Iron Monsters in the Spanish Garden: the Railway in the Nineteenth-Century Spanish Imagination

IRON MONSTERS IN THE SPANISH GARDEN: THE RAILWAY IN THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY SPANISH IMAGINATION

AN ABSTRACT

SUBMITTED ON THE THIRTY-FIRST DA Y OF JULY 2019

TO THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREIylENTS

OF THE SCHOOL OF LIBERAL ARTS

OF TULANE UNIVERSITY

FOR THE DEGREE

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Y

.0. Director

M. Kathryn Edwards, Ph.D.

Felipe Fernandes Cruz, Ph.D.

Abstract “Iron Monsters in the Spanish Garden: The Railway in the Nineteenth-Century

Spanish Imagination,” explores the short-lived period of railway euphoria that overtook

Spain in the mid-nineteenth century and resulted in the rapid development of nearly 5,000 km of track. This period of fast-paced modernization was bookended by civil wars, punctuated with political and economic instability, and occurred in a country that was arguably the most underdeveloped and volatile in Western Europe. As most historians of

Spain’s nineteenth-century industrialization will concede, the effort was a spectacular failure. Yet, this admission of failure has too often discouraged further exploration. It is the position of this dissertation that the notion of failure itself is precisely what makes

Spain’s efforts at industrialization and modernization in this period so fascinating and revealing.

The planning of Spain’s first railway network began precisely when the first stable Spanish liberal regime was taking shape. It was a moment of great optimism for liberal Spaniards; and they projected their optimism onto the emerging railway, often painting the grand future they wanted to see in vivid detail and with exalted language.

The railway, Spanish elites told themselves and others, would finally restore Spain to its rightful position as a major player in European affairs, an eminence it had been denied for centuries. The perception of national decline and perpetual stagnation had been the source of a bottomless pit of insecurity. With each kilometer of track laid and each colorful inaugural ceremony held, these elites became further convinced that Spain’s escape from European backwater status was finally within reach. As a result, what initially seemed the success of Spain’s railway project became a major pillar supporting

the terribly flawed liberal state. Unfortunately, heavy state spending on railways that were hastily constructed and failed to bring the touted economic benefits effectively undermined this pillar and brought about a revolution that washed across the nation and dethroned the queen.

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I ~

IRON MONSTERS IN THE SPANISH GARDEN: THE RAILWAY IN THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY SPANISH IMAGINATION

A DISSERTATION

SUBMITTED ON THE THIRTY-FIRST DAY OF JULY 2019

TO THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREt0-ENTS OF THE SCHOOL OF LIBERAL ARTS OF TULANE UNIVERSITY

FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

JOEL C. WEBB

M. Kathryn Edwards, Ph .D.

Felipe Fernandes Cruz, Ph.D.

Acknowledgements One of the earliest memories I have of my grandfather is of him holding me up and showing me a photograph of his own father standing in the railyard in Lafayette,

Louisiana. While the many years that have passed since that day have clouded my recollection of the event, one part of that short talk remains as clear in my mind as it was that day. When he pointed out the details in that photograph he didn’t speak of trains and railways in the way I saw them, as loud, rusty antiques. Instead, he spoke of them warmly and longingly as marvels of technological innovation bursting with power and opportunity. I realize now as I couldn’t then that his view of the railways was colored by his own youth in the 1920s and 30s. In those years the modern aspects of the railways were amplified by the stark contrast between the sleek locomotives and the seemingly stagnant landscape of southwest Louisiana across which he saw them move. That conversation has stuck with me, and I believe it has guided my mind as I wrote this dissertation. For it is that sense of possibility, when the railways were still new, that I’ve tried to capture here with my research and writing.

This research would not have been possible without the generous funding I received through a Tulane University School of Liberal Arts Fellowship, two SLA

Summer Merit Fellowships, two J.E. Land Fund Conference Travel Grants, and a Paul and Elizabeth Selley Dissertation Year Fellowship. This funding allowed me the time and resources I needed to work in the archives in Spain, to write once I returned, and to air and refine my ideas among numerous Spanish historians.

The support I’ve received from several historians over the years has been vital to my work. I’d first like to thank Dr. Brian D. Bunk for his help introducing me to the study of modern Spain. I am especially indebted to Dr. James M. Boyden, who spent

countless hours listening to my sometimes half-baked ideas, buying me coffees, and bumming me cigarettes. He read each of my chapters with great care multiple times and provided the feedback and edits that helped transform my crude ideas into a sophisticated analysis. Without his unflagging support, this project would have never reached a conclusion. Dr. M. Kathryn Edwards was also instrumental in helping me refine my ideas and identify weaknesses in my reasoning. She was always available to talk in person or by phone when I needed her advice. Dr. Felipe Fernandes Cruz also read these chapters and helped me further explore the relationship between technology, culture, and history.

Finally, Dr. Kris E. Lane, even though he was not on my committee and had numerous other responsibilities, always had his door open to listen to my frustrations, and even helped me untangle a particularly difficult translation that had exasperated me for days.

Many wonderful librarians and archival workers in Spain made this research possible. I could never thank all of them. But I would like to extend particular thanks to the dedicated staff at the Archivo Histórico Ferroviario in Madrid. Ana Cabanes Martín,

Leticia Martínez García, Luis G. Legido, and Amparo María Gutiérrez Marcos displayed the patience of saints as they fielded my endless questions and worked tirelessly to help me navigate the many documents in their collection. Likewise, the staffs at the Archivo de la Diputación Provincial de Valencia, the Biblioteca del Congreso de los Diputados, the Biblioteca del Palacio Real de Madrid, the Biblioteca del Banco de España, the

Biblioteca Nacional de España, the Biblioteca de la Escuela Técnica Superior de

Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos, and the Hemeroteca Municipal de Madrid were all supportive of my project and helped in ways they likely will never completely know or understand.

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Finally, it is to my family that I owe the most. As anyone who has pursued a

Ph.D. knows, the achievement is so satisfying precisely because the process is so challenging. My wife, Heejung Kim, has been with me each step of the way. She shared all of the burdens and hardships I endured, and did so with grace, support, and love. My daughter, Mackenzie, was not yet one year old when I began this project, so she has lived with this research for her entire life. I hope she will be able to look back fondly on this time, especially the six months we three spent living in a 300-square-foot apartment in

Madrid as I plied through the archives each day. And, last but not least, I would like to thank my parents. My father passed away as I was completing this project. I regret he never got to see me finish. I think he would have finally understood what I had been doing these past few years. My mother, who pursued her own difficult road to the Ph.D. decades ago, remained eternally supportive even though she probably wished I would have finished a little faster than I did.

Joel C. Webb, May 2019, New Orleans

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Contents

Acknowledgements ...... vi

Figures ...... x

Introduction ...... 1

Chapter I: The Iron Road to Redemption . . . . . 12

Chapter II: Jostling for First Place on the Road to the Future . . 52

Chapter III: Resistance and Adaptation along the Corridor to the East . 91

Chapter IV: The Wreckage of Modernization in the Age of Railway Euphoria 128

Chapter V: A Clash of Two Civilizations . . . . . 167

Conclusion ...... 204

Bibliography ...... 208

Figures

Figure 1: Map of Railway Concessions, 1845 . . . . 40

Figure 2: Inaugurating the Madrid to Aranjuez Railway . . . 46

Figure 3: The Railways of Spain in 1862 . . . . . 55

Figure 4: The Corridor to the East ...... 93

Figure 5: Inaugurating the Mediterranean Railway in Alicante . . 130

Figure 6: Inaugurating the Northern Railway in San Sebastián . . 144

Figure 7: The Derailment on the Breda Bridge . . . . 152

Figure 8: Santa Cruz and his Men ...... 188

Figure 9: The Burning of Beasain ...... 191

Figure 10: Santa Cruz Assaults the Railway . . . . 195

Introduction

On September 14, 1839, the consul in Bayonne of the Queen of Spain Isabel II informed her that her uncle Don Carlos, with whom she had been at war for years, had crossed the French border and left Spain, presumably forever. This was a welcome development for the young Queen and for much of the public in Madrid. As one clearly elated newspaper writer reported upon hearing this news, the “crazed prince who had waged a war of destruction and desolation [had now] faded away from Spanish territory.”1 After nearly seven years of a civil war that had devastated Spain, destroyed people’s livelihoods, traumatized the public, and killed an estimated 2 to 4 percent of the

1833 population, the First Carlist War was finally coming to an end.2

The First Carlist War, while not as well-known as other nineteenth-century conflicts, was one of the bloodiest European civil wars of the century. Ostensibly a war over the line of succession to the Spanish throne, the conflict took on larger significance in the context of the political and economic transformations occurring in the 1830s. Don

Carlos, the brother of King Ferdinand VII, was next in line for the throne when in 1830 the king announced that he had revoked the Salic Law in order to allow his young daughter, Isabel, to ascend to the throne instead. The unwillingness of the prince and his

1 El Piloto, Madrid, September 19, 1839. Diario de las Sesiones de Cortes. Congreso de los Diputados, (hereafter DS) 18-IX-1839, 35.

2 Mark Lawrence, Spain’s First Carlist War, 1833-40 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 224.

2 supporters to accept this insult and challenge to what they believed to be Don Carlos’s rightful inheritance shook an already weak state to its foundations.

The civil war this disputed succession produced insinuated itself into and exacerbated the existing political, religious, and economic debates then roiling Spain.

Supporting Don Carlos’s claim were various traditionalist factions and institutions, and especially the Church. The Queen and her mother Regent María Cristina received support from the liberal factions who saw in the conflict an opportunity to finally gain a strong foothold in Spain. And with Don Carlos’s tacit admission of defeat and exit from Spain in

1839, the liberals were free to advance their favored policies in both the organization of the state and the economy. Among the most prominent liberal economic projects that emerged out of the optimism of the 1840s were the earliest efforts toward the construction of Spain’s first railway network.3 The first leg of that network was inaugurated in 1848 in Barcelona. The second leg was finished just over two years later and was inaugurated in the nation’s capital, Madrid.

The public watched with rapt attention as these instruments of industrialization and modernization were extended a mere few dozen miles across these two disconnected regions of Spain. In October of 1850, at a time when only a handful of Spaniards had ever seen a railway, a writer for the Madrid daily El Heraldo reported on a public test of the locomotive on the Madrid to Aranjuez Railway before it was officially inaugurated.

Embedded in his tone and colorful description of the event is a clear sense of hopefulness about what opportunities this “iron monster,” as he called it, held for Spain.

3 Carlos Marichal, Spain (1834–1844): A New Society (London: Tamesis Books Limited, 1977), 212–217.

[That] powerful instrument of civilization was panting as if it were animated and impatient to undertake its swift run, and only waited for the mandate of its creator . . . to throw itself obediently into the race and carry more than 200 human beings at the speed of the wind. At last I heard a sickening whistle, and the train began to move majestically amid applause, and shouts, and enthusiastic cheers. Little by little it was gaining momentum in its run, until it reached a speed of eight leagues [per hour]; and then the men, and the bridges, all the features of the landscape that blocked its way seemed to pass with the rapidity of an exhalation.4 This sense of hope and possibility reverberated across Spain over the next decade and a half as these early efforts triggered legal and financial transformations that thrust

Spain into a period of railway euphoria, a period marked by rapid railway construction induced by a massive influx of foreign capital principally from France and encouraged by hefty subsidies and guarantees from the state. Between 1855 and 1865, railway companies laid track across Spain at breakneck speeds, putting approximately 4,500 km of rail line into service. Over the course of little more than a decade, the two small and disconnected lines extending from Madrid and Barcelona had become small parts of a vast network of rail lines connecting Madrid with points around the Iberian Peninsula and with Europe.

Unfortunately, this short spurt of dream-fueled industrialization ended abruptly when the country and railway investors crashed headlong into a brick wall of reality and financial ruin. The economic stimulation anticipated by boosters and investors, and even the railroad profits themselves, failed to materialize, and Spain spiraled downward into deep financial depression in the late 1860s. By the early 1870s, the economic collapse had combined with a political crisis that would not find a stable solution until near the end of that decade. In the wake of this devastating bust and consequent political collapse,

4 “Prueba del ferrocarril de Aranjuez,” El Heraldo Oct. 8, 1850.

4 railroad construction contracted to just a trickle, leaving the dreams of progress and national resurgence to rust in the railyards. It was only in the 1880s that intensive construction began again, though by this time Spain had fallen well behind much of the rest of Europe in railroad construction.

Significantly, the history of Spain’s first railway network, such as it is, has been written almost entirely by economic historians. While their work has provided a level of insight into this endeavor that is invaluable, it has also had the effect of emphasizing the extent to which the entire enterprise was largely an economic failure. The railways, as economic historians like Jordi Nadal insisted, did not produce the anticipated W. W.

Rostow-style “take-off” because the railways failed to produce the forward and backward linkages necessary for further industrialization.5 Or worse, as economic historian Gabriel

Tortella Casares has argued, the heavy investment in railways in the mid-nineteenth century actually undermined the larger industrialization process. He argues that the fledgling Spanish banking industry channeled already scarce funds to the railways, effectively depriving the manufacturing sector of much needed financing.6

There have, however, been a few challenges to the widely-accepted and well- documented conclusion that the Spanish railways were economic failures. In their work on modern Spanish agriculture, Ramón Garrabou and Jesús Sanz Fernández have

5 Jordi Nadal, El Fracaso de la revolución industrial en España, 1814-1913 (Barcelona: Editorial Ariel, 1975). An abridged English version is in “The failure of the industrial Revolution in Spain” in Carlo M. Cipolla (ed.), The Fontana Economic History of Europe, Vol IV, Part Two, The Emergence of Industrial Societies (Collins, 1973). Some of Nadal’s later work has appeared as “A Century of Industrialization in Spain, 1833-1930” in Nicolás Sánchez- Albornoz (ed.), Karen Powers and Manuel Sañudo (trans.) The Economic Modernization of Spain, 1830-1930 (New York: New York University Press, 1987).

6 Gabriel Tortella-Casares, Banking, Railroads, and Industry in Spain, 1829-1874 (New York: Arno Press, 1977).

5 demonstrated that the early railroads improved the internal market for Castilian grain by reducing the transportation costs by as much as 25 percent. This reduction in costs, they argue, contributed to the further development of a national market in Spain, as regions like Extremadura began exporting grain to other regions for the first time.7 Antonio

Gómez Mendoza, a historian who has written extensively on the economic history of the

Spanish railroads, argued that by focusing on the notable failures and unmet expectations of railroad financing and development in Spain, Tortella and others have understated the level of economic growth Spain actually experienced in this period. By studying national markets, and employing a social savings model, Gómez Mendoza shows that the railroads provided real, discernible benefits to both the grain and wine sectors. In the absence of railroads, as his social savings model explains, the costs and inefficiencies in transportation would have had major negative consequences for Spain’s national economy by the late 1870s.8

Yet, even these challenges to the traditional narrative of railway and industrial failure in Spain perpetuate the same rather narrow line of inquiry about how, why, or to what extent the efforts at building Spain’s first railway were failed economic experiments. This, I suggest, is a woefully inadequate framework for understanding the most important technological transformation of nineteenth-century Spain. Rather than contribute to the teleological debate about the economic utility and ultimate success or

7 Adrian Shubert, A Social History of Modern Spain (New York: Routledge, 1990), 17. See: Angel García Sanz, Ramón Garrabou, Jesus Sanz Fernández (eds.) Historia agraria de la España contemporánea, Vol. 1 (Barcelona: Editorial Crítica, Grupo editorial Grijalbo, 1985); James Simpson, Spanish Agriculture: The Long Siesta, 1765-1965 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 73, 83-84.

8 Antonio Gómez Mendoza, Ferrocarriles y cambio económico en España, 1855-1913: un enfoque de nueva historia económica (Madrid, Alianza Editorial, 1982).

6 failure of the earliest Spanish railways, this dissertation looks instead to the ways in which the Spanish public, particularly the literate elite, experienced the emergence of the railways. These experiences were shaped by a prevailing attitude in Spain that the nation was suffering from a state of perpetual decline, a condition that the public imagination held had been unfolding since the late sixteenth century. In the imaginations of those overwhelmed by the odor of Spanish decay, the railways promised to bring far more than economic prosperity. The iron monster promised to halt and reverse the decline, to pull

Spain out of the prison of its own lethargy, and to effect the technological modernization that would finally restore Spain to its rightful place as a European power and a font of innovation and civilization.

As the title of this dissertation suggests, my work and argument are partially influenced by Leo Marx’s work on the literary reaction to the industrialization of the

United States, The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in

America. For Marx, the process of industrialization, especially the rise of the railway, was “the counterforce in the American archetype of the pastoral design.” It was the

“shocking intruder upon a fantasy of idyllic satisfaction.”9 By contrast, elites in Spain contemplating the nation’s industrialization and the emergence of the railways viewed the comparable Spanish garden not as Arcadia but as a backwater. The railway was not intruding so much as it was being beckoned. It was not interrupting a serene pastoral ideal; it was empowering the Spanish spirit and delivering the nation from the pit of

9 Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964, 26, 29.

7 despair. It didn’t serve as a foil against which writers could extol a romanticized past, but as a vehicle for contemplating a sleek and industrialized future.

Chapter Outline

This dissertation comprises five chapters organized largely chronologically to cover a fifty-year period from the first descriptions of English railways published in the

Spanish press in the 1820s to the end of the Second Carlist War in 1876. The first chapter explores how the hopes and aspirations of liberal Spaniards in the 1830s and 40s hitched their dreams of a revitalized Spain to the call for railways in and across Spain. News of the successful completion and inauguration of a railway powered by steam locomotives in England arrived in Spain in the twilight of Ferdinand VII’s reign and at a moment when liberal Spaniards were feeling especially vulnerable. From as early as 1829, some in Spain recognized and commented publicly on the redemptive possibilities of employing this technology in Spain and eagerly encouraged investment in railways.

These promotors of railways and industrialization tended to strengthen their arguments for using this novel technology by encouraging a sense of anxiety about the extent to which Spain had been left behind by the rest of Western Europe. Spain, the arguments tended to assert, was afflicted by a form of backwardness that hampered progress and barred the gates to the future. These social critiques were hardly new, but in the political environment of the 1830s and 40s, when liberalism in Spain seemed ascendant, these criticisms and speculations on the origins of Spanish decadence took on heightened importance and new significance.

Over the course of the 1850s, the railway lines that would eventually crisscross

Spain were being drafted and approved by engineers and committees. Yet, very few of

8 the actual railways were being constructed during this formative period. Instead, this was a time of reflection and planning about the shape of the network to come. In the early years of the decade, a heated dispute over a particular leg of one route emerged in the form of a contentious rivalry between the cities of Segovia and Ávila. This rivalry grew quite intense and engendered a considerable amount of published public debate. The few historians who have explored this rivalry have done so by looking at the political calculations involved and speculating as to whether the ultimate decision to route the line through Ávila was the most economically beneficial for Spain or merely the product of backroom deals and greased palms. These questions and arguments are consistent with the general historiographical trend in Spain as regards the history of the railway, in that they are corollaries to the larger debate about the success or failure of industrialization in nineteenth-century Spain. In the second chapter, I seek to break from this tradition and argue that the competition between these two cities is particularly useful for understanding how Spaniards at that moment anticipated and experienced the coming of the railways. I insist that the conflict itself created a canvas upon which the emerging future being ushered in by long-distance rail travel could be projected and contemplated, a future that was qualitatively different from the present.

In the third chapter, I explore the ways Spaniards responded and adapted to the emergence of the railway by looking at the reactions of inhabitants of both the province of Valencia and the interior region of La Mancha. Both of these areas were exposed to the positive and the negative effects of rail transport at approximately the same period, and years before much of the rest of Spain received similar exposure. Yet, despite these similarities, Valencia and La Mancha reacted to the railways in radically different ways.

The early companies in Valencia frequently complained of violent public resistance to their efforts in the form of sabotage, vandalism, and even murder. In the far more sparsely populated agrarian landscape of La Mancha, however, the records of public interaction relay a very different story, one of general acceptance and adaptation. Here, landowners engaged in a form of negotiation with the railway company through damage claims and back-and-forth correspondence. I contend that the two contrasting responses to the expansion of railway infrastructure across these areas reflect two different perceptions of the future being made possible by railway transportation: one of indifference or even outright rejection, and the other of tepid embrace. Those in the former camp, if the sabotage and vandalism are any indication, were clearly not sufficiently swayed by the arguments touted by boosters, industrialists, and much of the press in favor of the civilizing power of the railways. On the other hand, those in the latter camp were able to glimpse an emerging future on the horizon, a tomorrow in which their interests were largely in harmony with the further expansion of the railways.

In the fourth chapter, I explore the ways the Isabelline regime used the sometimes lavish inaugurations of railway lines to promote itself as a wellspring of modernization and technological progress. Having positioned itself at the head of this modernization campaign in the form of railway development, the regime thus exposed itself to public condemnation and political attacks when the same technological marvels they touted and claimed credit for brought about death and destruction in the form of railway accidents, a feature of the railway age that was common in these early years and highly unsettling to the broad populace. Railway accidents, especially those that were large and spectacular, received relatively little attention in the press during the height of railway euphoria in

Spain, when foreign investment was flooding in and railway construction progressed rapidly across the nation. Yet, as this economic situation deteriorated beginning in the early 1860s and the country lurched toward recession as the decade continued, the press began to dedicate an increasing volume of coverage to these accidents.

I argue that railway accidents themselves opened up windows of opportunity for the political press to challenge the legitimacy of the regime itself. Criticism of the railway companies and the inadequacy of the government’s response to them intensified as the economy precipitously declined in the second half of the decade. This intensification furthered the perception that such accidents were occurring at an alarming rate. All of these factors combined to undermine the narrative of modernization and expose the deficiencies of the regime. In this way, the press coverage of railway accidents transformed the accidents themselves into metaphors for the modernization efforts of the regime in a way that emphasized incompetence, corruption, and the absence of any responsiveness to public concern or care for public safety. I contend that this public pressure on the regime, and the way in which critics transformed its greatest accomplishments into weapons used to undermine its legitimacy, contributed heartily to the outbreak of revolution in September of 1868, which swept the queen off the throne and out of the country.

While the Revolution of 1868 was at least partially a response to economic decline and the seeming instability of the Isabelline regime, the immediate effects of that revolution failed to resolve either of these problems. In the years after the revolution

Spain floundered, first watching as the Italian prince Amedeo of Savoy became the new king and then witnessing the inauguration of the first Spanish Republic after he abdicated

11 in frustration. At the same time, Carlism experienced a rebirth of political and press vigor, as dozens of Carlist publications were founded and a new Carlist pretender, Don

Carlos VII, eventually launched his own war to secure the throne. In the final chapter, I explore the way in which this new generation of Carlists crafted a legitimizing message that ran counter to the ideas of earlier traditionalists (and to the liberal depiction of

Carlism). The new Carlism partially embraced industrialization and modernization efforts like the railways as a part of its own interpretation of Spanish civilization. This message of a Carlist path to the future that emphasized stability and the use of Spanish tradition to mitigate the challenges of industrialization constituted a rhetorical challenge to the years of liberal proclamations about the technological civilizing of Spain by means of railway development. Unfortunately for the Carlists, however, their vision of the future was undermined by their own actions during the war, as the railways themselves became favored targets of Carlist aggression. I demonstrate that liberal politicians and publications frequently highlighted these Carlist attacks on the railways as a way of presenting an image of Carlism that remained backward looking and antagonistic to industrialization and technological progress. In this way, they reinforced the notion that only a liberal regime could bring modernization and civilization. The Carlists, they contended, offered only barbarism and the perpetuation of a discredited past.

Chapter I The Iron Road to Redemption

In attempting to describe for readers who had likely never seen a large locomotive and its wagons moving under power, a writer for the 1840s Spanish industrial magazine,

Guia del Comercio, likened the scene to that of a noble steed that “whimpers with impatience and tears at the earth with its shoes until its rider is no longer able to restrain it.” And in the next moment, he continued, the locomotive breaks away in “a storm of steam and with a frightening hiss.” Describing how momentum is transferred from the engine along the mass of the large convoy, he explained to his readers that “at first, in spite of the apparent efforts of the machine, it proceeds slowly; but the movement increases, the speed becomes greater with each passing moment, and the immense hulk is propelled into space. From this moment, nothing stops it. It runs, it flies faster than the clouds: it seems that lightning is the engine.”1

Such was the electric enthusiasm and sense of approaching transformative technological progress that whetted appetites and stimulated the imaginations of industrially minded Spaniards at the dawn of the railway age in Spain. Though Spain was still years from opening its own railway lines when this article was published in the summer of 1845, the investments and accomplishments of other countries across Europe and North America had made it clear by this time that railways were not a passing

1 “Caminos de Hierro: Diccionario Técnico y Enciclopédico,” Guia del Comercio: periódico semanal de intereses materiales, June 11, 1845, 190.

13 novelty. The writer recognized and relayed to his readers that railways were now the principal means by which industry proliferated and civilization expanded. Nations typically associated with civilization and progress were planning and building rail at a rapid clip, the article claimed. In one breathless paragraph, the writer rattled off an expansive list of the countries undertaking the construction of many thousands of miles of track across the western world, including the United States, England, Belgium, France,

Prussia, and Austria. This, the writer contended, is because they recognize that those who

“wish to preserve their rank on the scale of civilization, cannot from now on do so without creating a volume of railways proportionate to the extent and resources of their territory.” Railways were then the world’s “most powerful agents of politics and civilization.” They were bringing about a “total revolution across the surface of the globe.” For this reason, the writer boldly proclaimed, “the iron roads will be built in

Spain.” And with them would come a revitalization of industry that will further stimulate the people to “shake off the yoke of our rancid customs” and effect a “social regeneration” of the country.2

Entreaties like this one, which called for Spaniards to embrace the winds of technological progress and the resulting industrial transformation, were not infrequent in the Spanish literary journalistic landscape in the 1840s. The decade was especially suited for such pleas. After struggling for years and facing entrenched opposition from the traditional institutions of the state, suffering repression and occasionally exile, liberals had found themselves the masters of Spain. In 1845, near the start of the Moderado decade, so named for the moderate liberals who controlled the government, a bright and

2 Ibid., 189–90.

14 modern future seemed within reach. This sense of a coming transformation radiates from the article quoted above, both in the excitement invested in the description as well as the symbolism of the moving locomotive itself. While it is difficult to discern with any certainty the extent to which the writer intended the detailed description to serve as a representation for Spain, it is an apt metaphor nonetheless. Throughout the 1830s and

40s, liberal Spaniards gazing upon the many examples of industrialization and modernization on the continent expressed an eternal hope that Spain might soon slip the bonds of its unfortunate past and chart a course to the future. They frequently celebrated the great natural wealth and potential of the country, and lamented the way it was inefficiently managed and crippled by an antiquated and dilapidated transport system.

Like the pent up energy of a locomotive creaking to a slow start, Spain, these elite liberal arguments contended, was also full to bursting with potential. If it could ever make its way out of the station under its own power it might one day move with an unstoppable momentum worthy of the country itself and as powerful as any locomotive.

The writers touting railways and industrialization tended to remind anxious liberal

Spaniards that they had been left behind by the rest of Western Europe. Spain, many within and outside the country insisted, was afflicted by a form of backwardness that hampered progress and barred the gates to the future. These social critiques were hardly new. Indeed, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there had been no shortage of self-conscious Spaniards seeking either to reverse their country’s declining fortunes or at least to challenge the haughty condescension radiating from the salons of French philosophes.3 But in the twilight of the Ancien Régime and alongside the rising

3 For an introduction to the voluminous historical discussion of the concept of decline in Spain see: Helen Rawlings, The Debate on the Decline of Spain (Manchester: Manchester University Press,

15 dominance of liberalism on the peninsula, these criticisms and speculations on the origins of Spanish decadence took on heightened importance and new significance. It was during this period that conversations about the introduction, construction, and operation of railways in Spain became an important feature of calls to industrialize and modernize. As the writer of the 1845 Guia del Comercio piece made clear, Europe and North America were in the full throes of a railway construction boom, the effects of which were transforming economies and communications across the western world. Contemplation of such transformations intensified the sense of Spanish decline and backwardness.

This chapter explores the protracted period of railway anticipation in Spain between the earliest displays of interest in developing railways in the late 1820s and the much-celebrated opening of the Madrid to Aranjuez Railway in 1851. During this period, the prospect of uniting the markets of Spain with those of Europe through railway networks inspired a sense among elite Spanish liberals that the railway might finally prove to be the redemptive tool Spain desperately needed. Not only would the railways at last allow Spain to overcome the constraints imposed by its own geography and the dilapidated state of its transport infrastructure, but in so doing it would allow Spain to reach its full productive potential and finally distance itself from its own unfortunate past.

By openly contemplating the great promise of the future railways, this chapter demonstrates, periodical writers and railway boosters alike employed a language that

2012); Gonzalo Pasamar, Apologia and Criticism: Historians and the History of Spain, 1500-2000 (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2010); Richard L. Kagan “Prescott’s Paradigm: American Historical Scholarship and the Decline of Spain” The American Historical Review 101, No. 2 (1996): 423-446; Henry Kamen, Imagining Spain: Historical Myth and National Identity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008); Ruth Mackay, “Lazy, Improvident People”: Myth and Reality in the Writing of Spanish History (Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press, 2006).

16 spoke of the civilizing and regenerative properties of the railway. The railways, they contended, would halt Spain’s centuries’ long decline and chart a new course into a future that was as bright as the past was dark.

But before evaluating the way elite Spaniards projected their hopes and dreams onto the railways, it is important to first recognize why Spaniards saw such great redemptive promise in the railways in the first place. As Spanish liberals well knew, the routes of communication through the interior of Spain at the dawn of the liberal age were in a notorious state of disrepair. Many of the legs of the highway system that did exist in this period had been built at the end of the previous century and served primarily to connect Madrid with important locations on the periphery.4 There were principal highways and coach services connecting Madrid with Bayonne, Sevilla, La Coruña, and

Barcelona.5 Concerning the high roads and coach services that did exist, contemporary travelers attested to their good and modern design when compared to other similar routes across the continent.6 That said, the comparison was not as rosy as it might sound to modern ears. The same contemporary traveler accounts made it clear that travel across much of the continent “necessarily implies great discomfort [and journeys of any distance are] undertakings rather of necessity than of pleasure.”7 The state of Spain’s best roads,

4 David Ringrose, Transportation and economic stagnation in Spain, 1750-1850 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1970), 14.

5 Alexander MacKenzie, A Year in Spain by a Young American, Vol 1 (New York: G. & C. & H. Carvill, 1830), 282; Richard Ford, A Handbook for Travellers in Spain, Vol 1(London: J. Murray, 1845), 11– 12.

6 Ford, A Handbook for Spain, Vol 1, 11–12, 17. MacKenzie, A Year in Spain, Vol 1, 57.

7 Ford, A Handbook for Spain, Vol 1, 17.

17 then, must be considered in this poor light rather than in comparison to the far more advanced road networks then in place in England and parts of North America.

It was in the interior, on routes that did not pass through Madrid, where the state of dilapidation was most obvious and acute. There was not only a great shortage of roads through the interior, but those that did exist were of questionable design, poorly marked, and frequently plagued by bandits.8 These highwaymen were especially prevalent in areas where they might easily lay in wait or retreat to evade capture, such as in the Sierra de

Guadarrama around Madrid.9 Spain is an especially mountainous country, and the sierras scattered around the peninsula comprise physical boundaries that make passage through or across them difficult except by way of natural passes.10 During the winter months it wasn’t uncommon even in the more heavily traveled areas around Madrid for the roads and passes to become impassable because of snow.11 The same mountainous and rocky terrain made many of the rivers of Spain unnavigable, thus limiting the use of these waterways for internal communication.12 The geography of the peninsula, it seemed, conspired against the development of efficient systems of transport.

8 MacKenzie, A Year in Spain, Vol 1, 282, 308. Ford, A Handbook for Spain, Vol 1, 38–43.

9 Ford, A Handbook for Spain, Vol 1, 15; MacKenzie, A Year in Spain, Vol 1, 308, 314; MacKenzie, A Year in Spain, Vol 2, 231–232, 236, 316.

10 Ford, A Handbook for Spain, Vol 1, 93.

11 Ibid., 89.

12 “Medios de comunicacion,” Guia del Comercio, Aug. 7, 1844. “Los rios corren profundamente encajonados y con suma rapidez por entre escarpadas montañas, por lo cual son rara vez navegables, y apenas permiten tampoco las sangrías necesarias para el riego de las tierras. Sus cáuces están interrumpidos ademas por multitud de bancos de arena, y la poca profundidad de su embocadura no consiente el establecimiento de buenos puertos.”

In Andalucía in the south, there were “scarcely roads” at all across much of the expansive landscape, with the exception of a highway from Sevilla to Madrid and another from Malaga to Granada. Here, the roads that did exist were either pockmarked with

“miry ruts” or were merely “stony tracks made by wild goats” into which “no man who values time or his bones will venture.”13 Nor did it appear to English observers at least that Spain possessed the institutional and other infrastructure to turn this poor state of affairs around. Traveler and travel writer Richard Ford, who was in most instances largely sympathetic to Spaniards and eager to disprove some of the most lurid of English myths and exaggerations about the chaotic and dangerous nature of the country, had the following words of advice for English travelers to Spain:

Those who expect to find well-garnished arsenals, libraries, restaurants, charitable or literary institutions, canals, railways, tunnels, suspension-bridges, steam- engines, omnibuses, manufactories, polytechnic galleries, pale-ale breweries, and similar appliances and appurtenances of a high state of political, social, and commercial civilization, had better stay at home. In Spain there are no turnpike- trust meetings, no quartersessions, no courts of justice, according to the real meaning of that word, no tread-mills, no boards of guardians, no chairmen, directors, masters-extraordinary of the court of chancery, no assistant poor-law commissioners. . . . Spain is no country for the political economist, beyond affording an example of the decline of the wealth of nations, and offering a wide topic on errors to be avoided, as well as for experimental theories, plans of reform and amelioration.14

That the poor condition of the roads and of the routes of communication more generally in Spain was stifling commerce was something recognized by both foreign travelers and Spaniards alike in the 1830s. American traveler Alexander MacKenzie noted that domestic trade within Spain was greatly restricted by “the poverty of

13 Ford, A Handbook for Spain, Vol 1, 149.

14 Ibid., 76.

19 communications, from the defective state of roads and utter absence of canals.”15

Discussions in the Congreso de Los Diputados largely expressed similar concerns regarding the circulation of agricultural goods in particular throughout Spain. Deputies routinely lamented that the absence of good roads slowed commerce and prevented

Spanish wheat from reaching distant markets.16 Travelers and deputies recognized at the time what modern historian David Ringrose articulated more recently, that the inadequacy of Spain’s networks of communication and the lack of suitable roads and dedicated infrastructure was effectively a transport bottleneck that created or reinforced economic stagnation. The consequences of this stagnation were far reaching and contributed greatly to the economic and political problems that plagued the country until the middle of the twentieth century.17

As the engineer Gregorio González Azaola demonstrated in his 1829 essay on the origins of Spanish decline, the roots of Spain’s economic and industrial anemia were long and deep. Poor choices and myopia over the preceding centuries, he noted, deprived

Spain of the rightful benefits of its natural wealth and strategic location. It was perfectly positioned between the Atlantic and Mediterranean, with access to world markets. Rather optimistically, he contended that it was blessed with the perfect soil and climate, producing “precious wool, linen, silk, wine, oils, grains, fruits and countless other things.” These enviable advantages held the promise of converting Spain into an

15 MacKenzie, A Year in Spain, Vol 2, 316.

16 Diario de las Sesiones de Cortes. Congreso de los Diputados, (hereafter DS) 23-XI-1844. DS, 28- XI-1834; DS, 24-XII-1834; DS, 26-XII-1834.

17 David R. Ringrose. Transportation and economic stagnation in Spain, 1750-1850 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1970).

20 industrial powerhouse should it have chosen to invest in multiplying the centers of manufacturing it possessed. “What nation in all the world could have competed with this,” he asked his readers with exasperation.18

Yet, he lamented, exactly the opposite happened. Spain’s leaders chose to lust after precious metals and other riches imported from the Americas rather than setting the stage for Spanish dominance in industry. “They falsely believed,” González Azaola insisted, “that true wealth was little more than the accumulation of gold and silver.” But as Spain’s imprint in the New World grew deeper, its cities at home were being depopulated. As the gold and silver flowed in, “Spain was in total decay.”19 This reliance on gold and silver from the Americas, he argued, distorted the Spanish economy by convincing Spanish leaders that these riches were theirs by right rather than the “fruits and goods of their soil, industriousness, and work.”20 It was not a Spanish character flaw that was to blame for Spain’s dire situation, he told his readers emphatically. In this way he dismissed the claim by foreign and domestic economists alike that Spaniards were afflicted by idleness, and that this was the root cause of Spanish economic backwardness.

These economists have confused the effects for the causes, he insisted. “The Spanish work as hard or perhaps harder than the English.”21 Instead, blame should fall on

18 Gregorio González Azaola, Hornaguera y hierro: verdadero recurso poderoso, comisionado por S.M. en las R. Fábricas de la Cavada (París: Imprenta de David, 1829), 10.

19 Ibid., 20, 8.

20 Ibid., 13.

21 Ibid., 17.

21 abandoning investment in the nascent industrial centers of Burgos, Segovia, Córdoba,

Sevilla, and Granada in favor of reliance on the imports from America.22

This account of missed opportunities and centuries of wasted wealth was intended to set the stage for his bold proposal. In the many pages that followed his description of

Spanish decline, he outlined the current state of Spanish industry and resources in 1829, and suggested that the nation might unleash the dormant power of its soil and industry by investing in coal and iron extraction. A not insignificant part of this proposal was the suggestion that the entire project would both require and support the construction of a modern transport network based on railways and the steam-powered locomotive.

Interestingly, this technology was still very new in 1829. The Liverpool to Manchester line in the United Kingdom was still under construction and France had only just completed and put into operation a single railway line by the time González Azaola penned and published his pamphlet. Nonetheless, he was adamant that a railway network was precisely what Spain needed. He made it clear that the short or unnavigable rivers and unrelenting mountainous terrain of the peninsula demanded the application of this novel technology, since Iberian rivers would never prove reliable transportation routes.

Additionally, while he conceded that canals had been useful as avenues of transport across much of the continent, he noted that the rapid changes in elevation across much of

Spain would preclude the possibility of applying similar techniques there. The only reasonable and cost effective option left for Spain was to build railways.23

22 Ibid., 19.

23 Ibid., 85–87.

Two years later, González Azaola followed up his plea for coal, iron, and railways by translating and publishing A Practical Treatise on Rail-Roads and Carriages by

English civil engineer Thomas Tredgold.24 At the outset of his long introduction to the translation, González Azaola reminded his readers of the pamphlet he had published in

1829 and noted that the railways he had then recommended remained a goal of his and should be for Spain. He reasserted his confidence in the great advantages that awaited the country. Importantly, he did so in a way that recognized and emphasized the extent to which it continued to lag behind. He referred to Spain as a “depopulated” country exposed to “contagions and epidemics of fever.” Such a sorry state, however, need not be the future of Spain. The railways “promote commercial activity in general” and “have the invaluable advantage of directly fostering large [coal] mines [and] iron foundries.” “Who can doubt,” he asked, “that an immense economy will be introduced” through the adoption of railways?25

Despite his emphatic pleas, the railway network he encouraged Spain to start work on with some haste was delayed by a number of factors, not least the nearly seven- year long civil war (the First Carlist War) that raged across north and northeastern Spain from 1833-40. Not hindered by such a destabilizing conflict, other continental nations and the United Kingdom proceeded with some alacrity towards establishing railway networks. The first steps of this technological transformation in transport and communication were made in England in the mid-1820s with the completion of the

24 González Azaola, Caminos de hierro. Tratado práctico del ingeniero inglés sobre los caminos de carriles de hierro y los carruajes, máquinas de vapor y de gas (Madrid: Oficina de D. Federico Moreno, 1831).

25 Ibid., ix, xi.

Stockton and Darlington line, the first railway ever to use a steam-powered locomotive.

A mere 25 miles long, the railway opened the eyes of skeptical Europeans to the possibilities that this new technology offered. Publications even as far away as Spain took notice of the leap in innovation and reported the inauguration of the line to the Spanish public.26 By the time the Liverpool and Manchester railway was opened in 1830—the first railway anywhere to use steam locomotives exclusively—the caution and skepticism many Europeans, including Spaniards, had previously expressed had largely faded away.

The news of the development and opening of the line connecting the burgeoning English industrial sites was covered by the Spanish press with great interest and with clear expressions of hope as to the possibilities this technology was placing on the horizon.27

This was also a period when Spain issued its first concessions to build railways.

The first was dispensed in 1829; the second came the following year. Neither, however, resulted in significant construction, largely because they lacked the necessary political and financial support.28 Yet, while Spain’s first attempts produced nothing, the sowing of concessions elsewhere on the continent was far more fruitful. France began issuing concessions as early as 1823, and had two lines in operation by 1832. These linked the towns of Saint-Étienne, Andrézieux, and Lyon in east-central France. More concessions and lines followed these early successes and the passage of an early railway law of 1833,

26 Diario balear, Nov. 10, 1825, 5–6.

27 “Certámen sostenido en Liverpool para obtener el premio ofrecido á los carruages de vapor mas veloces para caminos de hierro,” Gaceta de Bayona: periódico político, literario é industrial, Jan. 15, 1830; “Ventajas de los Carriles de Hierro,” Diario balear, Jan. 16, 1830, 63–64; “Caminos de Hierro,” El Correo: periódico literario y mercantil, Mar. 22, 1830, Aug. 6, 1830, Nov. 22, 1830.

28 Francisco Wais, Historia de los ferrocarriles españoles, 1830-1941 (Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1967), 20–22; Germà Bel, Infrastructure and the Political Economy of Nation Building in Spain, 1720–2010, trans. by William Truini (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2012), 45.

24 which triggered a prolonged discussion on routes and ownership. Over the next nine years, lines rolled out from Paris to Versailles, Rouen, Corbeil and Orléans. Another extended the Lyon, Saint-Étienne, and Andrézieux network to Roanne further north.

Overall, France had put nearly 400 miles of railway into full operation before the country passed its 1842 railway law, which gave shape and consistency to the process, and which led to a boom of concessions and construction over the five years that followed. By the time the midcentury recession and revolution set in, France had expanded those 400 miles to about 1,800.29

Much of the rest of Europe swiftly followed the English and French examples, though with mixed results. Belgium, which quickly proved to be quite adept at building railways, established a blueprint for a national railway system built by the state as early as 1834. This approach served Belgium well, connecting the small nation’s population and economic centers in a simple network completed in under a decade.30 Spanish observers in these years frequently voiced their praise and admiration for the new nation’s impressive railway system.31 The Netherlands engaged in a swift boom of construction beginning in the 1830s, though with its advanced canal system the utility of

29 Rondo E. Cameron, France and the Economic Development of Europe, 1800–1914: Conquests of Peace and Seeds of War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), 204–208.

30 Ibid., 208.

31 El Eco del comercio, Aug. 17, 1841; Semanario pintoresco español, Aug. 1, 1841, “En ningún pais puede observarse la verdad de aquella máxima del escritor francés mas prácticamente que en el pequeño y próspero reino de Bélgica, que ha ofrecido el primero y único espectáculo de un sistema general de comunicación por medio de caminos de hierro, y que si cede á la Inglaterra y los Estados- Unidos la gloria de la primacía en su aplicación, tiene un derecho incontestable de superioridad en la materia, por haber combinado y planteado en pocos años un plan general de esta clase de comunicación del uno al otro estremo del pais; y esto en los dias siguientes á una revolución política, y apenas reconocida su independencia, y señaládole un lugar entre los Estados de Europa.”

25 the railways wasn’t immediately obvious to observers there. The large German states proved to be especially prolific railway builders. By mid-century, they had put over 3,500 miles of track into operation.32 The Austrian empire—which had started laying track for horse-drawn lines as early as the late 1820s—built heavily in Bohemia, Moravia, and the

German-speaking portions of the empire throughout the 1830s and 40s. On the Italian peninsula, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and the

Kingdom of Sardinia made a number of attempts at large networks. But these railways had barely begun to emerge by the time the turbulence of 1848-49 brought much of the building to a halt. The railway mania of the 1830s and 40s reached even as far as Russia, where the Tsar built a line connecting St. Petersburg to his summer palace outside the city and made plans for lines to both Moscow and the Austrian border, though only portions of this ambitious project were actually completed in this period.33

The extent to which the proliferation of rail transport during this pioneer phase of railway development exerted a positive force on the growth of European economies is difficult to ascertain with any degree of certainty.34 This is not to say that economists can’t make clear connections between improvements in transport and economic growth; they assuredly can, do, and have. Railways, however, were only one of a handful of transportation improvements then spreading across the continent. Improvements in road-

32 W. O. Henderson, The Rise of German Industrial Power, 1834–1914 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), 44–52; Cameron, France and the Economic Development of Europe, 209; For a more detailed examination of early railway development in Germany see James M. Brophy, Capitalism, Politics, and Railways in Prussia, 1830–1870 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1998).

33 Rondo E. Cameron, France and the Economic Development of Europe, 208–213.

34 Simon P. Ville, “Transport and Communications” in Derek, H. Aldcroft and Simon P. Ville (eds.) The European Economy, 1750–1914: A Thematic Approach (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), 197–198.

26 building technology and heavy investments in canal-building began changing how goods were transported as early as the last decades of the eighteenth century.35 Additionally, improvements in shipping technology largely proceeded apace with railway development, as both relied upon and stimulated the coal, iron, and steel industries. Separating the economic benefits of the railways from those spawned by these other improvements is challenging. Indeed, a major factor militating against accepting the dominant role of the railways as economic multipliers at this time is the fact that the connections that would truly tie Europe together by rail would not begin to emerge until the 1850s and 60s.36

These realities notwithstanding, it’s undoubtedly the case that railway construction in the 1830s and 40s had a considerable economic effect, even if that effect would ultimately be overshadowed by the economic benefits the railways would bring in the century. Like most forms of modern mass transport, railway development is a capital- and labor-intensive enterprise. It produces forward linkages in the form of greater economic cohesion, greater transport efficiencies, and the growth of agricultural sectors that were previously limited by the ability to get their perishable goods to market.

Additionally, unlike road improvements and canal building which had relatively few backward linkages, railway construction generated a strong demand for products of heavy

35 Patrick O’Brien, “Transport and Economic Development in Europe, 1789–1914,” in Patrick O’Brien (ed.) Railways and the Economic Development of Western Europe, 1830–1914 (Oxford: St. Antony’s College, 1983), 1–2.

36 David S. Landes, The Unbound Prometheus: Technological change and industrial development in Western Europe from 1750 to the present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 153. Looking at the French example, Clive Trebilcock dismisses the idea that the railways produced much of an economic multiplier effect before mid-century. The Industrialization of the Continental Powers, 1750-1914 (London: Longman, 1981), 143–144.

27 industry like iron, steel, and coal.37 The benefits of these backward linkages would have been somewhat muted in countries like Spain, which depended on imports of iron, coal, railway equipment, and expertise, mostly from Britain. But in France, Germany, and

Britain particularly, the economic impact of this emergent technology would have been immense. Historian David Landes even goes so far as to say that “by the 1840’s railway construction was the most important single stimulus to industrial growth in western

Europe.”38

Spanish observers like González Azaola and others, however, didn’t need to be convinced of the economic utility of the railways; nor, it should be said, did much of the rest of Europe doubt their economic significance at the time, given the energy and resources spent building them across the continent. The advantages of the railways over the older systems of transport on the peninsula were evident, and the inherent economic benefits of improving internal communication were difficult to dispute. But the arguments for adopting railway technology in Spain were almost never entirely, or even mostly, economic in thrust. Instead, Spanish pleas for charging ahead with railway construction emphasized such themes as “civilization,” “regeneration,” and “progress.”39

Additionally, the frequency with which articles about Spanish industrialization and railway construction presented theories of Spanish decline suggests that the railways represented a redemptive tool for many writers and readers. The railways offered a path

37 Simon P. Ville, “Transport and Communications,” 197–200.

38 Landes, The Unbound Prometheus, 153.

39 “Caminos de Hierro,” Guia del Comercio, 11 June, 1845; Ramón de la Sagra, Reflexiones sobre la industria Española (Madrid: Imprenta del Colegio de Sordo-Mudos, 1842), 5. Agustin Pascual, “Viajes en Alemania: Caminos de Hierro,” Guia del Comercio May 3, 1843.

28 of revitalization to a country that was eager to distance itself from the mistakes of the past and join, both literally and figuratively, the prosperity of Europe.

Numerous Spanish newspapers, especially liberal periodicals like the Eco del comercio, El correo nacional, and El Español, frequently published articles throughout the 1830s on the progress of countries around Europe towards the establishment of extensive railway networks. These articles ranged from short announcements of the opening of lines or granting of concessions elsewhere in Europe to much longer expositions focusing on the development of transcontinental connections and the transformations these projects were effecting.40 Importantly, and with a palpable degree of jealousy, liberal Spaniards recognized the degree to which England and France in particular were fulfilling the promises of economic liberalism, especially as concerned the construction of more advanced transport networks.41 “A Spaniard cannot read the latest article . . . on the industrial progress of that happy country [France] without a painful sense of envy,” one writer lamented in his 1834 article about how the French were adopting and improving English railway technology to their nation’s great economic benefit. “We hope the Spaniards,” he continued, “will follow the footsteps of the most advanced nations” and achieve all the prosperity liberty can produce.42

40 Examples of the former include: El Español, Dec. 1, 1835, Jan. 7, 1836; El Eco del comercio, July 20, 1834, Aug. 15, 1834, Sept. 15, 1834, April 10, 1835, Jan. 17, 1836, Feb. 2, 1838, Feb. 12, 1838, Feb. 28, 1839; El Nacional, Feb. 5, 1836; El Piloto, March 14, 1839; La Revista española, Jan. 28, 1836; La Guardia nacional, Oct. 8, 1836; El Correo nacional, July 4, 1838, Nov. 20, 1838, March 27, 1839, June 24, 1839, July 26, 1839, Sept. 2, 1839, Nov. 26, 1839, Oct. 28, 1840; El Corresponsal, Nov. 25, 1839, Oct. 20, 1839. Examples of the latter include: La Revista española June 14, 1835; El Corresponsal, June 9, 1840, Sept. 4, 1840, July 20, 1839, July 21, 1839.

41 “Caminos de Hierro,” El Panorama, July 5, 1838, 241–242.

42 “Noticias de industria y comercio,” Eco del comercio, May 12, 1834.

By the mid to late 1830s, Spanish writers were increasingly cognizant of the extent to which the future was being built upon a foundation of science, technology, and industrialization, of which the railways then spreading across Europe were an important if not vital component. “Let us consider civilized Europe,” one 1839 article asked its readers.

Those nations which have most cultivated the field of industry have become the richest and most powerful in the world. One has covered the seas with ships and made the six parts of the globe tributaries of its manufactures. Arts and sciences have raised the other to a degree of prosperity and splendor . . . that the efforts of its rivals have not been able to annihilate. The colossal power of England, the immense wealth of France, the commerce of Holland, the imposing character of little Belgium, and all that a great nation can possess for its prosperity are due to the sciences and the arts.43

The writer emphasized the important role played by “the interior communications facilitated by telegraphs and railways.” These, he insisted, were important products of the march of progress and scientific development. Indeed, as one 1836 article noted, the use of railways and steam power was a necessary base component of any industrial plan for

Spain.44

It’s not without some irony that the First Carlist War—which preoccupied Spain during this period, drained its resources, and prevented it from sharing in the transportation boom then spreading across the continent—was a war that pitted the forward-looking interests of an emergent liberal class against those seeking a return to the past in the form of absolutism and the re-empowerment of the Church and Inquisition.

Ostensibly a dispute over the line of succession to the throne, the prolonged and

43 Alhambra, “A las artes industriales,” La Guardia nacional, June, 27, 1839.

44 “Bases Generales Necesarias al Fomento de la Industria,” El Español, Jan. 31, 1836.

30 destructive civil war swiftly became a violent manifestation of the struggle between the past and the future. Championing the latter was a brand of liberalism that sought to rein in the power of the monarchy and the Church, institute an aggressive land reform program, and put Spain on the path to industrialization and modernization. These liberals coalesced around the Queen-Regent María Cristina and her young daughter, Isabel II.

Supporting the pretender, Don Carlos, were the Church and the apostólicos (or ultra- conservatives), who had come to see the modernization process as hostile to their continued flourishing and grip on power. Carlists fought these changes and put up roadblocks to certain forms of modernization at every turn. They found a sympathetic ear and, to them at least, an inspiring leader in the person of the pretender, Carlos de Borbón, brother of Ferdinand VII. So as much of the rest of Europe was building the infrastructure that would help to usher in the industrialization of the continent, Spaniards were slaughtering each other over whether or not to contemplate the future at all.45

When Spain emerged from the First Carlist War, victorious Liberals opened their eyes to a Europe that had undergone significant transformations. Importantly, however, the outcome of the war had bought for liberalism a degree of permanence it had not previously enjoyed. At the outset of the conflict, it was reasonable to assume that liberals might be wrenched from their positions and scattered to the four corners of Europe by whomever secured the crown. Indeed, this was precisely what had occurred before, when

45 For the origins and significance of Carlism and the first Carlist War see: Mark Lawrence, Spain's First Carlist War, 1833–1840 (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014); Julio Aróstegui et al. El carlismo y las guerras carlistas: Hechos, hombres e ideas (Madrid: Esfera de los Libros, 2003); Antonio Pirala and Julio Aróstegui, Historia de la guerra civil y de los Partidos Liberal y Carlista (Madrid: Turner, 1984); Román Oyarzun, La Historia del Carlismo (Madrid, 1965); Edgar Holt, The Carlist Wars in Spain (London: Putnam, 1967).

31 liberals were ousted from their three years of power in 1823. But the inability of the cristinos, as the supporters of the Queen-Regent María Cristina were called, to put a swift end to the civil war strengthened the power of the liberals over time and escalated the reform process.46 By the time the Carlist bid for power had been effectively quashed,

Spanish liberalism had become firmly entrenched.47 Liberal reformers lamenting the failures of the past and the extent to which Spain trailed the rest of Europe, therefore, awoke to a mixed blessing. Spain trailed even further behind in industrial development, but the possibilities for growth were brighter than ever before precisely because the liberal establishment was now more firmly rooted in Spanish soil.

This mixed blessing was not lost on those who observed Spain’s place on the continent with a mixture of pity and urgency. Writing of the recently achieved peace, an anonymous September 1840 article in El Corresponsal complained of the time and resources squandered over the last several decades of suffering and sacrifice. In the pursuit of liberty, the writer explained, the country had spilled the blood of its children, depleted the resources of the treasury, and taken on a mountain of debt. As a result, the condition Spaniards found themselves in was one of near complete devastation.

Thirty-two years have already gone by while this nation has been dragged from one reaction to another, from a foreign war to a civil war; Always making immense sacrifices, unreservedly offering up the lives of its children and its abundant riches in search of happiness, . . . During this stormy period, Europe has made prodigious advances in industry, in commerce, in all branches of civilization. Steam power and railways have increased by a hundred fold their wealth, means of enjoyment, and wellbeing; and poor Spain is stranded, not

46 Charles J. Esdaile, Spain in the Liberal Age: From Constitution to Civil War, 1808–1939 (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 2000), 68–76.

47 Carlos Marichal, Spain (1834–1844): A New Society (London: Tamesis Books Limited, 1977), 91– 112.

having advanced at all beyond the state it found itself in during the last third of the previous century . . .48

But, now that the country had accepted the liberal constitution of 1837 and peace with the

Carlists had been achieved, “was it not time,” he asked his readers, for Spain to begin the task of “recover[ing] from its losses and toil?”

These same concerns and aspirations were echoed by the Fourier- and Saint-

Simon-influenced former deputy from La Coruña, Ramón de la Sagra. In his short

Reflexiones sobre la industria Española, he encouraged leaders in Spain to set to work moving toward a “complete regeneration” through industrialization and with great speed toward the “happy future” that awaits.49 Now that the “fratricidal war” had come to an acceptable conclusion, he urged Spaniards to seize the moment and begin working to industrialize the nation. This he claimed would bring people out of desperate poverty and

“return [Spain] to the active and vigorous life that makes up the heritage of modern people.”50 Like many cheerleaders for progress before and after him, La Sagra touted

Spain’s abundant natural wealth and the many opportunities for national industrialization.51 He held up England, France, and Belgium as examples of industrial successes that Spain might consider as it industrialized itself.52 “The picture of Spanish

48 El Corresponsal, Sept. 4, 1840.

49 La Sagra, Reflexiones, 5.

50 Ibid., 3.

51 Ibid., 9.

52 Ibid., 10.

33 industry,” he noted, “offered a vast field of considerations, either as a manifestation of the present, a confirmation of the past, or a forecast of the future.”53

As regards the past, La Sagra was not one to wax nostalgic for the safety of the verdant fields of the previous decades and centuries. He lamented the wasted opportunities and squandered natural wealth of Spain as well as the effects of despotism, religiosity, fatalism, and crushing poverty. Despite the nation’s “mild climate and robust constitution,” he insisted in 1843, the people of Spain have suffered “all the disastrous effects of past despotism and present freedom.” The people have faced “depredations, obstacles to the exercise of industry, obstacles to internal commerce, injustices in civil and judicial administration, continuous changes of rulers—never enjoying the benefits of good government.” As Europe sped toward the future, Spain endured mishap after disastrous mishap. “It would be difficult,” he insisted, “to cite another country that in a period of ten years had experienced more calamities than had Spain.”54 These many disasters, of which the civil war was the most recent, had held Spain back “while others less favored by Providence sped into the field of progress, preceded by the torch of civilization.”55

One of the most obvious signs of the march of civilization that France, Belgium,

Germany, and England were leading, La Sagra argued, was the construction of extensive networks of railways. These railways were shrinking the distance between cities, promoting industrialization, and breaking down both the natural and political barriers

53 Ibid., 6.

54 La Sagra, “Sobre España,” Guia del Comercio, Nov. 15, 1843.

55 La Sagra, “Paris 12 de Setiembre de 1843,” Guia del Comercio, September 27, 1843.

34 then dividing Europe.56 The advantages of steam power and especially railways in creating global markets and facilitating long-distance transport could not be ignored, he declared. These technologies were changing the face of the globe; “the world was being accelerated by steam.” Soon, he predicted, “all the nations of Europe will find themselves brought together by the railways” into a single community where goods and people would travel at a speed unheard of just a few years ago.57 For Spain, railways and locomotives held out the promise of finally conquering the rugged landscape that had long made internal and external communication such a challenge.58

According to La Sagra, Spaniards were eager to take advantage of the opportunities on the horizon, such as the coming of railways. Notwithstanding the many setbacks and challenges borne over the previous decades, he insisted that the people of

Spain desired progress just as much as any other European people.59 This faith in

Spaniards and what he considered their inherent desire for progress, however, was not shared by all observers. La Sagra himself, in defending the Spanish people from French disdain, was challenging common and dismissive Parisian attitudes about Spaniards. And his publication of this challenge in Castilian and for the consumption of Spanish readers is an indication that these dismissive and condescending attitudes were prevalent in Spain as well. Spanish backwardness was frequently attributed to endemic corruption, “rancid customs,” a top-heavy government, and a general “sloth” that pervaded the Spanish

56 Ibid.

57 La Sagra, “Los Caminos de Hierro y Los barcos de Vapor,” Guia del Comercio, Dec. 27, 1843.

58 La Sagra, “Paris 12 de Setiembre de 1843.”

59 La Sagra, “Sobre España.”

35 character.60 The sources of decline were often located in the not-too-distant past, the fault of ministers, kings, incessant warfare, American gold and silver, or some combination of these factors.61 Whatever the cause, the outcome was obvious. Spain was lagging far behind its European rivals and further cementing its place as a European backwater.

Escaping from this backwardness meant that Spain needed to industrialize, modernize, and, importantly, improve its internal communications system. In addition to the intensive coverage of European railway construction, the early 1840s saw an increase in concern about improving all types of transportation across Spain emanating from both the press and the Congreso.62 “Palpable is the backwardness in which we find the state of interior navigation,” one writer in 1844 noted. The rivers are too swift and rocky to be navigable. The lack of canals and roads prevents the flow of cereals and other goods internally or into markets outside Spain.63 “Spain is quite rich,” another writer insisted. It

“abounds in . . . precious goods” that would command a high price in foreign markets if only they could be more cheaply exported from Spain where no sufficient internal market for such goods exists. “Spain, in general, will not prosper if it does not facilitate the fair transport of the precious and abundant commodities it produces today in surplus.” In

60 “Origen de la decadencia de España,” Guia del Comercio, Aug. 19, 1846.

61 “Parte Doctrinal,” Guia del Comercio, Jan. 12, 1842; “Discurso de M. Guizot,” El Heraldo, Jan. 30, 1843; “Guerras Sobre Sucesión a La Corona de España,” El Instructor, May, 1840.

62 “Transportes: Diligencias de Carsi, Ferer y Compañía,” Guia del Comercio, Jan. 5, 1842; “Parte Doctrinal,” Guia del Comercio, Feb. 2, 1842; “Parte Doctrinal,” Guia del Comercio, Mar. 9, 1842; “Transportes,” Guia del Comercio, Apr. 20, 1842; E.P, “Productos y Valores,” Guia del Comercio, Apr. 27, 1842; “Estado actual de las carreteras de España,” Guia del Comercio, Oct. 30, 1844; DS, 24-I-1842; DS, 3- II-1842; DS, 11-II-1842; DS, 24-II-1842; DS, 28-II-1842; DS, 12-III-1842; DS, 14-V-1842; DS, 23-V-1842.

63 “Medios de comunicación,”Guia del Comercio, Aug. 7, 1844.

36 order to do so, the article continued, Spain must develop all manner of transportation infrastructure, including private and public roads, bridges, canals, and railways.64

The railways in particular, or rather their conspicuous absence, appeared to emphasize, more than the general deficit in transport infrastructure, the extent to which

Spain continued to be mired in backwardness. In England, France, and Belgium, Agustín

Pascual noted in 1843, the railways had been a powerful “instrument of civilization and of wealth.” In Germany, the railways not only brought wealth and civilization, but also unity by tying together a nation he saw as naturally homogenous yet torn apart by

“human discord.” Spain, he implied, would clearly also benefit from these great advantages. Wealth, progress, and unification were as sorely needed in 1840s Spain as they were anywhere in Europe. Yet, he declared in a tone that was at once aspirational and full of disappointment (and an exaggeration), “Spain is the one nation that doesn’t have railways.”65

By this time, the deputies of the Congreso had begun as well to take notice of the transformations occurring across Europe and of the extent to which Spain continued to trail its neighbors on the continent. Indeed, there had been consistent talk and debate about new roads and road improvements throughout the civil war and especially afterward, given the great destruction that occurred in the north.66 By the 1840s, new talk of possible railways blended neatly with the dialogue over roads, transport, and

64 E.P., “Productos y Valores,” Guia del Comercio, Apr. 27, 1842.

65 Agustin Pascual, “Viajes en Alemania: Caminos de hierro,” Guia del Comercio, May 3, 1843.

66 DS, 16-VIII-1834; DS, 9-XII-1834; DS, 11-XII-1834; DS, 24-XII-1834; DS, 26-XII-1834; DS, 28-XI- 1834; DS, 20-V-1835; DS, 21-V-1835; DS, 10-VII-1840; DS, 24-I-1842; DS, 11-II-1842; DS, 23-V-1842; DS, 28- VI-1842.

37 commerce that had been ongoing for years. Deputies who took notice of the foreign technological advancements, as journalists and other hopeful observers had done previously, tended also to wield a language and terminology that condemned Spanish backwardness and championed railways as tools of civilization, regeneration, and redemption. The steam engines, “these omnipotent machines, these iron roads,” Deputy

Ramón Alesón of La Rioja declared in 1840, “present us with a new future era and immense hopes.” These instruments are the products of the change sweeping across

Europe, he continued. They have been “decreed by an irresistible power, by civilization and enlightenment.”67

Such references to the railways within the Congreso in the early 1840s were few, as deputies remained far more interested in investing in traditional road improvements.

But by 1844, the discussion of railways in Spain’s Congreso had begun to pick up steam.

Deputy José María Orense of Cantabria, for example, became a persistent advocate for additional investments in the iron roads. He frequently championed railway construction as an important economic stimulant and an engine of employment.68 He often registered his frustration over the fact that Cuba had already completed approximately 200 miles of track while Spain “still has not a single one;” and this despite the several concessions the government had already issued.69 And he was adamant in his belief that the railways could prove crucial in lifting Spain out of its perpetual backwardness.

I would like for one of the great efforts proposed by the current Cortes [Congreso] to be to facilitate communication within Spain, because it is well known that at

67 DS, 19-VI-1840.

68 DS, 7-XI-1844; DS, 4-III-1845; DS, 7-III-1845.

69 DS, 22-IV-1845.

this moment in time [Spain] is one of the most backward nations; and at a time when in Europe there is such great progress, not only with regard to the ordinary roads, but also to the railways, I wish that our great communication routes were not in the state they are.70

This increase in official chatter concerning the development of railways in Spain didn’t come entirely out of the blue, however. The Moderado government had been eager to learn from the mistakes and successes already experienced across much of Europe. To this end, in 1844, it instructed the Ministerio de la Gobernación and its Dirección General de Caminos, Canales y Puertos to investigate and compile a report on all that might be learned about the application of rail transport across the continent and beyond. The

Dirección General formed a commission of engineers headed by Juan Subercase, which held a number of meetings and released its report on November 2, 1844.71 The report, frequently referred to as the Subercase Report, was less than 20 pages long but surprisingly comprehensive in scope. It took as its premise the idea that railways had become by that point “a vital public necessity of civilized nations” and should be a goal of Spain’s.72 Within its pages it touched on a number of different issues legislators and engineers would need to consider when setting out to establish a railway network. For example, it explored the differing proportions of private and government funding across

Europe. It noted the great variation in outcome between those countries like Belgium that had instituted top-down network planning and countries like Prussia where the routes

70 DS, 23-XI-1844.

71 Rafael Alcaide González, “El ferrocarril en España (1829-1844): las primeras concesiones, el marco legal y la presencia de la geografía en las memorias de los anteproyectos de construcción de las líneas férreas,” Biblio 3w: Revista Bibliográfica De Geografía Y Ciencias Sociales, 4 (1999).

72 Francisco de A. Cambó y Batllé, Elementos para el studio del problema ferroviario en España, Tomo I (Madrid: Ministerio de Fomento, 1918), 5.

39 emerged more haphazardly. It warned legislators of the many opportunities for scandal and abuse of the concessions. Indeed, it even went so far as to suggest a specific gauge for the rails themselves. It is with regard to this last area that the report is most frequently cited by historians, since the engineers opted for a gauge of six Castilian feet (1.67 meters), a full 9 and a half inches wider than the gauge used across much of the rest of the continent, Russia excepted.73

The Subercase Report led swiftly to the issuance of the Real Orden de 31 de

Diciembre de 1844, commonly referred to more simply as the Railway Law of 1844. The law was an official confirmation that Spain both lagged behind the “most advanced nations” of Europe and was eager to catch up.74 The text of the law established the procedures companies had to follow when applying for land concessions to build railways and established specifications for construction and operation. It touched also on maximum fares, the period of operation for lines, and the circumstances under which a privately built line might revert to the possession of the state. In many areas, the law was adhering closely to the Subercase Report, even establishing the gauge of all lines at 6

Castilian feet.

73 Ibid., 10. The decision to make the gauge this wide was not made arbitrarily or capriciously. Instead, the engineers had carefully weighed the options and explored the different gauges used in other areas and reached what they felt was a studied and practical number.

74 “Ministerio de la gobernacion de la Peninsula: Real Decreto,” Gaceta de Madrid, Jan. 19, 1845.

Figure 1: Map of Railway Concessions, 1845. This map, published by El Español showed readers the concessions granted by that time.

The few years after the issuance of this law witnessed the granting of a great number of concessions for lines across the peninsula. The first two, granted simultaneously with the promulgation of the law itself, were for routes from Madrid to

Cádiz and León to Avilés. Between February of 1845 and August of 1846, another twenty concessions were granted for a great variety of proposed routes, including routes between Madrid and Badajoz, Valladolid and Zaragoza, Madrid and Irún, Sevilla and

Osuna, and from Córdoba to Sevilla.75 Many of these routes, however, would not materialize for another two decades. But among the very few concessions that were acted

75 Wais, Historia General, 34.

41 upon swiftly, the most important was the Madrid to Aranjuez route ultimately completed by the Madrid financier José de Salamanca y Mayol. Salamanca, however, had not been the first to hold the concession to build the 49 kilometer-long line from the capital to the royal estate in Aranjuez. In 1844, a railway company established under the name

Sociedad Camino de Hierro de María Cristina after the queen’s mother and former regent had been granted a concession for this very line. The company, despite having the husband of the queen mother, the Duke of Riánsares, involved with the project, failed to secure the necessary financing and abandoned the endeavor the following year.

Salamanca, who swiftly resigned from his position on the Board of the María Cristina

Company in order to secure the concession with a deposit of 6 million reales, was determined not to make the same mistake.76

Already by the mid-1840s, José de Salamanca had earned a reputation for himself as a gifted financier. Through skill, cunning, a number of risky investments, and a bit of luck he had managed to build up his modest wealth into a small fortune. Nor was

Salamanca a stranger to politics. Before moving to Madrid in 1836 and being elected to the Cortes Constituyentes, he had held the position of mayor of Monóvar in Alicante and investigating judge in Vera, Almería. But it was business, especially banking and finance, which interested him most. And it wasn’t long before he dedicated most of his time to these endeavors, establishing working relationships with numerous important figures in

76 Pedro Díaz Marín, “El ferrocarril a Alicante: la gestión de un ayuntamiento moderado,” in Miguel Muñoz Rubio, Jesús Sanz Fernández, and Javier Vidal Olivares (eds.), Siglo y medio del ferrocarril en España 1848–1998: economía, industria y sociedad (Madrid: Fundación de los Ferrocarriles Españoles, 1999), 648–649; Miguel A. López-Morell, “Salamanca y la construcción del ferrocarril de Aranjuez,” in Manuel Benegas, María Jesús Matilla and Francisco Polo (eds), Ferrocarril y Madrid: Historia de un progreso (Madrid: Ministerios de Fomento, Educación, Cultura y Deporte y Fundación de los Ferrocarriles Españoles, 2002), 18–22.

42 the financial sector, such as José Buschental and Daniel Weisweiller. Within a few years after the end of the First Carlist War, Salamanca’s aggressive trading in futures on the

Madrid stock exchange earned him a small fortune and a reputation as a savvy trader.77

By 1844, Salamanca’s influence was such that he was able to secure governmental approval for the Banco de Isabel II, conceived of as a tool for the further industrialization of Spain through the financing of industrial enterprises, mining, and railways.

Salamanca understood the growing desire for rail transport and had a keen sense of the extent to which some Spaniards were pinning their hopes for national revitalization on the introduction of rail. In addressing the Congreso in late 1847, largely in an attempt to defend himself against charges of corruption committed during his seven-month tenure as Minister of the Treasury beginning in March of that year and to encourage further state investment in building a railway network, he eagerly encouraged the body to support his efforts to continue the line. He exploited their sensitivity to accusations of inferiority and backwardness by stressing the extent to which other Europeans had adopted the railways.

“[T]here is not a single community in Europe without a railway,” he announced to the body. Such language, while financially motivated for Salamanca, served to further emphasize the growing distance between Spain and the rest of Europe. Reiterating the degree to which his railway might serve as the “basis of many others and perhaps of the prosperity of the country” itself, he argued that at this moment in history Spain must have a railway, because “without iron roads we will never have anything.”78

77 Pedro Tedde de Lorca, “José de Salamanca y Mayol,” Diccionario Biográfico Español, Vol. XLV (Madrid: Real Academia De La Historia, 2009), 140–142.

78 DS, 20-XI-1847.

Unlike so many of the other concessionaires of this period, Salamanca set to work on the line with haste and gusto. He imported the rolling stock and other materials necessary for construction from abroad.79 He and his engineers oversaw the fabrication of special iron and carpentry workshops, warehouses, and the specialty wagons and carts necessary for the construction of the line.80 Additionally, Salamanca boasted that with the exception of “no more than three” highly skilled foreign workers, the entire labor force, reaching at one point about 7,000 in all, was recruited from within Spain. With all these preliminary steps accomplished, by May of 1846 the Madrid to Aranjuez line had become the first on the peninsula to initiate construction.81 The expectation at the time was that progress would be rapid and Spain would have its first line in operation by 1847.82 This, however, was not to be, as the country began to enter a financial crisis in 1846 that eventually paralyzed progress on the line and ultimately forced Salamanca into exile in

France in 1848.83

The partially completed line languished for nearly two years before Salamanca returned from exile and work recommenced. During this time a short railway in Cataluña connecting Barcelona with Mataró, a mere 17.5 miles away, was successfully completed and put into operation. It was the first railway to open in Spain. While the historical

79 López-Morell, “Salamanca y la construcción del ferrocarril de Aranjuez,” 24.

80 Manuel Rivadeneyra, Memoria leida en la junta general de accionistas del camino de hierro de Madrid a Aranjuez (Madrid: Imprenta de La Publicidad, 1847), 34-36.

81 Rivadeneyra, Memoria Leida, 36–37; López-Morell, “Salamanca y la construcción del ferrocarril de Aranjuez,” 24.

82 “Ferro-carril á Aranjuez,” Guia del Comercio, Oct. 15, 1845.

83 López-Morell, “Salamanca la construcción del ferrocarril de Aranjuez,” 24-31.

44 importance of inaugurating the Barcelona to Mataró line was lost on no one, the attention paid to the line outside Barcelona paled in comparison to the inauguration of the Madrid to Aranjuez line a few years later.84 Nor did the inauguration of the Barcelona to Mataró line extinguish the frequent lamentations over Spanish backwardness and decline. Nearly a year after the opening of Spain’s first railway, deputies in the Congreso continued to criticize the increasingly obvious lack of suitable transportation in Spain. “[O]ur goods don’t travel in speedy railways, but rather on weak and heavily-laden donkeys,” one deputy conceded. “[B]ut this is one more reason for us to endeavor to march forward with the times.”85

The inauguration of the Madrid to Aranjuez railway on February 9, 1851 provided a sharp contrast to the somewhat indifferent reaction to the earlier Catalan line. The large, lavish, and carefully choreographed ceremony was extensively covered and boosted in the Madrid press. In addition to the many other important men and women invited to the inaugural event, the queen and her husband were in attendance. Indeed, part of the ceremony involved the queen herself taking the first official trip from Madrid to her country residence in Aranjuez.86 The great attention showered on the new line in comparison to Spain’s first railway just a few years before was more than just a reflection

84 Wais, Historia General, 66. See also the various announcements of the opening of the line: “Parte Industrial: Bendicion e Inauguracion del Camino de Hierro de Barcelona á Mataró,” El Heraldo, Nov. 2, 1848; El Clamor público, Nov. 3, 1848; El Clamor público, Nov. 5, 1848; El Popular, Nov. 6, 1848; Diario official de avisos de Madrid, Nov. 7, 1848; El Genio de la Liberdad, Nov. 15, 1848; “Bendicion del Ferro- Carril de Mataró,”El Historiador palmesano, Nov. 21, 1848.

85 DS, 9-V-1849.

86 La Nación, Feb. 7, 1851; La España, Feb. 7, 1851; “Inauguracion del ferro-carril de madrid á Aranjuez,” La Ilustración, Feb. 8, 1851; “Inauguracion del camino de hierro de Aranjuez,” El Observador, Feb. 10, 1851.

45 of the significance of opening a railway in the capital. As early as the middle of the previous decade there had been general plans in the works to eventually extend any future line between the two cities far past Aranjuez to connect Madrid with the city of Alicante and the Mediterranean.87 In fact, in the months after the inauguration, Salamanca began making proposals to the Congreso for other links along the route that would eventually be called the Mediterranean Railway.88 For this reason, the volume of celebration and the attention the opening of the Aranjuez line received was at least partially aspirational and anticipatory, an effervescence of hope for a new and important commercial link that promised to set Madrid free of its historic geographical isolation and unite the center of the peninsula with the coast and a major port.

The Madrid press was bold and effusive in its praise. El Observador called the inauguration “a very important event, not so much because of what is visible at first glance, but because it establishes a satisfactory precedent for the material future of our nation.”89 La Ilustración proclaimed the arrival of “a new and glorious era of civilization for the entire country.” The inauguration of “the most civilizing component of the century,” the writer announced, was a “sublime and expansive spectacle in which all hearts took part, instinctively sensing that this time it was a most positive triumph, destined to promote the well-being of all classes.”90 El Heraldo went even further. Few formal occasions could be “compared in splendor, in unanimity of enthusiasm, in hope

87 Francisco Comín, 150 años de historia de los ferrocarriles españoles, Vol. I, (Madrid: Anaya, 1998), 37, 45–46.

88 Wais, Historia General, 49.

89 “Inauguracion del camino de hierro de Aranjuez,” El Observador, Feb. 10, 1851.

90 “Solemne Inauguracion del Ferro-Carrl de Madrid á Aranjuez,” La Ilustración, Feb. 15, 1851.

46 for the future, with what was witnessed on Sunday,” the writer effused. He carefully noted the significance of the fact that this inauguration was merely the first stage in an ongoing process of connecting the capital with the sea and the agricultural bounty of

Spain with the hungry markets of Europe. The “rich produce of Castile, La Mancha, and some southern provinces, while stalled today, drowning in its unproductive abundance

[might soon] reach the great markets of the world and be exchanged for the products we need but lack.” “How strange is it,” he continued in a somewhat reflective tone, “that when Spaniards awoke today from their former doldrums” they went running for the railway? “How strange is it that something as prosaic as locomotion and commerce produce a veritable delirium of enthusiasm?”91

Figure 2: Inaugurating the Madrid to Aranjuez Railway. La Ilustración, Feb. 22, 1851.

91 “Inauguracion del Ferro-Carril de Aranjuez,” El Heraldo, Feb. 11, 1851.

Yet the most fulsome praise for the technological accomplishment that was the

Aranjuez Railway appeared in the form of a three-page-long article in the four-page

Moderado daily, La España.92 In the article the author recounted the experience of riding on the railway’s maiden voyage in careful, indeed baroque, detail. In doing so, he explored the mounting anticipation that Spaniards experienced as they watched the rest of the western world speed past Spain and into the future. “We read with envy,” he recalled,

“of the miracles that the railway and steam power accomplished in other towns, but seeing them in Spain one day . . . seemed like a vain desire for an impossible good.” But the seemingly endless waiting was over at that moment. Spain, he noted, was now boarding the same technological conveyance to the future that the rest of the continent had already grown accustomed to. He now stood watching and recording in amazement the “rumbling of a people who unanimously celebrate its goodness, the steam boiling, the whistling of the locomotive, its waves of silvery smoke like the splendid halo of battles.”93

Throughout the article the writer juxtaposed the old Spain of tradition, immobility, and backwardness with the Spain to come of economic progress, industrial development, and rapid communication. In one moment he mused about the way the locomotive zipped across the landscape “devour[ing] distance.” He praised the fact that

92 La España commenced publication in 1848, just a couple of days after the last issue of El Español. It was a natural successor to the older flagship publication of 1840s Moderadismo, even incorporating the defunct publication’s editorial board. Yet, La España promoted a far more conservative position. This shift reflected the growing conservatism of the Moderado party in the years leading up to and following the Revolution of 1854.

93 “El Ferro-Carril de Aranjuez: su inauguración en 9 de febrero de 1851,” La España, Feb. 11, 1851. While the La España article doesn’t indicate a name, the article was republished later that year in Eco literario de Europa, which noted that the author was likely Don Antonio María Rubio, secretary to the Queen.

Spain had “not found the philosopher's stone so as to make gold” because with the benefits of rail travel it had “found so much gold, that we need not search for” it. Yet, in another moment, he reflected upon the scenes of stagnation and resistance to modernity outside his comfortable carriage window. Gazing upon some bulls and thinking of the country’s fondness for bullfighting, he remarked that while we all claim to “want civilization and progress,” we aren’t above making a short “digression on Monday afternoons for the chivalrous memory of ancient ferocity.”94 But, even in remarking on this strange juxtaposition between the Spanish past and the future, he appeared to recognize the future as both inevitable and preferable.

I saw . . . a very young child sitting on the ground amongst a few odds and ends from the railway . . . There was such tenderness in the contrast. The child suspended his games, and pensively and calmly followed the locomotive with his eyes. We were flying. He does not know how to walk. But his is the future. The boy will run faster than us.95

Not everyone, however, was so convinced that Spain was witnessing the advent of a new and glorious future. Some, like Carolina Coronado, who published an account of her trip from Madrid to Aranjuez in the days after the route’s inauguration, were far less sanguine about whether the railway would indeed lift Spain out of its perpetual economic and social paralysis. Coronado, who even at the age of 30 had already made a name for herself as a Romantic poet and revolutionary, penned the article as a letter to Ángela

Grassi, a fellow Romantic, under the title “In Spain it is the same to travel by steam as to travel by camel.” As the title suggests, Coronado was less than impressed with the

94 “El Ferro-Carril de Aranjuez: su inauguración en 9 de febrero de 1851),”La España, Feb. 11, 1851.

95 Ibid.

49 performance of the railway, and felt the new technology might be promising more than it could deliver. Notwithstanding the title, at the start of her article she expresses the same sense of hope and excitement as those around her. She bought her tickets for the early train to Aranjuez and planned to have lunch in the royal city and dinner back in Madrid, a feat at that moment more possible than ever because of the new rail line. Yet, as the 45- minute trip turned into several hours, she grew tired, hungry, and frustrated with the pace of progress. By the time she began making the return journey in the dead of night, her dreams of a future powered by technological advancement had turned into a smoke- belching, fire-breathing nightmare. Looking forward out the window into the still night she saw “a formidable specter, an apparition evoked by hell . . . a moving volcano spewing fire through the fields.”96

As a Romantic, Coronado was inclined to be skeptical of the promise of the railway, and this skepticism is apparent in her piece. But her willingness to break with the surrounding mood of rapturous excitement echoing through the press and the public is notable. It indicates that at least some were not yet ready to accept the redemptive gift offered by the new railway. There is a stark difference between her description and the several other articles published on the railway that week. Most if not all of the earlier articles describing the inaugural journey drew a sharp distinction between the Spanish landscape of backwardness and decline and the train itself that passed through it on its way to the future. The landscape was the space of frightened sheep, herded cows, and children gawking at the sleek and speedy locomotive. The train represented progress

96 Carolina Coronado, “Que en España se Adelanta lo mismo viajando en vapor que Viajando en Camellos a la señorita doña Angela Grassi,” La Ilustración, Feb. 15, 1851.

50 itself. It powered through the staid and forgotten landscape like the sun moved across the sky. For Coronado, however, as she described her time stranded mid-route aboard the stalled carriage, the landscape and the train merged. Sitting idly for hours on the tracks, the train itself became a symbol of Spanish decline and the nation’s seeming inability to maneuver its way out of its morass with technological innovation. In this way Coronado was throwing back the curtain to reveal some blemishes on this moment of achievement.

While many prominent Spaniards were engaged in an almost hypnotic attempt to will and wish the country into the future, she realized, to her great dismay, that many of her countrymen were hardly so sure. “What most disheartened me,” she reported, “was the smile of a stranger who was traveling with us.”

He had prepared himself a night sack, in which he carried all sorts of provisions, and began to make use of them quietly. He was the only one who had the talent to judge us, and, he was sure that we would not arrive at lunchtime.”97

The image of a common Spaniard who was just skeptical enough about whether Spain had actually arrived at the doorstep of modernity to pack his own lunch was a powerful symbol that poured cold water on the aspirational tone of so many eager writers at this moment of seeming national accomplishment. Redemption, it appeared, might not be so easily purchased.

Conclusion

As this chapter has demonstrated, Spaniards watched anxiously and excitedly from the sidelines as the rest of Europe inaugurated the railway age and laid track across

Britain and the continent in the 1820s and 30s. Civil war and political instability had

97 Ibid.

51 prevented Spain from participating until the mid-1840s. But even during this seeming state of paralysis, some farsighted elites like Gregorio González Azaola and Ramón de la

Sagra already recognized and advertised the potential railways held for Spain. They and other like-minded elite Spanish liberals argued that railways might prove to be the technological key the nation needed to overcome the constraints imposed by its own geography and the dilapidated state of its transport infrastructure. More importantly, they saw the railways as the civilizing and redemptive tool Spain desperately needed to distance itself from its own unfortunate past and join in the prosperity of Europe. These themes were echoed and refined in the Spanish press, ultimately reaching maturity during the frenzied celebration of the opening of the Madrid to Aranjuez Railway in 1851.

The next chapter explores the way these narratives about redemption and rejoining the rest of Europe were employed as partisan devices used to influence decisions about the routes future railways would take. In the early 1850s, the two cities of

Segovia and Ávila engaged in a fraught rivalry over which would become a terminus on the emerging Northern Railway connecting Madrid with France. Through a series of dueling pamphlets and engineers’ recommendations, the two cities attempted to sway railway developers and government officials. In the process, they succeeded in painting a colorful picture of a bright Spanish future built of railways and economic potential.

Chapter II Jostling for First Place on the Road to the Future “Ávila must not remain silent,” wrote Antonio Zaonero de Robles in the first edition of El Porvenir Avilés in 1852, especially not “[w]hen Old Castile is witnessing the dawn of her fortune, and is awakening from the lethargy of so many centuries . . . , shaking off the habits of grave taciturnity and characteristic indifference.” The city could not be a “mere spectator,” he continued, sitting idly by and watching as “the ideas generating the century’s progress bring the most precious fruits of their advances and improvements to the very bosom of our religious and simple people.” “Ávila, following the noble impulse of its feelings and obeying both duty and necessity, must meet such prosperous events as one [would] who understands all their importance and magnitude, and can see the lavish future, which could not even have been dreamt of during the long days of inertia and absolute isolation that have passed over its staid and quiet existence.”

Old Castile, and Ávila especially, was on the precipice of “[a] prosperous and fortunate future, of robust life, and of progressive well-being . . . by way of the railways now crossing the Spanish Peninsula connecting both seas [the Bay of Biscay and the

Mediterranean] and putting the nation into immediate and continuous contact with the whole of Europe.”1

Such bold, florid, and predictive language was typical of Zaonero, the director of

El Porvenir Avilés and a former deputy to the Congreso from Ávila. But we should not

1 Antonio Zaonero de Robles, “El Porvenir Aviles á Sus Scritores,” El Porvenir Avilés, Sept. 16, 1852.

53 mistake his frequent literary flights of fancy for wild speculation or poetic wishful thinking on his part. Zaonero was writing and working toward a clear, focused, and achievable goal. His mission, and the expressed purpose of El Porvenir, was to advocate for a particular railway route for the first leg of the line that was to connect Madrid with the French border at Irún. That first section was intended to connect the capital with

Valladolid. From there the railway was to pass through Burgos, Vitoria, and San

Sebastián on its way to France. As the first issue of El Porvenir was rolling off the presses in 1852, however, it was still undetermined whether the route to Valladolid would pass through Segovia or through Ávila to the southwest. For Zaonero, it was vitally important that Ávila should be situated on this new and important route to the rest of

Europe. In his opinion, the future of Ávila, Old Castile, and the whole of Spain depended on it.

Those who argued for Segovia’s placement along the new railway across Spain were equally adamant and passionate about their position. And in the years between

1845, when the first concession for such a railway was approved, and 1855, when Ávila was ultimately selected, these two cities engaged in an intense rivalry for first place on this railway to France. However, as I argue in this chapter, behind this raucous and seemingly intractable debate was a general agreement about the Spanish future that was coming into being. On the basis of the copious volume of articles, engineering surveys, and propaganda pamphlets that this fierce debate produced, I contend that the dispute itself provides a window into the hearts and minds of a segment of the Spanish elite and allows us to see their vision of a Spanish future. This was a vision of Spain made wealthy and modern by railways that finally overcame the transportation bottleneck that had

54 crippled Spain for centuries. It was a vision of the future where Spanish insecurities were assuaged and where the flow of Spanish products moved effortlessly into the markets of

Europe.

I argue that this vision of a future Spanish prosperity was the product of the convergence of three distinct developments during this time. First, as I discussed in chapter one, the early years of Spanish railway development shared a time of budding optimism about Spanish prospects. The inauguration of the Madrid to Aranjuez line in

1851 was a moment of intense national celebration, and this enthusiasm rippled through the imaginations of the elite over the next few years. Second, the latter half of the nineteenth century was a period when the accelerating pace of technological advancement was just beginning to inspire new ideas about progress and the transformations to come in the minds of observers across Europe. In the public imagination, the future was no longer just a continuation of the present. It was becoming possible to imagine a future that was qualitatively different, and made so by the transformative effects of technology. The railway encouraged this mode of thought, as it was both a metaphor for progress and an instrument of progress itself. Finally, and most importantly, this was a time when there were far more plans for railways across Spain than there were actual railways. This state of affairs encouraged heightened expectations, and it also encouraged railway developers and boosters to think big and make huge promises about the changes railways would soon bring to Spain.

Figure 3: The Railways of Spain in 1862. As this map shows, the pace of railway development intensified during the 1850s. Note both the route that was ultimately chosen from Madrid to Irún via Ávila as well as the secondary route from Segovia that was also under construction.

But before exploring the influence of these three factors, it’s important to first explain the origin of the Madrid to Irún route and the rivalry that decisions about this route inspired. The line from the capital to the French frontier had its origins in the raucous railway planning and speculation of the 1840s. Connecting Madrid with France by way of Irún was a likely, indeed predictable, route. Surveyors in Spain could not have helped but recognize that the highways and other main traditional routes between the capital and France took a northerly direction toward the Basque Country and Navarre.

Here the roads clustered and then consolidated between San Sebastián and the border with France near Bayonne. The only other major passageway into France was between

Cataluña and Roussillon near the Mediterranean coast. Between these two locations the

Pyrenees Mountains form an imposing and rocky boundary standing astride one of the oldest unchanged political borders in Western Europe.

Among the nearly two dozen concessions that were approved in the immediate wake of the Railway Law of 1844 was a concession for a railway between Madrid and

Irún, via Bilbao. Granted on August 16, 1845 to Victoria de Lecea and Arrieta Mascárua, representatives of various Basque investors, businessmen, and institutions in Bilbao, the concession became known in Madrid circles as the concesión vascongada (the Basque concession).2 This group of investors and businessmen in Bilbao had been working diligently since the promulgation of the 1844 law to encourage and finance a railway that would link the capital with the French frontier by way of the Basque heartland. By the spring of 1845, the group had hired the British railway promoter William MacKenzie to assist them in this effort.3 MacKenzie promptly brought aboard the British engineer

Alexander Mackenzie Ross to survey a satisfactory route. Ross completed the initial task and presented the first plan for a route in July of 1845.4

2 Carlos Larrinaga Rodríguez, “La ‘Concesión Vascongada’ y los antecedentes de la línea ferroviaria del Norte (1844–1855),” Espacio, Tiempo y Forma, Serie V, Historia Contemporánea, 17 (2005): 73–74; Francisco Wais, Historia de los ferrocarriles españoles, 1830-1941 (Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1967), 142–143.

3 Manuel González Portilla, Ferrocarriles y desarrollo: Red y mercados en el País Vasco, 1856– 1914 (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 1995), 86–88.

4 Larrinaga, “La ‘Concesion Vascongada,’” 73; Rafael Barquín, “Segovia versus Ávila: la conexión ferroviaria entre Madrid y la Cuenca del Duero (1845-1865),” Investigaciones de Historia Económica, no. 8 (2012): 145.

The route proposed by Ross would have connected Madrid with Irún via Bilbao and required on its first leg a six kilometer tunnel through the Sierra de Guadarrama.5 The proposed route followed the Río Manzanares north out of Madrid and into the Sierra de

Guadarrama. From there it headed west then north through the mountains by way of the impressively long tunnel, which took it within a dozen miles of the city of Segovia on its way to Valladolid, Palencia, Burgos, Miranda de Ebro, Vitoria-Gasteiz, and ultimately

Bilbao.6 Leaving Bilbao toward the border, the route was intended to largely follow the coast toward San Sebastián and Irún.7 Over the next year, Ross continued to develop and refine this proposed route. At one point he collaborated with the Spanish engineer Calixto

Santa Cruz, and together they developed an alternative plan for the route. In this version, what was previously a 6-kilometer tunnel had been shortened by half to a 3-kilometer tunnel through the Guadarrama.8 This revised plan and shortened tunnel system included nine tunnels passing through the province of Segovia and within several miles of the

5 “Sobre Caminos de Hierro,” El Español, Aug. 7, 1845; David Brooke, The Diary of William Mackenzie the First International Railway Contractor (London: Thomas Telford Books, 2000), 235–236.

6 Alexander Ross, “Madrid – Bilbao Railway Map,” Mackenzie Collection: Mackenzie Drawings, MCDR219, Institution of Civil Engineers Archive, London, UK; Just a few months after Ross produced his first plan for a route, George Stephenson, another hugely influential railway engineer and investor conducted his own survey of the route. Traveling from Irún to the capital over a period of a few weeks, Stephenson sketched out the most probable plan for a route that would ultimately pass through the mountains between El Escorial by way of two tunnels. Stephenson, however, ultimately soured on the plan when he had time to consider the cost and possible return on investment. Samuel Smiles, The Life of George Stephenson and of His Son Robert Stephenson; comprising also a History of the Invention and Introduction of the Railway Locomotive (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1868), 418–419.

7 David Brooke, The Diary of William Mackenzie, 236; Cecilia Vallés Botey, “El archivo de William MacKenzie y los primeros ferrocarriles españoles,” V Congreso de Historia Ferroviaria, Palma de Mallorca, (2009): 6.

8 Rafael Barquín, “Segovia versus Ávila,” 145.

58 provincial city, much like the previously proposed route had done.9 This revised route to

Bilbao, however, was somewhat longer than what had initially been surveyed. According to William MacKenzie, the longer route had the important advantage of being far less costly to construct overall.10

These developments appeared promising to the Basque investors, so much so that by early 1846 they opted to establish in Paris a company intended to develop the

Northern Railway: the Compañía del Camino de hierro de Madrid a Irún por Bilbao.11

Unfortunately, the progress on the route that these plans reflected would come to a rather sudden stop as a result of the Spanish economic crisis of 1847–1848. The financial collapse in Spain had been precipitated by the Panic of 1847, a British banking crisis brought about initially by harvest failures in Ireland and England the previous year, which resulted in a decline in domestic food supplies, price inflation, trade deficits, and increasing pressure on the Bank of England. These problems were made worse by the fact that the “railway mania” of the previous years had already placed huge demands on the circulating capital of the country. As John Stuart Mill explained in 1871, the combination of an elevated desire for loans with limited disposable capital to make those loans resulted in a dramatic tightening of credit. When firms began to fail because they couldn’t access credit, a general panic set in, which exacerbated the problems until

9 La Diputacion Provincial y el Ayuntamiento de Ávila, Contestación a las observaciones que acerca de los trazados para el paso de la Sierra de Guadarrama en el general cuya preferencia se disputan Ávila y Segovia, mandó publicar esta ultima provincial y su capital (Madrid: Establecimiento Tipografico de D. F. de P. Mellado, 1854), 10.

10 Brooke, The Diary of William Mackenzie, 416.

11 Larrinaga, “La Concesion Vascongada,” 75.

Parliament stepped in and brought matters under control.12 Spain, having in the 1840s a relatively weak economy especially burdened by debt and without the financial structure that might better weather such a storm, was particularly vulnerable to such disturbances in the international finance markets. The country was sent into an economic tailspin as government officials rushed to shore up its two major banks. Unsurprisingly, industrial investments slowed to a trickle during this period of financial turmoil.13

By 1850, as Spain climbed out of the financial collapse, talk of establishing a route to France resurfaced. In that year the Congreso put together a commission intended to lay the groundwork for a general railway law that would establish an organizational framework for developing a railway network in Spain. Presided over by the liberal politician and former president of the Congreso, Salustiano Olózaga, the commission sought to answer a series of questions drafted by concerned deputies. These questions covered such topics as the granting of concessions, the implications of railway development for the territorial security of the country, the shape of a national railway network, and considerations regarding the lines that should be prioritized by the state agencies.14 The government tasked the commission with exploring the possibility of a series of lines that would have created a radial network centered on the capital city. These lines included one from Madrid to Cartagena, with branches reaching Alicante and

12 Rudiger Dornbusch and Jacob A. Frenkel, “The Gold Standard and the Bank of England in the Crisis of 1847” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series, (Dec. 1982): 2–5, http://www.nber.org/papers/w1039.pdf.

13 Mercedes Bernal Lloréns, “The crisis of 1847–1848 and the regulation of company accounting in Spain,” Accounting History 5, No. 2 (2000): 18.

14 Diego Mateo del Peral, “Parte I: Los origenes de la politica ferroviaria en España (1844–1877)” in Los Ferrocarriles en España, 1844–1931 (Madrid: Banco de España, 1978), 61–62.

Valencia; Madrid to Barcelona via Zaragoza; Madrid toward Lisbon via Extremadura;

Madrid to Cadiz, with a branch to Cartagena; and, finally, Madrid to Bayonne through

Valladolid and important centers of commerce in the north and northeast.15

There was also the issue of the Central System—a collection of nearly contiguous mountain ranges that creates a rocky wall running in a northeasterly direction from the

Castelo Branco in Portugal across Spain’s Central Plateau. In discussions of the Madrid to Bayonne route in the commission, those few conversations that mentioned the connection across the Central System noted the challenge that the topography of the region presented.16 Within Spain the ranges that make up this imposing obstacle include the Sierra de Guadarrama and the Sierra de Gredos, which effectively separate the drainage basins of the Duero and Tagus rivers. The long chain of ranges eventually flattens out to the northeast just before reaching the Iberian System, which forms the boundary between the Central Plateau and the Ebro Valley. Because the system passes between Madrid and Valladolid, any railway that connected these two points would have to traverse this difficult terrain. Recognizing that any such route would require considerable engineering efforts and that there was no one obvious route through these mountains, the city councils (ayuntamientos), provincial councils (diputaciónes), and financial interests within Ávila and Segovia began to realize that the route might go in either direction. Given the perceived importance of the line in financial and developmental terms, neither provincial capital was willing to leave this decision to

15 Comisión de ferrocarriles, Información parlamentaria hecha por la commission de ferro-carriles nombrada por el congreso de los diputados en 10 de Enero de 1850 (Madrid: Imprenta Nacional, 1850), 161.

16 Ibid., 120.

61 chance. As a result, in this period the representatives of the two provinces began to take note of the efforts for and against certain routes. The contest over the direction of the route emerges from this important realization.

Those in Ávila were surely heartened by what they heard from commission member Constantino Ardanaz, then a young and ambitious civil engineer from Bilbao.

Ardanaz contributed heartily to the discussion in the commission and voiced his strong support for routing the line intended to connect Madrid with Bayonne through Ávila.

Noting the challenges that came with building a railway through the mountainous terrain north of Madrid, Ardanaz concluded that Ávila was an especially preferable location for any route proposing to connect Valladolid with the capital. To further support his belief that the line should pass through Ávila, Ardanaz cited a study completed the year before by one Don José Almazán.17 A road engineer originally from Cifuentes in Guadalajara province, Almazán got his start working on projects in Valladolid before being transferred to Madrid in 1847. There in the capital he oversaw several highway projects across Spain and all the road works projects in the province of Ávila.18 In 1849, he set to work assessing the various possible routes through the mountainous terrain north and west of Madrid. Considering the daunting engineering challenges presented by any attempt to traverse the region with a rail line, Almazán determined that the most logical route would be a line from Madrid toward Valladolid via the Puerto de las Pilas, a mountain pass opening onto the meseta just a few miles to the west of Ávila.

17 Ibid., 258, 242.

18 Manuel Silva Suárez (ed.), Técnica e ingeniería en España VII, el ochocientos: de las profundidades a las alturas, Tomo II (Zaragoza: Real Academia de Ingeniería, 2013), 379.

Paraphrasing Almazán’s study, Ardanaz claimed that “it seems beyond doubt that the

Irún line should proceed through Ávila so as to best take advantage of the pass at Las

Pilas.” Further enhancing the desirability of this route, he continued, was the way it appeared to support a linking route to Porto in Portugal via Salamanca and Zamora.19

Additional support for the route through Ávila outlined by Almazán came in early

1852, when Queen Isabel II named the engineer Máximo Perea to conduct a study of the possible routes between Madrid and Valladolid.20 The result was that Perea largely confirmed the previous findings of Almazán, in that he selected the route through las

Pilas as the most favorable. Predictably, this determination was met with much approval from the Provincial Council in Ávila. The government in Madrid, particularly the

Minister of Development (Fomento), Mariano Miguel Reynoso, showed great enthusiasm and support for the more detailed proposal. Indeed, Minister Miguel Reynoso was so enthusiastic that he went ahead with a study for a future railway that would link

Salamanca with Arévalo. The implication of this move, since Arévalo was a likely destination along any future line linking Ávila with Valladolid, was that the government recognized Ávila as an important terminus for a future rail network linking locations across the interior of Spain.21

19 Comisión de ferrocarriles, Información parlamentaria, 242–243.

20 El Clamor público, Feb. 2, 1852; Ayuntamiento de Ávila, Contestación a las observaciones que acerca de los trazados para el paso de la sierra de Guadarrama en el general del ferrocarril del Norte, cuya preferencia se disputan Ávila y Segovia, mandó publicar esta última provincia y su capital. Publícanla la Diputación Provincial y el Ayuntamiento de Ávila (Madrid: Establecimiento Tipográfico de D.F. de P. Mellado, 1854), 10.

21 Rafael Barquín, “Segovia versus Ávila,” 146.

Yet, while abulenses (inhabitants of Ávila) felt that this new study and these actions from the government were enough to guarantee them the route they desired, segovianos were celebrating news of the completion of a separate study with very different conclusions. English engineer Arthur Green had been taking another look at the study previously conducted by Ross and Santa Cruz. Green ultimately determined in

1852 that the best route would be one that passed through the province of Segovia by way of a 2,700-meter tunnel through the Guadarrama.22 Green had been invited to conduct the study and, if we believe the account from the City Council of Ávila, discouraged from properly evaluating a route through Ávila by the famous financier and builder of the

Aranjuez Railway, José Salamanca.23 It was in that same year that Salamanca began discussions with the Compañía del Camión de hierro de Madrid a Irún por Bilbao. The company was particularly desperate for funding at this time and eager to start work on the route before competing railway proposals edged out Bilbao as an important node on the route between Paris and Madrid. Salamanca, especially well-connected in the government, was able to secure considerable state funding for portions of the route. For his efforts, he was rewarded by being made concessionaire of the section from Madrid to

Miranda de Ebro.24 In August of 1852, another commission formed by the government and headed by engineer Manuel Madrid Dávila released its study of the study of the route.25 In its findings, the Madrid Dávila commission had clearly drawn upon the

22 Ibid., 147.

23 Ayuntamiento de Ávila, Contestación a las observaciones, 16.

24 Larrinaga, “La Concesion Vascongada,” 88-89; Rafael Barquín, “Segovia versus Ávila,” 146–147.

25 El Clamor público, Aug. 14, 1852.

64 previously conducted study by Arthur Green and ultimately incorporated a very similar

2,400-meter tunnel through the Guadarrama into its own proposal. It is unlikely to be coincidental that Madrid Dávila himself had only recently entered the employ of

Salamanca.26

But Salamanca’s efforts to put his thumb on the scale, if such they were, had little real consequence. The report issued by the Madrid Dávila commission was neither decisive nor the final word on the matter. This was but one of a long string of commissions established for the purpose of resolving the dispute and finding the most appropriate route for the first section of the Northern Railway. In 1853, for example, the

Dirección General de Obras Públicas directed the Junta Consultiva de Caminos to explore the possible routes from Madrid to Valladolid. The published reports from the Junta

Consultiva, in which Segovia was ultimately determined to be the preferable route by a majority of the members, while holdouts for Ávila expressed their dissatisfaction, resolved little.27 As a result, in January of 1854 the government named another commission to explore the issue. Dubbed the García Otero commission after the

Inspector General and president of the group, José García Otero, it was tasked with resolving the then roiling dispute. Its conclusion, however, that the Ávila line was

26 Rafael Barquín, “Segovia versus Ávila,” 147.

27 The reports from the Junta Consultiva were published in the Revista de Obras Publicas as Junta Consultiva de Caminos, Canales, Puertos, “Dictámenes sobre la dirección del Ferrocarril del Norte desde esta corte a Valladolid,” Revista de Obras Publicas (hereafter ROP) (2) 1854, 31–32, (3), 45–48, (4), 58–60, and (5), 71–72.

65 preferable because it was cheaper even though the Segovia route would likely be technically superior, again failed to put the controversy to rest.28

With the interests and future of these two cities on the line, a hearty public debate ensued. Between the years 1852 and 1854, a battle of pamphlets and periodicals fleshed out the advantages and weaknesses of each case. The publishing battle for public favor was largely fueled by the respective provincial and city councils. On the periodical front, the interests of Ávila were championed by Zaonero’s El Porvenir Avilés, while those of

Segovia found voice within the pages of El Semanario Cristiano y Literario de Segovia.

These two periodicals published hundreds of articles about the state of the project and the volatile and sometimes raucous ins and outs of the unfolding skirmish. In addition to these partisan voices, the two provincial councils and their allies also eagerly churned out competing pamphlets on a regular basis. The latter were usually presented as technical documents that supported the position of one province or the other on the basis of careful engineering appraisal and scientific scrutiny. But with passions high and the increasing sense shared by both sides that acquiring the railway at this stage meant the difference between future urban salvation or obscurity, these technical documents occasionally took on a partisan tone and pled rationales far beyond the capability of science to substantiate.

One of the first of these pamphlets was compiled and published by the City

Council of Ávila and the Asociación económica de Amigos del País and drafted by

Zaonero himself in August of 1853. It suggested that the route though Ávila was superior because it was cheaper, could be completed more rapidly, and passed through portions of

28 Comisión García Otero, Dictamen de la Comisión nombrada Por Real órden de 25 de Enero Último para informar sobre los trazados de Ávila y Segovia en la sección comprendida desde Madrid a Valladolid (Madrid: La Imprenta Nacional, 1854), 18–19.

66 the country with larger populations and greater potential for industrial development.29

Before the year was over, however, the French-born landowner and resident of Segovia,

Joaquín Bouligni y Fonseca, had published his own pamphlet directly challenging the previously published pamphlet from Ávila. In his pamphlet, he dismisses many of the claims made by Zaonero as entirely unscientific. Instead, he insisted that it was his favored route through Segovia, despite the need for the expensive tunnel, which promised the greatest economic reward.30 This same position on the superiority of the Segovia route was shared by another pamphlet published by the Segovia City Council in January of 1854.31 And, as was the established pattern at this point, the City and Provincial councils in Ávila responded with their own refutation of this new pamphlet. Within the

155 pages of this especially lengthy polemic on Ávila’s behalf, the author reviewed the origins of the route and attempted a meticulous point-by-point refutation of the opposing

29 Antonio Zaonero de Robles, Memoria sobre las ventajas y beneficios que recomiendan la preferencia del trazado en el trayecto de la línea férrea del Norte entre Madrid y Valladolid por Navalgrande y Ávila, redactada ypresentada a la Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País, y leída en sesión extraordinaria de 16 de agosto por el socio de número D. Carlos Zaonero de Robles, aceptada y mandada imprimir y publicar por la misma Sociedad en sesión del 25 del mismo mes (Madrid: Imprenta Nacional, 1853).

30 Diego Caro Cancela, Diccionario biográfico de parlamentarios de Andalucía, 1810-1869 (Sevilla: Fundación Pública Andaluza Centro de Estudios Andaluces, 2010), 259; Joaquín Bouligny y Fonseca, Observaciones acerca de la memoria del Sr. D. Antonio Zaonero Robles, relativa al trazado del Ferro-carril del Norte, redactadas por... Aceptadas y mandadas imprimir y publicar por acuerdo del Consejo, diputación Provincial y Ayuntamiento de Segovia (Segovia: Imprenta de los Sobrinos de Espinosa, 1853).

31 Ayuntamiento de Segovia, Ferrocarril del Norte. Observaciones acerca de los trazados de la primera sección cuya preferencia se disputan Segovia y Ávila, mandadas publicar por la Comisión Permanente de la Diputación de Segovia y Ayuntamiento de su capital (Madrid: Imprenta del Colegio de Sordomudos y Ciegos, 1854). While the pamphlet itself claims only the Diputación de Segovia y Ayuntamiento de su capital as the author, a short history of the railway in Ávila by Jesús María Sanchidrian Gallego entitled “Ávila y El Ferrocarril: Cronología de la llegada del tren y crónicas de las obras hasta su inauguración” makes the claim that the pamphlet was actually written by the engineer Melitón Martín. While Martín did write two later pamphlets on the contest between Ávila and Segovia, I could find nothing to support the claim that he also wrote this earlier pamphlet anonymously.

67 claims.32 However, if the author’s goal in taking this comprehensive approach was to have the last word in this lengthy debate, he was surely disappointed. By this point,

Melitón Martín, an engineer who brought to the debate considerable professional heft owing to his previous work on the Aranjuez Railway, had decided to throw his hat into the ring. He favored the route through Segovia, and he made an earnest effort to convince others of its superiority.33 Unwilling to be outdone, those already heavily invested in securing the route for Ávila swiftly sent their response to press, accusing Martín of making a number of serious errors in his analysis.34 In turn, Martín responded with his own refutations of their criticisms in a pamphlet he aptly titled, “Once Again.”35

Spanish historian Rafael Barquín, who has written extensively on this debate and the consequences of the outcome, maintains that the dispute was ultimately one of science versus politics. The route through Ávila had the support of governmental figures of all political stripes, while the majority of the engineers who carefully evaluated the routes favored Segovia.36 This interpretation is entirely consistent with the record preserved in the warring pamphlets and periodicals that emerged from this period. But

32 Ayuntamiento de Ávila, Contestación a las observaciones que acerca de los trazados para el paso de la sierra de Guadarrama en el general del ferrocarril del Norte, cuya preferencia se disputan Ávila y Segovia, mandó publicar esta última provincia y su capital. Publícanla la Diputación Provincial y el Ayuntamiento de Ávila (Madrid: Establecimiento Tipográfico de D.F. de P. Mellado, 1854).

33 Melitón Martín, Ávila y Segovia (Madrid: Imprenta J. Martín Alegría, 1854).

34 Anónimo, Segovia y Ávila. Contestación a Ávila y Segovia (Madrid: Imprenta de Luis García, 1854).

35 Melitón Martín, Segunda vez Ávila y Segovia (Madrid: Imprenta de J. Martín Alegría, 1854).

36 Rafael Barquín, “Segovia versus Ávila,” 144–153; “‘Castillos en el Aire, Caminos de Hierro en España:’ la Construcción de la Red Ferroviaria Española,” Revista de la Historia de la Economía y de la Empresa, no. 10 (2016) 298.

68 unlike Barquín, who is primarily interested in the political maneuvering and the economic and political consequences of the decisions, I contend that the debate also reveals the hopes and dreams of elite Spaniards about the future being made possible by railway technology. There is far more embedded in the articles, competing studies, and pamphlets than discussions of curve gradients, projections about the size of the tax base, the feasibility and cost of certain viaducts and tunnels, and the availability of necessary resources. The rivalry and the debate it engendered effectively created a canvas upon which the emerging future being ushered in by long-distance rail travel—a future that was qualitatively different from the present—could be projected and contemplated.

In the nineteenth century, imagining a future radically unlike the present became possible and then common. This change in thinking was closely tied to the great number and variety of technological innovations that during the century appeared to fall from the heavens and transform all that they touched on the surface of the Earth.37 Those alive during the century in Europe witnessed the production and use of a host of technological marvels previous generations might have considered fantasy, if they considered such things at all. These marvels included the harnessing of steam power for shipping and land transport, the development and use of refrigeration, the invention of the safety bicycle, the electromagnet, photography, mechanical computing devices, the telegraph, the sewing machine, the internal combustion engine, the phonograph, the electric lightbulb, and especially railways. The regular churning out of such innovations over the course of the century gave enhanced personal meaning to the concept of moving through linear

37 Indeed, the word “technology,” in its current meaning, was coined in 1829 by Harvard professor Jacob Bigelow. See: Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), 149.

69 time. This is to say that those living in the century could remember a time before innovations like photographs or electric lightbulbs or railways, and they recognized that the availability of these innovations and others made the present different from the periods that came before. More importantly, and more revolutionarily, nineteenth-century

Europeans could imagine, even anticipate, a future world more different still.

At mid-century, the polished railways stretching along the landscape and the powerful locomotives steaming across them were the physical manifestation of these forces of the coming future: progress and modernization. The arrival of the railways, as

Eugen Weber documents for France, had the effect of wrenching small towns across the

French countryside from the past and propelling them decades and even centuries into the future. Those towns that received railways gained inhabitants, updated stores and wares, professionals like doctors and notaries, and modern transport routes that connected them to the national market and emerging national culture. Those that did not choose or were not selected for railways remained in a state of semi-isolation—their deprivations preserved, and their markets cut off from those of the larger state. Such villages would have surely appeared left behind in the past by the process of modernization, while progress occurred elsewhere. In the second half of the nineteenth century, France became a veritable patchwork of communities existing in seemingly different temporal realities.

A traveler from Saint-Girons, which received a rail terminus by 1866, finding himself in

Ax-les-Thermes in 1875, a mere 50 miles away and without a connection to the railway until 1888, could be forgiven for thinking he had traveled back in time.38

38 Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870–1914 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1976), 204–209.

Indeed, the development of railways played a very large role in encouraging a reexamination of time itself. The power of the steam locomotive and the long reach of the tracks “annihilated time and space,” as writers and other observers noted early on in the century. By this frequently used phrase, nineteenth-century writers meant that the previously unheard-of speeds and distances that the rail carried passengers and freight was transforming man’s relationship with the environment. The globe was shrinking before everyone’s eyes. The railways were bringing once remote and relatively isolated villages into regular communication with large cities, carrying fresh seafood hundreds of miles inland, and allowing trips which once took days of arduous travel to be completed in several relatively comfortable hours. Distance and the time it took to travel that distance ceased to be the barriers to free movement they had always been. The annihilation of time and space, cultural historian Wolfgang Schivelbusch contends, “was the topos which the early nineteenth century used to describe the new situation into which the railroad placed the natural space after depriving it of its hitherto absolute powers.”39

The logical corollary to any act of annihilation, however, is reconstruction.

Among other things, this meant establishing a new understanding and systemization of time. Connecting distant points, railway engineers and managers quickly realized, required standardizing time to a degree previously unknown and unnecessary. At mid- century, the world still had innumerable local times. There were 80 different railroad times in the United States still in use by 1870, hundreds of local times in India, and a great number of odd times observed at various places in Western Europe. Such temporal

39 Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1986), 10.

71 variety was to be expected in a world where there was little need for precision across different regions and from town to town.40 The fact that one town was running on a time a full four minutes behind another mattered little when it took several hours to travel by foot or donkey between the two. This reality changed with the advent of railways and telegraphs. While the application of railway time based on Greenwich Mean Time would not occur until later in the century, even at mid-century Europe was becoming increasingly conscious and even sensitive to time. From this period on, it became common for average men and women across Europe to regularly consider questions only the odd philosopher might have pondered before: What time was it in a distant place?

And what time might it be when one arrives there?

In Spain in the early 1850s, as numerous commissions were sorting through the details of the future railway network, and as Ávila and Segovia battled it out for first place on the road to the future, all these factors came into play. There was technological change on the horizon; the traditional constraints of space and time were being challenged; and there was the prospect of a type of modernization that would finally lift the nation out of its perceived lethargy. The future was suddenly coming into view. And having an impending project just waiting to be initiated made the future perceptible in a way it had not previously been. Making things even more interesting, this was an era when there were far more plans for railways than there were railways themselves in

Spain. Consider that in 1852 there were only two rail lines of any sizable length in all of

Spain: 29 kilometers of track between Barcelona and Mataró, and 49 kilometers between

40 Stephen Kern, The Culture of Time and Space: 1880-1918 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), 12–13; James Gleick, Time Travel: A History (New York: Pantheon Books, 2016), 85–86.

Madrid and Aranjuez.41 A dozen years later, as Isabel II was overseeing the ceremonies in San Sebastián which would officially open the Northern Railway, that total had increased by a factor of 45. The result was that a network of routes had come distinctly into view, tying the country together and uniting it with Europe. In the early 1850s, however, as engineers were busy surveying the possible routes and proposing specific legs of the still uncertain Northern Railway, nothing of this future was obvious. Yet, for those with the foresight and imagination to assume such things possible, this early period, when the lines weren’t yet drawn and the routes not entirely clear, provided a unique opportunity to reflect upon and even shape the future that lay ahead. During this fleeting moment, the future wasn’t just unfolding with the march of time. Rather, it was something being conjured up by human hands. It was tangible to the extent that it was spread out in sheets on drafting tables. It was being studied, argued over, manipulated and refined. That this imagined future was almost certain to occur, but had not yet come into being made this relatively short period an especially fertile one for writers willing to muse openly about the shape of the days to come.

That the future was on the minds of those competing for a favored position along the route of this new transit corridor seems evident from even a cursory reading of the public debate. Consider, for example, the title of the short-lived periodical published by

Antonio Zaonero de Robles: El Porvenir Avilés (The Avilan Future). The purpose of this publication, he explained, was to be a voice propounding the great advantages of the route to Ávila over all others. The bi-weekly industrial journal endeavored to stimulate a local interest in rail transport, to announce the potential benefits for Ávila, and to update

41 Wais, Historia General, 63.

73 readers on the changing political and economic environment in which this railway was then being conceived. Its effect, however, was to paint with prose a fantastic future where

Ávila’s central position in the peninsula made it a passageway connecting not only the communities of Spain with each other, but also Spain with markets around Europe.

Zaonero invested heavily in developing and promoting this future, writing many of the features within El Porvenir himself. Beginning with its very first issue, published in September of 1852, Zaonero spoke of the “prosperous and fortunate future” the railways would bring to Spain. He predicted that the Atlantic and Mediterranean would be joined with ribbons of steel, and that Spain would be “put in immediate and continuous contact with the rest of Europe.”42 For Zaonero, the future Ávila was one that played an important part reconnecting Spain with economies across the continent. The proposed railway, he told his readers, promised to unite the capital “with the others of

Europe, and Spain’s central provinces with the coasts and ocean ports” around the peninsula.43

Predictions about a modern railway linking Spain with Europe through France were powerful aspirational prophecies for a nation that was increasingly equating Spanish modernization with Europeanization. While this concept would reach its zenith in the aftermath of the disaster of 1898 and through the gifted pens of writers like Ramiro de

Maeztú, José Ortega y Gasset, and Santiago Ramón y Cajal, it’s clear that even as early as the mid-century the notion had more than a few adherents. As discussed in the previous chapter, Spaniards like Ramón de la Sagra, González Azaola, and others felt it

42 Zaonero, “El Porvenir Aviles á Sus Scritores,” El Porvenir Avilés, Sept. 16, 1852.

43 Zaonero, “Ferro-Carril del Norte,” El Porvenir Avilés, Nov. 21, 1852.

74 only natural to seek guidance and example from beyond the Pyrenees. This was particularly true with regard to the formative period of railway development across continental Europe, where England, Belgium, France, and Germany had already taken the lead and had amassed the technical knowledge and experience Spain lacked. The prospect of witnessing the application of railway technology physically connecting Spain with the countries it sought to emulate and with which it felt a sense of cultural and historical kinship was especially important in this regard.

Those Spaniards who were eager to measure Spanish modernization with

European benchmarks occasionally revealed a degree of sensitivity to the notion that

Spain’s claim to European status wasn’t as widely accepted or as appreciated across the continent as they would have liked. The prospect of building a railway to France brought such insecurities to the surface, while at the same time offering a palliative for these anxieties. In the writings of advocates for building the line through one or another

Castilian city, these anxieties mingled with dreams of a revitalized Spain. Writing in El

Porvenir in November of 1852 at a moment when the entire project appeared in doubt,

Zaonero spoke of the “revitalization” the line promised while also cautioning against allowing a lack of foresight to make real the dismissive assertion “that Africa begins at the Pyrenees,” a reference to the possibly apocryphal and brusque dismissal of Spain’s significance by Napoleon.44 Nor was Zaonero the only commentator to betray such self- conscious unease. A few months later, a writer for La Época made a similar claim, noting that “[e]veryone emphasizes the need for the Northern railway, the most important in

44 Zaonero, “Ferro-Carril del Norte,” El Porvenir Nov. 11, 1852.

Spain, which should in a few years make it clear that Africa does not start in the

Pyrenees, but rather in Gibraltar.”45

At different important mileposts along the route toward establishing and inaugurating the line, similar references to Spanish insecurities about the nation’s

European pedigree emerged from the press. In October of 1854, for example, a writer in

La Época echoed the same reference when praising the telegraph lines stretched between

Madrid, Pamplona, and San Sebastián, partially in anticipation of the coming rail communication to the region.

Seeing these prodigies of science we yearn for the Congress to vote for the law establishing the Northern Railway. Every day that passes without beginning the construction of the route are centuries for our imagination. All of Europe is at our doorstep, waiting only to learn that Africa does not start in the Pyrenees.46

Again the following year, as the construction of the long-anticipated line was finally set to begin, another La Época article mused about the way the coming railway will “link us with Europe, give life to half of Spain, and make it so Africa does not begin in the

Pyrenees.” The many disconnected centers of Spain, the article went on, must “seriously think of endowing themselves with the lines that unite [Spain] and link it to Europe, calling it to make great efforts to appear worthy as a European power.”47

Linking Spain to Europe with steel rails and swiftly moving commerce and capital promised to affirm its “worthy” status. Commenting on the “celerity and speed of the railway,” its “incalculable benefits,” and the ways it could multiply business and

45 La Época April 30, 1853.

46 La Época Oct. 24, 1854; These lines were republished at least a few times in other Spanish periodicals, including in La España Oct. 25, 1854 and in El Balear Nov. 2, 1854.

47 La Época Oct. 26, 1855.

76 production, Zaonero insisted in September of 1852 that this technology would “soon make of Europe a community of brothers.”48 This was, understandably, a common theme

Zaonero and other contributors to the debate echoed. Spain was finally on the verge of physically linking its markets with those of Europe. And the desire for such links was too strong to contain. For example, a full dozen years before such connections would exist,

El Porvenir was announcing to its subscribers the coming possibility of a railway line from Valencia to St. Petersburg, with Ávila at the heart of the network. The article meticulously traced the thousands of miles of rail that would connect Ávila with

Bordeaux, Orleans, Amsterdam, Berlin, Krakow, and Moscow. “Such is the picture of the sections of railways that will enable us to be in immediate and constant communication with all the nations of Europe.”49 Later that month, Zaonero himself pushed this still distant dream of a railroad line threaded through all the commercial centers of Europe slightly further. He described for his readers the way the proposed Northern Railway would make Ávila a crucial and central terminus in a route that would soon originate at

“the columns of Hercules, would pass through the capital, and end on the frozen banks of the Neva, in the castle of the Czars itself.”50

As such exaggerations suggest, the benefits and the profits to be made through these commercial links seemed wondrous to behold, and could cause those arguing for one route or another to become lost in the bright future of rail lines and flowing commerce they described. Zaonero, in particular, could often get carried away with his

48 Zaonero, “Caminos de Hierro: II,” El Porvenir, Sept. 30, 1852.

49 “Linea de Ferro-Carril desde Valencia hast San Petersburgo,” El Porvenir, Oct. 3, 1852.

50 Zaonero, “Ferro-Carril del Norte,” El Porvenir, October 28, 1852.

77 own wild imaginings. Assuming the role of a prophet of the future, Zaonero preached to his readers that “[i]n the end, we are conscious of the enthusiasm with which the country

[welcomes] such great and fruitful hopes for its new life and prosperous destiny.” This coming prosperity, however, was integrally tied to the incorporation of Spain into the larger European community, as he so frequently claimed. “The railway, which crosses

Castile,” he went on, “puts Madrid in communication with the whole of Europe, and with the Ocean and its ports full of life and movement, has to be carried out because reason, convenience, and general interest imperiously demand it.”51

Nor were Zaonero and the other regular supporters of the Ávila route the only observers prone to using such fantastical language as they dreamed of reopening Spain’s doors to Europe. The city and province of Segovia, along with its supporters in this rivalry, also saw a future where the rest of Europe would finally be within reach. “Is it really surprising,” Melitón Martín asked readers of his original pamphlet supporting the

Segovia route, “that we recognize the question of the Northern Railway as one of the most important to consider in recent years?” The route, he continued, proposes to put

Madrid “48 hours from Paris, 60 hours from London, and six days from St. Petersburg.”

Isn’t this, he asked, “the channel over which capital, people, industry, and the practical knowledge that we need so much must come?”52 “Is it not the main purpose of the

51 Zaonero, “Ferro-Carril del Norte,” El Porvenir, Nov. 25, 1852; He uses very similar language in a similarly titled article in El Porvenir, Nov. 21, 1852.

52 Melitón Martín, Ávila y Segovia, 3.

Northern Railway,” he went on “to unite ourselves with the rest of Europe, diminishing as much as possible the time that separates us from the other cultured nations?”53

For supporters of both Ávila and Segovia, the significance of a new and modern route to Europe went far beyond the material and economic potential of the line itself.

Considerable symbolic weight attached to how the two competing parties perceived the coming railway precisely because of the way Spaniards commonly understood Spanish decline. The future that prophets of Spanish modernization like Zaonero envisioned was dazzlingly bright because the past was so impenetrably dark. “[D]evelopment and transformation” Zaonero exclaimed in a typical fit of prognostication in his longer

Memoria, “awaits this forgotten soil.” “Civilization,” he said “penetrates like a torrent in the dark corners where silence and apathy have reigned for so many centuries; movement replacing inertia; reproductive activity replacing the indolence and genial indifference of our sober and robust Castilians!!!” He continued: “This is the future we are promised, one where great lines of communication bring our products to foreign markets, and put us in easy and rapid contact with the Cantabrian, Mediterranean, and Atlantic coasts.”54

Reaching the promised future, however, required that Spain face its difficult past.

Frequently when discussing railroad construction in this period writers referred to lost

Spanish glory, wealth, and influence. For example, in 1853, as the rivalry was nearing its height, a very young Arturo de Marcoartu penned an article for the Revista de Obras

Públicas in which he lamented the circumstances of the Spanish rise to greatness in the sixteenth century. At that time, Marcoartu explains, Spanish conquests had lifted the

53 Ibid., 9.

54 Zaonero, Memoria, 36–37.

79 monarchical flag to soaring heights through conquest in the Americas and Europe. But

“gone now are the times when wealth was achieved through glorified dispossession.” As a result, “the name Spain, once trumpeted throughout the world, is today only a plaintive and weak echo.” Today “the voice of conscience warns us that these times are never going to return; these are times when an ardent faith sustains us and a noble and elevated aspiration—that of national happiness—is our true north.” The future Spain that public works like the railway promise will be one, he argued, where innovation, industry, productive power and an openness to the rest of Europe are common. In this way, he proposed, Spain might hope to transform the ancient cry of the tercios from “Santiago y cierra España” into “Santiago y abre España!”55

Similarly, the indefatigable engineer Melitón Martín opened his initial thirty-page pamphlet in support of the Segovia route by paying homage to the expansive empire of

Spanish king and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. This historical reference served to emphasize the significance of Spain’s current predicament and persistent isolation. “The

Spain of Charles V has disappeared,” he boldly proclaimed. Looking back on it now it appears as but “a beautiful aurora borealis [that] illuminated the world for a single day.”

During that time Spain “sailed the seas upon the happy vessel of its own fortune.” But the light that once emanated from Spain has since gone dark; and the once calm seas have been wracked by a “long and terrible storm” that stranded Spain “like a shipwrecked man on a fertile island; uneducated, who, stretching his arms towards the next coast, does not succeed in closing the short space that separates him from peace and happiness.” Instead,

55 Arturo de Marcoartu, “Los Carriles de Hierro en Nuestra Edad y en Nuestra Patria,” Revista de Obras Públicas 10, no. 2 (1853): 124–127.

80 the nation can only look “anxiously towards that less rich but much wiser Europe, agitated with determination to break the barrier between itself and the other peoples” of

Europe.56

With the Northern Railway on the Castilian horizon, Zaonero crooned, Ávila might finally escape from “the silent immobility of the Middle Ages, when it was locked in its untouchable and glorious enclosure, trusting only in its turreted towers.” The railway will “completely vivify” Madrid and the provinces of Castile, “whose future seems to us like a dream from the Thousand and One Nights.”57 Such will be the end at last to Castile’s “painful existence,” argued the Asociación Económica de Amigos del

País in an open letter to Queen Isabel II in December of 1852. “The day of regeneration is upon us,” the drafters proclaimed as they welcomed the forthcoming opening of the markets of Europe to the fruits of Castilian agriculture and industry. Now at last a queen worthy of the name Isabel will “open the doors to a future more splendid than could have ever been imagined,” and Ávila “will finally rise from centuries of prostration.” 58

The foundation of this proposed redemption was literally in the soil, Zaonero and others argued. In a language and tone not unlike the hopeful articles and pamphlets of the previous decades, writers taking one side or the other in the contentious rivalry appeared largely convinced that Spain was full to bursting with wealth and potential just waiting to be released. Taking the time in 1853 to expound further on his arguments, Zaonero, with the support of the City Council of Ávila and the Asociación Económica de Amigos del

56 Melitón Martín, Ávila y Segovia, 3.

57 Zaonero, “Caminos de Hierro,” El Porvenir, Sept. 30, 1852.

58 Quoted in Zaonero, “Ferro-Carril del Norte,” El Porvenir, December 28, 1852.

País, published a seventy-page pamphlet on the benefits of the Ávila route and the wealth he insisted poured from its soil. In it he drew a rosy picture of Ávila as a region of plenty and a center of production just waiting for the railway to unleash its true potential. He gushed over the variety and “ruggedness of its land,” its “mountains clothed in . . . pine forests and rich woods,” and its “gentle climate . . . offering a variety of exquisite fruits.”59 The railway extends the promise of freeing such potential wealth from its isolation and “carrying life and movement great distances.”60 “In all of Europe” he contended, “there is no rail line that can provide more life and richer hopes for a future of incalculable wealth and prosperity.”61

In his 1852 book on the railways and Bayonne, French writer Edouard

Lamaignère, who spoke fawningly of both Spain and of the line that would eventually connect Castile with Bayonne, also expressed the belief that Spain might use the railways to finally realize its obvious potential. Outwardly, Lamaignère explained, Spain appeared

“poor and without credit,” “the most backward of the nations of the continent.”62 Yet, he contended, the reality is that Spain is rich beyond imagination, and it suffers only from its inability to extract and realize that wealth. It need only “scratch at the ground to burst

59 Zaonero, Memoria Sobre las Ventajas y Beneficios que recomiendan la Preferencia del Trazado en el Trayecto de la Linea Férrea del Norte Entre Madrid y Valladolid por Navalgrande y Avila (Madrid: La Imprenta Nacional, 1853), 23.

60 Ibid., 27.

61 Ibid., 31.

62 Édouard Lamaignère, Bayonne et les chemins de fer, études historiques sur les voies de communication usitées parmi les peuples, depuis leur origine jusqu'à nos jours, influence des chemins de fer sur le sort des populations (Bayonne: Impr. de Vve Lamaignère, 1852), 254, 259.

82 forth treasures,” he suggested.63 He saw hope that Spain might soon be “regenerated, and cease to be the nation we see today, fallen from its former splendor.”64 Were it to be blessed with railroads that could link its ports and create internal lines of communication, it might finally take a step “toward its grand destiny [and] take its place beside the powerful nations of Europe.”65 Recognizing the significance of such statements, Zaonero had these important excerpts from Lamaignère’s book reprinted in Castilian in a late

1852 issue of El Porvenir.66 This is unsurprising, since Zaonero was of like mind as to the untapped potential of Spain and the future of abundance that this potential might bring. In a later issue of El Porvenir he himself noted that despite great natural resources,

Spain had reaped only “the bitter fruit of indolence and neglect.” Notwithstanding

Ávila’s obvious potential, without a railway it remained “isolated in a world that is enchanted by a civilizing progress.” But there is hope, he asserted, if we only “keep our eyes on the magical results we see from the railroad project.”67

For all these reasons, the Provincial and City Councils of Ávila argued, the decision as to the direction of the Northern Railway has “serious consequences for the future.” Routing the railway through Ávila meant connecting the great cereal wealth of

Castile with the markets of Europe. For the continent as a whole, this meant a possible end to the costly effects of bad harvests in one isolated region or another. For Spain, the

63 Ibid., 254.

64 Ibid., 258.

65 Ibid., 265.

66 Zaonero, “Ferro-carriles,” El Porvenir, Dec. 12, 1852.

67 Zaonero, El Porvenir, March 13, 1853.

83 possibility of exporting its surplus grain from the heart of Castile into Europe promised an “immense fortune” for the country. As for Segovia, however, “when, or why would anyone come to ask for the poor pines of Segovia?”68 Indeed, as one anonymous writer going only by the name “an engineer” suggested in his long piece published in the

Revista de Obras Públicas, even if Segovia had resources meriting a railway, what would it do with them? There are “no roads linking it to Valladolid, . . . [and] to the south there is the terrible barrier of the Montes Carpetanos, with foothills rising to the east and west.”

Segovia was, the engineer claimed, a prisoner of its own difficult topography.69 As such, it lacked the capacity to build the bright future that railway through Ávila would offer.

Segoviano supporter Melitón Martín, however, was having none of it. Yet, rather than touting the great economic, industrial, and agricultural resources of Segovia, he dismissed the rationale entirely. There was nothing in analyzing such things, he indicated, that should sway readers toward accepting one route over the other. In fact, he observed,

“both provinces are equally backward in agriculture, in industry, in arts, [and] in commerce.”70

Do not talk about the industry of Ávila or Segovia, the markets of Medina or Arévalo. Unfortunately, both provinces and their peoples are at this point in the most complete equality. The differences that exist do not give preference to any route, because other than the honorable manufacturing history of Segovia, its greater population density and its superior taxable wealth, the rest is entirely ridiculous. . . . Nothing exists, nothing that is worth taking into account.71

68 La Diputacion Provincial y el Ayuntamiento de Ávila, Contestación a las observaciones, pp. 143– 45.

69 Un Ingeniero, “Competencia entre Ávila y Segovia,” Revista de Obras Publicas, 1854 Vol. I (3): 33–41.

70 Melitón Martín, Ávila y Segovia, 26.

71 Ibid., 12.

What then made Segovia a more desirable choice in this regard? According to Martín, it was rich with potential. “Its land is so much more fertile and more varied than that of

Ávila; it possesses waterfalls . . . is rich in trees, [and] its refractory clays are without equal.”72 These aren’t the products of industry or agriculture. Rather, they are the raw materials that might, were the circumstances right, feed a future industrial zone in

Segovia. In short, while the champions of Ávila saw the Northern Railway as an outlet for the cereals it produced at that time, at least one supporter of a Segovian route, Martín, was dreaming of future industrial output that the railway would help the region realize.

That future, unfortunately for Segovia and its supporters in this prolonged rivalry, was not to be. In mid-1854, as the competition between these sister cities was reaching its hottest point, the political winds changed direction. More accurately, the voices of protest and discontent in the capital caused them to change. The restlessness these voices represented had been seething for a few years; and since at least February of 1854 the state had begun to respond to the growing restiveness by ratcheting up repression, using the police, for example, to harass political parties and journalists.73 Interestingly, one of the many causes of the Spanish Revolution of 1854 had been the growing perception by the public that the Queen, her husband the Duke of Cádiz, her mother María Cristina, the seemingly ubiquitous José de Salamanca, and other members of the financial apparatus in the capital were fleecing the public as they grew rich on railway speculation.74 Supporters

72 Ibid., 24.

73 V. G. Kiernan, The Revolution of 1854 in Spanish History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), 33– 45.

74 María Zozaya, “‘Moral revenge of the Crowd’ in the 1854 Revolution in Madrid” Bulletin for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies, Vol. 37 (2012): 24–26.

85 of the revolution, like the Granada-born politician Cristino Martos y Balbi, repeatedly called out the “illegitimate and scandalous railway concessions,” “the unheard-of immorality of the railways,” and the “unfair, onerous, absurd railway concessions” in his contemporaneously published account of the revolution.75 He leaves readers with little choice but to conclude that the public dissatisfaction that overflowed onto the streets in the summer of 1854 had been to a large degree fueled by the public perception that the drive for modernization had degenerated into get-rich-quick schemes being financed on the public dime.

While it is difficult to discern with any certainty the extent to which the prolonged rivalry and public debate over where to lay the first leg of the Northern Railway contributed to the general sense that the railways had become inexcusably corrupt, and thus helped to precipitate the Revolution of 1854, it seems reasonable to assume, given the attention this competition received in the press, that the increasingly acrimonious rivalry was at least a factor. In any case, it is clear that the revolution set the stage for a reevaluation of the state of modernization in Spain. The Moderado party, which had ruled for a decade, was thrown out and the Progresista deputies who filled the ranks of the new

Cortes Constituyentes set to work aggressively applying liberal economic principles and modernizing the economy as best they could.76 Encouraging railway construction was a major part of the modernization program enacted during the bienio Progresista, or the two years the Progresista party held power. The expressed dreams of future prosperity and

75 Cristino Martos and Anselmo Santa Coloma, La Revolución de Julio en 1854 (Madrid: Imprenta del Colegio de Sordo-Mudos y de Ciegos, 1854), ix, 120, 121.

76 Kiernan, The Revolution of 1854, 5–6, 107–108.

86 national development that the railways appeared to promise complemented the interests of the new ruling party. 77 Their efforts to grant more concessions and encourage more construction culminated with the passage in June of 1855 of the General Railway Law, which created the financial, regulatory, and concessionary foundation upon which nearly six thousand kilometers of track would ultimately be laid across Spain over the following decade.

With this foundation poured, the new Constituent Assembly set out to finally resolve the dispute between Ávila and Segovia. In early November of 1855, the Cortes held several days of debates over the proposed language of a Northern Railway law, of which one purpose was to identify the preferred route of the first leg of the journey. In these debates, familiar arguments and positions emerged. Práxedes Mateo Sagasta, for example, reminded the body that the railway would “open the doors of Europe to us.”78

The deputy from Segovia, Benito Alejo de Gaminde, dismissed Ávila as an appropriate site because it was “possibly the poorest [province] in Spain, . . . while Segovia is the richest after Toledo.” Others, like Pablo Alonso de la Avecilla, noted the desirability of the line passing through Medina del Campo, which privileged the Ávila route.79 At one point, the seemingly endless debate was ridiculed by the short-lived satirical magazine, El

Padre Cobos, which noted that “if every speech about the Northern Railway was a piece of lumber, and every word a paving stone, we would already have enough material to

77 Ibid., 154.

78 La Época, Nov. 2, 1855.

79 La Iberia, Nov. 6, 1855.

87 lead the way not only to Bayonne, but to the isthmus of Suez.”80 Eventually, however,

Ávila emerged victorious. On Monday November 5, 1855, the Cortes put a definitive end to the dispute when it accepted an amendment from deputy Hernández de la Rúa which declared that the line would pass through Ávila and Medina del Campo on its way to

Valladolid.81

Predictably, the two rival cities and their respective provinces greeted the news with either joy or heartbreak. In Segovia, “the displeasure was immense throughout the city and the entire province.” In Ávila, by contrast, the city was in a state of veritable ecstasy, celebrating the final vote by the Cortes with grand festivities.82 The sense of elation in Ávila with the apparent victory in this long drawn out dispute was summed up concisely in an anonymous letter that a resident of the city mailed to the Madrid daily La

Nación a few short days after the vote. The letter noted that the day when the news of the vote arrived in Ávila was “a day of joy and enthusiasm for the honest abulenses, . . . [a] joy that overflowed in their hearts.” “Tonight,” the letter went on, “the town has spontaneously illuminated itself in a way that is beyond the imagination.” With a nod to a future that was now more comfortably on the horizon, the letter predicted that change would soon be coming “when the locomotive is seen crossing through the fields, with commerce and civilization marching alongside it.”83

80 El Padre Cobos, Nov. 5, 1855.

81 La Iberia, Nov. 7, 1855.

82 El Clamor público, Nov. 14, 1855.

83 La Nación, Nov. 16, 1855.

It was from Valladolid, however, that the most poignant and complete description of the future the vote made possible came. “The foundations of [Castile’s] future prosperity have been laid,” the editor Don Blas López Morales exclaimed. Soon “Our life of stillness, and the reprehensible apathy that has characterized us will disappear.”

Spaniards, he argued, would soon develop a “fondness to move, to travel to see and to see to learn.” There will be “affluent people coming from all over, expanding the circulating capital, increasing the population [to create a new Valladolid entirely unlike] the old

Chancillería, . . . the emporium of the aristocracy.” Instead, Valladolid will become “a worthy rival of Barcelona . . . connecting the two halves of Spain, and Spain with foreign countries.”

Fortunate Castile, you will soon escape the quietism that has killed you until today; the whistle of the locomotives will change your way of life and lead to abundance and contentment everywhere. You will see how the customs vary and how civilization spreads . . . ; You will see how the vocations of our youth change, and how they prefer the study of the exact sciences and the application of their knowledge to the mechanism of industry and to the exercise of commerce. . . . You will see a swarm of thousands of useful men dedicated to the manufacturing tasks, to the arts and to the trades and professions of immediate and positive interest.84

The Spanish future, it seemed, would be very different from the present. But the road to this future would still have to be built. And it would take more than the fantastical imaginings of regional boosters and financiers to transform these utopian imaginings into reality. These dreams would still have to be converted from nebulous chimeras built of ink and polemic into cold steel rods, concrete, stone, and lumber. The pencil marks along the annotated maps that littered the landscape of the now resolved debate still had to be

84 Don Blas López Morales, originally published in El Avisador (Valladolid), reprinted in La Iberia, Nov. 14, 1855.

89 developed into actual transport lines that could carry these hallucinations of the elite into the future they spent so long conjuring up. Such feats, as so often is the case, would prove far easier said than done.

Conclusion

The early 1850s was a time of heightened possibility in Spain with regard to the railways. This sense of expectation was driven by the perceived success of the Madrid to

Aranjuez railway and the recognition that other railways were on the horizon. Adding to the intensity of this fleeting but formative moment was the popular realization that the rapid pace of technological transformation was building a future that was qualitatively and markedly different. Since it served as both a metaphor for progress and an instrument of progress itself, the railway further encouraged this mode of thought. The convergence of these important developments created an environment where railway developers and boosters were able to unleash their imaginations as they prophesized about the future the railways would create. These revelations of the coming future came in the form of articles, engineering surveys, and partisan pamphlets produced during the intense rivalry between Segovia and Ávila for a terminus on the emerging railway to France. In this way, the rivalry provides a window through which we can catch a glimpse of the visions and aspirations of a segment of the Spanish elite. These were visions of a future Spain made wealthy and modern by railways, where Spanish products flowed into the markets of Europe, and where Spanish insecurities were finally assuaged. The extent to which the wider Spanish public—or at least those that were directly affected by railway development in La Mancha and Valencia—were enchanted by the spell of these liberal

90 prophesies is a more complex puzzle to solve, and it is the subject of the following chapter.

Chapter III Resistance and Adaptation along the Corridor to the East

On the evening of December 29, 1856 near Alzira in the province of Valencia, a group of vandals intentionally set fire to and successfully burned down a railway bridge over the Rio Verde1 along the newly built Valencia to Játiva line. This act of vandalism was particularly frustrating for the railway company not only because the perpetrators appear to have escaped justice, but also because it was the culmination of several incidents directed against that bridge and others in the region committed over the previous few years. A year and a half before, for example, a similar group of “paisanos” had thrown the stationed guard from that very bridge. It appears he likely survived this event, though the same cannot be said for the guard that replaced him. Two weeks after his predecessor was thrown from the bridge, this unfortunate soul was found murdered at the site. Another guard at the bridge, the one attending during the night of the fire in

1856, claimed that several men had threatened him with death as well. Possibly knowing the history of the bridge and of his luckless predecessors, he knew that such statements were hardly idle threats.2

Not long after this event, but about 400 km away in the municipality of Pinto just south of Madrid, a landowner by the name of Faustino del Rincón was registering a claim

1 The small Rio Verde, called the Rio de los Ojos in the documentation and press reports on the 1856 arson, is a relatively small tributary to the larger Riu Xúquer, and winds from its source just west of Masalavés to Alzira.

2 Archivo de la Diputación Provincial de Valencia (hereafter ADPV), E.6.1., Box 4, File 93.

92 with the newly established Compañía de los Ferro-carriles de Madrid á Zaragoza y á

Alicante (MZA) for payment for land used or expropriated by the company.3 The claim is mostly unremarkable, but it is important because it is an early example of a type of claim that would become increasingly common not only in small municipalities like Pinto, but across much of the larger surrounding area of La Mancha and even into the province of

Zaragoza. Reclamaciones of this type emerge in the record around this time in the late

1850s and become more common in the early to mid-1860s. They vary from requests for compensation for damaged homes and buildings, damaged or occluded windmills, to disputes over border lines and access to resources, and complaints about the way the railways themselves were disrupting irrigation channels. This last grievance was especially common in the particularly rugged and water-starved region of La Mancha, and suggests that the arrival of the railways across the Central Meseta was no mere nuisance. Indeed, they indicate quite clearly that the railway brought with it considerable disruption for landowners in the area. Yet, despite this, there is no clear evidence of sabotage, vandalism, or other common expressions of antipathy toward the railways in this region as there was in Valencia.

The difference between these two contemporaneous events is instructive. In

Valencia, a string of violent assaults on an important railway bridge and a murder at the same bridge suggests that at least some in the community had not been sufficiently swayed by the encomia of progress and civilization fueled by railway development.

While discerning motives from the records of such acts of aggression and vandalism is challenging at best, we can conclude with some certainty that the expansion of railways

3 Archivo Histórico Ferroviario (hereafter AHF) C-0556-002_Doc_1_Feb. 19, 1857.

93 was greeted with more jeers than cheers by at least some part of the population, however small. Yet, landowners in La Mancha, who occasionally confronted clear and considerable obstacles put in their way by the expansion of railways across the country and through their property, appear to have tolerated such incursions and even sought ways to adapt and profit from them. On Spain’s eastern coast, some met the arrival of the railway with resistance. In the nation’s arid center, however, landowners sought avenues for negotiation and were actively seeking to situate themselves in a position to profit from the technological transformations they were witnessing.

Figure 4: The Corridor to the East. The relevant railway lines are highlighted in red.

These two positions, of resistance and of adaptation, form an important part of the story of the Spanish people’s reaction to the railways in the first decades after their initial

94 introduction into the peninsula, and a part that has yet to be adequately documented by others. In this chapter, I explore these different reactions through an analysis of materials gathered in both the Archivo Ferroviario in Madrid and the Archivo de la Diputación

Provincial de Valencia. In my analysis, I contend that the two different responses to the expansion of railway infrastructure across Spain reflect two distinct perceptions of the future being made possible by railway transportation: one of either indifference or outright rejection, and another of tepid embrace. The latter typifies the many reclamaciones penned by landowners in towns and villages in La Mancha and the province of Zaragoza, which document a prolonged negotiation with the railway companies over the value of the land, the route of tracks, and the construction of ditches and underpasses. These actions indicate that the landowners in La Mancha saw potential in the emerging future on the horizon, one made possible by railway transport; and it was a future that they could foresee being propitious for their interests and survival. The former reaction is reflected in the actions of the saboteurs and vandals in Valencia, and suggests that these individuals were not sufficiently swayed by the arguments touted by boosters, industrialists, and much of the press in favor of the civilizing power of the railways. This suggests that they saw little of use in these developments, or were hostile toward the transformations these railways were effecting.

The many responses and reports on the 1856 arson at the Alzira bridge indicate that the event sparked considerable concern among a certain segment of the population.

Indeed, despite the fact that the arson occurred in a somewhat remote location, far removed from the center of political power and attention in Madrid, it received more than passing attention in the Madrid press. In addition to the railway trade press outlets like

Gaceta de los caminos de hierro, which could be expected to find the event newsworthy, the vandalism was also reported in widely circulated periodicals like La Época, La

Esperanza, El Genio de la libertad, and El Clamor público. These publications were largely echoing the reports provided by the Valencian industrial trade press, particularly the Diario mercantil de Valencia, which appears to have covered the event closely.4

Some of the attention this arson garnered was rooted in the political debates of the moment. For example, in June of 1857 the short-lived Progresista newspaper La

Península included the arson in a long list of the “numerous rebellions” that had occurred under the watch and supposedly steady hand of Moderado Ramón María Narváez, then serving as Prime Minister for the fifth and not yet final time.5 The Moderados, as

Progresista media outlets were quick to note, had framed their return to power with the narrative of order and stability. Listing the many rebellions of the era served to discredit this narrative and undermine the Moderado hold on power. Indeed, the term “rebellion”

(motín) is used somewhat hyperbolically, as many of the events on the list are hardly rebellions in any true sense of the term. Most were worker protests of some form, and, from the very short descriptions provided, most were fairly small. Nevertheless, other

Progresista newspapers felt the effort worthwhile, and responded by reproducing and augmenting the initial list in their own pages, each time including the Valencia railway arson of December 29 among them.6

4 See: Diario oficial de avisos de Madrid, Jan. 9, 1857; El Clamor público, Jan. 3, Jan. 8, and June 4, 1857; El Genio de la libertad, June 17, 1857; Gaceta de los caminos de hierro, Jan 4, 1857; La Discusión, Jan. 3, 1857; La Época, Jan. 2, 1857; La Esperanza, Jan. 2, 1857.

5 Reprinted in El Clamor público, June, 4, 1857.

6 El Genio de la libertad published a list of rebellions on June 17, 1857 which it attributed to both La Península and La Iberia.

Notwithstanding the political calculations that affected reporting on the event, the vandalism was certainly a serious blow to the dreams of those Valencians seeking a smooth expansion of the railway network in the region. The Valencia to Játiva line was a vital commercial artery in the region, and the arson had effectively severed it. The

Compañía del Ferrocarril de Játiva a El Grao de Valencia, owned by the Valencian businessman José Campo Pérez, was eager to repair the damage and have the line operational within a few days, which it accomplished with a temporary bridge.7 The importance of the line was reflected in the reporting from the local press, which condemned the attack in the harshest terms. “With a feeling of indignation, which all our readers share, we take up the pen to denounce this new attack committed on the railway,” a writer for Diario mercantil wrote just a couple of days after the event. The writer warned that if those responsible weren’t apprehended, the country risked legitimately earning the reputation of a land of barbarism. These sentiments were echoed in the railway trade press, which also reproduced the details initially reported locally. When speculating on motive, however, the local press reports dismissed the sabotage as mere pointless and unfocused vandalism. The writer from Diario mercantil explained that the arson was “likely committed only for the stupid pleasure of causing harm.” “Though,” he added, “the fact that they happen with such frequency and impunity shows us to the world in a very bad light.”8

7 Diario official de avisos de Madrid, Jan. 8, 1857.

8 Diario mercantil de Valencia, Dec. 31, 1856, as quoted in Gaceta de los caminos de hierro, Jan. 4, 1857.

This final rumination—that the vandalism was occurring repeatedly and with impunity—should give us some pause when evaluating the claim that the vandalism was committed merely for the “stupid pleasure of causing harm.” Indeed, as José Campo himself noted in his long report on the incident, this wasn’t the first time railway bridges had been burned in the vicinity. During the revolution of 1854, he explained, three bridges were burned by similar groups of vandals who had “taken advantage of the general disturbance [at the time of the revolution]” to perform their destructive mischief.

But he explained that this recent event was somewhat different and possibly more alarming, as it occurred during a period of peace and general stability in the country:

Today's fire has been committed in normal conditions, in the midst of considerable tranquility and during a time when the authorities possess all the means of protection and surveillance, repression and punishment. Yet, the attacks went unpunished. Perhaps this is why they are so frequent, and not because there are savages who rejoice in damaging a company whose interests I administer and which is so useful for the country. . . . [Considering this] I will endeavor to put as much emphasis on keeping the railway operational as there is, apparently, in making it unusable.9

Continuing, the director expressed his desire to use all the tools at his disposal to get the situation under control so that “it does not appear to the world as though this were a country where civilization has ceased to produce beneficial effects.”10

The deep concerns expressed in the newspaper reports and by José Campo as to the effects of bridge arson, in regards both to the damage done to the infrastructure and to

Spain’s reputation, such as it was, is a reflection of the fact that vandalism along this particular railway line had been a recurrent nuisance for quite some time in Valencia. As

9 ADPV, E.6.1., Box 4, File 93.

10 ADPV, E.6.1., Box 4, File 93.

98 early as March of 1852, less than a year after construction had begun, the company was experiencing a degree of resistance to the establishment and expansion of the railway in the form of violent rock throwing incidents against the trains and workers as well as bold attempts at sabotage. As the reports explained, some group or individual had succeeded in placing a large log across the tracks, an action that could very well have resulted in “a terrible catastrophe.” As for the rock throwing, those actions had in fact injured two passengers. As the company struggled to cope with these attacks, and possibly others that went unreported, frustrations within the company grew. Ultimately, José Campo responded by calling for greater vigilance as well as provincial and local action to stop these attacks. Explaining his calls for additional support, Campo noted that such events had made him concerned “not only because they might reduce the volume of travelers on the railway, but also for humanity’s sake and because I am ashamed that there are people in Valencia or in the rural areas around it who are so cruel as to commit such attacks.”11

Unfortunately for the railway workers and owners, their protests apparently had little effect in reducing or putting an end to these repeated acts of vandalism and aggression toward the railways and the company that operated them. By February of

1855, however, the provincial government of Valencia responded to the repeated attacks with a proclamation designed to “avoid any excess, disorder or abuse that could hinder the railroad service of this city to Grao and Játiva, or cause damages or risks of any kind to the multitude of passengers traveling along these lines.” Among the many provisions in this long proclamation, one established a fairly hefty fine of 1000 reales for actions that compromised the security of passengers on the trains by blocking the railways or

11 ADPV, E.6.1., Box 1, File 4.

99 otherwise placing obstacles on the tracks. Other and much smaller fines were stipulated for actions such as “destroying the works of the railways,” “destroying the telegraph wires,” and “disobeying the orders issued by the guards of the lines.”12

As the provincial government and the railway company in Valencia surely realized or quickly discovered, the fines had little effect on vandals who could act with impunity. As a result, the rock throwing and other vandalisms continued seemingly unabated for years. The several preserved records of such events provide an enlightening sample of these occurrences. In April of 1857, for example, a group was sighted throwing rocks at a train, breaking windows, and hitting passengers near the town of Silla in the province of Valencia.13 A description of the same incident, or another very much like it, resurfaced in September of 1857 as part of a larger written complaint composed by José

Campo. In this report Campo described a great number and variety of acts of vandalism and aggression perpetrated against the railway. Such actions included the removal or destruction of railway barriers, brick walls, and kilometer posts by “malevolent people who doubtlessly enjoy committing such damage,” Campo complained. To emphasize the extent to which these occurrences had become more than a mere nuisance, Campo described as well the measures the company had taken to protect against these attacks, such as replacing the seats, adding protective grates over the windows, building barriers around sensitive sections of track, and even laying durable chain barriers around tracks to guard against the “perversity of some men.”14

12 ADPV, E.6.1., Box 2, File 31.

13 ADPV, E.6.1., Box 4, File 102.

14 ADPV, E.6.1., Box 5, File 120.

100

In 1859, another report issued by Campo revealed that these acts of vandalism had hardly abated in the intervening two years. In addition to complaining that yet again rocks were being thrown at the trains passing through Silla, Campo reminded his readers of the series of attacks that had occurred over the last few years, including bridge burnings, murdered and threatened guards, the downing of telegraph lines and poles, and attempts at sabotage such as placing heavy obstacles on the tracks to possibly trigger a derailment. In seeming exasperation, Campo noted that “[r]are is the day when I do not receive news of a new attack, and the persistence of these attacks has made the operation of this railway difficult and dangerous.” But, surprisingly, this report also described how some who had perpetrated a stoning of the train had been captured and were being held by the authorities. This, it appears, was as unusual as it was welcome news. Campo explained that he had arranged “for them to be handed over to the courts so that the punishment serves as a restorative lesson” for the public and the railway. Despite this small victory, Campo remained vigilant and only ratcheted up his complaints about the ineffectiveness of local authorities. To this end he concluded his report with a strong condemnation of what he saw as government inaction despite the apparent “frequency with which such attacks are committed.”15

Nor did this rare arrest and punishment bring these repeated violent incidents to a close. In the years that followed, there were a number of reported attacks on the railway in Valencia. In the early winter of 1861, for example, there were several different assaults along the line. Those included repeated rock throwing, which had injured a brakeman,

“endangered the lives of [other] employees and travelers . . . . [and caused] serious

15 ADPV, E.6.1., Box 7, File 193.

101 damage.”16 On the heels of this incident, a group of vandals also “demolished seven telegraph poles and broke thirty-six telegraph insulators” near the town of Albuixec, north of the city of Valencia.17 In 1863, there were at least two reported incidents of violent attacks on the railway. In one, a “gang of men” repeatedly threw rocks at a train, breaking windows and hitting workers.18 That same month, another gang of men were seen pelting the trains, though this time not with rocks but with oranges, a characteristically Valencian symbol. These oranges were thrown with such force that they broke several windows and injured the face of an employee on the train. Again, as in so many previous reports, the author included mention that the attacks had been ongoing for some time and that the perpetrators were able to act with seeming impunity.19

The acts of vandalism, sabotage, and general aggression directed toward the railways and recorded in these many reports aren’t easily explained, largely because those committing these offenses didn’t see fit to explain or excuse their actions. The vandals and rock throwers made no speeches or public denunciations; they left behind no publications or written justifications; and, even when caught, those apprehended exposed little of significance about their motives. Indeed, in one of the few incidents where the perpetrators were actually captured, they revealed only that they had spent more time drinking than considering the consequences of their actions.20 And this was largely

16 ADPV, E.6.1., Box 15, File 388.

17 ADPV, E.6.1., Box 15, File 396.

18 ADPV, E.6.1., Box 26, File 738.

19 ADPV, E.6.1., Box 26, File 739.

20 Anaclet Pons and Justo Serna, “Vitores y pedradas. La imagen pública del ferrocarril en la Valencia del ochocientos,” in Inmaculada Aguilar Civera and Javier Vidal Olivares (Eds.), 150 años de

102 consistent with the few interpretations proffered by the press and other interested parties who speculated on the motives. For example, the local press dismissed the vandalism as having been “likely committed only for the stupid pleasure of causing harm,” largely echoing the conclusions of José Campo himself who on at least one occasion blamed the attack on “malevolent people who doubtlessly enjoy committing such damage” and the general “perversity of some men.”21

Given the scant evidence of the motives of the Valencian saboteurs and vandals, it is tempting to suppose that their actions were in some way comparable to the anti-modern and possibly anti-capitalist peasant movements of early nineteenth-century Britain. The most memorable of these rebels were the Luddites of the Midlands in England. This group of machine breakers derived their name from their champion and model, Ned

Ludd, who as legend had it had beaten his knitting needles into a mangled pile after his father, a framework knitter, had ordered him to square them. Ludd and his father were supposedly from Leicestershire, which in the early nineteenth century was the center of the hosiery trade in England. Those who worked from their homes on stocking frames in the eighteenth century had experienced a degree of economic stability if not quite prosperity. By the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, however, these workers began to experience the effects of capitalist transformation in their daily lives. Few, by that time, owned their own stocking frames any longer. Instead, they rented their frames at a dear price. Because work was never steady and collecting raw materials took time,

ferrocarril en la comunidad valenciana, 1852-2002 (Valencia: Conselleria d’Obres Públiques, urbanisme i Transports, 2002), 43.

21 Diario mercantil de Valencia, Dec. 31, 1856, as quoted in Gaceta de los caminos de hierro, Jan. 4, 1857; ADPV, E.6.1., Box 5, File 120.

103 workers frequently struggled to meet the cost of frame rents, manage the practices of middlemen, and handle the other mounting pressures of their trade. Violence ultimately broke out across the Midlands between 1811 and 1816, as these pressures piqued frustrations among the stocking knitters. These frustrated workers, particularly in the rural areas, reacted by resorting to machine breaking, a tactic that had been used in

England since at least the seventeenth century.22

Early twentieth-century studies of the Luddites and their activities in Midland counties of England, such as J.L. and Barbara Hammonds’ The Skilled Labourer, 1760–

1832 and F.O. Darvall’s Popular Disturbances and Public Order in Regency England, dismissed these destructive activities as the irrational violence of an exasperated peasant class. These poor machine breakers were largely disorganized and acted out of frustration rather than a discernable or even deliberate purpose, they insisted.23 These dismissals, later Marxist historians like E.P. Thompson and Eric Hobsbawm contended, were the result of ingrained assumptions about the futility of resisting technological progress and industrial transformation.24 Casting machine breakers like the Luddites in a far more sympathetic light, Thompson and Hobsbawm saw purpose in their vandalism, calculation in their violence. These weren’t the “helpless victims of ‘distress’” as historian Asa

22 Brian J. Bailey, The Luddite Rebellion (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 3–15.

23 J.L. and Barbara Bradby Hammond, The Skilled Labourer, 1760-1832 (London: Longmans, Green, 1919, 1927 edn.); Darvall, Frank Ongley, Popular Disturbances and Public Order in Regency England; Being an Account of the Luddite and Other Disorders in England during the Years 1811-1817, and of the Attitude and Activity of the Authorities (Reprints of Economic Classics. New York: A. M. Kelley, 1934, 1969 edn.).

24 See E.J. Hobsbawm, Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labor (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1964) and Uncommon People: Resistance, Rebellion and Jazz (New York: New Press, 1998); E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York: Vintage, 1963).

104

Briggs had once characterized them.25 According to Thompson, they were on the front lines of “a quasi-insurrectionary movement, which continually trembled on the edge of ulterior revolutionary objectives.”26

It was through a similar lens that Hobsbawm and George Rudé viewed the agricultural riots that occurred in the counties of southern and eastern England in late

1830. These riots were characterized by vandalism, arson, and especially the destruction of threshing machines. Hobsbawm and Rudé noted that the riots were distinct from other laborer uprisings in the “multiformity” of their actions. The rioters employed not only the standard forms of vandalism, but also robbery and assault, as well as using letters, handbills, and posters to further their ends. But their frustration with the farmers’ use of threshing machines is evident, and during the short-lived movement they destroyed nearly four hundred of these machines. The authors make some of their most innovative contributions in noting the geographical pattern of the violence, which occurred in locations far from the areas where farm laborers might have looked for alternative avenues of employment. This geographical situation, the study explained, limited the options for migration in search of higher wages or additional opportunities for employment. This made it far less likely that these men would have been able to find alternatives for the threshing work they relied on during the winter months. Deprived of

25 Asa Briggs, The Age of Improvement. History of England (New York: D. McKay, 1959, 2000 edn.), 158.

26 Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York: Vintage, 1963, 1966 edn.), 553; Emphasis in the original.

105 this work and without adequate substitutes for the lost income, the men responded out of frustration and despair.27

Hobsbawm, Rudé, and Thompson, therefore, made a number of important observations about these early nineteenth-century machine breakers, which helped to provide some important context and insight into the motivations of the Luddites and those who followed in their footsteps. Where earlier historians had discounted contemporary claims about the revolutionary and conspiratorial nature of the Luddite movement as exaggeration, these Marxist-influenced scholars rejected their dismissals as unnecessarily hasty and felt it was these very reports that revealed the true revolutionary nature of Luddism. Yet, both interpretations, historian Malcolm Thomis contended, were misplaced. Luddism wasn’t easy to pigeonhole, as it was frequently changing. More importantly, the Luddites, he argued, weren’t fighting capitalism so much as they were struggling to preserve their own livelihoods.28 And, despite the conclusions reached by

Hobsbawm and Thompson as to the effectiveness of the Luddites in instilling a sense of working-class consciousness or in achieving any measurable improvements in their lives or the lives of their successors, he dismisses this entirely. According to Thomis, the actions of the Luddites were “irrelevant to anything other than an immediate satisfaction of a sense of grievance deeply felt.”29

27 Eric Hobsbawm and George Rudé, Captain Swing: A Social History of the Great English Agricultural Uprising of 1830 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1968).

28 Malcolm I. Thomis, The Luddites: Machine-Breaking in Regency England (Newton Abbot: Archon Books, 1970), 31–38.

29 Thomis, The Luddites, 36.

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Any grievances deeply felt by rock-throwing Valencianos as they watched the railways being built and then the trains themselves moving across the landscape may no longer be accessible to the historian. As has been noted, these Valencianos (unlike the

Luddites and agricultural workers in England) don’t appear to have made their motivations known. Indeed, many of the actions documented in the reports, such as throwing rocks and oranges and blocking the track, show little deliberative effort at all.30

But at least one collection of early records of sabotage and vandalism in Valencia stands out among the rest as unique in how it appears to reveal intent if not necessarily motive.

These records reveal that within just a few months after the construction of the line began in February of 1851, complaints from contractors and their workers about threats and intimidation from gangs of men began to filter in to the company and to José Campo himself. The workers, the reports relayed, were being threatened with physical harm and even death by a band of individuals who on at least two occasions had entered the worksite and made demands.

Apparently, a man going by the nickname “El Colomino,” and who claimed to be from Burjassot, a town northwest of the city of Valencia, was leading the gang making these appearances. In one instance he was accompanied by three or four other men. By the time of his second appearance his small group of brigands had grown to nine. At first

“El Colomino” demanded that the workers empty their carts of the stones they were

30 These many drunken and other attacks of frustration bear some resemblance to the early twentieth-century rural attacks on the automobile in the United States. James J. Fink recorded a number of these attacks in his America Adopts the Automobile, 1895–1910 (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1970), 64–70. He attributed these attacks to “class-conscious envy” from the urban lower class. But he also recognized that animosity toward the automobile was particularly intense in rural areas. There, farmers frequently tore up roads, pulled barbed wire across the roads, and threatened motorists with firearms. This initial resistance, however, quickly gave way to interest and adoption.

107 carrying either into the road or into the river. The second time he appeared he threatened with death any carter that dared to transport “a single stone to the railway works.”31

The Valencia of “El Colomino” may not have been experiencing the type of drastic and difficult economic transformation that was occurring in nineteenth-century

England. But it was hardly idle either. The economic environment in the region of

Valencia had been undergoing a process of renovation since the end of the eighteenth century. The regional population had grown by a third between 1794 and 1857; landowners in the area were rapidly buying up some 252 million reales worth of Church property disentailed in the province between 1837 and 1845; and a handful of large and heavily capitalized financial institutions like the Sociedad de Crédito Valenciano, the

Caja Mercantil de Valencia, and the Crédito Mercantil de Valencia were being established at this time.32 Additionally, this was a period during which Valencia was experiencing a growth in the foreign demand for agricultural goods like grapes and oranges, which brought about innovations that further increased yields.33

The introduction of the railway in Valencia in 1852 was an important part of this process. And while it didn’t trigger the industrial takeoff that boosters had anticipated, it did bring about a shift in how goods were transported out of Valencia. As Javier Vidal

Olivares has demonstrated, in the period between 1840 and 1854 Valencia and other peripheral regions of the peninsula saw a dramatic uptick in the demand for land

31 ADPV, E.6.1., Box 1, File 4.

32 Joseph Harrison, An Economic History of Modern Spain (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc., 1978), 63.

33 Jordi Palafox, “Exports, Internal Demand, and Economic Growth in Valencia,” in Nicolás Sánchez-Albornoz (Ed.) The Economic Modernization of Spain, 1830–1930, trans. Karen Powers and Manuel Sañudo (New York: New York University Press, 1987), 268–269.

108 transport. By measuring the collection of tolls along the highways between Valencia and

Barcelona by way of Albacete in these years, Vidal charted an impressive increase in the use of these roads for the export of goods out of Valencia. This began to change with the introduction of the railway. With the completion of the Grao de Valencia to Játiva line in

1854, the use of these highways entered a period of decline. This decline only increased as this line was ultimately extended to connect with an emerging network of Spanish railways crisscrossing the peninsula.34

Might “El Colomino” and his small gang have sensed this coming shift and sought to impede the construction of a competing transportation route? This seems plausible if difficult to prove. Alternatively, might they have been the willing agents of others who anticipated these troubles? Without more evidence, the answers remain elusive. Nevertheless, the collective actions of stone throwers, saboteurs, vandals, and even semi-organized gangs like those of “El Colomino” indicate one thing that is impossible to deny. Their actions make it abundantly clear that not everyone in Spain or

Valencia was eagerly awaiting the coming of the railway as the savior of Spain and the vessel of liberal fantasies.

Whatever their cause, these incidents of rock throwing, vandalism, and sabotage along the railway in Valencia reflected an attitude toward the railways that was qualitatively different from the reaction in La Mancha, a few hundred kilometers away.

These differences are at first glance surprising, since the residents of Valencia and those of La Mancha had experienced the intrusion of the railways at about the same time, and

34 Javier Vidal Olivares, Transportes y mercado en el País Valenciano, 1850–1914 (Valencia: Edicions Alfons el Magnànim, 1992), 42–55.

109 relatively early in Spain’s railway age. Spain’s second railway, the Madrid to Aranjuez line, had opened in 1851, and with its inauguration came further interest in expanding the line across La Mancha and ultimately to the Mediterranean. Even before the Aranjuez line had been completed, preparations were underway to extend the railway across the arid Spanish interior. This meant that residents in La Mancha were exposed to the same loud disturbances, the same interruptions, the same influx of workers from other areas, and the same process of land expropriation. Yet, there is no evidence that the railway company experienced the type of persistent and violent attacks that frequently impeded the construction and operation of the first railway in Valencia. What accounts for this different approach?

Before venturing into an exploration of the reaction Spanish landowners did have to railway expansion in La Mancha, it is instructive to look again at the case of England, where expropriation of land for railways had begun first in Europe, and where such expropriations were met with extraordinary implacability. The experience of English landowners facing demands from railway companies for land was so unsettling to them that they commonly referred to the process of land expropriation by railway companies as an “invasion” of the land.35 The apparent obduracy of the landlords routinely vexed the railway companies and other stakeholders in the railway expansion process in England, and this tension resulted in the landlords being cast as villains of early railway expansion in Britain. As historian J.T. Ward notes, the picture painted of English landlord resistance in this era was one of “haughty opposition to . . . the disfigurement of their estates, the

35 R.W. Kostal, Law and English Railway Capitalism, 1825–1875 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 144.

110 reduction of their rentals and the breaking-up of their farms; they opposed the progress of dirty, noisy and allegedly dangerous locomotives across their land, the trespassing of insolent surveyors and the invasion of quite rural areas by rough, immoral construction gangs.”36 The reality, as Ward ultimately explains, was more complicated, as each incident of landlord resistance could be balanced with an equally clear case of landlord support. Yet, for those many landlords who engaged in resistance, their opposition to this perceived invasion ran the gamut from strategic stubbornness employed for the purpose of driving up the value of land to direct violent confrontation between landlord surrogates and surveyors working for the railways.

A famous example of the latter type has gone down in British railway history as the Battle of Saxby Bridge. In that 1844 encounter, Lord Harborough of Stapleford Park at Saxby had sought to prevent the railway from passing through his estate. His motives were largely financial, as he had an interest in preserving the utility of the Oakham Canal and legitimately feared that the railway would swiftly make the canal impractical. In his effort to prevent this from occurring, Harborough served notice to any prospective surveyors that they would not be permitted to cross his property. When one of his keepers noticed that a small team of surveyors was making its way along the canal bank, the keeper proceeded to block their path, whereupon a surveyor produced a pistol. The armed standoff quickly devolved into a scuffle, and several people were ultimately brought before the magistrate. The following day the conflict escalated as a renewed attempt by the surveyors was met with between thirty and forty of Harborough’s men at Saxby

36 J.T. Ward, “West Riding Landowners and the Railways,” Journal of Transport History, 4 (1960), 242.

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Bridge. The surveyors had brought with them a number of “reckless-looking vagabonds,” and the two opposing factions clashed menacingly over the bridge. This encounter produced no real resolution to the matter, and both sides increased in number in preparation for another meeting the following day.37 In that clash, as Clement Edwin

Stretton colorfully explained decades later,

[t]he railwayists exerted their utmost strength, but so firmly did his lordship’s party retain their ground that more than one was actually forced up high in the air, rolling over the heads of the contending parties. Others were forced through the hedge, tumbling over each other and nearly filling the ditch beneath, amidst the shouts of the leaders and the laughter of the numerous spectators. Great confusion now ensued, the two parties mixing together and in the tumult and dirt becoming almost undistinguishable by each other.38

While this case is exceptional for including repeated clashes with the surveyors and a great number of men joining the fray on both sides, conflict with surveyors in the

English countryside was apparently routine. Surveyors were frequently met with sometimes violent opposition by workers in the employ of frustrated landlords. They used a variety of tactics to complete their tasks without further aggravating the landowners. Such tactics included surveying at night or surveying from across the hedged property lines. These methods were occasionally successful, but violence directed toward the surveyors, as had happened at Saxby Bridge, was never far away. Landowners, or more frequently their workers, vandalized surveying equipment, obstructed the view of surveyors, and frequently threatened armed violence as they brandished knives and firearms. As such, surveyors who anticipated landlord resistance would occasionally bring with them large numbers of thoroughly inebriated and well-paid railway workers

37 Clemet E. Stretton, The History of the Midland Railway (London: Methuen & Co., 1901), 81–84.

38 Stretton, The History of the Midland Railway, 82; Emphasis original.

112 called navvies to help stem any possible violent resistance they might face. In addition to being well compensated to help intimidate landowners, these navvies were also motivated to continue the surveys, as this guaranteed them continued work in developing the lines once the land had been acquired.39

While apparently common in England, such forms of overt resistance to land expropriation for railway use were far less common if not entirely unknown in central

Spain. This does not mean, however, that the extension of the railway across the arid landscape of La Mancha met with no resistance. But this resistance came in the form of a constant and determined stream of reclamaciones from landowners in the path of the expanding railway line. Between the years 1857 and 1866, during the height of the railway construction boom in this era of Spanish railway euphoria, landowners across the affected areas in La Mancha and some in the province of Zaragoza issued a sizable number of claims, or reclamaciones, to the Compañía de los Ferro-carriles de Madrid á

Zaragoza y á Alicante (MZA). In these claims, the landowners made a number of demands upon the railway company, frequently expressing dissatisfaction and often requesting monetary compensation. These claims reports take a variety of different forms, though there are some obvious patterns that provide clues to their purpose. All of these claims fall into one of the following broadly defined categories: claims that report general damage such as damage to a windmill, building, or well; claims that contest an earlier land expropriation, such as challenging the scope of an appraisal or requesting

39 Frederick S. Williams, Our Iron Roads: Their History, Construction and Administration (London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1852, 1968 edn.), 66–70. For more on the reputation of the British railway navvy, see David Brooke, The Railway Navvy: ‘That Despicable Race of Men’ (North Pomfret, VT: David & Charles Inc., 1983).

113 another; claims that demand payment for the land or otherwise suggesting that payment had not been forthcoming; and claims that complain about the effect of the railway on the distribution of water over the land for irrigation purposes.

A superficial reading of such claims suggests that the landowners authoring or giving approval to them were manifesting at least some resistance to the expansion of the railway across their land. And it is certainly the case that some of these landowners reported considerable losses. This is particularly true for those complaining about irrigation difficulties, since some of these claims include complaints that certain fields could no longer be properly watered.40 Indeed, considering the well-documented and frequently belligerent obduracy of landowners in England, one might naturally anticipate resistance, even violent resistance, arising out of these substantial difficulties and inconveniences. But, there are some important differences between the landowner concerns in central Spain as reflected in these claims and those expressed by English landowners during a comparable period of development that should give us pause about drawing too close a parallel.

The timing of these claims, for example, is noteworthy. While the documentation associated with these reports date from the late 1850s at the earliest, the land surveys and agreements for expropriation had occurred in some cases several years earlier. This fact is confirmed within at least a handful of reports. For example, in a report from 1859 in which the landowner Don Manuel Pando y Castañeda complained that his land had been improperly appraised, the documents attending the claim indicate that the land was

40 AHF, C-0591-002.

114 purchased over a decade earlier in 1846.41 Two later claim reports from 1860 and 1861 respectively suggest that the initial agreements concerning land expropriations had been reached years earlier as well. These two claims reports both reference the fact that José de

Salamanca had been involved.42 This is significant, as Salamanca’s involvement with these surveys and expropriations would have terminated before 1856.

José de Salamanca had begun surveying across La Mancha in the early 1850s, and he played a not insignificant role in expropriating the land that would eventually facilitate the passage of the railway east across La Mancha. By 1854, the line reached Alcázar de

San Juan, 146 km from Madrid. The following year the line had been extended across nearly the entire breadth of La Mancha to reach Albacete. From there, Salamanca planned to connect the line to Almansa and to another line then being built from the

Mediterranean port at Alicante.43 But Salamanca was a shrewd businessman, and knew how to sniff out a good deal for himself. And what he smelled in the summer of 1855 was the growing intensity of the rivalry between two major French financing interests: the

Crédit Mobilier of the Pereire brothers and the bank of the Rothschilds in Paris.

By 1855, the Rothschilds had been financing railway construction in France for over two decades. In that year, the Pereire brothers, until recently in the employ of James

Rothschild, began their aggressive campaign to establish a railway monopoly in Spain.

Just months after the important 1855 Spanish Railway Law was passed, the Pereire

41 AHF, C-0583-001, Jan. 30, 1859.

42 AHF, C-0580-001, Mar. 22, 1860; AHF, C-0591-002, Sept. 23, 1861.

43 “Ferrocarril del Mediterráneo,” Revista de Obras Publicas (hereafter ROP), 1855, 3, Tomo I (7), p. 83.

115 brothers presented to the Spanish government their plan to establish their Spanish railway entity, Crédito Mobiliario Español. This maneuver was interpreted by James Rothschild as a frontal attack on his interests, and he swiftly set up his own Spanish entity, the

Sociedad Española Mercantil e Industrial (SEMI). As this was happening, Salamanca was already making arrangements to sell his concession for the Madrid to Almansa line.

James Rothschild was soon pulled into these discussions, and on July 7, 1856 Rothschild and his partners finalized the purchase, with the working assumption that Salamanca would also work to hand over the concession for the Almansa to Alicante portion of the route. Without that concession, the Madrid to Almansa line was nearly worthless.

Realizing that he had the upper hand, Salamanca threw a wrench into the arrangements at the last moment, eventually holding out for a net profit of nearly 22 million reales. These issues notwithstanding, on December 31, 1856 the Rothschilds’ Spanish railway enterprise was born. Ten days later it would officially change its name to the Compañía de Ferrocarriles de Madrid a Zaragoza y a Alicante, or MZA.44

It’s unlikely a mere coincidence that the earliest of the reclamaciones being analyzed here coincide with the foundation of this large and well-funded French firm.

Landowners in La Mancha would have surely recognized it as significant that the new owner of the railway line extending across their land was both foreign and exceedingly wealthy.45 The opportunities available to landowners prepared to leverage their position

44 Miguel A. López-Morell, The House of Rothschild in Spain, 1812–1941 Trans. Stephen P. Hasler (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013), 109-119.

45 Several daily Madrid periodicals, including La Época, La España, El Clamor público, and La Gaceta de caminos de hierro, reported on the formation of MZA and the possible economic consequences of the new company. In the issue of February 2, 1857, La Época printed MZA’s shareholder meeting notes, including tables on kilometers of track and the cost per kilometer.

116 along the newly acquired route to their economic advantage would have been great and difficult to ignore. Indeed, we know from the British example that at least some landowners in England viewed the extension of track across their property in just this way, and strategically employed obduracy in order to ratchet up the price.46 While it is unfortunate that historians of the railway in Spain lack the rich documentation preserved in Britain from its comparable period, it seems quite plausible and even likely that a strain of opportunism among La Mancha’s landowners was driving this new-found interest in petitioning the railways to reevaluate prior agreements made with the previous controlling company.

Quite unlike their British counterparts, Spanish landowners in La Mancha do not appear to have engaged in the same type of aggressive or violent maneuvers intended to impede the surveying of land for the construction of railway infrastructure. This was partially a product of Spanish developers having already recognized the problems in

Britain and wanting to avoid them in Spain. The authors of the Subercase Report of 1844, which had carefully considered the experiences of France, Prussia, Belgium and England, indicated in their report that they were aware of “all the difficulties and expenses manifested through the expropriation of necessary land in England.” This suggests that efforts may have been made to manage or avoid similar difficulties in Spain early on.47

What those efforts were, however, is difficult to tell.

46 R.W. Kostal, Law and English Railway Capitalism, 161–180; David Turnock, Railways in the British Isles: Landscape, Land Use and Society (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1982), 36–37; Jack Simmons, The Victorian Railway (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1991), 155.

47 Francisco de A. Cambó y Batlle, Elementos para el studio del problema ferroviario en España, Tomo I (Madrid: Ministerio de Fomento, 1918), 9.

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Yet, it is clear that the railway companies operating in Spain, including MZA, did indeed face some resistance to their efforts to expropriate land for further railway construction. In 1867, for example, the Revista de Obras Públicas printed two articles that detailed many of the issues railway companies faced even by this late date as they attempted to acquire land for track and other supporting infrastructure. In the two articles, the author made a number of suggestions about what improvements might be effected in order to make the process more efficient and beneficial to Spain, such as setting “short processing deadlines,” making the process more routine and “less tortuous and strange,” and generally making it more difficult for any “single landowner that intends to cause damage to the company or to exploit the delays” in order to hold up the entire operation.48 As the writer explained:

On several occasions, the Revista de Obras Públicas has drawn attention to the difficulties that frequently attend the expropriation of the land necessary for public works and the damages that may accrue to the interests of the State and the public by suspending their execution. These difficulties, which sometimes paralyze entire costly works directed by the State are [left to be] resolved by the companies that build the railroads, sacrificing enormous sums [in the process] . . . It has generally been proposed, as a means of overcoming these drawbacks, that the law of expropriations be reformed . . . [to prevent] circumventing or distorting it with the twisted interpretation to which it is subject almost entirely, and which the greed and bad faith of the landowners promotes in all lands. It is generally believed that it would be enough to set short and manageable deadlines [for the process], and to establish the [land] appraisals based on wealth assessment to prevent the owners from being encouraged by the hope of a greater profit to seek to delay, as they do now in each one of the divestiture proceedings.49

48 Eduardo Pelayo, “Nota sobre las expropiaciones para la construcción de los ferro-carriles,” ROP, 1867, 15 Tomo I (1): 5. The second article published a few issues later as “Nota sobre las tasaciones de las fincas que se expropian para la construcción de los ferrocarriles,” ROP, 1867, 15, tomo I (6): 68–73.

49 Pelayo, “Nota sobre las expropiaciones,” 5.

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These concerns expressed in 1867 provide some indication of the difficulties earlier efforts by railway companies may have faced as they struggled with landowners over land claims. And it is in this context that the stream of reclamaciones should be properly understood.

Landowners in the path of the railway extending across La Mancha and into the province of Zaragoza frequently registered complaints about a lack of compensation for damaged property or for real estate that had already been transferred in some manner and form. For example, in March of 1858, Manuel Reyes Castellanos, a landowner in the small town of Quero in the province of Toledo, issued a claim to be properly compensated for land that couldn’t be farmed because of the intervention of the railway.50

In the following year, Don Manuel Moreno del Pozo, a resident of the town of

Valdemoro just south of Madrid, submitted his claim for compensation for a vineyard that had been damaged a few years previously through the negligence of the railway builders. According to him, when the damage was done the land for the right-of-way had not yet even been purchased.51 In 1860, another resident of Valdemoro, Doña Ysidora

Rodríguez Lerena, made a claim for compensation for land expropriated by José de

Salamanca years earlier and used by the company to build the Valdemoro station.52 An

1863 reclamación from José Tello, a landowner in Alhama de Aragón along the route to

Zaragoza, demanded a rent payment for the temporary use of a portion of his land where the railway company had been allowed to store equipment. And that same year, other

50 AHF, C-0598-001, Mar. 1858.

51 AHF, C-0580-001, Jan. 1859.

52 AHF, C-0580-001, Feb. 1860.

119 landowners living in the vicinity, such as Victoria Ibáñez, José Polo, Juan Polo, and

Vicente Pozancos, also began reclamaciones registering damages they incurred from the expansion of the same railway line.53

Other common complaints reflected in these reclamaciones included those that claim damage to property done during the construction of the line or because of its location. In the reports emanating from the area around Alcázar de San Juan, for example, at least a few landowners complained of damage done to their windmills, a common feature of the landscape in this part of La Mancha. In one collection of claims reports and responses are the petitions from landowner Raimundo Quintanilla, who appealed to the company for nearly a decade beginning at least as early as 1866 for some resolution to the fact that the railway platform occluded the wind that should have powered his large windmill. Because of this, he complained, the windmill stopped working in 1864.54 Another landowner in the same area complained of a similar problem.

In his complaint, Simón García Baquero demanded some level of compensation for his windmill, which he had affectionately named “Ramas,” and which had also been rendered inoperable because one of the station buildings had been built directly in front of it. This complaint had been submitted as early as 1861, and the resolution the company devised was simply to purchase the windmill from the landowner, which it did in 1864.55

This sampling of different reclamaciones from the many submitted during these years provides some indication of the types of claims the railway company was fielding

53 AHF, C-0506-002, 1863.

54 AHF, C-0599-001.

55 AHF, C-0621-001.

120 at this time. And there is evidence to suggest that the process was considered by company personnel to be something of a burden. This conclusion is supported by evidence that suggests some of the payments made by MZA were clearly issued in an effort to purchase some relief from the nuisance of the claims themselves. The claim from Doña Victoria

Ibáñez of the Alhama de Aragón in the province of Zaragoza, for example, appears to be such an instance. The reclamación was originally made in 1863, Doña Victoria claiming that a house on her property had been damaged by the construction of wells intended to provide water for the steam engines. The claim for a payment of 1,000 reales was ultimately paid in 1867. In agreeing to the payment, MZA noted that the “claims are insignificant” but continuing to fight the request would only cause the company further problems. “I think it is appropriate,” the company’s representative wrote in 1867, “to resolve this matter in accordance with the wish of the Director, satisfying the interested party for the thousand reales being requested.”56 This appears to be a reluctant payment by MZA, likely intended to curtail the repeated request by the landowner for compensation. This conclusion is further supported by the fact that in 1864 the company had determined that it had no responsibility for the harm Doña Victoria alleged, since the damage done to her home had been caused by extreme humidity that had existed prior to any work on the wells.57

Persistence, it appears, was an effective tactic when the request for compensation was reasonable. But compensation was only forthcoming after a proper evaluation had been completed and, in cases where there were disputes about the value of the property in

56 AHF, C-0506-002, Dec., 1867.

57 AHF, C-0506-002, Apr. 4, 1864.

121 question, after an appraisal was conducted. As the documents relating to the reclamación of Don Manuel de Pando y Castañeda demonstrate, the appraisal terms could be quite strict. In his case, MZA resolutely refused to consider another appraisal of the land, preferring instead to abide by the original. Yet, by January of 1859 the company had reversed course and opened up the possibility of a new appraisal, but with rather strict stipulations as to how it should proceed and who should conduct the appraisal. Don

Manuel de Pando was given fifteen days to select a land appraiser who would meet the requirements of the company and protect their interests. If he failed to find his own suitable appraiser, this would constitute tacit approval of the appraiser MZA’s representatives had selected, and the appraisal would then proceed on their terms.58 Only then might the company reach some agreement with the landowner over the cost of the land and the amount the landowner would be paid.

The amounts requested in most reclamaciones and in some cases ultimately paid out were relatively modest. This is especially striking considering the amount of time and energy the landowners were investing into making these claims, often over several years.

Josefa Cañedo, for example, who appears to have accepted compensation from the MZA in the name of Don Manuel de Pando y Castañeda after years of petitioning MZA for back payments on land the company had been using for its operations, evidently received a sum of 1200 reales in 1870.59 José Tello, the Alhama de Aragón resident mentioned earlier, ultimately received or had at least been offered a payment of 2,650 reales from

58 AHF, C-0583-001, Jan. 1859.

59 AHF, C-0583-001.

122 the company for his trouble.60 This is consistent with the cases of other landowners who received similar sums, such as Doña Ysidora Rodriguez Lerena, who was offered 1199 reales for the use of her property in 1860.61

Despite their modest amounts, the records indicate that MZA was not particularly eager to make such disbursements. The nuisance payment made to Doña Victoria Ibáñez appears to be an outlier. Indeed, outright denials of claims were not unusual. In 1859, for example, an engineer who evaluated the claim made by a landowner in Valdemoro promptly dismissed it as having no merit.62 That same year, landowner Manuel Eduardo

Diaz of Villasequilla complained in a letter that the railway recently built across his land had interrupted his ability to irrigate his fields.63 A full 18 years later, however, MZA came to the conclusion that it “cannot be held responsible,” since it was the irrigators themselves who had altered the course of the stream.64 In another case in Villasequilla, the report issued by the company in response to a reclamación suggested that it was possibly José de Salamanca himself who would need to issue compensation, as the initial surveys and expropriations were likely conducted under his watch. The suggestion by

60 AHF, C-0506-002, Oct., 1863.

61 AHF, C-0580-001, Feb., 1860. The main unit of currency used in Spain between 1812 and 1868 was the real de vellón, which was valued at about 100 to 1 pound sterling. According to estimates of Esmeralda Ballesteros Doncel, a hectare (2.471 acres) worth of wheat was worth approximately 20 pesetas in 1860. A peseta being valued at 4 reales, the 1199 reales offered to Doña Ysidora Rodriguez Lerena was worth roughly 15 hectare worth of wheat. Esmeralda Ballesteros Doncel, “Una estimación del coste de la vida en España, 1861–1936,” Revista de Historia Económica 15, no. 2 (1997): 387.

62 AHF, C-0580-001, Feb., 1859.

63 AHF, C-0591-002, Apr., 1859.

64 AHF, C-0591-002, May, 1871.

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MZA was that the claimants might be better served by addressing future reclamaciones to him.65

In addition to what they reveal about the company’s desire to avoid unnecessary cost, this particular batch of denials has another unifying feature. All of these claims were made in regard to irrigation disruption caused in some part by the railway itself. Irrigation issues were not insignificant challenges for the landowners. These were almost certainly not nuisance claims intended to squeeze some additional payment from the railway company, but instead touched on matters that were vitally important for agriculturalists in this water-scarce region. The denials described above must have been more than merely disappointing. Furthermore, such irrigation-related reclamaciones were common, since the railway frequently created an obstacle around or through which water couldn’t flow.

The high earthen embankment that supported the rails functioned like a long and shallow dam that cut across fields and often separated landowners from the source of their water.

The consequences for landowners could be dire, as is suggested by a letter from Javier de

Lara of Valdemoro, which indicates that the embankment created by the rail line has made portions of the land on his farm useless for cultivating crops.66

These claims concerning irrigation, because they reflect real concerns about the way the railway was threatening the viability of farms in La Mancha and Zaragoza, represent the strongest evidence for the conclusion that these landowners were engaging more in a negotiation with the railway company than in resistance. The pleas from these landowners are not merely requests for monetary compensation for damages. Through

65 AHF, C-0591002, Sept., 1861.

66 AHF, C-0580-001, Nov., 1871.

124 their reclamaciones they make it clear that they are also seeking to have the company make infrastructure changes to mitigate the damage inflicted by the intrusion of the railway and to make it easier to coexist with the railways. Commonly proposed solutions included such things as constructing trestles, sewers, culverts or other types of underpasses to allow for water to flow under the railways.67 In some cases, landowners expressed that they were willing to forego any monetary claims if the infrastructural adjustments were made. In a letter from Manuel Eduardo Diaz, for example, the

Villasequilla proprietor suggests that the construction of a sewer under the railway to allow for the irrigation of his deprived fields would be a suitable remedy that he would accept in lieu of other compensation.68

Such requests reveal that in general these landowners weren’t seeking to undermine the railway company or divert traffic away from La Mancha. Instead, they were seeking ways to survive in a world where railways would play an increasingly larger role. Despite all the disruptions, damage to property, failure to make payments, and even frequent denials of claims, landowners in La Mancha appear to have recognized that their interests were tied to the future success of the railway running across their property and connecting towns in their region, and their region to broader markets.

This reaction from landowners across La Mancha is understandable given the economic transformations occurring at this time and as a result of the introduction of the railway. La Mancha, in this period, was undergoing an agricultural shift away from

67 AHF, C-0506-002, May 28, 1863; AHF, C-0506-002, July, 1864; AHF, C-0580-001, Nov. 1861; C- 0580-001, Jan. – Feb. 1859.

68 AHF, C-0591-002, April, 1859.

125 cereals and toward viticulture. This process had begun in the seventeenth century, as wine production in Ávila, Segovia, and Valladolid, which once fed the Madrid market, declined to a trickle. La Mancha had started to produce wines of its own by this period, and had become the primary source for Madrid table wine by as early as 1700.69 Despite its growing viticulture sector, the lands of La Mancha remained heavily dedicated to the growth of cereals throughout the eighteenth century and well into the nineteenth. In the province of Toledo in the eighteenth century, for example, 86.7% percent of the agricultural land was used to grow cereals, particularly wheat and barley. Only 8.2% was dedicated to viticulture.70 This was understandable, given the transportation limitations in

Spain. Wines produced in La Mancha were destined for the tables of Madrid, and this market could be satisfied with the relatively small amount of land dedicated to viticulture.

The railway, however, brought with it the promise of transforming the agrarian system in La Mancha and opening the doors of other markets outside of Madrid and even beyond Spain to Manchego wines. In the same way, however, it put the continued reliance on cereal farming in La Mancha in a state of uncertainty. The application of railway and steamship technology not only in Spain but around Europe and the Americas brought down the cost of long-distance transport. This greatly affected the price of goods that were moved into different markets along these new railways. Cereals imported into

European markets from Russia and the United States proved far more competitive in

69 David Ringrose, Spain, Europe and the “Spanish Miracle,” 1700–1900 (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1996), 285–286.

70 Francisco García González and Cosme Jesús Gómez Carrasco, “Tierra y sociedad rural en Castilla-La Mancha a rinales del Antiguo Régimen,” in Ángel Ramón del Valle Calzado (Ed.), Historia agraria de Castilla-La Mancha siglos XIX-XXI (Ciudad Real: Biblioteca Añil, 2010), 88.

126 these markets than cereals from regions in Spain like La Mancha. Wine produced in La

Mancha, on the other hand, proved far more adaptable to the emerging open markets.71

And just as the larger markets themselves had been created by the introduction of rail transport, so too was land-locked La Mancha’s participation in those markets tied to the maintenance and growth of rail transport through La Mancha and to the Mediterranean ports of Valencia and Alicante.

This reality may have convinced landowners straddling the railway line through central Spain that their interests lay in coexistence and cooperation with the railroad and not in resistance to it. This explains why these occasionally prolonged negotiations over land values, damage to property, and irrigation complications never boiled over into violence as was common in Valencia in the first years of the railway. These landowners desired to have their grievances addressed and to be compensated for their injuries. But they ultimately sought to reach a largely harmonious entente with these railways.

Conclusion

The first two chapters of this work describe the efforts of several railway boosters and enthusiasts to paint the railway as an instrument of civilization and national regeneration. But as this chapter has shown, the liberal fantasies of future economic growth made possible by railway infrastructure were clearly ineffective in stemming the tide of vandalism and even murder directed at railways and their employees in Valencia.

Not unlike the Luddites of early-nineteenth-century England, the rock and orange

71 José Ángel Gallego Palomares, Ferrocarril y transición al capitalismo en La Mancha, 1850-1936 (Ciudad Real: Almud, Ediciones de Castilla-La Mancha, 2009), 65–82.

127 throwing Valencianos may have seen the emerging railway as a threat to their livelihoods. And their resistance was a rational, even if occasionally drunken, response to that threat. In La Mancha, however, the numerous reclamaciones issued from landowners to MZA reflect a very different dynamic. When analyzed in the context of the agricultural and economic transformations occurring in La Mancha during the 1850s and 60s, these documents reveal a process of negotiation and adaptation to the railways, which were seen by the affected landowners as largely beneficial even if occasionally disruptive.

As the next chapter reveals, the promise of a peaceful integration of the railways into Spanish daily routine seemed well within reach during the late 1850s and early 1860s when railway development progressed rapidly. The attention given to the many spectacular railway inaugurations in those years demonstrates that the public enthusiasm for this modern marvel of transportation was seemingly boundless when times were good. But, as the foreign infusions of cash began to dwindle and Spain entered a period of recession, high hopes for a speedy transition into a modern steam-powered world were soon dashed. And as the news of one disastrous railway accident after another brought the potential horrors of railway travel to the public, the one-time symbol of liberal

Spain’s modernization successes became an albatross around the neck of a regime that became increasingly vulnerable to sharp criticism and eventual revolution.

128

Chapter IV The Wreckage of Modernization in the Age of Railway Euphoria

The General Railway Law of 1855 threw open the doors of the nation to railway speculation and development, and ushered in an age of railway euphoria that overtook the country. This legislation was one of the many accomplishments of the bienio progresista, the two years of Progresista party rule that followed the 1854 Revolution. The law was intended to be an improvement over the 1844 law, which many had decried as ineffective and leading to excessive and wasteful speculation. The 1855 law promoted railway investment in a variety of ways. It removed statutory restrictions that limited access to capital markets; it exempted imports of equipment from heavy tariffs and waived certain property taxes; it granted access to public land and the privilege to open quarries, build kilns, and establish workshops adjacent to the line; and it granted protections for foreign capital from reprisals and confiscations resulting from war. Most importantly, it allowed for a variety of subsidies to be provided to the railway companies, the most common of which was the most simple, direct cash payments from the government.1 Not surprisingly, these provisions bore fruit. Between 1855 and 1860, developers laid down rails at a spectacular clip, putting nearly 1500 kilometers of rail line into operation. This productive spurt, however, was swiftly outdone in the following five years, when another nearly 3000 kilometers of track were opened. Within a decade of the passage of this

1 Gabriel Tortella Casares, Banking, Railroads, and Industry in Spain, 1829–1874 (New York: Arno Press, 1977), 285–286.

129 important law, Spanish railways had grown by a factor of 10 to connect Madrid with

Cartagena, Santander, San Sebastián, Valencia, Gerona, and points between.2

The extension of track across Spain was announced at each stage with elaborate inaugurations. These ostentatious spectacles were sumptuously performed rituals that blended Spanish tradition with the trappings of modernization. The ceremonies were held for all manner of openings, including those of short rail lines or even individual legs of longer routes. But it was the inaugural ceremonies of the most significant and long- awaited routes like those between Madrid and Alicante, Madrid and Irún, and Ciudad

Real and Badajoz that received the most attention in these pioneering years. The inaugural festivities for these large and significant rail lines were especially extravagant, attracting local and regional crowds, important representatives from the government ministries, and the royal family itself.

The 1858 inaugural ceremonies for the Madrid to Alicante line, or the Ferrocarril del Mediterráneo as it was called, provide an excellent example of these spectacular events. The newly-built station in Alicante, the site of the festivities, was adorned with scarlet velvet and gold finials for the occasion; and the locomotives lined up along the six tracks in the station were festooned with flowers and flags. The young queen, a mere twenty eight at this important moment in Spanish history, attended the event similarly decorated, wearing a “rose-colored outfit” and a white mantilla a la Española. As one report noted, her demeanor matched the significance of the occasion. She was “deeply

2 Gabriel Tortella Casares, The Development of Modern Spain: An Economic History of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Trans. Valerie J. Herr (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000), 122; Francisco Comín, 150 años de historia de los ferrocarriles españoles, Vol. I, (Madrid: Anaya, 1998), 70–77.

130 moved, having no words to express her joy in such sweet moments; and she repeatedly turned her head to wipe away the tears that clouded her countenance.” Also in attendance were officials responsible for its construction and financing, including the ubiquitous José de Salamanca, as well as the Minister of Development. These important personages gave short speeches to the enthusiastic crowd that had come to watch the historic event. Once these remarks had been delivered, the assembled ecclesiastics, including the Bishop of

Cartagena and the Patriarch of the West Indies, blessed the locomotives as they passed in front of the royal grandstand.3

Figure 5: Inaugurating the Mediterranean Railway in Alicante. El Museo universal, June 15, 1858.

The glamor of the event was matched only by the ebullience of the reporting on the ceremony. One writer from El Museo universal, for example, used the occasion to proclaim the birth of a new revitalized Spain, one that would, by virtue of modern railways and steam ships, reprise the long lost Spanish glory of past centuries. The sight

3 El Clamor público, May 5, 1858.

131 of a railway finally connecting the harbor at Alicante to the geographic center as well as the center of political power in Madrid caused his imagination to run wild with anticipation for a future where such marvels of technology would finally elevate Spain to a condition befitting its history and accomplishments.

Such a painting of the imagination! Such spaces to desire! Such an occasion for the glory, for the prosperity of our beleaguered patria! And what a moment of hope and consolation! What an hour for our sad contemporary history!—The Spanish character, trapped under the mountain of El Escorial, has broken free from the prison of its misanthropic asceticism, and has become a butterfly flying out to sea.—Oh how the soul dilated when contemplating the electrical lines suspended in air, like a nervous system of steel, conductors of thought and will, already running the length and breadth of the peninsula, while the wind blended together into a single cloud the columns of smoke that were exhaled from our steamboats in the port, our locomotives on the railway!4

But such fanciful raptures were tempered by another recurring feature of this period of railway euphoria: the railway accident. Just nine days before the inauguration, at approximately 12:15 in the afternoon, a passenger train traveling from the capital to

Aranjuez along the very same Mediterranean Railway abruptly and violently slammed into an empty freight train sitting dormant at the Ciempozuelos station just south of

Madrid. Apparently the signal for the incoming train to slow down on the approach had either been missed or misinterpreted by the engineer.5 While a relatively minor wreck by the standards of the day, the accident was serious enough to have taken the life of one brake guard and injured more than twenty passengers.6 The fact that the passengers included the French ambassador and his wife, as well as the Minister of Development himself, and several men and women from high society and the aristocracy meant that the

4 El Museo universal, June 15, 1858.

5 Gaceta de los caminos de hierro, May 23, 1858.

6 La Época, May 20, 1858.

132 story received more attention than it might have otherwise.7 And the reports from the accident suggest that it was significant enough to merit attention regardless of the social status of those affected. Reports from the site described a scene of disorder and panic.

“Wherever one looked,” one article noted, “one found only fainted women, split open heads, busted lips, crushed noses, and dislocated arms; mothers looked for their children, brothers for brothers, friends for friends. They all ran, they all shouted and desolation reigned without mitigation.”8

These two events—the accident at Ciempozuelos and the inauguration of the

Mediterranean Railway in Alicante less than two weeks later—aptly symbolize the challenge the Isabelline regime faced in these early years of railway development and national modernization. On the one hand, the regime was eager to place itself at the forefront of the successful development of the various lines, thus to enjoy all the benefits and popular goodwill that such a position brought. This is evident in the choreographed rituals put on display for the public at each railway inauguration. On the other hand, basking in the glow of a successful modernization project left the regime exposed to condemnation and blame if and when things turned south. The railway accidents themselves opened up windows for the political press to challenge the modernization efforts of the regime. As Spain began to unravel both politically and economically in the

7 La Época, May 18, 1858; La España, May 18, 1858; La Época, May 17, 1858. Predictably, accidents that endangered the wellbeing of the well-to-do garnered considerable attention. Other accidents of this type tended to evoke far less public outrage, or at least outrage of the type that would have appeared in the press. For more on this feature of railway accident coverage in Spain see: Francisco de los Cobos Arteaga and Tomás Martínez Vara, “Gran clase, tercera y trabajadores. Seguridad y clases en el ferrocarril español del siglo XIX,” IV Congreso de Historia Ferroviaria, Málaga 20–22, Sept. 2006, http://www.docutren.com/HistoriaFerroviaria/Malaga2006/pdf/III07.pdf.

8 Excerpted in La Época, May 18, 1858.

133 mid-1860s, the criticism of the regime and the railway companies it empowered to lead the development of its railways intensified. These critiques formed a significant part of the barrage of criticism directed toward the regime as the prospect of abrupt regime change increased during the second half of the decade. By 1868, the queen’s position was no longer tenable and the September Revolution that marched into the streets swept her off the throne and out of the country.

Historian Michael Matthews revealed a similar dynamic in Porfirian Mexico.

There, the ambitious railway development projects pursued in the late-nineteenth century were touted as evidence of the government’s ability to modernize and unify the nation.

The elaborate inaugural ceremonies and the manner in which elites and government representatives used the railways to legitimate their status and the mission of the state cemented the association between the increasingly despotic regime of Porfirio Díaz and the economic and nation-building benefits that accrued to rapid railway development in late-nineteenth-century Mexico. But that relationship, as Matthews explains, also served to undermine the regime once the human costs of the hastily developed railways began to drive the national narrative. Railway accidents in particular became moments to reflect on these costs and the culpability of the regime, further weakening the regime’s hold on power as 1910 and revolution in Mexico approached.9

Much of Matthews’ analysis applies equally well to Isabelline Spain in the 1850s and 60s. As in Porfirian Mexico, the regime in Spain adeptly wielded the tools and symbols of modernization through the use of inaugural ceremonies and other devices as

9 Michael Matthews, The Civilizing Machine: A Cultural History of Mexican Railroads, 1876–1910 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2013).

134 the railways expanded around the nation. But these efforts were executed atop a rather poor foundation, one built on overly-positive promises as to the economic stimulus anticipated from railway development as well as the accumulation of a considerable amount of public debt, which powered rampant speculation and corruption.10 Thankfully for the regime, this foundation was shored up by an increase in prosperity brought about by the direct injections of capital into the economy through railway construction and, to a far lesser degree, by the consequences of improvements in transport technology. Between

1855 and 1863, Spain experienced considerable economic growth. This growth continued despite the decline in wheat exports as the Crimean war wound down and despite the loss of cotton imports as the American Civil War ramped up.11 This bullish trend persisted in no small measure because of the large and rapid inflow of foreign capital and the creation of joint stock banks designed primarily to channel foreign and domestic funds into railway construction.12

The fissures in the foundation of this growth weren’t entirely obvious in the spring of 1858 as the nation celebrated the opening of the Mediterranean Railway. Even the accounts of the accident at Ciempozuelos revealed little about more profound problems lurking just below the surface. In these newspaper accounts, there were no demands for accountability or any driving concerns about the deeper significance of the

10 Germà Bel, Infrastructure and the Political Economy of Nation Building in Spain, 1720–2010, trans. William Truini (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2012), 63.

11 Tortella, The Development of Modern Spain, 140; Jaime Vicens Vives and Jorge Nadal Oller, An Economic History of Spain, trans. Frances M. López-Morillas (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969), 741-743.

12 Alessio Moro, Galo Nuño, and Pedro Tedde. “A Twin Crisis with Multiple Banks of Issue: Spain in the 1860s.” IDEAS Working Paper Series from RePEc, 2013, 8-12, https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpwps/ecbwp1561.pdf?968758406587846b28acdd039bcd1ea2.

135 accident and what it might suggest about the overall development of the railways.

Instead, readers were treated only to rather gentle criticisms of the physical state of the railway and the extent to which this accident might engender some national humiliation before European opinion.13 But this level of restraint hadn’t always prevailed, as reporting on previous accidents makes clear.

Three years earlier, at approximately eleven o’clock in the evening of September

27, 1855, a freight train carrying 28 cars and traveling from Madrid to Aranjuez sent out a call for help after its operator realized that it couldn’t continue any farther. Due to a flash flood, it had found itself in “an immense sea of water,” as at least one newspaper reporting on the event described it.14 In response, the Madrid station sent out a single locomotive carrying six workers to offer aid to the stranded and heavily-laden train. Not more than ten minutes out, as the rescue locomotive was crossing the Abroñigal Creek

Bridge, the structure suddenly collapsed under the weight of the engine. The locomotive and its crew were thrown into the swollen, rushing waters of the creek and swiftly sank.

Five of the six workers were killed in the disaster, crushed by the weight of the locomotive or debris from the collapsing bridge, or drowned in the water.15 A sole survivor, the telegraph operator, Nemesio García Verdugo, was carried well over half a kilometer downstream before he could save himself by latching onto a small tree and pulling himself ashore. Explaining his story to the press, García relayed that he had emerged from the creek miraculously unscathed, though thoroughly exhausted,

13 La Época, May 18, 1858; La Época, May 17, 1858.

14 La Época, Sept. 29, 1855.

15 “Cronica de la Capital,” La Nación, Sept. 30, 1855.

136 traumatized, and covered in mud. As he told it, he had collapsed in an orchard alongside the creek and remained there until he was stumbled upon by a few people who, upon noticing his wretched condition, leapt to his aid and showered him with tears of pity, kindness, and support.16

The Madrid to Aranjuez line had only been in operation since 1851. And the bridge that collapsed was only a year older. Recognizing the possible effect this accident might have on public opinion and the liability the railway company itself might have on its hands, the company sent out its trusted engineer, Melitón Martín, to calm the waters.

Martín had overseen the construction of the line and was familiar with its maintenance.

Employing this knowledge, he promptly released an open letter that was then published in all the major Madrid dailies. In this letter Martín took great care to describe the reasons why the bridge failed and especially to absolve the company of any blame for the accident. Such an attempt was prudent, given the concerns many in the press were airing at that moment. Journalistic criticism was subtle, but biting. For example, some writers floated the idea that the company might be liable for the cost of its negligence. Others merely implied liability by conspicuously noting the age of the bridge and naming the responsible architect and supervising engineer.17 Another, after noting the dilapidated state of several other bridges, offered the restrained jibe that “we wait for tomorrow when we’ll have to announce new disasters.”18 Still others were far less delicate. The author of

La España’s summary of the Cortes debates on the catastrophe in early October

16 “Mas Sobre el Ferro-Carril,” La Nación, Oct. 4, 1855.

17 El Clamor público, Oct. 2, 1855 and Sept. 30, 1855. La Época, Sept. 29, 1855.

18 La Nación, Sept. 30, 1855.

137 expressed unreserved exasperation with the state of the rail line and the failure to achieve any progress in remedying the situation. Reporting that the Cortes had named a commission to investigate the recent mishap, he responded dryly with “Despues de la liebra ida . . . ,” part of an old Spanish folk saying that is roughly equivalent in meaning to “locking the stable after the horse has bolted.”19

Possibly sensing blood in the water, Deputy Camilo Labrador Vicuña of Huesca, who had as recently as a few months earlier voiced his opposition to the generous subventions being doled out to large railway corporations, took to the floor of the Cortes to blast those responsible for allowing the calamity to occur. “It is the general opinion in the country, as it is the general opinion in the press, as it is the general opinion of the

Deputies [of the Cortes],” he railed, “that the state of our transport network is a disaster.”

He continued:

I noted previously that the ramshackle construction then being undertaken would likely result in lamentable misfortunes; and this fatal premonition has been borne out, gentlemen, . . . since five parents have now perished on the bridge. I will be told that the strong storms and the unexpected flood, which could not have been anticipated at the time the bridge was constructed, were the cause; but this is not an apology . . . interests can be repaired, but the loss of human lives is irreparable.20 The concerns of deputies like Labrador and of the press reached a crescendo within a couple of weeks after the accident, and then promptly died down, as was typical of such events in the pioneering years of railway development in Spain. But the anxiety such accidents generated in the public tended to persist beyond the fleeting moments when passions were high and indignation most acute. Consider, for example, the analysis

19 La España, Oct. 3, 1855.

20 Diario de las Sesiones de Cortes. Congreso de los Diputados, 13-X-1855.

138 of railway accidents across Europe, including Spain, published by the Revista de Obras

Públicas in the summer of 1854. The findings reported in the article were unambiguously and explicitly intended to cool any public concerns about the safety of rail travel. It declared, correctly and sensibly, that despite the unfortunate stories that were retold in lurid detail in the press, the railways across Europe in general and Spain in particular were quite safe. And it marshalled statistical data and scientific analysis to demonstrate this point. Yet, it’s notable that this article was published quite apart from any serious accidents in Spain at the time. In fact, as the article notes, Spain had not yet experienced the death of a single railway traveler, nor would it until the following year.21 And concerns about railway mishaps were shared by the general traveling public, not just the engineers, industrialists, and investors reading the ROP, as is evidenced by the small prayer and instruction pamphlet published by a Barcelona press in the early 1850s.

Intended to ward against “derailments and crashes on the trains,” the book offered advice for anxious travelers, such as insuring one is in a “state of grace” before traveling, making the sign of the cross as one enters the carriage, and clutching a rosary while passing through any tunnels. As additional precautions, the short pamphlet suggested making items for orphaned children and reading good Catholic books.22

These concerns would eventually die down as Spain entered the period of prosperity made possible by large-scale railway development. But beginning in 1863 the economic situation deteriorated and the country entered a recession followed by a

21 “Accidentes en los caminos de Hierro”, Revista de Obras Publicas (hereafter ROP), 1854, 190- 192.

22 A Los Señores viajeros. Específico contra los descarrilamientos y choques de los trenes (Barcelona Sarriá: Talleres Salesianos), c.1850.

139 depression. During this period of steady economic decline concerns about railway accidents reemerged in the printed record, suggesting that a degree of public apprehension regarding the railways had been submerged under the wave of prosperity during the previous several years. With that prosperity unraveling, anxieties over the steadily escalating human cost of the modernization benchmarks achieved in those years rose to the surface. Additionally, in this period of economic and political uncertainty, the criticism emanating from press reports detailing the era’s spectacular railway accidents took on a new significance. Each successive railway disaster brought new stories to the public of lost loved ones, crippled children, destitute survivors, incompetent railway operators, and corruptible officials. The compounding effect of such stories served to further the narrative that the regime was incapable of serving the interests of the public and emboldened opposition party press outlets to attack the regime. While likely not on its own a determining factor on the road to revolution in 1868, the public reaction to the several large railway accidents that occurred in the years leading up to the revolution, as measured by press reports, provides an enlightening window into the various forces that undermined and ultimately brought down Queen Isabel II.

It’s not a novel proposition to suggest that railways played a role in precipitating the Revolution of 1868. Indeed, the Spanish economic historian Gabriel Tortella has long argued that by deciding to encourage railway development the state effectively trained the fledgling banking sector to channel scarce capital toward investments in railways in a manner that starved the manufacturing sector, thus unwittingly undermining the very industrialization process it was hoped such investments would encourage.23 These

23 Tortella, Banking, Railroads, and Industry in Spain, 277–340.

140 disastrous policies, he contends, contributed heartily to the economic collapse of the

1860s, which in turn eroded what little confidence the bourgeoisie had in the Isabelline regime. Putting it rather bluntly, concisely, and considerably more articulately in an article published in 1970, he suggested that “[t]he governments of the 1856–1868 era, like the sorcerer’s apprentice, saw in the railway an easy solution to all of their economic problems, without realizing that they were growing a monster that would end up devouring them all.”24

But, as this instructive quote makes clear, Tortella’s argument, like so much of the historiography of the Spanish railways in this period, is primarily an economic one.25

According to his analysis, the regime attempted to move Heaven and Earth in order to jumpstart its struggling economy. In the end these efforts were not just in vain but self- defeating, since they depleted state coffers, failed to inaugurate the anticipated economic outcomes, and ultimately destabilized the state to the point that interested parties resorted

24 Tortella, “Ferrocarriles, Economía y Revolución,” in Clara E. Lida and Iris M. Zavala, Joint Comp. La Revolucíon de 1868: Historia, Pensamiento, Literatura (New York: Las Americas Pub., 1970), 130-135, 135.

25 Tortella’s conclusions were part of a larger trend in Spanish historiography that sought to revise the previous interpretations of the causes of the revolution, interpretations that were rooted primarily in the raucous politics of the age. Through the work of Jaume Vicens Vives, Nicolás Sánchez Albornoz, Manuel Tuñón de Lara, and Josep Fontana, these older political narratives were overturned in favor of greater emphasis on economic causes. See: N. Sánchez Albornoz, “El trasfondo económico de la revolución,” Revista de Occidente, VI, 1968; Manuel Tuñon de Lara (ed.), Historiografía española contemporánea: X Coloquio del Centro de Investigaciones Hispánicas de la Universidad de Pau, balance Y resumen (Madrid: Siglo Veintiuno, 1980); J. Fontana, “Cambio económico y crisis política. Reflexiones sobre las causas de la Revolución de 1868,” in Cambio económico y actitudes políticas en la Españadel siglo XIX (Barcelona, Ariel, 1973). For an alternative contemporary interpretation see: Miguel Artola, La burgesía revolucinaria, 1808–1874 (Madrid: Alianza Universidad, 1981), 370–393. For summaries of the complex historiography of the Revolution of 1868 in Spain see: Rafael Serrano García, “El Sexenio Revolucionario (1868–1874)” Bulletin d’Histoire Contemporaine de l’Espagne, 17–18 (1993): 445–468 and Gregorio de la Fuente, “Actores y Causas de la Revolución de 1868,” in Rafael Serrano García (Ed.) España, 1868–1874: Nuevos enfoques sobre el Sexenio Democrático (Valladolid: Junta de Castilla Y León, Consejería de Educación y Cultura, 2002): 31–57.

141 to direct revolutionary intervention in order to restore confidence in the economy. While accepting these general conclusions, I contend, however, that railways played a more direct role in undermining confidence in the regime. Railways were physical manifestations of the modernization efforts of the regime and tangible outcomes of state investments. In this way, the regime could point to such infrastructure as evidence of the success of the state’s modernization efforts. Indeed, this is precisely what was occurring at each of the many railway inaugurations. But the series of railway accidents experienced in the mid-1860s as the economy precipitously declined, as well as the perception that such accidents were occurring at an alarming rate, undermined the narrative of modernization and provided potent evidence of the deficiencies of the regime. The coverage of railway accidents in the press transformed the accidents themselves into metaphors for the modernization efforts of the regime in a way that emphasized incompetence, corruption, indifference to public safety, and the absence of any responsiveness to public concern.

In addition to the healthy economic conditions of the late 1850s and early 1860s, the few years during which much of the early network was completed and put into operation was also a period of relative political stability under the rule of the liberal coalition party, Unión Liberal.26 The Unión Liberal had its origins in the aftermath of the

1854 Revolution, when General Leopoldo O’Donnell and General Baldomero Espartero

26 For more on Unión Liberal, see: Francesc A. Martínez Gallego, Conservar progresando: la Unión Liberal, 1856–1868 (Valencia: Centro Francisco Tomás y Valiente, UNED Alzira, 2001); Nelson Durán de la Rua, La Unión Liberal y la modernización de la España isabelina: una convivencia frustrada, 1854–1868 (Madrid: Akal, 1979); Jorge Vilches García, Progreso y libertad: el Partido Progresista en la revolución liberal Española (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 2001); Juan Francisco Fuentes, El fin del Antiguo Régimen, 1808–1868 (Madrid: Editorial Síntesis, 2007.), 195–236.

142 embraced in front of the crowd in an effort to demonstrate a practical political union of the rising factions of the revolution. But this initial union was less a political party than a collection of competing interests in search of a stability that never materialized.27 By the summer of 1858, however, O’Donnell had transformed the concept into a more formal coalition that he rode to power. With himself at the helm as Prime Minister between 1858 and 1863, Unión Liberal espoused a centrist and conservative liberal political position that was intended to reinvigorate the waning liberalism of the regime and create a comfortable home for Moderados and Progresistas willing to bury the hatchets they would otherwise have used against each other. Through unionism, they were encouraged to seek a path toward an alignment of interests.28 Far more practical than ideological,

O’Donnell’s unionism sought to encourage cooperation among Spain’s many fractious political groups, restore the constitution of 1845, preserve the social order, and protect the queen. Internationally, O’Donnell’s government pursued costly, though popular, military campaigns in Southeast Asia, North Africa, Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean.

These overseas adventures heightened the illusion that Spain was experiencing a renewal of international prestige, though in fact their successes were minor. Domestically, the government reaped the economic benefits of the wave of railway construction and euphoria, which reached a peak during this period.29 These economic benefits were also

27 Henry Butler Clarke, Modern Spain: 1815-1898 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1906), 235–262.

28 Raymond Carr, Spain, 1808–1975 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), 257–260.

29 Charles J. Esdaile, Spain in the Liberal Age: From Constitution to Civil War, 1808–1939 (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2000), 109–116.

143 largely illusory, though this would not become popularly understood until the start of the economic downturn of the 1860s.

The party’s motto, “to conserve while progressing,” reflected its intention to blend the concepts of stability and order with those of progress and prosperity.30 The combination was perceived by its supporters at least as largely effective, as the economy boomed and technological progress in the form of electrification and the expansion of the telegraph and railways seemed to be on the march.31 As a consequence, the regime achieved a level of stability it had sought for many years. As Isabel Burdiel explains in her biography of Isabel II, “[f]or the first time in her reign, the queen seemed capable of pacts and commitments based on shared interests with that sector of liberalism that, in the context of the Unión Liberal, guaranteed the defense of the throne.”32

Under the stable umbrella of unionism, between 1858 and the collapse of

O’Donnell’s unionist government in March 1863, there were at least ten major railway line openings. As was already recounted, these inaugurations were large staged events that showcased not only the lines and locomotives themselves, but also engineers, boosters, politicians, and quite frequently the royal family itself. These leaders of

30 María Sierra, María Antonia Peña Guerrero, and Rafael Zurita, Elegidos y elegibles: la representación parlamentaria en la cultura del liberalismo (Madrid: Marcial Pons Historia, 2010), 389.

31 Carlos Navarro y Rodrigo, O’Donnell y su tiempo (Madrid: Imprenta de la Biblioteca Universal Económica, 1869), 158–159.

32 Isabel Burdiel, Isabel II: una biografía (1830–1904) (Madrid: Santillana Ediciones Generales, 2010), 644–646.

144 industry and politics frequently held large feasts where they congratulated themselves on their accomplishments and toasted their own success and the queen.33

Figure 6: Inaugurating the Northern Railway in San Sebastián. El Museo

universal, Aug. 28, 1864.

The representatives of the Church played an integral part as well, since these inaugural events were choreographed to be at least partially religious ceremonies. A common technique was to roll the decorated locomotives past the attending representatives of the Church to be blessed as was described above.34 During the dedication of the Madrid to Guadalajara line, for example, a temporary chapel was

33 “Guadalajara,” Escenas contemporáneas, No. 2, 1859, 406; “Ferro-carril del Norte,” La Iberia, Jun. 25, 1861; La Corona, Jun. 29, 1861; “Inauguracion del Ferro-carril de Zaragoza á Pamplona,” El Contemporáneo, Sept. 21, 1861, El Contemporáneo, Sept. 24, 1861; La España, Sept. 18, 1861.

34 El Clamor público, May 5, 1858.

145 erected in front of the station specifically for this purpose.35 Other flourishes designed to blend the rituals of religion with the mechanics of industrialism included blowing the locomotive whistle at a moment designed to punctuate the completion of the blessing itself.36 The stagecraft was particularly dramatic during the opening of the Northern

Railway, where in San Sebastián an old bishop climbed down “from the altar in a cloud of perfumed smoke to place his hands on the locomotive, that emblem of progress and civilization.”37 In this way, the robed guardians of piety and tradition gave their imprimatur to the instruments of progress and industrialization.

Beyond functioning as a stage for ceremonial blessing, the ceremonies served a number of other symbolic and practical purposes. They operated as spectacular capstones to what had often been years of hard work and investments. For example, the Northern

Railway connecting Madrid with France and completed in 1864 had been first surveyed nearly twenty years earlier in 1845; and the physical construction of links in the line had begun by 1855 and likely earlier.38 Celebrating its completion with a lavish inauguration was both a triumphal statement and a cathartic release for the pressures of planning and construction. Beyond commemorating the blood, sweat, and treasure that had been poured into these rail lines, such celebrations also served to invite the public to recognize the practical utility of the new lines and to kindle an appreciation for them. Spectators

35 “Guadalajara,” Escenas contemporáneas, No. 2, 1859, 406.

36 “Inauguracion del Ferro-carril de Zaragoza á Pamplona,” El Contemporáneo, Sept. 21, 1861.

37 Anonymous, “Inauguracion del Camino de Hierro del Norte” El Museo universal, August 28, 1864, 274.

38 See chapter two of this work for more about the planning and construction of the Northern Railway line.

146 often came in the hundreds and thousands to see the decorated stations and locomotives and to hear the speeches of government ministers, representatives of the palace and even the royal family itself. Finally, the festivities served as promissory notes for a future that was being built of stone, iron, and steel. As a mildly enthusiastic report of one of these inaugurations noted, “we’ve grown used to the solemnity of these events in our country, which tends not only to demonstrate [the railway’s] importance but also to exhibit to the people the profits that it will yield.”39

As with so much of the fanfare accompanying the arrival of the railway in Spain, the inaugurations inspired a sense of increasing industrial progress which in turn spurred a heightened national pride in the writers in attendance. As had been common since the first moments of Spanish fascination with railways in the 1830s and 1840s, these feelings of accomplishment were packaged with a sense that Spain was finally leaving behind its difficult past as it narrowed the gap between itself and the rest of Western Europe, prompting renewed interest in a sense of brotherhood with its northern and more industrially developed neighbors. “Sevilla and Córdoba,” one writer attending the inauguration of the railway uniting these two Andalusian cities proclaimed, were about to

“reproduce in 1859 the scene that in 1830 took place . . . between Liverpool and

Manchester.”40 Remarking on the bridge over the Ebro River that formed part of the line from Zaragoza to Pamplona at its inauguration in 1861, a writer covering the celebration

39 “Guadalajara,” Escenas contemporáneas, No. 2, 1859, 405.

40 El Baron de Fuente de Quinto, “Inauguracion del Ferro-carril de Córdoba á Sevilla,” Mundo pintoresco, May 22, 1859.

147 proclaimed it a “magnificent work of art . . . without equal in Spain and rivaling or even exceeding” those in Europe and around the world.41

Touting the great achievement of the Northern Railway at its inauguration, numerous journalists covering the event declared proudly that “the Pyrenees no longer exist.”42 The remark, according to Voltaire, had first been uttered in triumph by Louis

XIV after placing his grandson Philip of Anjou on the Spanish throne in 1700.43 But in

1864 the Spanish public was eager to repurpose the phrase to suggest that Spain had now returned to the European fold after having been isolated by centuries of decline, poverty, and backwardness.44 The new railway will bring down the Pyrenees “for the good of

Spain,” one writer proclaimed, thus allowing Spain to “fully enter the concert of Europe and to occupy the position that is rightfully hers.”45 Another asserted that the inauguration “has been an international celebration, . . . as seven hundred people from both Paris and Madrid have intermingled . . . [and] solemnized the act of our perfect

41 El Contemporáneo, Sept. 24, 1861.

42 El Lloyd español, Aug. 14, 1864; La Discusión, Aug. 18, 1864; La Época, Aug. 17, 1864; La Época, Aug. 20, 1864; La España, Aug. 12, 1864; La Iberia, Aug. 20, 1864.

43 Peter Sahlins, Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 73.

44 La Discusión, Aug. 13, 1864, “Hubo un tiempo en que, como todos sabemos, España llegó á ser un gran centro en la historia universal. Por circunstancias harto fatales, que no debemos recordar en este instante, hemos ido perdiendo poco a poco aquella gran vitalidad; y hubiéramos muerto por consunción ó por olvido de las demás naciones, si tocados, por accidente, en lo mas delicado, y en lo mas hondo del corazón, no hubiera despertado nuestro pensamiento, al comenzar el siglo, con el grito de noble independencia.”

45 El Norte de Castilla, Aug 14, 1864, as quoted in Mikel Iturralde “La puerta europea,” El Diario vasco; retrieved May 31, 2018 at http://www.diariovasco.com/gipuzkoa/201408/22/puerta-europea- 20140822000240-v.html

148 union with civilized Europe.”46 Still another prompted readers to “[b]ehold the snows of the North taking the form of a great storm.” He continued:

It no longer matters. There are no longer Pyrenees. There are no longer Alps either. Spain, France and Italy, the three great Latin nations now shake hands through the mountain ranges that once divided them. The great [Latin] race, which is united in traditions, customs, and interests, may perhaps one day in the not too distant future be integrated, strong, and dominating as it has been in other ages.”47

Spain, these inaugural spectacles announced, had arrived in the modern world.

Elements of press and public alike shared a sense that Spain was finally throwing off its old shackles, dispensing with its old ways, and greeting a new and more prosperous future.48 Once left “sterilized by despotism . . . misery and war, [Spain] now rises from its prostration, and begins to live with that greatness that is characteristic and proper of our valiant race, strong even in its misfortunes, more free than other peoples, even under the weight of its chains,” one report on the opening of the Madrid to Escorial railway proclaimed.

The centuries of our fathers were centuries of blind faith, and that is why the Escorial represents them in all their greatness. Our century is a century of work, a century of science, a century of industry, a humanitarian century, and for that reason the railway is its audacious representative.49

The writer went on to describe the inauguration as a great “festival of industrialism” in

San Lorenzo del Escorial that greeted the arrival of the railway as one of the

46 “Inauguracion del Ferro-carril del Norte,” La Época, Aug. 17, 1864.

47 El Contemporáneo, Aug. 21, 1864.

48 España, Aug. 12, 1864.

49 La Discusión, July 2, 1861.

149

“announcements of Spain’s progress and future enlargement.”50 Such prospects, announced Isaac Pereire of Crédit Mobilier, the French banking company that had financed the construction of the line, were thanks to the great efforts of the queen,

“whose happy reign has overseen the remarkable development of these public works.”51

Indeed, even when Isabel II was not in attendance, her supposed efforts, often cloaked in vague language like Pereire’s, were frequently cited with enthusiastic vivas to her reign and her family.52

While the industrial development and economic benefits reaped in this period were considerable, these achievements were largely built on a foundation of sand.53

Occasionally, such realistic appraisal was even voiced in press reports coinciding with the inaugurations themselves, though such criticisms tended to be thinly veiled political jabs.54 But the essential hollowness of many recently-acclaimed achievements would become more obvious as the economic downturn that began in 1863 became more acute over the following years. Making matters worse, the failure of the promised economic

50 La Discusión, July 2, 1861.

51 La Época, Aug. 20, 1864. It is perhaps worth noting that such views were not necessarily shared by those in France, as was demonstrated through an article in Le Siècle, which saw fit to note that contrary to the enthusiastic cheers of the crowds in Spain its southern neighbor continued to lag a century behind France despite the advances in railway technology, La Corona, Aug. 22, 1864.

52 “Guadalajara,” Escenas contemporáneas, No. 2, 1859, 405; “Inauguracion del Ferro-carril de Zaragoza á Pamplona,” El Contemporáneo, Sept. 21, 1861, El Contemporáneo, Sept. 24, 1861; La España, Sept. 18, 1861.

53 See: Tortella, Banking, Railroads, and Industry, 311–340 and The Development of Modern Spain, 120–130; Rondo E. Cameron, France and the Economic Development of Europe, 1800–1914: Conquests of Peace and Seeds of War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), 263–269; Jordi Nadal, “Spain 1830–1914,” trans. John Street in Carlo M. Cipolla, ed. The Fontana Economic History of Europe (New York: Harvester Press/Barnes & Noble, 1976), 539–553; Burdiel, Isabel II, 648.

54 La Iberia, Aug. 13, 1864.

150 benefits to materialize exposed the scandalous financial adventurism and corruption at work behind the scenes.55 Even the obstinately supportive Gaceta de Caminos de Hierro eventually had to concede in 1864 that the heavy government investments in railways had not brought about the transformative economic effects so many boosters and enthusiastic supporters had expected and predicted.56 The delirious optimism of the previous few years, as each successive inauguration announced a new and brighter future, was transformed in relatively short order into pessimism and even despair as the economic situation worsened.

O’Donnell’s exit from government in March 1863 marked the beginning of a period of increasing disorder and political instability in Spain. The Progresistas launched their retraimiento, or boycott of politics, in the hope of inducing the Queen to form a

Progresista ministry, which she stubbornly refused to do.57 As was common before

O’Donnell’s Unión Liberal came to power in 1858, a string of Prime Ministers and their governments cycled in and out of office. Only two lasted more than a year. One of these was O’Donnell himself, called back to service in 1865 only to be dismissed again just over a year later when General Juan Prim launched one of his many failed coups, or

55 Durán de la Rua, La Unión Liberal y la modernización de la España isabelina, 306. Burdiel, Isabel II, 646–648; Josep Fontana and Ramón Villares, La época del liberalism in Historia de España, Vol 6 (Barcelona/Madrid: Crítica/Marcial Pons, 2007), 306–307; Germà Bel, Infrastructure and the Political Economy of Nation Building in Spain, 63.

56 “Pasado, Presente y Porvenir de los Ferro-carriles Españoles,” Gaceta de los caminos de hierro, Feb. 21, 1864.

57 Carr, Spain, 290–292.

151 pronunciamientos.58 All the while, the Queen became increasingly uneasy, isolated, and reliant on a shrinking clique of advisors.59

It’s an unfortunate but instructive coincidence that precisely when the Spanish economy was beginning to descend from the economic heights it had reached in mid-

1863, the nation experienced its worst rail disaster up to that moment.60 At approximately

6:00 pm on the evening of October 7, 1863 a passenger train carrying 68 travelers from

Gerona to Barcelona was making its way across a small river between the towns of

Hostalric and Breda when the engineer, unaware that the bridge had been washed out by a localized flood, sped over the torn tracks and crashed the train into the chasm below.

The machinists were “thrown more than thirty steps from the locomotive” as it plunged into the river, La España reported. Three cars quickly followed and toppled onto the wreck, another set followed these, while the last two cars remained on the track above.61

The scene, as the many witness descriptions published in the following days and weeks attested, resembled a mangled and grotesque staircase hanging from the edge of the ruined bridge and descending into the wreckage and the river below.62

58 Esdaile, Spain in the Liberal Age, 118–121.

59 For a detailed recounting of Isabel’s world during these tumultuous years see: Burdiel, Isabel II, 728–810.

60 López-Morell notes that it is in October of 1863 that the funds in the Caja General de Depósitos reached their highest level beginning a steady decline that would ultimately result in liquidation in 1868. Lopez-Morell, The House of Rothschild in Spain, 1812–1941 Trans. Stephen P. Hasler (Surrey, Eng: Ashgate, 2013), 144.

61 La España, Oct. 13, 1863.

62 La Correspondencia de España, Oct. 13, 1863; La Esperanza, Oct. 16, 1863; La España, Oct. 13, 1863.

152

Figure 7: The Derailment on the Breda Bridge. “Horroso Temporal”

Eleven injuries and twenty-one deaths were recorded; nineteen individuals died at the scene and two more swiftly succumbed to their injuries in the days that followed.63

One of the dead was a young girl who was lost to the raging current during the rescue.64

The poor girl’s father, a Mr. Negrini, was understandably distraught; her mother, also injured in the wreck, remained in the hospital, and whether or not she knew of her

63 Santiago LLensa de Gelcén y Jaime Coll Castanyer, “Recuerdo de la gran catástrophe ferroviaria occurrida entre Hostalrich y Breda (7 de octubre de 1863)” Annals de l’ Institut d’ Estudis Gironins, Vol. 17, 1964, 407-417.

64 La Corona, Oct. 11, 1863.

153 daughter’s unfortunate demise isn’t clear.65 In another story, a young man who rushed to the scene to help save passengers and retrieve bodies washed away in the river, eventually discovered to his great dismay that his own father, mother, and two brothers were among the dead. “Imagine, dear readers, the desperation of that wretch,” one report from the scene published in El Clamor público explained.66

Such tragic stories of personal loss resulting from the accident were churned out in the wake of the disaster by all manner of press outlets.67 Indeed, reports of the impact of the accident and deadly flood garnered even broader circulation, as is suggested by a broadside published by a Barcelona publishing firm. Bearing the title, “Horroroso

Temporal,” the two-page broadside includes crude engravings of the flooded town, the destroyed bridge, and of the train dangling into the choppy waters. Below these images are several dozen lines of dramatic verse recounting the tragic episode, dwelling on the dreadfulness of the bellowing thunder, the bodies strewn about, and the trapped passengers in the flooded carriages crying for help.68

65 La Correspondencia de España, Oct. 13, 1855.

66 El Clamor público, Oct. 16, 1863.

67 La Corona, Oct. 16, 1863; La Correspondencia de España, Oct. 13, 1863; La Esperanza, Oct. 16, 1863.

68 “Horroroso Temporal: Relacion circunstanciada de las desgracias acaecidas en la noche del 7 al 8 de Octubre . . . Víctimas y desgracias que ha ocasionado,” (Barcelona: Imprenta de Juan Llorens, 1863) included within Santiago LLensa de Gelcén y Jaime Coll Castanyer, “Recuerdo de la gran catástrophe ferroviaria occurrida entre Hostalrich y Breda (7 de octubre de 1863)” Annals de l’ Institut d’ Estudis Gironins, Vol. 17, 1964, 407–417.

154

. . . Divine Virgin Mary! The whole train has been demolished Mother of Consolation! and submerged in the river Give me strength some cars over others for to write the account. without consolation, without help.

Of this unprecedented catastrophe Those who were left alive of this great calamity, looking for salvation in the middle of the dark night are tossed into the river and in a terrible tempest. in the heart of the confusion.

The refulgent lighting streaks The rocks that came loose the terrifying thunder bellows are now disturbing the current and a thousand pitiful cries and becoming new obstacles full of terror and fear call out. that trample over the people.

They can be heard in the darkness, Others inside cars? imploring compassion They lament incessantly, but finding no help and they ask for relief in the midst of such devastation. which cannot reach them . . .

The following year, another devastating accident would bring these concerns back to the surface. This calamity occurred along the Madrid to Alicante line in the province of

Albacete near the small town of Villarrobledo. In the cold and dark early morning hours of December 17, 1864, the locomotive of a mail train with first and second class wagons in tow jumped the tracks and twisted itself into a mangled wreck. As the report published by several newspapers at the time described it, “the machine came apart and fell to the left of the road, dragging along its tender, which because of the abrupt jerk broke its hooks and overturned, embedding itself into the ground and slamming into the other carriages.”69 Several passengers in the second-class wagon were hurt and two were killed.

“The consternation was horrifying in the midst of darkness and intense cold,” La Iberia reported in its description of the events. The two deceased victims were a young married

69 La Soberanía nacional, Dec. 22, 1864; El Lloyd español, Dec. 24, 1864.

155 couple. Emphasizing for dramatic effect the couple’s humble social status, La Iberia solemnly noted that the “husband's remains were taken to Villarrobledo in a second-class car. Those of the wife were carried in another of the same class.”70 Likely recognizing that the sad story was a public relations disaster in the making, the railway company jumped into action, paying not only for the hospital expenses of those injured but for a

“luxurious funeral” for the deceased.71

Just a few days after the accident, the Progresista daily La Soberanía nacional published a front page above-the-fold editorial on the significance of the event. Justifying the prominence of the article, in a space usually reserved for news of the political sort, the paper noted that “there are some issues that, without being political, deserve a preferential place in newspapers that purport to be defenders of the public interest.” The article amplified the perception that devastating railway accidents were occurring frequently in Spain, and challenged officials to raise their standards to match those in place elsewhere on the continent, particularly to assess accountability for the operating companies and to ensure financial restitution to those injured or the surviving family members of those killed. The writer cited incidents abroad where relatively large sums were paid to individuals harmed by the railways. In one case, a few thousand Francs were given to a man who merely suffered a mild inconvenience. “This is how the public is

70 Extracted from La Iberia and reprinted in La Discución, Dec. 21, 1864.

71 La Correspondencia de España, Dec. 23, 1864; El Contemporáneo, Dec. 24, 1864; La Correspondencia de España, Dec. 30, 1864.

156 treated outside of Spain,” the writer exclaimed. There “the compensation to the public is real and true.”72

The editorial tore into the railway companies, charging them with gross negligence. It questioned how a gruesome accident could have occurred on such a level piece of track, and proposed that this latest tragedy was the outcome of the company’s efforts to sacrifice safety in order to squeeze out profits. And the companies, the article explained, have been able to make such tradeoffs with impunity. “What consequences has the company faced for these calamities and its own negligence?” it asked rhetorically.

“Absolutely none,” it tersely responded. Nor did the article exempt the government and the regime itself from responsibility, blaming “absolutism” and “centralization” for creating the environment in which such disasters would inevitably occur. It charged the regime with shamelessly increasing its own power and influence by handing out titles and elevating individuals, presumably with no aptitude for such positions, to be part of the regulatory apparatus of the state. The outcome of such myopic decisions, according to this damning article, was that the railway companies and the authorities of the state charged with regulating them had wittingly or unwittingly contributed to the creation of an elaborate scheme of self-serving corruption and scandalous cover-up. Everyone from the most insignificant negligent employee to company officials, the state inspectors, the ministerial press, and even the Council of State (Consejo de Estado), were all complicit in

“wrapping the disastrous accident in the deepest official silence.”73

72 La Soberanía nacional, Dec. 21, 1864.

73 Ibid.

157

Such harsh criticisms of the railway companies and the state were further emphasized in an open letter written by the (then) former deputy of the Congreso, trained road engineer, and future conspirator in the June 22, 1866 coup to overthrow the queen,

Práxedes Mateo Sagasta. In the letter, which La Iberia stated it had eagerly published,

Sagasta recounted in some detail the injuries and deaths from the accident. He also commended the mayor for acting quickly to bring medical help to the scene of the accident within a few hours. Concerning the railway company itself, however, he unleashed a brief torrent of criticism citing its failure to prepare resources for such events, leaving it helpless when they inevitably occurred. He noted how the injured had been left waiting in the open air for several hours while a train was fetched from

Albacete. And he ridiculed two government officials by name, Don José Campos and

Don Luis Mayans, for their cowardly behavior, insisting that they swiftly “returned to their quarters after the first moment of fright, and did nothing to help after the unfortunate event.”74

The volume of injuries on the railways during the following year mounted. In

January, for example, a derailment along the Northern Railway in the province of

Guipúzcoa killed three workers and seriously injured another.75 In April, an accident on the Barcelona to Gerona railway took the life of one worker and injured twelve more, four very seriously.76 This came on the heels of an accident in late March in Chinchilla,

Albacete that injured five. Three were injured in a June derailment along the Chinchilla

74 La Iberia, Dec. 23, 1864.

75 La Correspondencia de España, Jan. 15, 1865.

76 La Correspondencia de España, April 23, 1865.

158 to Cartagena line in the province of Murcia. In September, an express train and another traveling between Escorial and Madrid collided just outside of Torrelodones, northwest of Madrid. The accident resulted in thirteen travelers injured more or less seriously and another thirty receiving a variety of more minor bumps and bruises.77 The following month ten workers were injured when their train derailed at Almuradiel along the

Manzanares to Córdoba line.78 Then in November, a dramatic derailment at a flooded bridge over the Jalón River at Alagón in the province of Zaragoza killed two and injured about a dozen. During the accident two train cars detached from the locomotive and careened into the unforgiving waters of the river.79

The apparent frequency of these events further reinforced the perception that the railways in Spain were unsafe and that the companies and government regulatory authorities were negligent or worse. As a result, the reporting following the large disasters at Torrelodones and Alagón became especially critical. La Iberia’s published correspondence from the scene of the accident at Alagón referred to the seemingly persistent failures on the railways as a “prevailing epidemic.”80 La Nación and La

Regeneración called for strong government actions and declared they would no longer

77 La Época, Sept. 12, 1865; La Discusión Sept 12, 1865.

78 La España, Nov. 4, 1865.

79 La Época, Nov. 9, 1865; El Pensamiento español, Nov. 10, 1865; Diario oficial de avisos de Madrid, Nov. 10, 1865.

80 La Iberia, Nov. 11, 1865. The incidents detailed above are only a sampling of the many accidents that year. For summaries of the many others in that year and others see the Manuel J. Marcos Montero, “Accidentes Ferroviarios en España (orden de gravedad),” Federación Castellano Manchega de Amigos del Ferrocarril, June, 2015, http://www.fcmaf.es/Publicaciones/Accidentes_Ferroviarios_Espa%C3%B1a.pdf.

159 tolerate the “clumsy and defective” way the Northern railway was run.81 Six weeks later

La Nación remained unsatisfied, noting that despite the persistence of these disasters the remedies appear to “exist only on paper and the public’s hopes are almost always disappointed.”82 La Época took aim at the government, demanding that the Minister of

Development take strong action, lest the inspectors and government regulators become

“completely useless.”83 La Soberanía nacional was more forceful in its calls for justice and accountability, explaining that the numerous accidents had reduced Spain to a laughing stock and that only prompt and decisive action would be acceptable. “We will be watching,” it declared; “and by God, we will make the deaf hear, if the punishment” meted out to the company is not sufficiently harsh.84

La Discusión felt the condition of the Northern Railway to be sufficiently hazardous as to merit a series of articles on its many accidents and derailments. It condemned in the harshest possible terms the company’s “unspeakable greed,” and the government’s “scandalous abandonment” of its duty to enforce accountability.85 In the series the newspaper detailed the many laws and regulations that were broken or ignored in the construction and operation of the line. It pointed a finger directly at the company of the Northern Railway for treating the laws as though they were a “child’s toy,” and at the governmental regulatory authorities for their complicity in abetting these violations. This

81 La Nación, Sept. 13, 1865; La Regeneración, Sept. 14, 1865.

82 La Nación, Nov. 24, 1865.

83 La Época, Sept. 12, 1865.

84 La Soberanía nacional, Sept. 11, 1865.

85 La Discusión, Sept. 12, 1865.

160 flagrant abuse and willful ignorance on the part of the government, the newspaper declared, had “made a cemetery out of a public road.”86 Clearly exasperated with the company’s ability to avoid accountability it asked rhetorically, “Are there no prisons?”87

Such powerful accusations directed toward the instruments of official authority would become even more pointed and politically significant two years later during another major railway accident. This time the Queen herself was involved. The context of the accident is particularly interesting because it occurred during the inaugural celebration of the completion of the Ciudad Real to Badajoz line in November 1866. The highlight of the inaugural ceremonies was the planned trip the Queen and her husband were to make from Madrid to Lisbon along the newly minted line.88 Catastrophe struck near the start of the journey on December 9th in the small town of Daimiel, situated about

20 kilometers to the east of Ciudad Real. There, a large crowd of locals had gathered to watch the Queen’s train pass in the mid-afternoon sun, possibly knowing that the train was scheduled to stop for about ten minutes. Preceding the royal train was a scouting locomotive. As this scout approached, the large crowd shifted, thinking it was the Queen and trying to get a better look. The result, however, was that many in the crowd were pushed onto the tracks.89 The scouting engine had not intended to stop and was steaming in at about 75 kilometers an hour. When the operator realized the crowd had moved over the tracks, he attempted to throw the brakes and cut the steam; but it was too late. As a

86 La Discusion, Sept. 13, 1865.

87 La Discusión, Sept. 12, 1865.

88 Francisco Wais, Historia de los ferrocarriles españoles, 1830-1941 (Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1967), 118-120.

89 La Época, Dec. 12, 1866.

161 letter published by La Época reported, “[t]he locomotive threw itself on top of the thronging crowd with lightning speed, overwhelming everything in its path.”90

One can only imagine the gruesome scene, but the number of casualties provides some indication of the extent of the disaster. Seven were killed on site and another 27 were injured, many very seriously.91 Of the dead, most were children, a few as young as

10 and 11.92 Carlos Marfori, one of the Queen’s closest advisors, penned the early report on the accident published in La Gaceta de Madrid, where he placed responsibility for the disaster on the “incompetence” of the operator who was recklessly traveling at a speed far in excess of his ability to take prudent precautions to avoid the calamity. As for the queen, Marfori insisted that once she heard of the accident she was “impelled by her noble and charitable feelings and love for her people” to provide support from her own pocket so that “the wounded are attended to and lack for nothing.”93 This much appears to have been true, and Isabel was greeted with great enthusiasm when she returned to the site of the accident a few days later to express her condolences and visit the injured. A letter detailing the royal visit was published in La Época and described the large crowd that lined the street to watch the Queen enter the city and visit the injured. Speaking

90 La Época, Dec. 15, 1866.

91 Ibid.

92 El Pabellón nacional, Dec. 29, 1866.

93 La Gaceta de Madrid, Dec. 13, 1866; The Madrid, Alicante, and Zaragoza railway company (MZA) also pitched in 10,000 reales toward this end.

162 through tears and sobs, she announced that “[s]hort of returning life to the dead, which I have not the power to do, I pledge my word to do everything else.”94

Those few bold enough to criticize the regime during this moment of national tragedy did so with gusto, as a proclamation of revolution issued on January 1, 1867 reveals.

Just yesterday the execrable, frightful crime of Daimiel was brought to conclusion, when Doña Isabel de Borbón, running in pursuit of a new intrigue or a new distraction, passed over a dozen corpses, rubbing her foot and her finery against the broken skulls of the unfortunate ones impelled to that place by the whip of the government, but not finding in her unholy soul that it was right to devote to that immense misfortune a minute, a single minute of attention, of comfort and protection.95

The press, however, which had grown emboldened in its criticism in the previous years, was muted after this event, largely because of intimidation from the regime. Those publications that had vented their frustrations over the scandalous condition of the

Northern Railway most stridently just a year earlier, La Soberanía nacional and La

Discusión, had been suspended for supporting the uprising against the queen in June

1866. As a result, any denunciations their editors and writers might have issued after the

Daimiel disaster are lost to posterity. As for those major dailies that remained in print, even La Nación and La Época, which had issued a generous volume of criticism themselves the year before, were suddenly and predictably quite restrained in their coverage. One outlier was the satirical magazine Gil Blas, which poked fun at the numerous reports that routinely blamed the thick fog for the disaster with a comedic piece

94 La Época, Dec. 21, 1866; La España, Dec. 21, 1866 published another much shorter account that also described the Queen speaking to the injured through tears and sobs.

95 Quoted in Burdiel, Isabel II, 791.

163 that included excerpts from an interview with “Señora niebla.”96 But even this gentle sarcastic barb written by one of the magazine’s founders, Luis Rivera, was cloaked in vagueness, reading more like poetry than prose. The fear of having their operations shuttered should any criticism of the government’s negligence be interpreted as criticism of the queen herself likely accounts for the restrained behavior of these press outlets. For it is certainly not the case that the public lacked interest in the Daimiel incident, as there were numerous stories and updates detailing the events and reports for weeks and months about the improving health of the injured and the efforts of the diputación and ayuntamiento in Ciudad Real to gather contributions for their benefit.97

Nor had the public enjoyed much respite from the specter of railway accidents before disaster struck again in March 1867. This time a train traveling between Madrid and Toledo, and carrying multiple passenger cars, derailed on a piece of damaged track just outside of Getafe. Early descriptions in the press differed about the number of injured, but the highest estimate was over thirty, with some individuals very seriously hurt.98 As in the aftermath of the Daimiel accident, criticism from the press was largely suppressed or self-censored. But, in what may be an indication of the weakening power of the regime, some critiques did reach the public, though these did not include explicit attacks on the conduct of the government. For example, the Neo-Catholic weekly journal

La Cruzada used the occasion to issue a nostalgic call to the earlier and simpler time

96 Luis Rivera, “Lo Que Corre por Ahí,” Gil Blas, Dec. 16, 1866.

97 El Pabellón nacional, Dec. 28, 1866; La España, Dec. 21, 1866; La España, Feb. 19, 1867; La España, Jan. 22, 1867.

98 El Imparcial, Mar. 28, 1867; Diario official de avisos de Madrid, Mar. 28, 1867.

164 when people traveled by covered wagon.99 Others echoed some of the same sentiments voiced following the Villarrobledo disaster just a little more than two years earlier. The

Moderado newspaper El Pabellón nacional, for its part, decried the negligence of the employees and especially the “pitiful state” of the rail line itself. It asked that other press outlets join in its demand for more accountability, better and more knowledgeable engineers, and directors who will do “what is necessary to avoid the misfortunes that come every day to our attention.”100

Similar muted attention was paid to the derailment at Calahorra, La Rioja in July of 1868, where a washed out bridge resulted in five injuries, one of them grave.101 By this time, however, Isabel II’s hold on power was rapidly diminishing. The two pronunciamientos of 1866 had rattled the queen and, even though both had been successfully suppressed by loyal generals, they exacerbated the already tumultuous political and economic environment. Despite being snubbed by the queen and living in exile in Biarritz, O’Donnell remained eternally loyal to Isabel, refusing to join the growing ranks of the conspiracy against her. When he died in November of 1867, however, other generals who had been reluctant to side with the conspiracy perhaps out of respect for O’Donnell changed course. Incompetent leadership and indecision from

Isabel put wind in the sails of the emerging threat to her power. When Juan Prim’s ultimately successful pronunciamiento was declared in Cádiz on September 18, 1868, the queen’s hold on power was so feeble that cities and garrisons declared against her like

99 “Variedades: El mes de marzo,” La Cruzada, Mar. 31, 1867.

100 El Pabellón nacional, Mar. 30, 1867.

101 El Pabellón nacional, July, 17, 1868; El Imparcial, July 17, 1868.

165 dominoes, until by the end of the month the last of her loyal generals had been defeated at

Alcolea and she crossed into France and into permanent exile.102

Conclusion

That the desperate situation of the queen in the fall of 1868 contrasts so sharply with the seeming stability of her regime just five years earlier is a testament to the extent to which she had lost the confidence of Spanish liberals. Against the backdrop of a deteriorating economic situation, the railway accidents examined here revealed another and even more profound aspect of the crisis that brought down Isabel II. The promise of modernization and Europeanization offered to the public during numerous railway inaugurations had been broken in the economic disorder and exposed as illusory or fraudulent by way of the tragedies of the many railway accidents. While it is not possible to discern or disaggregate the extent to which the railway accidents and the perception that they were occurring at an accelerating rate undermined a government and a queen who were threatened on many fronts, it would be a misstep to dismiss the impact of such persistent catastrophes. During the era of railway euphoria, the queen and her government had presided over a particularly ambitious and frenzied period of development. The

Queen’s presence at opening ceremonies and celebrations of the success of this large- scale endeavor made her a symbol of the modernization process and the hopes and dreams attached to it. As a result, she and her government bore a heavy burden of responsibility for the tragedies that such development brought in its train. The fact that the press could point to poor workmanship, negligence, and corruption in the background

102 Esdaile, Spain in the Liberal Age, 119–120.

166 to tragic events on the railways exacerbated the problem and further implicated the regime. Ultimately, the queen’s authority was undermined entirely and the wave of revolution crashed over her in 1868. At least some of the force of that wave had emerged in the vacuum created between the resonant call of modernization promises and the wrecked reality revealed after each railway accident. Nor would the perceived failure of modernization claim only the queen as a casualty. As the following and final chapter of this work demonstrates, the Carlists reemerged in the aftermath of the revolution with newly refined arguments about the consequences of industrialization that sought to turn the common liberal argument for the civilizing effect of industrialization and the railways on its head.

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Chapter V A Clash of Two Civilizations

In mid-August of 1864, despite the increasingly obvious economic depression that was settling like a black cloud over the nation, Spaniards around the country and particularly in Madrid and the north were eagerly celebrating the opening of the Northern

Railway connecting the capital with the French border at Irún. The celebrations held in

San Sebastián, which included a royal visit by Queen Isabel II herself, were spectacular displays of pageantry, rivaling and even surpassing the many previous inaugurations staged over the previous decade.1 This is hardly surprising, as the development of a railway line connecting Madrid with France had long been a dream of many and the project had been well underway for over a decade.

After watching the impressive celebration and inauguration, a writer for the liberal newspaper El Contemporáneo used the occasion to remark upon the progress

Spain had made during its march into the modern world and its current unification with the rest of Europe. The railway to France was of immense importance “for the future of our nation, since it puts us in rapid and direct communication with almost the entire

European continent,” he remarked. Such lines of communication would prove “a moral and material benefit” and “a fountain of wealth,” “pairing elements of civilization with a greater ease in communication with other countries, all marching toward modernity.”

1 Anonymous, “Inauguracion del Camino de Hierro del Norte” El Museo universal, August 28, 1864, 274.

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“Here,” the writer continued, “is one of the true, one of the most legitimate phases of the

[liberal] revolution as we understand it, and as it is understood by the sensible majority of the country.” 2

As this last line demonstrates, the writer recognized the railway itself as a testament to the success of liberalism in Spain and in Europe in general. Only, he suggested, an irrational minority could refuse to recognize this reality. Channeling the spirits of liberal economists like Adam Smith, the writer mused that the railway would serve to compel the people of France and Spain to dispense with the ancient desire to compete for resources, and would instead bring about “the extension of a social principle that unites men and nations,” a principle that encourages creative competition rather than war.

These are the consequential truths of the liberal principle in science, in philosophy, and in politics. These are the legitimate results of the constitutional regime. . . . The locomotive, the electric telegraph and the press are the body of the [liberal] revolution; the rostrum, the newspaper, the book, are its soul; . . . together they create civilization.3

These bold claims did not, however, go unnoticed by writers for the Neo-Catholic periodical, El Pensamiento español.4 Rather than commenting on the inauguration directly, a writer for the newspaper instead penned a direct challenge to the line of reasoning expressed in the El Contemporáneo article. Indeed, the writer withheld judgement on the inauguration and the railway itself, declaring diffidently that it “may or

2 El Contemporáneo, August 14, 1864.

3 Ibid.

4 El Pensamiento Español (est. 1860) was the most recently established of the three major Carlist outlets in the press operating before the Revolution of 1868, the others being La Esperanza (est. 1844) and La Regeneración (est. 1855).

169 may not prove useful” for Spain. Making such a determination, he insisted, was not the writer’s immediate concern. What he found contemptible and worthy of condemnation was the enthusiasm which the liberal writer and presumably his readership felt for the wealth and material enjoyment waiting for Spaniards in the liberal fantasy described in the column. If the locomotive and the electric telegraph are the body of the revolution, the El Pensamiento writer proclaimed, then so be it. But, he continued, these useful inventions must be considered as only small consolations in an otherwise wholly objectionable liberal program, the victims of which include:

those who were mutilated and decapitated by Cromwell's sword; the thousands slaughtered and drowned by the principles of 1789; those of the ruined temples, profaned altars, murdered priests, treasures of the Church transferred to sacrilegious hands, bishops separated from their dioceses and locked in dungeons; sacred virgins expelled from their cloisters, lakes of blood and an abyss of blasphemy and impiety everywhere. 5

The imagery and the fiery tone employed by this writer were unusual in this period, even within the traditionalist and openly Carlist press. Despite their stated and unequivocal hostility toward liberalism, these press outlets did not make a habit of rebuking the constitutional regime’s official position on the railways, especially not during important inaugural ceremonies like those in San Sebastián. As was noted in chapter four, publications that challenged the legitimacy of the regime could face stiff penalties. But this article is instructive not so much for its rhetorical indignation, which was acute, but rather for the way the writer appears to make an exception for the railway.

This is to say that underneath this aggressive and combative tone was a subtle defense of the fruit of liberalism in Spain. The railway, which was the focus of the El

5 El Pensamiento Español, August 15, 1864.

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Contemporáneo piece, was conveniently moved out of the line of fire just before the traditionalist writer unloaded his accusations against the achievements of the liberal state, cursing it as the unwanted child of regicide and the enemy of the Church.

This ability to condemn the liberal state for all manner of atrocities while simultaneously withholding judgement on the most obvious industrial fruits of that liberalism is a reflection of the transformation Carlists and traditionalists in Spain were undergoing in the 1860s. At that time the pace of railway construction was only beginning to slow as the economy started to cool. As the previous chapter demonstrated, over the ten preceding years Spaniards had been witness to a veritable carnival of railway development as one line and station after another opened to great public delight and official enthusiasm. These transformations, and the excitement they generated, were not lost on the Carlists. Partially in response to these developments, the Carlists recalibrated their signature obduracy to account for the emerging Spanish embrace of a coming industrial future, of which the railways were only the first manifestation. The article in El

Pensamiento español is a window into this Carlist position just as it was emerging in the years before the 1868 Revolution.

Thus, the version of Carlist thought that emerged in the post-Revolution of 1868 environment was one that remained hostile to the principles of liberalism but had largely reconciled itself, albeit uncomfortably, with the material consequences of liberal principles, such as industrialization and technological modernization. Indeed, as I’ll demonstrate in this chapter, Carlist press outlets frequently emphasized that their brand of traditionalism could exert a stabilizing and calming influence over a nation that appeared to be coming apart at the seams. Catalan industrialists, Carlists insisted, should recognize

171 that only Spanish traditionalism, a revitalized Church, and the steady hand of the pretender Don Carlos VII could save them from socialist hordes that would otherwise tear them limb from limb.6

As I’ve demonstrated in the previous four chapters, those advocating for the development of railways did so with a rhetoric that conflated civilization with modernization; and they touted the great material benefits that would accrue to Spain in the future because of these modernizing efforts as evidence of the righteousness of their position. In this chapter, I argue that Carlism, the indomitable enemy of Spanish liberalism, sought to undermine the liberal monopoly on civilization by crafting a competing definition of the concept. Through the vehicle of a newly robust traditionalist press, the Carlists of the 1860s and 1870s built a case for a brand of Spanish civilization that would include the restoration of order, stability, traditionalism, and the Church.

These, they argued, had been abandoned in the reckless pursuit of material gain over the previous three decades. Instruments of modernization like the railways were not obstacles to the establishment of this redefined civilization. In fact, they could be made consistent with a traditionalist vision of civilization by substituting the goals of social harmony and the preservation of Spanish traditions for the pernicious pursuit of mere material accumulation.

Liberal politicians and press outlets, however, were reluctant to recognize this reformulation of traditionalist ideas and the resultant Carlist version of the progress of civilization. Instead, they countered the Carlist entreaties by presenting an image of

Carlism that remained backward looking and antagonistic to industrialization and

6 Valentín Gómez, “La Revolución y la Industria,” Altar y Trono, May 13, 1869.

172 technological progress. This liberal interpretation of Carlism was most aggressively articulated during the course of the Second Carlist War (1872 – 1876), as the defenders of the liberal state frequently highlighted Carlist attacks on railway infrastructure, characterizing these attacks as assaults on the modernizing progress of Spain. The liberal press, I argue, recognized that condemning Carlism as a backward-looking brand of anti- modernism was a useful tool for a liberal state that sought to tout its accomplishments as a defense of its own self-preservation. The Carlists, liberals argued, would take Spain back to the seventeenth century; and their repeated attacks on the railways over the course of the war were, so they claimed, evidence of this. The destruction of tracks and the burning of bridges and depots, the liberal press contended, were evidence of the fact that the Carlist forces offered not civilization but barbarism. In this way, the liberal press transformed what were clearly Carlist military maneuvers to weaken or restrain the enemy by destroying its transport infrastructure, into manifestations of a Carlism that was openly hostile to technology like the railways. This effort further served to reinforce the decades-old narrative that the liberal state was the true defender of Spanish modernization and civilization.

The argument here is built on a foundation of historical works that have endeavored over the last few decades to broaden our understanding of the Carlist movement beyond the reflexive and reactionary models constructed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. When historians in that era deigned to consider Carlism at all, they tended to dismiss the movement as a quixotic call for a wholesale return to the seventeenth or eighteenth century. These older dismissals of Carlist thought and goals attracted some revisionist criticism in the 1970s. But it was with the 1984 publication of

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Vicente Garmendia’s La ideología carlista (1868–1876) en los orígenes del nacionalismo vasco that historians finally began to undertake serious efforts to revisit and reinterpret the Carlist critique of liberalism in the nineteenth century. In this large and impressive work, Garmendia dismantled the persistent notion that Carlists lacked a coherent ideological core, and in doing so set the stage for additional works that would continue the process of rescuing Carlism from scholarly disdain.7 In 1992 Julio Montero Díaz published El estado carlista: principios teóricos y práctica política (1872–1876), which explored the development and application of Carlist ideas within the areas they controlled during the Second Carlist War.8 In 1995, Alexandra Wilhelmsen published La formación del pensamiento político del carlismo (1810–1875), which represented the culmination of nearly two decades of work on Carlism and presented a detailed and sophisticated view of Carlist thought, with all its nuances and occasional contradictions.9 More recently,

Douglas Victor Askman, in his 2001 dissertation The Renovation of the European Right:

The Case of Spanish Carlism, 1868–1872, studied the Carlist press to reconstruct and analyze the traditionalist position in the post-1868 political environment, revealing a

7 Vicente Garmendia, La ideología carlista (1868–1876) en los orígenes del nacionalismo vasco (Guipúzcoa: Diputación Foral de Guipúzcoa, 1984). See also: Vicente Garmendia, Vicente Manterola, canónigo, diputado y conspirador carlista (Vitoria: Caja Vitoria, 1976); La segunda guerra carlista (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1976); “Aspectos ideológicos del carlismo” in Antecedentes próximos de la sociedad vasca actual. Siglos XVIII y XIX. IX Congreso de Estudios Vascos (1983): 65–78.

8 Julio Montero Díaz, El estado carlista, Principios teóricos y práctica política (1872–1876) (Madrid: Fundación Hernando de Larramendi, 1992). See also: Montero Díaz, “Prensa y propaganda en el Estado carlista (1872–1876),” Historia y Comunicación Social, No. 4 (1999): 89–134.

9 Alexandra Wilhelmsen, La formación del pensamiento politico del carlismo (1810–1875) (Madrid: Actas, 1995). See also: Wilhelmsen, “Carlos VII or an Introduction to Carlism,” Iberian Studies, VIII, 1 (Spring 1979): 25–37; “The Conspiracy of La Rápita and the Carlist Theory of the Two Legitimacies,” in Marginated Groups in Spanish and Portuguese History W.D. Phillips and C.R. Phillips, eds. Minneapolis: Society for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies, 1989, 127–137; “The Theory of Spanish Political Traditionalism (1810–1875): Realism and Carlism,” in Identidad y nacionalismo en la España contemporánea: El Carlismo (1833–1975) (Madrid: Editorial Actas, 1996), 44–54.

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“complex and reasoned philosophy that went beyond a naïve reaction to the advent of liberalism and modern society.”10

While none of these works addresses the role of the railway in the development of

Carlist ideology directly, they do touch on the efforts Carlist thinkers made to adapt their core resistance to liberalism to the economic and industrial transformation that had greatly transformed Spain in the three decades since the end of the First Carlist War. The railways, as I’ve argued throughout this dissertation, were an integral part of these modernizing transformations. For most Spaniards, especially those living in rural areas where Carlism was strongest, the locomotives that moved loudly across the countryside and through their small villages represented the only form of industrialization they could point to or had ever seen. When Carlists and other traditionalists rationalized their support for continuing the process of industrialization and modernization that had begun under the watch of the liberal regime, they implicitly conceived of the railways as an important part of this process, even if they didn’t always say so explicitly.

Significantly, the emerging Carlist position of the post-1868 Revolution era coincided with the rise of a new Carlist pretender, Don Carlos VII, self-styled duque de

Madrid. He was the grandson of Don Carlos V, who had failed in his military bid for the throne in 1839 at the conclusion of the First Carlist War (1833 – 1839) and renounced his right to rule a few years later. Notwithstanding this seemingly insurmountable failure for the Carlist movement, the dream of ousting Isabel II and putting one of his line in her place persisted throughout her reign. In addition to the efforts of sympathetic Catholic

10 Douglas Victor Askman, “The Renovation of the European Right: The Case of Spanish Carlism, 1868-1872,” (PhD diss., UCLA, 2001), 6.

175 newspapers to guard the flame of Carlism in the press, there were also a handful of

Carlist-inspired insurrections in Spain in the decades following the First Carlist War.

These included the turmoil of the three-year Guerra de los Matiners begun in 1846, sometimes called the Second Carlist War, as well as the insurrection of 1855 led by Don

Carlos’s son, Carlos Luis de Borbón y Braganza (Carlos VI to his supporters and the

Count of Montemolín to most everyone else), and this same son’s second failed attempt at insurrection at San Carlos de la Rápita south of Terragona in 1860. This last attempt was a dramatic failure from the start. Montemolín arrived equipped with little more than his overoptimistic belief that his arrival would soon inspire insurrections across Spain and the abdication of the queen herself. The uprisings he believed imminent, however, never came. When the operation fell apart within a day of reaching the shores of Spain,

Montemolín was forced to go into hiding. He was eventually discovered and ingloriously compelled to sign away his claim on the throne in exchange for a pardon and a way out of the country. The following year he and his entire immediate family died suddenly of cholera or typhoid fever while in Trieste.11

With Montemolín having died without an heir, his brother Juan inherited the duty and burden of continuing the quixotic Carlist mission. Juan, however, was not the traditionalist his brother had been. Nor does he appear to have had the political ambition of the previous pretenders. These weaknesses were recognized and highlighted by his own mother, the Portuguese-born María Teresa de Braganza, the Princess of Beira, who

11 Edgar Holt, The Carlist Wars in Spain (London: Putnam, 1967), 212–224. For an analysis of the significance of the Rápita conspiracy, see Alexandra Wilhelmsen’s “The Conspiracy of La Rápita and the Carlist Theory of the Two Legitimacies,” in Marginated Groups in Spanish and Portuguese History, 127– 137.

176 had continued to kindle the Carlist fires long after the death of Don Carlos V had made her a widow. In 1861, she wrote a letter to Juan in which she attempted to convince him either to abandon his liberal tendencies or to abdicate.12 Three years later, she again put her concerns to print in a long letter addressed to the Spanish people in which she dismissed her son’s right to rule and boldly declared that her grandson “Carlos VII is our leader.”13 In 1868, Juan finally decided to bow to the mounting pressures surrounding him. He abdicated and opened the door for his son, Carlos María de Dolores de Borbón y

Austria-Este, who became Carlos VII, Duke of Madrid.14

Carlos VII had been born in Ljubljana, Slovenia in 1848 and raised in the cities of

Modena, Prague, and Venice. His mother, María Beatriz Victoria de Saboya, had tried to keep him out of Carlist politics. Famously, she once went so far as to turn away Carlos

V’s loyal general in the First Carlist War, Ramón Cabrera, when the venerable officer attempted to pay the young Carlos a visit in Prague in 1861.15 Carlos, however, gravitated to the Carlist cause despite the laudable efforts of his mother and at least partially because of the influence of María Teresa de Braganza, who had been championing him as a more suitable option to her liberal son since at least 1861. From her modest home in

12 Wilhelmsen’s “The Conspiracy of La Rápita and the Carlist Theory of the Two Legitimacies,” 130.

13 Jaime de Burgo Torres, Carlos VII y su tiempo: Leyenda y realidad (Navarra: I.G. Castuera. Torres de Elorz, 1994), 121–126; Melchor Ferrer, Historia del Tradicionalismo Español, Vol. XXII (Sevilla: Editorial Católica Española, n.d.), 233–253.

14 Wilhelmsen, “Carlos VII or an Introduction to Carlism,” 30–31.

15 Jaime de Burgo Torres, Carlos VII y su tiempo, 115–118.

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Trieste, she kept a close watch on Carlos and hoped to inspire in him the same passion she felt for Spain and the cause of Carlism.16

In the aftermath of the Revolution of 1868, the Carlist press and important traditionalist intellectuals like Antonio Aparisi y Guijarro helped to craft and popularize an image of the young pretender, positioning him as the champion of Spanish traditionalism and Spanish Catholicism. The portrait they curated and publicized was of a young man who was precociously patriotic and attuned to the interests of the Spanish nation despite having lived outside of its borders for his entire life. As a young teenager,

Aparisi wrote in letters published by La Esperanza and El Siglo futuro, Carlos had eagerly read and written about his greatest heroes, James I of Aragón and El Cid. Indeed, these publications argued that throughout much of his youth he cultivated a preternatural interest in Spain and all things Spanish. Nor, they insisted, had he been softened or corrupted by a pampered life at court. Instead, he had been toughened by hardship and maintained simple and modest tastes. He was, they endeavored to convince their readers, the model of Christian piety and Spanish ruggedness, the perfect traditionalist Spanish champion.17

This propaganda notwithstanding, the position Carlos VII and his supporters staked out on liberalism was decidedly more tolerant than that established by his grandfather. The young pretender was quite conscious of this fact. Musing about the efforts of his grandfather decades before, Don Carlos VII insisted that:

My grandfather was a saint, but he was not qualified to be a monarch, and [not] a nineteenth century monarch. I would be failing in my mission were I to hoist the

16 Ibid., 121–126; Holt, The Carlist Wars in Spain, 227–228.

17 Askman, “The Renovation of the European Right,” 144–145.

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same flag in the civil war. I am a young man who has a claim to the throne of Charles V and Isabel the Catholic, but a young man born in exile and in the middle of the nineteenth century.18

The reasons for establishing this distance between his efforts in the early 1870s and those of his grandfather decades earlier were both practical and understandable. Spain was no longer the country it had been in the 1830s when Carlist armies marched and died for

Dios, Patria, Fueros and Rey. Largely because of the failure of the First Carlist War, liberalism had become fully entrenched in Spanish politics by the late 1860s. Despite

Isabel II’s numerous shortcomings, it was under her unsteady hand that Spain had begun to benefit, albeit unevenly and unsustainably, from the liberalization of the economy and investments in modernization and infrastructure projects like the railways. The Carlist argument for traditionalism, as expressed by Carlos VII and his surrogates in the press, had to take these factors into account. What emerged was a sophisticated if somewhat vague reinterpretation of traditionalism as the embrace of Spain’s traditional institutions as a means of forging a better future. As Alexandra Wilhelmsen appropriately and concisely put it, “[f]or Don Carlos [VII], Tradition did not mean the past; it meant the future.”19

The attempt to reconcile Carlism in the 1860s and 1870s with this reality is most apparent from the stream of propaganda and news coverage churned out by the Carlist press. The post-Revolutionary period was a watershed moment for press freedom in nineteenth-century Spain, and a great surge of publications emerged into the public sphere once the provisional government issued its proclamation of unfettered freedom of

18 Carlos Seco Serrano, Tríptico carlista (Barcelona: Editorial Ariel, 1973), 150.

19 Wilhelmsen, “Carlos VII or an Introduction to Carlism,” 32.

179 the press. In the first three months following the fall of the monarchy no fewer than 98

Madrid periodicals were founded and entered circulation. Over the following two years, another nearly 250 were established, and the total number of Madrid publications would reach nearly 600 just a few years later.20 The Carlist press greatly benefited from this press boom. Once restrained and censored during Isabel II’s reign, the Carlist press experienced a renaissance of productivity and growth in the aftermath of the revolution.

In the five years following the Revolution, over 150 new explicitly Carlist periodicals emerged throughout Spain.21 These periodicals amplified the traditionalist voice in the public sphere. More importantly, these new voices added a level of dynamism and complexity to an ancient régime traditionalist position that was no longer palatable to those who had become accustomed to the modern nineteenth-century world ushered in by liberalism.

This more nimble Carlist position on modernization and industrialization began to pour from the pages of the Carlist and traditionalist press as journalists explored their new freedom in the aftermath of the Revolution. An example of this emerging position appeared in an eloquent piece published by El Pensamiento just weeks after the queen had fled across the border into France. Almost certainly penned by the historical novelist and journalist Francisco Navarro Villoslada, the long article proposed to save Spain from the anarchy and uncertainty that he sensed were then building to critical mass in the

20 Henry F. Schulte, The Spanish Press, 1470–1966: Print, Power, and Politics (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1968), 205.

21 Askman, “The Renovation of the European Right,” 18–19.

180 nation. Assuming the voice of the new king he demanded, he called out to “all of the classes comprising my people:

come the Clergy, come the nobility, come the military, come trade and industry, and come the most numerous and most needy class of all, the poor . . . I will give freedom and protection to trade, freedom and protection to industry, freedom and protection of property, and to the poor [I will give] the bread of order [and] the work that is their true freedom.22

Rather than seeking to reverse the progress of Spanish industrialism over the previous decades of liberal rule, the emerging Carlist press positioned Carlism as its natural savior. Writers asked Spaniards tied to the interests of the industrial class to reflect on the benefits that had accrued to them over the extended period of liberalism. It was not, they reminded their readers, a particularly pleasant story. Liberal industrial policies and materialism had brought further impoverishment of the working classes, general disorder, and national degradation. Appealing directly to the interests of the fledgling industrialists of Catalonia, the Carlist outlet Altar y Trono asked them:

What can you expect from the revolution? we say to the industrialists of Catalonia and those of all Spain. If you were blinded by the fallacious glimmer of false promises and utopian theories, then you were led by the revolutionary current thirty years ago when an unknown world presented itself to your eyes. But today you have seen what that world contains; today it calls for you to open your doors to free-markets, and with the free-markets your ruin and the ruin of the nation, what do you expect?23

What they should expect from these failed liberal fantasies, the writer continued, is unrelenting disorder and likely great danger from the militancy of socialists and the

22 El Pensamiento español, Dec. 11, 1868. While the article published in El Pensamiento did not provide attribution, others have declared confidently that the article was written by Francisco Navarro Villoslada. See: Román Oyarzun, Historia del Carlismo (Madrid: 1965), 224.

23 Valentín Gómez, “La Revolución y la Industria,” Altar y Trono, May 13, 1869.

181 ultimate “insurrection of your sober workers, who, judging you tyrants of the people, will rise up in rebellion against you, will make your factories a bonfire.”24

In the same issue, this writer, Valentín Gómez, also dismissed the notion that

Catholicism was irreconcilable with modern civilization. Ridiculing those who had recently criticized Pope Pius IX’s condemnation of modern civilization, Gómez mocked accusations that the Church was seeking to excommunicate “the conquests of human understanding, the wonders of science, the telegraph and steam [power] . . . ! [They insist] we desire a return to the times of the obscurantism, renounce all advances, and all the wonders of human genius accomplished over the last centuries!” Dismissing such thoughts as “absurd interpretations and infamous slanders,” Gómez noted that, “far from condemning the wonders of electricity and steam,” the Church recognizes that “all these inventions of human intelligence are destined, in the end, to sing the glory of God the

Creator.”25

To be sure, not everyone in the Carlist camp was eager to align traditionalist interests with the fruits of industry. Many traditionalists and outspoken Carlist sympathizers like the priests Sebastián Pérez Alonso and Vicente de Manterola, for example, railed against those who saw the industrial transformation of Great Britain as a model for Spain. “I know of no people more degraded, more abject, more enslaved than that of the English,” Pérez Alonso noted in 1870. “[There] a thousand families live in superfluity . . . and millions of human beings cease being persons in order to maintain this state of affairs.” In this same vein of argumentation, Vicente de Manterola explained

24 Ibid. Italics preserved from the original.

25 Valentin Gomez, “Lo que es la Civilización Moderna,” Altar y Trono, May 13, 1869.

182 that following Britain along this path would “enslave man to modern industry” and reduce him to a cog in the machine “without God, family, or patria.”26 As a writer for La

Reconquista wrote eloquently in 1872:

The worker in the factory, a true slave transformed into a machine by liberalism, good only to produce, but unworthy of all moral care; that worker who is enclosed in a kind of muddy cave, where the light of the sun and the air of the fields hardly penetrates; that worker who is not allowed time to think about God, nor to rest in the bosom of his family and direct a glance at his children; that worker who, when leaving his prison, still carrying lungs full of the nauseous gases of the factory, eyes fatigued by the artificial light, and ears still shuddering with the thunderous and monotonous creaking of the machines, finds himself amongst the joyful bustle of a big city and sees a sybarite passing by his side, whose fortune is formed with goods taken from the Church.27

As both the proponents and the critics of industrialism within the Carlist camp demonstrate, traditionalists in this period hardly spoke with a single voice on these issues.

Instead, the Carlist press echoed a broader discourse, a loud and boisterous cacophony of positions on the future trajectory of Spain and Spanish industrial and economic practices.

Some voices, like those just cited, saw no redeemable characteristics in further industrialization. Others, however, voiced a desire to channel industrialization toward preserving Spain, its customs, and its character. For the “aggrandizement of the country,” a writer for La Margarita wrote, “the industrial spirit [should] be encouraged in our homeland.”28

Furthermore, the condemnations of industrialization and capitalistic avarice voiced by Pérez Alonso, Vicente de Manterola, and others should be understood in the

26 Quoted in Wilhelmsen, La formación del pensamiento politico del carlismo, 537–538.

27 Ibid., 540.

28 Ibid., 556.

183 wider context of the Carlist defense of rural life and its condemnation of the confiscation of Church property. Small farms built around traditional agricultural villages—as were common in the Basque Provinces where Carlism found its staunchest defenders—were the touted ideal for these traditionalists. The lure of industrial work in urban settings threatened to hollow out these agricultural villages and undermine these foundations of traditionalist Spain, they argued.29 Worse, as Altar y Trono insisted, the urbanization that would result would further corrupt the working class and lead to all manner of degradation.

Nobody is ignorant of what the youth of the farms are going to look for in the cities; the luxury, the cosmetics, the cafes, the dances, the corrupting and sparkling pleasures, and an easier job, although it is at the expense of liberty and health, satisfactions of love itself and of sensualism, a mad existence that consumes the greatest wages with frightful speed.30

Thus, the voices championing Carlism in the introspective few years following the Revolution of 1868 produced a number of sometimes competing programs for the future. While this multiplicity of voices and ideas make identifying a coherent Carlist position on further modernization and industrialization highly elusive, it also belies a degree of diversity and sophistication that the liberal press continued to deny it. Rather than seeking to will Spain back to the seventeenth or eighteenth century, as some detractors insisted, the Carlists and their press outlets were presenting a number of reasoned critiques of economic liberalism as it had been experienced in Spain and across

Europe. Instead of conjuring up medieval fantasies, advocates for Carlism were offering

29 Askman, “The Renovation of the European Right,” 182–187.

30 Altar y Trono, Aug. 20 1869, quoted and translated in Askman, “The Renovation of the European Right,” 186.

184 benefits like peace, stability, and even an explicit acceptance of the tools of industrialization fostered by the liberal regime they rejected.

In the immediate aftermath of Isabel II’s exit from Spain, the Carlists looked to align their long pedigree of anti-liberalism with what appeared to them to be the public recognition of the failure of liberalism. The chaos of the previous few decades, the Carlist press argued, had exposed the inherent instability of the constitutional system. Not only was Carlos VII already the legitimate monarch of Spain, they insisted, but the fiasco of liberalism had finally thrown back the curtain on the travesty that had kept him off the throne in the first place. Understandably, the Carlists found it absurd that the generals brought to power on the tide of revolution looked to make Prince Amedeo of Savoy, a non-Bourbon and non-Spaniard, the constitutional monarch of Spain. To emphasize their concerns, the Carlists pointed to the Revolt of the Comuneros following the crowning of the Burgundian-raised King Charles I and the more recent disaster in Mexico during the rule of Maximillian I. The Cortes, undeterred by these arguments, elected Amadeo I the king of Spain on November 16, 1870.31

After stewing anxiously for years as Spain struggled to find equilibrium in the wake of the 1868 Revolution and through the appointment and troubled reign of King

Amadeo I, Carlos VII determined that it was time to act in the early spring of 1872. The first attempt at an uprising was largely a disaster, however, and Don Carlos fled Spain after his volunteers were routed at Oroquieta in Navarre. It wouldn’t be until the first half of 1873 that Carlist forces began to build up steam, bolstered in no small measure by the abdication of Amadeo I, the establishment of the First Spanish Republic, and the

31 Askman, “The Renovation of the European Right,” 75–86.

185 perennial state of instability that the republic muddled through. By the summer of 1873, the Carlist forces were scoring a number of victories, and Don Carlos VII reentered Spain to much fanfare in the Carlist-controlled areas. By July of that year, Carlos had confidently installed his court in the recently captured city of Estella; and over the rest of the year his armies captured most of the remaining small towns of Vizcaya, Navarre, and

Guipúzcoa. But as in the First Carlist War, the larger towns of the region continued to elude Carlist conquest and occupation.32

The failure to capture important urban centers like Bilbao was only one of the many characteristics the Second Carlist War, or the Third Carlist War as it is called by some, shared with the first such war four decades earlier. But an important difference was the existence of a large and sophisticated railway network that connected the Carlist areas in the northeast with the Spanish capital and points in between and farther south. This network presented the emerging Carlist administration with both opportunities and challenges. The opportunities were great, and as historian Juan Pardo San Gil has demonstrated, the Carlists proved adept at repurposing the existing railway lines in their territory to support their own interests and activities. By the fall of 1874, the Carlist state had even established its own Dirección General de Comunicaciones to manage these railways.33 But the challenges the railways presented to the Carlist forces were equally great. These same technological tools, they recognized, could be used by the liberal

32 Holt, The Carlist Wars in Spain, 246–251; Raymond Carr, Spain, 1808–1975 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, c. 1982), 338–339; Ricardo Mateos Sáinz de Medrano, “Carlos María de los Dolores de Borbón y Austria Este,” Diccionario biográfico español, Real Academia de la Historia, http://dbe.rah.es/biografias/8884/carlos-maria-de-los-dolores-de-borbon-y-austria-este.

33 Juan Pardo San Gil, “El Ferrocarril Carlista,” Bilduma: Revista del Servicio de Archivo del Ayuntamiento de Errenteria, No. 25, 2013, 7–55.

186 forces to strangle their forces and dislodge them from northeastern Spain. Given this reality, the Carlist forces were compelled to obstruct the railways through arson, sabotage, and direct military action.34

Given the public position of Carlos VII and those of Carlist outlets like Altar y

Trono, El Pensamiento, and others on industrialization and modernization in the nineteenth century, the frequent Carlist attacks on the railways in Spain should rightly have been interpreted as a necessary component of the prosecution of the civil war. Like any military opposition, the Carlists hoped to deprive their enemy of the use of railways for transporting troops and maintaining supply lines. Indeed, this position was frequently espoused by Carlos VII and his surrogates from the earliest days of the conflict. The

Carlist general Rafael Tristany, for example, identified the danger the railways posed to his forces, and openly defended his efforts to “disable the railway [and] destroy the machines,” rationalizing that allowing the railways to operate would unfairly benefit the opposing forces.35 Carlos VII made this abundantly clear in December of 1872, with the conflict in its early stages.

[I]t is impossible to ignore the decisive influence [railways] lend in military operations, the speed and celerity in the movements of the columns, the greater security and speed in the transport of baggage and in the running of convoys, and the prompt and effective action of the electric telegraph, thanks to which instant and accurate news of the whereabouts and situations of each and every one of the belligerent forces is acquired; . . . the railway lines can and should be considered in time of struggle as true weapons of attack and defense, and therefore caused to

34 Much of this damage was catalogued by the railway companies in the years after the war. See Archivo Histórico Ferroviario, W-0024-002 for an extensive if not comprehensive list of damage done to railway property in northeastern and north central Spain between the years 1872–1876.

35 Ferrer, Historia del Tradicionalismo Español, Vol. XXIV (Sevilla: Editorial Católica Española, 1958), 201.

187

experience . . . [the] risks and vicissitudes resulting from the inevitable hazards of war.36

The liberal press tended to ignore the obvious military strategy employed by the

Carlist armies in attacking the railways and especially the telegraph lines. This negligence on their part was intentional. Indeed, as the historian Julio Montero Díaz has suggested, liberal leaders and their press outlets were well aware of the instrumental importance of the railways and telegraph lines for consolidating the power of the liberal state. That the Carlist armies elected to target these vital lines of communication as part of a larger military strategy should have surprised no one. Yet, as Montero notes, the liberal press purposely emphasized Carlist motives for the persistent railway sabotage that were rooted in their ostensibly uncompromising position on absolutism and a return to the pre-modern past.37

The liberal press found the perfect vessel for their condemnations of Carlism in the person of the militant Basque priest Manuel Ignacio Santa Cruz Loidi. Often referred to by the press simply as “cura [priest] Santa Cruz,” the Basque priest and his frequent attacks on liberal forces, civilians, village mayors, and the like received a considerable amount of attention and coverage in the press. In the early years of the war, Santa Cruz engaged in aggressive and persistent physical attacks on the infrastructure of the Basque

Provinces, particularly their railways. Ultimately, his persistent efforts cost him what

36 Ibid., 204.

37 Julio Montero Díaz, “Prensa y propaganda en el Estado carlista (1872–1876),” Historia y Comunicación Social, No. 4 (1999): 90–92.

188 support he had from the Carlist high command and he was forced to leave Spain for good.38

Figure 8: Santa Cruz and his Men. La Ilustración española y americana, May 16, 1873.

Anti-Carlist and liberal publications of various types condemned the priest’s attacks on railways as evidence of his “violence and barbarism.”39 Often derisively labeling him a “bandit” and describing him as “bloodthirsty,” these publications expressed shock and horror at his seeming inexhaustible appetite for destruction and

38 For a mostly sympathetic account of the life of Santa Cruz, see Isidoro Medina Patiño, Don Manuel: El temible cura guerrillero (Bogotá: Visión Creativa, 2005). For a less sympathetic account see Gaëtan B Bernoville and F. Seminario, La cruz sangrienta: historia del cura Santa Cruz (San Sebastián: Aldus, 1928). For a brief account of Santa Cruz and some descriptions of railway attacks, see Esteban Carro Celada, Curas Guerrilleros en España (Madrid: Vida Nueva, 1971), 201–233.

39 El Correo vascongado, July 2, 1873.

189 plunder.40 The victims of his rampaging reign of terror, the liberal press regularly reported, included the murdered mayors of several towns, kidnapped and beaten residents, and a number of unlucky men and women who found themselves between

Santa Cruz and his targets.41 But it was railways and railway stations, these newspapers insisted, that were the most frequent object of his vicious attacks.42 Describing in lurid detail the burning of one railway station, a La Igualdad writer noted:

When the order was completed, those barbarians drove to the railway station with as much oil as possible and a good quantity of straw. They forced open the doors of the building, tore apart the telegraphic devices, destroyed everything they found inside the building, and finally, soaking the straw with oil, set it on fire. [Likewise they burned] the warehouse where flour, wine, oil, and much valuable merchandise they had stored. The station and the warehouse soon became a vast bonfire. Such too was the fate of the railway cars, which these vandals also set ablaze.43

The above description was of the spectacular burning of the Beasain station in the

Basque province of Guipúzcoa. This was just one of the many stations Santa Cruz and his men vandalized. But the burning of the station at Beasain garnered considerable attention in the press. Various weeklies and dailies around the country rushed to print accounts of the horrendous actions of the rebellious priest.44 Responding to the public interest in the event, La Ilustración española y americana provided its readership with a large and

40 El Globo, March 4, 1876; Gaceta de los caminos de hierro, June 22, 1873; La Discusión, April, 3, 1873; La Discusión, June, 20, 1873; La Igualdad, June, 18, 1873; La Época, April 16, 1875.

41 La Independencia, March 14, 1873; La Iberia, Jan. 25, 1873; La Iberia, Jan. 16, 1873; “Guerra Civil,” La Iberia, April, 15, 1873; La Época, March, 4, 1873; La Discusión, March 3, 1873.

42 “Historia de la Insurrección Carlista de 1873,” El Periódico para todos, Jan. 4, 1873.

43 La Igualdad, June 23, 1873.

44 La Igualdad, June 18, 1873; La Época, June 27, 1873; La Ilustración española y americana, July 1, 1873; El Imparcial, June 18, 1873; El Imparcial, June 27, 1873; La Iberia, June 25, 1873; Diario oficial de avisos de Madrid, June 28, 1873; Diario oficial de avisos de Madrid, July 9, 1873.

190 dramatic illustration of the chaotic scene as the station was set ablaze.45 Others, however, relied on acerbic wit and cutting prose to describe the event for their readers. A writer for

La Discusión, for example, referenced the burning obliquely by noting that Santa Cruz had “lit one of his usual lights which illuminates the country at a distance of four leagues.”46 La República democrática was more direct, explaining that Santa Cruz had resented the efforts of some officials to sign an agreement with the French railway company to allow trains to pass through the Basque heartland.

When the bandit Santa Cruz received notice of the contract signed in Paris by the Marques de Valdespina and the [French] Company, to allow the passage of the trains from the North [through Carlist occupied territory], he ordered his men to set fire to the station of Beasain, in this way saying that when you see her burn: There is my signature.47

Thus, with the burning of Beasain a writer for La Igualdad lamented that “there will no longer be summer excursions to the northern provinces.”48 Another writing for El Correo vascongado wondered aloud when armies might finally bring “Santa Cruz and other defenders of religious intolerance and monarchical absolutism” to heel.49

Burnt-out Beasain was of course not the first nor the last piece of railway infrastructure that Santa Cruz and his party left in a smoldering heap. Just a few months before, the press reported that he had burned the station of Echarri and intentionally

45 La Ilustración española y Americana, July 1, 1873.

46 La Discusión, June 20, 1873.

47 Quoted in Gaceta de los caminos de hierro, June 22, 1873.

48 La Igualdad, June 18, 1873.

49 El Correo vascongado, June 20, 1873.

191 derailed a train of the Northern Railway, possibly at the same location.50 Other press reports credited him with numerous other station burnings, including at the stations of

Hernani, Aranaz, Huarte-Araquil, and Iturmendi.51 These were in addition to the many other derailments he executed in the tunnels along the route between Tolosa and

Beasain.52 Recounting the trail of destruction Santa Cruz had left in his wake, a writer for

La Época expressed frustration that this “beast in a frock” remained able to perpetrate his

“barbarous destruction” with such impunity.53

Figure 9: The Burning of Beasain. La Ilustración española y americana, July 1, 1873.

50 La Iberia, March 14, 1873; La Independencia, March 24, 1873.

51 El Periódico para todos, Jan. 4, 1873; La Época, March 13, 1873.

52 El Globo, March 4, 1875.

53 La Época, March 13, 1873.

192

Following the violent Santa Cruz-led derailment of a train at Ikaztegieta, a small

Basque village along the same mountainous railway route north of Beasain, the Madrid daily La Época recounted a first-hand description it claimed to have heard from one of the passengers:

The derailment took place on the Icazteguieta bridge at the exit of a tunnel and several cars toppled over behind the locomotive. . . . It was a frightful scene. There were cars strewn about the embankment, the screams of those calling out for help, and the rain of bullets that the Carlists fired on the cars without considering that these were harmless passengers. Twenty-five carabineros that had been escorting the train . . . set upon the Carlists and forced them to flee to the mountains where they were contained despite of the superiority of their strength. This provided the time not only for the passengers to take refuge in an abandoned farmhouse, but also for a relief train from Tolosa to arrive with volunteers from that town. Nearby there was also a closed up church that the engineers’ assistants opened by hacking down the doors so as to provide the frightened ladies from the train with a safer shelter.54

Recounting another incident of railway vandalism, a writer for El Correo vascongado relayed a sad story initially published in El Tiempo about a woman traveling from France to Madrid to be at the side of her dying father. Her father was none other than Brigadier Antonio de Arjona, a veteran Carlist officer from the First Carlist War and founder of the established Carlist newspaper La Esperanza. Importantly, the writer for the staunchly anti-Carlist El Correo vascongado neglected to remind his readers of the

Carlist bona fides of the dying officer, preferring instead to emphasize the brutality of

Santa Cruz and his destructive intentions with regard to the railways. Rather than allow the woman to pass, the writer noted, he gave the order to burn the car, caring nothing for

“the pleas and laments of that anguished lady.”55

54 La Época, March 17, 1873.

55 El Correo vascongado, June 25, 1873.

193

This series of violent and destructive events, and their extensive coverage in the press, gained for the rebellious priest a degree of “regrettable celebrity,” as one writer from La Igualdad lamented.56 A writer for La Ilustración española y americana appeared to go even further. In a piece published near the height of Santa Cruz’s cataclysmic campaign, the writer mused that the reputation of this rebellious priest may have acquired a life of its own, partially as a result of the persistent coverage in the press and of the

Spanish people’s general willingness to believe such things. “The Spanish people, more than any other are friends of the marvelous, of the fantastic, of what escapes the boundaries of the ordinary,” he wrote. The history of Spain’s many upheavals, he went on, are littered with “those legendary little guys,” men like “the priest Merino or Riego,

Cabrera or Zurbano, Balanzátegui or the priest Santa Cruz.” The great “multitude of bloody deeds” attributed “correctly or incorrectly” to him has transformed him into a monster of epic proportions, “a type of ogre thirsting for the blood of liberals.”57

Adding to his legendary celebrity and the exaggeration of his accomplishments were at least two Santa Cruz-themed theatrical performances staged in Madrid during the height of his press coverage. The performances, advertised as “Derrota del Cura Santa

Cruz” and “Prision y Huida del Cura Santa Cruz,” were shown at a café-cantante called

Teatro-Café de Capellanes between May and August of 1873. These were likely short

56 La Igualdad, Dec. 17, 1873.

57 “El Cura Santa Cruz,” La Ilustración española y americana, April 24, 1873; And the public curiosity about Santa Cruz and his actions survived the end of the Second Carlist War by several decades. His motivations, and the war in general were common subjects of investigation for a number of Generation of ’98 writers. He makes prominent appearances in Miguel de Unamuno’s Paz en la Guerra (1897), Ramón Valle-Inclán’s Sonata de invierno (1905), and Pio Baroja’s Zalacaín el aventurero (1908). Baroja even expounded further on his views of the priest in a short collection of essays published in 1918 and entitled El cura Santa Cruz y su partida.

194 dance numbers performed in front of a dining audience, as was common in the café theaters that proliferated around Madrid in the decades following the revolution of

1868.58 That Santa Cruz became the subject of at least two of these theatrical performances is a testament to his fame or infamy, and to the ability of the Madrid press to amplify the news of his actions in the war.

News of the tactics of the priest, especially his destructive policy toward the railways of Spain, even reached the pages of British periodicals. In one article in the illustrated weekly magazine, The Graphic, the writer was adamant that the railways and their supporting infrastructure were the primary target of the Carlist forces. “[T]heir chief exploits are performed on the railways,” the writer boldly pronounced. “They have attacked railway trains with such persistency,” he continued, “that for a time they succeeded in disconnecting Barcelona with the French frontier, so that the mails had to be sent round by train at the western end of the Pyrenees.” Accompanying the article was a large engraving of Carlist troops armed and standing atop a pair of incapacitated rails as a train approached through a cloud of its own steam. Featured prominently in the image was Santa Cruz himself, holding a revolver and dressed in the black attire of a Basque priest.59

58 Diario oficial de avisos de Madrid, May 15, July 31, Aug. 10, 12–16, 18–20, 22, 24, 1873. For more on the cafés teatros, see María Pilar Espín Templado, El teatro por horas en Madrid (1870–1910) (Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Madrileños, Fundación Jacinto e Inocencio Guerrero, 1995) and Clinton D. Young, Music Theater and Popular Nationalism in Spain, 1880–1930 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2016.

59 “Travelling in Spain—A Railway Train Attacked by Carlists,” The Graphic, Feb. 22, 1873.

195

Figure 10: Santa Cruz Assaults the Railway. The Graphic:

An Illustrated Weekly Newspaper, Saturday, February 22, 1873.

Significantly, the repeated assassinations of mayors and prisoners of war, deadly reprisals, kidnappings, the murder of pregnant women, and other widely publicized actions compelled the Carlist leadership to distance itself from the priest and eventually to take action against him. In March of 1873, Antonio Lizárraga y Esquiroz, the

Comandante General of Guipúzcoa and veteran of the First Carlist War, signed a death warrant for the increasingly rebellious priest. Over the course of the rest of the year,

196

Santa Cruz further distanced himself from the demands of the rebel leadership to the point where he and his men were in open and violent conflict with Carlist forces.60 By the start of 1874, Santa Cruz was left with no option but to abandon the conflict entirely and flee into France.

Even in the absence of Santa Cruz, the Carlist forces in Spain continued to confront the challenge presented by railway infrastructure as they struggled to prosecute the civil war. This meant targeting railways in much the way that Santa Cruz had done previously. Not surprisingly, the liberal press directed their attention to the maneuvers of the remaining Carlist forces, describing these actions with the same language. The derailment of trains and attacks on tracks, railway bridges, and railway depots were described as the acts of “bandits” committing “horrendous crime[s]” and promoting

“barbarism.”61 Rather than interpreting these attacks as the unfortunate byproducts of a protracted conflict, these largely liberal publications insisted that such incidents were proof that the Carlists were irredeemably opposed to modern civilization. This was clearly the sentiment of one El Imparcial writer, expressed when describing the attack on the temporary bridge constructed between Manzanares and Ciudad Real.

[It’s] horrible that there are those marauding on the banks of the Noya [River], setting fire to cargo trains, as they have done in Gélida, . . . derailing the train and blocking the road . . . This is not making war in support of a cause, it is waging it against civilization itself and in defense of barbarism; and those who commit such acts must be punished as the greatest enemies of mankind.62

60 Gregorio de la Fuente Monge, “Manuel Ignacio Santa Cruz Loidi” Diccionario biográfico español, Real Academia de la Historia, http://dbe.rah.es/biografias/7506/manuel-ignacio-santa-cruz-loidi.

61 La Madeja política, Feb. 7, 1874; Gaceta de los caminos de hierro, August 30, 1874; El Imparcial, Jan. 27, 1874.

62 El Imparcial, Jan. 1, 1874.

197

By “civilization,” liberal outlets often meant concepts like modernization and progress, much in the way that earlier writers had used the term when touting the railway itself as an engine of civilization. The Carlists, they insisted, were seeking to undermine this civilization by undermining industry, commerce, and the products of these forces, such as the railway. With each reported military action against the railways, the liberal press eagerly reminded their readers of the backward-facing obduracy of the Carlists and the future of despotism they would introduce in Spain. “It was at first difficult for us to believe that the Carlists were carrying out such a destructive plan, despite all the abuses that we witnessed daily,” a writer for La Igualdad complained following the Carlist sabotage of a bridge along the Almansa Railway in August of 1874.

But the facts, with their inflexible logic, has convinced us that the vandalistic squads of the Pretender respect nothing, and that everything must be expected from those who, after ravaging our populations, paralyzing our trade and ruining our industry, will not be happy until they deprive us of all the means of locomotion that civilization has brought.63

These attacks, the liberal press argued, reflected the deep animosity Carlists felt toward the modern world. The bridge sabotage along the Almansa Railway, the Gaceta de los caminos de hierro explained, was “a horrendous crime” that “can’t be understood in the context of the nineteenth century.”64

But it was in the wake of the assault on the MZA line in the town of Pozo-

Cañada, just a few miles to the south of Albacete, that the liberal press really ratcheted up their rhetoric and hyperbolic condemnation of the Carlists. The attack on this small station was part of a larger expedition through Southeast Spain led by the Carlist Colonel

63 La Igualdad, Aug. 23, 1874.

64 “Catástrofe del Puente de Sumideros,” Gaceta de los caminos de hierro, Aug. 30, 1874.

198

Miguel Lozano y Herrero. Over the course of September 1874, Lozano marched between

500 and 800 Carlist soldiers through the provinces of Alicante and Murcia. The mission may have been primarily intended to encourage Carlist support in the region, as Lozano, who was born in the town of Jumilla in Murcia, was frequently celebrated enthusiastically in the towns he visited. But the Lozano expedition was also clearly a military mission. As they made their way from the small cliff-side town of Alcalá de

Júcar through Alpera, Samper, Tobarra, Hellín, Agramón, and many others, Lozano and his soldiers destroyed railway bridges, set fire to freight trains, and otherwise disrupted communications in the region.65

Of these assaults and maneuvers, the most aggressive and widely covered by the liberal press was the railway attack at Pozo-Cañada. The details, when culled from the press reports published at the time, make it difficult to reconstruct the exact series of events. But in general, the event proceeded as follows. At some point in mid-September of 1874, as Lozano and his men were making their way across the region, burning railway stations as they went, they attacked the station of Pozo-Cañada, burned the station down, destroyed the telegraph system, and raided for supplies one of the cargo trains held there.66 At some point after this initial assault, Lozano’s men proceeded to execute four railway workers at the station, possibly for refusing to abide by the orders

Lozano instructed his men to enforce.67

65 Don Antonio Pirala, Historia Contemporánea: Anales desde 1843 hasta la Conclusion de la Última Guerra Civil, Vol. V (Madrid: Imprenta y Fundicion de Manuel Tello, 1878), 586–588; Ferrer, Histora del Tradicionalismo Español, Vol. XXVI, (Sevilla: Editorial Católica Española, 1959), 260–263.

66 La Iberia, Sept. 19, 1874; La Igualdad, Sept. 21, 1874; Boletín de comercio, Sept. 23, 1874.

67 La Discusión, Oct. 28, 1874; La Iberia, Oct. 25, 1874; La Iberia, Nov. 28, 1874.

199

In the aftermath of this attack the liberal press vigorously covered the terrible event, printing dozens of articles of varying lengths about the incident at Pozo-Cañada and the general campaign of railway destruction carried out by Lozano and his men.68

“The unspeakable behavior of Lozano has produced a general indignation” among the public, La Época reported.69 The event was, as a writer for the Alicante paper El

Constitucional noted at the time, evidence of “the barbarous behavior of the factionalists, who destroy everything they encounter for no other purpose than that of causing harm.”

They are, the article continued, “in open conflict with the principles of civilization and humanity.”70

The volume of press coverage reached such a high level by late October 1874 that even the Presidente del Consejo de Ministros Práxedes Mateo Sagasta felt compelled to respond. In a piece published in the Gaceta de los caminos de hierro, Minister Sagasta recounted the wave of railway destruction and general villainy perpetrated by Lozano and his men. They have “destroyed stations, set fire to trains . . . [have been] looting villages and mistreating defenseless people . . . [and have] cowardly and inhumanely shot four unfortunate employees of the Pozo-Cañada station, who committed no crime other than to fulfill the duty of their position.” These, he argued, were the actions of “hordes of heartless hypocritical men” who seek to remain “outside of the law” and continue with

68 Boletín de comercio, Sept. 23, 1874; El Imparcial, Sept. 20, 1874; El Imparcial, Sept. 25, 1874; Gaceta de los caminos de hierro, Oct. 18, 1874; Gaceta de los caminos de hierro, Sept. 27, 1874; La Correspondencia de España, Sept. 18, 1874; La Correspondencia de España, Sept. 19, 1874; La Discusión, Sept. 20, 1874; La Discusión, Oct. 28, 1874; La Época, Sept. 18, 1874; La Época, Oct. 18, 1874; La Iberia, Sept. 25, 1874; La Igualdad, Sept. 19, 1874; La Igualdad, Sept. 21, 1874.

69 La Época, Oct. 18, 1874.

70 Excerpted in La Iberia, Sept. 25, 1874.

200 their campaign of “destruction and plundering.” Most importantly, Sagasta claimed, these actions revealed the Carlists for what they were, the zealous enemies of the modern world. By contrast, the liberal government expressed the “most elevated sentiments of humanity, and trusted in the justice and goodness of the liberal cause, which stands up for the [ultimate] victory over the stubborn and fanatical hosts of absolutism.” 71

Such crimes [as committed by the Carlists] would be enough to make the flag in whose shadow they are committed odious, if there were no other reasons that make it abhorrent to all honest [men’s] conscience; and the government would fail in its most sacred duties if it . . . did not use a strong hand and courage to decide to impose a punishment on these perpetrators as great as the enormity of the repeated crimes that demand it.72

At a certain point, the story of the assassinations appears to have taken on a life of its own, as some later accounts include gruesome details that were not initially reported.

The Gaceta de los caminos de hierro, for example, reporting approximately a month after the Carlist “act of ferocity and savagery,” included stories about how the bodies of the victims were “barbarously mutilated” after they had been hunted down and shot.

Such was the rancor that was shown toward those unhappy souls, that having been hidden in the town, they were tracked down from house to house until they were found, and moments after finding them [the killers] had consummated the terrible crime with such an unspeakable cruelty.73

The same article went on to emphasize that the four murdered railway employees shot by

Lozano’s men left behind thirteen children. Thankfully, the article notes, “[t]he

71 Gaceta de los caminos de hierro, Oct. 25, 1874.

72 Ibid.

73 Gaceta de los caminos de hierro, Oct. 18, 1874.

201 government has assumed the responsibility of protecting the widows and orphans” left behind by the attack.74

Other liberal newspapers expressed similar concerns and used the memory of the tragedy in a like fashion. Additionally, the more temporally removed the coverage, the more likely it was to emphasize the brutality of the murders and to characterize the violence as an attack on civilization itself. La Iberia, for example, writing about the event nearly two months after the fact referred to those killed as the “victims of incomparable barbarism,” and emphasized the near angelic, and liberal, qualities of the victims.

[T]hose victims of Carlist viciousness, . . . with whom the most horrendous of crimes had been committed, did not utter a single word of revenge: perhaps in the depths of their hearts they forgave their executioners. And those who witnessed the scene also did not part their lips to demand reprisals. And this is because [hearts] in liberal breasts cannot harbor such petty passions, worthy only of . . . hypocrites, [who] under the mantle of a religion, whose greatness they are unable to understand, speak the name of the God of mercy and forget his divine precept to “Love one another” [and] commit all manner of crimes and bathe wildly in the blood of their fellow man.75

The atrocity was, the article continued, an example of the intent of absolutism and a reminder of its unwholesome nature. “[N]ever in this classic land of liberty will [Don

Carlos] place the impure plant, the monster of absolutism. . . . [He] will not dishonor our country with his government; for this land . . . would prefer to see their cities turned into ruins and their children dead, than to go through so much humiliation and such great shame.” 76

74 Ibid.

75 La Iberia, Nov. 13, 1874.

76 Ibid.

202

Lozano was eventually captured by the liberal forces, tried, and condemned to death. He was executed for his actions on the morning of December 3, 1874.77 By the end of the year, the Carlist forces suffered another devastating blow when Isabel II’s son was made King Alfonso XII by the proclamation of Brigadier General Martínez Campos, thus ending the troubled republic and restoring the Bourbon monarchy.78 With the Bourbons back on the throne, the Carlist claim that Don Carlos VII would restore order out of the chaos of the First Spanish Republic lost much of its persuasive power. Militarily, the

Carlists made few gains over the course of 1875, and the public call for Don Carlos VII to march into Madrid and take the throne never came. By the start of 1876, he was resigned to this reality, and on February 28 he disbanded his forces, declaring that they had been worthy soldiers engaged in a noble fight. Their exploits and the names of their many victories, he told them, “will be inscribed with dazzling letters within our immortal history.”79

Conclusion

The Revolution of 1868 created an opportunity for vocal Carlists and other traditionalists to air their ideas in ways that had been prohibited over the previous decades. With the press restrictions removed, Carlist periodicals proliferated in post-

Revolution Spain. From this new platform, they challenged the liberal rhetoric that

77 El Cabecilla, Dec. 2, 1883.

78 Carr, Spain, 340–342.

79 Don Carlos VII, “Despedida a los voluntarios” in Ferrer, Historia del Tradicionalismo Español, Vol. XXVII (Sevilla: Editorial Católica Española, 1959), 306.

203 conflated civilization with modernization and celebrated the great material benefits that would accrue to Spain in the future as a result of modernizing efforts like the development of railways. The Carlist press crafted its own competing interpretation of

Spanish civilization, one that would include the restoration of order, stability, traditionalism, and the Church. Instruments of modernization like the railways could be made consistent with a traditionalist vision of civilization by substituting the goals of social harmony and the preservation of Spanish traditions for the pernicious pursuit of mere material accumulation.

During the course of the Second Carlist War the propagandistic potency of this brand of traditionalist civilization was undermined by the repeated attacks on railway infrastructure committed by the armies of Don Carlos VII. Liberal politicians and publications frequently highlighted these Carlist attacks on the railways, especially those of the militant Basque priest Santa Cruz, as a way to further erode the legitimacy of the

Carlist brand of Spanish civilization and to reinforce the image of Carlism as backward looking and antagonistic to industrialization and technological progress. By vanquishing the Carlists in 1876, the liberal state effectively sanctified the notion that only a liberal regime could bring modernization and civilization. In this way, the railways, which were the most recognizable symbol of modernization in Spain, were cleansed of their association with the discredited regime of Isabel II and became once again the object of liberal fantasies.

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Conclusion

With the exit of the Carlist pretender, the most profound challenge to liberalism within Spain also departed. Soon the Carlist appeal for a new brand of Spanish civilization, one that acknowledged the utility and even desirability of modern instruments like the railway, became a distant memory if it was even remembered at all.

Instead, the liberal condemnations of the Carlists and their motives, holding them up as examples of anti-liberal and anti-modern self-destructiveness, lived on for a century after the end of the war.

As for the railways themselves, they had sustained considerable damage during the four-year-long conflict. The rebuilding efforts would take years to complete.

Likewise, as normalcy returned to Spain, so too did railway construction resume once more. During the decade between the descent into economic depression in 1866 and the end of the Second Carlist War, barely over 1000km of new railway track had been put into operation. Over the course of the next five years, another approximately 1300km of track were added. While clearly an indication that railway construction was ramping up again, this return to normalcy paled in comparison to the half decade before the economic downturn, when nearly 3000km of track had been put into operation. Never again would

Spain see that volume and pace of railway development.1

1 Gabriel Tortella Casares, The Development of Modern Spain: An Economic History of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, trans. Valerie J. Herr (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 200), 121–124.

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By the end of the century, the speed of railway construction would slow again, as

Spain began to grapple with new challenges like the loss of its remaining colonies and the psychological effect this had on the nation. But by this point the shape of Spain’s railway network was largely settled. Half a century before, when railway construction was at its most active and public excitement about the railways most intense, that same network was little more than the dreams of a few ambitious Spaniards, and the work of transforming those dreams into reality evoked a sense among Spaniards that the future was finally on the horizon. The cold reality of the early twentieth century may appear to expose the hopes and dreams conjured up by the press, politicians, and railway boosters alike as overly optimistic at best and delusional at worse. But, as I’ve demonstrated throughout the current and preceding chapters, this cynical interpretation of their actions and rhetoric obscures the sense of exhilaration and transformation that was most pronounced during this momentous period. Indeed, this is precisely the mistake I contend far too many economic historians have made when they looked back on this period and saw only failure. Rather than a time of failure, I’ve shown that the 1850s and 60s were a time when railway euphoria initiated an infectious sense of possibility that echoed across

Spain and promised, if only for a bright and fleeting moment, to ease Spanish insecurities and allow the nation to finally free itself of the terrible burden of its past failures and join the rest of Europe in the coming prosperity.

Beyond this effort to rescue the history of Spain’s first railway network from decades of condescension, this work has also sought to make three additional important contributions to the history of modern Spain and of the modern world. The first such contribution is the way this study has explored the rhetoric of nineteenth-century Spanish

206 economic liberalism. Too often, historians of Spain have disregarded the calls for economic liberalization in nineteenth-century Spain, preferring instead to chart the messy and fascinating path of political liberalism. But as this study has shown, the rhetoric of economic liberalism is fascinating in its own right. The repeated calls for the construction and expansion of the railways in Spain inspired a great volume of speculation about the nation’s economic potential and the historical and economic reasons why this potential was restrained. Those reasons drew upon deeply felt insecurities about Spanish backwardness and Spain’s place and role within Europe.

Second, this study adds a much-needed layer of complexity to the history of nineteenth-century Spain. Hispanists and other Europeanists have routinely dismissed

Spain’s nineteenth century as a lost century, a time of civil wars, political instability, and colonial contraction. The study of Spain’s nineteenth century, it is often implied, is only valuable to the extent that it forms a prelude to the challenges of the early twentieth century, which culminated with the disastrous civil war of the 1930s. However, this work reveals that the Spanish nineteenth century can be understood on its own terms, and not merely as a foundation for the troubles of the proceeding century. As the many articles, pamphlets, and public announcements from the preceding chapters demonstrate, the mid- nineteenth century in Spain was a moment bursting with possibility. Largely because of the development of railways in this period, it was time when many felt that Spain was finally turning the corner on its lamentable past and charting a new steam-powered course to the future.

Finally, the analysis in this dissertation demonstrates that there are large gaps in our understanding of industrialization itself, beyond Spain and even beyond Europe. As I

207 suggested in the introduction, the determination that Spain’s efforts at railway construction failed to produce the forward and backward linkages necessary to encourage further industrialization appears to have discouraged historical inquiry into the transformations that did result. It is not a coincidence, that those countries that were successful in this regard (Britain and the US for example) have some of the richest historiographies on the transformative effect of railways. And these rich historiographies have greatly influenced how we understand the effects of railways generally. But what my research proves is that this is only part of the story. The industrial failures—countries like Spain and others—are a part of the history of industrialization that has yet to be fully fleshed out. It is my hope that some of that important work has been accomplished in the preceding pages.

208

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Biography Joel C. Webb was born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, but has lived in several cities, including Seattle, Seoul, New York, Baltimore, and Washington D.C. As a young man he worked for years turning wrenches in automotive shops, where he gained an understanding and an appreciation for the role technology plays in our daily lives.

After returning to school, he earned a B.A. in History from the University of New

Orleans, an M.A. in History from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and a Ph.D. in History from Tulane University. He has taught European and World History at Tulane and Loyola University in New Orleans, and will be teaching at Auburn University starting in the fall of 2019.