MM Mini View: Kings of Portugal (Part IV)

The House of Braganza

King João IV: Known as “the Restorer” led the war for independence from Spain which started when the upper and middle classes united against the Spanish monarch in Portugal. With support from some other powers, the Portuguese were able to defeat the Spanish and João IV secured the Braganza dynasty on the throne. Once done, he set about on another war to recover the Portuguese territories overseas lost during the Habsburg reign. Not everything was recovered but it was remarkable, given the state Portugal was in, just how much in South America, Africa and Asia was recovered. A great patron of art & music, he was in every way a successful monarch. He restored his country, recovered lost territory and secured the succession for his line. All in all, a solid win.

King Afonso IV: I have a soft spot for Afonso IV and a great deal of sympathy. The poor man hardly had a chance. Struck ill as an infant, his body became half paralyzed and his constitution very weak. It was also said that his mental capacities were diminished but, personally, I doubt that was entirely true. Anyway, he was disabled as a child and from then on the hits just kept coming. His brother Pedro had him declared incompetent, made himself regent, effectively stealing his crown, then stole his wife and had poor Afonso locked away until his death. It was a sad state of affairs and I can only feel sorry for him. Could he have reigned on his own? Maybe not, but it seems to me that he was not treated the way he deserved.

King Pedro II: After replacing his mother as regent, shipping his brother off to the Azores and marrying his sister-in-law, a princess of the House of Savoy, Pedro II became king in his own right. He renewed the alliance with England, giving the English their first foothold in India with the marriage of Catherine of Braganza to King Charles II, he boosted industry, switched to the winning side in the War of Spanish Succession and was very important in the development of Brazil. Other than how he came to power, he was highly praiseworthy and wins back a bit of my approval for being a fairly accomplished bullfighter. An astute monarch with many accomplishments, I just wish he’d been kinder to his brother. Nonetheless, a talented man.

King João V: It is not for nothing that João V is sometimes referred to as the Portuguese King Louis XIV and, like the “Grand Monarch” of France, it is impossible not to admire João V. He was lavish, ambitious, adept at statecraft and, more so than the “Sun King”, devoutly religious. He increased the state income but spent so much that there was no great increase in wealth but I give him a pass as he built grandiose monuments that are national treasures. He expanded the Portuguese empire abroad, earned the title of “Most Faithful Majesty” from the Pope for himself and his successors and ruled very much as an absolute monarch. He had enough children to secure the succession, had a care for the souls of his subjects and left Portugal more grand than he found it. An easy favorite.

King Jose I: Unfortunately, things took a turn for the worse with Jose I. A man who loved music, hunting and women, especially fond of opera, he was rather less fond of governing and left that to the Marquess of Pombal who ushered in the “Enlightenment” to Portugal (Boo! Hiss!) and marked the change by expelling the Jesuits who had seemed such a permanent feature before. This obviously upset God as a massive earthquake hit Lisbon that was very damaging to the economy and left the king traumatized forever after. With a British assist, his forces did win a smashing victory over the invading Franco-Spanish armies but on the whole I view him as a less than admirable character whose reign was less than exemplary, bringing in many negative changes.

Queen Maria I: Maria was the sort of monarch I am inclined to like, having a reputation for both piety and madness. She was a pretty great queen, sending Pombal packing with all his terrible, “progressive” ideas, and being very much opposed to his liberal, anti-clerical policies. Very religious, she became ever more so after the poor woman suffered a string of misfortunes and many finally believed she to be going mad, suffering from depression, though there may have been a physical illness to blame for her most severe symptoms. Declared unfit to rule, her son acted for her as regent and after a brave but futile fight, the invasion of Napoleonic France and Spain forced her into exile in Brazil where she finished her life. An unfortunate woman but a great one in my book anyway.

King Pedro III: I cannot have very strong views about Pedro III as he was only technically the King of Portugal by virtue of being married to Queen Maria, which is fine, though he was also her uncle…which is disgusting. However, he seems to have been an alright guy. He took the side of the nobility against Pombal, also stuck up for the Jesuits, though the Pope suppressed them anyway, and generally just built stuff and did his own thing while his wife ran the show (as long as she was able anyway). They were happy enough as a couple and he did his job by fathering seven children so, good enough in that regard. He did what he was supposed to do. He was just a lot older than her and, well, her uncle, so it’s …just gross.

King João VI: A big deal in Portuguese history, João VI certainly never had it easy but still left his mark. The French invaded and occupied his country so he had to fight them from Brazil, deal with rising expectations there and put up with a conspiratorial wife. When the Anglo-Portuguese forces drove the invaders out, he came home but then had to deal with rebellions by people who had a taste for French Revolutionary ideas now like “rights” and such nonsense, which João VI was having none of. So he had a great deal of trouble fighting those people, trying to put his country back to the way it had been but with a Brazil that had been elevated to co-equal status as a kingdom. His reign was one crisis after another but I say God bless João VI for always fighting the good fight.

King Pedro IV: “Unique” is a word that can certainly describe Pedro IV as King of Portugal. Prior to taking that job, he led the war for independence in Brazil, which he secured. However, almost as soon as he became Emperor Pedro I of Brazil, he was proclaimed King Pedro IV of Portugal upon the death of his father, a job he did not particularly want, being quite attached to Brazil. He tried to abdicate the Portuguese throne but this was problematic due to the burgeoning feud between the constitutional and absolute monarchists. More a liberal absolutist than a constitutionalist, he was in an impossible position and finally had to abdicate in Brazil and go to Portugal to see out the fight, complicated by the ‘spill over’ of the First Carlist War in Spain.

Queen Maria II: Born into a maelstrom, Maria II was a good woman stuck between a rock and a hard place. Named queen to take her father’s place as Portuguese monarch, she was the figurehead of the constitutionalist faction which was opposed by the absolutist faction led by her uncle Miguel, who was also her regent and who she was also supposed to marry. Yes, again, ‘yuck’. Civil war raged in Portugal but the liberals, backed by France and Britain, were victorious. Maria II married another prince, received the honor of a Golden Rose from the Pope. Born in Brazil, educated in France, her on-again, off-again reign was largely determined by actions beyond her control. Still, she seemed a good woman who did the best she could under the circumstances.

King Miguel I: The champion of tradition to the reactionaries and a usurper to the liberals, as usual, both sides had a point. Miguel was convinced that the Portuguese were unready and unsuited for constitutional government and sure it would be a disaster. He was, in all honesty, rather deceitful in how he came to the throne and his civil war possibly prevented Portugal from regaining her largest and most important territory (Brazil), however, he also represented the last gasp of the grand, old Portugal of yesterday which tugs at the heartstrings. After being tossed out, coming back, fighting another round, the romantic reactionary was ultimately defeated and lived in rather destitute exile thereafter. A pity, as history would rather prove him right about the viability of liberalism.

King Fernando II: Another king by marriage only, Fernando was from one of the multitudinous branches of the Saxe-Coburg family and was married to Maria II. As such he was related to Queen Victoria, Belgium’s King Leopold and the ill-fated Empress of Mexico. He was well-suited to be the standard bearer of constitutionalism alongside his wife. As he was responsible for her eleven pregnancies, he often oversaw things while she was incapacitated by impending motherhood. A fine enough fellow, intelligent, talented and all that, he was simply too “modern” for my taste. He represents dull, reliable practicality in my mind, in contrast to the ruinous but romantic King Miguel.

King Pedro V: Such a tragic waste, Pedro V, for me, is the great “might have been” of Portuguese monarchs. He had so much potential and so many hopes resting on his young shoulders. He seemed the ideal sovereign; young, handsome, intelligent, diligent and dedicated. Even at a young age he went to work quickly to modernize the infrastructure of the country, improve communications and healthcare. Sadly, his beloved wife died of diphtheria and he later succumbed to cholera at the age of only 24. Beloved by the people, he had given the country hope that the fortunes of the nation would be revived. That was something and he did achieve much in his short reign but it only serves to tantalize the imagination as to how much more he could have done if he had had the chance to.

King Luis I: The highly intelligent Luis might have been hailed as a Renaissance Man of sorts in another time. As it was, he had the misfortune to reign at a time when the problems of liberalism really began to take effect on the country. Feuding political factions stagnated the nation, bitterness and partisanship grew. Luis was inclined in the right direction but was not supposed to rule and busied himself with oceanography and his love of English literature. He was a cultured man, high in intellectual curiosity and a very good constitutional monarch. However, the fortunes of the country declined during his reign, the fault of the system itself rather than the King. When called to choose, he would choose the better option but, limited as he was, he could not do more.

King Carlos I: The problems that festered under Luis I began to come to a boil under King Carlos. Portugal went bankrupt, then went bankrupt again and a public uproar was caused when the British seized the interior territories between Portuguese East and West Africa. King Carlos tended to be quite unfairly blamed for this due to his friendship with the British Royal Family. Well, they were Portugal’s oldest ally and if Portugal had tried to fight for the territory the results would’ve been disastrous. This unpopularity was seized upon by the republican faction and Carlos, along with his son and heir were murdered in 1908, setting off the last act of the Portuguese monarchy. Again, there was much to recommend Carlos I but there was little he could do to save the situation.

King Manuel II: Thrust upon the throne in the most difficult of circumstances, young Manuel II hardly had a chance to prove himself. Given the situation, he took a more active part in national life but discovered that the republican conspiracy was far more advanced than anyone had imagined. Bright, popular and devoted to his people and country, Manuel II came to ruin by way of practically an accident. A military revolt in 1910 seemed to have failed but the confusion of the situation allowed the revolutionaries to catch Manuel II helpless and seize power. The first republic was declared and Manuel went into exile, gallant to the last and always remaining devoted to his nation. It gave him no satisfaction that Portugal went to ruin under the republic that usurped him.

MM Mini View: Kings of Portugal (Part III)

The House of Habsburg

King Felipe I: Felipe II of Spain claimed the throne as grandson of King Manuel I at the death of Henrique though it took a little longer (and an armed invasion) for the Portuguese government to accept him. He appointed a viceroy and let the Portuguese keep their own laws but the country was obliged to subordinate its own interests to those of Spain. A large part of the famous “Spanish Armada” that attacked England was Portuguese, for example. The worst part, however, was that the enemies of Spain now became the enemies of Portugal and it was open season on Portuguese ships and colonial outposts as far as England, France and the Netherlands were concerned. Felipe I was a good king but having him as king was not always good for Portugal.

King Felipe II: Felipe III of Spain was a very good man but not a very strong one. Factionalism became a big problem and Portugal was increasingly being stripped to fund the wars fought by Spain in Europe. He was a very diligent, very religious man but bad economic decisions, made because of emergencies in Europe and to aid the wider cause of the House of Habsburg, began to have disastrous consequences for Spain and Portugal. Peace was made with the Dutch but not long after Felipe II intervened to bolster the cause of the Habsburgs in Germany which was perfectly natural for him to do but which really could have only ill-effects for Portugal. He was personally a good guy but a somewhat “hands-off” ruler so that he tends to be criticized more than he deserves.

King Felipe III: Felipe IV of Spain was a little different as, while his two Spanish predecessors had not been terribly disliked in Portugal, Felipe III was. He was an able and energetic man and quite a good king for Spain all in all but Portugal was really hard hit by the enemies he made during this time. The English took Hormuz, the Dutch nabbed Ceylon, replaced Portugal in trade with Japan and seized a large part of northern Brazil. What was to become the Dutch East Indies was seized from Portugal in Southeast Asia. Some African holdings were lost though the losses in Brazil were eventually regained. This, combined with his efforts to make Portugal basically a Spanish province, caused the Portuguese to revolt, happily aided by other anti-Spanish powers.

MM Mini View: Kings of Portugal (Part II)

The House of Aviz

King João I: The illegitimate son of Pedro I, his seizure of power prevented Portugal being annexed by Castile in the wake of the chaos following the death of Fernando, the last of the original line of Portuguese kings. Grand Master of the Order of Aviz, he became King of Portugal and took the name of the Knights of Aviz for his own royal line. When French and Castilian troops invaded, King João and his English allies sent them packing. The Spanish withdrew and Portuguese independence was secured. He conquered Ceuta (in what is now Spain) from the Muslims in 1415, held it and told Prince Henry the Navigator to send ships to have a look around Africa. A successful monarch and renowned gentlemen, he set the scene for Portuguese greatness to follow.

King Duarte I: A veteran of his father’s conquests on the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa, Duarte I commissioned Henry the Navigator to make further explorations of the African coast, and did his best to rule by consensus, frequently consulting the Cortes. However, his attack on Tangier, Morocco, led by his brother Henry, was a disaster, the Portuguese ultimately being outnumbered more than 10-to-1. His brother Fernando was given up as a hostage but the Cortes refused to surrender the territory the Muslims demanded to secure his release. King Duarte I died, heartbroken, in 1438 at only 46. He left chaos in his wake but he shouldn’t be judged too harshly. He was a scholarly and thoughtful monarch who would have likely done better had he been given more time.

King Afonso V: Son of an ill-fated father and unpopular mother, Afonso was only 6 when he became King of Portugal but he eventually made quite a good job of it. After doing away with the regency and dealing with some rebellious elites, Afonso V went on campaign of conquest in Morocco. He supported the further exploration of the African coast while Prince Henry was alive but not after his death, being consumed by his battles in Morocco which earned him the nickname, “the African”. He was a warrior king who had little time for or interest in politics and administration, much preferring life in the field delivering the wrath of God upon the heathen hordes. He tried to gain the throne of Castile but found no joy, retiring to a monastery after. All in all, an impressive king.

King João II: Having earned his spurs on the battlefield as a young man, João II came to the throne determined to close the gap left by his father who had been a great warrior king but a largely absent administrator. He despised corruption and favoritism, centralized power, cracking down on the nobles who had gained power while the king had been away in Africa. João II picked experts to oversee affairs, greatly pushed exploration, finding new lands and new resources, putting Portugal on more solid financial ground than any other European power. He clashed with Castile over ownership of the newly discovered lands in America but was regarded even by them as a great man. He was far-sighted and fully deserving of his reputation as one of the best monarchs of his time.

King Manuel I: Coming to the throne in 1495, Manuel I continued the succession of great Portuguese monarchs. It is hard to separate him from the events of his reign as these were huge; Portugal discovered the sea route to India, Brazil was discovered and Portuguese superman Albuquerque seized the vital choke points giving Portugal control of all access to the Indian Ocean and a monopoly on trade with the Far East -epic win there. Manuel was an absolutist and very religious, spreading Christianity around the world and expelling all Jews who would not convert from the country. He made trade deals with China and Persia and put Portugal on the path to being the richest country in Europe and a global empire. All in all, Manuel I was seven kinds of awesome.

King João III: The good times kept rolling with João III who basically reinforced the gains made in the reign of his father. He gave up fighting the Muslims for deserts in North Africa to focus on strengthening Portuguese footholds in Brazil and Asia but the wealth in trade caused infighting by officials and more competition from other powers. He also had to deal with the Turks but also made contact with Japan and gained Macau in China. Also devoutly religious, he established the Portuguese Inquisition, encouraged education and expanded the holdings in Africa from which the first slaves were imported to Brazil. He had a tough act to follow and maybe did not do quite as well but he had a lot to deal with so we should give the guy a break. He did good all things considered.

King Sebastião: Coming to the throne young, Sebastião must have seemed like a fairy tale prince. He was tall, strong, blonde, known for his bravery and piety, just everything the ideal prince was supposed to be. As a minor, he had a regency and his actual reign was not very long but did see the expansion of Portuguese power in Africa, reform of the law code and advances in promoting social welfare. He wanted to get along with England, France and Germany and be a good Catholic. He wanted to launch a crusade against Morocco but Spain wouldn’t help. Young King Sebastião went on his own, charged into the Islamic horde and was killed in battle at only 24. Young, handsome, virtuous and brave, such a death was the finishing touch to a king tailor-made for legendary status.

King Henrique: The death of Sebastião left no one but Henrique to succeed to the throne and, as this had never been expected, he had already joined the Church and risen to the rank of cardinal when called to assume the throne. As Archbishop of Lisbon and head of the Inquisition, he brought the Jesuits in and their missionary activity spread across the global Portuguese empire. He asked to be released from his vows to marry and produce and heir but King Felipe II of Spain, who wanted Portugal for himself, objected to this and so the Pope would not allow it. Cardinal Henrique did not live long enough to do very much and his death sparked off a crisis as to who would control the extensive and lucrative trade network that Portugal had established.

King Antonio: The natural grandson of King Manuel, Antonio is not always listed among the ranks of Portuguese monarchs as he was more a claimant to the throne than an actual monarch. He set up his own court and was acclaimed by some but had little luck against the powerful Spanish army led by the Duke of Alba who came to secure control of the country for Felipe II of Spain. Forced to clear out with as much wealth as he could carry, he was recognized by France and England only as a way to bedevil the Spanish as I doubt anyone took him too seriously. He never really proved his claim and eventually died penniless in France.

MM Mini View: Kings of Portugal (Part I)

The House of Burgundy

King Afonso I Henriques: Known as “the Conqueror” or “the Founder” or simply King Afonso the Great, this Portuguese born son of Henry of Burgundy, Count of Portugal, came up as a vassal of the Spanish King of Leon during the war to liberate the Iberian peninsula from the Moorish Islamic invaders. Afonso proved to be a great warrior and a formidable military leader. After the smashing victory at Ourique he was proclaimed the first King of Portugal in 1139. He married a daughter of the House of Savoy, proved adept at political maneuvering and switched the King of Leon for the Pope in Rome as his feudal overlord. Overall, a pretty great king to whom the existence of Portugal as a country is owed.

King Sancho I: Although he is understandably often overshadowed by his father, the second Portuguese monarch was quite an accomplished guy. He took the country his father had created and made it work, giving it a proper administration, an economy, businesses and so on. He also stopped fighting with his fellow Christians and concentrated on the Moors to the south, which is always to be preferred. He built several new towns and was noted for his love of literature and attached great importance to education. This would pay large dividends later on. King Sancho also understood the importance of demographics and made sure to move people into unoccupied areas of the country to solidly their possession. Hence his nickname, “Sancho the Populator”.

King Afonso II: Remembered for his rotundity, the third King of Portugal liked the peace and quiet. He made peace with both his Christian and Islamic neighbors and decided not to push to expand his kingdom further. His priorities were domestic and, unlike his two predecessors, was a bit of a control freak who worked to centralize power in his own hands. This put him at odds with his feudal overlord the Pope as the Church held considerable power in the country, leading to Afonso II being excommunicated by Pope Honorius III. He tried to repent but sadly died still shut out from the Church. On the whole, not a monarch who really accomplished a great deal.

King Sancho II: After a king who was excommunicated, it is only fair to have one known as “the Pious”, though the Church authorities might dispute that. He had to agree to a long list of concessions to win back the good graces of the Pope but got high marks for shrugging off government to wage war on the Muslims, which he excelled at. Unfortunately, his absence meant he wasn’t around to protect the Church from the merchant class and they complained to the Pope who declared Sancho II a heretic and his throne to be free for the taking. His brother in France, another Afonso, joined with rebellious nobles in fighting a civil war against Sancho II, eventually forcing him across the border into Spain where he died in exile.

King Afonso III: Put on the throne by Pope Innocent II, Afonso wanted to succeed where his brother failed so he focused on administration. He had his military successes to, most notably the conquest of the Algarve, adding that to his royal title but he also wanted to ensure domestic tranquility by having everyone share in the privileges and responsibilities of government. He gave the common people representation in government, fine, he taxed the merchant class, fine and he taxed the Church…which was not fine. In fact, it got him excommunicated, making two kings in a row and so upsetting him that he dropped dead at 68 after an otherwise successful reign.

King Dinis: Brought to the throne at 18, he took care to make amends with the Church, even marrying a future saint, Elizabeth of Aragon, and he brought considerable prosperity to Portugal. Dinis expelled all foreigners from positions of power, made Portuguese the official language, encouraged education and greatly improved agriculture as well as tapping into what resources the country had to offer. Soon, he had such a surplus that Portugal had a booming export economy. He hired some Italians to start the Portuguese navy and he founded the Order of Christ, mostly from former Templars after their order had been suppressed. He centralized power, made Lisbon the capital and greatly furthered the country’s development. All in all, a very successful monarch.

King Afonso IV: He had it rough, not being very well liked by his father and if there was one word to sum up the reign of Afonso IV it would be “drama”. Portugal was one long soap opera or novella in these years. There were civil wars between Afonso IV and his brothers, his daughter was married to a Spanish prince who cheated on her, leading to conflict there, his son wanted to marry his mistress but the King had her locked up in a convent, then when she was killed the crown prince started a rebellion against his father and this carried on until Afonso IV finally died. If you were writing a series of romance novels, your publisher would probably tell you to tone it down but truth is not only stranger than fiction, it can be more dramatic too.

King Pedro I: The tragic, forbidden romance of Pedro and Ines and his subsequent rebellion against his father has made this king possibly the most visible in popular culture with numerous stories, songs, operas and so on all written about his rise to the throne. I really want to believe that he had Ines dug up and crowned queen alongside him but that may be just a legend. More people believe that he found the men who murdered his beloved and ripped out their hearts with his bare hands. Harsh, but fair. And that is not only my opinion as he has been known as both the “just” king and the “cruel” king. He also ensured that he would be buried facing his beloved Ines. What else of his reign? Who cares?! He was the great avenger of his true love and I think he was awesome, I hope all the stories are true.

King Fernando I: The reign of the first Fernando was taken up with the Castilian succession war in which the kings of Aragon and Navarre, the English Duke of Lancaster and Fernando I of Portugal all claimed the throne of Castile. Fernando and the Duke of Lancaster made a deal to try to knock off the King of Castile but it didn’t work out. Later, they tried again but John of Gaunt (the duke) got on the King’s nerves and he broke his alliance and made a deal to marry his daughter to King Juan of Castile whose children would rule both countries. This didn’t happen though and the lack of a legitimate male heir brought an end to the Burgundy line of kings, an interregnum, some warfare and eventually a new dynasty to the Portuguese throne.

Monarch Profile: King Reinaldo Frederico Gungunhana of Gaza

In the late Nineteenth Century, in the southern tip of what is now Mozambique, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers, existed the grandly named “Gaza Empire”. It was, like other African powers which later claimed the title, actually a collection of tribes ruled by whoever was able to seize control for as long as he could hold it. The Gaza empire consisted of tribes which migrated north out of what is now South Africa earlier in the century due to a combination of famine and the defeat of other African tribes following the “Great Trek” of the Boers after the British abolished slavery. The chieftains of Gaza continued to rely heavily on slavery with the Islamic slave merchants on the coast continuing to do business with them for a very long time. The other power in the neighborhood was, of course, the Kingdom of Portugal which had long claimed the whole area as Portuguese East Africa but whose actual control had, for centuries, been limited to the coastal area from which they did business with Africans who inhabited the interior.

Rough location of the "Empire of Gaza"

The man known by the Portuguese as Reinaldo Frederico Gungunhana was born around the year 1850 with the name Mdungazwe (or Mundagaz). His grandfather, Gaza, had been a local tribal chief who, during the migration, was able to accumulate several other chiefs subordinate to him and thus when they settled in what is now southern Mozambique and established themselves named their new country Gaza centered around the village of Chaimite. The Portuguese, long established in the region, though mostly farther north, sent a small delegation led by a junior army officer to establish relations with this new entity and negotiate a treaty with them on behalf of the King of Portugal. Though the envoys were received, Gaza refused to make any agreement with Portugal and small scale hostilities continued, mostly with other African tribes in the region and occasionally clashing with the Portuguese as well.

Gungunhana was thus born into a tribal society constantly in conflict and was raised with the sole purpose of being a great tribal warrior in the image of his grandfather. When his grandfather died, his father, Mzila, his uncle Mawewe and another chief all fought for dominance over Gaza. Mawewe was victorious and Mzila, with his son presumably, was forced to flee to the Transvaal in what is now South Africa as Mawewe, to prevent any threat to his hold on power, did his best to massacre his brother’s family which was fairly typical for the time and place. This upsurge in violence caused the Portuguese to peg Mawewe as a troublemaker and they arranged an alliance with the President of the Orange Free State (one of the Boer republics) to eliminate this mutual threat. Chief Mawewe did his best to prove the Portuguese correct, sending them a demand for tribute from every Portuguese colonist at Lourenco Marques under threat of their total annihilation. The Portuguese governor, not being the sort to tolerate such threats and having a flair for the dramatic, sent Mawewe a single rifle cartridge with the notice that this would be the only tribute he would receive from the subjects of the King of Portugal. The fact that their earlier offer of friendship had been rejected, naturally, did not make the belligerent attitude of Mawewe go down any better with the Portuguese.

Gungunhana

This, however, gave Gungunhana’s father, Mzila, an opportunity to advance his own cause. Learning of recent evens in the autumn of 1861, Mzila went to the Portuguese and offered them his allegiance as a vassal of the King of Portugal if the Portuguese would help him to overthrow his brother and take control of Gaza. Portugal agreed, Mzila declared himself the rightful king of the Gaza and launched a war. He was able to rally some supporters with the help of having Portuguese backing him up and an November 30, 1861 won the decisive battle which secured his control of the area. The following month he signed a formal treaty in which the Portuguese recognized him as the chieftain of Gaza and which made him a subject of the King of Portugal. The war dragged on for several more years though the outcome was never really in doubt as Mzila, despite having initially a much smaller army, had 2,000 antiquated flintlock muskets provided by the Portuguese authorities which allowed him to dominate his enemy.

Gungunhana began to rise in prominence among the other children of his father during these years but as the decades went by, tensions began to rise too as warriors from Gaza attacked Portuguese colonists. New agreements were made and Mzila would offer apologies and expressions of friendship, but such attacks continued sporadically and bad feelings continued to fester. Around this time, as his reign was nearing its end, the “Scramble for Africa” was also starting to get underway. British rule in Africa was expanding rapidly and the Germans and Belgians were also arriving on the scene, eager to make agreements with native rulers for control of local resources. The Portuguese colonial authorities had to move to actually occupy the areas long claimed and to make sure none of the chieftains in these territories were wooed away by other powers.

After attacks on two Portuguese settlements, Mzila went to Lourenco Marques to make his apologies and again pledge his allegiance to the King in Lisbon. Although irritated by the attacks, the Portuguese gave Mzila a welcome full of pomp and ceremony as well as more tangible gifts such as rice, livestock and liquor. At his request, they also gave him a Portuguese flag to fly over his village. The Portuguese also sent an ambassador to his village shortly thereafter. However, not long after, in 1884, Mzila died. Gungunhana was not the heir to the throne but, again, in typical fashion, made war on his brothers and was successful in forcing the heir and other rivals for power to flee the country. By the end of the year he was firmly ensconced on the throne and took the name Gungunhana or “son of the lion”. With his authority covering 90,000 square kilometers of territory and over a million Africans, Gungunhana, at 34, undoubtedly felt at the top of his game. However, the encroachment of the British and the Germans in the area meant that Portugal had to have, not just treaties but an actual presence in every area under her flag, otherwise it would be seen as “fair game” to the more recently arrived European powers.

With the British in the midst of a flurry of expansion, the Portuguese colonial government dispatched Casaleiro Alegria as the Portuguese resident at the court of Gungunhana in 1885. The following year, representatives in Lisbon agreed to a new treaty which would allow Portugal a presence in Gaza, freedom of movement for the Portuguese in Gaza and granting Gungunhana the rank of Colonel of the Second Line in the royal Portuguese army. Unfortunately, that agreement fell apart and a new delegation had to be sent to Lisbon in 1887 to negotiate a new treaty. The Africans were much more cooperative after the recent suppression of the fearsome Zulu kingdom by the British. This was done but events began to unravel very quickly.

Gungunhana decided to move his capital farther to the south, to an area held by tribes that were less than friendly to his own (the Nguni) and this set off a series of conflicts and, again, some sporadic attacks on Portuguese colonists. One reason for this was the presence of some mines in this region which the Africans learned were highly prized by the Europeans and Gungunhana believed that if he could take undisputed control of this region, he could buy the support of the British in helping him divorce himself from the Portuguese. It did not help that at the same time the oldest alliance in the world was being tested with the British expansion into the interior of Africa between the Portuguese colonies in Angola and Mozambique. There were even threats of a naval blockade and relations between the British and Portuguese had scarcely ever been worse. The time for niceties was over and the Kingdom of Portugal had to get very serious or risk losing their territory. To oversee the occupation of Mozambique, Portugal dispatched the respected soldier Lt. Colonel (with brevet promotion to general) Joaquim Mouzinho de Albuquerque as governor.

Battle of Marracuene

Gungunhana, alarmed at the sudden ‘no-nonsense’ attitude of the Portuguese in Africa, went ahead with his scheme to enlist the British on his side. However, the governments in London and Lisbon, unknown to him, had already agreed on where the border between their colonial holdings would be. The spread of Portuguese authority also caused a backlash in areas far removed from Gaza and in 1894 in particular there were large native uprisings against the colonial government. At first, Gungunhana tried to assure both sides of his support but eventually he did have to mobilize his warriors, though he tried to reassure the Portuguese that he simply wished to review them. Portugal responded with a formal military campaign for the pacification of Mozambique. On February 2, 1895 a small Portuguese force led by Major Caldas Xavier defeated a much larger African army at the Battle of Marracuene thanks to the discipline and superior weaponry of the colonial army. That episode got the attention of some of the African leaders but a last effort at a diplomatic reconciliation with Gungunhana fails later the same year. Gungunhana continuously put off the Portuguese, still thinking that he would receive word from the British any day of their support for his cause.

Finally, that summer, Gungunhana refuses a last Portuguese ultimatum and threatens openly to ally himself with the British. This was effectively an outright declaration of war against Portugal. It does not go well for the Africans. At the Battle of Magul on September 7, 1895 a Portuguese column, having formed square, bloodily repulses a massive native attack with their superior firepower. Nearby villages were burned as the Portuguese army moved in. The Africans fighting at Magul, however, were not from Gaza as Gungunhana was still holding back, expecting the British to come fight on his behalf. He is even forced, eventually, to demobilize his army of 40,000 men as he simply could no longer feed them and the men needed to return home to see to their crops. He sends still more messages to the British in South Africa but, as usual, receives no reply. With no other native forces between his own and the Portuguese, Gungunhana became the focus of a direct attack by a heavily armed column of 600 Portuguese soldiers and 500 African colonial troops led by Colonel Eduardo Galhardo.

Battle of Coolela

Amazingly, Gungunhana seemed to think that, as he and his father had done in the past, the Portuguese might be mollified with apologies and renewed promises of friendship. This time, however, that will not be enough and Gungunhana is only able to mobilize a fraction of his previous strength, roughly 13,000 native warriors, to meet the Portuguese. The result was the famous Battle of Coolela on November 7, 1895 in which, again, the Portuguese forces decimate the native army, the African warriors of Gaza losing hundreds of men compared to only five Portuguese being killed. In the aftermath of this disaster, Gungunhana accuses his family of betraying him and announces that he will surrender to the Portuguese, again, still thinking that new promises of friendship will be enough. About four days later the Portuguese take the capital of Gaza, Manjacaze, but find the chieftain not at home. The kraal is burned and the troops march on. Gungunhana had fled to the old capital, the village of Chaimite, where his witchdoctors perform human sacrifice to arouse the spirit of his famous grandfather for protection.

The capture of Gungunhana

With other African chiefs eager to make themselves vassals of the King of Portugal in wake of the recent battles, including members of Gungunhana’s own family, Mouzinho de Albuquerque decided to go himself, with only a handful of men, to capture Gungunhana. The African chieftain tries to stop Albuquerque with gifts, sending ivory and over 500 pounds of gold, later more gold, livestock and even his firstborn son but all to no avail. On the morning of December 28, 1895 Mouzinho de Albuquerque enters Chaimite with its remaining 300 warriors fleeing at the approach of the tiny party. Gungunhana is taken prisoner and the village is destroyed. That was not the end of all resistance but it was the end for Gungunhana who was packed up, along with his seven wives and a few servants, and marched to the coast and put aboard ship for Lisbon. When journalists are allowed in to see him, they are confronted by the pitiful site of a bewildered man, crying hysterically, desperately trying to bargain for his life, convinced that he is to face a firing squad.

This, of course, does not happen and in the midst of a media frenzy the group is moved to a prison fortress where they are such a popular attraction that viewing stands are erected. Not long after they are moved to better accommodations and given their favorite foods, wine and medical care. Gungunhana repeatedly asked to meet with King Carlos, wishing to pledge his allegiance again but, though it is talked about, the King refuses to meet with him. The African chieftain was quickly becoming problematic for the government. Caring for them and the horde of spectators that gathered around them was expensive and while some in Portugal wished for nothing better than for Gungunhana to be shot as a faithless traitor, leftist agitators and enemies of the monarchy were also starting to champion his cause and condemn the pacification campaign as wanton cruelty. Finally, on June 22, 1896, the group was quietly shipped off to exile in the Azores.

The exiled king and his seven wives

The former ruler of Gaza was, on orders from the Portuguese government, treated with all due respect, spending his time hunting rabbits and weaving baskets for sale at the local market. To his dismay, the Catholic nature of the Portuguese monarchy would not allow him to retain his seven wives and so, to assuage him and his sons, weekly trips to the local brothel satisfied them. Eventually they all learned to read, write and speak Portuguese and in 1899 were baptized into the Roman Catholic Church. They adopted western clothes and customs and eventually became accepted, if unusual, members of the local community. Reinaldo Frederico Gungunhana, former king of Gaza, died of a cerebral hemorrhage on December 23, 1906. Some of his descendants still live in South Africa today.

Monarch Profile: King Manuel II of Portugal

The last reigning Portuguese monarch to date, Manuel II, had a very interesting life, with all of the misfortune that statement implies. Coming to the throne of Portugal before his time, he was young, handsome, widely popular and seemed to embody a real sense of hope that the Kingdom of Portugal could be on the verge of a great revival in prestige and prosperity. Yet, after all too short a reign, he became the first major monarch to lose his throne in the Twentieth Century. Predictably, his country suffered as a result and there was every reason to believe that he could have been restored in his own lifetime. Yet, he was not and would live out his remaining years in exile, leaving behind a very problematic succession dispute. His life, in a way, embodies the problem with what we know as “constitutional monarchy” which looks quite reasonable and has worked very well for certain periods of time yet which always seems to go in the same direction. King Manuel II was probably the most “modern” monarch that Portugal had ever had, yet his position meant that he had great responsibility with very little power and fell victim to a powerful republican faction even though most Portuguese thought well of him.

His Royal Highness Infante Manuel Maria Filipe Carlos Amelio Luis Miguel Rafael Gabriel Gonzaga Francisco de Assis Eugenio de Orleans Savoy and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha Braganza of Portugal was born on November 15, 1889 at Belem Palace in Lisbon, the second son and third child of King Carlos I of Portugal and Queen Amelie of Orleans, daughter of the Count of Paris. As the younger son he was not expected to succeed to the throne and so was not educated with national leadership in mind though he was still given a first-rate education. Indeed, young Manuel proved to be a brilliant boy, becoming literate and fluent at French at only six years old. He was very much the bookish type, inclined to study with a great interest in literature and the arts, particularly music, having a great appreciation for the classics and becoming quite an adept pianist. Athletic activities were required of course but he preferred to spend his time reading and listening to Beethoven and Wagner, a young man of refined tastes. He seemed tailor-made to serve as in intellectual advisor to his handsome, more athletic and outgoing older brother Luis Felipe, when he eventually became king.

While his brother was trained for the army, Prince Manuel was set to enter the Portuguese Naval Academy for his own military career. However, all of those plans came to ruin on the tragic day of February 1, 1908 when a republican terrorist gang assassinated the King, the heir to the throne and wounded Prince Manuel in the arm. He likely would have been killed as well had it not been for the heroic actions of his mother Queen Amelie, instead, he became King Manuel II of Portugal and the Algarves under the most traumatic of circumstances. Although he confessed to being unprepared for such a position and forced to rely on his loyal ministers for advice, the new, young monarch did take some immediate and decisive action, dismissing the prime minister and his government which had presided over such a disaster and replacing it with a new government led by the distinguished Admiral Francisco Joaquin Ferreira do Amaral. It was hoped that this new government would encourage national unity and, in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, it seemed to work. However, the republican conspiracy was found to be more widespread than any had originally realized.

King Manuel II started his reign greatly loved by the vast majority of his people. He was young, handsome and most felt immense sympathy for him due to the circumstances which had brought him to the throne. He also set a tone that he was to be a more “modern” king than his predecessors. He did away with most of the traditional pomp and ceremony of the royal court and, not surprisingly considering the fate which befell his father, declared that he would “reign” but not “rule” and would not be intervening in political matters as King Carlos had done. He also quickly set about trying to build a personal relationship with his subjects, traveling around the country to see and be seen by as many people as possible. He was highly praised for his frank conversations, sincerity and informal style. Unfortunately, none of this had any impact on the blind hatred of the ideologically driven republicans. As the investigation into the assassinations went forward, it was found that the web of these villains was extensive indeed and their hostility would be unremitting. King Manuel II did not remain unaware of this and decided on a way to try to deal with it but it would mean playing with fire.

The plan of the young monarch was to try to tame the socialist party, which, odd as it seems now had never fared well in Portugal, in order to make them a more palatable alternative to the republican party. Of course, being socialists, they were naturally republicans as well but the hope was that they could be made to work within the existing system of constitutional monarchy and that leftist agitators would abandon the cause of the republicans who had no other goal than the ruination of the kingdom. This would be no small trick as it would require two political miracles; making the republicans go over to the socialists and yet not have the socialists simply replace them as the primary threat to the monarchy. King Manuel II hoped that he could weaken the republicans and, perhaps naively, that the socialists could be a force for good in the country. Unfortunately, though perhaps not surprisingly, this never really worked but nor was it given much of a chance to. The situation was deteriorating faster than anyone would have expected. The efforts to modernize and any moderation on the part of the Crown was the scent of blood in the water for the republicans.

In electoral terms, the supporters of the constitutional monarchy did quite well and the republicans won the least number of seats but, hypocrites as they inevitably are, they never intended to take power democratically anyway and from the start were plotting to seize power by force. The King traveled abroad and reaffirmed the historic alliance with Great Britain but disaster struck when King Edward VII died and without him and with a Liberal government in London the Portuguese Royal Family could expect no help from that quarter in their hour of need. It also did not help that the British alliance and the friendship between the British and Portuguese royal houses was still fairly unpopular with a segment of the population in Portugal over the British seizure of the African territory between Portuguese East and West Africa. From the time King Manuel II came to the throne the Kingdom of Portugal would survive for only 33 months. Of that time, Portugal saw the rise and fall of seven different governments in 24 of those months. As was all too often the case, a splintering of the pro-monarchy parties created a power vacuum that the republicans were only too eager to fill.

The King and royal officials knew something was up and on October 3, 1910 put the soldiers of the Lisbon garrison on the alert and took care to stay at a different location than his uncle and heir-to-the throne, Prince Royal Afonso, in case the worse should happen. Rumors of a coup attempt were thick but republican conspirators nonetheless succeeded, with some of their fellow members serving in the army, in sparking a mutiny first in the Sixteenth Infantry and later First Artillery Regiments. Men from other units joined as well along with a few hundred civilians and, after clashing with police and some municipal guard troops along the way, set themselves up behind barricades in Rotunda Square. By the next morning some naval crews had mutinied as well, one group of rebels even seizing the cruiser Dom Carlos I, the situation in the capital was momentarily deadlocked. The rebels had achieved all of their aims and yet there was no mass uprising of the people as they had expected. They controlled a major city square and Alcantara parish, but little more and they could not remain there indefinitely. With no movement on the part of the public, many rebel leaders gave up and went home. Unfortunately, the firebrand Machado Santos stayed and determined to carry on.

The following days, troops from the palace were sent to dislodge the rebels at Rotunda Square but they were attacked as they came up, fought off their attackers and pressed on only to be repulsed at the rebel barricades. They tried to call for reinforcements but telegraph lines had been cut and railroads smashed to hinder if not prevent just such an occurrence. The monarchist units began to crack under the stress, a rebel cruiser shelled government buildings within sight of a Brazilian battleship which was actually carrying the President of Brazil, a former Portuguese colony which had only recently overthrown its own monarch of the same family as King Manuel II (in fact, Emperor Pedro II of Brazil had been present when the last King of Portugal was born). The King was doing his best to appear confident and relaxed by the morning of October 5 but found his phone lines cut when rebels attacked the Palace of Necessidades where he was staying. When the president of the Council of Ministers finally got in touch with him, he advised him to flee, having heard that the palace was to be bombarded but King Manuel II refused, saying he preferred to die at his post.

The palace did come under fire from ships in the harbor but the King kept his cool and contacted the minister president about what forces needed to be sent to reinforce the position. As the attack on Rotunda had already failed, he was advised again that it would be easier to get him out than to get sufficient loyal troops in. The King agreed to evacuate to a military school at Mafra, dispatching many of the soldiers sent to escort him to fight the rebels. However, when he arrived, he found only a small fraction of the soldiers expected and by that time had not many with him either. It was decided to bring the Queen Mother and Dowager Queen Maria Pia of Savoy to Mafra and then they would all go to Porto to make a proper defense and organize a monarchist counter-offensive to take back control of Lisbon. Fighting was still going on there but it came to end in an odd way, all due to a misunderstanding.

A German diplomat had gone out under a white flag to try to arrange a cease-fire to evacuate foreign diplomats. The royalist general on hand agreed, thinking this would also buy him some time for more reinforcements to come in. However, the sight of the white flag and the royal forces holding their fire, caused many to believe that the King’s troops had surrendered and many of the republicans began celebrating. Now the public made itself known as huge crowds took to the streets. This buoyed the republicans and totally demoralized the loyalist forces which soon collapsed, however, many people had no idea what had actually happened. Some were simply celebrating that the shooting had stopped, others assumed that it was the rebels who must have surrendered. However, the rebels wasted no time and proclaimed the First Portuguese Republic. King Manuel II, still at Mafra, was shocked to receive word from the civic officials that his country was now a republic and he was cut off. The arrival of the royal yacht, which had already picked up his uncle, offered the only chance of escape. The King first hoped to take the ship to Porto and carry on the struggle as planned but was advised this would be too risky and, indeed, as it turned out the city would have been in republican hands by the time they arrived. Instead, they had just enough fuel to make it to Gibraltar.

King Manuel II was extremely civil about the whole ordeal. After landing at Gibraltar he even ordered the yacht to return to Portugal on the grounds that it was government property and not his own. He would live out the rest of his life in exile in Great Britain. For a kingdom that dated back to 1139, with roots stretching back even further, it seemed an anticlimactic end, more like the result of a bizarre accident than a successful conspiracy. King Manuel II still regarded himself as King of Portugal, as did the other crowned heads of Europe and, indeed, there was plenty of reason to hope for a restoration as the First Portuguese Republic proved to be an incoherent, anticlerical, monument to political incompetence from start to finish. In 1911 and 1912 there were efforts at a royal restoration, showing considerable public support for the monarchy but each were unsuccessful. In 1913 the King married Princess Augusta Victoria von Hohenzollern but the two never had any children.

In World War I, starting the following year, the King, living in exile in Middlesex, England, supported the British war effort and approved of Portuguese involvement in the conflict on the Allied side. This put him at odds with many of his supporters who hoped for a German-Austrian victory. However, while intervention was a fiasco, the King’s judgment ultimately proved correct. Portugal would have lost their African empire in the event of a German victory and, as it happened, their colonies were saved by being on the winning team while at the same time the war severely discredited the republican government. They had been unable to maintain the Portuguese Expeditionary Force sent to France and ultimately allowed it to be absorbed into the British military because they could not provide support for their own soldiers. It was in light of this that another, very serious, attempt at a restoration of the monarchy occurred in 1919. Alas, once again, the republic managed to just survive.

There were also, unfortunately but not surprisingly, problems which the monarchists created for themselves. Ever since the Liberal Wars of 1828-1834 between the constitutional and absolute monarchists (basically the Portuguese version of the Spanish Carlist Wars) there had been a faction of the Portuguese Royal Family providing a rival claim to the throne in opposition to the victorious constitutional monarchists. At the time of the overthrow of King Manuel II, the absolutist claimant was Miguel, Duke of Braganza and this division doubtless hurt the overall cause of monarchy. It was also all the more pressing given that Manuel II had no heir to continue the constitutionalist line after the death of his uncle in 1920 with no heirs either.

King Manuel II and the Duke of Braganza met shortly after the revolution in Portugal and supposedly the King agreed that the Duke’s line were part of the family but no more than that and even that remains disputed to this day by some. Later, in 1922, another agreement was supposedly reached in France between the two rival claimants that the Duke’s heir, Duarte Nuno, would succeed Manuel II as claimant to the Portuguese Crown. However, the absolutists refused to accept allegiance to a constitutional monarchy and, as the offer by Manuel II depended on this, it was withdrawn. Maybe. Again, the facts on this are seemingly impossible to obtain as each side has a different version of events. Portuguese succession law also proved very problematic and hard to maneuver around, especially since it could no longer be modified and there were still those absolutists who would never accept a constitutional monarchy and constitutional monarchists who would never accept an absolute one.

As it was, Manuel II, the last King of Portugal to date, died of suffocation from a throat problem on July 2, 1932 which made the Miguelist heir Duarte Nuno the ‘last man standing’ and basically the only option for carrying the monarchist cause forward. By this time the First Portuguese Republic had fallen apart and a corporatist “New State” was in place led by Prime Minister Antonio Oliveira de Salazar who had begun to stabilize things and slowly bring the country back toward prosperity. A devout Catholic and inclined to monarchist sympathies, he allowed the remains of King Manuel II to come to Portugal for burial with full state honors. The sad occasion gathered huge crowds, showing again how much popular support the monarchy still had in Portugal. Salazar talked of restoring the monarchy and seriously considered it in 1951 but, perhaps because of the legal disputes and lingering rivalries within the monarchist community, ultimately never did so. When his regime was brought down by a military coup in 1974 the revived Portuguese republic has had basically only liberal or leftist governments ever since which, of course, have little time for any talk of monarchy.

In the end, King Manuel II had been a monarch with much promise. He was very intelligent, very devoted to his country and hoped to bring about a revival of Portugal by reviving the national pride of the Portuguese themselves as a unique people with a glorious history. A king at eighteen he was, nonetheless, inexperienced and was handed a problem on his first day that had been festering for years and proved worse than anyone then knew. He had so little time to prove himself that he can hardly be faulted for how things turned out. The situation which brought about his downfall was so bizarre as to almost defy belief. For the rest of his life he seemed the ideal exiled monarch and always seemed tantalizingly close to restoration only to never have it quite work out. He may not have always made the right moves, but his heart was always in the right place and Portugal only suffered by his absence. He could have done so much more for his country if only he had been allowed the opportunity.

The Colonial Problems of Portugal

It has often been said that the Portuguese were the first to have an empire and the last to lose it, for which there is basis. However, while other factors were certainly involved, the empire also played a central part in the ultimate downfall of the Kingdom of Portugal. Likewise, more than royalist plots, the First Republic came very near to being brought down by issues relating to the empire and it was the struggle to maintain the empire, against a world opinion that had turned against colonialism, which brought down the regime which had been the most conciliatory toward the former Portuguese monarchy since the establishment of the republic. The Portuguese empire was forged from such small beginning, so many centuries in the past, that it had become somewhat taken for granted and when the threat of losing it finally appeared, monarchical and republican governments struggled to defend it, sometimes at the cost of their own existence.

The first crisis of this sort to arise came over the issue of the vast interior of Africa which lay between the Portuguese colonies which are today Angola and Mozambique. The Portuguese had for centuries ventured little into the interior of Africa. Their primary aim had been commerce rather than conquest and so Portuguese control was focused on the coasts. However, as the “Scramble for Africa” by the major European powers began, the Portuguese were forced to take action before territory they always regarded as their own was seized by a rival power. So, the Portuguese Foreign Minister, Barros Gomes, drew up the “Rose Colored Map” in 1885 showing the area between Portuguese West and East Africa that Portugal claimed. This was to be used in dealing with the other colonial powers as most Portuguese had long assumed, and not surprisingly so, that since they held the land on the east and the land on the west, the land in the middle naturally belonged to them as well. Other powers did not see it that way, particularly Portugal’s long-standing ally the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

This territory, which would ultimately become, for the most part, the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, was already within the sights of the British South Africa Company and the British government, led by the great Lord Salisbury, was adamant that this territory was not Portuguese. From the British point of view, a claim was meaningless unless such territory was actually occupied and under the control of a given power. Since the Portuguese did not occupy the area and thus did not control it, the British regarded it as being up for grabs. The Portuguese, of course, set to work moving colonial forces into the interior as quickly as possible but knew that it would be almost impossible to truly occupy the whole region covered by the “Rose Colored Map” before the British arrived. The Kingdom of Portugal had no desire to fight Britain for control of the region as it would be a hopeless effort even if for no other reason than the dominance of the British navy. Britain was also Portugal’s most important trading partner and an open clash would be ruinous to the already less than robust Portuguese economy.

Instead, the Portuguese tried to gain recognition for the “Rose Colored Map” by diplomatic means but it did not go well. The French and the Germans were agreeable enough but while Portugal conceded claims to other disputed territories neighboring French and German colonies, neither France or Germany actually recognized the lands claimed by Portugal in the “Rose Colored Map”. In effect, they recognized that Portugal claimed them, but not that Portugal actually had the rights to them. In the end, Portugal had given concessions but ultimately gained nothing real in return. The British, as stated, were having none of it and refused to recognize any territory claimed by Portugal that was not firmly and directly under Portuguese control, even if Portugal had claimed the land for centuries, in fact, centuries before the British even arrived in southern Africa.

The agents of the King of Portugal and those of the British South Africa company began to clash in what later became Rhodesia and in 1890 the British government issued an ultimatum to Portugal demanding that they removal all personnel from the disputed territory of what would become Rhodesia and effectively recognize British sovereignty over the region which the Portuguese had considered their own for centuries but had largely neglected. This probably came closer than anything ever would to breaking what is known as the oldest alliance in the world. The Portuguese were outraged and considered it an absolute betrayal. However, the Kingdom of Portugal had little choice but to back down and comply. They could hardly have fought Britain for it and international arbitration might have opened the door for other colonial powers to get involved and snatch away Portuguese territory for themselves. There was also the Germans to worry about who were already casting a hungry eye at the Portuguese colonies and Portugal would need Britain for back up if the Germans ever tried to get aggressive on that front.

So, the Kingdom of Portugal backed down and conceded to the ultimatum which was seen as totally humiliating. The public was in an uproar that their government had failed to protect what was widely seen as Portuguese territory and King Carlos I did not escape blame even though there was, realistically, little to nothing he could have done differently. King Carlos I was also criticized for being seen as too friendly with the British Royal Family who were then regarded as enemies. It all came about a bad time as the monarchy in Brazil had recently been overthrown, the economy was in a downward spiral and people were looking for someone to blame. At the head of the country, King Carlos I was an easy target. The humiliation also prompted the suicide, in dramatic fashion, of a well known Portuguese explorer which increased the public clamor against the monarchy. On January 31 the following year, 1891, in Porto there was a republican uprising. A nationalist song, which later became the republican national anthem of Portugal, was written and widely sung.

This attempt to establish a republic was quickly suppressed by loyal security forces, however dozens were killed or injured and 250 were convicted and punished with either prison time or exile. Thus the republican movement gained a core of “martyrs”, an anthem (which it was illegal to sing but would return in due time) and the red and green flag. The whole affair was a terrible blow to the prestige and popularity of the monarchy. The republican movement only increased in audacity and in 1908 King Carlos I and his son and heir Prince Luis were assassinated. In 1910 things spiraled out of control and the monarchy was overthrown, the Kingdom of Portugal brought down and replaced by the First Portuguese Republic. The usual events followed. The Jesuits and other religious orders were suppressed, convents were closed, schools were secularized, marriage became a civil rather than religious matter, separation of Church and state was established, divorce was legalized and the aristocracy was suppressed.

However, the First Portuguese Republic was a disaster by any measure, its whole existence dominated by chaos, corruption and disorder. There were counter-revolutionary efforts by Portuguese royalists but the thing that really came the closest to collapsing the First Republic was again to be found in the African colonies. The context was World War One in which Portugal originally tried to remain neutral, despite there being a clash between German and Portuguese colonial troops in Africa fairly early on. Neutrality came to an end in 1916 when Germany tightened its submarine blockade of Britain which had a major impact on Portugal as the British were their largest trading partner. In February, at the request of the British, the Portuguese interned a number of German and Austrian ships and so, the following month, the German Empire declared war on Portugal, followed almost a week later by Austria-Hungary. The republican government tried to take an optimistic view of the situation, seeing a number of possible benefits from their participation in the war. Large numbers of Portuguese troops were dispatched to defend the colonies and participate in the war in Africa and a Portuguese expeditionary force was assembled to fight alongside the British on the western front.

The result of all of this was an utter disaster. Despite some occasions of great heroism and endurance by the Portuguese soldiers, Portugal was largely humiliated on the world stage thanks to its inept government. In Africa, where the Germans had probably the greatest irregular warfare genius of all time leading their forces, the Portuguese were almost without exception defeated time and again. Part of the problem was that some of the Africans took the opportunity to rebel, forcing the Portuguese to divert resources to deal with that. At sea, German submarines sank almost a hundred Portuguese ships with the legendary “ace” Captain Max Valentiner of U-157 sinking a great many of them as well as bombarding shore positions on the island of Madeira. On the western front, again despite some heroic episodes by individual soldiers, the Portuguese expeditionary force was a commitment that proved too much for the government that sent it to maintain. The republican authorities were unable to keep them supplied, rotated at proper intervals and in a major German offensive they were almost wiped out completely, ultimately being forced to basically be absorbed into the British Expeditionary Force. All in all, the whole ordeal had been a fiasco.

Portugal had lost 8,145 men dead, 13,751 wounded and 12, 318 captured of their original peak strength of 55,000. Over a hundred thousand tons of shipping was destroyed, just over 7,000 tons badly damaged, the economy was in shambles and all Portugal had to show for it was the African port of Kionga, ceded from the Germans. A civil war broke out in 1918 and in January of 1919 the restoration of the Kingdom of Portugal was declared in Porto followed, a few days later, by a royalist uprising in Lisbon. The First Republic did manage to survive but only just and this was certainly the closest it ever came to being overthrown. Still, though it survived, a few decades later it finally gave up the ghost and was replaced by the Catholic, corporatist regime of Antonio de Oliveira Salazar known as the Second Republic or, more usually, the “New State”. From 1932 to 1968 Salazar worked to lift Portugal out of the chaos and bankruptcy the First Republic had created. For a time, it seemed to work but a crisis in the colonies would ultimately doom the New State as well.

Unlike most other countries, Portugal had the good sense to say “no” to World War II but the post-war collapse of the other colonial empires and the spread of communism quickly imperiled the Portuguese empire, officially ‘provinces overseas’. In 1961 the African country of Benin annexed the Portuguese Fort St John the Baptist of Ouidah and at the end of the year, newly independent India invaded and annexed the many centuries-old Portuguese holdings of Goa, Daman and Diu. For the next fifteen years the Portuguese were forced into a valiant fight against communist insurgent movements in Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea. It was really a heroic stand to take as Portugal was opposed by all the Communist countries in the world while also being criticized and little supported by the liberal democracies of the west for not accepting decolonization. Portugal, which had yet to recover fully from the depths the First Republic had taken the country to, was basically fighting three separate wars in Africa at the same time.

Salazar died and though his successors tried to carry on the fight to maintain the territorial sovereignty of Portugal as a multi-continental power, in 1974 leftist army officers launched a coup, since called the “Carnation Revolution” that ended the corporatist regime and ushered in the current republican government which has largely been dominated by the socialists with the occasional liberal interlude. All Portuguese overseas possessions were immediately abandoned, the last to be given up being Macau in China in 1999. Since that time, without its former overseas trade network and source of raw materials, Portugal has been forced into greater dependency on the European Union. When can see very easily where that has led; the rush of exuberance that a drug addict feels, following by a resounding crash as the republican government has spent far beyond its means, borrowing more and more and making its chains of dependency stronger and heavier with every passing year.

There is, of course, a lesson to be drawn from that final chapter that Portugal, as with any small country, must either go out on its own and gain the strength it needs to become a major power or be content to be a cog in a wheel of a larger machine. However, for the Portuguese monarchy, the lesson was one which others could profit from, though I wonder if the House of Braganza itself has, which is that a monarch should always be the champion of the country and committed to its glorification. In the situation of Portugal, the circumstances were very unfair as there was, realistically, nothing King Carlos could do in the face of the British ultimatum. However, while the republican leftists were never going to be satisfied, the loss of the interior of Africa and the perception that the Portuguese monarchy had not stood up to the British, angered those who were most likely to be the supporters of the Kingdom of Portugal as it had always been. Regardless of the situation, and whether it is right or wrong, it is simply a fact of life that monarchies will always be in great danger when the monarch is seen to be more sympathetic to others than to the greatness of their own country.

Soldier of Monarchy: Afonso de Albuquerque

In the long and glorious history of the Kingdom of Portugal, if one seeks a great military commander it would be difficult to find a name to surpass that of Afonso de Albuquerque, Duke of Goa. As both a general of ground forces and an admiral of naval forces, Albuquerque achieved far-reaching successes and this, combined with his astute judgment, strategic brilliance and the boldness and ambition of all great explorers, went a long way to the establishment of the Kingdom of Portugal as the first, and for some time preeminent, global maritime power. It is no great exaggeration to say that he won more victories, contacted more remote peoples and made more long-lasting decisions of consequence than anyone in Portuguese history, perhaps any other of his age from any country. The fact that he is not more well known outside of Portugal is, frankly, baffling, given his extensive list of achievements. Within the borders of Portugal, naturally and quite legitimately, he is remembered as a national hero, one of the (numerous) giant figures of the “Age of Exploration” and a military commander whose far-reaching victories earned him the title of “the Caesar of the East”.

King John II

Born sometime in 1453 in Alhandra, near Lisbon, to aristocratic parents, Afonso de Albuquerque had a privileged childhood. His father held a post at court and was related, through an illegitimate line, to the Portuguese Royal Family. Young Afonso was given the best education possible, was well trained in religion, warfare, mathematics and Latin and was a childhood friend of the future Portuguese monarch King John II. When he was old enough, he joined the army and first saw action in North Africa where he served for ten years, learning on the job as he battled with the Portuguese army against the Muslim Arabs and Ottoman Turks. He served under King Afonso V in the conquest of Tangier, Morocco in 1471 and later in campaigns against Castile in Spain. In 1480 he participated in the victorious campaign in Italy against the Ottoman Turks at Otranto, saving the day for the Spanish forces of King Fernando II of Aragon. When his friend became King John II of Portugal, he was given the prestigious post of “Master of the Horse” and saw further victories in North Africa.

The era of the greatest Portuguese expansion came during the reign of King Manuel I and did not initially include Albuquerque who was slightly old by the standards of the time and who the new, young monarch was somewhat suspicious of. However, his time came in 1503 when he was charged with leading an expedition to India. Albuquerque reached the subcontinent and made an alliance with some locals to make war on the ruling potentate of Calicut. He won a number of battles and was able to see his own native ally enthroned as the King of Kochi. In appreciation, the King allowed Albuquerque to build Fort Emmanuel on the Arabian Sea coast and establish trade relations between Portugal and the surrounding region of India. This was a crucial foothold for what would grow to be an extensive Portuguese presence in India and the start of a vast empire in Asia for the Kingdom of Portugal.

Ft Immaculate Concepcion remains in Ormuz

This expedition was so successful and so quickly won that King Manuel promptly sent Albuquerque back to India on another expedition in 1506, though this time as a squadron commander within a larger fleet commanded by Tristan da Cunha. Along the way they landed on the east coast of Africa, attempted sending envoys to Ethiopia and Albuquerque conquered the island of Socotra (today belonging to Yemen) and established a fortress there with the intention of controlling traffic in and out of the Red Sea into the Indian Ocean. The site was well chosen, though the fort was abandoned a few years later. While the rest of the expedition sailed on to India, Albuquerque was tasked with expanding Portuguese influence in the region and so he embarked on a military campaign, winning battles and capturing cities, culminating in the capture of the city of Ormuz. This was a very strategic point for control of the Persian Gulf and the local king became a vassal of the King of Portugal, breaking off his previous tributary relationship with the Shah of Persia. That was accomplished in 1507 and all with only 7 ships and about 500 Portuguese soldiers and sailors.

However, there were problems, and as Albuquerque made all of his men, regardless of rank, share in the work of building fortifications and so on, some of the more high-born officers rebelled and absconded to India to join the main fleet, claiming that Albuquerque was exceeding his authority. Left short-handed, Albuquerque was forced to abandon Ormuz, make a few raids for supplies and finally sail for India himself. Once there he found no help from the Viceroy, who Albuquerque was supposed to replace, and who had been fortified by the testimony of the malcontents who had abandoned Albuquerque and preceded him to India. Nonetheless, Albuquerque refused to have any part in a rebellion and simply bided his time, with his own loyal men, at Kochi where he was still well received. His enemies, however, would not be so considerate and after winning a decisive victory that expelled the Muslims from the Indian Ocean, Albuquerque was arrested in August of 1509.

Fortunately, this confinement was only to last for three months at which time the Marshal of Portugal arrived with a large fleet and orders from the King to set things in order. Albuquerque was released and in November of 1509 was appointed Governor of India. In January of the following year, Albuquerque set out on a military campaign to conquer Calicut. However, the offensive ended in fiasco when another Portuguese force advanced into an ambush, forcing Albuquerque to come to the rescue and fight his way back out again with heavy losses. He rebuilt his forces, best he could and learned that the fleet of the Egyptian Mamluks was sheltering at the port of Goa and the local sultans were busy fighting each other and would not be able to come together against him with full force. Seeing an opportunity, in the spring of 1510 Albuquerque attacked and seized the port of Goa. However, it was a difficult undertaking, massive forces were sent against him and the local Hindu population, originally supportive in freeing themselves of Muslim rule, turned against him and he was forced to abandon the city. Nevertheless, Albuquerque returned in November with Portuguese reinforcements, as well as more native allies and by December forced the surrender of the Sultan and his Turkish allies.

Despite numerous attacks to re-take the city, Goa remained steadfastly in Portuguese hands and the most important port in the Portuguese territories in India. Albuquerque established a mint, made contact and some alliances with other Indian rulers and was soon well placed to take control of the spice trade routes. In order to seize control of the spice trade, previously held by Muslim powers, Albuquerque was tasked by the King to capture the Strait of Malacca in Southeast Asia. Some Portuguese had already been seized by the local potentate and one of these men had smuggled out a letter, via a Hindu trader, to Albuquerque, begging for rescue and providing a description of the local fortifications. Against the orders of his immediate superior, Albuquerque gathered a force of 18 ships, 900 Portuguese and 200 hired Hindu mercenaries and set out for Malacca in 1511. One of the men under his command, incidentally, was the future navigator of renown, Ferdinand Magellan.

Albuquerque

Albuquerque approached Malacca in grand style and bombastically demanded the capitulation of the local ruler, Sultan Mahmud Shah. The Sultan released the Portuguese prisoners but refused to surrender, feeling he had little to fear from a force of a little over a thousand men considering that he had at his command a mercenary force of around 20,000 and 2,000 cannon. However, Albuquerque planned a clever attack and had the support of many of the local merchants who despised the Sultan and the favoritism he showed his fellow Muslims at the expense of others. Sailing up the river that divided the city, the Portuguese troops fought a fierce battle, seizing control of the bridge that linked the two halves and then repelled a heavy assault, including war elephants, launched by the Sultan. Albuquerque and his men attacked, defeated the enemy and seized the city on August 15, 1511, the troops being allowed to pillage but with the property of those locals who had supported them and asked for protection remaining unharmed and their businesses respected. Albuquerque, always alert to the possibility of a future counter-attack, set his men to work building a fortress, in part using stones from the local mosque his forces had demolished.

In the aftermath, Albuquerque showed considerable astuteness in establishing a new system of administration, ending the discriminatory practices that favored Muslims and appointing new leaders based on merit and with an eye toward future beneficial alliances. He then sent out envoys, complete with generous gifts, to establish commercial ties with neighboring powers such as the princes in Sumatra, the King of Burma and the King of Siam (Thailand). In 1512, after having learned from local traders the location of the famous “spice islands”, he sent an expedition to claim them, the ships amassed a huge fortune in nutmeg and cloves but were wrecked on the return voyage, though they nonetheless laid the groundwork for future profits, having established good relations with the locals and even being permitted to build a fort on Ternate island in the Moluccas (part of modern Indonesia). In 1513 another expedition dispatched by Albuquerque established trade relations with the Great Ming Empire of China, which was later interrupted by a period of conflict, but business relations were eventually restored, paving the way for the establishment of the Portuguese enclave at Macau with the consent of the Ming Emperor.

Albuquerque

Finally, in 1511 Afonso de Albuquerque set off to return to Portugal, weighted down with an immense wealth of treasure with which to impress King Manuel of the value of the regions he had secured for the Portuguese Crown. Unfortunately, his ship was sunk in a storm and Albuquerque barely escaped alive. He was able to reach Kochi in India but found, to his dismay, that Goa was under attack and many of his own countrymen had advised giving up this most valuable port. Albuquerque was having none of that and, after receiving reinforcements, set out from Cochin in September of 1512 with 14 ships and 1,700 troops, launched a bold attack, defeated the forces of the Sultan of Bijapur, led by Rasul Khan, and reestablished full Portuguese control of Goa for good.

The following year, Albuquerque received an envoy from the queen-regent of Ethiopia, a country the Portuguese had tried to contact before. This was huge news as many had believed that Ethiopia, said to be ruled by Christians, might be the rich and powerful land of legend ruled by the mythic “Prester John”. The Ethiopians seemed open to an alliance with Portugal in opposition to the common enemy of the Ottoman Turks. In support of such a campaign, in 1513 Albuquerque sailed into the Red Sea with 1,000 Portuguese soldiers and 400 Asian mercenaries to attack Aden, however, strong defenses, contrary weather and sickness among his men, caused the campaign to fail and Albuquerque was forced to return to India. Once back in the subcontinent, Albuquerque continued building up the Portuguese administration, establishing relations with more Indian princes, making alliances, business agreements and exchanging embassies, growing the Portuguese presence and influence throughout the region. In 1515 he led an expedition to recapture his old prize of Ormuz, reestablishing Portuguese control of the strategic point which would last until an Anglo-Persian alliances ejected them in 1622.

The wealth, the treasures, the exotic animals and so on that Albuquerque sent back to Portugal caused a huge sensation all across Europe and sparked the drive for other nations to set out for the distant lands of Asia over the trail first blazed by the Portuguese. Thanks largely to the victories of Albuquerque, it seemed that no matter where such future Dutch, Spanish, French or British forces went, they found that the Portuguese had invariably preceded them. Albuquerque, however, fell ill on the return voyage from Ormuz and died at sea, within sight of Goa, India. At the end, his final days had been troubled by a plot against him by jealous and ambitious men who tried to turn King Manuel against him. He died on December 16, 1515 and was first buried in Goa but his body was later returned to Portugal in 1566 with all appropriate fanfare for the Governor of Asia, Duke of Goa and Governor and Captain-General of the Seas of India. His name was seldom spoken without the appellation of “the Great” attached to it and for good reason. King Manuel I, regretful at having, for a time near the end, doubted the loyalty of so great a servant of the Crown, lavished rewards on his son and ensured that no future Portuguese would forget the name of Afonso de Albuquerque, the man who gave the Kingdom of Portugal an empire from the Persian Gulf, to India to Southeast Asia.

Portuguese control of all access points to the Indian Ocean

In total, the contribution of Albuquerque to the glory of Portugal would be difficult to overstate. A tireless man, campaigning to the end of his life, his ambition was boundless. He famously contemplated changing the course of the Nile River and capturing the corpse of the prophet Mohammed to hold hostage until the Muslims vacated the Holy Land! His victories ended the Muslim monopoly on Asian trade, expelled them from the Indian Ocean and gave Portugal the first dominate position in the lucrative importation of spice. He established the Portuguese presence in India that was to outlast all others (ending only in 1961), gave the King of Portugal control of the vital, strategic “choke points” at the gateways of the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Malacca connecting the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea. He established contact and trade with numerous world powers and these new avenues for enterprise, trade routes and fortresses enabled Portugal to become, at the time, the wealthiest country in Europe. Furthermore, just as important as what he did was the foresight he showed in recognizing strategic positions and lucrative possibilities that later explorers and traders were to build upon. It is then, little wonder that he became known as “the Portuguese Mars” and, “the Lion of the Seas”.