46- Identity: the
building blocks of
2. Literature
and philosophy
3. Art and
architecture
4. Performing
arts
5. Cinema
and fashion
6. Media and
communications
7. Food and drink 8. Living culture:
the details of
Blundering on with the Bourbons
Incapacitated by a century of decline, Spain looked on
as France and an allied Austria and England fought over
its crown when Carlos II died: the War of the Spanish
Succession, a European power struggle about more
than simply controlling Spain, lasted 11 years.The
Bourbons came out on top with Felipe V, Carlos’ French
grand-nephew taking to the throne, although Spain lost
most of its remaining European assets, as well as
Gibraltar and Minorca, in the peace treaty of 1713.Among the Bourbons, only Felipe’s grandson, Carlos III, made a reasonable
fist of regenerating Spain, infusing his despotism with an air of enlightened
reason. However, any progress made through fiscal and educational reform
was rapidly undone by his successor, Carlos IV. Pushed along by his Italian
wife and her lover, chief minister Manuel Godoy, Carlos IV signed up for war
alongside (or rather in deference to) Napoleon and saw his Spanish fleet
crushed atTrafalgar in 1805.Two years later, Napoleon marched into Spain
on the pretext of getting to Portugal and kicked the King and his family out.
Appalled at the treatment of the young heirs to their throne,
the people of Madrid reached for their homemade weapons and pitched
into battle against French troops. Francisco Goya famously painted the
bloody scenes from the 2ndand 3rdMay 1808.The Madrileños were
crushed without mercy but inspired their countrymen to fight injuntas
alongside Wellington’s British troops in the ensuing Peninsula War (War of
Independence to the Spanish).The French were finally pushed from Spain in
From bad to worse: 19th century Spain
The Peninsula War throttled Spain’s flimsy economy. Politically, tension
was building between liberals and the old guard of Church and nobility,
ready to flare up intermittently throughout the 19thcentury. Fernando VII
strode back into power as the Bourbons were restored in 1814, dismissing
the tentative, admirably liberal constitution that had been established by a
fledgling national parliament (the Cortes) in Cadiz two years earlier.
The term guerrilla
warfare was coined
from the Spanish
phrase ‘little war’ in the
Peninsula War, used to
describe the partisans’
highly effective attacks
on Napoleon’s troops.