ABSTRACT
The Liberal administration of Count Romanones (December 1915-April 1917) can be seen as the period in which the Restoration Monarchy entered a crisis of authority from which it never recovered. Of course, the regime’s legitimacy had come under increasing challenge following the traumatic colonial disaster of 1898. Also, labour protest, peripheral nationalism, and praetorian intervention in politics had all existed before. But now these matters acquired an unprecedented level of intensity and organisation, and together, they presented a direct challenge to the hegemony of the ruling political order.2
