History of Europe

Prime's death

The story usually shows situations or events whose purpose is well understood in their context but on which a halo of shadow or suspicion falls when the explanation given of them is not convincing. We speak, of course, of conspiracies. History is full of small conspiracies but there are also, from time to time, large conspiracies that take the form of assassinations; some are never resolved, others, much later.
That is what has happened with Prim's murder. The general's political role is well known -see, for example:http://www.vadehistoria .com/marruecos/war44.htm – and we are not going to dwell on it. But it is also clear that his assassination cut short the establishment of a modern constitutional monarchy in Spain; the Spanish political oligarchy, not conducive to the monarchical model represented by Amadeo, and the interplay of international interests that was being elucidated in Europe in 1870, where France and Germany were fighting for hegemony in continental Europe, created the favorable context for the assassination.

Images of Prim's mummy and the forensic explanations of Mª del Mar Robledo. Source:EL PAÍSForensic investigations carried out by a team from the Camilo José Cela University have just discovered that Prim did not die from the shots received in the attack he suffered on December 27, 1870, but rather that he was strangled with a belt. These are the facts, but who murdered him? It is true that the material murderers, apparently Republicans, who had the complicity of the police and who were amnestied shortly after, were arrested, but nothing is known for sure about their instigators. Although the official bodies wanted to blame the Republicans, the thesis does not seem to hold. Historians speak of a double induction:on the one hand, that of the Duke of Montpensier, who had lost his chance to be king when he was outvoted by Amadeo of Savoy; and, on the other hand, General Serrano, a character with great political ambition and the main political beneficiary of Prim's death. Artistic reproduction of the attack on Prim.Source:ABCNews source:http://ccaa.elpais.com /ccaa/2013/02/11/madrid/1360590460_511531.html