Spain

## Spain during the Great War

Spain joined the Great War on the 29th of June 1919 after German forces miraculously took the outpost of Gibraltar on the 27th of June. Spain requested German troops leave, the Germans refused and so Spain declared war and moved in on the troops and would occupy the rock for the “remainder of the war” according to Spanish military. From here on out Spain would send their troops to the Italian-Austrian border to help fight against the Austrians. When the war came to a close Spain refused to leave Gibraltar which began a long rivalry between the UK and Spain.

## After the Great War

A small nationalist movement documented by all countries during the war would bring a small amount of stability to Spain until the Rif War began after a small insurrection led by Muhammad Ibn 'Abd El-Karim El-Khattabi’ in Feb 1920 turned into a widespread anti-Spain movement. Soon after the USSR would get involved toward the end of the year, when the Great War ended, fighting against the Spanish. At the Supreme war council the USSR, backed up by a letter written by the Rifian leader, would introduce a vote that saw the members get involved in the war, the United Kingdom, USSR, Italy and the US voted for intervention in the area with France electing not to vote. Rather then fight against the Allies Spain reluctantly withdrew from the Rif.

### Abdication of Alfonso and Catalonia

Spanish King Alfonso XIII would also face a challenging decision, an increasing amount of protests in the streets in Catalonia for Catalan independence grew and grew, the now large movement would split the nation between monarchs and the people, a violent military police force in Catalonia spread the message worldwide “Alfonso the military dictator”. And so Alfonso’s decision was to cede a large portion of Spain or face a people’s revolution, Alfonso decided to abdicate in January 1924 and leave it up to the people of Spain to decide their position on Catalonia and the monarchy. In the provisional election the republicans won out 87% of the vote with most of their votes gone toward left-leaning members of the party. With the mandate of the people, the provisional government abolished the monarchy and exiling Alfonso XIII and all of the monarchs that lived in Spain, Alfonso himself went to Italy but most went to either France or Portugal.

With the newfound power in the provisional government, they instituted a republican system with a single house of government. Spain is broken up into 80 different constituencies with about 300,000 population in each one, each constituency elects a member to the house.

When the new elections came through in 1926, most electors from Catalonia elected a candidate that held pro independence views, when they called for a referendum into Catalonian independence the government obliged fearing more protests. When the results came back in late 1926, the government was astounded to find that the vote was lost and that most Catalonians voted to remain in a union with Spain, protestors were dismayed and quickly fizzled out after the vote. Little did the people of Spain know, there was a large amount of corruption from those who said Catalan should remain with Spain, they bribed vote counters, bullied protestors and sometimes took ballots to be destroyed, the government would not find out about this until 1931, after the next election. The corrupt politicians would be at the mercy of the Spanish populace at the 1936 elections.