ABSTRACT
In the early morning of 26 January 1930, Primo de Rivera decided to go all in. His situation as Head of Government had become much more complicated in the previous few days. The King wanted his resignation, and the Marqués de Estella knew that some sections of the Army, led by General Manuel Goded, were conspiring to overthrow him. Primo wrote an official note in which he set out a consultation about his own future to ‘the ten captain-generals, the overall commander of forces in Morocco, three captains-general for maritime departments, and the heads of the Civil Guard, Customs Guards and Invalids Corps’. 1 The generals were asked to undertake a ‘brief, discreet and confidential sounding’ among their unit and service commanders and communicate to Primo if he still ‘retained the confidence and high regard of the Army and Navy’. 2 If he lacked the support of his comrades-in-arms, Primo was resolved ‘within five minutes of being informed’ to relinquish ‘the powers of Head of the Dictatorship and Government’ to Alfonso XIII. 3 There was an air of desperation in this last throw of the dice, but also a degree of audacity. The consultation represented the final bet of a gambler who was prepared to lose everything, but who was confident that he would win. Primo appealed directly to the upper echelons of the Army, whom he saw as the only legitimate authority for his dictatorship, and thus effectively denied the King’s power to dismiss him. Given that Primo had personally appointed all the captain-generals and the heads of the Civil Guard and Customs Guards, the dictator clearly believed that his subordinates would openly declare their support for him and thus strengthen his position as dictator. Primo did not finish preparing his official note until after 3 o’clock in the morning. According to his own version of events, Primo drafted the document in a hurry and did not re-read it afterwards. When he was done, he handed the draft to a messenger to take it with all haste to the Office for News and Press Censorship, in the expectation that it would be sent to the newspapers as quickly as possible, ‘as if the salvation of the nation depended on its immediate publication’. 4 Having handed over the note, Primo suffered a dizzy spell. 5 The tension of the last few hours was catching up with him.
