ABSTRACT
In 1898 Spain suffered at the hands of the upstart United States a humiliating military and naval defeat in the Caribbean and Pacific. Defeat was followed by a yet greater humiliation: Spain’s loss of the final remnants-Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines-of a vast overseas empire, conquered during the sixteenth century and still intact as late as the early nineteenth. The material loss suffered in the ‘Disaster of 1898’ was significant, but the psychological blow was even greater. As Spaniards came face to face with their country’s impotence, backwardness and inescapably second-class status, there arose a confused chorus of demands for the ‘regeneration’ of what was widely seen as a ‘decadent’ nation. For the Spanish monarchy, 1898 signalled the start of a lengthy process of disintegration which culminated in 1931 with its replacement by the Second Republic.
