Alfonso XIII, King of Spain

ALFONSO XIII, King of Spain. - Posthumous son of the preceding, b. 17 May 1886, d. 28 Feb. 1941. Through the care of his mother Maria Christina he received a good religious and literary education. During the regency the war of Cuba had to be deplored, begun in 1895, followed by the revolt of the Philippine islands, which fatally led to the armed intervention of the United States of America in favor of the insurgents. After useless shedding of blood and vain heroism, in 1898 the peace of Paris was reached, by which Spain ceded to the American Republic the islands of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the entire Philippine archipelago. The war in Morocco was also resumed and won. The king was sixteen years old when, in 1902, he was declared of age and head of state. In the journeys he subsequently made he acquired general sympathy and strengthened his throne, principally after he had married in 1906 the princess Ena Victoria of Battenberg, niece of King Edward VII of England, who, shortly before assuming the crown of Spain, had converted to Catholicism. But the subversive forces and the secret societies had conceived an implacable hatred against the young monarch. The first anarchist attempt against the person of the king took place in Paris on 31 May 1905; on the same date of the following year, precisely during the wedding procession, a bomb endangered the royal couple; other times attempts were made, always however in vain, on the life of the monarch. On the other hand, the instability of the governing parties, principally after the assassination of Canovas and the death of Sagasta, prevented the realization of excellent projects, against which was exploited the severe repression of the revolutionary riots of Barcelona (1900) and the consequent shooting of Francesco Ferrer. As religious acts, during the reign of A., the International Eucharistic Congress of Madrid (1911) stands out, in which he took part, notwithstanding the momentary coolness of relations with the Holy See on account of the government of Canalejas (assassinated shortly afterwards), and principally the solemn consecration of Spain to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, made at the « Cerro de Los Angeles » by A. in May 1919. Among international political events one must remember the Conference of Algeciras of 1906, for the question of Morocco, and the various treaties with France regarding the two zones of that region. The uprising of the Rif tribes under the leadership of Abd-el-Krim in 1921, the revolutionary riots and the prevailing indiscipline, induced in 1923 General M. Primo de Rivera to carry out the coup d'état, which established a dictatorship, and seemed to give the nation a rebirth of order and prosperity. During this time the visit of King Alfonso and Queen Victoria to Pope Pius XI (Nov. 1923) and the universal expositions of Barcelona and Seville (1928; 1929) deserve to be remembered. Nevertheless, after the disaster of Morocco in 1921, the popularity of A. kept diminishing. After the fall of the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, in Jan. 1930, in the elections of 12 Apr. 1931 for the renewal of the municipal councillors, there was a strong anti-monarchist majority. This was enough for the expulsion from the nation to be immediately ordered for A., who left Madrid on the 14th of the same month, while the second republic was being proclaimed. The dethroned monarch lived first in Paris and finally in Rome, where all his children had married, and where he died on 28 Feb. 1941.