The crisis of 1917 is the name that Spanish historians have given to the series of events that took place in the summer of 1917 in Spain. In particular, three simultaneous challenges threatened the government and the system of the Restoration: a military movement, a political movement and a social movement. These events coincided with a number of critical international events that same year. However, in world history this period is not typically referred to as a crisis, and the term is instead reserved for specific issues relating to World War I, such as the conscription crisis in Canada and the crisis of naval construction in the United States. Spain remained neutral throughout the conflict.
The Slava, a Russian warship, crippled by the Germans in the Baltic Sea.
The Valencian garden shed. These poor, traditional, rural constructions represented the structural backwardness of agriculture in Spain and the miserable living conditions of most of the population. Vicente Blasco Ibáñez denounced these conditions in his novels, La Barraca (1898) and Cañas y Barro (1902). Emigrants to urban and industrial areas such as Catalonia, Basque Country, and Madrid were becoming a more organized, class conscious proletariat.
Alfonso XIII in a Hussar Captain's Uniform, by Joaquín Sorolla. Although this portrait was painted in 1907, ten years before the crisis, it demonstrates the young Bourbon's attempt to identify himself with the army. Alfonso XIII was the posthumous son of Alfonso XII, the Peacemaker, who was crowned by military proclamation after the Sexenio Democrático. Alfonso XIII was crowned when he reached adulthood in 1902 and married in 1906. He survived an assassination attempt after the wedding, when anarchist
Cartoon of President Eduardo Dato in La Campana de Gracia of Barcelona, titled "The Political Death of Mr. Dato." The caption reads: "You can't escape this one, Eduardito."
1917 Spanish general strike
The 1917 Spanish general strike, or revolutionary general strike of 1917, refers to the general strike that took place in Spain in August 1917. It was called by the General Union of Workers (UGT) and the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), and in some places it was supported by the National Confederation of Labor (CNT). The general strike took place in the historical context of the Crisis of 1917, during the reign of Alfonso XIII and the government of Eduardo Dato.
Eduardo Dato, the Prime minister of Spain during the crisis of 1917
Ángel Pestaña, one of the leaders of the CNT during the 1917 general strike
Francisco Largo Caballero, one of the leaders of the UGT during the 1917 general strike
Julián Besteiro, Daniel Anguiano, Andrés Saborit and Francisco Largo Caballero in the Cartagena prison, photographed by Campúa (1918)
