Tamagnini Barbosa becomes prime minister of Portugal

On 23 December 1918 the President of Portugal, João do Canto e Castro, elected by Congress a week earlier, dismissed the cabinet of secretaries of state left behind by the murdered Sidónio Pais and appointed a new government. At its head stood João Tamagnini Barbosa, a 34-year-old engineer officer, who also took the interior portfolio. Under the restored provisions of the 1911 constitution, Portugal once again had a President of the Ministry, that is, a prime minister separate from the president, and the members of the government were once again called ministers rather than secretaries of state.

A British chronology of the war records under 22 December the resignation of “J. T. de Sousa Barboza”, Secretary of State for the Interior, and under 23 December his appointment as prime minister and minister of the interior. The politician’s full name was João Tamagnini de Sousa Barbosa. However, he had been Secretary of State for the Interior only from May to 8 October 1918. In the autumn reshuffle of the government Pais moved him to the finance department, and the interior was taken over by António Bernardino Ferreira. According to Portuguese lists of governments, the whole previous cabinet was dismissed on 23 December, the day the new one was appointed. It has not been possible to establish exactly what the British entry about a resignation on 22 December refers to. It may concern the departure of the secretaries of state on the eve of the new cabinet’s appointment.

Tamagnini Barbosa was born in 1883 in Macau; he was an officer of the engineers and a republican. In Pais’s governments he had headed in turn the departments of the colonies, the interior and finance. After the President’s death he and Egas Moniz led the republican wing of Pais’s supporters. It was they who brought about the rapid election of a new president by parliament, in order to keep the monarchist military juntas from power. According to Rui Ramos, Canto e Castro first offered the premiership to the President of the Chamber of Deputies, José Nunes da Ponte, but in the end Tamagnini Barbosa pushed through his own candidacy. In his government Egas Moniz kept foreign affairs, and the war portfolio went to Luís da Cunha Corte Real in place of Colonel Álvaro de Mendonça, a monarchist linked to the juntas.

The new prime minister tried to manoeuvre between republicans and monarchists in order to prevent civil war. The military juntas, however, were dissatisfied, because they had not been given representatives in the government. They demanded a “government of strength” that would continue Pais’s work, instead of a return to the “old republic” of the 1911 constitution. Soon Colonel João de Almeida, the leader of the Lisbon junta, brought part of the capital’s garrison up onto the Monsanto heights on the western edge of Lisbon. The show of force, however, only showed that the army was divided, because most units did not join. In Porto a ruling military junta was set up, which wanted to run the affairs of the north of the country itself.

The government lasted little more than a month. On 7 January 1919, under pressure from the Porto junta, Tamagnini Barbosa reshuffled his cabinet. A few days later the republicans raised a revolt against him at Santarém, and on 19 January the monarchists proclaimed the restoration of the monarchy in Porto. On 27 January Tamagnini Barbosa’s government gave way to a cabinet under José Relvas.