1923 Spanish coup d'état

A coup d'état took place in Spain between 13 and 15 September 1923, led by the then-Captain General of Catalonia Miguel Primo de Rivera. It resulted in the overthrow of the Restoration system and the establishment of a dictatorship under Primo de Rivera, mainly because King Alfonso XIII did not oppose the coup and appointed the rebel general as head of the government at the helm a military directorate.

Historian Francisco Alía Miranda has pointed out that "the coup d'état of General Miguel Primo de Rivera [was] atypical for its simplicity. To triumph he only needed the backing of a few prestigious military officers and to publish a manifesto in the press addressed To the country and the Army. The Restoration regime collapsed in a few hours. [...] He did not need more backing from chiefs in command of the troops, for that the shadow of Alfonso XIII was already behind him".

Javier Moreno Luzón pointed out that Alfonso XIII "knew that handing over power to the military entailed a crucial political turnaround. The most important in Spain since the end of 1874, when another coup had facilitated the return of the Bourbon dynasty and the opening of a different stage, the Restoration. To validate that act of force questioned the moderating functions assigned to the monarch by the constitutional texts of 1876... Moreover, now the Government was not taken over by a caudillo at the service of a specific party, but by the army as a corporation. All of which would bring unforeseeable consequences".

According to the Israeli historian Shlomo Ben-Ami, "it is in Catalonia where the immediate origins of Primo de Rivera's coup must be sought. It was there that the bourgeoisie created the hysterical atmosphere that surrounded Primo de Rivera with the halo of "savior" and placed his rebellion, as a contemporary observer noted, in the general context of the anti-Bolshevik reaction that had also reached other European countries. Cambó, authentic representative of the Catalan high bourgeoisie, "the theoretician of the Spanish dictatorship", as Maurín called him, crudely exposed the yearning and responsibility of his class for the dictatorship: [...] "A society in which the demagogic [syndicalist] avalanche puts ideals and interests in grave danger will resign itself to everything as long as it feels protected..." [...] This does not mean, however, that there was a real danger of social revolution on the eve of Primo de Rivera's coup".