ABSTRACT
A few minutes after 8 o’clock in the evening on 28 January 1930, General Miguel Primo de Rivera got up from a meeting of the Spanish cabinet, over which he had presided, and made his way to the Royal Palace. He was about to submit his resignation. On arriving at the palace, Primo de Rivera declared to a group of reporters that he had to ‘inform the King about a matter approved by the Government’ and that his meeting with the monarch would be ‘brief’. 1 It was indeed. By 8:45, Primo had resigned and the press was announcing that Alfonso XIII had chosen General Dámaso Berenguer to replace him as Prime Minister. 2 The news spread like wildfire. Shortly thereafter, festive demonstrations sprung up in Madrid and masses of people took to the streets of the city centre to celebrate the fall of the dictator. By 11:30 that evening, some 2000 people were gathered in the Puerta del Sol and the shout of ‘Long Live the Republic!’ was being directed towards the Plaza de Oriente. 3 After several warnings and a few shots fired, the crowd dispersed, but an hour later some 4000 people were proceeding down the Calle de Alcalá towards the Buenavista Palace, the headquarters of the War Ministry and Primo de Rivera’s residence. The mood was heated. The kiosk of the conservative newspaper El Debate on the Calle Alcalá was set alight, and several businesses had their windows smashed. 4 A police battalion was placed in front of the Buenavista Palace. When the crowds approached the building, the security forces charged the crowd, leaving many bruised, battered and wounded. 5 Primo de Rivera must have watched these incidents with astonishment and sadness. He had spent the last years of his life leading a dictatorship in Spain, a regime which he envisaged would save the fatherland from destruction and build a new country. Moreover, he was convinced he had achieved this. 6 But in this moment of leaving power, he felt tremendously alone. Primo knew that his comrades-in-arms had abandoned him. He felt that the King had betrayed him, and he could see from the windows of the Buenavista Palace that the people were celebrating his departure in the streets.
