Background
Miguel Primo de Rivera was born in Cadiz on January 8, 1870, of a middle-class family that later became landowners in the Andalusian town of Jerez.
Miguel Primo de Rivera was born in Cadiz on January 8, 1870, of a middle-class family that later became landowners in the Andalusian town of Jerez.
Studying history and engineering before deciding upon a military career, he won admission to the newly created General Academy in Toledo, and graduated in 1884.
He first saw service in Africa in 1893, where he won the Cross of San Fernando. A major in 1898, he was prevented by the collapse of Spanish military power from becoming a lieutenant general until 1919, the interim being filled with campaigns in Morocco, a stormy military governorship of Cadiz (1915), and service as an observer at the western front during World War I.
Public notice did not come Primo's way until 1922, when, as captain general of Barcelona, he attempted to reestablish law and order at just the moment that antiwar sentiment and social unrest were pointing toward revolution. Almost by chance Primo was selected as the chief figure in the military coup d'etat that on September 12, 1923, overthrew parliamentary government (possibly with the aid of King Alfonso XIII) and imposed a military dictatorship. Overnight Primo became the most important political figure in Spain.
Only because Primo was able to concentrate resources and to rally the army and defeat Abd el-Krim and the Moroccans did the new regime gain some respite from political dissension. The ending of the Moroccan War in December 1925 became Primo's one solid triumph. Internal problems, surprisingly, continued to mount.
Liberals rejected Primo's local government reforms and anticentralism, and radicals, despite the addition of a Socialist, Largo Cabellero, to his Cabinet, did not feel that the regime was moving fast enough in making social reforms.
University students and intellectuals, fearing that Primo was another Benito Mussolini, led the opposition from 1925 on, and one of Spain's most distinguished intellectuals, Miguel de Unamuno, went into exile.
Primo in fact was far from being a Fascist like Mussolini; if anything he had a paternalistic view of the state that unfortunately was out of step with the growing ideological sensitivities of the Spaniards.
By 1928, as the revolt of the cadets at the Academy of Segovia showed, even the army was dissatisfied with Primo, mainly because law and order were breaking down. The next 2 years witnessed one act of rebellion after the other, but King Alfonso XIII delayed replacing Primo because the monarchy had used the regime to hide its involvement in a series of disastrous political and military setbacks just prior to the dictatorship. Finally, however, Primo had no other recourse than to resign on January 28, 1930, when he left for exile in Paris. He died in Paris on March 16, 1930.
José Antonio founded the Falange party and became the martyr of the nationalist movement.
A new party, the Patriotic Union, became Primo's political vehicle and the only legal party in the country. Aside from the King's support of it, however, it had been put together so fast that it never developed great strength.
He deeply believed that it was the politicians who had ruined Spain and that governing without them he could restore the nation. His slogan was "Country, Religion, Monarchy. " Historians depict him as an inept dictator who lacked clear ideas and political acumen, and who alienated his potential supporters such as the army.
Primo has been described as a "glorified café politician" who, though he had made no preparation for rule, nevertheless aspired to political greatness. Order was restored by suspending constitutional guarantees, dissolving the Parliament, and imposing martial law.
The young Miguel grew up as part of what Gerald Brenan called "a hard-drinking, whoring, horse-loving aristocracy" that ruled "over the most starved and down-trodden race of agricultural labourers in Europe. "
Quotes from others about the person
The British historian Hugh Thomas says: "He would work enormously hard for weeks on end and then disappear for a juerga of dancing, drinking and love-making with gypsies. He would be observed almost alone in the streets of Madrid, swathed in an opera cloak, making his way from one café to another, and on returning home would issue a garrulous and sometimes even intoxicated communiqué -- which he would often have to cancel in the morning. "
Then in 1902, he married a young Hispano-Cuban, Casilda Sáenz de Heredia. Their marriage was happy, and Casilda bore six children before her death in 1908, following the birth of Fernando.
Primo's son, José Antonio, frequently defended his father during the next few years of growing political bitterness, and many aspects of his father's paternalism could be found in José Antonio Primo de Rivera's much more overtly fascist philosophy.