"IT WAS NOT ONLY A WAR, IT WAS A REVOLUTION": SPAIN AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR

In 1937, when talking about the First World War, Alejandro Lerroux wrote [that] "it was not only a war, it was a revolution." Years after the war had ended many old liberals shared a similar perception and thought that the Great War represented the beginning of the end of the political, economic and cultural liberal order that had prevailed in Europe during the 19th century. Based on that thought, this article analyses the impact of the First World War on the Spanish economy, society and politics. It also examines its influence on the increase of social unrest in the post war years, how it contributed to weakening the political system of the Restoration period, how it encouraged those who sought to destroy the system, how it reinforced anti-liberal discourse in the right as well as how it helped to create the environment in which Primo de Rivera's coup d'etat in September 1923 was plotted.