General Notes

Alfonso XIII, king of Spain from 1886 to 1931, lost his throne because he
became too involved in politics. Born on May 17, 1886, a few months after his
father, Alfonso XII, had died, he was proclaimed king at birth, with his
mother Maria Cristina of Austria as regent. He grew up amid officers and
learned to love the army. In 1906 he married Victoria Eugenia of Battenberg, a
granddaughter of Queen Victoria of Britain.

At age 16 Alfonso began to impose his views on his ministers. Because Spanish
political life was unstable and corrupt, his influence was often decisive.
During World War I he kept Spain strictly neutral. In 1921 he appointed his
friend Gen. Fernandez Silvestre to a high command in Morocco. When Silvestre
was defeated at Anual (1922) by Moroccan rebels under Abd-el-Krim, an
investigation revealed that the king had encouraged his general to move rashly
into the rebels' territory. To hide the scandal, Alfonso supported the 1923
coup d'etat of Gen. Miguel Primo de Rivera and the dictatorship that followed.


After Primo de Rivera left Spain in 1930, Alfonso tried to remain king, but
his popularity was damaged by his association with the dictator. A republican
landslide in municipal elections in 1931 convinced him that he should leave
Spain. Alfonso died on Feb. 28, 1941, having abdicated his rights to his third
son, Juan, whose son Juan Carlos was restored to the throne in 1975.