ABSTRACT
The First Carlist War had an immense demographic and indirect political impact, even though the bloodshed was usually highly localised and economic damage limited. Contemporary observers at home and abroad saw in this war two Spains fighting as clerical-reactionary Carlists, on one hand, and the modernising Liberals on the other. Catalan Carlism was driven, in part, by religiosity as well as by economic decline in the interior where the insurgency would take hold, as Carlist insurgents drew support from Catalan nobles under economic siege. Even the largest liberal towns contained Carlist sympathisers, whilst by the same token, liberals were found in those provinces north of the Ebro which for the most part had gone over to the insurgency. The liberal martyrdom of Rafael del Riego and Jose Maria Torrijos inspired the army and militia very little when compared with unequal demands of the war itself. The outbreak of peace in 1840 should have opened up an era of liberal unity and peace.
