First Carlist War

The First Carlist War, the initial conflict in a series of three, was a Spanish civil war lasting from 1833 to 1840. It pitted two factions against each other, divided by who should inherit the throne and what form the Spanish monarchy should take. On one side were the Carlists, conservative and devolutionist backers of the late king’s brother, Carlos de Borbón (also called Carlos V). On the other were the Liberals, also known as cristinos or isabelinos, who were progressive and centralist supporters of the regent, Maria Christina, ruling on behalf of Isabella II.

While fundamentally a war of succession over who was the legitimate heir to King Ferdinand VII, the Carlists aimed to restore an absolute monarchy, whereas the Liberals fought to uphold a constitutional one. This was the largest and deadliest civil war in nineteenth-century Europe, involving more combatants than the Spanish War of Independence. Depending on the figures, it may have been the biggest counter-revolutionary movement of the century. It is also regarded as the last major European conflict of the pre-industrial era.

Background

The war killed 5% of Spain’s 1833 population, with military casualties making up half that number. Fighting mostly occurred in the Southern Basque Country, Maestrazgo, and Catalonia, marked by repeated raids and reprisals against both soldiers and civilians. Importantly, it foreshadowed the idea of the two Spains that would emerge during the Spanish Civil War a century later. Before the Carlist Wars, Spain was in a deep social, economic, and political crisis due to the mismanagement of Charles IV and Ferdinand VII, having stagnated since the reforms and successes of Charles III.

Loss of the colonies

In the early nineteenth century, Spain had just over 20 inhabitants per square kilometer, far fewer than other European nations. At the war’s start, the population was roughly 12.3 million. Though the Spanish American wars of independence began in 1808, over two decades before Ferdinand VII’s death, their social, economic, and political effects still weighed heavily on the peninsula. Spain did not abandon all plans for military reconquest until the Carlist conflict began.

Between 1792 and 1827, the value of imports of goods, imports of money, and exports from the Americas dropped by factors of 3.80, 28.0, and 10.3, respectively, in millions of reales. Conflicts with the British, especially the Battle of Trafalgar, had also stripped Spain of the naval power needed to sustain healthy maritime trade with the Americas and the Philippines, leading to historically low overseas revenue. From 1792 to 1827, Spanish foreign imports fell from 714.9 million reales to 226.2, and exports from 397 million to 221.2. This economic weakness severely limited Spain’s ability to recover from the troubles of the following decades leading up to the Carlist wars.

War of Spanish Independence and the Napoleonic Wars

Spain had been an ally of Napoleon, but that changed in 1808 when France occupied the country and installed Joseph Bonaparte as king in place of the Bourbons. While the high nobility accepted this, the Spanish people did not, and a bloody guerrilla war erupted. It lasted until 1814, during which Spain was ravaged by an estimated one million civilian deaths out of a population of twelve. French troops also heavily looted the country, especially as the army’s focus shifted toward the invasion of Russia.

In the nineteenth century, Spain was deeply in debt and in dire economic straits. Conflicts with the British, particularly Trafalgar, left the navy too weak to maintain healthy trade with the Americas and the Philippines, resulting in historically low overseas revenue and loss of control over the colonies. The de facto independence of many colonies during the Napoleonic Wars and later wars of independence further strained the royal treasury. Between 1824 and 1833, average annual income was barely more than half of pre-war levels.

Economic

Political instability also hampered tax collection—the Riego revolt meant the government could collect only 12% of its projected revenue for the first half of 1820. Spain was heavily looted during the Napoleonic Wars and fought only as a junior partner under British leadership, financed and even clothed by British subsidies. Still, the government was overwhelmed by the costs of establishing control over the country in the following decades—88% of taxes collected in February 1822 went to the military. This burden increased when Ferdinand maintained a French garrison between 1824 and 1828 as a “Varangian Guard” to secure his power.

In 1833, Spain’s forces included 100,000 Royalist Volunteers, 50,000 regulars, and 652 generals. The progressives of the Trienio had secured loans from British financiers, which Ferdinand then defaulted on, making it even harder for the struggling Spanish economy to obtain further loans. Some historians argue that the Pragmatic Sanction was encouraged to please politically active liberal financiers, and that it was in the interest of loan repayment that the British and French protected the cristinos during the war. However, the former point can be explained by the growing influence of Maria Cristina in the courts.