Sport, Nationalism and Militarism – Alfonso XIII: Sportsman, Soldier, King

Abstract

The first third of the twentieth century more or less coincides with the reign of Alfonso XIII, in which extremely important changes occurred in Spanish politics and society. The institutional framework was modified, there was economic growth and the union movement developed. During this first third of the century Spain experienced a process of broad modernisation, but it was a modernising process that failed. The King was by no means unaffected by this modernising process. Brought up from birth for such an important change, his mentality throughout his reign was that of a constitutional monarch with all the limitations of the mentality prevalent in that era, including the possibility of a temporary dictatorship. During his political life, the King was surrounded by an aristocratic and military environment with which he fully identified. Politically powerful, he decisively influenced the lives and institutions of the Spanish people. As the representative of a nation, he became a model to follow but also a model to criticise. His image was that of a sportsman, soldier and statesman. In general the public recognised all these images and each one of them increased or decreased the popularity of the King in ways that are not easy for the historian to decipher. What interests us here is to analyse this man in his sportsman-soldier guise as more than just a symbolic figure; that is, to study his conduct as king within these two environments. The sources used embrace both the legislation generated during his reign in relation to the armed forces and to the organisation of sport, and the magazines of the era in which we can see the image of the King that reached the general public.