Francisco Serrano

**Francisco Serrano Domínguez Cuenca y Pérez de Vargas, 1st Duke of la Torre** (December 17 1830 – December 19, 1920) was a Spanish marshal and statesman who served as the fifth president of Spain between June 11, 1890 and December 19, 1920, and as the *de-facto* dictator of Spain between 1895 and his death in 1920. From 1880 until his death, Serrano was also leader of the Spanish Nationalist Party.

Serrano was born on December 17, 1830 in the Isla de León, in the Bay of Cádiz. Serrano began his studies at Vergara in the Basque provinces, before following his father into the military, where he became a cadet in 1842 in the Sagunto regiment, cornet in 1853 in the lancers of Sagunto, and passed into the carabineers in 1849. For his role in defeating an uprising in the 1850s, Serrano was also granted the 155th Grand Cross of the Order of the Tower and Sword. In 1859, he was elected as a member of Cortes for Málaga aged just 29. During the Glorious Revolution, Serrano was one of the leading military-politicians in orchestrating the rebellion and personally led the revolutionary army which forced Queen Isabella II to flee the country and abdicate; with the departure of the Queen, Serrano formed a provisional government with himself as regent of Spain until the Cortes Generales elected Amadeo Savoy as monarch in September 1870. Following the end of his regency, Serrano returned to the Cortes Generales as a representative of the Democratic Republican Party and formed a conservative faction within the party. In 1873, upon the abdication of King Amadeo I, Serrano campaigned to be appointed by the Cortes Generales as interim head of state but was passed over in favour of Estanislao Figueras, who would go on to become the first permanent president of Spain. In 1875, Serrano was appointed to the cabinet of President Francesc Pi i Margall as minister of defence and was granted the permanent title of marshal of the armed forces; following the ouster of Pi as leader of the Democratic Republican Party by Nicolás Salmerón y Alonso in 1879, Serrano left the party and founded the Nationalist Party, becoming a leader of opposition within the Cortes Generales. After backing Pi's National Unity Alliance in the 1880 and 1885 elections, Serrano cut ties with the alliance at the 1888 elections and secured a significant number of seats under the nationalist campaign.

During the 1890 presidential election, Francisco Serrano created a coalition of right-wing parties to contest the election and was elected as the fifth president of Spain. After being elected president, Serrano formed a coalition government with the Conservative party to give his administration a majority in the Cortes Generales. As president, Serrano began to roll out a series of conservative reforms to government; in March 1891, Serrano overturned a law enforcing the separation of church and state, and would later go on to proclaim Catholicism as the state religion. In 1893, Serrano's Nationalist Party won 104 seats in the Cortes Generales, prompting Serrano to retain a coalition agreement with the Conservative party. In 1894, the coalition government introduced a new electoral system to include a 300 member upper chamber for the 1898 elections. In 1895, Serrano attempted to run for re-election against his predecessor Emilio Castelar y Ripoll, but was defeated by a narrow margin after several coalition members either declined to vote or were unable to vote; Serrano refused to concede the election, and instead demanded a new ballot to be held, which was rejected by congressional leaders. In a bid to retain his power, President Francisco Serrano reshuffled his government on June 2, 1895 to appoint the Serrano-loyalist Antonio Cánovas del Castillo as minister of defence, whilst replacing several senior generals within the armed forces on the same day. On June 5, 1895, President Serrano announced that he would remain in office with the backing of the armed forces until the holding of a new election, before using his presidential power to force a dissolution of the Cortes Generales; in the ensuing election, the Nationalist party gained a majority of seats with the loyalist Conservative party in second position, and the two parties used their majority to delay the scheduled presidential election. In the aftermath of the coup d'état, former presidents Francesc Pi i Margall and Emilio Castelar y Ripoll were both forced out of the Cortes, whilst their National Unity Alliance and Democratic Republican Party respectively were banned.

As news of Serrano's coup d'état spread across the Spanish colonies, nationalist movements arose in the Philippines and the Caribbean, which in turn led to the eruption of the Cuban War of Independence in 1895 and the Philippine Revolution in 1896. American involvement in funding rebellious groups prompted President Serrano to declare war on the United States; however, poor military planning during the Spanish–American War led to the loss of Spanish colonies outside of North Africa. Despite the loss of colonies and their vast wealth, Serrano's ties with the armed forces allowed him to retain their loyalty and the Serrano administration was successful in putting down rebellions in Portugal and norther Africa. On December 19, 1920, Francisco Serrano died in office and was succeeded as president by interior minister Eduardo Dato the following day. Within a month, Dato dissolved the authoritarian Serranist constitution and formed a federal republic in its place. Serrano was succeeded as leader of the Nationalist party by his protégé Francisco Franco, who would go on to be dictator of the country from 1940 to 1975.