First Carlist War The First Carlist War was a civil war in Spain from 1833 to 1839 , fought between factions over the succession to the throne and the nature of the Spanish monarchy . It was fought between supporters of the regent , Maria Christina , acting for Isabella II of Spain , and those of the late king ' s brother , Carlos de Borbón ( or " Carlos V " ) . The Carlists supported return to an absolute monarchy . Historical background . At the beginning of the 18th century , Philip V , the first Bourbon king of Spain , promulgated the Salic Law , which declared illegal the inheritance of the Spanish crown by women . His purpose was to thwart the Habsburgs ' regaining the throne by way of the female dynastic line . A century later , Ferdinand VII of Spain had no male descendant , but two daughters , Isabella ( later known as Isabella II of Spain ) and Luisa Fernanda . So he promulgated the " Pragmatic Sanction " , to allow Isabella to become Queen after his death , returning to traditional rules of Spanish succession . Without the " Pragmática Sanción , " Carlos de Borbón , the king ' s brother , would have normally become king . He and his followers , such as Secretary of Justice Francisco Tadeo Calomarde , pressed Ferdinand to change his mind . But the ill Ferdinand kept his decision and when he died on 29 September 1833 , Isabella became the legitimate queen . As she was only a child , a regent was needed : her mother , Queen Consort Maria Christina was appointed . At the beginning of the 19th century , the political situation in Spain was extremely problematic . During the war of independence against Napoleon , the Cortes met in Cádiz ( 1812 ) and elaborated the first Spanish constitution , possibly the most modern and most liberal in the world . After the war , when Ferdinand VII returned to Spain , he annulled the constitution in the Manifest of Valencia , and became an absolute king , governing by decrees and restoring the Spanish Inquisition , abolished by Joseph I , brother of Napoleon I . Towards the end of his life , Ferdinand made some concessions to the liberals , giving them hopes of a liberal rule . But there was a strong absolutist party which did not want to lose its position . Its members knew that Maria Christina and Isabella would make liberal reforms , so they looked for another candidate for the throne ; and their natural choice , with the background of the Salic Law , was Ferdinand ' s brother Carlos . One historian has written that “ the first Carlist war was fought not so much on the basis of the legal claim of Don Carlos , but because a passionate , dedicated section of the Spanish people favored a return to a kind of absolute monarchy that they felt would protect their individual freedoms ( fueros ) , their regional individuality and their religious conservatism . ” A vivid summary of the war describes it as follows : " The Christinos and Carlists thirsted for each other ’ s blood , with all the fierce ardour of civil strife , animated by the memory of years of mutual insult , cruelty , and wrong . Brother against brother – father against son – best friend turned to bitterest foe – priests against their flocks – kindred against kindred . " The autonomy of Aragon , Valencia and Catalonia had been abolished in the 18th century by the Nueva Planta Decrees that created a centralised Spanish state . Navarre , however , retained its self - governing status until 1833 . The resentment against the loss of autonomy was considerably strong . Basque reasons for Carlist uprising . Meanwhile , the Spanish courtiers wanted to suppress the Basque Fueros and to move the customs borders to the Pyrenees . Since the 18th century , a new emergent class had an interest in weakening the powerful Basque nobles and their influence and commerce , including that extending throughout the world with the help of the Jesuit order . The newly appointed Spanish courtiers supported some of the great powers against the Basques at least since the abolition of the Jesuit order and the Godoy regime . First they sided with the French Bourbons to suppress the Jesuits , following the formidable changes in North America after the victory of the United States in the American Revolutionary War and the subsequent loss of Spanish influence . Then Godoy sided with the English against the Basques in the War of the Pyrenees of 1793 , and immediately afterwards with the French of Napoleon , also against the Basques . The English interest was to destroy , for as long as possible , Spanish commercial routes and power , which was mainly sustained by the Basque ports , commercial navy and companies ( Compañía Guipuzcoana de Caracas ) . The contenders . The people of the western Basque provinces ( ambiguously called " Biscay " up to that point ) and Navarre sided with Carlos because ideologically Carlos was close to them . Some historians claim that the Carlist cause in the Basque Country was a foral ist cause , but others ( Stanley G . Payne ) contend that no connection to the emergence of Basque nationalism can be postulated . Many supporters of the Carlists cause believed a traditionalist rule would better respect the ancient region specific institutions and laws established under historical rights . Another important reason for the massive mobilisation of the Basque Provinces and Navarre for the Carlist cause was the tremendous influence of the Basque clergy in the society . Salvador de Madariaga , in his book " Memories of a Federalist " ( Buenos Aires , 1967 ) , accused the Basque clergy of being " the heart , the brain and the root of the intolerance and the hard line " of the Spanish Catholic Church . Other social and economic causes have not been properly studied by historians , but Navarre and the rest of the Basque provinces held their customs on the Ebro river . Trade was strong with France ( especially Navarre ) and overseas , so when customs were carried to the Pyrenees and the coast after the First Carlist wars , the region was gripped by a wave of famine , and many took to overseas emigration . Meanwhile , in Catalonia and Aragón , the people saw the chance of recovering their foral rights , which were lost after the Spanish Succession War when Philip V defeated the armies that fought for Archduke Karl of Austria , the other candidate to the throne after the death of Charles II of Spain . Carlos never addressed the issue of the foral rights . On the other side , the liberals and moderates united to defend the new order represented by María Cristina and her three - year - old daughter , Isabella . They controlled the institutions , almost the whole army , and the cities ; the Carlist movement was stronger in rural areas . The liberals had the crucial support of United Kingdom , France and Portugal , support that was shown in the important credits to Cristina ' s treasury and the military help from the British ( British Legion or Westminster Legion under General de Lacy Evans ) , the French ( the French Foreign Legion ) , and the Portuguese ( a part of the regular army , under General Barão das Antas ) . The Liberals were strong enough to win the war in two months . But , an inefficient government and the dispersion of the Carlist forces gave Carlos time to consolidate his forces and hold out for almost seven years in the northern and eastern provinces . As Paul Johnson has written , " both royalists and liberals began to develop strong local followings , which were to perpetuate and transmute themselves , through many open commotions and deceptively tranquil intervals , until they exploded in the merciless civil war of 1836 - 39 . " The combatants . Both sides raised special troops during the war . The Liberal side formed the volunteer Basque units known as the Chapelgorris , while Tomás de Zumalacárregui created the special units known as aduaneros . Zumalacárregui also formed the unit known as Guías de Navarra from Liberal troops from La Mancha , Valencia , Andalusia and other places who had been taken prisoner at the Battle of Alsasua ( 1834 ) . After this battle , they had been faced with the choice of joining the Carlist troops or being executed . The term Requetés was at first applied to just the Tercer Batallón de Navarra ( Third Battalion of Navarre ) and subsequently to all Carlist combatants . The war attracted independent adventurers , such as the Briton C . F . Henningsen , who served as Zumalacárregui ’ s chief bodyguard ( and later was his biographer ) , and Martín Zurbano , a " contrabandista " or smuggler , who " soon after the commencement of the war sought and obtained permission to raise a body of men to act in conjunction with the queen ’ s troops against the Carlists . His standard , once displayed , was resorted to by smugglers , robbers , and outcasts of all descriptions , attracted by the prospect of plunder and adventure . These were increased by deserters . . . " About 250 foreign volunteers fought for the Carlists ; the majority were French monarchists , but they were joined by men from Portugal , Britain , Belgium , Piedmont , and the German states . Friedrich , Prince of Schwarzenberg fought for the Carlists , and had taken part in the French conquest of Algeria and the Swiss civil war of the Sonderbund . The Carlists ' ranks included such men as Prince Felix Lichnowsky , Adolfo Loning , Baron Wilhelm Von Radhen , A . Von Goeben , all of whom later wrote memoirs concerning the war . The Liberal generals , such as Vicente Genaro de Quesada and Marcelino de Oraá Lecumberri , were often veterans of the Peninsular War , or of the wars resulting from independence movements in South America . For instance , Jerónimo Valdés participated in the battle of Ayacucho ( 1824 ) . Both sides executed prisoners of war by firing squad ; the most notorious incident occurred at Heredia , when 118 Liberal prisoners were executed by order of Zumalacárregui . The British attempted to intervene , and through Lord Eliot , the Lord Eliot Convention was signed on April 27 – 28 , 1835 . The treatment of prisoners of the First Carlist War became regulated and had positive effects . A soldier of the British Legion wrote that : However , Henry Bill , another contemporary , wrote that , though " it was mutually agreed upon to treat the prisoners taken on either side according to the ordinary rules of war , a few months only elapsed before similar barbarities were practiced with all their former remorselessness . " The war in the Northern Front . The war was long and hard , and the Carlist forces achieved important victories in the north under the direction of the brilliant general Tomás de Zumalacárregui . Opposing his advisers , Carlos V decided to conquer Bilbao , defended by the British navy . With such an important city in his power , the Prussian or Russian Tsarist banks would give him credit to win the war ; one of the most important problems for Carlos was a lack of funds . In the siege of Bilbao , Zumalacárregui was wounded in the leg by a stray bullet . The wound was not serious , but it did not heal properly , and finally General Zumalacárregui died on June 25 , 1835 . Many historians believe the circumstances of his death were suspicious , and have noted that the general had many enemies in the Carlist court ; however , nothing has been proven . In the European theatre all the great powers backed the Isabeline army , as many British observers wrote in their reports . Meanwhile , in the east , Carlist general Ramón Cabrera held the initiative in the war , but his forces were too few to achieve a decisive victory over the liberal forces . In 1837 the Carlist effort culminated in the Royal Expedition , which reached the walls of Madrid , but subsequently retreated after the Battle of Aranzueque . The war in the Southern Front . In the south , the Carlist general Miguel Gómez Damas attempted to establish a strong position there for the Carlists , and he left Ronda on November 18 , 1836 , entering Algeciras on November 22 . But , after Gómez Damas departed from Algeciras , he was defeated by Ramón María Narváez y Campos at the Battle of Majaceite . An English commentator wrote that “ it was at Majaciete that [ Narváez ] rescued Andalucía from the Carlist invasion by a brilliant " coup de main " , in a rapid but destruction action , which will not readily be effaced from the memory of the southern provinces . ” At Arcos de la Frontera , the Liberal Diego de Leon managed to detain a Carlist column by his squadron of 70 cavalry until Liberal reinforcements arrived . Ramon Cabrera had collaborated with Gómez Damas in the expedition of Andalusia where , after defeating the Liberals , he occupied Córdoba and Extremadura . He was pushed out after his defeat at Villarrobledo in 1836 . The end of the war . After the death of Zumalacárregui in 1835 , the Liberals slowly regained the initiative but were not able to win the war until 1839 . They failed to recover the Carlist fortress of Morella and suffered a defeat at the Battle of Maella ( 1838 ) . The war in the North ended with the " Convenio de Vergara " , also known as the " Abrazo de Vergara " ( " the embrace in Vergara " ; " Bergara " in Basque ) , 31 August 1839 , between the Liberal general Baldomero Espartero , Count of Luchana and the Carlist General Rafael Maroto . Some authors have written that General Maroto was a traitor who forced Carlos to accept the peace , but historians generally think that the Carlists were too tired to continue with the war against the Liberal government . In the east , General Cabrera continued fighting , but he was alone and finally had to flee to France in July 1840 . Considered a hero , Cabrera returned to Portugal in 1848 for the Second Carlist War . Further reading . Alcala , Cesar and Dalmau , Ferrer A . 1a . " Guerra Carlista . El Sitio de Bilbao . La Expedición Real ( 1835 - 1837 ) " . 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