6.

The Military and the Portuguese

Dictatorship, 1926-1974: "The Honor
of the Army"

DOUGLAS L. WHEELER

The situation of the Portuguese army, from the point of view of

moral considerations, or of the material, is absolutely wretch-
ed. The state of neglect misery, and degradation to which the
public force has arrived would by itself justify a thousand revo-
lutions. . .. The army is .. . the most powerful guarantee of
national sovereignty, internal peace, and external respect.—
Lt. Jorge Botelho Moniz, rebel officer in eighteenth of April
1925 abortive coup, in his book, O 18 de Abril

If, before 1961, the armed forces were not openly affected ad-
versely in their prestige, or were not so affected in a very vio-
lent form, it is because the internal crises of the regime had
not yet reached an especially acute stage. However, beginning
with the fall of India, and above all in the manner in which
the wars in Africa were prolonged, the armed forces discovered,
not without fear on the part of many soldiers who saw things
clearly for the first time, the true separation from the nation.
The armed forces are, therefore, humiliated, discredited, and
presented to the country as if they were those mainly responsi-
ble for the disaster.—(February 1974) First Manifesto of the
"Captains" of the Armed Forces Movement, as cited in text
published in Textos Históricos da Revolução (Lisbon: DiAbril,
1975), p. 16

Among Western states, Portugal's experience with military inter-

vention in politics and government appears to be unique, with the
possible exception of Spain's experience, 1923-1939. Twice in the
twentieth century, the Portuguese military has overthrown a civil-
ian-dominated regime: in 1926 and in 1974. Twice, following each
military coup, the armed forces' officer corps not only dominated
government activities but also took part in the administration of
 192 / Douglas L. Wheeler

the country: in the years of the "pure" military dictatorship, 1926-

1928, and again in the aftermath of the coup of the twenty-fifth
of April 1974, during the period May 1974 to April 1976. In both
cases, the Portuguese military chose, for a variety of reasons, to
return to the barracks and to give over the lion's share of power
to civilians.
Any analysis which deals with the Portuguese military in politics
and government must, of necessity, deal with the phenomenon of
the extensive period of the Portuguese dictatorship, often known
as the "New State 1926-1974." Since a definitive study of the New
State is not feasible at this time, this article must be limited in
scope. There will be a preliminary inquiry into the major trends
in the history of the Portuguese military during the period between
the two coups of 1926 and 1974.
Two key questions will then be asked and material will be pro-
vided to answer them: What were civil-military relations during
this era? More to the point, what was the political relationship
between the Portuguese military, chiefly the officer corps, for the
purposes of this study, and the New State government? What were
the most important factors which can be clearly identified in the
process which led to the active intervention of the armed forces
in governing the country?

The Role of the Military in Creating

and Destroying the Republic
No analysis of the history of the Portuguese military in recent times
is complete without a discussion of the experience of the military
during the first Portuguese Republic, 1910-1926. The Portuguese
army officer corps, in effect, initiated a pronunciamento tradition
after 1820. In a series of coups, officers overthrew regimes and
played an important role in high politics until the relatively quies-
cent period of 1851-1891. As the Constitutional Monarchy lost
popularity and its cohesion disappeared, the armed forces reflected
the growing political crisis. Rather apolitical as of 1890-91, the
officer corps underwent gradual politicization through the revival
of the pronunciamento tradition through the activities of middle-
class republican militants, both civilian and military; discontent
among laboring and commercial classes in the towns and cities ex-
acerbated the role perceptions held by the military leadership.
Should the military continue to support the Monarchy? Should the
 The Honor of the Army" / 193

Monarchy alter its strategy and use a clique of rightist, militarist

army officers, including Maj. J. Mousinho de Albuquerque (1855—
1902), in order to defeat the rising tide of republicanism and to
regain authority for the weakened Monarchy?
There was an increasingly shrill debate in Portugal over the role
of the armed forces in society. In effect, variants of two conflict-
ing models (the "aristocratic" and the "democratic")1 were being
debated among monarchists and their republican antagonists. Many
republicans desired a military which would conform to a "demo-
cratic" model closely resembling civil-military relations in France's
Third Republic and in the older Swiss Republic. Republican lead-
ers argued for a "nation in arms" concept where civilians held top
authority. In this model, all male civilians regardless of class were
obliged to participate in military service. By this scheme a "national
conscript" force would include all males between the ages of 17
and 45; this force would be trained by a smaller professional force.2
In Portugal, the Monarchy, by tradition, was closely associated
with a military which possessed authoritarian tendencies and an
aristocratic base for its officer corps. Civil-military relations were
troubled by a rising wave of public violence, coup plotting, and
conspiracies which threatened to overthrow the Monarchy. Militant
republican citizens, not military personnel, were most active in in-
citing the military to revolt. Many republican militants were mem-
bers of the Carbonária, an auxiliary force of the Republican Party,
secret, anarchistic, yet a republican society.3 After many abortive
plots and coup attempts, on October 5, 1910, a largely civilian-
manned insurrection, beginning in the capital, succeeded in gain-
ing the support of the armed forces. After some fighting, and de-
spite the fact that only a handful of regular officers and a minority
of the key Lisbon garrison actively supported the coup, the armed
forces in the end refused to defend the Monarchy; republican forces
triumphed and much of the public in the main towns hailed the vic-
tory of the civilian-dominated republican group.4 It should be noted
that in the final years of the Monarchy the civilian and royal leader-
ship mistrusted the reliability of the bulk of the army and navy
and came to depend upon paramilitary forces for security and last-
ditch defense in the towns. 5
Under the first Republic (1910-1926), excessive instability and
conflict characterized government, politics, the economy, and so-
ciety. The armed forces underwent unprecedented pressures: a rela-
tively high level of public violence, civilian attempts to incite
armed forces units to insurrection, civilian orders to repress both
 194 / Douglas L. Wheeler

military and civilian insurgency in towns and rural areas, a wave

of violent strikes, and combat in Europe on the Allied side in 1917-
1918 and in Portuguese Africa in 1914-1918. There was a brief
civil war in northern Portugal in early 1919, and the country suf-
fered greatly from the hardships inherent in a collapsing economy.
The Portuguese military experience in World War I, both in Eu-
rope and in Africa, had profound consequences. Civilian leadership
became more dependent upon the military, and, at the same time,
the military leadership became increasingly dissatisfied and frus-
trated. The country was forced to sustain what was then the most
massive mobilization effort in its history (see Table 6-1). Some mili-
tary personnel believed that the war provided new opportunities
for improved training, experience, pay, promotion, and professional
expertise. Many others, however, resented the politicization of the
officer corps and ranks, civilian intervention in military affairs on
many occasions, political partisan strife in the government and pol-
itics, maladministration in general, and the military program of the
republican civilian elite.6
A considerable portion of the Portuguese professional officer corps
was highly critical of one aspect of the Republic's well-meaning
but abortive attempt to create in Portugal a "nation in arms," by
means of a new universal draft system and a militia program. Both
plans broke down for want of means and military support.7 During
World War I and its aftermath the militia program assumed new
features. A substantial portion of officers were commissioned under
the new militia program. There was friction between the regular
officers and the supposedly temporary militia officers; for political
and professional military reasons regular officers resented what they
believed to be favoritism shown by the civilian and military repub-
lican leaders in the parliamentary system toward partisan militia
officers who were retained in service at the rank they had held at
the end of the war. This alleged favoritism encouraged the majority
of antirepublican officers to protest and eventually to plot military
overthrow of the First Republic. Although there were a number of
important professional and economic grievances, besides an increas-
ing dissatisfaction with the political situation, the professional offi-
cers' collective resentment felt concerning the 1921 militia com-
mission law provided a clear, powerful initial rallying point among
officers with divergent political beliefs and membership commit-
ments to different political parties.8
Army officer resentment toward the civilian leadership, and to-
ward officers who were considered to have "sold out the army" to
 "The Honor of the Army" / 195

TABLE 6-1
The Portuguese Army: Numerical Strength
Numerical (includes both regular and active
Year Strength militia forces)
1910 12,000
1911 11,690
1914 12,000
1918 (November) 110,000 (in foreign combat theaters at end of
WWI, plus garrison troops at home; total
estimated, 120,000-125,000 troops)
1920 23,000
1921 16,432
1925 30,000 (approximately)
1926 27,255
1927 34,947
1928 34,236
1929 32,663
1933 12,000 (not including 25,000 annual conscript
draft)
1961 80,000 (including conscripts, at onset of
insurgent war in Angola)
1967/68 120,000 (including forces in Portugal, Atlantic
islands, Angola, Mozambique, and
Guinea; excluding colonial civilian
militia)
1971/72 130,000 (in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea,
not counting perhaps 15,000 in Portugal
as part of under-strength two infantry
divisions "assigned" to NATO)
1974 (April 25) 140,000 (not counting mobilized African
regulars, militia forces in colonies)
1976 (March) 40,000
1977 32,000 (redesigned army, as planned; Staff
Draft Plan, 1976)
Sources: For figures in the years 1910-1933, see Wheeler, Republican
Portugal, chap. 11; for figures in years 1961-1968, see Wheeler, "The
Portuguese Army in Angola," Journal of Modern African Studies 7, no. 13
(October 1969): 429-436; for figures in years 1971-1974, see Wheeler,
"African Elements in Portugal's Armies in Africa (1961-1974)," Armed
Forces and Society 2, no. 2 (Winter 1976): 237-246. Figures for March 1976
force and projected new army (consisting of an "Intervention Force" [regu-
lar] and "Territorial Corps" [conscript 15-18 month term]) for 1977 on,
from discussion of Army General Staff Plan discussed in public in an
article in a weekly newspaper, "Corpo Voluntário de Intervenção . . .,"
Expresso (Lisbon), March 6, 1976, p. 13.
 196 / Douglas L. Wheeler

the politicians, built upon a series of factors which went beyond

specific professional grievances. In attempting to answer the ques-
tion, Why did the military overthrow the First Republic's parlia-
mentary regime and take over the state in 1926, it is important
to discuss briefly four key factors which can help to explain the
importance assumed by the military in 1926: (a) a revival of Por-
tuguese militarism in officer circles, (fa) a revival of active colonial-
ism in Africa, (c) a new professionalism among officers, and [d]
the growing influence upon public opinion and among officers of
conservative political ideologies, including Portuguese nationalism,
integralism, and several varieties of fascist and Catholic thought.
Inherent in the new militarism, a phenomenon with strong roots
in the nineteenth century, were two key ideas: First, the armed
forces, most especially the army, represented the most vital insti-
tution in Portugal. An increasing number of officers had come to
admire the opinion of a rebel officer, young Lt. Jorge Botelho Moniz
(1898-1961), whose sensational attack on the parliamentary regime
included the statement that "the army is . . . the most powerful
guarantee of national sovereignty, internal peace, and external res-
pect/' 9 Second, there was the increasingly accepted belief and idea
that only the army was "unified" and capable of coping with the
problems which the parliamentary Republic had failed to solve.
The increasingly important influence of a revived colonialism, a
new professionalism among officers, and antiliberal, antidemocrat-
ic, and antiparliamentary ideas became naturally combined with a
growing trend internationally: the rise of fascist or semifascist re-
gimes in Italy (1922), Spain (1923), Greece (1925), and Poland (May
1926).
The parliamentary regime was overthrown by a military coup
which began on the twenty-eighth of May 1926 in Braga. Support
for this movement then spread to all military units in the country.
The details of the coup plotting and operation are discussed else-
where,10 but it is worthwhile indicating several important features
of the "28th of May." First, it was a bloodless coup which was
received with some enthusiasm initially in both urban and rural
areas. Second, it was a coup which featured almost exclusively
junior regular officer corps participation (the first year or two of the
subsequent dictatorship are often described therefore as the "regime
of the lieutenants").11 Third, the coup plotters were severely divided
politically, and their partisan divisions roughly approximated the
political fragmentation of the nonmilitary elite. Plotting and or-
ganizing the 1926 coup, in fact, involved not one main junta, or
 "The Honor of the Army" / 197

coup committee, but two. One, a largely "monarchist" committee,

led by the "18th of April" (1925) group of rebel officers, was domi-
nated by younger integralist and nationalist officers and was orient-
ed toward maintaining power by means of force and authoritarian
methods. The second committee, broadly "republican," was domi-
nated by Radical Party member-officers and some old-line republi-
can conservatives in the Cunha Leal splinter party (Liberal Union)
and proposed a "presidentialist" but liberal, democratically oriented
republican regime.12
The history of the Portuguese military during 1910-1926 general-
ly raises some key points which, if viewed in the longer perspec-
tive of twentieth-century politics and government, suggest that the
conventional models of scholars and the cultivated "myths" of the
new state regime and their opponents must be severely qualified
and perhaps abandoned.
While Janowitz' models of civil-military relations in the industri-
al nations (aristocratic, democratic, totalitarian)13 may fit some na-
tional cases, they do not fit the Portuguese case. While Portugal
failed to achieve the conditions and goals of a "democratic" model
armed force, in 1926 the army actually replaced civilian control
over the state with military administration based upon officer corps
consensus or votes of officers in regiments or smaller units. "Bar-
racks parliamentarism," 14 in fact, was in stark contrast to all pre-
cedent in Portuguese civil-military relations. Later, when the New
State government civilianized control of the government, and the
military returned to the barracks, civil-military relations came to
resemble Janowitz' model for new nations: "authoritarian-personal
control." Since the New State did not establish a true mass party,
and since the political secret police terrorized the officer corps in-
creasingly after 1945, in Portugal the authoritarian-personal control
model must take into account a secret police as the key replace-
ment of the armed forces in maintaining the regime in power and
keeping "order."15
A major problem with the "ideal type" analysis, of course, is
that in the case of the Portuguese military there was no "one army"
or service. There were, in fact, several. The officer corps, for ex-
ample, contained personnel with differing political beliefs and
creeds; within the army itself, as in a parliament or congress, then,
power, decision making, image building, and control issues were
debated and a struggle for dominance by one group was an almost
constant process.
With these tendencies in mind, a student of the Portuguese mili-
 198 / Douglas L. Wheeler

tary in politics can be safely skeptical of the well-known New State

myths concerning the military: "only the army is unified"; "only
the army is capable of unifying the country"; "the army is 'allow-
ing' the premier to manage the country, while it supports his pro-
gram"; and, after 1968, when Caetano replaced Salazar as premier,
"the army is neutral or apolitical but supports the authority of the
state." In a related point, sociologist Hermínio Martins suggested
that the only two institutions in the new state with any measure
of autonomy were the Church and the armed forces.16 After close
reading of the forty-eight-year history of the Portuguese dictator-
ship, however, historians must qualify this generalization. In fact,
after 1936, with the creation of a series of paramilitary organiza-
tions, the increasing power of the secret police to intervene in armed
forces' business, and the rise of fascist and authoritarian controls
in general, the armed forces became merely one more co-opted and
subordinated institution. Whatever relative autonomy it may have
had, or groups of its leaders may have had, during the 1926-1928
"pure" Ditadura Militar and up to 1936, it was severely restricted
by the end of World War II.17
It is true that golpismo continued, especially during the years
1926-1962. The military became part of plots to overthrow the
dictatorship (see appendix, "Permanent Conspiracy"); nearly every
year during the entire era there were one and often two plots con-
cerning the idea of inciting one or more military units to rebel
against the state and change the situação in the interests of op-
posicionistas. In most of the cases, however, fewer than a dozen
regular officers were involved in the plots, and in many cases large-
ly republican civilians were the plot leaders. Especially after 1945,
however, as occurred during the 1926-1931 wave of pronunciamen-
to plots, chefes selected to head the juntas or comités were pro-
fessional officers of high rank. As in the traditional form of plot-
ting by both civilians and the military, the choice of leader, chefe,
was a crucial problem. Whoever became the designated leader, the
officer destined to take power if the coup succeeded, largely deter-
mined which officers and which units and which political factions
or parties would be willing to support the movement and work for
its success. Personalismo, or the allegiance to persons over ideas
and institutions, as in parliamentary and presidentialist republican
politics, also played a key role in barracks or military politics.18
The continuation of coup plotting and golpismo, nevertheless,
did not mean that the armed forces enjoyed significant autonomy
vis-à-vis the New State rulers. After 1936, as was suggested above,
 "The Honor of the Army" / 199

the status and privileges of the military were diminished. An ex-

cellent example is the question of the immunity of officers to police
arrest. During the early years of the regime, during the military
dictatorship, the military were a privileged caste. On April 16, 1929,
the headquarters of the Portuguese Masons in Lisbon was assaulted
and raided by state police, civilians, and units of the paramilitary
GNR (Guarda Nacional Republicana). All masons (or "freemasons")
apprehended in this raid were arrested and jailed, "with the ex-
ception of army officers."19 In a 1932 published interview, Premier
António Salazar stated openly that the military were "a little privi-
leged" group compared to others in the country at the time. This
was because, he suggested, the military earned privileges during
World War I and they were "keeping peace" in Portugal. Salazar
concluded by stating, "I think that the country has an open debt
with the army which will not be easily paid off."20
After his successful moves to woo and to appease the leaders
of the officer corps, Salazar and his circle of Coimbra peer profes-
sors gained greater control of the reins of power and decision making
in the state. The army returned to the barracks. Indeed, the New
State elite was largely civilian, and, after 1933 when the Constitu-
tion was "ratified" and put into law, the state machinery at top
levels underwent extensive civilianization.21

Civil-Military Relations under Salazar

If the models and official myths are suspect, what was the essence
of civil-military relations under the more "vigorous" period of the
dictatorship, 1933-1962? The New State civilian elite, dominated
by the person of Salazar, demonstrated that in governing and in
surviving threats pragmatism, opportunism, and the "art of rul-
ing" 22 took precedence over doctrine and ideology. As Martins has
carefully documented, even the "favored" integralists had a very
limited autonomy.23 The armed forces leadership after 1933, and
especially after World War II, was increasingly controlled by the
state. Like all the other New State institutions, the armed forces
were co-opted and were influenced by a process of "divide and rule."
It is useful at this point to turn briefly again to the question
of officer immunity to arrest. This became a more common officer
grievance after 1940. Before, during any crackdown on opposition-
ists, officers might be immune to arrest by civilian police. After
1945, the state unilaterally imposed self-generated laws which elim-
 200 / Douglas L. Wheeler

inated this same immunity. Secret police powers were increased.

In a law of October 13, 1945, PIDE was given the power "to arrest
and detain anyone suspected of political activity" for forty-five days
without charge and was given discretionary power in legal proceed-
ings and the release of suspects.24 On June 1, 1947, the government
had published in all Portuguese newspapers an "official" reminder
note that by "Decree no. 25317, dated May 13, 1945, the Gov-
ernment had taken to itself the powers to dismiss officers of the
armed forces who failed in their duties to the established institu-
t i o n s . . . " 2 5 While the state did sometimes compromise on the
severity of its use of the police and on legal sentences and penalties
against officers involved in plots and conspiracies (i.e., after the
1962 abortive Beja coup), the general autonomy of the officer corps
diminished in succeeding decades.
Another major feature of civil-military relations was the manner
in which the state co-opted groups of officers by employing them
in positions which identified them or, indeed, the "army" with the
regime. At a high level, a close crony of Dr. Salazar was the monar-
chist-nationalist officer Fernando Santos Costa (1899-?). A "cadet
of Sidónio" in 1918, Santos Costa was a member of the group of
young, prointegralist, profascist officers who organized the twenty-
eighth of May 1926 coup.26 Involved in training and leadership in
a paramilitary force, the Legião Portuguesa (1936-1974), Santos
Costa soon became a leading member of the inner circle around
Salazar. In 1944 he was appointed to the key post of minister of
war, having been Salazar's personal "interim" minister of the army.
In 1958 he was replaced after the brief oppositionist flurry surround-
ing the presidential elections in which the regime's candidate, Adm.
Américo Tomas, was openly opposed by air force Gen. Humberto
Delgado. Becoming the new minister of national defense in 1958
was another "Cadet of Sidónio" and a "Lieutenant" in the 1926
coup, Gen. Júlio Carlos Botelho Moniz, brother of Jorge Botelho
Moniz, cited above.27
Santos Costa remained a key man in the Salazar regime's sub-
ordination of the armed forces to the will of the state. His personal
talents were primarily political and conspiratorial. Increasingly, pro-
fessional, less political officers viewed Santos Costa with hostility.28
Santos Costa epitomized for the opposition the mediocrity and
cronyism which infected the New State appointments. He indeed
symbolized a case of how the New State co-opted army leadership
and promoted officers not for military prowess but for political rea-
sons and loyalty to the regime.
 " T h e Honor of the Army" / 201

The state recruited officers from the army and navy, and later
also from the new air force, to fill middle- and low-level posts in
the home administration and in the colonies. This practice provided
rewards for the government and compensation to those officers who
were loyal to the regime.
Armed forces officers' support and collaboration roles with the
New State fell into at least six sectors. These were areas in which
thousands of officers were employed in full or part-time, paying
positions which were not "conventional" military jobs.

1. Officering and manning the key paramilitary organizations of

the New State, training duties, auxiliary consultations, etc.
a. State correctional, prison services (guards, jailkeepers)
b. Legião Portuguesa (1936-1974)
c. Mocidade Portuguesa (1936-1974)
d. GNR (Guarda Nacional Republicana; "second army," in effect)
e. PSP (civil police)
f. Secret police (PIDE/DGS)
g. Guarda Fiscal (customs, frontiers, immigration, etc.)
2. Volunteering for the Legião Portuguesa campaign ("viriatos")
in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939, and fighting; estimated 20,000
"volunteers" sent; 6,000-8,000 dead
3. Officers in state censorship service (usually as second positions,
"moonlighting," in effect)
4. Holding office as cabinet ministers, under-secretaries of state,
in ministries; in central, district, and local administration in Portu-
gal and the Atlantic islands
5. Holding office as minister of war, defense, navy, or air force;
at high levels in government
6. Fulfilling assignments in colonial service in African or Asian
colonies, at all levels from "governor-general" or "high commis-
sioner" down to local chefes do posto; seconding of officers to fill
a variety of colonial posts, an old tradition; naval officers dominat-
ing upper levels of colonial administration by tradition until the
twentieth century, when army officers came to dominate the major
colonial posts in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea; after the 1961
insurgency war began in Angola, post of governor-general normally
filled by lieutenant colonels and colonels from the army

Benefits enjoyed by the regime included compromising and co-

opting military leaders by identifying their employment and even
livelihoods with the status quo of the political situação-, obtaining
 202 / Douglas L. Wheeler

needed technical and nontechnical skills from officers for jobs; and
keeping officers occupied and perhaps somewhat removed from the
barracks while, at the same time, their employment made them
more vulnerable to regime demands, requests, and police surveil-
lance. For individual officers, the initial and probably major attrac-
tion of such employment beyond their normal military duties was,
simply, money. During the Salazar regime military pay was very
low, except in some instances in later years when service in the
African wars offered special bonus payments. To survive or to ad-
vance, officers sought second or superior jobs or attempted to be
posted from their regular slots to special positions with better pay.
Aspects of the military role in the state bureaucracy were already
traditional as early as the First Republic and military pay, by tradi-
tion, was low in Portugal. It was largely the lower- and middle-
ranking officers (from company grade up to lieutenant colonel) who
came to find employment in sensitive positions more and more
common. Some officers came to consider such work "degrading."29
Two other areas of civil-military relations remain to be discussed:
the extent to which the army was rewarded in terms of armament
and equipment purchases by the state, and the role the officer corps
played in "nominating" or selecting candidates from their profes-
sion for top state posts which were traditionally reserved for the
military—the presidency of the Republic and the military minis-
tries (defense, army, navy, and air force).30
There is not space here to discuss post-1961 developments in
armament and, indeed, these events are better known. It is worth-
while, however, to analyze a specific case of rearmament from the
1930s. In 1926 both the army and navy commands were anxious to
employ state funds for the long-overdue purchase of new equip-
ment. The army's equipment was obsolete and most of it was orig-
inally second-hand equipment granted to Portugal by the Allies in
1919. The navy's situation was even worse. By 1928 Portugal was
bankrupt; a contemporary technocrat, Dr. Salazar, was given finan-
cial control. Salazar had a choice of options. He could delay indef-
initely the rearmament programs for both services but then incur
more unpopularity. Or he could rearm one service, or both. No
decision had been made when the regime was shaken by the 1931
oppositionist insurgency in the Madeira Islands. A timely naval ex-
pedition from Lisbon, commanded by the minister for the navy him-
self, turned the tide and, in effect, saved the regime from a strong
threat. A grateful regime thereupon decided to use funds from a for-
 "The Honor of the Army" / 203

eign loan, beginning in 1932, to re-equip the navy with British-made

warships.31 The army would have to wait for its new equipment.
Army command reaction to this decision was hostile, and cer-
tain groups of junior officers in Lisbon plotted the overthrow of
Salazar and his replacement by a prime minister to be approved
by President (Gen.) Oscar Carmona, who would be more sympathet-
ic to the army's perceived need for new armament. 32 Salazar effec-
tively squashed the budding plot by delivering a threat of resigna-
tion in person to General Carmona. The president then reiterated
his personal support for Salazar and in 1934 gave him authorization
to replace an independent minister of war, one in fact hostile to
Salazar.33
The army thus took second place to the navy in getting new
equipment. But there were some positive decisions made in order
to mollify officers. In May 1934 the government authorized the dis-
patch of a Portuguese military mission of four senior officers to
England in order to study methods of military education.34 Three
years later authorization came for the rearmament of the army by
means of purchases of largely British equipment.35 In this way, the
New State leadership balanced pressures from contending rivals for
rewards in the system (see Table 6-2). Nevertheless, after 1929 the
New State severely reduced the military budget and increased it
only when necessary—in 1940-1943, when there appeared to be a
German threat to the Azores, and after 1961 with the African wars.
Even after the African wars drained over 40 percent of the annual
budget, Caetano's New State reduced the metropolitan contribu-
tions to the military budget. The "Overseas Provinces" budgets
were manipulated so as to have the African territories pay ever
larger portions of the costs of the war.36
The officer corps' role in selecting high officials (president of the
Republic) and the military ministers is an important topic which
remains poorly researched. Certainly, it was Gen. Oscar Carmona
who helped to select Salazar as prime minister and to maintain
him in office. Throughout the 1930s, when more than one challenge
from military circles assailed Salazar, Carmona stood by him. How-
ever, there is evidence that, as Carmona aged and became less aware
of and not in command of his prerogatives, he grew to dislike Salazar
and may have considered dismissing him, a power he had under
the 1933 Constitution. 37
There is some evidence that in 1945-1947 Carmona discussed
with some oppositionists the idea of a "poll" of leading officers
 204 / Douglas L. Wheeler

TABLE 6-2
Armed Forces Defense Budgets, 1913-1974
Year % of Revenue Spent on Armed Forces
1913 13.1% [army only; naval expenses not included)
1917 30.0 (approximately)
1926 40.0 [approximately)
1928/29 23.42
1938 22.4
1961 36.5
1962 38.5
1963 37.3
1964 38.3
1965 40.9
1966 41.3
1967 41.9
1968 42.4
1969 40.7
1970 38.9
1971 36.5
1972 33.4
1973 30.0
1974 27.6
1975 ?

Sources: For figures for budget in years 1913-1926, see Wheeler, Republican
Portugal, chaps. 10, 13; for 1928/29, see Figueiredo, Portugal, p. 63; for
1938, 1961-1974, see sources cited in article by Schmitter, "Liberation by
Golpe," Armed Forces and Society 2, no. 1 (Fall 1975): 17. It is difficult to
obtain reliable evidence on this subject, but for speculation on possible
moves to reduce budgeted military expenses after the 1974 coup, see the
Portuguese press, e.g., the Lisbon press during the week of January 7-15
when it was suggested that the MFA and the provisional government
promised a 40 percent reduction in the spending on the armed forces in
1975.

on the issue of retaining or dismissing Salazar. Dr. José Magalhães

Godinho, head of the committee which drafted the 1974 Electoral
Law under the postcoup regime, recalls an interview with Carmona
in 1945 where the question of dismissing Salazar was discussed.
As a young, democratic oppositionist, this lawyer-to-be urged the
president to fire Salazar; to which the ageing Carmona replied, so
this version goes, that this could happen but only if leading armed
 " T h e Honor of the Army" / 205

forces officers organized a junta and demanded this action.38 There

is also evidence from the affair known as "National Liberation
Board," 1946-1947. A group of officers plotted the proclamation
of a Junta da Libertação Nacional after the abortive 1946 Mealhada
coup attempt (see Appendix). The officers planned the dismissal
of Salazar, repeal of the 1933 Constitution, and abolition of the
PIDE and other paramilitary, New State organizations. Some gen-
erals were in on the plot, but the secret police were made aware
of the plot through an informer. The coup never reached the streets,
since arrests were made, while Salazar remained safely ensconced
in a loyal army unit barracks in Lisbon. There followed the 1947
government note reiterating the applicability of the May 13, 1945,
law ending officers' immunity to arrest by the PIDE.39
After Carmona died in office (1951), Salazar could manipulate
a personal choice of successor. The officer corps did play a role
in indicating individuals who might be appropriate for the military
ministries. But after 1951, these officers had less influence. Gen.
Craveiro Lopes, president of the Republic, 1951-1958, evidently was
too independent for the tastes of Salazar and his circle and in 1958
he was replaced by the regime's man, the passive, accommodating,
and compliant professional navy officer, Adm. Américo Tomás.40
In summary, the New State got the best of civil-military relations
during the dictatorship. Primarily after 1933-1936 and the intensi-
fication of civilianization, the imposition of interlocking and multi-
ple controls and co-option, and the increasing power of the secret
police, the armed forces leadership became less independent. Even
the generals, of whom there were relatively few for the size of the
forces, could be manipulated, frightened, and corrupted. Some were
even murdered. There is evidence of murder in the case of Gen.
Marques Godinho in the 1940s41 and, definitely, in the case of Gen.
Humberto Delgado, the officer murdered by PIDE in 1965 on the
Luso-Spanish frontier.42
Not a few officers bitterly resented many similar acts and inci-
dents. One of the more expressive written protests is the book pub-
lished by "ex-Lt." Fernando Queiroga, Portugal Oprimido. Discuss-
ing a similar reaction by officers a few years after the 1946 Mealhada
abortive coup, a fellow officer, Lt. Col. Luis Calafate, wrote tren-
chantly of the feeling of ruined "honor":

Officers in the MMI (Movimento Militar Independente [precur-

sor of the MFA]). . . were .. . angry with the events which late-
 206 / Douglas L. Wheeler

ly had stained the uniform of the Portuguese soldier—the po-

lice-like functions of the regiments, in support of a regime of
One Party; the odious exhibitionism of combat cars in Lisbon
squares (to frighten the citizen who trusted the army to defend
him and who finally saw it [the Army] betray h i m ) . . . there
was the affront to the President-elect Humberto Delgado, from
whom the general's decorations were stripped without any
trial and his uniform torn from him as if it were a mere piece
of cloth—not being able any longer to put up with the vicious
insults, they had decided to protest to the president of the
Republic and to submit their resignations.43

Factors Influencing Military Intervention

in 1926 and 1974
In foregoing sections of this article, I suggested that in the political
sense there was not one Portuguese army or armed forces but, in
fact, many. Not only was the army officer corps not unified; it was
also factionalized. If sections of the body were "apolitical" there
were also a number of politicized factions, both monarchist and
republican. More to the point, these political groups can be divided
into three types for the sake of discussion: authoritarian (situacio-
nistas), nonauthoritarian [opposicionistas), and passive, apolitical,
or conformist [barriguistas). Whether under the First Republic, the
military dictatorship, or the New State, the majority of officers have
been largely indifferent to politics while small factions of officers
have struggled for position in order to get their views accepted or
their candidates for office "elected" by top leadership.
With this factionalization of the officer corps, the armed forces
reflected the broad political trends of society. Before 1945, a larger
group of activist officers was authoritarian. After 1945, and the tri-
umph of antifascist forces in Europe, more officers found themselves
in the ranks of the opposition. Thus, new grievances based on new
conditions arose.
In this final section of the article, there will be a tentative at-
tempt to answer the question posed at the beginning: what are the
most vital factors which can be clearly identified in attempting
to understand the process which led to the active intervention of
the armed forces in the government and politics of Portugal? One
way of approaching the problem is to outline the similarities be-
tween the grievances of the officer corps in 1926 and in 1974.
 "The Honor of the Army" / 207

Initially, we may identify what I would describe as a major fac-

tor, or "master grievance," of the officer corps: professional discon-
tent based upon the belief that the "honor of the army," or of the
armed forces, as an institution had been severely compromised by
its role as a defender of the now-discredited regime and as a col-
laborator in a major effort which failed or was about to fail. The
master grievance in both the 1926 and 1974 cases is apolitical, pro-
fessional in nature. The 1926 "Lieutenants" desired to end the mili-
tia program and deeply resented the effects of the 1921 militia com-
mission law. By the same token and in oddly similar circumstances,
the 1974 "Captains" movement began to organize around a consen-
sus concerning a specific professional grievance: Decree-Law 353/73
of July 13, 1973, designed to ease the shortage of trained officers,
became a cause célèbre among junior officers and elicited a series
of written and verbal protests. 44 The law provided new measures
for encouraging militia officers with little time in rank to assume
commissions in the regular cadre. In fact, the first "Manifesto"
of the "Captains" addressed this issue as a grievance, and it aroused
immediate support from a variety of officers with varying political
views.
The master grievance, therefore, naturally provided plotting offi-
cers with a clear rallying point of agreement, one which could gain
the sympathy of both conservatives and liberals. What began, then,
as a professional grievance could develop into something more.
Traditionally, the next discussion points in coup plots which came
out of initial discussions were "minimum" program,45 a chefe to
head the movement, 46 and a plan of operations to oust the regime
in power.47
In outline form, then, here is a fundamental exposition of a com-
parison of factors impelling the officer corps to intervene directly
in the governance of the state

1926 1974

1. Professional Grievances
1921 militia law 1973 militia law
Low pay Low pay
Bad duty Bad duty
"Honor" of individual and "Honor" of armed forces at
armed forces at stake stake
Discontent with militia Shame in wearing uniform in
system in general streets of Lisbon
 208 / Douglas L. Wheeler

Unprofessional officers, Corruption of officer corps

"dead wood" through collaboration with
Pay increases too "demo- New State, overseas and at
cratic" home
Promotions too "political" Inadequate facilities in Africa
Promotions too "political"
2. Economic Grievances
Purchase power of pay cut Severe inflation (30%, 1973-
by half 1915-1926 1974)
Severe inflation Severe price rises
State seen as corrupt and Business and industrial elites
incompetent better off than armed forces
Price rise extreme officers
3. General Situação in
Politics
Repressiveness, oppressive- Secret police power over in-
ness of state dividual and groups (PIDE/
Power of PIDE's predeces- DGS)
sors, core state police New State under Caetano not
of 1926 going to liberalize signifi-
Politicians viewed as cor- cantly
rupt, venal, incompetent, New State losing its grip at
and antimilitary home and in Africa
Army blamed in World War I African wars cannot be won,
defeats and disgraces in only prolonged
Flanders and Africa Army in danger of being
Politicians "responsible" for blamed for failure of state
failure to lead or to equip Heavy emigration to avoid
forces adequately to meet low pay, draft, and service
German threats in Africa draining country
Fear of loss of African co- Skills needed in Portugal
lonies to imperial rivals: drained to wars in Africa
Britain, Germany, Italy,
and Spain
Some of the similarities between the 1926 and 1974 intervention
causes can be observed in an analysis of the Appendix. There are
striking resemblances on just two points: the World War I mass
mobilization and increase in the size of the armed forces and the
even larger effort to meet the challenges of the post-1961 African
wars, and the outlay of budget for military purposes.
In conclusion, the Portuguese military's relationship with the
 "The Honor of the Army" / 209

dictatorship, which was Europe's longest surviving authoritarian

system, was both complex and troubled. Only briefly, during the
years 1926-1928, did the army make the major decisions in govern-
ment; by 1928 it was apparent that the so-called National Revolu-
tion was in grave danger. Leading officers were neither allowed to
nor capable of solving the key financial problems, and public dis-
trust of military rule had burgeoned. If the military's record in gov-
ernance was poor in the 1920s, it was at best "mixed" in the period
1974-1976. In late February 1976 the army leadership, symbolized
by President of the Republic (Gen.) Francisco Costa Gomes, signed
a pact with the civilians to hand over all but advisory and consulta-
tive powers after 1976 parliamentary and presidential elections.48
The Portuguese military experience exhibited continuidade in
yet one more respect. The "Draft Plan for Restructuring the Armed
Forces" in 1976 was strangely similar to army reform laws in the
late nineteenth century and to the Army Reform Law of 1911. This
plan called for a return to the barracks and a nonpartisan, non-
political role for the armed forces. For the army, however, there
would be an additional function besides those of defense and in-
ternal security: "development of the territory," in effect, "nation
building." A small, volunteer "Intervention Force" of professional
regulars would train a revolving "Territorial Force" of draft con-
scripts who would serve from fifteen to eighteen months. 49
At best the record of the military as rulers has been mixed. As
many African armed forces learned to their dismay, it is one thing
to overthrow a regime and take power but quite another to govern
and rule effectively.50 In Portugal, in two distinct cycles at different
times in history, the armed forces have ruled briefly and then with-
drawn from power, finding the burdens of ruling too great.
The New State managed to manipulate the armed forces while
at the same time producing endless streams of promilitary rhetori-
cal propaganda. In 1962 Salazar was quoted as stating that the army
was "the last bulwark which in the most serious crises defends
the destiny and conscience of the nation." 51 The New State insti-
tutionalized its controls over the armed forces, yet it never suc-
ceeded in working out a mutually satisfactory set of civil-military
relations. The danger of the army turning on the regime was always
present, a siege mentality always latent. Once even the New State's
paramilitary defenders went "neutral," the regime's end was near.
There is a possibility that the regime's final defenders believed their
own propaganda. As the ill-fated Fifth Regiment of Caldas da Rainha
began its "unauthorized military parade" (the government's official
explanatory term),52 a new era in Portugal began.
 Appendix
PERMANENT CONSPIRACY
Military Coup d'État Attempts against the Portuguese Dictatorship, 1926-1974
Civil-Military
Organization
Principal Military Units Supporting
Date Locations Involved Attempt Casualties Results
February 3-9, Oporto, Lisbon, Several units in PRP; PCP; 300 dead; Brief civil war;
1927 Amarante, and Oporto and Republican 1,000 wounded rebels lose; wide-
Penafiel (Minho) Lisbon opposition spread arrests
August 15, 1927 Lisbon ? 7 7 Arrests; groups
exiled
July 20-21, 1928 Lisbon, Setúbal, Caçadores 7 Integralists wing 7 Arrests; collapse
and Castelo under Filomeno of rebels
Branco da Câmara
March 1930 Luanda, Angola One regiment of Radical wing of 1 dead; several Collapse of
infantry integralists wounded revolt; arrests
and dismissal
of High Com-
mander, Filomena
da Câmara
April 4-May 2, Madeira Islands, Local garrison Republican Madeira Islands: Collapse of
1931 Azores, Portu- units; junior opposition led 27 dead; revolt; arrests;
guese Guinea, officers in by General 100 wounded exile of rebels to
Lisbon Madeira and Adalberto de African colonies
Azores Sousa Dias
August 26, 1931 Lisbon and Attacks on Republican 5 dead; 300 Surrender of rebel
(duration: Alverca airfield; barracks of 1st opposition in wounded unit; arrests of
9 hours) Almada Mach. Gun 3rd Paris; Spain unit rebels; over 500
(bombardment) Art. Regts. under Lt. Col. arrests of suspects
Fernando Machado
1934, plotting Lisbon garrison Junior officers of Attempt to have Several deflated Plot squashed as
major units Salazar dismissed egos Pres. Oscar
by Pres. Oscar Carmona fires
Carmona minister of war
for intriguing with
junior officers;
Salazar triumphs
September 10, Penha da França; Mixed army de- National Syndi- ? Arrests of scores
1935 warship in Tagus tachment at calists under of Syndicalists;
River, Bartol. Penha da França; Dr. Rolão Preto; collapse of plot
Dias crew of warships dissident officers
January 18, 1934 Lisbon and Guarda Nacional Portuguese Several wounded Collapse of gen-
Marinha Grande; Republicana at workers and eral strike plan;
other towns; Marinha Grande Communist dismissal of
bombings of mili- Party (PCP); workers compro-
tary installations anarchosyndi- mised in plot;
in Coimbra and calists; workers' arrest of PCP
Setúbal groups leaders; ranks
depleted heavily
September 9, Ships in Tagus Sailors in crews 7 Several wounded; Collapse of revolt
1936 harbor of two warships: 208 sailors and attempt to
Dão and Afonso arrested "hijack" vessels
de Albuquerque
 Appendix—Continued
Civil-Military
Organization
Principal Military Units Supporting
Date Locations Involved Attempt Casualties Results
1945, plotting in Lisbon and Lisbon garrison Republican op- ? Coup attempt
association with Oporto units position in exile fails to reach
October 1945 and in country streets
election MUNAF (and
Gen. José Norton
de Matos)
October 11, 1946 Oporto area Caçadores 6 Regt., Republican ? Rebels surrender
and south to Oporto junior opposition at Mealhada;
Mealhada officers and failure and
militia officers arrests
led by Lt.
Fernando
Queiroga
April 10, 1947, Lisbon area Junior officers 7 7 Failure and
plot collapses and two former arrests
commanders of
Azores, Gens.
Marques Godinho
and Ramires; Adm.
José Mendes
Cabeçadas, leader
of 1926 coup
May-June 1958 Lisbon and Lisbon units and Movimento da None Failure to reach
and July 17, 1958, Oporto four officers; Unidade Demo- streets
plots in associa- letter by Gen. crática (MUD),
tion with Presi- Humberto Movimento Na-
dential elections Delgado urging cional Indepen-
of 1958 they overthrow dente (MNI); Gen.
Salazar Humberto Delgado
and officers (juniors
mainly); Pres.
Francisco Craveiro
Lopes
March 11-12, Lisbon area 1st Mach. Gun Civilian opposi- Arrests; jailings Plot fails, but
1959 Regt.; 2nd tions (including Minister of War
Lancers; 1st Inf.; Catholics) and Fernando Santos
and 2nd Cav. Reg. Movimento Militar Costa replaced by
Independente republican Gen.
(MMI); Capt. José Júlio Botelho
Almeida Santos; Moniz
Capt. Vasco
Gonçalves
January 22- High seas between None; attempt to Capt. Henrique One crewman Ship interned in
February 3, 1961, Venezuela and win over crew of Galvão, and Gen. dead; several Brazil; rebels'
hijacking Brazil; Portuguese Santa María Humberto Delgado; wounded asylum failure
ocean liner, Santa during hijacking Spanish revolu-
María tionaries (DRIL
group)
 Appendix—Continued
Civil-Military
Organization
Principal Military Units Supporting
Date Locations Involved Attempt Casualties Results
March 1961 Lisbon area Lisbon garrison Leading officers and None Failure; dismissal
main (junior offi- some junior officers of plot leaders,
cers) units attempt to pressure including Gen.
Pres. Américo João Botelho
Tomas to dismiss Moniz, Chief of
Salazar Staff
January l, 1962 Beja 3rd Inf. Regt. Gen. Humberto 3 dead; 4 wounded Surrender of
junior officers at- Delgado's exiled (including Lt. Col. rebels; collapse of
tempt to take Beja opposition group of Jaime Filipe de plot; 78 persons
garrison; military junior officers in Fonseca, Under- arrested; prison
leader, Capt. João central-south; Secretary for Army) sentences for 65;
Varela Gomes Catholic liberals 10-year-sentence
under Manuel Serra for Manuel Serra,
6 years for Capt.
João Varela
Gomes
February 1965 Alentejo and None directly Gen. Humberto 3 dead (1 PIDE Collapse of plot
plot for coup, Lisbon areas Delgado's exiled agent, Gen. and weakening of
PIDE murder of opposition group Delgado, and exile organization
General Delgado from Algiers Brazilian personal
at Spanish border secretary)
1970-1973 Colony of Portu- Portuguese garri- None; discon- None Plots, no definite
guese Guinea son; junior officers tented junior offi- plans
(Bissau) cers led by Capt.
Otelo Saraiva de
Carvalho
March 16, 1974 Caldas da Rainha Inf. Reg. no. 5 Movimento das None Arrests of over
attempts to begin Forças Armadas 150 soldiers;
coup; marches on (MFA), following surrender of unit
Lisbon; turned plots and conspir-
back acies beginning
September 1, 1973
April 24-25, 1974 Lisbon and all All major units Junior officers in 5 dead; 15 Success; over-
areas under Maj. Otelo MFA, principally wounded throw of New
Saraiva de (ca. 200 officers) State
Carvalho; Maj.
Vasco Gonçalves,
committee
 216 / Douglas L. Wheeler

Notes
1. For the purposes of discussion, I am referring to the "models" intro-
duced by Morris Janowitz, in The Military in the Pohtical Development
of New Nations: An Essay in Comparative Analysis (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1964), pp. 2-5.
2. See articles critical of this system in the professional military journal
Revista Militar (1922-1927) and in Jorge Botelho Moniz, O 18 de Abril
(Lisbon, 1925), pp. 53-55, 103ff; also David Magno, another junior officer
of that generation, A Situação Portuguesa (Lisbon, 1926). For an outline
of the 1911 army reform, see articles in Revista Militar (1911-1913).
3. On the rise of republicanism and Carbonária activity, see Jacinto
Baptista, O Cinco de Octubre (Lisbon, 1965), and my article, "The Por-
tuguese Revolution of 1910," Journal of Modern History 44, no. 2 (June
1972): 172-194.
4. While the "Founder of the Republic," Naval Commissary (Warrant
Officer) Machado Santos, was an officer in the regular cadre, only a hand-
ful of others followed him initially and the republican forces consisted
mainly of some enlisted men, some N.C.O.'s, sailors, civilian riflemen,
and bomb-carrying teenagers. Most of the casualties during the fighting
of October 3-5, 1910, were in fact civilian, and few officers risked their
lives on one side or the other.
5. See Jesús Pabón, A Revolução Portuguesa (Lisbon, 1961), p. 48; see
also the account of the last premier under the Monarchy, Teixeira de Sousa,
Para a História da Revolução, 2 vols. 2: 355-358, 449-450.
6. See criticism found in Melo e Athayde, "O Pais e o exército no actual
momento," Revista Militar (May 1919), pp. 288-295; F. Cunha Leal, As
Minhas Memórias, 3 vols. (Lisbon, 1966-1968), 2: 363-365, 380. Article
by Major A. Branquinho in Revista Mihtar, no. 4 (April 1922), p. 217; O
Século, May 4, 1911; A Noite, April 17, 1926.
7. See also some professional military criticism reflected in the book by
J. C. Vasconcelos, O Movimento Nacional de 18 de Abril (Oporto, 1925);
also Anselmo Vieira, A Crise Nacional (Lisbon, 1926).
8. See my Republican Portugal: A Political History, 1910-1926 (Madi-
son: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978), chap. 10.
9. Botelho Moniz, O 18 de Abril, p. 33.
10. See my manuscript, "Politics in the First Portuguese Republic," chap.
12, "The Twenty-eighth of May."
11. See the interesting French account of 1926-1927, George Guyomard,
La Dictature Militaire au Portugal (Paris: Les Presses Universitaires de
France, 1927), pp. 23, 106-107.
12. Jorge Campinos, A Ditadura Militar, 1926I1933 (Lisbon: Don Quixote,
1975), pp. 53-54. See Portuguese daily press, May 28-June 17, 1926, e.g.,
O Século and Diário de Notícias.
13. Janowitz, The Military in the Political Development of New Nations,
pp. 2-5.
14. Guyomard, La Dictature, p. 23.
15. For material on the function of the secret police in the dictatorship
after 1933, see Hermínio Martins, "Portugal," in European Fascism, ed.
 " T h e Honor of the Army" / 217

S. Woolf (London: Vintage, 1969), pp. 312-328; António de Figueiredo,

Portugal: Fifty Years of Dictatorship (New York: Holmes and Meier,
1976), pp. 105—158ff; Mário Soares, Le Portugal Bailloné (Paris: Calmann-
Levy, 1972). A recent sensationalist "dossier" by an anonymous writer con-
tains some useful photostats of documents and photographs of prisons:
"Reporter Sombra," Dossier P.I.D.E. (Lisbon, 1974); many similar accounts
emerged after censorship was lifted in late April 1974.
16. Martins, "Portugal," pp. 307, 328.
17. See only a few accounts of some officers who experienced "adminis-
trative terror" in the 1940s and 1950s: Fernando Queiroga, Portugal Op-
rimido (Rio de Janeiro, 1958: repr. Lisbon: O Século, 1974); Humberto
Delgado, Memoirs of General Delgado (London: Cassell, 1964); Henrique
Galvão, Santa Maria: My Crusade for Portugal (New York: World, 1962);
Captain Sarmento Pimentel, Memórias (Lisbon, 1973).
18. See the anthology of documents edited by A. H. de Oliveira Marques,
A Unidade da Oposição a Ditadura, 1928-1931, História do Portugal Con-
temporâneo, Documentos, vol. 1 (Lisbon, 1973); and an expanded anthology
with a larger focus, Oliveira Marques, O General Sousa Dias e as Revoltas
Contra a Ditadura, 1926-1931 (Lisbon, 1975).
19. A. H. de Oliveira Marques (ed. and comp.), A Maçonária Portuguesa
e o Estado Novo (Lisbon, 1975), p. 52.
20. Campinos, A Ditadura Militar, p. 172.
21. Martins, "Portugal"; and Campinos, A Ditadura Militar, pp. 148-
160.
22. A major thesis of Jorge Campinos' recent scholarly study, a transla-
tion from the French of his political science dissertation at Poitiers, is
how little the New State depended on ideology as opposed to the "art of
ruling" [A Ditadura Militar, pp. 163-170).
23. Martins, "Portugal," pp. 309-320.
24. Figueiredo, Portugal, pp. 118-119.
25. Ibid., p. 124.
26. "Cadets of Sidónio" were those young military cadets and officer-
candidates who were followers of President (Major) Sidónio Pais (1917-
1918). Though their hero was assassinated in 1918, many of his "Cadets"
remained loyal to his memory and to his ideas, some of which were adopted
in the New State regime.
27. General Júlio Botelho Moniz was dismissed by the New State govern-
ment in April 1961, after becoming involved in a coup plot to have Salazar
dismissed. See Figueiredo, Portugal, pp. 210-211; Mário Soares, Portugal's
Struggle for Liberty (London, 1975 English translation by Mary Gawsworth
of French 1972 ed.), pp. 128-130.
28. Queiroga, Portugal Oprimido, pp. 42-160; Delgado, Memoirs, and
Galvão, Santa Maria, pp. 34-35. Galvão notes that Salazar's men could
"mobilize" the armed forces at election time, as in the "threatening"
episode of 1968, in order to "demonstrate" loyalty at a key moment. I
well remember the public declaration made by the army commanders in
Lisbon, widely publicized in the daily press, on the occasion of the Na-
tional Assembly elections in early November 1961. By this statement just
before the vote, and by the menacing attitude of troops lining the streets
on polling day, the regime's point was clearly made. The troops seen at
 218 / Douglas L. Wheeler

the time appeared to be independently menacing, not "servile" as Galvão

later described them.
29. Josué Da Silva, Legião Portuguesa: Força Repressiva do Fascismo
(Lisbon, 1975); Martins, "Portugal," pp. 327-328.
30. Queiroga, Portugal Oprimido, pp. 92-105. This account documents
the penury cum corruption of certain high-ranking officers, such as one
"General Ramires." When approached for a commitment to back a military
coup in his sector, "Ramires" pleaded poverty and promised to work with
Queiroga in the plot only if he received 1,500 contos (p. 105).
31. Public Record Office (PRO), London, F.O. 37119729 (Confidential),
#14687, March 1, 1935, Amb. Russell to Sir John Simon, p. 2; see my
Republican Portugal, chaps. 10, 13. See also PRO, F.I. 371/F, F. Lindley
to A. Henderson, April 18, 1931, pp. 1-2; also, letter, previous day, April
17, 1931, and F. Lindley to A. Henderson, May 1, 1931. União Nacional,
28 de Maio: Comemoração em 1935 (Lisbon, 1935), pp. 117-160. Gen.
Ferreira Martins, História do Exército Portuguez (Lisbon, 1945). Arquivo
Histórico Militar, Lisbon, 1 Div., Sec. 35, Box 1264, Pasta 2, "Reorganiza-
tion do Exército (1919)," telegrams, letters doc. no. 2 (December 13, 1918),
Chief of Staff of Army to Chief of Dept. of Office of Minister of War, etc.
32. PRO, F.O. 371/18589 (Confidential), #14467; Portugal: Annual Re-
port, 1933, Sir Claud Russell to Sir John Simon, February 1, 1934, pp. 4 0 -
43.
33. Assis Gonçalves, Intimidades de Salazar: O Homen e a sua Epoca,
rev. ed. (Lisbon, 1972), pp. 189-197.
34. PRO, F.O. 371/19729, Portugal: Annual Report, 1934, Sir Claud
Russell to Sir John Simon, March 1, 1935, p. 23.
35. Martins, História do Exército.
36. Note the decrease in the percentage of the annual budget devoted to
war costs after 1968/69, in chart cited in Philippe C. Schmitter, "Libera-
tion by Golpe," Armed Forces and Society 2, no. 1 (Fall 1975): 17. See
United Nations, General Assembly, "Report of the Special Committee on
the Situation with Regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on
the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples" (A9023/
Add. 3*, September 19, 1973, Angola section), pp. 60-96, etc.
37. Oliveira Marques, History of Portugal, 2 vols. (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1972), 2: 211-219.
38. Figueiredo, Portugal, pp. 120-122; Soares, Portugal's Struggle, pp.
72-72. My information on a Carmona suggestion for an officers' informal
"vote," in effect, derives from personal conversation-interviews with Dr.
José Magalhães Godinho, lawyer-oppositionist and Socialist Party member,
whose political activity went back to the mid-1940s, when he interviewed
Carmona himself (conversations, Lisbon, October 1972; March 1973).
39. Figueiredo, Portugal) Peter Fryer and Patricia McGowen Pinheiro,
Le Portugal de Salazar (Paris: Ruedo Ibérico, 1963), p. 100 (French ed. of
Oldest Ally).
40. Soares, Portugal's Struggle, p. 106.
41. Figueiredo, Portugal, p. 123; Soares, Portugal's Struggle, pp. 53, 72.
42. Queiroga, Portugal Oprimido-, Lt. Col. Luis Calafate, Liberdade tem
um Preço (Lisbon, 1975), pp. 28-29.
43. Calafate, Liberdade.
 The Honor of the Army" / 219

44. See memoirs of ex-Premier Marcello Caetano, Depoimento (Rio de

Janeiro, 1974), pp. 184-186.
45. See Queiroga's memoir, Portugal Oprimido, and the volumes by
Delgado, Galvão, Soares, and Calafate cited above. The problem of select-
ing a chefe for the 25th of April 1974 movement is discussed in the useful,
comprehensive journalistic account by Avelino Rodrigues, Césario Borga,
and Mário Cardoso, O Movimento dos Capitães e o 25 de Abril: 229 Dias
para Derrubar o Fascismo, 3d ed. (Lisbon, 1975), pp. 255-338.
46. See also the brief account, in the form of an interview, Otelo Saraiva
de Carvalho, Cinco Meses Mudaram Portugal (Lisbon, 1975).
47. See also Lt. Col. Luis Ataide Banazol, A Origem do Movimento das
Forças Armadas (Lisbon, 1974).
48. "New Lisbon Pact to Bring an End to Military Rule," New York
Times, February 27, 1976, p. 1.
49. Expresso (Lisbon), March 6, 1976.
50. William Gutteridge, Military Regimes in Africa (London: Methuen,
1975).
51. Quote from Salazar speech, May 28, 1962, cited in vol. 6 (1959-1966),
Discursos e Notas Políticas (Coimbra, 1967), p. 220.
52. Reported in international press as official statement issued by Lisbon
to "explain" Caldas da Rainha incident, March 16, 1974; see New York
Times, March 17, 18, 1974.
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