The revolt of an 87-year-old Majorcan military man

PalmaHe was short, but energetic. And, above all, he was loyal to the constitutional legality. The Majorcan military man Valerià Weyler did not like it at all that his colleague Miguel Primo de Rivera staged a coup d'état and became a dictator, with the approval of the monarch of the time, Alfonso XIII. He disliked it so much that, a century ago, in June 1926, at the age of 87, he led an attempt to overthrow Primo de Rivera and return to normality: the 'Santjoanada', so named because it was to take place on the 24th, Saint John's Day.

Weyler was heavily criticized - and rightly so - for his repressive actions as captain general in the then colony of Cuba, shortly before the war of 1898. This action was not incompatible with a deep-rooted democratic conviction and contrary, he said, to the 'barrack threat', the access of the military to power through coups d'état, which had been common in Spain throughout the 19th century.

Certainly, it started from a situation of deterioration. In 1917, a triple crisis had occurred: worker mobilization, military discontent, and the convocation of a frustrated assembly of dissident parliamentarians. To this were added the catastrophic effects of the First World War - that an armed conflict also affects those who do not participate is nothing new - and the Morocco issue with the disaster of Annual, a humiliating defeat of the Spanish army, whose prisoners had to be ransomed at a high price.

In this way, the discredit of the system was not strange, the usual peaceful rotation between liberals and conservatives, in elections that were certainly not very clean, and with a king with too much of a tendency to meddle in politics, which was then called 'borbonejar'. Some cried out for a savior, a 'surgeon of iron' to put order in that mess. It was beginning to become fashionable in Europe: Mussolini had taken power in Italy in 1922. Weyler himself was considered a possible candidate, even though he was already over 80 years old: he was a respected figure in the army and the only one with the rank of captain general. But he would never have accepted playing that role.

“The king is playing for the crown”

Primo de Rivera did consider that he could be the providential man –like Franco in the following decade–, and he sounded out Weyler to see if he would dare to participate in that adventure. He went to his house and spoke with him for two and a half hours; he explained to him that the army had to pull Spain out of chaos. When Primo finished his rambling, Weyler replied that he was faithful to his democratic convictions, that he had never revolted, and that peoples had to govern their own destinies. Primo left that meeting fuming, while Weyler commented to his aide: "I think the king is risking his crown." Primo made another attempt. In August 1923, when Weyler was on his way to Mallorca to spend his holidays, he stopped at the port of Barcelona to say goodbye, and insisted again. Without success.

The following month, Primo, then military governor of Catalonia, carried out his coup. The government immediately contacted the old general, who was still in Mallorca, and asked him if he remained loyal to the law. "Of course," he replied. He was immediately appointed as the new military commander of Catalonia: he was to move to Barcelona and relieve Primo of command. But the ship sent to transport him never arrived.

As Gabriel Cardona and Juan Carlos Losada observe, it was already Alfonso XIII who could stop the coup. 58 years later, on February 23, 1981, his grandson would find himself in a similar situation, and he chose to comply with the Constitution he had sworn to defend. Perhaps the grandson learned from his grandfather's blunder, who tied his fate to that of the dictator, and who would end up losing the crown. As Weyler had predicted.

It seems that Weyler's antipathy towards Primo de Rivera was not only political, but also personal. With the arrival of the new regime, he had lost his position as senator. The Annual incident was quickly covered up, when Weyler would have wanted the corresponding responsibilities to be investigated.

Despite two refusals to collaborate with him, Primo opted for a certain conciliatory attitude towards the old colleague. He appointed him to an important position: president of the Supreme Council of War and Navy. However, Weyler did not mince words in criticizing the dictator – in this he seemed very un-Majorcan: too much time living off the island. "As soon as the dictatorship ends, I will stick a saber through this chatterbox's belly," he assured. Nor did he hide his preferences: he attended a tribute to the liberal Sagasta, at which a group of politicians of this tendency, including the former president of the government, the Count of Romanones, expressed their criticisms of Primo and shouted cheers for freedom.

Weyler was summarily dismissed, by telegraph, while inspecting the naval base of Ferrol – at least they could have sent him a motorcyclist, as Franco did with the ministers he dismissed. Now he no longer needed to dissemble, although it is not that he had dissembled much either. From that moment on, he became involved in a conspiracy, the objective of which was to oust the dictator and re-establish constitutional legality.

Another Majorcan in the conspiracy

Then, the Majorcan military man had already reached 87 years of age, but he seemed to be in top form. So much so that around that same time, Cardona and Losada recount, he fell in love, like a schoolboy, with his goddaughter, who was forty years old, and wanted to marry her. His sons Ferran and Valerià, with the help of a priest, managed to get the idea out of his head, after much effort. They were not playing with the inheritance in vain.

Sentimental parenthesis aside, the scope of the plot was very broad: military men, conservative politicians, liberals – like Romanones himself – and republicans, the prominent intellectual and doctor Gregorio Marañón, and even anarchists. The revolt was to break out on June 24, 1926, Saint John's Day, hence it was known as the ‘Santjoanada’.

The old general offered his house in Madrid as a headquarters for the conspirators' meetings. A small, well-disguised door connected the room to his son Ferran's chambers. In this way, the conspirators could easily flee if the Police suddenly burst in.

Another Majorcan firmly opposed to the dictatorship, the student leader Antoni M. Sbert, future minister of the Republican Generalitat, also participated in that conspiracy. The writer Max Aub recreates, in his narrative El carrer de Valverde, how he would have been recruited for the ‘Santjoanada’, with the aim that he and his colleagues would take charge of the communications palace facilities, in Madrid, to control this strategic aspect.

That Saint John's Day, Weyler had prudently retired to Mallorca, to see how it all ended. The rebels' manifesto, to which Weyler had given his approval, was read at the military casino in the capital of the State. And... nothing more. The implicated officers remained expectant. Sbert, Aub recreates, saw how all his colleagues had disappeared. The revolt had failed.

Weyler was imposed a fine of one hundred thousand pesetas – a lot of money back then – which, according to Losada and Cardona, fell on him “like a hundred thousand stabs,” as he had a reputation for being stingy. The same, to Marañón. Half a million pesetas, to Romanones. The old soldier did not want to pay it, so his current accounts and properties were seized.

The Majorcan general was subjected to trial: they asked for six years in prison. Before the tribunal, he denied having signed the manifesto, but admitted that he knew its content, and added that he agreed with it. He was acquitted and they had to return the money that had already been taken from his allowance.

Not even then did Weyler stop opposing the dictatorship. When Primo de Rivera, already facing strong opposition on all fronts, addressed the high commands to request their support, the old soldier was enraged. He drafted a letter, addressed to Alfonso XIII, in which he reminded him of his constitutional duties, which he had failed to fulfill. And he stated that the army was the most harmed by the “usurpation” that the dictatorship represented.

The ‘Santjoanada’ had failed. But that letter, dated January 28, 1930, had a devastating effect. On that very day, Primo de Rivera presented his resignation and left for exile. Of course, not only because of that letter. But it was the final blow for a regime in disarray.

Weyler died not much later, on October 20 of that 1930, in Madrid, at 92 years of age. He had had the satisfaction of surviving the dictatorship. Only a few months later, the following April, the monarchy also fell. The prediction of the Majorcan military man had been fulfilled: the king had gambled with the crown... and lost it.

Information elaborated from texts by Gabriel Cardona and Juan Carlos Losada, Joan Santaner Marí, Hilario Martín Jiménez, Javier Tusell, Susana Sueiro Seoane, Max Aub, Antoni Marimon Riutort and Eladio Baldovín Ruiz