1714: The Fall of Barcelona and the Nueva Planta
Catalonia backs the losing side in the War of the Spanish Succession; after a 14-month siege Barcelona falls on 11 September 1714, and Philip V abolishes Catalonia's institutions.
- La Guerra de Sucesión de España (1700–1714) — Joaquim Albareda, Crítica (2010)
- Scots and Catalans: Union and Disunion — J. H. Elliott, Yale University Press (2018)
- Catalan Nationalism: Past and Present — Albert Balcells, Macmillan (1996)
- Barcelona — Robert Hughes, Knopf (1992)
- La Catalogne dans l'Espagne moderne — Pierre Vilar, SEVPEN (1962)
When the childless Charles II of Spain died in 1700, he left his throne to Philip of Anjou, the grandson of Louis XIV of France. Britain, the Dutch Republic and Austria feared a union of the French and Spanish crowns and backed a rival, Archduke Charles of Austria. The War of the Spanish Succession became a European war, and in Spain itself a civil war.
- La Guerra de Sucesión de España (1700–1714) — Joaquim Albareda, Crítica (2010)
- Scots and Catalans: Union and Disunion — J. H. Elliott, Yale University Press (2018)
Choosing a side
Philip V swore to respect Catalonia’s laws in 1702, but many Catalans distrusted the centralising French model of monarchy he represented, and resented French competition. In 1705, with English promises to protect Catalan liberties (the Pact of Genoa), Catalonia, along with Valencia and Aragon, went over to Charles, who made Barcelona his court. Castile largely stayed with Philip. The war turned against Charles’s side in the realms of the Crown of Aragon after the Battle of Almansa in 1707, when Philip abolished the laws of Valencia and Aragon “by right of conquest”.
- La Guerra de Sucesión de España (1700–1714) — Joaquim Albareda, Crítica (2010)
- Scots and Catalans: Union and Disunion — J. H. Elliott, Yale University Press (2018)
Abandoned
In 1711 Charles inherited the Austrian throne and lost interest in Spain, and Britain, now negotiating peace, abandoned its Catalan allies at Utrecht in 1713. Barcelona’s authorities voted to fight on alone. The city was besieged from July 1713 by Bourbon troops under the Duke of Berwick. On 11 September 1714, after a final assault in which the chief councillor Rafael Casanova was wounded carrying the city’s banner, Barcelona surrendered. The Catalan dead were buried in the Fossar de les Moreres beside the church of Santa Maria del Mar, now a memorial with an eternal flame.
- La Guerra de Sucesión de España (1700–1714) — Joaquim Albareda, Crítica (2010)
- Barcelona — Robert Hughes, Knopf (1992)
The Nueva Planta
The victors dismantled the Catalan state. The Nueva Planta decree of 1716 abolished the Generalitat, the Corts and Barcelona’s council of the Consell de Cent, and imposed Castilian-style government under a captain-general. Castilian became the language of the courts and administration. The universities were closed and replaced by a single loyal one at Cervera. To dominate Barcelona, a huge fortress, the Ciutadella, was built on the site of part of the Ribera neighbourhood, whose residents were made to demolish their own houses. The ruins of those streets were uncovered in the 2000s and are now on display at the El Born cultural centre.
- La Guerra de Sucesión de España (1700–1714) — Joaquim Albareda, Crítica (2010)
- Barcelona — Robert Hughes, Knopf (1992)
- Catalan Nationalism: Past and Present — Albert Balcells, Macmillan (1996)
Defeat and prosperity
The paradox, noted by the French historian Pierre Vilar, is that eighteenth-century Catalonia, stripped of its institutions, also grew rich: freed of internal customs and allowed to trade with Spain’s American colonies from 1778, it built the commerce and cotton industry that made it Spain’s industrial leader. The memory of 1714 slept for a century and was revived by the Catalan Renaixença; the Diada was first commemorated publicly in the late nineteenth century, banned under Franco and made Catalonia’s official national day in 1980, the first law passed by the restored Catalan parliament.
- La Catalogne dans l'Espagne moderne — Pierre Vilar, SEVPEN (1962)
- Catalan Nationalism: Past and Present — Albert Balcells, Macmillan (1996)
- Scots and Catalans: Union and Disunion — J. H. Elliott, Yale University Press (2018)
Catalonia fought to defend its constitutions and was crushed by a Castilian-French army. 1714 was the end of Catalan sovereignty, followed by repression, the banning of its institutions and decades of military occupation.
- Catalan Nationalism: Past and Present — Albert Balcells, Macmillan (1996)
- La Guerra de Sucesión de España (1700–1714) — Joaquim Albareda, Crítica (2010)
It was a war of succession between two candidates to the Spanish throne, in which Catalans fought for Archduke Charles as king of all Spain, not for independence. The Nueva Planta modernised the state and opened Spanish markets that helped make Catalonia rich.
- Spain: A History — Raymond Carr (ed.), Oxford University Press (2000)
- Scots and Catalans: Union and Disunion — J. H. Elliott, Yale University Press (2018)
Both are partly right: the Catalans were fighting for a plural Spanish monarchy under Charles, not for a separate state, but they were defending a real constitutional order, and its abolition by right of conquest was a genuine rupture that later nationalism could build on.
- La Guerra de Sucesión de España (1700–1714) — Joaquim Albareda, Crítica (2010)
- Scots and Catalans: Union and Disunion — J. H. Elliott, Yale University Press (2018)
Why it matters today
11 September is the Diada, Catalonia's national day. It commemorates a defeat, which tells you a lot. Every year people lay flowers at Rafael Casanova's statue, and since 2012 the Diada has been the stage for some of the largest demonstrations in Europe. The "1714" on banners and football shirts means: we lost our liberties by force, not by consent.
For Spanish historiography the Bourbon victory created a modern, centralised Spanish state, and the dynasty still reigns. Many Spaniards see the war as a dynastic European conflict, not a war of Catalonia against Spain, and are puzzled or irritated by its political use today.