, the Fathers of the Southern Confederation, as the Canadian did at the same time, opted to retain a monarchical form of government.
Decades of terrorism like that mast have greatly destabilized Europe.
