Miguel Primo de Rivera

Miguel Primo de Rivera ruled Spain as dictator from 1923 to 1930 with the king's consent, and the manner of his going took the monarchy with him. He was an Andalusian soldier from a military family, served in Cuba, the Philippines and Morocco, and was Captain-General of Catalonia when he pronounced against the government in September 1923. The pronunciamiento succeeded without a shot because almost nobody defended the constitutional order: the army wanted the Moroccan disaster at Annual buried rather than investigated, the industrialists wanted the Barcelona gun-fights ended, and Alfonso XIII accepted the coup and appointed him prime minister. He suspended the constitution, dissolved parliament, banned the Catalan language in official use, and governed through a military directory. His two real achievements were the Moroccan war, which he ended by winning it - the landing at Alhucemas in 1925, made with the French, broke Abd el-Krim's Rif republic - and a programme of public works, roads, dams and the state oil monopoly financed by borrowing. He courted the socialist UGT and gave Largo Caballero office, which split the left and kept the country quiet for several years. What he never built was any way of continuing after himself. By 1929 the peseta was falling, the debt was unserviceable, the universities were in revolt and the army officers he had alienated over promotion by merit were plotting. He asked the generals in January 1930 whether he still had their confidence, was told he did not, and resigned the same day. He died in Paris six weeks later. The king who had backed him lost his throne within fourteen months, and Primo's son Jose Antonio founded the Falange.

• Lived: 1870 CE – 1930 CE
• Nationality: Spanish
• Roles: military, politician