ABSTRACT
Miguel Primo de Rivera had a very busy day on 15 September 1923. At 9:40 in the morning – his express train from Barcelona having been delayed by 20 minutes – the Captain-General of Catalonia arrived in Madrid. As the Marqúes de Estella disembarked, hundreds of people who were waiting at Atocha station applauded him while shouting ‘Long live the Redeemer of the Fatherland, Spain and the King, and down with the politicians!’. 1 The generals who had made up the provisional Military Directory – Muñoz Cobo, Cavalcanti, Saro, Daban and Berenguer – were there to meet Primo, who made his way through the station only with difficulty, given the crowds of sympathisers who wanted to embrace him. Arriving at the passenger lounge in the station, Primo greeted one-by-one the military officers of the Army High Command who had come to welcome him to Madrid. Among those generals was his old friend Severiano Martínez Anido, who had supported the coup from San Sebastián and had travelled to Madrid the previous day. Minutes later, Primo and Cavalcanti were spirited away by car to the Captaincy-General. In an atmosphere of heady patriotic fervour, soldiers and civilians continued to shout ‘vivas’ to Primo de Rivera, Alfonso XIII and Spain until the car disappeared from view. 2
