António José de Almeida becomes prime minister of Portugal

On 15 March 1916 President Bernardino Machado appointed a new government of Portugal. It was headed by António José de Almeida, leader of the Evolutionist Party, the moderate wing of the republicans. The cabinet went down in history as the Ministério da União Sagrada, the “Sacred Union” government. The name echoed the French national truce of 1914: in the face of war, former opponents were to govern together. Portuguese lists of governments use the date 15 March, though in some compilations Almeida’s term begins on 16 March.

A government for the war

The change was a direct result of Germany’s declaration of war on 9 March. The next day Congress, meeting in extraordinary session, unanimously resolved that the country should be governed by a national government. The Prime Minister, Afonso Costa, leader of the Democratic Party, who had governed since November 1915, resigned and remained in office on an interim basis until a successor was appointed. The talks did not go easily. According to the Lisbon press, several candidates for prime minister declined, among them the historian Anselmo Braamcamp Freire and the poet Guerra Junqueiro.

In the end two old rivals came to terms. Almeida had for years fiercely attacked Costa in the columns of his daily República, but from the start of the war both wanted Portugal to fight alongside Britain. The Unionists of Manuel de Brito Camacho, the third large republican party, did not join the government, still less the monarchists or Catholics. The “Sacred Union” was thus in practice a coalition of two parties.

The cabinet

Almeida also took the colonial ministry. Costa, although he gave up the premiership, remained the strongest figure in the government as finance minister. The Democrats also kept other key ministries: Augusto Soares continued to run foreign affairs, José Norton de Matos remained minister of war, and Vítor Hugo de Azevedo Coutinho minister of the navy. The Evolutionists received the ministries of justice (Luís Mesquita de Carvalho) and education (Joaquim Pedro Martins). The non-party António Pereira Reis became minister of the interior. The ministry of development (fomento) was first taken by the Democrat António Maria da Silva, but after only two days he handed it over to the Evolutionist Francisco Fernandes Costa and himself took charge of the newly created ministry of labour.

The new prime minister

Almeida was 49. He was born on 17 July 1866 in Vale da Vinha in the municipality of Penacova and studied medicine at the University of Coimbra. He gained notoriety while still a student. In 1890, during the agitation after the British Ultimatum over Africa, he published in a student newspaper the article “Bragança, o último” (“Bragança, the last”), which insulted King Carlos I. He was sentenced to three months in prison. After his studies he worked for several years as a doctor in Angola and on São Tomé and Príncipe, and after returning home in 1904 he became one of the most popular republican orators. After the revolution of 1910 he was minister of the interior in the provisional government, and in 1912 he founded his own party.

The “Sacred Union” government lasted more than a year, until 25 April 1917, which in the unstable First Republic was a long time. It prepared the dispatch of the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps to France. Almeida was to head the state once more: in 1919–1923 he was President of Portugal, the only one in the First Republic to complete a full term.