Álava y sus instituciones durante la ocupación napoleónica y la Guerra de la Independencia (1808-1815)

Abstract

Throughout the period of the French Revolution (1789-1815), The Historic Territory of Álava also suffers the consequences of the social and political upheaval in France, its northern neighbours. At the end of this period Álava regains its identity as forming part of the Spanish crown as well as its traditional system of government. However, it comes at a heavy cost. Álava endures a grave economic, social, and political crisis that will disable the mechanisms that have brought about peaceful co-existence and social harmony in the province. The War of Convention, the subsequent French occupation, and the War of Independence devastated a province that had already grown stagnant on various levels. The famous Battle of Vitoria assumed critical importance in the struggle against the absolute monarchy of Napoleon Bonaparte. The Spanish constitutional process, which was first imposed by Napoleon’s absolute monarchy in 1808 in the Bayonne Statute and was later elaborated by the ‘Cortes’ in Cádiz, whose constitutional draft was passed without protest from Álava’s institutions, in a plenary session on 25th November, 1812. However, the constitution did not come into being until some years later owing to the decision taken by Ferdinand VII to abolish the draft promulgated in Cádiz in 1814. The constitutional process empowered the people of Álava, giving them new perspectives on how to modernise, and indeed to overcome the traditional exercise of power imposed by the ruling oligarchy. However, a secondary effect was that it caused a political split in Álava’s social fabric. This divide would remain and would indeed become more pronounced in line with the political vicissitudes of the Spanish Monarchy throughout the 19th century.