U.C.

História das Relações Internacionais Portuguesas

Session 12: O Fim da I República: 28 de maio de 1926
1st Semester| Academic Year 2021/22

Main Lecturer.: Nuno Severiano Teixeira, Full Professor, NOVA FCSH | : nst@fcsh.unl.pt

Invited Assistant: Bruno Rocha, PhD Candidate, NOVA FCSH | : brunorocha@fcsh.unl.pt

Date 07/11/2022
 01 – The End of the Republic and the Military Dictatorship
02 – International Legitimation: League of Nations
03 – Economic Restauration: League of Nations I
Session Topics
04 – Economic Restauration: League of Nations II
05 – The Spanish-Portuguese Rapprochement
06 – The Preparation of Estado Novo
Session Suggested Reading
12 Ferreira, José Medeiros, Cinco Regimes na Polí0ca Internacional, Lisboa:
Editorial Presença, 2006, 48-59
01 The End of the Republic and the Military Dictatorship
On May 28th 1926, the republican regime was toppled by a military coup
which inaugurated the authoritarian period in Portuguese contemporary
history. The new military regime was, nonetheless, part of an authoritarian
wave that was swiping Europe at least since 1922, when Mussolini marched
on Rome. Though, after the coup, the main purpose of the military
dictatorship it was unclear (e.g., whether it was a well-defined effort to
establish a national dictatorship which later became known as Estado Novo),
the new regime, nevertheless, intended to impose stability to the Portuguese
internal state of affairs, which had been characterised, since 1910, by political
instability (e.g., a series of governments and internal coups that threatened
the possibility of a long-term perspective on Portuguese public policies).
U.C. História das Relações Internacionais Portuguesas | Nuno Severiano Teixeira | Bruno Rocha
01 The End of the Republic and the Military Dictatorship
Since foreign policy is a public policy – and one that enjoyed a degree of stability
in Portugal –, the new regime decided to keep some of the Republic’s foreign
policy orientations, albeit improvising to some extent (a potential rupture to the
state of affairs in Portuguese foreign policy?). In the eve of the transition to the
Estado Novo regime, the military elite in charge of the regime turned to economic
nationalism, on the one hand, and to the British Alliance and the relationship with
Primo de Rivera’s Spain, on the other, after failing to find a multilateral
alternative to the latter: the Collective Security System embedded by the League
of Nations, through which the Portuguese military thought it would not only be
possible to guarantee the integrity of the Colonial Empire (versus South African
interests), but to receive a loan that would help the recovery of the economy.
U.C. História das Relações Internacionais Portuguesas | Nuno Severiano Teixeira | Bruno Rocha
02 International Legitimation: League of Nations
However, as in the first years of the Republic, the military regime’s first foreign
policy goal was its internaKonal recogniKon. But, since the world in which the
dictatorship was in was differently organised – the difference being the existence
of a system of collecKve security, i.e., League of NaSons, aTer 1919 –, the
strategy for internaKonal recogniKon privileged mulKlateral recogniKon (e.g., a
bloc recognises the regime) over bilateral recogniKon (e.g., waves of recogniSon).
This strategy, led by Oscar Carmona and José Caeiro da Mata, was relaKvely
successful, as it led to elecKon of Portugal, in 1931, as a non-permanent
member of the LoN ExecuKve Council. Yet only relaKvely, because, in 1931,
the presence of Salazar in the government had greatly contributed to the
undervaluing of Portuguese parKcipaKon in mulKlateral arrangements.
U.C. História das Relações Internacionais Portuguesas | Nuno Severiano Teixeira | Bruno Rocha
03 Economic Restauration: League of Nations I
Coupled with the first goal, the military dictatorship’s second foreign policy
objecKve was the recovery of the Portuguese economy – a concern they had
inherited from the Republic. While before the dictatorship, the government hoped
to use war reparaKons received from Weimar Germany (whose payment schedule
was reviewed two Smes in the 20s) to help the economy’s recovery; aVer 1926,
the military realised that it would not receive the amount to which Portugal had
been enKtled to in 1919, and that a new external loan was the only means to
ensure economic recovery. In 1927, the Minister of Finance, Sinel de Cordes,
developed an economic plan to ensure economic recovery and development, and
monetary stabilizaKon based on a loan granted by the Economic CommiYee of
the LoN, similar to the one previously confirmed to Austria, Belgium and Greece.
U.C. História das Relações Internacionais Portuguesas | Nuno Severiano Teixeira | Bruno Rocha
04 Economic Restauration: League of Nations II
However, Sinel de Cordes’s economic plan involved conditions which some
found too demanding. The main condition was that, if Portugal was to receive a
loan from the LoN, public finances had to be under the supervision of external
authorities. The military elite was divided between those in favour of the loan,
and those that turned to economic nationalism, namely to Salazar and his views
published in Novidades. Salazar’s criticism of “Geneva’s parliamentarism” and
his support of Mussolini’s proposal for the creation of a “European Directorate”
managed by Italy, Germany, France and the UK, made him a suitable candidate
to be nominated as Minister of Finance in 1928. As a result, Portugal cancelled
its request for an external loan, and opted for a state-led budgetary balance,
grounded on domestic repression for the restructuration of the economy.
U.C. História das Relações Internacionais Portuguesas | Nuno Severiano Teixeira | Bruno Rocha
05 The Spanish-Portuguese Rapprochement
Since the First World War, the relationship between Portugal and Spain reached
a turning point that meant the gradual dissipation of the threat to metropolitan
sovereignty. From 1920 to 1926, diplomatic relations with Spain intensified; but
from 1926 to the beginning of Estado Novo, due to ideological proximity (both
were military dictatorships), the two regimes celebrated several Iberic treaties
and agreements (on conciliation matters, arbitrage and peaceful resolution of
conflicts), and Portuguese heads of state and heads of government, such as
Oscar Carmona and Ivens Ferraz, had several encounters with Rivera. The 20’s
were, thus, a period of Luso-Spanish rapprochement, one that, after 1931, once
the Estado Novo and the Second Spanish Republic became a reality, was crucial
in determining Portuguese participation in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39).
U.C. História das Relações Internacionais Portuguesas | Nuno Severiano Teixeira | Bruno Rocha
06 The Preparation of Estado Novo
After the nomination of Salazar (1928), the military dictatorship’s political nature
changed. First, the notion that the military regime was a step toward the re-
establishment of a republican regime was abandoned. Second, the Portuguese
government decided to leave aside the multilateral orientation and brought
back the political centrality of the Luso-British Alliance, while adding to it a new
dimension : (1) Portugal left the gold standard along with the UK, which ended
the economic/monetary stability of the international system; (2) Portuguese
monetary policies became connected to the pound sterling (convertibility
occurred in relation to the latter). In other words, the Luso-British Alliance
became also a monetary alliance. Last but not least, the government decided that
a new developmental policy was to be implemented in the African colonies.
U.C. História das Relações Internacionais Portuguesas | Nuno Severiano Teixeira | Bruno Rocha
 Session Suggested Reading
13 Oliveira, César, Salazar e a Guerra Civil de Espanha, Lisboa:
O Jornal, 1987, pp. 303-344
Date 09/11/2022
 Session Suggested Reading Next Session

04 Alexandre, Valentim, “Portugal em África (1825-1974): uma Perspetiva

U.C. História das Relações Internacionais Portuguesas
Global”, Penélope: revista de história e ciências sociais, 11, 1993, 53-66
Date 14/02/2021