Alphonse XII (the Peacemaker) was king of Spain. He was born on November 28, 1857 in Madrid . Son of Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Francisco de Asís, with whom he went to France, when the Revolution of 1868 took place. On June 25, 1870, his mother abdicated, in him, all the rights to the Crown of Spain. Since Isabel II was dethroned, Antonio Cánovas del Castillo (1828-1897), at the head of the Alfonsino Party, and seconded by General Arsenio Martínez de Campos (1831-1900), did not stop working to achieve the restoration of the dynasty of the Bourbons in Spain, in the person of Prince Don Alfonso; This work resulted in the fact that, at the end of the First Republic, the Alfonsino Party was very numerous, having many supporters in politics and in the army, as well as much sympathy among the population.
General Manuel Pavía y Rodríguez de Albuquerque (1827-1895), on January 3, 1874, after ending the First Republic, telegraphed the Spanish civil and military authorities, both those who were in Spain and those who were abroad, and explained to them what had just happened, and that he was going to hand over power to the representatives of the political parties (except for the Carlists and the Federals, because they were at war). He immediately gathered the captain generals of the army and the heads of the political parties and handed over power to them; then a government composed of representatives of various tendencies was formed.
General Serrano (Duke de la Torre) held the presidency of the executive power; he suspended constitutional guarantees, got the countries of Europe to recognize this new government and imposed order. Then the members of the Alfonsino Party, among whom were several generals, intensified their activity; Once they had decided to proclaim Prince Alfonso, General Martínez de Campos wanted to do it through a military uprising; but Cánovas del Castillo had decided to do it in the Cortes, so that the act would be more in accordance with legality; but, on December 23, 1874, General Luis Dabán y Ramírez de Arellano (1841-1892) sent a letter to General Martínez de Campos pressuring him to start the agreed plan; this ended up deciding the said general, to act on his own account, without counting on Cánovas del Castillo. Therefore, on the night of December 28, General Martínez de Campos left Madrid and went to Sagunto (Valencia), which is where General Dabán was, leading his brigade, General Martínez de Campos, in the morning following, proclaimed Alfonso XII king of Spain; The movement was immediately joined by the captains general of the Center, Joaquín Jovellar (1819-1892) and that of Madrid, Fernando Primo de Rivera y Sobremonte (1831-1912), who notified the Government that the Madrid army was adhering to the uprising of Sagunto, because Spain was favorable to Don Alfonso and because of the increase that the Carlist Party had taken. .
At the moment that General Serrano became aware of that proclamation, he had Calvo Sotelo arrested, who was arrested and taken to the offices of the Civil Government; but, on the night of December 31, 1874, he left there to go to the Ministry of War and form a provisional government, called the Ministry of Regency, for which he showed the members of the Alfonsino Party gathered there, the powers that Isabel II had granted him in 1873, which all complied with. The previous government was dissolved and General Serrano went to France. Alfonso XII, who was then in the Teresian College of Vienna, went to Paris and, on January 7, 1875, embarked in Marseilles, in the war frigate Navas de Tolosa; on the 9th, he arrived in Barcelona; on the 11th, to Valencia and, on the 14th, to Madrid. The king assembled a Board of notables, which he commissioned to write a draft Constitution, in which the universal suffrage with which the new Cortes would be elected was stated. Alfonso XII immediately marched to the North, so that the new Cortes would be elected. Alfonso XII immediately marched to the North, to put himself at the head of the army that was fighting against the Carlists. Later he returned to Madrid and opened, on February 16, 1876, the first Cortes of his reign, from which he received the democratic sanction, which Cánovas del Castillo longed for. Alfonso XII immediately returned to appear at the head of the army of the North against the Carlists; but, when that war ended quickly, the Carlist claimant (Carlos María de los Dolores) went abroad defeated on February 27, 1876, and Alfonso XII returned to Madrid on the following March 20; and, on June 30, he signed the new Constitution of 1876 , which replaced that of 1869. On July 21, 1876, the Cortes approved a law that abolished the privileges of the three Basque provinces. General Martínez de Campos went to war in Cuba, which ended in the Peace of Zanjón; agreement negotiated on the bases agreed upon by General Martínez de Campos with the Government of Spain, and which was signed on February 10, 1878 at the San Agustín Camp, in Puerto Rico. Through this Agreement, the island of Cuba was granted the same political and administrative conditions as the island of Puerto Rico:forgetfulness of political crimes committed since 1868, freedom for slaves, etc., although the slavers managed to maintain foot slavery until after the reign of Alfonso XII.
Marriages of Alfonso XII
On January 23, 1878, he married his first cousin María de las Mercedes de Orleáns y Borbón (1860-1878), daughter of Infante Antonio de Orleáns and María Luisa de Borbón (sister of Queen Elizabeth II), who died June 26, 1878; her death caused great sorrow, not only to the king, but also to the people, who still remember her in popular romances. On November 29, 1879, the King married, for the second time, María Cristina Descada Enriqueta Felicidad Ramera (Archduchess of Austria-Este-Modena), born in 1858, daughter of Archduke Carlos Fernando of Austria and Isabel, Archduchess of Austria. -East-Modena. From this marriage were born:María de las Mercedes (September 11, 1880 – October 17, 1904), María Teresa (November 12, 1882 – September 23, 1912) and Alfonso XIII, posthumous son. In addition, he had, with the opera singer Elena Sanz, two bastard children born in Paris:Alfonso Sanz (in 1880) and Fernando Sanz (in 1881).
Attack and death of King Alfonso XII
On October 25, 1878, Oliva Moncusí attempted against the king by firing a pistol shot at him in Madrid's Calle Mayor; but without achieving his goal; having been captured, he confessed that he had come four days before from Tarragona, to kill the king. On November 25, 1885, Alfonso XII died in the palace of El Pardo (Madrid) due to tuberculosis. For having concluded the third Carlist war and that of Cuba, he was given the nickname of El Pacifier.