Sidónio Pais's coup

On 8 December 1917 a three-day armed coup came to an end in Lisbon. The government of Afonso Costa, formed in April, resigned, and power was taken over by a Revolutionary Junta. Its chairman was the artillery major and professor of mathematics Sidónio Pais. The same day an extraordinary supplement to the official gazette announced that “the people and the revolutionary forces of land and sea” had set up a junta composed of Sidónio Pais as chairman and António Machado Santos and José Feliciano da Costa Júnior as members. The junta announced that it would hand over power, in the shortest possible time, to a government “in accordance with the aspirations of the nation”.

The leader and the conspirators

Sidónio Pais was no typical putschist. He taught differential calculus at the University of Coimbra, in 1911–1912 he was a minister in two republican governments, and from 1912 he was Portugal’s minister in Berlin. He returned home only when, in March 1916, Germany declared war on Portugal. He was regarded as an opponent of sending troops to the Western Front and over time became the leading figure of the opposition to Costa’s Democratic Party.

The conspiracy was formed by men from the circle of Manuel de Brito Camacho’s Republican Union (the Unionists). According to the Portuguese political scientist José Adelino Maltez, Pais joined the plot only after it had been formed, and Camacho himself withdrew his support at the last moment. The conspirators found money from a wealthy farmer from the Alentejo and won over several units of the Lisbon garrison.

Why the revolt broke out

Costa’s government was increasingly isolated. Participation in the war, and especially the dispatch of the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps to Flanders, was unpopular at home. Food was short, prices were rising, in May Lisbon was swept by food riots, and the government responded by suspending liberties and imposing censorship. In the November local elections the Democrats lost most municipalities. The moment was also favourable: Costa and the foreign minister Augusto Soares were abroad, among other places in Paris, where the great inter-Allied conference was sitting at the end of November. From 19 November the government was headed in their absence by the war minister, José Norton de Matos.

Three days of fighting

The rising broke out on 5 December. The rebel units, according to Portuguese accounts infantry from several regiments, artillery and cavalry, together with cadets of the War School, occupied the roundabout at today’s Marquis of Pombal Square and the hill in Eduardo VII Park, where Pais set up his command post. Sources give very different figures for the rebels’ numbers, from about 250 soldiers at the start of the movement to nearly two thousand, or even two and a half thousand men. On the government’s side stood the navy, the National Republican Guard, the police and part of the army. The defence was directed by Norton de Matos, and the naval forces by the naval officer Leote do Rego. Two years earlier both had been leaders of the rising of 14 May 1915, which had brought the Democrats to power.

On 6 December the government declared a state of siege in Lisbon. The destroyer Guadiana and the auxiliary cruiser Gil Eanes, lying in the Tagus, shelled the rebel positions, and artillery shells from both sides fell on houses in the city centre. The police stayed in their barracks and looting broke out in the city. On 7 December columns of sailors and guardsmen tried to take the park, advancing along the Avenida da Liberdade and from the Rato district, but the attacks failed. The rebels were helped by groups of armed civilians, and according to Portuguese historians their participation decided the outcome of the fighting. The sailors held out longest. On the night of 7/8 December the government acknowledged that it had lost and tendered its resignation to President Bernardino Machado.

The exact number of casualties is not known. A frequently cited tally speaks of 109 killed and about 500 wounded, soldiers and civilians. After the victory crowds looted the offices and homes of Democratic Party activists. Norton de Matos and Leote do Rego escaped on a British ship. Afonso Costa, who was returning from abroad, was detained in Porto.

The new regime

President Machado tried to save the constitutional order and looked for a candidate for a new prime minister among the moderate republicans, but the victors had no intention of giving up power. In the following days the junta dissolved parliament, lifted the penalties previously imposed on the bishops and ordered the release of those who had taken part in the failed revolt of December 1916. Support for Pais came from conservative republicans, Catholics and monarchists, but also from the trade unions, which hoped for the release of imprisoned strikers.

For the Allies the coup was disturbing news. The overthrown government had been the most determined supporter of Portugal’s participation in the war, and the new leader’s opponents accused him of pro-German sympathies. Portugal did not, however, withdraw from the war. The corps in Flanders remained at the front, although in the following months reinforcements reached it less and less often. France and Great Britain officially recognised the new regime only in May 1918. Pais’s supporters began to call the new system the “New Republic” (República Nova).