On Christmas Eve 1874 a Spanish general, Martínez Campos, halted the handful of troops that he commanded by an olive grove under the hill of Saguntum and made a speech at the end of which he proclaimed Alfonso XII king of Spain. The ragged conscripts, led by their sergeants, cheered. A few officers, who remembered they had sworn loyalty to the Republic, fell out. The rest, with shining eyes, dreaming of new uniforms and of promotion, remounted their horses and the column continued its march to Valencia. The last sixty years had seen a great many pronunciamientos of this sort – on an average one every twenty months – but none that was more successful. The First Republic fell without a shot being fired to defend it and a few weeks later the young king, then a cadet at Sandhurst, landed at Barcelona.

The man to whom the Restoration was due was not, however, a general. The coup d’état had been premature – the result of a competition between Army commanders to obtain the honour. The real architect of the new order was a Conservative politician, Don Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, who, ever since it had become clear that the revolution of 1868 would fail, had been carefully preparing it. He at once assumed the leadership of the provisional government and began the difficult work of drawing up the new Constitution – the sixth of that century – which was to last until Primo de Rivera over-threw it.