Alfonso XIII

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Borbón and the second or maternal family name is Habsburgo-Lorena.

Alfonso XIII
Formal portrait, 1916
King of Spain
(more...)
Reign17 May 1886 – 14 April 1931 (1886-05-17 – 1931-04-14)
Enthronement17 May 1902
PredecessorAlfonso XII
SuccessorNiceto Alcalá-Zamora (President of Spain, 1931)
Juan Carlos I (King of Spain, 1975)
RegentMaria Christina (1886–1902)
Born(1886-05-17)17 May 1886
Royal Palace of Madrid, Madrid, Kingdom of Spain
Died28 February 1941(1941-02-28) (aged 54)
Rome, Kingdom of Italy
Burial
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1906)​
Issue
more...
Names
  • Spanish: Alfonso León Fernando María Jaime Isidro Pascual Antonio de Borbón y Habsburgo-Lorena
  • French: Alphonse Léon Ferdinand Marie Jacques Isidore Pascal Antoine de Bourbon
HouseBourbon
FatherAlfonso XII
MotherMaria Christina of Austria
ReligionCatholicism
SignatureAlfonso XIII's signature

Alfonso XIII[a] (Spanish: Alfonso León Fernando María Jaime Isidro Pascual Antonio de Borbón y Habsburgo-Lorena; French: Alphonse Léon Ferdinand Marie Jacques Isidore Pascal Antoine de Bourbon; 17 May 1886 – 28 February 1941), also known as El Africano or the African due to his Africanist views, was King of Spain from his birth until 14 April 1931, when the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed. He became a monarch at birth as his father, Alfonso XII, had died the previous year. Alfonso's mother, Maria Christina of Austria, served as regent until he assumed full powers on his sixteenth birthday in 1902.

Alfonso XIII's upbringing and public image were closely linked to the military estate; he often presented himself as a soldier-king.[1] His effective reign started four years after the Spanish–American War, when various social milieus projected their expectations of national regeneration onto him.[2] Like other European monarchs of his time he played a political role, entailing a controversial use of his constitutional executive powers.[3] His wedding to Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg in 1906 was marred by an attempt at regicide; he was unharmed.

With public opinion divided over World War I, and moreover a split between pro-German and pro-Entente sympathizers, Alfonso XIII used his relations with other European royal families to help preserve a stance of neutrality, as espoused by his government.[4][5]

However, several factors weakened the monarch's constitutional legitimacy: the rupture of the turno system, the deepening of the Restoration system crisis in the 1910s, a trio of crises in 1917, the spiral of violence in Morocco[6] and, especially, the lead-up to the 1923 installment of the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera, an event that succeeded by means of both military coup d'état and the king's acquiescence.[7] Over the course of his reign, the monarch ended up favouring an authoritarian solution rather than constitutional liberalism.[8]

Upon the political failure of the dictatorship, Alfonso XIII removed support from Primo de Rivera (who was thereby forced to resign in 1930) and favoured (during the so-called dictablanda) an attempted return to the pre-1923 state of affairs. Nevertheless, he had lost most of his political capital along the way. He left Spain voluntarily after the municipal elections of April 1931 – which was understood as a plebiscite on maintaining the monarchy or declaring a republic – the result of which led to the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic on 14 April 1931.

His efforts with the European War Office during World War I[9] earned him a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1917, which was ultimately won by the Red Cross.[10] To date, he remains the only monarch known to have been nominated for a Nobel Prize.[11][12]


Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

  1. ^ Harris, Carolyn (2020). "Raising Heirs to the Throne in Nineteenth Century Spain: The Education of the Constitutional Monarchy". Royal Studies Journal. 7 (2): 178. doi:10.21039/rsj.270. S2CID 234552045.
  2. ^ Moreno Luzón, Javier (2013). "Alfonso el Regenerador. Monarquía escénica e imaginario nacionalista español, en perspectiva comparada (1902–1913)" [Alfonso el Regenerador. Performing Monarchy and Spanish Nationalist Imaginary, from a comparative perspective (1902–1913)]. Hispania. LXXIII (244). Madrid: Editorial CSIC: 319. doi:10.3989/hispania.2013.009. ISSN 0018-2141.
  3. ^ Moreno Luzón 2013, p. 319.
  4. ^ Peris Alcantud, Fernando (2016). "La política exterior de España en el contexto europeo, 1898–1931" (PDF). Tiempo y Sociedad (22): 152–153. ISSN 1989-6883. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022.
  5. ^ Pérez de Arcos, Marina (2021). "'Finding Out Whereabouts of Missing Persons': The European War Office, Transnational Humanitarianism and Spanish Royal Diplomacy in the First World War" (PDF). The International History Review. 44 (3): 7. doi:10.1080/07075332.2021.1976809. S2CID 250585535. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022.
  6. ^ La Porte, Pablo (2017). "La espiral irresistible: La gran guerra y el protectorado español en Marruecos". Hispania Nova. 15 (15). Getafe: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid: 503–504. doi:10.20318/hn.2017.3499. ISSN 1138-7319.
  7. ^ Ben-Ami, Shlomo (1977). "The Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera: A Political Reassessment". Journal of Contemporary History. 12 (1): 65–84. doi:10.1177/002200947701200103. ISSN 0022-0094. JSTOR 260237. S2CID 155074826.
  8. ^ Moreno Luzón 2023, p. 24.
  9. ^ Hoh, Anchi (18 January 2018). ""Royal Knight of Charity": King Alfonso XIII of Spain in WWI | 4 Corners of the World: International Collections and Studies at the Library of Congress". Blogs.loc.gov. Retrieved 4 March 2022.
  10. ^ "Nomination%20archive". NobelPrize.org. 1 April 2020. Retrieved 4 March 2022.
  11. ^ Olaya, Vicente G. (November 2018). "A king with a mission: the humanitarian deeds of Alfonso XIII during the Great War". El País.
  12. ^ Rodrigo, Inés Martín (19 March 2014). "Alfonso XIII, aliado de los cautivos en la Gran Guerra". ABC.