First Spanish Republic - The Unitary Republic

The Unitary Republic

At the same time as the political convulsions were taking place, General López Domínguez entered into Cartagena on 12 January, replacing Martínez Campos, while Antonete Gálvez, with more than a thousand men, struggled to elude him near the border of Numancia (Numantia) and set course for Orán, (Algeria). The end of the cantonal experience was marked by Gálvez with his exile, but the Bourbon Restoration permitted him through amnesty to return to his native Torreagüera. In this period he would strike up a strange and warm friendship with Don Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, most responsible for the Restoration, who considered Gálvez a sincere, honorable, and valiant man, although one of exaggerated political ideas.

Meanwhile, after Emilio Castelar's refusal to continue as president, he put General Serrano, recently returned from his exile in Biarritz for his implication in the attempted coup of 23 April, in charge of the formation of a coalition government that grouped together monarchists, conservatives, and unitarian republicans, but excluded federalist republicans.

Francisco Serrano, Duke of Torre, 63 years old, former collaborator of Isabel II, had already twice freed the leadership of the state. He proclaimed the Unitary Republic, taking control of the presidency of the Executive Power, and dispensing with the Cortes in a conservative republican dictatorship. During his mandate he once and for all subdued the cantonal insurrections, and that of Cartagena, and concentrated his forces on the Carlist War in the north of Spain. The general attempted without success to consolidate power to himself in dictatorship form, following the example of the regime of dukes and generals that prevailed in France upon the fall of Napoleon III and after the defeat of the Paris Commune.

In just a few months, on 13 May, Serrano ceded the presidency of the government to Juan de Zavala y de la Puente to personally take control of the operations against the Carlists in the north. Práxedes Mateo Sagaste took charge of the government on 3 September. On 10 December the siege of Pamplona began, but it was interrupted by the Proclamation of Sagunto.