ABSTRACT
Alfonso Iglesias Amorín considers, in a context of European imperialism, the Spanish experience in holding on to, and expanding its colonial possessions. Whilst Cuba was lost, Spain was able to add to its Moroccan possessions, though normally as a secondary partner to France. Cuba and Morocco were sources of repeated military conflict, frequent defeats, causing extensive deaths both locally and to the Spanish armed forces. Spanish historical memory has produced a selective narrative around these conflicts, including the framing of 1898 as a ‘disaster’. Both conflicts, occurring over decades, were brought home and impacted on political and cultural developments in Spain though their salience in public opinion was not always linked to their scale. These wars were rarely popular across society and anti-war sentiment was a mobilising factor for political parties critical of the Restoration. Spanish military culture was also impacted, particularly by the Moroccan wars, which were given a heroic inflection which persisted under the Franco regime.
