Karl Marx
Central junta
(Draft)

 (January 1809 Florida Blanca +)
A) Centraijunta.

26 September 1808 (Aranjuez)-29 January 1810.

Madrid having been evacuated by the French, it was to be expected that
Napoleon would soon re-appear at the head of a more powerful army.

Measures of common defence became then inevitable and it was generally
felt that the Polyarchy of the Provincial Juntas, whose dissensions grew even
more clamorous after the success at Baylen, must give way to some sort of
Central Government. The juntas, however, anxious to retain their hold upon
Power, resolved, upon the proposal of the Junta of Sevilla, to select each

from their own body two deputies the reunion of whom was to constitute
the Central Government, while the Provincial Juntas remained invested with
the internal government of their respective Government. Thus a Central
Junta, composed of 34 deputies from the Provincial Juntas met on September 26, 1808, at Aranjuez and remained at the head of affairs till January 29,

1810, This Central Junta was driven by the Invader from Madrid to Sevilla
and from Sevilla to Cadiz. While they waged a war of edicts from the Royal
Palace of Aranjuez, the pass of Somosierra was forced by the French, and
while they amused the people with vigorous proclamations from Sevilla, the
passes of the Sierra Morena were lost and Soult's army inundated Andalusia.

When "His Majesty"—this was the title assumed by the Junta—fled from
Sevilla, Cadiz offered the only asylum, and if the Duke of Albuquerque,
instead of marching his corps.upon Cadiz, had in obedience to their orders
proceeded to Cordova, his own army would have been cut off, Cadiz must
have surrendered to the French and there would have been an end of any

Central Power in Spain. During the reign of the Central Junta, the Spanish
armies disappeared from the soil, ignominious defeats overset each other,
and the disastrous battie at Ocafia (November 19, 1809) was the last pitched

466

Centraijunta (Draft)

battle which the Spaniards fought, from that time confining themselves to
a Guerrilla warfare. Where heroic resistance is exceptionally met with, it
is not by the regular armies, inthe open field, but only onthe part of assieged
towns as at Saragossa and Gerona.

These few reminiscences from the Spanish war of Independence suffice
to characterise the Central Junta. The expulsion of the French army from
the Spanlish] soil was the great object of their installation and in that object
they signally failed. Under revolutionary still more than under ordinary
circumstances the successes of armies reflect the character of the Central
Government. The mere fact of the abandonment of regular warfare for
Guerrilla exploits proves the disappearance of the national centre before the
local centres of resistance. Whence this failure of the National government?

The very composition of the Central Junta certainly not suited the task
imposed upon them. Being for a dictatorial power too many and too fortuitously mixed together, they were too few to pretend to the authority of a
National Convention. The mere fact of their power being delegated from the
Provincial Juntas, incapacitated them to overcome the self-governing propensities, the bad will, and the capricious egotism of these Juntas. The two
most marking members of the Central Junta—Florida Blanca—the octogenarian minister of the enlightened despotism of Charles IlI—and Jovellanos, a
well-intentioned reformer who from overconscientious scruples as to the
means never dared to accomplish an end—were certainly no match for the
terrible crisis the country was placed in. The sense of their own weakness
and the unstable tenure of their power with respect to the people, kept them
in constant fear and suspicion of the generals to whom they were obliged
to entrust the military commands. General Moria, himself a member of the
Central Junta, went over into the Bonapartist camp, after he had surrendered
Madrid to Napoleon. Cuesta [who] had begun with arresting the Leonese
Deputies to the Central Junta and with forging plans for the restauration of
the old authority of the Captains General and the Royal Audiencias, also
seemed afterwards to win the confidence of the Government in the same
measure as he lost the battles of the country. Their distrust in Generals la
Romana and Castaños, the victor of Baylen, proved well founded by the open
hostility the former shewed them in his address to the nation || d.d. Sevilla,
on October 4, 1809, and the other by his conduct towards them when he
became a member of the Regency. The Duke of Albuquerque, who of all the
Spanish Generals of that epoch was perhaps the only man to conduct a great
war, seemed to be singularly gifted with all the dangerous qualities of a
military dictator, a reason quite sufficient to remove him from all important
commands. We may then give full credit to the Duke of Wellington writing

469

Karl Marx.- Spain-Intervention (Draft). Seite 3

Karl Marx

to his brother, the Marquis of Wellesley, on September 1,1809: "Iam much
afraid, from what I have seen of the proceedings of the Central Junta, that
in the distribution of their forces they did not consider military defence, and
military operations, so much, as they do political intrigue, andthe attainment
of trifling political objects." The first popular government of Spain seemed
overawed by a presentiment of the prominent part military men were destined to act in their internal commotions. Devoid as they were of all truly
revolutionary force by their very composition, the Central Junta could not
but resort to petty intrigues in order to check the ascendancy of their own
generals. On the other hand, incapable to resist the pressure of popular
clamour, they often forced the generals into precipitate actions where the
success could only be expected from most cautious and protracting stay upon

the defensive.