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Spain and Argentina in the First
World War

This is the first book that analyses the transnational impact of the Great
War simultaneously on two countries, Spain and Argentina, that remained
neutral throughout the conflict. Both countries were very relevant in the
conception of propaganda and policies of belligerent countries such as
France, Germany, and Great Britain and showed that the conflict had a
global influence on and affected deeply local political and cultural processes,
even in areas geographically distant from the trenches.
Within this framework, this book is focused on three aspects that are analysed
dynamically throughout the whole war from a transnational perspective:
neutrality as a space of dispute between pro-Allies and pro-German sectors
and its relation with local politics, the debate about what positions should be
assumed in order to guarantee a world without war, and the polemics on the
ideas of nations and supra-nations (Hispanism, Latinism, Pan-Americanism).
The conclusions of the book highlight that the radicalization that exploded in
1917 in both countries was fundamental in shaping the political radicalization
of the last months of the conflict and the post-war period. As happened
in Europe, the Great War did not finish in 1918 and its traces continued in the
1920s and the 1930s.

Maximiliano Fuentes Codera is Associate Professor at the University of

Girona.
Routledge Studies in First World War History
Series Editor by John Bourne
The University of Birmingham, UK

The First World War is a subject of perennial interest to historians and is

often regarded as a watershed event, marking the end of the nineteenth
century and the beginning of the ‘modern’ industrial world. The sheer scale
of the conflict and massive loss of life means that it is constantly being
assessed and reassessed to examine its lasting military, political, sociologi-
cal, industrial, cultural, and economic impact. Reflecting the latest interna-
tional scholarly research, the Routledge Studies in First World War History
series provides a unique platform for the publication of monographs on all
aspects of the Great War. Whilst the main thrust of the series is on the mili-
tary aspects of the conflict, other related areas (including cultural, visual,
literary, political, and social) are also addressed. Books published are aimed
primarily at a post-graduate academic audience, furthering exciting recent
interpretations of the war, whilst still being accessible enough to appeal to a
wider audience of educated lay readers.

Reflections on the Commemoration of the First World War

Perspectives from the Former British Empire
Edited by David Monger and Sarah Murray

The Ottoman Army and the First World War

Mesut Uyar

Renegotiating First World War Memory

The British and American Legions, 1938–1946
Ashley Garber

Spain and Argentina in the First World War

Transnational Neutralities
Maximiliano Fuentes Codera

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/

history/series/WWI
Spain and Argentina in the
First World War
Transnational Neutralities

Maximiliano Fuentes Codera

First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2021 Maximiliano Fuentes Codera
The right of Maximiliano Fuentes Codera to be identified as author
of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78
of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
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retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Fuentes Codera, Maximiliano, author.
Title: Spain and Argentina in the First World War : transnational
neutralities / Maximiliano Fuentes Codera.
Description: London ; New York, NY : Routledge/Taylor & Francis
Group, 2021.
Subjects: LCSH: World War, 1914–1918—Spain. | Neutrality—
Spain—History—20th century. | Spain—Politics and
government—1886–1931. | World War, 1914–1918—Argentina. |
Neutrality—Argentina—History—20th century. | Argentina—
Politics and government—1910–1943. | World War, 1914–1918—
Diplomatic history. | World War, 1914–1918—Historiography.
Classification: LCC D611 .F84 2021 (print) | LCC D611 (ebook) |
DDC 940.3/46—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020045882
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020045883
ISBN: 978-1-138-34295-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-43950-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents

Acknowledgementsvi
List of abbreviationsviii

1 Introduction: neutralities and transnational history 1

2 Spain and Argentina before 1914 14

3 The outbreak of the war and the question

of neutrality 24

4 The war enters both countries 64

5 The year of rupture: 1917 105

6 The end of the war: towards a new world? 152

7 Epilogue: the traces of the war 195

Index209
Acknowledgements

This book was written, thanks to a project carried out with the Leonard
Scholarship for Researchers and Cultural Creators 2017 of the BBVA Foun-
dation, and concludes a long research process.1 During more than five years,
I have had the privilege to work in archives and libraries of different cities.
Buenos Aires, Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin, New York, and Paris welcomed me
for weeks and months in a still unfinished research of materials so I could
formulate my ideas. From the beginning of my research, on these trips and
others, the conversations with colleagues and friends have been crucial for
improving the arguments of this book. Without them, without the debates
that took place in their seminars with their students and PhD students, the
approaches that I have presented here would not have been developed.
In this sense, this book is also a collective work. For this reason, my first
acknowledgements are for Stefan Rinke, Oliver Janz, John Horne, Neville
Wylie, Federico Finchelstein, Xosé Manoel Núñez Seixas, Ángel Alcalde,
Javier Rodrigo, David Alegre, António Costa Pinto, Annarita Gori, Patricio
Geli, Emiliano Sánchez, Javier Moreno Luzón, Marcela García Sebastiani,
José Álvarez Junco, Eduardo González Calleja, Ismael Saz, Ferran Archilés,
and Katarzyna Stoklosa. My first articulations around the themes studied
here were presented and debated in the middle of a research project that
I have directed in the past years, ‘La patria hispana, la raza latina. Intelec-
tuales, identidades colectivas y proyectos políticos entre España, Italia y
Argentina’ (HAR2016–75324-P). I owe a great deal to the researchers who
participated in it, and I feel obliged to acknowledge their contributions,
especially Carolina García Sanz, one of the most prominent Spanish spe-
cialists in the First World War studies, Patrizia Dogliani, a very relevant
researcher on fascism and socialism – among other subjects – and Ángel
Duarte, a friend and a great historian of republicanism. In the development
of this book – in its life journey, which is also mine – two of my closest
friends that this profession has gifted me have been fundamental, for aca-
demic reasons as well as personal ones, Paula Bruno and Leandro Losada.
The collaboration of Arnau Mayans and my group of colleagues from the
University of Girona has been very important. Among them, I would like
to acknowledge my friends Francesc Montero and Lluís Serrano. Lastly,
 Acknowledgements vii
I would like to acknowledge Natalia Fernández, translator of the English
version of this work.
On both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, I owe a great deal to my friends who
have accompanied me in the complex process of elaborating these pages, as
well as my parents, who have always been there, eternally determined, and
my sister, Sole, a heroic companion. My sons, Fausto and Oliverio, have
been and are a lot more important than they imagine. In a certain way, as in
everything I do, these pages are for them. Even though they may not know
it, this book also exists thanks to my life shared with Nil and Hiram. The
architect of these shared lives, mine, ours, and this book, is Mònica. With
her, the afternoons are always full of chords and music. Hopefully, our years
together will bring us more books that I can dedicate to you. Like I have
done with this one.
Maximiliano Fuentes Codera
Sant Jordi Desvalls, September 2020

Note
1 The Foundation accepts no responsibility for the opinions, statements, and con-
tents included in the project and/or the results thereof, which are entirely the
responsibility of the authors.
Abbreviations

AHCA Archivo Histórico de la Cancillería Argentina, Fondo Subsec-

ción 33, Primera Guerra Mundial (Argentina)
AHCAE Archivo Histórico de la Cancillería Argentina, Fondo Embajada
en Madrid I (Argentina)
AHN  Archivo Histórico Nacional, Sección Ministerio de Asuntos
Exteriores, I Guerra Mundial (Spain)
AHNI Archivo Histórico Nacional, Sección Ministerio del Interior A
(Spain)
AMAE  Ministère des Affaires Étrangères Archive, Correspondance
politique et commerciale, Guerre 1914–1918, Espagne (France)
1 Introduction
Neutralities and transnational
history

On 8 July 1962, Charles De Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer were in Reims.

Both Catholics attended a mass at the historical site, a place of remem-
brance. They were not inside the cathedral because the French kings lay
there. Their presence in that city, destroyed by the Germans during the First
World War, commemorated the capitulation of the Third Reich that had
been signed before the Allies on 7 May 1945. This solemn act, which was
part of a policy that would end up establishing the cornerstone for the con-
struction of Europe, showed the multiple lines of continuity between the
two world wars.
Fifty years after the Élysée Treaty, on 22 January 2019 in Aachen, Angela
Merkel and Emmanuel Macron were staging the umpteenth attempt to revi-
talize a European Union going through difficult times. The appeal to Charle-
magne was linked there to a recovery of the cooperative spirit of De Gaulle
and Adenauer. It was, in fact, a policy that a few months earlier, during the
centennial celebration of the armistice of the Great War, had moments of
great solemnity. On 10 November 2018, both leaders met in the Rethondes
forest, near Compiègne, inside a carriage that was the same model as the
one that had been used in 1918 – and that Hitler had brought to Berlin in
1940 to make the French sign their defeat – and they signed a short text in
two languages on the last page of the Golden Book of the Armistice. There,
Macron could be heard explaining to the choir children, that sang the Hymn
of Joy, and highlighting, the ‘long period of peace that Europe has lived since
1945’.1 The central act of commemorating the end of the war took place
under the Arc de Triomphe of Paris the following day. The most important
world leaders met in the French capital. On a day marked by multilateral-
ism, the French prime minister made a speech mémoriel in which he called
combat pour la paix against le repli, la violence et la domination2 and, in
defence of ‘patriotism’, harshly criticized the ‘nationalisms’ that had led to
the war and that seemed to re-emerge in Europe and the world.3
This recognition of concord and peace was at the base of one of the
acts related to the Great War in Argentina. On 11 November 2018,
a door was opened connecting British and German cemeteries located
in a neighbourhood called Chacarita in the city of Buenos Aires. A space
2 Introduction
was opened in a long wall that divided both national spaces since the end
of the Second World War. The inscription on one of the plaques placed by
the Buenos Aires City Legislature in commemoration of the 1918 armistice
claimed that the wall had been demolished and a ‘Ceremonial Gate’ had
been erected as a symbol of the ‘fraternal union’ between both countries.4
In general terms, during the over four years that have elapsed between
August 2014 and November 2018, in cultural and political settings the
overall trend has been very close to the pro-European aims and tolerance
that De Gaulle and Adenauer pointed to more than 50 years ago and the
necessities of the European Union have once again been put on the table.
However, despite this appearance of unanimity, with Pierre Nora – toute
commémoration est une transformation de l’événement passé au service des
besoins du présent (any commemoration is a transformation of the past at
the service of the needs of the present)5 – it is necessary to emphasize that
the collective memory of the war and its end continues to be contradictory,
and in it several layers of commemorations coexist. Indeed, at least two
memory regimes, a secular and a sacred one, seem to face each other. In the
western and central parts of Europe, memories have focused on a secu-
lar vision marked by the demand for human rights and the rejection of
violence. In contrast to these kinds of memories, in Russia, Turkey, and
Armenia the use of religious concepts and naming the dead as martyrs
rather than as victims reflect this divergence.6 Likewise, various memo-
ries coexist within each country, which further complicates the analysis of
commemorations.7
In this complex coexistence of national and transnational memories, the
memory of the impact of the war on Spain was also established. Even though
some institutions and journals recuperated the figure of King Alfonso XIII
and his humanitarian contribution, even more interesting was what occurred
in Catalonia. There, with the independence process in full swing, both from
the cultural political circles and from the official institutions, an attempt was
made to recover the role of the volunteers who fought in the Foreign Legion
with presentism overtones. This was seen on public television program – in
harmony with the independence theory – that mixed documentary and fic-
tion and based its story on the adventures of these fighters and their role as
precursors of the independence movement.8 This process of building an offi-
cial and ‘interventionist’ memory culminated in the official visit of the foreign
minister, Raül Romeva, to Belloy-en-Santerre, a small French town that had
been the place of the Battle of the Somme, on 4 July 2016. The fact that some
Catalan volunteers – including the poet Camil Campanyà – lost their lives
there and that Barcelona’s City Council helped reconstruct the town after
the war allowed Romeva to sustain that the Catalan volunteers had fought
in the name of principis i valors universals (principles and universal values)
and against authoritarianism. Their struggle for an independent Catalonia,
the minister concluded, was combined with the demand expressed by the
Catalan government in 2016. Both moments, 1916 and 2016, were part of
 Introduction 3
a long fight for Catalonia to have veu propia al món (an own voice in the
world).9 As John Horne had recalled four years earlier, ‘commemorations are
rooted in the present’.10
The academic debates on the First World War, of course, have not been
oblivious to the world and to European political evolution. In a certain
way, they have always navigated between interpretation and commemora-
tion. Throughout the 100 years since 1914, analysis of the war has passed
through various generations of historians: ‘the Great War generation’,
the generation ‘50 years on’, and the ‘Vietnam generation’, which include
important figures like Paul Fussell, John Keegan, and Eric Leed. During
these years, the historical interests went from diplomatic and military to
more social historical interests, ultimately arriving at a cultural interpreta-
tion, understood in a broad sense.11 In the last three decades, and based on
the adoption of this ‘cultural turn’, studies have been encouraged and, with
it, research perspectives have opened exponentially: the impact of the war
on education, journalism, literature and artistic representations, the image
of the enemy, propaganda and stereotypes, ‘cultures of war’, mobilization
and demobilization phenomena, mourning and memory, the occupation of
space and ‘memorialization’, and the role of intellectuals have been some
of the topics addressed.12 In this scenario, in tune with Adenauer and De
Gaulle’s aspirations, various projects organized at the Museum of the Great
War in Péronne have insisted on the need to build a shared European vision
through the museum itself and through various editorial initiatives.13 Simul-
taneously, and closely related to this process, an increasingly global vision
of the conflict began to spread. In this framework, the study of neutral
countries – and that of Spain among them – has emerged with remarkable
strength in the last decade, possibly – or at least partially – thanks to edito-
rial needs during the centennials. As can be seen in the constantly evolving
bibliographic listing of the International Society for First World War Stud-
ies, in contrast with some years ago, articles and books written about the
countries that formally maintained themselves apart from the conflict are
quite abundant.14
Unlike the latest contributions, which incorporate a European and often
global vision, most of the works that had characterized historiography until
recently were dominated by a strongly Eurocentric vision of the conflict.
Not only the main works of economic and military history – with some
notable exceptions, such as the works of Hew Strachan and Gerd Hardach –
but also classic works of cultural history, such as those of Paul Fussell,
Eric Leed, or Modris Eksteins, had focused on Western Europe, and they
had predominantly shown national visions, or at best comparisons. Thus,
navigating from the images of the trenches to public opinion, diplomacy,
national responsibilities, and consensus or lack thereof, historiography
seemed to remain largely within narrow continental limits. In general, as a
category, the nation only managed to capture its own expressions and left
out all the aspects that related it to the dynamics of war, which could only
4 Introduction
be understood in an international sense. This was a perspective that Jay
Winter and Jean-Louis Robert had confronted early in their first volume on
European capitals.15
Since the turn of the century, various authors have highlighted the need to
broaden their vision. John Horne warned in 2011: ‘The paradox is that the
nation-state and national efforts were central to the First World War but in
order to understand how and why was so, national frameworks are insuf-
ficient.’ For many reasons, from the imperial and ‘pre-national’ forms that
dominated a significant part of the world to the ‘totalization’ of the conflict,
he affirmed that understanding the conflict required ‘a sense of different
national trajectories that only a comparative sensitivity can measure just as
it calls for a willingness to look in transnational terms at the processes at
work’.16 It had to be considered that the war had been, among many other
things, an imperial conflict in which nations and nationalities were pro-
foundly questioned and affected.
At the same pace as a significant part of historiography, which seemed to
be moving towards transnational and global approaches, the general visions
of the war also began to broaden their spectrum.17 In this framework, the
work of John Horne, Companion to World War I, featured the most bal-
anced coverage of national stages and theatres of war.18 It was no coinci-
dence: the same year that this work appeared, Hew Strachan published an
article in the first number of First World War Studies, the journal of the
International Society for First World War Studies, that traced the history of
the successive denominations of the war, from the ‘Third Balkan War’ to the
‘Great War’, to conclude by calling it ‘global war’.19 In tune with Strachan,
the proceedings of the biannual congresses published by this society showed
from the beginning a thematic as well as geographic evolution, analysing
from the mobilizations in less central regions to national identities and the
experiences of war, which has come to dominate the historiography.
This internationalization of research had been building since the beginning
of the twenty-first century.20 With the centennial, the trend of the simultane-
ous transnational and global approaches became dominant. In this sense, it
was probably Oliver Janz who provided the best global vision of the war,
combining military, social, cultural, and political aspects and articulating
at the same time a global and unique explanation. Abandoning a viewpoint
often focused exclusively on the Western Front, he clearly showed how
regions far from Europe, especially Africa and Asia, had been profoundly
affected by the war. Also, from a comparative approach, he highlighted the
differences between the main belligerent countries in relation to censorship
and the memorialist processes after the conflict.21
Probably the most relevant project in this development is the 1914 –1918
Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War, which started
in 2014 and which in six years has managed to show the ­enormous poten-
tial of a transnational perspective by complementing strictly national,
regional, and continental entries with other themes and historiography. Led
by O­ liver Janz and with a team made up of the world’s leading specialists
 Introduction 5
in each of the fields, this is the largest and most comprehensive project we
currently have.22
In this framework, the publication of the three volumes, The Cam-
bridge History of the First World War, ‘canonized’ the transnational and
global interpretation of the war. In the introduction to this work Jay Win-
ter affirmed that this new global vision of the conflict was inscribed in a
fourth generation of historians, the ‘transnational generation’, to which
he attributed a global perspective, a tendency to think of war ‘in more
than European terms and to see the conflict as trans-European, transat-
lantic and beyond’. It was about incorporating colonial, imperial, decolo-
nial, and peripheral elements. Based on the perspectives of transnational
history, he affirmed that the classic view focused on international rela-
tions should be abandoned: ‘Transnational history does not start with
one state and move on to others, but takes multiple levels of historical
experience as given, levels which are both below and above the national
level.’ Naturally, this vision was closely related to the perspective of the
Museum of the Great War in Péronne, where Winter himself participated
from the start and from where the editorial board came about to create
this volume.23
Since 2014, books and monographs that had as their goal to de-­
Europeanize the war multiplied and made it a global phenomenon.24 In fact,
it is a development that had revealed a certain exhaustion of national and
Eurocentric views and that, given the difficulty of explaining phenomena
such as the Armenian genocide and the presence of soldiers and workers
from the colonies, had begun to use new analysis methodologies.25 Although
we still do not have a global vision of the non-central countries, the need to
connect what happened in Europe with the territories previously considered
irrelevant or ‘peripheral’ has begun to be highlighted by some important
works.26 As a published volume focusing on the memories of the Balkans
and other parts of Eastern and Central Europe revealed, there was a shift
away from Western Europe as the centre of the analysis. This work opened
a path on unexplored terrain, and following the dominant approaches in
historiography, it proposed to make visible the stories of the Eastern Fronts,
the Balkans, and the Italian fronts and to analyse them, which to a certain
extent constituted the ‘Unknown War’.27 The same can be said of works
that have tackled other scenarios while still assuming a certain combina-
tion of analytical cultural, military, and political perspectives.28 Thus, new
regions and new topics, previously considered peripheral, began to become
the centre of the concerns of numerous researchers who, in turn, showed
the potential of the international scientific networks that had begun to be
connected before 2014.29
In this framework, it seems impossible to study most phenomena without
resorting to global or at least regional approaches, from the processes of
displacement and internment to crucial years – or months – such as 1917.30
Questioning interpretative frameworks that made excessively rigid distinc-
tions between the epicentre of the conflict, low-intensity combat zones (Italy,
6 Introduction
Greece, the Caucasus, Mesopotamia, Palestine), and neutral countries that
had remained on the fringes of the war, various authors have highlighted
the profound impact of the conflict on regions and continents that have
been minimally analysed. This was demonstrated by The Cambridge His-
tory of the First World War, which included various chapters on Asia, Latin
America, Africa, and the Ottoman Empire in its first volume entitled Global
War. In this framework, transnational phenomena such as volunteerism and
forced population displacements during and after the war occurred – close
to a million Indian soldiers and workers served in Palestine and Mesopota-
mia, nearly half a million colonial soldiers fought in Europe, three million
Canadians arrived in France – and began to emerge as study themes.31
This global perspective has been closely related to another thematic
and methodological innovation. In the last decade, numerous works have
emphasized the need to review the classic chronology of the Great War to
expand it.32 Following a phenomenon also applied to the Second World
War,33 the globalization of the war has led to a longer time sequence, which
has been extended to the years between 1911 and 1923 in order to integrate
the analysis of colonial wars alongside European wars, civil wars, revo-
lutions, political violence, and genocides such as the Armenian.34 In 2014
Robert Gerwarth and Erez Manela raised it programmatically when they
questioned two assumptions that had marked ‘classical’ historiography:
firstly, that the war had started in August 1914 and that it had ended in the
Compiègne forest and, secondly, that it had only been a conflict between
European nation-states. To address this, as a result, the chronology was
extended and the conflict thought about in global terms, that is, as a confla-
gration between multi-ethnic empires.35 Likewise, this chronological expan-
sion has led to the emergence of studies on ‘cultures of defeat’ and ‘cultures
of victory’,36 focused on the study of the legacies of violence and the role
it played in political terms. The war began earlier in the Balkans, Ottoman
Libya, and Ireland than in Western Europe – and earlier there than in some
parts of Asia or Latin America – and ended at different times according to
the zones, because the processes of ‘cultural demobilization’ were certainly
different in each national and regional scenario. It is worth remembering,
it did not end in November 1918: between this year and 1923 nearly four
million people died, most of them outside the borders of Western Europe.37
To a certain extent, the negotiations in Paris marked the end of the war, but
peace did not begin until the Locarno agreements in 1925.
The Great War was not only experienced as the first mass event of the
twentieth century, it was also the first to be experienced practically in real
time by most of the world’s population. In 1914, the development of the
wireless telegraph was key for information to reach most countries with
some speed and so that the breaking news at the start of the conflict, the
belligerent powers as well as the territories that remained neutral began
to receive the impact of the war through the newspapers. In some cases,
as in Latin America and the United States, European migrations fostered
 Introduction 7
social divisions that were worsening since August 1914. In other cases, such
as China, neutrality did not prevent – within the framework of Japanese
­presence – almost 200,000 workers to be recruited by the Allies and the
conflict became ‘a major turning point for the country’.38
The experience of neutral countries was long neglected by the historiog-
raphy of the First World War, which became an obstacle in order to develop
a truly global history of the conflict. However, in the last 15 years global,
comparative, and transnational perspectives have been essential to change
this situation. Maartje Abbenhuis’ certainly pioneering work on the Nether-
lands has been followed by numerous individual and collective works that
have revealed not only the relevance of the impact of the war in neutral
countries but also multiple connections with belligerent powers and theatres
of war.39 In this way, the rigid division between belligerents and neutrals
has begun to fade. In this sense, as Pierre Purseigle and Olivier Compag-
non asserted, neutral countries were not only affected by war, they were
also actors in it. For this reason, from their point of view, writing a global
history of the war entails establishing a critical distinction between ‘bel-
ligerency’ and ‘belligerence’: while the first concept introduces a status
defined by international law – the state of war – the second refers to a
process of adaptation or organization in the context of war which is
also of great significance for neutral countries. Thus, even though their
States were neutral, Scandinavian, Latin American, or Spanish societies
were belligerent – in the sense of the belligerence concept – because they
expressed various mobilization processes and multiple internal and exter-
nal tensions derived from the conflict. Thus, the value of classifying these
regions as ‘peripheral’ or ‘marginal’ has begun to see their explanatory
potential limited. In other words, global history has begun to prevail over
national histories and neutral countries have begun to integrate into a global
explanation of the conflict.40 Of course, this integration implies that neutral-
ities must necessarily be understood dynamically, taking into account the
phases of the war, according to which some countries abandoned (or were
forced to do so) their neutral status, while others maintained this situation
until 1918. As Samuel Kruizinga remembers, neutral countries were sub-
ject to negotiation processes with military and commercial pressure; so they
tried to maximize the benefits of their situation on an international level.41
For some authors, the development of this global history that integrates
neutralities, however, has not meant putting aside the analysis of national-
isms. Therefore, it is not a matter of replacing one paradigm with another.
As this book proposes, it is necessary to integrate them. Thus, the impact
of the war on these scenarios ends up being incorporated in their national
developments, as illustrated by the cases of Spain, where the traces of the
Aliadophile and Germanophile positions continued to be observed during
the Civil War, and of Switzerland, where neutrality was one of the central
axes on which national tensions ran during the decades after the Second
World War.42 In this sense, the processes of nationalization that countries
8 Introduction
like Spain and Germany or France and Argentina went through were
marked by war. The debates on the nation were as intense during and after
the conflict in Spain and Argentina as in France or Italy, and in this frame-
work, where cities played a relevant role in a potential confrontation with
the State, the tension between concepts such as patriotism and national-
ism was especially powerful. From this point of view, it is also pertinent to
question a sharp distinction between belligerents and neutrals.43 As various
works have shown, the debate on the nation, on the ‘true’ representatives
of the values that it embodied, and on the supposed options that should be
chosen had a fundamental importance on the discourses and the sociability
in neutral countries and became fundamental in understanding the positions
taken in the decades to come.44 Taking all these elements into consideration,
it is not surprising that in the last 15 years there has been a shift from stud-
ies focused on international relations and the economy to relations between
politics and culture, where representations and intellectuals occupy a place
of some relevance. As William Mulligan argued, ‘Ideas were reworked in
national and local contexts, but their legitimacy rested on transnational
contexts.’45
In this framework, the countries that maintained neutrality through-
out the conflict are exciting subjects to study and have great potential
to explain central events in the global evolution of the war.46 As demon-
strated by a relevant collective work directed by Stefan Rinke and Michael
Widt, global and local perspectives are combined to give rise to renewed
analysis of processes as relevant as the influence of the Russian Revolu-
tion, revolutionary violence, and the impact of all this on belligerent and
neutral countries.47
The increase of studies on neutral countries, and Spain and Argentina
among them, must be understood having in mind two concepts: the devel-
opment of the global and transnational perspective of the war and the
internationalization of the works of researchers and their results. In this
sense, it seems clear that studies on the role of Latin America – and Argen-
tina within it – have gained importance that can no longer be ignored. In
addition to numerous monographs, various books have shown remark-
able progress in war studies. The works of Olivier Compagnon on Brazil
and Argentina, Maria Inés Tato, Emiliano Sánchez, and Rinke, men-
tioned earlier, deserve special mention. From my point of view, the lat-
ter’s work constitutes the most relevant work that we have at present. The
global vision inherited from Hew Strachan’s perspective aims to break,
as I had already mentioned, the impassable division between belligerents
and neutrals:

To understand the world war as a global war, without falling prey to the
epistemological trap of Eurocentrism, historiography must endeavour
to look beyond the trenches. Indeed, it was not possible to be a ‘specta-
tor’ in the ‘drama’ of this world war.48
 Introduction 9
In the case of Tato and Compagnon, particularly the latter, which analy-
ses the impacts on Brazil and Argentina, the transnational approach consti-
tutes the main perspective of analysis.49
As in Argentine historiography, the impact of the war on Spain has been
extensively analysed.50 Despite the fact that there are still topics waiting
to be studied further, the statement repeatedly quoted by Manuel Espadas
Burgos – ‘the incidence of the First World War in Spain continues today as
one of the chapters in the history of our century most in need of research’51 –
must be completely questioned. In these past years, we have had notable
works by Spanish and international researchers who have successfully
analysed various aspects of the impact of the conflict in our country. Spy
networks, international and diplomatic relations, maritime warfare, prop-
aganda, the role of volunteers, the rise of nationalisms and the political
impact – with the crisis of 1917 in this context – among other issues, have
been developed with remarkable depth.52 In this framework, the impact of
the war on the world of culture and politics has probably been one of the
most widely analysed topics.53 In most of the best works published in the
form of books, articles, and monographs, the international perspective has
been and is a widespread concern. This vision of the war has ended up par-
tially renewing the analysis of the crisis of 1917. In this framework, the local
process of the summer of that year has become integrated in the context
of the development of the war and its impact on Spain. Thus, the Spanish
case is no longer considered exceptional in this respect.54 In short, it can be
affirmed that the progress made has been remarkable and that the basis we
currently have should ensure the definitive internationalization of studies
on war and the multiple relationships between it and what happened here.
Recent works, which have focused their vision on the relations between
Spain and Latin America from comparative perspectives, have opened the
door in this regard.55
This book is part of this historiographic development and aims to show
the potential of a transnational study of war through the analysis of the
links and lines of continuity of two countries that remained neutral through-
out the war. Despite presenting a comparative perspective, its main objective
is to point out a series of transnational elements that were observed in all the
belligerent and neutral countries that participated in the war. In this general
framework, it proposes an interpretation of the Argentine and Spanish neu-
tralities from a transnational perspective that seeks to analyse ‘the intricate
interrelationship between nations and transnational existences, between
national preoccupations and transnational agendas, or between national
interests and transnational concerns’.56 To do so, it proposes a study of the
evolution of the war through three concepts that act as spaces of dispute
between the blocks that were built in both countries and that were expressed
both nationally and transnationally. These concepts – neutrality, peace, and
the nation – were central to the constitution of the Aliadophile-rupturist
and Germanophile-neutralist sectors that divided Spanish and Argentine
10 Introduction
societies. In this development, local processes were constantly connected
with what happened in the war scenes and with the tensions that occurred
in other neutral countries from the beginning to the end of the war, and even
after it.

Notes
1 ‘Macron y Merkel firman la última página de la reconciliación’, El Mundo, 10
November 2018.
2 ‘11-Novembre: Macron appelle ses homologues à ne pas céder à la tentation du
repli’, Le Monde, 11 November 2018.
3 Z. Rahim, ‘Remembrance Day: World Leaders, Royals and the Public Mark
100th Anniversary of the Armistice’, The Independent, 11 November 2018.
4 F. Massa, ‘El fin del muro que dividía a los cementerios alemán y británico en
Chacarita, a 100 años del armisticio de la Primera Guerra Mundial’, La Nación,
10 November 2018.
5 G. Perrault, ‘Pierre Nora: “14–18 garde une place éminente dans notre mémoire’’’,
Le Figaro, 10–11 November 2018.
6 J. Winter, ‘Commemorating Catastrophe: 100 Years On’, War & Society, 36
(2017), 239–255.
7 A. Mombauer Annika, ‘The German Centenary of the First World War’, War &
Society, 36 (2017), 276–288; H. McCartney, ‘Commemorating the Centenary of
the Battle of the Somme in Britain’, War & Society, 36 (2017), 289–303.
8 www.ccma.cat/tv3/alacarta/sense-ficci/lestelada-de-verdun/video/5232331/.
9 A. Sans, ‘Catalunya homenatja els seus voluntaris de la Gran Guerra’, Ara, 5
June 2016.
10 J. Horne, ‘The Great as Its Centenary’, in The Cambridge History of the First
World War, Volume III, edited by J. Winter (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2014), 638.
11 J. Winter and A. Prost, The Great War in History: Debates and Controversies,
1914 to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); J. Winter
(ed.), The Legacy of the Great War: Ninety Years On (Columbia: University of
Missouri Press, 2009).
12 J. Rodrigo, ‘Su Majestad la Guerra. Historiografías de la Primera Guerra Mun-
dial en el siglo XXI’, Historia y Política, 32 (2014), 17–45.
13 As examples: J.-J. Becker and G. Krumeich, La Grande Guerre. Une histoire
franco-allemande (Paris: Tallandier, 2008); A. Prost and G. Krumeich, Verdun
1916: une histoire franco-allemande de la bataille (Paris: Texto, 2015).
14 Vid, www.firstworldwarstudies.org/bibliography.php.
15 J.-L. Robert and J. Winter (eds.), Capital Cities at War: London, Paris, Berlin,
1914–1919 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
16 J. Horne, ‘Foreword’, in Other Combatants, Other Fronts: Competing Histories
of the First World War, edited by J. Kitchen, A. Miller and L. Rowe (Newcastle:
Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011), xv.
17 G. Hirschfeld, G. Krumeich, and I. Renz, Enzyklopäide Erster Weltkrieg (Pader-
born: Schöningh, 2003); S. Audoin-Rozeau and J.-J. Becker (eds.), Encyclopédie
de la Grande Guerre 1914–1918 (Paris: Bayard, 2004); M. Isnenghi (dir.), Gli
Italiani in guerra (Torino: UTET, 2008).
18 J. Horne (ed.), A Companion to World War I (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2010).
19 H. Strachan, ‘The First World War as a Global War’, First World War Studies, 1
(2010), 3–14.
 Introduction 11
20 A. Kramer, ‘Recent Historiography of the First World War (Part II)’, Journal of
Modern European History 12/2 (2014), 155–174.
21 O. Janz, 1914–1918. La Grande Guerra (Torino: Einaudi, 2014).
22 https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/home/
23 J. Winter, ‘General Introduction’, in The Cambridge History of the First World
War, Volume I, edited by Jay Winter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2014), 6.
24 As examples: M. Neiberg, Fighting the Great War: A Global History (Cam-
bridge: Harvard University Press, 2005); R. Gerwarth and E. Manela, ‘The
Great War as a Global War: Imperial Conflict and the Reconfiguration of World
Order, 1911–1923’, Diplomatic History, 38/4 (2014), 786–800.
25 As examples: X. Guoqi, Strangers on the Western Front: Chinese Workers in
the Great War (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011); R. Fogarty, Race
and War in France. Colonial Subjects in the French Army (Baltimore: JHU Press,
2008); A. Lentz-Smith, Freedom Struggles: African Americans and World War I
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009); D. Bloxham, The Great Game of
Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism and the Destruction of the Ottoman Arme-
nians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
26 R. Healy, E. Dal Lago, and G. Barry (eds.), Small Nations and Colonial Periph-
eries in World War I (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2016).
27 O. Luthar (ed.), The Great War and Memory in Central and South-Eastern
Europe (Leiden and Londres: Brill, 2016), 2.
28 R. Johnson and J. Kitchen, The Great War in the Middle East. A Clash of
Empires (Abingdon: Routledge, 2019); X. Guoqi, Asia and the Great War
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017); F. Dickinson, ‘Toward a Global Per-
spective of the Great War: Japan and the Foundations of a Twentieth-Century
World’, The American Historical Review, 119/4 (2014), 1154–1183.
29 M. Lakitsch, S. Reitmair, and K. Seidel (eds.), Bellicose Entanglements 1914.
The Great War as a Global War (Vienna: LIT, 2015).
30 S. Manz, P. Panayi, and M. Stibbe (eds.), Internment during the First World War:
A Global Mass Phenomenon (Abingdon: Routledge, 2018); E. Dal Lago, R.
Healy, and G. Barry (eds.), 1916 in Global Context. An Anti-imperial Moment
(Abingdon: Routledge, 2017).
31 A. Varnava, ‘The Politics and Imperialism of Colonial and Foreign Volunteer
Legions during the Great War: Comparing Proposals for Cypriot, Armenian,
and Jewish Legions’, War in History, 22/3 (2015), 344–363; B. Cabanes, The
Great War and the Origins of Humanitarianism, 1918–1924 (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2014); P. Gatrell and L. Zhvanko (eds.), Europe on the
Move: Refugees in the Era of the Great War (Manchester: Manchester Univer-
sity Press, 2017).
32 Horne (ed.), A Companion to World War I, xxv.
33 T. Snyder, Bloodlands. Europe between Hitler and Stalin (New York: Basic
Books, 2010); K. Lowe, Savage Continent. Europe in the Aftermath of World
War II (New York: Picador, 2013); K. Lowe, Continente salvaje. Europa después
de la Segunda Guerra Mundial (Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg, 2012).
34 Some examples: R. Gerwarth and J. Horne (eds.), War in Peace: Paramilitary
Violence in Europe after the Great War (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2012); A. Tooze, The Deluge. The Great War and the Remaking of Global
Order, 1916–1931 (New York: Viking, 2014).
35 R. Gerwarth and E. Manela (eds.), Imperios en guerra, 1911–1923 (Madrid:
Biblioteca Nueva, 2015), 18–20.
36 J. Macleod (ed.), Defeat and Memory: Cultural Histories of Military Defeat in
the Modern Era (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).
12 Introduction
37 D. Bloxham and R. Gerwarth (eds.), Political Violence in Twentieth-Century
Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); R. Gerwarth, The Van-
quished. Why the First World War Failed to End (New York: Farrar, Straus &
Giroux, 2016).
38 J. Schmidt and K. Schmidtpott (eds.), The East Asian Dimension of the First
World War: Global Entanglements and Japan, China and Korea, 1914–1919
(Frankfurt-am-Main and New York: Campus, 2017).
39 M. Abbenhuis, The Art of Staying Neutral: The Netherlands in the First World
War, 1914–1918 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006); C. Ahlund
(ed.), Scandinavia in the First World War (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2012);
J. Den Hertog and S. Kruizinga (eds.), Caught in the Middle: Neutrals, Neutral-
ity and the First World War (Amsterdam: Aksant, 2011); J. L. Ruiz Sánchez, I.
Cordero Oliverio, and C. García Sanz (eds.), Shaping Neutrality throughout the
First World War (Sevilla: Universidad de Sevilla, 2016).
40 O. Compagnon and P. Purseigle, ‘Géographies de la mobilisation et territoires de
la belligérance durant la Première Guerre Mondiale’, Annales. Histoire, Sciences
Sociales, 71/1 (2016), 37–64.
41 S. Kruzinga, ‘Neutrality’, in The Cambridge History of the First World War: Vol-
ume II: The State, edited by J. Winter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2014), 542–675.
42 K. Kuhn and B. Ziegler, ‘Commemoration (Switzerland)’, in 1914–1918-online.
International Encyclopedia of the First World War, edited by U. Daniel,
P. Gatrell, O. Janz, H. Jones, J. Keene, A. Kramer, and B. Nasson (Berlín: Freie
Universität, 2016).
43 P. Purseigle, ‘Beyond and Below the Nations: Toward a Comparative History
of Local Communities at War’, in Uncovered Fields: Perspectives in First World
War Studies, edited by P. Purseigle and J. Macleod (Boston: Brill, 2004), 95–123;
P. Purseigle, Mobilisation, sacrifice et citoyenneté. Angleterre-France, 1900–1918
(Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2013).
44 L. Sturfelt, ‘The Call of the Blood: Scandinavia and the First World War as a
Clash of Races’, in Ahlund (ed.). Scandinavia in the First World War, 199–224; I.
Tames, ‘War on Our Minds: War, Neutrality and Identity in Dutch Public Debate
during the First World War’, First World Studies, 2 (2012), 201–216; T. Lobbes,
‘Negotiating Neutrality. Intellectuals, Belligerent Propaganda and Dutch Identi-
ties in the Netherlands during the First World War’, 2014, https://knhg.nl/wp/
content/uploads/2015/08/Tessa-Lobbes.pdf; M. Fuentes Codera, España en la
Primera Guerra Mundial. Una movilización cultural (Madrid: Akal, 2014).
45 W. Mulligan, ‘The First World War in a Global Age’, European History Quar-
terly, 46 (2016), 323.
46 H. Bley and A. Kremers (eds.), The World during the First World War (Essen:
Klartext Verlag, 2014); T. Paddock (ed.), World War I and Propaganda (Leiden
and Boston: Brill, 2014).
47 S. Rinke and M. Widt (eds.), Revolutions and Counter-Revolutions. 1917 and
Its Aftermath from a Global Perspective (Frankfurt and New York: Campus,
2017).
48 S. Rinke, Latin America and the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 2017), 3.
49 O. Compagnon, C. Foulard, G. Martin, and M. I. Tato (eds.), La Gran Guerra
en América Latina. Una historia conectada (Mexico: CEMCA, 2018); M. I.
Tato, La trinchera austral. La sociedad argentina ante la Primera Guerra Mun-
dial (Rosario: Prohistoria Ediciones, 2017); O. Compagnon, América Latina y la
Gran Guerra. El adiós a Europa (Argentina y Brasil, 1914–1939) (Buenos Aires:
Crítica, 2014).
 Introduction 13
50 M. I. Tato, ‘La Gran Guerra en la historiografía argentina. Balance y perspecti-
vas de investigación’, Iberoamericana, 53 (2014), 91–101; M. Fuentes Codera
and C. García Sanz, ‘España y la Gran Guerra: un análisis historiográfico a la luz
del centenario’, Índice Histórico Español, 128 (2015), 97–136.
51 M. Espadas Burgos, ‘España y la Primera Guerra Mundial’, in La política exte-
rior de España en el siglo XX, edited by J. Tussell, J. Avilés and R. M. Pardo Sanz
(Madrid: UNED, 2000), 97.
52 F. García Sanz, España en la Gran Guerra. Espías, diplomáticos y traficantes
(Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg, 2014); C. García Sanz, La Primera Guerra
Mundial en el Estrecho de Gibraltar. Economía, política y relaciones internac-
ionales (Madrid: CSIC-Universidad de Sevilla, 2011); E. González Calleja and P.
Aubert, Nidos de espías. España, Francia y la Primera Guerra Mundial (1914–
1919) (Madrid: Alianza, 2014).
53 X. Pla, M. Fuentes Codera, and F. Montero (eds.), A Civil War of Words. The
Cultural Impact of the Great War in Catalonia, Spain, Europe and a Glance at
Latin America (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2016).
54 E. González Calleja (ed.), Anatomía de una crisis. 1917 y los españoles (Madrid:
Alianza, 2017).
55 C. García Sanz and M. I. Tato, ‘Neutralist Crossroads: Spain and Argentina Fac-
ing the Great War’, First World War Studies, 8 (2017), 115–132; D. Marcilhacy,
‘España y América Latina ante la Gran Guerra: el frente de los neutrales’, in La
Gran Guerra en América Latina, 41–69.
56 A. Iriye, Global and Transnational History: The Past, Present, and Future (Bas-
ingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 1–5.
2 Spain and Argentina before
1914

When the war broke out, Spain was governed by a liberal political sys-
tem that, as in most of Europe, was not hidden, despite the elections – in
1890 the universal male suffrage was introduced – and in the parliament the
elites maintained their political hegemony, thanks to their well-structured
networks of clients. Since 1875, Spain had been ruled by a constitutional
monarchy. The architect of the new system after the first republican experi-
ence had been Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, who had designed it with the
goal of making conflicts among civilians and military coups disappear from
political reality. His greatest accomplishments were the restoration of the
Bourbon monarchy and the constitution of 1876. During four decades, two
monarchical parties alternated in power: the conservatives, led by Cáno-
vas, and the liberals, headed by Práxedes Mateo Sagasta. The system was
named pacífico (pacific) or turno dinástico (dynastic shift).
The political structure designed by Cánovas worked smoothly until the
end of the nineteenth century. Three processes on an international level,
marked by the years 1898, 1909, and 1914, contributed decisively to erod-
ing the foundation of the system. The first one was the defeat in the war
against the United States in 1898. The loss of the last imperial remnants
undermined the regime and gave rise to Regenerationism, a cultural and
political movement that signalled despotism and networks of clients as
the epicentre of affliction and backwardness of the country. In this con-
text, the Generation of ’98 elaborated an account of the decadent nation
and its scant modernity.1 From their perspective, the regeneration of the
nation should rise up from a minority that would promote and educate the
masses. This is how it was presented by a wide and heterogeneous group of
thinkers and writers, which included Angel Ganivet, Miguel de Unamuno,
Ramiro de Maeztu, Azorín, Antonio Machado, Vicente Blasco Ibáñez and
Pío Baroja, among others. Its main common features were those who their
own critics attacked: arbitrariness, anarchic individualism, iconoclasm, and
anti-democratism.2 This is explained because, as José Álvarez Junco wrote,
in the Generation of ’98 ‘the crisis of the nation coincided with the crisis
of positivist rationalism’, and ‘the latter included that of constitutional lib-
eralism’.3 Therefore, it was no surprise that in addition to the readings of
 Spain and Argentina before 1914 15
Friedrich Nietzsche, Hyppolite Taine, and Maurice Barrès, Max Nordau
and his book Degeneration became a significant reference during the first
years of the new century.4 The idea that became widespread was not that the
Restoration was a regime founded on the falsification of the vote but that
it was the universal suffrage itself that was to be put into question; even the
State seemed to be questionably efficient for some and appeared as a corrupt
entity of the true Spanish reality.
The second of the processes, the Tragic Week of 1909, showed the multiple
connections between internal conflicts and international political develop-
ment. Since 1871, and particularly since 1890, the Restoration governments
had followed a policy of international retreat. Despite alternating in power,
liberals and conservatives shared that the best thing for Spain was to avoid
aligning with the two international blocs that dominated Europe. Since the
defeat of 1898, Spain had been relegated to a second-order role in interna-
tional politics. During the following years, diplomacy carried out a policy of
reconciliation towards France and England with the aim of recovering part
of the prestige lost. Liberals and conservatives, especially the latter, took on
the need to seek international Allies to guarantee the future of the monar-
chy and the integrity of the country. For this, there was nothing better than
strengthening relations with France and Great Britain, neighbours, business
partners, and investors in railroads and mines. This approach resulted in a
minor role for Spain in this alliance, which was expressed in 1907 in the
Cartagena agreements, which resulted in the protection of the insular and
coastal possessions of Spain in Morocco that were more susceptible to for-
eign aggressions, in exchange for the recognition of the British sovereignty
of Gibraltar. In reality, the strip of land obtained in Morocco was a poisoned
gift. With the memories still alive of the defeat of 1898, Spain embarked on
a new imperialist adventure for which it was not prepared, neither militar-
ily nor economically. Thus, in 1909 the government was forced to enter a
small-scale war to defend Spanish mining concessions against attacks by
guerrillas settled in North Africa. The call to reservists, most of them mar-
ried workers, responded with a general strike that, in Barcelona and other
cities, led to an uncontrollable rebellion that resulted in images of burning
churches that transcended the Spanish borders. The uprising was stifled with
violence: more than a hundred people were shot dead and five more were
subsequently executed, including the teacher Francisco Ferrer y Guardia.5
The apparent consolidation of these relations with France and England –
validated with three State visits in 1913, two from Alfonso XIII to Paris
and one from Raymond Poincaré to Madrid, and with the monarch’s wed-
ding seven years earlier to Victoria Eugenia of Battengerg, granddaughter
of Queen Victoria – motivated some politicians and intellectuals to even
consider the possibility of a bolder foreign policy that included Portugal.
But, in reality, neither did the Spanish government show a firm will to be
part of a true alliance that materially compromised it in European affairs,
nor was there a real interest in associating with a country that was not
16 Spain and Argentina before 1914
in a position to make a significant military contribution.6 In this context,
the disappointment facing the aspirations to expand in relation to North
Africa and Gibraltar led to the fact that part of the diplomacy and public
opinion began to detect criticism towards the Entente. These criticisms
focused on two issues that frequently appeared during the war that would
begin in 1914: Tangier – which Spain claimed from France after France
negotiated with Germany in 1909 without consulting Spain –, Gibraltar
and Portugal.7
As was evident during the Tragic Week, the years before the start of the
war showed that the Restoration system designed by Cánovas was begin-
ning to enter into crisis. In October 1913 there was the first schism within
the parties of the turno. A minority made up of young conservative fol-
lowers led by Antonio Maura gave rise to the Maurist movement. In this
context, the growing weight of the socialist trade union Unión General de
Trabajadores (UGT) and especially of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Confede­
ración Nacional de Trabajo (CNT) – founded in 1910 – together with the
development of various Republican parties in turn – Alejandro Lerroux’s
Partido Republicano Radical, among them –, the Socialist Partido Social-
ista Obrero Español (PSOE), and the emergence of the Catalan and Basque
nationalist parties contributed substantially to questioning the limitations of
the Spanish liberal system.
In this process, intellectuals had a relevant role. Their approaches to the
lack of modernity and education were mixed with the issue of national
regeneration. All this showed lines of continuity between the Generation
of ’98 and the so-called Generation of ’14, which under the symbolic lead-
ership of José Ortega y Gasset emerged in the months prior to the outbreak
of the conflict.8 The Europeanness of Spain had been questioned regularly
during the centuries and decades before 1914. A strongly romantic image
of Spain and more or less constant reference to the so-called black leg-
end were partially responsible for the consolidation of these perceptions.
After 1898, it became common among intellectuals to relate their views on
Europe with the need to modernize the country in political, cultural, and
economic terms. Given this development, it seems clear that the debates
that would begin with the war were actually rooted in the previous dec-
ades: the political system of the Restoration, the role of the monarchy,
the cultural and political backwardness of the masses, and the illness of
the nation. These were problems that the intellectuals had inherited from the
crisis of the end of the century and that, at least to some extent, were
shared by all their European peers.9 Thus, the question of the illness of
the nation, based on the idea of the ‘two Spains’ that fought against each
other, was the central argument of many of the public interventions of José
Ortega y Gasset from 1910 to 1914. From his point of view, what was
being confronted was an old idea of Spain, anchored in backwardness,
thanks to the Restoration, and a new Spain, vital and open to Europe. In
this context, the outbreak of war, the third of the processes discussed in
 Spain and Argentina before 1914 17
these introductory pages, was seen by many intellectuals and alternative
political groups to the regime as an opportunity to expand new modern-
izing projects.10
In this context, the relationship with America and the projection of Spain
in it also started to become relevant. After the fourth ‘Centenary of the
discovery’ (1892), a slow process of rapprochement with its former colo-
nies had begun to take place. With the defeat in 1898, Spain abandoned
its project of becoming a large colonial corporation, and from then on a
significant part of the political elites of the Restoration began to think that
an intensification of relations with these countries would help regain the
prestige lost. With the aim of developing this ‘Regenerationism’, ‘official
Hispanic-Americanism’ emerged as one of the possible remedies to national
decadence. Of course, this cultural endeavour had a commercial correla-
tion, as was observed early on in the Ibero-American Social and Economic
Congress of 1900 held in Madrid. There was a possibility on the horizon
of launching a community of nations that would allow Spain to gain a bet-
ter position at an international level. However, this policy had a limited
process. The contrast between the initial rhetoric officially established and
the lack of measures to develop this project profoundly discredited the
Hispano-American movement.11 The limited success of this project became
especially relevant because Spain had an important demographic presence in
Latin America. Almost 3.3 million Spaniards – not counting the military –
emigrated to America between 1882 and 1930. Of this amount, just over
1.5 million went to Argentina.12
Within the Spanish community, groups of emigrants began to quickly
organize through recreational clubs, hospitals, schools, charities, cultural
centres, and other entities.13 This experience gave rise to a complex pro-
cess of identity-building. From the perspectives of the Spanish groups, the
xenophobia of the society on the receiving end and the contempt for their
culture compared with the French reinforced complex and changing ‘Span-
ish’ identities, among which the various national identities that had begun
to develop in the peninsula, the Galician, Catalan, and Basque stood out.14
In this process, as Justo López de Gómara showed, many of the emigrants
considered that they were far from receiving adequate attention from the
governments of Madrid.15
This conflictive attempt at rapprochement between Spain and Argentina
occurred in a moment that was not the best for Spain’s interests. As had
happened in general on the continent, in the decades before the war, Argen-
tine society was shaped by a cosmopolitan cultural profile that questioned
the attempts at national homogenization and the political projects devel-
oped by liberal elites.16 In this process three moments were central: 1880,
1890, and 1910.
In 1880, when Julio Argentino Roca became president, the new political
regime consolidated through the agreements with the political governors,
who controlled their societies through fraud and client politics. During these
18 Spain and Argentina before 1914
years, as was the case in Latin American countries, Argentina experienced
significant economic growth. Economic modernization, the result of an
accelerated process of export growth – primarily focused on agricultural
and livestock activities – led to a growing urbanization and an emerging
industrialization. The inclusion of Argentina in the new international trade
scheme led to its specialization as a producer of raw materials and food
products, and as a recipient of investments in infrastructure, public cred-
its, and productive activities. As a result, communications with Europe and
infrastructure also increased considerably, especially the railway. In 1914,
Argentina was a rich country from almost every point of view and Buenos
Aires had become a large city with 1.5 million inhabitants. However, despite
the growth of other regions, the great prosperity of the Pampas plains was
not able to suppress the more traditional economies or the high levels of
poverty.17
The governing political parties, intellectuals, and press were central to the
process of building a national identity replacing the colonial one that began
in the 1880s.18 The head-on rejection of the Hispanic heritage, combined
with the admiration of the model from France and England, encouraged the
arrival of large groups of European immigrants. As a result, about 5.9 million
people arrived in Argentina between 1871 and 1914. Of this number,
3.2 million stayed definitively in the country. It was the second country
that received the most immigrants in America after the United States. While
in 1869 13.6% of the population was of foreign origin, in 1914 it reached
29.9%; between these years, Argentina had gone from 1.7 to 7.8 million
inhabitants. The vast majority came from Italy and Spain, but there were
also groups of immigrants from Central Europe, France, Germany, Great
Britain, and the Ottoman Empire. This impact was unevenly distributed:
according to the national census of 1914, immigrants constituted 47% of
the population of the city of Buenos Aires but only reached 2% in the small
provinces of La Rioja and Catamarca. In this context, the definition of the
Argentine national identity became a fundamental issue that was embroiled
with tension. The fact that most immigrants did not nationalize – and
­therefore could not participate in the political elections – was a relevant
element in this regard.19 During the Great War, these conflicts would surface
with intensity.20
In 1890 the future that Argentine elites predicted began to be questioned.
The economic crisis and social conflict were combined with an obvious
questioning of the oligarchic functioning of the policies implemented by
the rule of the conservative political party Partido Autonomista Nacional
(PAN), an unstable alliance that emerged between the Partido Autonomista
of Buenos Aires and a coalition of provincial parties that ruled the country
until 1916. Since its establishment in 1874, it was already evident that it was
a coalition that showed significant internal tensions, as was the case with
the Spanish Liberal and Conservative parties. The Argentine elites, like the
Spanish ones, were far from being fully unified.21
 Spain and Argentina before 1914 19
In 1890, there was the so-called Revolución del Parque, a civic-military
uprising against the government of Miguel Ángel Juárez Celman. Although
he failed to expel the PAN from power, this uprising led by the Civic
Union – among those who stood out were Leandro N. Alem, Francisco
Barroetaveña, Bartolomé Mitre, Bernardo de Irigoyen, and Aristóbulo del
Valle – fostered the birth of the social-liberal political party Unión Cívica
Radical (UCR) a year later and resulted in a challenge for the political par-
ticipation system devised by President Julio A. Roca and articulated through
networks of client politics. In a few years, the UCR – led by Alem – would
become the main opposition group even though they stayed out of parlia-
mentary political life.22
As part of this process, in 1912 the electoral legislation reform designed
by Roque Sáenz Peña generalized universal male suffrage throughout the
whole country. As a result, the Argentine political landscape was substan-
tially modified. The secret and mandatory nature of the vote encouraged the
participation of citizens and of new political parties. In 1910, more than
20% of the electorate had voted; in 1912, the vote significantly increased
to 70%. This electoral reform allowed for Hipólito Yrigoyen, candidate of
the UCR, to come into power in 1916, which in turn led to the rupture of
the PAN.23
The relations among Latin American countries and between them and
Spain began to be redefined during the period that extended from the
First Pan American Conference (1889–1890) – which had José Martí as
the main chronicler in the Spanish language with his texts in La Nación
of Argentina – to the defeat of Spain in 1898. In Argentina, new essen-
tialist standpoints focused on immigrants as a factor that had caused the
‘decomposition’ of the ‘national soul’ through the infiltration of material-
ism, socialism, and anarchism. As of 1910, issues arose around the liberal
and cosmopolitan development in Argentina. The accumulation of tensions
from previous decades put into question the national organization model, as
well as the unwanted effects of modernization. Fears about national disinte-
gration worsened and were linked to the threat of a growing social conflict
expressed through socialist and anarchist organizations, often accused of
introducing foreign ideologies into the country. The increase in strikes was
significant in 1910 and a year earlier, coinciding with the Spanish Tragic
Week, the scale of violence reached its peak with the assassination of Police
Chief Ramón Falcón.24
The responses to these phenomena were diverse among Argentine intel-
lectuals and had a crucial moment in the centenary of 1810. In this process,
which symbolized the third moment we analyse in these introductory pages,
a renewed optimism was combined with Argentina’s future and its fears
regarding the migration issue.25 In this context, intellectuals centred their
debates around the proposals of Argentina as a nation and the political and
cultural projects that derived from them. Of course, European influences
occupied a central role in their reflections and were articulated in a process
20 Spain and Argentina before 1914
that had its roots in the 1880s and was expressed in a dispute between
‘nationalists’ and ‘cosmopolitans’.26
France was a nation with a broad influence on Latin America. Various
aspects were central for building this influence. On the one hand, the idea
that the Enlightenment and the Revolution of 1789 had inspired independ-
ence movements was widely extended. On the other, French language and
its culture had a predominant place among local elites; this was especially
evident in cities that had a considerable presence of French communities (in
1912 about 100,000 French resided in Argentina). Finally, it is important to
highlight the spread of the myth of the community of Latin nations, which
regularly called upon France as the leader of this large group of nations in
opposition to the materialism represented by the United States.27 However,
if for Spain Latin America had a sentimental and material importance that
was primary, for France it was a relatively peripheral region on the whole
of its world interests. Despite this, with the outbreak of the war, the defence
of their commercial interests would gain a particularly relevant intensity
because a growing German and especially North American infiltration had
begun to be added to the traditional British presence. To achieve French eco-
nomic objectives, diplomatic and cultural policy would grow significantly.28
As was the case in Spain, a new Hispanic perspective had begun to develop
in Argentina that sought to exert a counterweight to the French cultural and
commercial influence expressed in Latinism. Likewise, as was also perceived
from the peninsula, this approach sought to counteract the ghost of the
ubiquitous United States and its international projection on the continent as
a whole.29 The centennial celebrations expressed this perspective, which had
developed in the previous decades. The events that began in 1910, which in
Buenos Aires included the presence of important Spanish delegations – the
Infanta Isabel de Borbón attended the celebrations of the Argentine cente-
nary and the Marquis of Polavieja did so in Mexico –, opened the door to
an improvement in the relations between Spain and Argentina.30 Within this
framework, the movement of intellectuals between the two countries also
became relevant: Rafael Altamira, Ramón Ménendez Pidal, Adolfo Posada,
and José Ortega y Gasset, among others, visited Argentina between 1909
and 1916; Manuel Ugarte, Ricardo Rojas, and Manuel Gálvez, among oth-
ers, made the reverse route between 1902 and 1908.31
In this context, a new generation of Argentine intellectuals led by Ricardo
Rojas, Manuel Gálvez, and Leopoldo Lugones showed points of continuity
with the previous generation and ideological ambiguities that would unfold
throughout the war and in the years after it. Ricardo Rojas’ responses to the
national question were diverse. From a radical critique of cosmopolitanism
that prevailed in Argentina, he appealed to the integration of immigrants into
the national tradition in La restauración nacionalista (1909). His arguments
were based on the defence of an effective patriotic education that should
be reoriented centrally from the State. These proposals would be further
developed years later in one of his most notorious works, La Argentinidad,
 Spain and Argentina before 1914 21
published in 1916. Manuel Gálvez, however, proposed in his texts El diario
de Gabriel Quiroga (1910) and El solar de la raza (1913) the recovery of
the Hispanic colonial past as a carrier of civilizing elements, among which
he highlighted Catholicism. The perspective of Leopoldo Lugones was the
opposite: strongly anti-Spanish, he turned the gaucho into the symbol of
Argentina and elevated Martín Fierro by José Hernández to the category of
national poem, as could be seen in La guerra gaucha (1905) and El payador
(1916). Thus, the ‘Centennial moment’ promoted new intellectual proposals,
which were rooted in the previous liberal tradition. Simultaneously, it opened
a space for discussion that provoked new alignments and solidarity. The divi-
sion was drawn around national history and the symbols, myths, and rela-
tions with Europe on which modern Argentina should settle and build upon.32
During the Great War and the years after it, all these tendencies would be
strongly spread: tensions about neutrality, Argentina’s position and its rela-
tionship with Europe and Spain that had developed since 1914, leading to a
radicalized extension of the complex processes that had taken place during
the previous decades. As we will see, it was a process that had various points
in common with what was observed in Spain and Europe and that can be
interpreted through a transnational perspective.

Notes
1 S. Juliá, ‘España: fin del imperio, agonía de la nación’, in Viejos y nuevos impe-
rios, edited by I. Burdiel and R. Church (Valencia: Episteme, 1998), 95–112;
J. Álvarez Junco, ‘La nación en duda’, in Más se perdió en Cuba. España, 1898
y la crisis de fin de siglo, edited by Juan Pan-Montojo (Madrid: Alianza, 1998),
405–475.
2 J. C. Sánchez Illán, La nación inacabada. Los intelectuales y el proceso de con-
strucción nacional (1900–1914) (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2002), 46–47.
3 J. Álvarez Junco, ‘Prólogo’, in La perspectiva del progreso: Pensamiento político
en la España del cambio de siglo (1890–1914), edited by Eric Storm (Madrid:
Biblioteca Nueva, 2002), 18.
4 L. Davis, ‘Max Nordau, “Degeneración” y la decadencia de España’, Cuadernos
Hispanoamericanos, 326–327 (1977), 307–323.
5 J. Pich Mitjana and D. Martínez Fiol, La revolución de julio de 1909. Un intento
fallido de regenerar España (Granada: Comares, 2019).
6 A. Niño, ‘El rey embajador. Alfonso XIII en la política internacional’, in Alfonso
XIII. Un político en el trono, edited by J. Moreno Luzón (Madrid: Marcial Pons,
2003), 254–261.
7 J. Ponce, ‘La política exterior española de 1907 a 1920: entre el regeneracion-
ismo de intenciones y la neutralidad condicionada’, Historia Contemporánea, 24
(2007), 93–115.
8 M. Ménendez Alzamora, La generación del 14. Una aventura intelectual
(Madrid: Siglo XXI, 2006); J. Costa Delgado, La educación política de las
masas. Capital cultural y clases sociales en la Generación del 14 (Madrid: Siglo
XXI, 2019).
9 S. Juliá, Historias de las dos Españas (Madrid: Taurus, 2004).
10 J. Álvarez Junco, ‘The Debate over the Nation’, in Is Spain different? A Comparative
Look at the 19th and 20th Centuries, edited by Nigel Townson (Brighton: Sussex
22 Spain and Argentina before 1914
Academic Press, 2015), 18–41; A. De Blas Guerrero, ‘Nationalisms in Spain: The
Organization of Convivencia’, in The Idea of Europe: From Antiquity to the Euro-
pean Union, edited by A. Pagden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002),
260–286.
11 D. Rolland, L. Delgado, E. González, A. Niño, and M. Rodríguez, L’Espagne et
l’Amérique Latine. Politiques culturelles, propagandes et relations internation-
ales, XXe siècle (Paris: L’Harmattan-CSIC, 2001), 55–59; D. Rivadulla, La ‘uni-
dad irreconciliable’. España y Argentina, 1900–1914 (Madrid: Mapfre, 1992);
B. Figallo, Argentina y España: Entre la pasión y el escepticismo (Buenos Aires:
CONICET-Teseo, 2014).
12 C. Naranjo, ‘Análisis cuantitativo’, in Historia general de la emigración española
a Iberoamérica, edited by P. Vives, P. Vega, and J. Oyamburu (Madrid: Ministe-
rio de Trabajo y Seguridad Social, 1992), 177–200.
13 J. Moya, Primos y extranjeros. La inmigración española en Buenos Aires (1850–
1930) (Buenos Aires: Emecé, 2004).
14 X. M. Núñez Seixas, ‘¿Negar o reescribir la Hispanidad? Los nacionalismos
subestatales ibéricos y América Latina, 1898–1936’, Historia Mexicana, 265
(2017), 401–458.
15 J. López de Gómara, Un gran problema español en América. Vida política del
emigrado. Su acción y trascendencia (Buenos Aires: El Diario Español, 1915).
16 M. Siskind, Deseos cosmopolitas. Modernidad global y literatura mundial en
América Latina (Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2016), 151–244.
17 N. Botana and E. Gallo, De la República posible a la República verdadera
(1880–1910) (Buenos Aires: Ariel, 1997); N. Botana, El orden conservador: la
política argentina entre 1880 y 1916 (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1977).
18 N. Miller, In the Shadow of the State: Intellectuals and the Quest for National
Identity in Twentieth-Century Spanish America (London: Verso, 1999).
19 E. Gallo, La República en ciernes. Surgimiento de la vida política y social pam-
peana, 1850–1930 (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2013), 36–49; F. Devoto, Historia
de la inmigración en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 2003), 247–249
y 294; J. Horowitz, El radicalismo y el movimiento popular (1916–1930) (Bue-
nos Aires: Edhasa, 2015), 26–28.
20 Rinke, Latin America and the First World War, 14–37.
21 P. Alonso, Jardines secretos, legitimaciones públicas. El Partido Autonomista
Nacional y la política argentina de fines del siglo XIX (Buenos Aires: Edhasa,
2010).
22 Gallo, La República en ciernes, 67–79; Horowitz, El radicalismo, 28–33.
23 Gallo, La República en ciernes, 81–82; M. Castro, El ocaso de la república
oligárquica. Poder, política y reforma electoral: 1898–1912 (Buenos Aires:
Edhasa, 2012).
24 E. Zimmermann, Los liberales reformistas. La cuestión social en la Argentina,
1890–1916 (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana – Universidad de San Andrés, 1995).
25 F. Devoto, Nacionalismo, fascismo y tradicionalismo en la Argentina moderna
(Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2006), 47.
26 L. A. Bertoni, Patriotas, cosmopolitas y nacionalistas. La construcción de la
nacionalidad argentina a finales del siglo XIX (Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura
Económica, 2001).
27 P. Bruno, ‘Un momento latinoamericano. Voces intelectuales entre la I Conferen-
cia Panamericana y la Gran Guerra’, in Ideas comprometidas. Los intelectuales
y la política, edited by M. Fuentes and F. Archilés (Madrid: Akal, 2018), 57–77.
28 Rolland, Delgado, González, Niño, and Rodríguez, L’Espagne et l’Amérique
Latine, 47–55; D. Rolland, La crise du modèle français: Marianne et l’Amérique
 Spain and Argentina before 1914 23
latine, culture, politique et identité (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes,
2000).
29 Bruno, ‘Un momento latinoamericano’, 57–77.
30 J. Moreno Luzón, ‘Reconquistar América para regenerar España: Nacionalismo
español y Centenario de las independencias en 1910–1911’, Historia mexicana,
60 (2010), 561–640; P. Ortemberg, ‘Panamericanismo, hispanoamericanismo y
nacionalismo en los festejos identitarios de América Latina, 1880–1920. Per-
formances y encrucijadas de diplomáticos e intelectuales’, Anuario IEHS, 32
(2017), 99–204.
31 P. Bruno (ed.), Visitas culturales en la Argentina 1898–1936 (Buenos Aires: Bib-
los, 2014).
32 Devoto, Nacionalismo, fascismo y tradicionalismo, 47–119.
3 The outbreak of the war and
the question of neutrality

The first tensions

The last of a series of nationalist actions connected to the Balkan Wars of the
previous years was the murder of Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand and
his wife on 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo at the hands of the Serbian nationalist
Gavrilo Princip, a member of the Young Bosnian group and linked to the
nationalist organization Mano Negra. For this reason, the assassination was
perceived as one more expression of the already recurrent altercations that
occurred in the region. However, the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire were
at that time the central places of Austrian and Russian informal imperialist
policies, and the European powers were increasingly concerned that any
rearrangement in the region was detrimental to their interests and meant
a decline in their prestige as empires. In this context, and after the failure
of intense negotiations that lasted for a month, on 28 July the Austrian-
Hungarian monarchy declared war on Serbia and a few days later, on 1
August, the order to mobilize was launched almost at the same time in ­Berlin
and Paris. Germany declared war on Russia that same day and, two days
later, did the same with France. England seemed to try to prevent going into
war, but the German army’s invasion of Belgian territory three days later
ended those last hesitations, and London issued an ultimatum to ­Berlin,
which was rejected. The war had begun.
The participation in the conflict occurred quickly and in an environment
of relative consensus in France and Germany. But this was not the case for
Great Britain, where hostility prevailed within public opinion: on 2 August,
the day the general mobilization was announced, a huge pacifist demonstra-
tion took place in London. But this exceptional situation lasted only for
48 hours. During the first days of August, massive demonstrations with
intense warrior fervour took place in the major European capitals. These
sentiments were so deeply ingrained that over one and a half million poems
in honour of soldiers were published in Germany in August 1914. In Britain,
during the first year and a half of the conflict, 2,400,000 men, almost a third
of active men, signed up as volunteers to fight on the war front.1
 The outbreak of the war 25
Numerous events unfolded in an alarming way: invasion of France by
the German army, Russian offensive, Battle of the Marne, victory of the
Germans in the east, Austrian defeat in Belgrade, war on Turkey and Japan.
Everything was so fast that at Christmas 1914 the war dreamed of and
desired by poets and intellectuals, predestined to end the mediocrity and
decline of the Latin nations, had already been left behind. In the First Battle
of the Marne, the conflict had shown its most brutal and deadly side, where
more than half a million people had been killed – it had changed its method
and style, its nature and spirit, its objective and scope.
Since the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian crown, the
main Argentine and Spanish newspapers closely followed what was hap-
pening in the main European capitals. Despite that throughout July they
conceived the conflict as one more among the many that had taken place
in previous years, progressively the European scenario was gaining greater
relevance. ‘In July 1914 Spain experienced a period of calmness, like before
the siesta in the summer heatwave’, said the journalist Luis Bello towards
the end of the war, recalling the eve of the outbreak of the conflict.2 A few
weeks later, the situation changed radically when the news of the mobiliza-
tions in the main European cities began to be known in Spain.
During the negotiations in July 1914, the Entente countries ignored
Spain. Its limited army could do little to help France and England in a war
that was supposed to be brief. Spain then had about 75,000 men stationed
in North Africa, equivalent to 60% of its army.3 Meanwhile, Argentina was
immersed in a continent that had experienced strong tensions between the
United States and Mexico a few months earlier. President Wilson’s govern-
ment, shortly after arriving at the White House, in April 1914, had ordered
the military occupation of the Port of Veracruz and had threatened Mexico
City. Faced with this, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile proposed to mediate and
convened the Niagara Falls talks, which ended on 1 July, and laid the foun-
dation to structure a regional counterweight to the power of the United
States that would be finalized with the signing of the ABC Treaty on 25
May 1915.4
When the war broke out, all Latin American governments declared them-
selves neutral. Spain did the same. The conservative government led by
Eduardo Dato published a decree in La Gaceta declaring neutrality on 30
July. A few weeks later, a letter addressed to the conservative leader Anto-
nio Maura explained that, even though relations established with France
and England suggested an understanding with the Allies, neutrality was
the best option. Germany and Austria seemed satisfied. The only fear was
that the Allies would pressure Spain to take sides. But it was a relative fear
because they should ‘know that we lack the material means and adequate
preparation for the aid of men and elements of war, and that even if the
country were to undertake adventures . . . our cooperation would have little
effectiveness’.5
26 The outbreak of the war
The possibility of Spain intervening in the war underwent negotiations
that would ensure the recovery of some specific territorial goals such as
Tangier, Gibraltar, or Portugal. As the British diplomatic archives show, at
the time of the breakout of hostilities England contemplated that Tangier
could become a reward for Spain’s entry into the conflict.6 However, the
lack of direct interests in the dispute, economic weakness, and military dis-
organization were sufficient reasons to not question neutrality. These argu-
ments led Léon Geoffray, French ambassador to Madrid, to communicate to
his government that ‘an armed intervention in our favour would be imprac-
ticable’.7 In this framework, in March 1915, the Spanish ambassador in
Berlin commented in a letter to the Minister of State that in Germany it was
thought that if they intervened in the conflict, Spain could only be placed on
the side of the Allies. Therefore, the best thing to do was to try to maintain
neutrality and to move from a certain ‘spirit of mistrust’ to a certain relative
equidistance in Spanish society.8 In short, no power was seriously willing to
take these approaches into account in the first months of the war.9 However,
like other neutral States, Spain combined a certain sense of marginality in
the international sphere with an evident intention to impose its commercial
and political interests.10
Between 1 and 7 August, various official documents were published that
delimited the position of the Spanish government. In the first of these, ‘the
strictest neutrality’ was ordered and it was warned that

Spaniards residing in Spain or abroad who carry out any hostile act that
may be considered contrary to the most perfect neutrality, will lose the
right to Government protection of the king and will suffer the conse-
quences of the measures adopted by the belligerents, without prejudice
to the penalties they incur under the laws of Spain.11

On 3 August, they stated that ‘any insults as could be from the Press, or
in public meetings, against foreign sovereigns’ would be persecuted. Three
days later, another order was published prohibiting ‘the departure abroad’
of raw materials such as coal, wheat, corn, barley, rye, in addition to, of
course, meat, gold, and silver. A day later, it was warned that ‘national or
foreign agents who verify or promote the recruitment of soldiers in Spanish
territory’ would also be punished. This warning would be repeated several
times during the following weeks, with the entry of new countries in the
conflagration.
What had happened during the first days of the war? Why was it nec-
essary for the government to remember what it had previously planned?
Many things had happened. The first news received from the battlefronts
were evidently intense. The vast majority of publications were filled with
opinions and information about the war. ‘It is difficult to escape today from
the nightmare of war. . . . Today, thinking of anything other than the apoca-
lyptic catastrophe is almost sacrilegious lightness’, said a Carlist newspaper
 The outbreak of the war 27
in Girona a few days after the start of the mobilizations in Europe.12 In Gali-
cia, the front pages of newspapers such as El Eco de Galicia, El Noroeste,
La Idea Moderna, El Norte de Galicia, and Faro de Vigo also overflowed
with references to the war.13 In a way, Eduardo Dato’s prophecy published
in La Veu de Catalunya seemed to be fulfilled: ‘If the Austro-Serbian conflict
was the beginning of a European war, it would eventually reach us all.’14
The streets of the main Spanish cities were filled with people. ‘No; I don’t
think I will ever forget the scene on the Ramblas, full of people troubled by
the unexpectedness of the break out of hostilities and sensing the enormous
seriousness of the events that were to follow’, recalled the Catalan indus-
trialist Pedro Gual Villalbí.15 The editorial offices of the main newspapers
were filled with crowds awaiting the news. In Zaragoza, the Heraldo de
Aragon was ‘day and night’ full of ‘thousands of souls’; people crowded also
in front of the headquarters of El Pueblo Vasco in San Sebastián.16 In these
first spontaneous demonstrations, where the melody of La Marseillaise was
heard continuously, moments of tension were recorded. ‘A thousand daily
rumours shook up “public opinion”, showing a “deafening voice” that
staged the division between the supporters of “one side and the other”.’17
The tension escalated in the streets, bars, and athenaeums: ‘indolent atti-
tudes were abandoned; the sleepy placidity of long gatherings to converse,
and the massive armchairs suffered violent turmoil and unusual shifts’.18
Despite the respect for the State’s stance, other positions began to mani-
fest themselves. This was expressed, for example, by the Heraldo de Aragón
and El Noticiero, which showed locally how Aragon could go from a state
of stupefaction to a state of taking positions that divided the territory.19 The
Catholic sectors, in this case from Madrid, began to venture that the war
could be ‘an instrument of justice and mercy’ against ‘prevaricating nations’
such as England and France.20 In contrast, La Voz de Galicia dared to ven-
ture that the imminent defeat of Germany would suppose ‘the collapse of
imperialism’ and the impulse ‘of democracy’.21 The presence of the war and
the controversies that derived from it became such that in Barcelona some
‘little neutral badges’ began to be distributed that warned ‘Don’t talk to me
about the war’.22
The reactions to the outbreak of the conflict in Argentina were very
similar, despite the fact that the intensity of the tensions was greater. Of
course, the presence of numerous communities from countries at war was
a differential element. The same day that the Spanish intellectual Ramón
Ménendez Pidal gave a lecture on Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo at the
University of Buenos Aires, the news about the outbreak of war began
to flood the newsrooms in Buenos Aires.23 As in Spain, the first reactions
were of concern, rejection, and a certain hope that peace be restored
soon.
On 2 August, the headquarters of the newspaper La Prensa, one of the
most important in the country – which claimed to publish about 180,000
copies daily24 – sounded its horn to report that war had broken out. In a few
28 The outbreak of the war
hours, the streets of the city centre filled with people crowding in front of
the headquarters of the main newspapers. At times, more than 5,000 people
came together.25 The news that came from Europe was discussed ‘loudly
with truly extraordinary interest’; ‘nothing else was discussed in theatres,
on the streets, on public walks, and wherever a group of people formed’.26
In this framework, newspapers became a key piece to convey the ‘fascina-
tion’ that the war caused in Argentine society.27 To deal with news greed,
La Prensa created a signal system – which was copied by the newspaper
La Voz del Interior from Córdoba – to publish the news coming from the
battlefields: a yellow flag placed on their blackboards announced important
news, a red one with a white circle communicated victories of the Central
Powers, and a green one with a white circle served to report a victory of the
Allies. At night, a red spotlight signalled a victory for the Central Powers,
while a green spotlight that of the Allies.28 Of course, European events were
closely watched by immigrant communities.29 Evidently, the war interested
more intensely those who came from the belligerent countries, who made
up around 16.5% of the Argentine population and who in Buenos Aires
reached around 28% of its inhabitants.30
As in Madrid and Barcelona, it became common to hear from the doors
of bars and restaurants how La Marseillaise and other patriotic songs were
sung. On street corners vendors of emblems and badges appeared. The cries
in favour of France and England clashed with those that favoured the Central
Powers and even resulted in physical aggressions.31 Other voices, however,
opposed the war. Among them, in addition to the Catholic Church – which
promoted a procession to Luján in the name of peace – the anarchist Fede­
ración Obrera Regional Argentina (FORA), the voice of the socialists was
also highlighted, who, in response to the murder of Jean Jaurés, organized
various rallies where more than 20,000 had gathered.32
On 5 August, the Argentine vice president, Victorino de la Plaza – who
would become president four days after the death of Roque Sáenz Peña –
signed a decree declaring Argentina’s neutrality. Geographical distance,
economic dependence on European exports, and international ties with the
United States made this position advisable. Furthermore, the possibility of
extending the war towards South America had been ruled out by the bel-
ligerent powers.33 As stated in the second article of the neutrality decree, the
basis of this position was founded on ‘the convention regarding the rights
and duties of neutral powers signed in The Hague on 18 October 1907’.34
It was the same convention that Spain and all neutral countries adhered to,
and, therefore, Pablo Soler y Guardiola, the person in charge of the Spanish
legation, quickly sent the document to Madrid.35
As it happened in Spain, the tensions that the war caused led the govern-
ment of the city of Buenos Aires to issue new decrees that prohibited

in theatres, cinemas and other shows the representation of any work

and the exhibition of tapes or screenings that, due to their language,
 The outbreak of the war 29
actions or arguments may provoke . . . manifestations of any kind, in
favour or against foreign nations.36

Despite this, the same night the neutrality decree was released hundreds
of people gathered on Avenida de Mayo stopping the traffic while sing-
ing La Marseillaise, God Save the Queen, and Das Deustchlandlied. Again,
the demonstration ended with a violent police intervention that stopped
some 500 young people from concentrating in front of the French con-
sulate.37 In this context, the defence of neutrality took centre stage. The
local press claimed that the government’s position represented a ‘reassuring
conclusion’.38
In these first days of war, the movement of different groups of people
became relevant. The citizens of the belligerent countries residing in neutral
countries were quickly summoned to the ranks. In Spain, the border areas
experienced uncertainty and tension, especially in the Basque Country and
Catalonia. In San Sebastián, real struggles were observed to get a train ticket
with which to leave the country: ‘In front of the mayor’s office, the reserv-
ists were forming groups, rushing to register and receive their duties’, wrote
Dionisio Pérez on 3 August.39 The bustling of cars was enormous: ‘San
Sebastián received the emotion of the war as if it were the last link in the
rear-guard’, recalled the journalist Luis Bello.40 ‘Many French cars passed
through Girona yesterday afternoon’, warned the newspaper El Norte on
2 August. Two days later, Émile Gaussen, French consul in Barcelona, had
a note published in the same newspaper with the goal of offering help to
his compatriots to join the army across the Catalan border. Pablo Soler y
Guardiola, reported on 19 August that a similar phenomenon was taking
place in Argentina, although with much greater intensity. The ships of the
belligerent powers constantly monitored the waters of the Atlantic with the
aim of stopping ‘ships suspected of carrying war contraband or reservists,
soldiers or officers’.41
Despite the danger posed by a long journey across the ocean in a context
of war, a significant number of French, Russians, and Germans went to their
respective legations and consulates in Argentina after being called to the
ranks.42 They also received numerous requests for volunteers. On 7 August,
the steamer Aragón left Buenos Aires for Southampton, carrying thousands
of Englishmen, many of whom had the intention of voluntarily joining.43
The numbers from those times maintain that the British colony contributed
4,852 volunteers, of whom 527 died on the battlefields; however, according
to the British minister in Argentina, they could have reached a somewhat
higher number.44 The first contingent of French reservists – more than a
thousand men, as reported in El Diario in 1917 – left the port of Buenos
Aires on 18 August.45 In this group, the numbers reached around 5,800,
which was mobilized from among a population of about 42,000 people.
In relation to this, the numbers were even lower among Italians, who from
1915 only managed to mobilize around 6%.46 The other bloc of countries,
30 The outbreak of the war
the first ship that sailed from Buenos Aires, the Tomasso di Savoia –
Italian shipping companies transported Germans and Austrians who had
obtained false passports in these first weeks of war – embarked just under
200 Germans and Austrians on 5 August. In the following days, the German
teachers of the War School had also left, who were replaced by Argentine
teachers. Numerous workers from major German companies, such as the
Compañía Transatlántica Alemana, also departed.47 Nevertheless, as what
had occurred on the whole continent, the large majority of Germans could
not cross the Atlantic Ocean due to the naval block established by England.48
Another movement of the population also took place: the forced return
of the Spanish day labourers who returned from France and Algeria and, to
a lesser extent, from Germany, Belgium, and Italy. More than 42,000 Span-
iards returned through the Irún border. The ports and the municipalities and
the county councils welcomed them in shelters and ‘disinfection camps’ and
then tried to reintegrate them into their towns of origin.49 In a single day,
on 11 August, 422 people entered the Basque border.50 In Catalonia, on 18
August, the number of returnees who had passed through Portbou reached
22,280 people.51 In February 1915, at the Congress, Eduardo Dato went on
to affirm that ‘more than 40,000 workers’ had returned to Spain, among
which some had returned to Spain as a result of the crises arising in neutral
countries such as Mexico and Argentina.52 This unexpected situation had
a notable impact on some Spanish regions. In Catalonia, it soon translated
into unemployment and a higher cost of living and ended up profoundly
affecting some economies such as the cork industry.53 In Alto Aragón, it also
gave rise to a serious labour crisis because of an excess in population. All
this generated many concerns for the municipal authorities, especially when
people were seen wandering the streets ‘with no known profession’.54
The impact on economies was observed in all neutral countries. In Spain,
chaos and confusion took over the commercial and industrial circles and
companies that depended on foreign capital became bankrupt, while deposi-
tors rushed to withdraw their funds from banks. This led to the Barcelona
Stock Exchange closing – it did not reopen until 1915; the increase of money
in circulation was authorized and the export of staple items was prohibited
to avoid price increases.55 On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, various
testimonies described the desperation of Argentine clients to withdraw their
funds from banks. To deal with this situation, Victorino de la Plaza called a
meeting of the cabinet of ministers on 2 August, which resulted in the issue
of a decree that, among other measures, ordered the closure of the banks
from 3 to 8 August – many banks would remain closed until 12 – and pro-
hibited the export of wheat, gold, and flour.56 However, this failed to calm
the uncertainty because the first day banks reopened numerous clients with-
drew their funds from most entities. Among the first affected were the Banco
Transatlántico Alemán and the Banco Francés.57
On 19 August, José Ceballos Teresí, director of El Financiero His-
panoamericano, stated that the economic climate had been ‘rarefied’. Exports
 The outbreak of the war 31
had been interrupted and shortages of raw materials such as iron and steel
were beginning to narrow production. The prices of staple products such as
grains began to rise because of the increase in foreign demand. The govern-
ment soon warned that there was a risk of social turmoil and upheaval.58
To deal with this situation, on 18 September the Dato government created a
Junta de Iiniciativas (Board of Initiatives) that aimed to propose solutions
for ‘conflicts that have arisen or may be foreseen in national production as
a consequence of the European war’.59 In the following weeks the activity
of this Board and the Ministry of Finance was non-stop. The European
economy, and with it the Spanish, had suffered, as stated in a Royal Decree
of the Treasury published on 22 September:

The capsizing of navigation, the interruption of transfers due to the

moratoriums, the difficulties that shipments posed with monetary and
subsistence problems and the closure of very important ports, transit
and warehousing can be said to have suddenly depleted commerce to a
large extent in general.60

In this context, Pablo Soler, had sent a document to Madrid on 15 August,

in which he stated that the Banco Español del Río de la Plata in Argentina
had contacted him to inform him that his branch in Madrid had serious
problems due to the ‘withdrawal of funds from European banking insti-
tutions’. Of course, this situation was especially serious because, as was
the case in Buenos Aires, it was prohibited from exporting gold or sending
funds to Madrid.61
Spain and Argentina were at the mercy of the war at sea. The second
Hague Conference of 1907 and the declaration from London of a mari-
time war signed two years later had specified the rules for how to treat
neutral countries and had defined what goods transported on neutral ships
would be considered contraband. From 1914, this list would be progres-
sively expanded by the Allies.62 As a result, commercial traffic was partially
interrupted. Great Britain did everything they could to prevent Germany
from maintaining trade with neutral countries. Due to Germany’s naval
inferiority, they were forced to take on a defensive position that resulted
in most of their fleet remaining in German ports. Nevertheless, during the
first months of the war, the South American coasts were the scene of various
naval confrontations in which German and English ships were involved.
The most relevant of these incidents was carried out by the steamship Cap
Trafalgar, sunk by an English battleship in Trinidad on 14 September. Its
crew were transferred to Buenos Aires, where they were held in custody by
the Argentine government on Martín García Island. Their stay on the island
would be a source of tension between Germany’s supporters and those who
favoured the Allies.63
The lack of arrivals of European ships and the difficulty of exporting
some of the most important products had completely paralyzed the port of
32 The outbreak of the war
Buenos Aires. On top of this, unemployment and the prices of staple foods
and fuels began to grow.64 In the following months exports began to clearly
increase. Newspapers would start publishing as early as September about
the economic benefits of the war. However, this would result in new price
increases for staple products. The situation had worsened as a result of the
poor wheat harvest in 1914, and with the withdrawal of gold and foreign
capital ‘Our bread was rising in such an alarming way that it was necessary
to study astronomy to see it’, said Caras y Caretas.65

The Stockmarkets have been closed; work in the mines, in the factories,
in the shops have been halted; money has lost value; bridges and tunnels
and railways have been destroyed; trade has ceased; navigation has been
paralyzed; hunger has begun!66

This is how the journalist Dionisio Pérez characterized the situation that
the outbreak of the war had left in Spain. His perception was not very dif-
ferent compared to various Argentine chroniclers. Therefore, faced with
fear that the crisis would lead to social conflicts, the governments of both
countries intervened to alleviate the situation through exceptional social
actions. In Argentina, both the State and provincial governments began
to organize soup kitchens in the different neighbourhoods of the city and
housed the unemployed at the Hotel de Inmigrantes.67 Some sectors of the
press showed their solidarity and made contributions: the magazine Fray
Mocho distributed some 6,000 food rations to women and children through
­vouchers that were exchanged at police stations.68 Throughout the Spanish
territory, charity and welfare policies were also implemented, such as in the
­distribution of children’s clothing and wood from the trees of public roads.
At the same time, different municipal and provincial entities tried – without
much ­success – to control the price of bread and certain basic products and
organize donations.69 However, these measures failed to end social prob-
lems. Over the weeks, criticism on the respective governments began to rise.
In this framework, sympathies for the struggling powers would translate
into local political issues.

Political and intellectual positions

The repercussions of the war forced politicians and intellectuals to face a
previously unknown scenario. ‘The ruin of Europe is imminent’, wrote the
writer Sebastián Gomila from Barcelona. All the European parties, from the
conservatives to the socialists, had been involved in the war and the hori-
zon that it seemed to bring was terrible. As Lázaro Ballesteros wrote from
Madrid, neutral countries faced a dilemma: ‘succumb to being belligerent,
facing the consequences of war, or gracefully proclaim neutrality’.70 Also, in
Argentina, very popular journals and newspapers – from Caras y Caretas
to La Prensa and La Nación – published on their front pages the references
 The outbreak of the war 33
to the civil crisis that had led the old continent to war.71 As the weekly PBT
illustrated in its issue 19 September 1914, the ‘focus of civilization’ was
on fire.72 Faced with this, a vision of an ‘organized, democratic, peaceful’
America that represented civilization versus a Europe that was struggling ‘in
a barbaric struggle’ began to be projected.73 This perception extended to all
Latin American societies. Towards the end of 1914, Argentine and Brazilian
cinemas were showing films such as Os horrores da guerra, which helped
to spread these ideas.74 Within this framework, José Ingenieros synthesized
these ideas in ‘El suicidio de los bárbaros’, one of his fundamental texts on
war – which appeared in Caras y Caretas on 22 August – where he also
proposed a reaffirmation of the Argentine national identity and reviewed
the modernization process that had begun in 1880.75 The two ideas that
articulated their approaches, the failure for a civil Europe and the local
positions on the war, began to shape the positions that divided the Argentine
and Spanish societies.
The majority of the society agreed that Spain could not be involved in the
conflict. The various political groups, with all their nuances, were together
on this official position. The conservatives gathered behind President Dato;
meanwhile, among the liberals openly dissenting positions coexisted, rang-
ing from the Count of Romanones to some sectors that identified with the
Central Powers. The right wing, despite their open inclination towards Ger-
many, supported the State’s position. However, the vast majority of Mau-
ristas would end up becoming Germanophile and, in some cases, fighting as
volunteers in the German ranks. The Carlists, despite not having a unani-
mous attitude, supported neutrality and, in the case of Juan Vázquez de
Mella, one of its main leaders, expressed his preference for an alliance with
Germany against England and France, the ‘natural enemies’ of Spain.76 At
the other end of the political spectrum, the republicans and the left faced a
paradoxical situation; they wanted the triumph of the democratic and lib-
eral ideas represented by France and England, but they also realized that this
could not lead to intervention in the conflict. Their position would gradu-
ally shift towards a neutrality that clearly tended to the Allies. Unlike them,
throughout the conflict the Anarcho-Syndicalists CNT denounced the war
affirmed in the Ferrol congress of February 1915 with the slogan ‘the revolu-
tion before the war’.77
Amid this unstable initial consensus, three voices broke the silence and
forced the government to reaffirm itself in one official position. One of the
first discordant voices was Alejandro Lerroux, leader of the Partido Repub-
licano Radical, who on 3 August stated that Spain should enter the con-
flict to accelerate the process and achieve ‘the triumph of the Latin race’.78
Spain was to be with France, the only power that had ‘organized militarily
for peace’ and ensured ‘the triumph of democracy, the supremacy of civil
power, and assured peace’.79 A few weeks later, at the beginning of Septem-
ber, he declared in Le Journal of Paris his alliance with France and affirmed
that both the king and the majority of Spaniards shared this position.80 On
34 The outbreak of the war
his return to Spain, he was stoned by a crowd screaming for neutrality at
the entrance of the Irún Palace Hotel. Similar incidents were repeated in
Cádiz, Seville, Granada, Córdoba, and Barcelona.81 The second question-
ing of the official position came from the leader of the Partido Reformista,
Melquíades Álvarez, who on 13 August claimed benevolent neutrality with
Allied nations.82 The last statement is the one that had the most impact on
the questioning of the government. It came from Romanones, one of the
main leaders of the Partido Liberal, who on 19 August published the article
‘Neutralidades que matan’ in the Diario Universal where he defended that
Spain should position itself alongside France and England.83 Although he
did not advocate entering the war, he clearly suggested Spain’s support to
the Allied cause.
At the beginning of September, the First Battle of the Marne demonstrated
the failure of the Schlieffen Plan and opened the door to a much longer con-
flict than originally anticipated. From then on, the fight for neutrality and
its meanings became one of the central axes on which Spanish politics was
structured. In this context, the initial consensus gave way to a debate on the
nature of neutrality, which in a few months ended up becoming a heated
controversy. One of the most moderate military newspapers acknowledged
‘The issue of Spain’s neutrality in the current European and intercontinental
conflict has unfortunately become a topic of discussion’ from its standpoint
for a ‘strict neutrality’.84 From Mallorca, Gabriel Alomar, regular contribu-
tor to different Catalan republican publications, reflected on this emerging
controversy by stating, ‘Neutrality can only be declared by governments, it
cannot be imposed on national opinion, which is totally free. The subject of
neutrality is not the nation, but the State’.85 While affirming the importance
of Spain to not intervene in the conflict, those who expressed their sup-
port to one side or the other began to think of alignments for the present
and for the future. As stated by the ambassador in Paris, Fernando León
y Castillo, ‘the differences of opinion and the division of who to support’
were observed ‘both in Spain and in other neutral countries, because each
group of the Allied nations represents a different political, sociological and
doctrinal idea’.86
Many neutralities began to appear, all with different approaches, which
contributed to the configuration of cultural and political fields that were
expressed in an increasingly antagonistic way. Among the supporters of Ger-
many and the Central Powers, the Court and the entire aristocracy stood out,
led by María Cristina, daughter of Archduchess Elizabeth Franziska of Aus-
tria. Her support was overshadowed by the role assumed by King Alfonso
XIII, the ‘most Allied of the monarchs’.87 The army too – the vast majority
of the military had been trained in academies strongly influenced by German
scientific and military projects – assumed a position moderately favourable
to Germany.88 Except for Catalonia, the Catholic Church was another pillar
of Germanophile sentiment. The majority of this sector rejected republican
France, its secularization, and the expulsion of religious orders during the
 The outbreak of the war 35
1890s and much preferred German Lutheranism and the values of hierar-
chy, order, and discipline projected by the Kaiser and his Empire, which was
closely linked to the Austrian Catholic crown. For them, war was ‘an instru-
ment of justice and mercy’ against ‘prevaricating nations’ like England and
France and ‘an atonement for the nations that turned away from God’.89
The political movements Carlism and Maurism were added to these sec-
tors. In the first months of the conflict Antonio Maura opted for neutral-
ity. However, in the pages of Maurism weekly publication Vida Ciudadana
cartoons and articles abounded that ridiculed Allied positions and glorified
the courage of the German army and its leaders.90 Their approaches were
not too far removed from most of the Carlists. Although they did not count
on a unanimous position – the candidate for the throne Jaime III was a pro-
claimed supporter of the Allies as well as Melchor Ferrer, who became a vol-
unteer to fight alongside the Allies – this movement was the one that most
vehemently participated in the Germanophile militancy and the one with the
highest social and political impact.91 Juan Vázquez de Mella, one of its main
leaders, sustained in the first weeks of August 1914 a steadfast defence of
neutrality, which was proclaimed because England systematically denied the
geographic independence of the Strait of Gibraltar. The war was, from his
point of view, a conflict between Germany and England and his thesis that
became predominantly Carlist resulted in this slogan: ‘to be an anglophile
is in turn to be hispanophobic’. From this perspective, the interests of Ger-
many were compatible with those of Spain and, therefore, ‘absolute neutral-
ity’ had to be defended. In this framework, his main concern was to improve
the role of Spain with the aim of achieving union with Portugal through the
federal reconstitution of the Peninsula and to reconquer Gibraltar to redi-
rect a new international policy that would conclude with the constitution of
a United States of South America that would, in turn, counteract the grow-
ing influence of US imperialism. With this policy, he intended to place Spain
as part of the general trend expressed by Pangermanism, Pan-Slavism, or
Italian irredentism. He proposed to develop ‘a general league with the name
of Spain, or if wanted, Iberia irredenta to claim them’, a Pan-Hispanism
that was nothing more than a renewed reaction against the defeat of the
United States in 1898, which was configured early on and which would
later be reclaimed as Hispanidad by national Catholicism. These were the
ideas that Vázquez de Mella declared in his famous speech at the Teatro de
la Zarzuela in Madrid, delivered on 31 May 1915.92 These ideas were not
far from those claimed by Luis Antón de Olmet, who in El Parlamentario
based his desire for Germany to win in the name of peace, neutrality, and
‘the great principles that made humanity admirable: God, Country, King,
Work, Honour, Charity, Family’.93 These arguments were repeated and
adapted by various traditionalist groups in Spain and were also claimed
by the Spanish community in Argentina.94 As we will see, the question of
Gibraltar – like that of the Falkland Islands in Argentina – would become
one of the central elements of the Germanophile and Neutralist positions.
36 The outbreak of the war
Faced with the arguments of Vázquez de Mella, different intellectuals, and
political allies – Álvaro Alcalá Galiano, José Eugenio Ribera, and Alejan-
dro Lerroux, among others, would argue that if any power could ‘return’
Gibraltar to Spain, it was England and not Germany.95
Among the wide range of groups favourable to the Allies, socialists and
numerous republican groups that spread across the Spanish territory also
stood out. After the first weeks of the war, on 5 November 1914, Pablo Igle-
sias expressed in parliament his support for the Allied cause. A short time
later, Antoni Fabra i Ribas published the book Socialism and the European
Conflict – with the subtitle Kaiserism, Here Is the Danger! Should Spain
Intervene in the War? – where it demonstrated that respect for official neu-
trality was not equivalent to holding a presiding position.96 The republicans,
in their different aspects, also showed their pro-Allied support. From their
point of view, Spain had to align itself with the Western democracies if it
did not wish to continue being a backward country with no influence on the
continent. The option for neutrality, as Lerroux stated in a speech in Santa
Cruz de Tenerife on 26 May 1915, was synonymous for cowardice. For
this reason, he did not hesitate to criticize Dato’s government for accusing
those who wanted Spain to intervene more actively in the conflict together
with the Allies as ‘anti-patriots’.97 The work of the Republican leader was
focused on two fronts: one through propaganda, books, and newspaper
articles like those published in the pages of El Radical98 and another through
the battlefields of Europe because he would be in charge of offering a large
contingent of men from his ranks to fight voluntarily in the French army.99
In general terms, socialists, reformists, and republicans held practically the
same arguments in these initial moments of the conflict and interpreted it as
a dispute between German autocracy and French and English democracies,
as a struggle between nations and empires that should mark the future of the
country. In this dichotomous construction, as Alcalá Galiano aptly recalled,
‘they disregarded Russia, Serbia and Austria’.100
In this scenario, the press and intellectuals occupied a fundamental place.
Most of them showed a certain enthusiastic vitality and leaned towards
the Allies because they thought they symbolized modernity and democracy.
As Miguel de Unamuno showed, they attributed a purifying virtue to the
decadent Spanish nation. From a perspective shared by many Spanish and
European intellectuals, he stated that the war was ‘like a purifying storm’.101
Something similar was expressed by Azorín in October, who thought that
entering the war could provoke a national shock and the entry of Spain
into European modernity, and for this reason he criticized the government’s
position: ‘Spain – a country of rest, of silence – has been a province of
Europe. Now, the breach of neutrality would be to start marching.’102 These
intellectuals believed they saw in France (and to a lesser extent in England) a
path to a national renaissance that in previous years they had sought in the
Partido Reformista and in socialism. However, their arguments were contra-
dictory. Their consideration of science and of the scientific method as clearly
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the first intelligence concerning them among strangers, but at a
place where we were almost the strongest.
Sad condition Excessive marks of joy accompanied our
of the ship’s discovering the entrance of the gulph of Cajeli, at
companies. break of day. There the Dutch have their settlement;
there too was the place where our greatest misery was to have an
end. The scurvy had made cruel havock amongst us after we had
left Port Praslin; no one could say he was absolutely free from it, and
half of our ship’s companies were not able to do any duty. If we had
kept the sea eight days longer, we must have lost a great number of
men, and we must all have fallen sick. The provisions which we had
now left were so rotten, and had so cadaverous a smell, that the
hardest moments of the sad days we passed, were those when the
bell gave us notice to take in this disgusting and unwholesome food.
I leave every one to judge how much this situation heightened in our
eyes the beautiful aspect of the coasts of Boero. Ever since
midnight, a pleasant scent exhaled from the aromatic plants with
which the Moluccas abound, had made an agreeable impression
upon our organs of smell, several leagues out at sea, and seemed to
be the fore-runner which announced the end of our calamities to us.
The aspect of a pretty large town situated in the bottom of the gulph;
of ships at anchor there, and of cattle rambling through the meadows
caused transports which I have doubtless felt, but which I cannot
here describe.
We were obliged to make several boards before we entered into
this gulph, of which the northern point is called the point of
Lissatetto, and that on the S. E. side, point Rouba. It was ten o’clock
before we could stand in for the town. Several boats were sailing in
the bay; we hoisted Dutch colours, and fired a gun, but not one of
them came along-side; I then sent a boat to sound a-head of the
ship. I was afraid of a bank which lies on the S. E. side of the gulph.
At half an hour past noon, a periagua conducted by Indians came
near the ship; the chief person asked us in Dutch who we were, but
refused to come on board. However, we advanced, all sails set,
according to the signals of our boat, which sounded a-head. Soon
after we saw the bank of which we had dreaded the Shoal of the
approach. It was low water, and the danger gulph of Cajeli.
appeared very plain. It is a chain of rocks mixed with coral, stretching
from the S. E. shore of the gulph to within a league of point Rouba,
and its extent from S. E. to N. W. is half a league. About four times
the length of a boat from its extremities, you have five or six fathoms
of water, a foul coral bottom, and from thence you immediately come
into seventeen fathoms, sand and ooze. Our course was nearly S.
W. three leagues, from ten o’clock to half past one, when we
anchored opposite the factory, near several little Dutch vessels, not
quite a quarter of a league off shore. We were in twenty-seven
fathoms, sand and ooze, and had the following bearings:
Point Lissatetto, N. 4° E. two leagues.
Point Rouba, N. E. 2° E. half a league.
A peninsula, W. 10° N. three quarters of a league.
The point of a shoal, which extends above half a league to the offing
from the peninsula, N. W. by W.
The flag of the Dutch factory, S. by W. ½ W.
We put in at The Etoile anchored near us more to the W. N. W.
Boero. We had hardly let go our anchor, when two Dutch
soldiers, without arms, one of them speaking French, came on board
to ask me on the part of the chief of the factory, what motives
brought us to this port, when we could not be ignorant that the ships
of the Dutch India company alone had the privilege of entering it. I
sent them back with an officer to declare to the chief, that the
necessity of taking in provisions forced us to enter into the first port
we had met with, without permitting us to pay any regard to the
treaties that exclude our ships from the ports in the Moluccas, and
that we should leave the harbour as soon as he should have given
us what help we stood most in need of. The two
soldiers returned soon after, to communicate to me Embarrassmen
an order, signed by the governor of Amboina, upon t of the chief.
whom the chief of Boero immediately depends, by which the latter is
expressly forbid to receive foreign ships into his port. The chief at the
same time begged me to give him a written declaration of my
motives for putting in here, in order that he might thereby justify his
conduct in receiving us here, before his superior, to whom he would
send the above declaration. His demand was reasonable, and I
satisfied it by giving him a signed deposition, in which I declared, that
having left the Malouines, and intending to go to India by the South
Seas, the contrary monsoon, and the want of provisions, had
prevented our gaining the Philippinas, and obliged us to go in search
of the indispensable supplies at the first port in the Moluccas, and
that I desired him to grant me these supplies in consideration of
humanity, the most respectable of obligations.
Good reception From this moment we found no difficulties; the
he gives us. chief having done his duty for his company, happily
acted a very good natured character, and offered us all he had in as
easy a manner as if he had every thing in his disposal. Towards five
o’clock I went on shore with several officers, in order to pay him a
visit. Notwithstanding the embarrassment which our arrival had
caused him, he received us extremely well. He even offered us a
supper, and we did not fail to accept of it. When he saw with what
pleasure and avidity we devoured it, he was better convinced than
by our words, that we had reason to complain of being pinched by
hunger. All the Hollanders were struck with the highest degree of
surprise, and none of them durst eat any thing for fear of wronging
us. One must have been a sailor, and reduced to the extremities
which we had felt for several months together, in order to form an
idea of the sensation which the sight of greens and of a good supper
produced in people in that condition. This supper was for me one of
the most delicious moments of my life, especially as I had sent on
board the vessels what would afford as good a supper as ours to
every one there.
We agreed that we should have venison every day to supply our
companies with fresh meat, during their stay; that at parting we were
to receive eighteen oxen, some sheep, and almost as much poultry
as we should require. We were obliged to supply the want of bread
with rice, which the Dutch live upon. The islanders live upon sago
bread, which they get out of a palm of that name; this bread looks
like the cassava. We could not get great quantities of pulse, which
would have been extremely salutary to us. The people of this country
do not cultivate them. The chief was so good as to give some to our
sick from the company’s garden.
Police of the Upon the whole, every thing here, directly or
company. indirectly, belongs to the company; neat and small
cattle, grain, and victuals of all kinds. The company alone buys and
sells. The Moors indeed have sold us fowls, goats, fish, eggs, and
some fruit, but the money which they got for them will not long
remain in their hands. The Dutch know how to get at it, by selling
them very coarse kinds of cloth, which however bear a very great
price. Even stag-hunting is not allowed to every one, for the chief
alone has a right to it. He gives his huntsmen three charges of
powder and shot, in return they are obliged to bring him two deer, for
which they are paid six-pence a-piece. If they bring home only one,
he deducts from what is due to them the value of one charge of
powder and shot.
On the 3d in the morning we brought our sick on shore, to ly there
during our stay. We likewise daily sent the greatest part of the crews
on shore, to walk about and divert themselves. I got the slaves of the
company, whom the chief hired to us by the day, to fill the water of
both ships, and to transport every thing from the shore to the ships,
&c. The Etoile profited of this time to adjust the caps of her lower
masts, which had much play. We had moored at our arrival, but from
what the Dutch told us of the goodness of the bottom, and of the
regularity of the land and sea breezes; we weighed our small bower.
Indeed, we saw all the Dutch vessels riding at single anchor.
During our stay here we had exceeding fine weather. The
thermometer generally rose to 23° during the greatest heat of the
day; the breeze from N. E. and S. E; blowing in day time, changed in
the evenings; it then came from the shore, and the nights were very
cool. We had an opportunity of seeing the interior parts of the isle;
we were allowed to go out a stag-hunting several times, in which we
took a great deal of pleasure. The country is charmingly interspersed
with woods, plains, and hillocks, between which the vallies are
watered by fine rivulets. The Dutch have brought the first stags
hither, which have multiplied prodigiously, and are delicious eating.
Here are likewise wild boars in great plenty, and some species of
wild fowls.
Particulars The extent of the isle of Boero or Burro from east
concerning the to west is reckoned at eighteen leagues, and from
isle of Boero. north to south at thirteen. It was formerly subject to
the king of Ternate, who got a tribute from thence. The principal
place in it is Cajeli, situated at the bottom of the gulph of that name,
in a marshy plain, stretching about four miles between the rivers
Soweill and Abbo. The latter is the greatest river in the whole island,
and its water is always very muddy. The landing is very inconvenient
here, especially at low water, during which, the boats are obliged to
stop at a good distance from the beach. The Dutch settlement, and
fourteen Indian habitations, formerly dispersed in several parts of the
isle, but now drawn together round the factory, form the village or
town of Cajeli. At first, the Dutch had built a fort of stone here; it was
blown up by accident in 1689, and since that time they have
contented themselves with a simple enclosure of pallisadoes,
mounted with six small cannon, forming a kind of battery; this is
called Fort of Defence, and I took this name for a sort of ironical
appellation. The garrison is commanded by the chief, and consists of
a serjeant and twenty-five men; on the whole island are not above
fifty white people. Some habitations of black people are dispersed on
it, and they cultivate rice. Whilst we were here, the Dutch forces
were encreased by three vessels, of which, the biggest was the
Draak, a snow, mounting fourteen guns, commanded by a Saxon,
whose name was Kop-le-Clerc; she was manned by fifty Europeans,
and destined to cruise among the Moluccas, and especially to act
against the people of Papua and Ceram.
Account of the The natives of the country are of two classes, the
natives of the Moors (Maures) and the Alfourians (Alfouriens). The
country. former live together under the factory, being entirely
submitted to the Dutch, who inspire them with a great fear of all
foreign nations. They are zealous observers of the Mahomedan
religion, that is, they make frequent ablutions, eat no pork, and take
as many wives as they can support, being very jealous of them, and
keeping them shut up. Their food is sago, some fruits, and fish. On
holidays they feast upon rice, which the company sells them. Their
chiefs or orencaies are always about the Dutch chief, who seems to
have some regard for them, and by their means keeps the people in
order. The company have had the art of sowing the seeds of a
reciprocal jealousy among these chiefs; this allures them of a
general slavery, and the police which they observe here with regard
to the natives, is the same in all their other factories. If one chief
forms a plot, another discovers it, and immediately informs the Dutch
of it.
These moors are, upon the whole, ugly, lazy, and not at all warlike.
They are greatly afraid of the Papous, or inhabitants of Papua; who
come sometimes in numbers of two or three hundred to burn their
habitations, and to carry off all they can, and especially slaves. The
remembrance of their last visit, made about three years ago, was still
recent. The Dutch do not make slaves of the natives of Boero; for the
company gets those, whom they employ that way, either from
Celebes, or from Ceram, as the inhabitants of these two isles sell
each other reciprocally.
Wise people. The Alfourians are a free people, without being
enemies of the company. They are satisfied with being independent,
and covet not those trifles, which the Europeans sell or give them in
exchange for their liberty. They live dispersed in the inaccessible
mountains, which the interior parts of this isle contain. There they
subsist upon sago, fruits, and hunting. Their religion is unknown; it is
said, that they are not Mahommedans; for they feed hogs, and
likewise eat them. From time to time the chiefs of the Alfourians
come to visit the Dutch chief; they would do as well to stay at home.
Productions of I do not know whether there were formerly any
the Boero. spice plantations on this isle; but be this as it will, it
is certain that there are none at present. The company get from this
station nothing but black and white ebony, and some other species
of wood, which are much in request with joiners. There is likewise a
fine pepper plantation; the sight of which has convinced us, that
pepper is common on New Britain, as we conjectured before. Fruits
are but scarce here; there are cocoa-nuts, bananas, shaddocks,
some lemons, citrons, bitter-oranges, and a few pine-apples. There
grows a very good sort of barley, called ottong, and the sago-borneo,
of which they make soups, which seemed abominable to us. The
woods are inhabited by a vast number of birds of various species,
and beautiful plumage; and among them are parrots of the greatest
beauty. Here is likewise that species of wild cat[123], which carries its
young in a bag under its belly; the kind of bat, whose wings are of a
monstrous extent[124]; enormous serpents, which can swallow a
whole sheep at once, and another species of snakes, which is much
more dangerous; because it keeps upon trees, and darts into the
eyes of those who look into the air as they pass by. No remedy is as
yet found against the bite of this last kind; we killed two of them in
one of our stag-hunts.
The river Abbo, of which the banks are almost every where
covered with trees of a thick foliage, is infested by enormous
crocodiles, which devour men and beasts. They go out at night; and
there are instances of their taking men out of their periaguas. The
people keep them from coming near, by carrying lighted torches. The
shores of Boero do not furnish many fine shells. Those precious
shells, which are an article of commerce with the Dutch, are found
on the coast of Ceram, at Amblaw, and at Banda, from whence they
are sent to Batavia. At Amblaw they likewise find the most beautiful
kind of cockatoes.
Good Henry Ouman, the chief at Boero, lives there like
proceedings of a sovereign. He has a hundred slaves for the
the resident on service of his house, and all the necessaries and
our account.
conveniencies of life in abundance. He is an Under-
[125]
Merchant ; and this degree is the third in the company’s service.
This man was born at Batavia, and has married a Creole from
Amboina. I cannot sufficiently praise his good behaviour towards us.
I make no doubt, but the moment when we entered this port, was a
critical one for him; but he behaved like a man of sense. After he had
done what his duty to his superiors required, he did what he could
not be exempted from, with a good grace, and with the good
manners of a frank and generous man. His house was ours; we
found something to eat and drink there at all times; and I think this
kind of civility was as good as any other, especially to people who
still felt the consequences of famine. He gave us two repasts of
ceremony; the good order, elegance, and plenty of which, quite
surprised us in so inconsiderable a place. The house of this honest
Dutchman was very pretty, elegantly furnished, and built entirely in
the Chinese taste. Every thing is so disposed about it as to make it
cool; it is surrounded by a garden, and a river runs across it. You
come to it from the sea-shore, through an avenue of very great trees.
His wife and daughter were dressed after the Chinese fashion, and
performed the honours of the house very well. They pass their time
in preparing flowers for distillation, in making nosegays, and getting
some betel ready. The air which you breathe in this agreeable house
is most deliciously perfumed, and we should all very willingly have
made a long stay there: how great was the contrast between this
sweet and peaceful situation, and the unnatural life we had now led
for these ten months past?
Conduct of I must mention what impression the sight of this
Aotourou at European settlement made upon Aotourou. It will
Boero. easily be conceived that his surprise must have
been great at seeing men dressed like ourselves, houses, gardens,
and various domestick animals in abundance, and great variety. He
could not be tired with looking at these objects, which were new to
him. He valued above all that hospitality, which was here exercised
with an air of sincerity and of acquaintance. As he did not see us
make any exchanges, he apprehended that the people gave us
every thing without being paid for it. Upon the whole, he behaved
very sensibly towards the Dutch. He began with giving them to
understand, that in his country he was a chief, and that he had
undertaken this voyage with his friends for his own pleasure. In the
visits, at table, and in our walks, he endeavoured to imitate us
exactly. As I had not taken him with me on the first visit which we
made, he imagined it was because his knees are distorted, and
absolutely wanted some sailors to get upon them, to set them to
rights. He often asked us, whether Paris was as fine as this factory?
Goodness of On the 6th, in the afternoon, we had taken on
the provisions board our rice, cattle, and all other refreshments.
there. The good chief’s bill was of a considerable amount;
but we were assured, that all the prices were fixed by the company,
and that he could not depart from their tariff. The provisions were
indeed excellent; the beef and mutton are better by a great deal,
than in any other hot country I know; and the fowls are most
delicious there. The butter of Boero has a reputation in this country,
which our sailors from Bretany found it had not lawfully acquired.
The 7th, in the morning, I took on board the sick people, and we
made every thing ready, in order to set sail in the evening with the
land-breeze. The fresh provisions, and the salubrious air of Boero,
had done our sick much good. This stay on shore, though it lasted
only six days, brought them so far, that they could be cured on
board, or at least prevented from growing worse, by means of the
refreshments which we could now give them.
Observations It would doubtless have been very desirable for
on the them, and even for the healthy men, to have made a
monsoons and longer stay here; but the end of the eastern
currents.
monsoon being at hand, pressed us to set sail for
Batavia. If the other monsoon was once set in, it became impossible
for us to go there; because at that time, besides having the winds
contrary to us, we had likewise the currents against us, which follow
the direction of the reigning monsoon. It is true, they keep the
direction of the preceding monsoon for near a month after it; but the
changing of the monsoon, which commonly happens in October,
may come a month sooner, as well as a month later. In September
there is little wind: in October and November still less; that being the
season of calms. The governor of Amboina chooses at this season
to go his rounds to all the isles which depend upon his government.
June, July, and August, are very rainy. The eastern monsoon
generally blows S. S. E. and S. S. W. to the north of Ceram and
Boero; in the isles of Amboina and Bandas it blows E. and S. E. The
western monsoon blows from W. S. W. and N. W. The month of April
is the term when the western winds cease blowing; this is the stormy
monsoon, as the easterly one is the rainy monsoon. Captain Clerk
told us, that he had in vain cruized before Amboina, in order to enter
it, during the whole month of July: he had there suffered continual
rains, which had made all his people sick. It was at the same time
that we were so well soaked in Port Praslin.
Remarks on There had been three earthquakes this year at
the Boero, almost close after each other, on the 7th of
earthquakes. June, the 12th and on the 17th of July. It was the
22d of the same month that we felt one on New Britain. These
earthquakes have terrible consequences for navigation in this part of
the world. Sometimes they sink known isles and sand-banks, and
sometimes they raise some, where there were none before; and we
gain nothing by such accidents. Navigation would be much safer, if
every thing remained as it is.
We leave On the 7th after noon, all our people were on
Boero. board, and we only waited for the land-breeze, in
order to set sail. It was not felt till eight o’clock at night. I immediately
sent a boat with a light to anchor at the point of the bank, which lies
on the S. E. side, and we began to make every thing ready for
setting sail. We had not been misled, when we were informed that
the bottom was very good in this anchorage. We made fruitless
efforts at the capstan for a long time; at last the voyal broke, and we
could only by the help of our winding-tackle get our anchor out of this
strong ooze, in which it was buried. We did not get under sail before
eleven o’clock. Having doubled the point of the bank, we hoisted in
our boats, as the Etoile did hers, and we steered successively N. E.
N. E. by N. and N. N. E. in order to go out of the gulph of Cajeli.
Astronomical During our stay here, M. Verron had made several
observations. observations of distances on board; the mean result
of which enabled him to determine the longitude of this gulph; and
places it 2° 53′ more to the westward than our reckoning, which we
had followed after determining the longitude on New Britain. Upon
the whole, though we found the true European date current in the
Moluccas, from which it was very natural, we had lost a day by going
round the world with the sun’s course, yet I shall continue the date of
our journals, only mentioning, that instead of Wednesday the 7th,
they reckoned Thursday the 8th in India. I shall not correct my date,
till I come to the isle of France.
 CHART CHART
of the Straits of shewing the Track of the
BOUTON. French Ships
through the
MOLUCCAS,
to Batavia, in
1768.
 CHAP. VII.
Run from Boero to Batavia.
1768.
September.
Although I was convinced that the Dutch represent
the navigation between the Moluccas as much more dangerous than
it really is, yet I well knew that it was full of shoals and difficulties.
The greatest difficulty for us was to have no Difficulties of
accurate chart of these parts of India, the French the navigation
charts of them being more proper to cause the loss in the
Moluccas.
of ships than to guide them. I could get nothing but
vague information, and imperfect instructions from the Dutch at
Boero. When we arrived there, the Draak was going to leave the port
in a few days, in order to bring an engineer to Macassar, and I
intended to follow her to that place; but the resident gave orders to
the commander of this snow to stay at Cajeli till we were gone.
Accordingly we set sail alone, and I directed my course so as to pass
to the northward of Boero, and to go in search of the straits of
Button, which the Dutch call Button-straat.
Course which We ranged the coast of Boero at the distance of
we take. about a league and a half, and the currents did not
seem to make any sensible difference till noon. On the 8th in the
morning we perceived the isles of Kilang and Manipa. From the low
land which you find after going out of the gulph of Cajeli, the coast is
very high, and runs W. N. W. and W. by N. On the 9th in the morning
we got sight of the isle of Xullabessie; it is a very inconsiderable one,
and the Dutch have a factory there, in a redoubt, called Cleverblad,
or the Clover-leaf. The garrison consists of a serjeant and twenty-five
men, under the command of M. Arnoldus Holtman, who is only book-
keeper. This isle formerly was one of the dependences of the
government of Amboina, at present it belongs to that of Ternate.
Whilst we ran along Boero we had little wind, and the settled breezes
almost the same as in the bay. The currents during these two days
set us near eight leagues to the westward. We determined this
difference with precision enough, on account of the frequent
bearings which we took. On the last day they likewise set us a little
to the southward, which was verified by the meridian altitude
observed on the 10th.
We had seen the last lands of Boero on the 9th, at sun-setting; we
found pretty fresh S. and S. S. E. winds out at sea, and we passed
several very strong races of a tide. We steered S. W. whenever the
winds permitted, in order to fall in with the land between Wawoni and
Button, as I intended to pass through the straits of that name. It is
pretended that during this season it is dangerous to Nautical
keep to the eastward of Button, that one runs the advice.
risk of being thrown upon the coast by the winds and currents, and
that then it is necessary, in order to lay it again, to wait for the
western monsoon’s being perfectly set in. This I have been told by a
Dutch mariner, but I will not answer for the truth of it. I will however
positively assert that the passage of the straits is infinitely preferable
to the other course, either to the northward or to the southward of the
shoal called Toukanbessie: this latter being full of visible and hidden
dangers, which are dreaded even by those who know the coast.
On the 10th in the morning, one Julian Launai, taylor, died of the
scurvy. He began already to grow better, but two excesses in
drinking brandy carried him off.
Sight of the The 11th, at eight o’clock in the morning, we saw
straits of the land, bearing from W. by S. to S. S. W. ½ W. At
Button. nine o’clock, we found that it was the isle of Wawoni,
which is high, especially in its middle: at eleven o’clock we
discovered the northern part of Button. At noon we observed in 4° 6′
of south lat. The northermost point of the isle of Wawoni then bore
W. ½ N. its southermost point S. W. by W. 4° W. eight or nine
leagues distant, and the N. E. point of Button, S. W. ½ W. about nine
leagues distant. In the afternoon we stood within two leagues of
Wawoni, then stood out into the offing, and kept plying all night, in
order to keep to windward of the straits of Button, and be ready to
enter them at day-break. The 12th, at six o’clock in the morning, it
bore between N. W. by W. and W. N. W. and we stood in for the
north point of Button. At the same time we hoisted out our boats, and
kept them in tow. At nine o’clock we opened the straits, with a fine
breeze, which lasted till half past ten o’clock, and freshened again a
little before noon.
Description of When you enter these straits, it is necessary to
the entrance. range the land of Button, of which the north point is
of a middling height, and divided into several hummocks. The cape
on the larboard side of the entrance is steep and bold-to. Several
white rocks ly before it, pretty high above the water, and to the
eastward is a fine bay, in which we saw a small vessel under sail.
The opposite point of Wawoni is low, tolerably level, and projects to
the westward. The land of Celebes then appears before you, and a
passage opens to the north, between this great isle and Wawoni; this
is a false passage: the southern one indeed appears almost entirely
shut up; there you see at a great distance a low land, divided as it
were into little isles or keys. As you advance in the straits, you
discover upon the coast of Button, great round capes, and fine
creeks. Off one of these capes are two rocks, which one must
absolutely take at a distance for two ships under sail; the one pretty
large, and the other a small one. About a league to the eastward of
them, and a quarter of a league off the coast, we sounded in forty-
five fathoms, sand and ooze. The straits from the entrance run
successively S. W. and south.
At noon we observed in 4° 29′ south lat. and were then somewhat
beyond the rocks. They ly off a little isle, behind which there appears
to be a fine inlet. There we saw a kind of vessel in form of a square
chest, having a periagua in tow. She made way both by sailing and
rowing, and ranged the shore. A French sailor, whom we took in at
Boero, and who for these four years past had sailed with the Dutch
in the Moluccas, told us that it was a boat of piratical Indians, who
endeavour to make prisoners in order to sell them. They seemed to
be rather troubled at meeting with us. They furled their sail, and set
their vessel with setting poles close under the shore, behind the little
isle.
Aspect of the We continued our course in the straits, the winds
country. turning round with the channel, and permitting us to
come by degrees from S. W. to south. Towards two o’clock in the
afternoon we thought the tide began to set against us; the sea then
washed the lower parts of the trees upon the coast, which seems to
prove that the flood-tide comes here from the northward, at least
during this season. At half an hour after two o’clock we passed a
very fine port upon the coast of Celebes. This land offers a charming
prospect, on account of the variety of low lands, hills, and mountains.
The landscape is adorned with a fine verdure, and every thing
announces a rich country. Soon after, the isle of Pangasani, and the
keys to the northward of it, appear separated, and we distinguished
the several channels which they form. The high mountains of
Celebes appeared above, and to the northward of these lands. The
straits are afterwards formed by this long isle of Pangasani, and by
that of Button. At half past five o’clock we were locked in so that we
could not see either the entrance or the out-let, and we sounded in
twenty-seven fathoms of water, and an excellent oozy bottom.
First The breeze which then came from E. S. E.
anchorage. obliged us to sail close upon it, in order to keep the
coast of Button on board. At half past six o’clock, the wind coming
more contrary, and the tide setting pretty strong against us, we let go
a stream-anchor almost in the midst of the channel, in the same
soundings which we had before, twenty-seven fathoms, soft ooze;
which is a mark of an equal depth in all this part. The breadth of the
straits from the entrance to this first anchorage, varies from seven to
eight, nine and ten miles. The night was very fine. We supposed
there were habitations on this part of Button, because we saw
several fires there. Pangasani appeared much better peopled to us,
if we judge by the great number of fires on every part of it. This isle is
here low, level, and covered with fine trees, and I should not wonder
if it contained spices.
Traffic with the On the 13th, a great many periaguas, with
inhabitants. outriggers, surrounded the ships. The Indians
brought us fowls, eggs, bananas, perrokeets and cockatoes. They
desired to be paid in Dutch money, and especially in a plated coin,
which is of the value of two French sous and a half. They likewise
willingly took knives with red handles. These islanders came from a
considerable plantation on the heights of Button, opposite our
anchorage, occupying the skirts of five or six mountains. The land is
there entirely cleared, intersected with ditches, and well planted. The
habitations lay together in villages, or solitary in the midst of fields,
surrounded by hedges. They cultivate rice, maize, potatoes, yams,
and other roots. We have no where eaten better bananas than we
got at this place. Here are likewise abundance of cocoa-nuts, citrons,
mangle-apples, and ananas or pine-apples. All the people are very
tawny, of a short stature, and ugly. Their language, the same as that
of the Molucca isles, is the Malays, and their religion the
Mahometan. They seem to have a great experience in their trade,
but are gentle and honest. They offered us for sale some pieces of
coloured but very coarse cotton. I shewed them some nutmegs and
cloves, and asked them to give me some. They answered that they
had some dried in their houses, and that whenever they wanted any,
they went to get it upon Ceram, and in the neighbourhood of Banda,
where the Dutch certainly are not the people to provide them with it.
They told me that a great ship belonging to the company had passed
through the straits about ten days ago.
From sun-rising the wind was weak and contrary, varying from
south to S. W. I set sail at half past ten, with the first of the flood, and
we made many boards without gaining much way. At half past four
o’clock in the afternoon we entered a passage, which is only four
miles broad. It is formed on the side of Button, by a low, but much
projecting point, and leaves to the northward a great bay, in which
are three isles. On the side of Pangasani it is formed by seven or
eight little isles or keys, covered with wood, and lying at most half a
quarter of a league from the coast. In one of our boards we ranged
these keys almost within pistol shot, sounding close to them with
fifteen fathoms without finding bottom. In the channel our soundings
were in thirty-five, thirty, and twenty-seven fathoms, oozy bottom. We
passed without, that is, on the west side of the three isles, upon the
coast of Button. They are of a considerable size, and inhabited.
Second The coast of Pangasani here rises like an
anchorage. amphitheatre, with a low land at bottom, which I
believe is often overflowed. I conclude it from seeing the islanders
always fix their habitations upon the sides of the mountains. Perhaps
too, as they are almost always at war with their neighbours, they
choose to leave an interval of wood between their huts and the
enemies who should attempt the landing. It seems even that they are
dreaded by the inhabitants of Button, who consider them as pirates,
upon whom no reliance can be had. Both parties are likewise used to
wear the criss or dagger constantly in their girdle. At eight o’clock in
the evening, the wind dying away entirely, we let go our stream-
anchor in thirty-six fathoms, bottom of soft ooze. The Etoile anchored
to the northward, nearer the land. Thus we had passed the first
narrow gut or gullet.
Third and The 14th, at eight o’clock in the morning, we
fourth weighed and made all the sail possible, the breeze
anchorage. being faint, and we plied till noon; when, upon
seeing a bank to the S. S. W. we anchored in twenty fathoms, sand
and ooze, and I sent a boat to sound round the bank. In the morning
several periaguas came alongside, one among them displaying
Dutch colours at her poop. At her approach, all the others retired to
make way for her. She had on board one of their orencaies or chiefs.
The company allow them their colours, and the right to carry them.
At one o’clock in the afternoon we set sail again, with a view to gain
some leagues farther; but this was impossible, the wind being too
light and scant; we lost about half a league, and at half past three
o’clock we let go our anchor again, in thirteen fathom bottom of
sand, ooze, shells, and coral.
Nautical Mean while M. de la Corre, whom I had sent in
advice. the boat, to sound between the bank and the shore,
returned and made the following report: Near the bank there is eight
or nine fathom of water; and as you go nearer the coast of Button,
which is high and deep, opposite a fine bay, you always deepen your
water, till you find no bottom with eighty fathom of line, almost mid-
channel between the bank and the land. Consequently, if one was
becalmed in this part, there would be no anchoring, except near the
bank. The bottom is, upon the whole, of a good quality hereabouts.
Several other banks ly between this and the coast of Pangasani. We
cannot therefore sufficiently recommend it, to keep as close as
possible to the land of Button in all this strait. The good anchorages
are along this coast; it hides no danger; and, besides this, the winds
most frequently blow from thence. From hence, almost to the out-let
of the strait, it seems to be nothing but a chain of isles; but the
reason of this is, its being intersected by many bays, which must
form excellent ports.
Continuation The night was very fair and calm. The 15th, at five
and description o’clock in the morning, we set sail with a breeze at
of the straits. E. S. E. and we steered so as to come close to the
east of Button. At half past seven o’clock we doubled the bank, and
the breeze dying away, I hoisted out the long-boat and barge, and
made signal for the Etoile to do the same. The tide was favourable,
and our boats towed us till three o’clock in the afternoon. We passed
by two excellent bays, where I believe an anchorage might be found;
but all along, and very near the high-shores, there is no bottom. At
half after three o’clock the wind blew very fresh at E. S. E. and we
made sail to find an anchorage near the narrow pass, by which one
must go out of these straits. We did not yet discover any
appearances of it. On the contrary, the farther we advanced, the less
issue did we perceive. The lands of both shores, which over-lap
here, appear as one continued coast, and do not so much as let one
suspect any out-let.
At half past four o’clock we were opposite, and to the westward of
a very open bay, and saw a boat of the country-people’s, which
seemed to advance into it, to the southward. I sent my barge after
her, with orders to bring her to me, as I intended to get a pilot by this
means. During this time our other boats were employed in sounding.
Somewhat off shore, and almost opposite the north point of the bay,
they found twenty-five fathom, sand and coral bottom; and after that
they were out of soundings. I put about, then lay-to under top-sails,
in order to give the boats time to sound. After passing by the
entrance of the bay, you find bottom again, all along the land which
joins to its southerly point. Our boats made signal of 45, 40, 35, 29,
and 28 fathom, oozy bottom; and we worked to gain this anchorage
with the help of our long-boats. At half past five, we let go one of our
bower-anchors there, in thirty-five fathom of water, bottom of soft
ooze. The Etoile anchored to the southward of us.
Fifth As we were just come to an anchor, my barge
anchorage. returned with the Malayo boat. He had not found it
difficult to determine the latter to follow her; and we took an Indian,
who asked four ducatoons (about thirteen shillings sterling) for
conducting us; this bargain was soon concluded. The pilot came to ly
on board, and his periagua went to wait for him on the other side of
the passage. He told us, she was going thither through the bottom of
a neighbouring bay, from whence there was but a short portage, or
carrying-place, for the periagua. We were, upon the whole, enabled
to do without the assistance of this pilot; for some moments before
we anchored, the sun shining very favourably upon the entrance of
the gut, was the occasion of our discovering the larboard point of the
out-let, bearing S. S. W. 4° W. but one must guess which it is; for it
laps over a double rock, which forms the starboard point. Some of
our gentlemen employed the rest of the day in walking about on
shore; they found no habitations near our anchorage. They likewise
searched the woods, with which all this part is entirely covered, but
found no interesting production in it. They only met with a little bag
near the shore, containing some dried nutmegs.
The next morning we began to heave a-head at half past two
o’clock in the morning, and it was four before we got under sail. We
could hardly perceive any wind; however being towed by our boats,
we got to the entrance of the passage.
The water was then quite low on both shores; and as we had
hitherto found that the flood-tide set from the northward, we
expected the favourable return of it every instant; but we were much
deceived in our hopes; for here the flood sets from the southward, at
least during this season, and I know not which are the limits of the
two powers. The wind had freshened considerably, and was right aft.
In vain did we with its assistance endeavour to stem the tide for an
hour and a half; the Etoile, which first began to fall astern, anchored
near the entrance of the passage, on the side of Button, in a kind of
elbow, where the tide forms a sort of eddy, and is not very sensibly
felt. With the help of the wind I still struggled near an Sixth
hour without losing ground; but the wind having left anchorage.
me, I soon lost a good mile, and anchored at one o’clock in the
afternoon, in thirty fathom, bottom of sand and coral. I kept all the
sails set, and steering the ship, in order to ease my anchor, which
was only a light stream-anchor.
Leaving the All this day our ships were surrounded with
Straits of periaguas. They went to and fro as at a fair, being
Button; laden with refreshments, curiosities, and pieces of
description of
the passage.
cotton. This commerce was carried on without
hindering our manœuvres. At four o’clock in the
afternoon, the wind having freshened, and it being almost high water,
we weighed our anchor, and with all our boats a-head of the frigate
we entered the passage, and were followed by the Etoile, who was
towed in the same manner by her boats. At half past five o’clock, the
narrowest pass was happily cleared; and at half an hour after six we
anchored without, in the bay called Bay of Bouton, under the Dutch
settlement.
Let us now return to the description of the passage. When you
come from the northward, it does not begin to open till you are within
a mile of it. The first object which strikes one, on the side of Button,
is a detached rock, hollow below, representing exactly the figure of a
tented galley[126], half of whose cut water is carried away; the bushes
which cover it seem to form the tent; at low water, this galley joins to
the bay; at high water, it is a little isle. The land of Button, which is
tolerably high in this part, is covered with houses, and the sea-shore
full of enclosures, for catching fish in. The other shore of the
passage is perpendicular; its point is distinguishable by two sections,
which form as it were two stories in the rock. After passing the galley,
the lands on both sides are quite steep, and in some parts even
hang over the channel. One would think, that the god of the sea had
opened a passage here for his swelled waters, by a stroke of his
trident. However, the aspect of the coast is charming; that of Button
is cultivated, rises like an amphitheatre, and every where full of
habitations, unless in such places, which by their steepness exclude
men from coming at them. The coast of Pangasani, which is scarce
any thing but one solid rock, is however covered with trees; but there
appear only two or three habitations on it.
About a mile and a half to the northward of the passage, nearer
Button than Pangasani, we find 20, 18, 15, 12, and 10 fathom, oozy
bottom; as we advance to the southward in the channel, the bottom