Oldal 87 [87]
JULIO PONCE ALBERCA
ties to king Alfonso XIII. Despite the swiftness of the Lieutenant Colonel’s
dismissal, years later the fleet was still far from being rebuilt, according to
senator and Vice-Admiral Victor Concas y Palau”.
Given such hatred of ‘politicians’, it is little wonder that the military
started to be seen as a group of truly honest men who could save the country.
An anonymous author wrote a book in defence of General Weyler’s Cuban
campaign, denouncing irregularities in the Defence budget:
In these budgets, changing figures were assigned, decreasing yearly, for the
purchase of war material and fortification works, and most of the time they were
not used for the purposes they had been assigned for... [so that] only a fraction
of what is assigned in official government budgets to such ends has actually been
devoted to them”.
While this was happening with the Defence budget, the island of Cuba was
being denied the autonomy it clamoured for. In the absence of any reforms
and under a fiercely centralized model, the longing for independence grew, as
Sabas Catä had warned in 1895”. And the same deficiencies of the state that
had fostered such feelings in the colonies fueled the desire for autonomy of
areas of Spain with regional peculiarities (Catalonia and the Basque Country).
A good example of this was Valenti Almirall’s work El Catalanismo, extolling
the differential character of the Catalan people, their language and their
culture. But underneath all this lay a deeply ingrained dissatisfaction with a
state that offered no adequate response to Catalonia’s interests. Almirall felt
little to no identification with the Spanish state, against which he drew up a
list of grievances and complaints in the following vein:
The administration, government and judiciary are in the same situation as our
language and laws. While it is true that we are allowed provincial and local councils,
David Rubio Marquez: La denuncia de prevaricaciön como forma de desgastar a un gobierno:
el caso Juan Macias del Real, Espacio, Tiempo y Forma. Serie V. Historia Contemporanea, 2014,
474-434; Fernando de Bordejé y Morencos: Vicisitudes de una politica naval:antecedentes:
desarrollo de la Armada entre 1898 y 1936, Madrid, San Martin, 1978; Javier Âlvarez Laita:
Implicaciones industriales del Plan de Escuadra Maura-Ferrändiz, AA.VV.: Plan Ferrandiz:
Poder Naval Poder Maritimo. Cuadernos monograficos del Instituto de Historia y Cultura
Naval, Madrid, Instituto de Historia y Cultura Naval, 2008, 65-86; Clive Trebilcock:
Legends ofthe British Armament Industry 1890-1914: A Revision, Journal of Contemporary
History, Vol. 5, 1970, 3-19. This author points out how bribery was used in Spain by Vickers—
Armstrong to gain advantages for the company (mainly page 16); Victor Maria Concas y
Palau: El proyecto de escuadra al Senado, Madrid, La Majiana, 1914.
Apuntes en defensa del honor del ejército, Madrid, Est. Tipografico de Ricardo Fe, 1898,
16-17.
Sabas B. Catä: Verdades amargas. Exposicién de los males que afligen a Cuba, causas
que lo determinan y remedios que se aconsejan para su salvaciön, Habana, Imprenta La
Constancia, 1895.
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