The Catalan autonomist campaign of 1918–1919 was the first Catalanist movement in favor of the granting by the Spanish parliament of a Statute of Autonomy for Catalonia. It took place between November 1918 and February 1919, during the constitutional period of the reign of Alfonso XIII and in the context of the Restoration crisis. It was promoted by the Commonwealth of Catalonia —with the support of the hegemonic Regionalist League and the Catalan Republican nationalist parties— which presented a draft of bases for the autonomy of Catalonia to the government and the Cortes in Madrid at the end of November 1918. The attempt was a more moderate proposal compared to earlier and later radically separatist movements.
The proposal was rejected in December, amid a strong anti-Catalanist campaign promoted by the Castilian deputations that made public a Message from Castile. In January 1919, at the same time that an extra-parliamentary commission appointed by the government of the Count of Romanones was dealing with the issue, a commission appointed by the Commonwealth elaborated the first draft statute of autonomy in Catalan history, which was again rejected. The resurgence of the years of lead in Barcelona in February relegated the autonomist demand to the background. The campaign for the "integral autonomy" of Catalonia, as historian Javier Moreno Luzón has emphasized, "shook the Spanish political scene to its foundations."
"Per Catalunya i l'Espanya Gran"
Background
In March 1916, the Regionalist League published the manifesto Per Catalunya i l'Espanya Gran, written by Prat de la Riba —who would die the following year— and signed by all the deputies and senators of the party. The manifesto denounced that Catalonia was one of the peoples of Spain who saw "the substantial elements of their spirituality, of their personality, excluded from the laws of the State", which made them "third-class Spaniards". The solution was the recognition of the autonomy of Catalonia, "a work of justice" and "of the highest convenience" and to put an end to the assimilationist policy, which would make possible the authentic unity "of all Spaniards, whole, just as God has made them", converted into a "peninsular empire of Iberia" —which also implied the integration of Portugal—.
The first attempt to carry out this program took place the following year in the context of the 1917 crisis. On July 5, Francesc Cambó gathered all the Catalan deputies and senators at the City Council of Barcelona —although the 13 monarchist deputies left the meeting immediately— who reaffirmed the will of Catalonia to become an autonomous region. In the declaration they approved, signed even by Alejandro Lerroux, it was stated "that it is the general will of Catalonia to obtain a regime of broad autonomy" and a federal structure was demanded in accordance with "the reality of Spanish life", which would increase "its organic cohesion" and develop "its collective energies". They also demanded the reopening of the Cortes, which would have the function of constituent assembly. If the Dato government did not accept any of the requests, they would call on all the deputies and senators to attend an Assembly of Parliamentarians to be held on July 19 in Barcelona.
The government of the conservative Eduardo Dato tried to discredit the call by presenting the meeting as a "separatist" and "revolutionary" movement and finally only the deputies of the League, the Republicans, the reformists of Melquíades Álvarez and the socialist Pablo Iglesias went to Barcelona, who approved the formation of a government "which embodied and represented the sovereign will of the country" and which would preside over the elections to the Constituent Courts. The Assembly was dissolved by order of the civil governor of Barcelona and all the participants were arrested by the police, although as soon as they left the Palace of the Pac de la Ciutadella where they had met they were released. After the general revolutionary strike of August called by the socialists, the Assembly of Parliamentarians met again on October 30 at the Ateneo in Madrid. That same day Cambó was called to the Palace to meet with the king, who accepted his proposal to form a "concentration government" which would be presided over by the liberal Manuel García Prieto and which would include a minister from the League, Joan Ventosa. However, García Prieto's government lasted only a few months, giving way to another concentration government, called the "National Government", under the presidency of the conservative Antonio Maura, and of which Francesc Cambó himself would form part. But this government only lasted until November 1918, giving way to a purely liberal one presided over again by García Prieto.
When the assembly of parliamentarians and the concentration governments failed to achieve the objectives of the manifesto Per Catalunya i l'Espanya Gran, Cambó decided that "Catalonia's time had come" and the Regionalist League organized the campaign for "integral autonomy" for Catalonia which, according to Javier Moreno Luzón, "shook the Spanish political scene to its foundations".
Beginning of the campaign for "integral autonomy"
In July 1918, the IV Municipal Week was held in Barcelona, in which the mayors and councilors of Catalonia participated, as well as the town hall secretaries. The organizing entity of the Week, the Escola de Funcionaris de l'Administració Local, decided to call a Plebiscit de la voluntat municipal de Catalunya in which the city councils had to pronounce on the autonomy of Catalonia "so that it could fully develop all its energies, and reach the place that belongs to it, fulfilling its mission in the resurgence of Spain". It had the precedent of the municipal plebiscite held in 1913 in favor of the creation of the Commonwealth of Catalonia.
At the beginning of November 1918, on the occasion of the end of the First World War, several allied and hostile demonstrations to the monarchy were held in Barcelona, together with rallies called by radical Catalan nationalist groups. In this context, on November 5, Francesc Macià made a resounding speech in favor of the independence of Catalonia in the Congress of Deputies, which emptied as soon as he began to speak. On November 10, when the news of the abdication of the German Kaiser spread, Francesc Layret asked the Commonwealth to call an assembly of town councils to request the League of Nations to intervene in favor of Catalonia. Four days later, the Partit Republicà Català deputies Marcel-lí Domingo, Salvador Albert and Julià Nougués, supported by three other republican deputies from other regions, presented a bill in the Cortes that read: "The Congress grants Catalonia full autonomy".
On November 15 Francesc Cambó had an interview with the king in the Royal Palace during which, according to Cambó's own testimony, Alfonso XIII encouraged him to launch the autonomist campaign in order to distract "the masses [of Catalonia] from any revolutionary purpose". "I see no other way to save such a difficult situation than to satisfy at once the aspirations of Catalonia, so that the Catalans stop feeling revolutionary at this moment and reinforce their adhesion to the Monarchy," the king told Cambó. According to the historian Javier Moreno Luzón, "Alfonso XIII was convinced that only the League, satisfied with some autonomic potion, could dissuade the masses and stop the imminent revolution in Barcelona, a transcript of the Russian or German ones". For Cambó, "Catalonia's time had come".
The following day, November 16, in a solemn act in which various economic, cultural and professional entities were represented, and which was also attended by the deputies and senators for Catalonia and the deputies of the four provincial deputations —while a crowd gathered in the Plaza de Sant Jaime—, the president of the organizing entity of the municipal plebiscite handed to the president of the Commonwealth of Catalonia Josep Puig i Cadafalch a volume with the certificates of the Catalan town councils, which had expressed themselves overwhelmingly in favor of the autonomy of Catalonia —practically all the municipalities, representing 98% of the Catalan population—. Puig i Cadafalch then met with the members of the Permanent Council of the Commonwealth and with the Catalan parliamentarians and proposed that a committee be formed to draw up a draft of the bases for Catalan autonomy, which would be presented to the government of the liberal Manuel García Prieto. Francesc Macià, however, left the meeting after saying that autonomy was insufficient and that what had to be achieved was independence.
On November 17, 1918, Macià gave a conference in the premises of the CADCI where he presented for the first time to the public the Catalan independence flag that he had just invented —and whose first appearance in the street had taken place the day before—: the Estelada, with a blue triangle and a white star. At the exit of the conference a demonstration was formed on the Ramblas, the first of the autonomist campaign, which was dissolved by the police. Later, when the demonstrators went to the Serbian consulate so that Macià could congratulate the consul for his victory in the war, a group of Carlist requetés appeared and began to give cheers to Spain, which were answered with cheers to Catalunya lliure, producing a serious altercation in which the police had to intervene again.