The coup of 28 May 1926: how a rising in Braga ended the First Republic

General Manuel Gomes da Costa reached Braga at ten o'clock on the night of 27 May 1926. He was 63, had made his name commanding Portuguese troops in Flanders in the First World War, and had left Lisbon by car the day before. Braga was hosting a Marian congress, a large Catholic gathering. A month earlier, on 26 April, the opposition politician Francisco Cunha Leal had used a speech in the city to call on the army to save the Republic.3 sources3 sources

At six the next morning the garrison rose. The divisional commander, General José Domingos Peres, heard the general's emissary, refused to join and withdrew without a fight. In Lisbon the government issued a note claiming that the country was calm and only part of the Braga garrison had rebelled.1 source1 source

It was wrong. Within four days the government had resigned, the President had renounced his office and a cavalry squadron had closed the doors of parliament. No battle was fought. The Lisbon magazine Ilustração rushed out a supplement saying the rising had triumphed without spilling blood.2 sources2 sources

The coup of 28 May ended the First Republic, the parliamentary regime born in the revolution of 5 October 1910. It did not yet create a new one. The officers who made it agreed on what they were against and on little else, and the next six weeks were a contest between them.2 sources2 sources

The Republic lasted a little under 16 years. Its constitution of 1911 made parliament supreme: the Congress made the laws, with no presidential veto, and elected the President, who until a 1919 amendment could not dissolve it. One party, the Democrats, came to dominate, and its rivals and many officers came to resent that dominance.3 sources3 sources

Portugal's Parliament describes the 1920s as years of constant changes of government, of feuds between the Democrats' left and right wings, of fear of anarchism and Bolshevism, and of growing sympathy in the army for authoritarian solutions. Force had already decided who governed more than once: Sidónio Pais seized power in December 1917, and on the Bloody Night of October 1921 sailors and Republican Guards murdered António Granjo, who had been prime minister that morning.3 sources3 sources

On 18 April 1925 officers of the military and monarchist right, among them Sinel de Cordes, Raul Esteves and Filomeno da Câmara, tried a coup in Lisbon. It failed, and General Óscar Carmona was named prosecutor at the trial of the plotters. Instead of attacking them, he turned on the regime in a sentence that became famous.2 sources2 sources

In July 1925 a conservative republican naval officer, Commander José Mendes Cabeçadas, led a revolt on the cruiser Vasco da Gama and went to prison for it. In December parliament chose Bernardino Machado, aged 74, as President, and he swore in another Democratic government under António Maria da Silva, his sixth as head of government.2 sources2 sources

That government spent the spring of 1926 in a bitter fight over the state tobacco monopoly. Crowds shouted “Down with the Democratic dictatorship!”, and on 25 May the ministers stopped attending the Chamber of Deputies. Regional military juntas had formed since early 1926 in Braga, Coimbra, Lisbon and Évora.2 sources2 sources

What happened in May 1926 was several plots running at once. Cabeçadas spoke for republican officers who wanted to clean up the Republic, not abolish it. A second group, around Sinel de Cordes, Raul Esteves and Filomeno da Câmara, came from the military right that had failed in April 1925. Around them gathered monarchists, conservative republicans and admirers of the dictatorships of Primo de Rivera in Spain and Mussolini in Italy.3 sources3 sources

The plotters wanted a famous general at their head. Their first choice, General Alves Roçadas, the last commander of the Portuguese force in Flanders, accepted, but was too ill to lead and died in 1926. They turned to Gomes da Costa, decorated for the Battle of La Lys in 1918, who had twice been sentenced to 20 days' arrest for attacking Democratic governments in the press.3 sources3 sources

On 26 May Cabeçadas met the other members of the Lisbon revolutionary committee, Captain Jaime Baptista, Commander Armando Gama Ochoa and Lieutenant Carlos de Vilhena. They agreed that after victory Cabeçadas would head a government. Gomes da Costa would raise the north.1 source1 source

On 28 May Cabeçadas went to the President with a letter, on behalf of a group of officers, asking for a government above the parties made up of republicans who had the country's confidence. Then he set off for Santarém, where he expected troops to have risen. Instead, troops loyal to the government arrested him and the officers with him.2 sources2 sources

It made no difference. On 29 May the Lisbon garrison declared for the movement, with the backing of the city's police chief, João Maria Ferreira do Amaral. That evening the President accepted the government's resignation. Before it went, the government ordered Cabeçadas freed: he was the one rebel the old regime trusted to keep the Republic going.2 sources2 sources

On Sunday 30 May Bernardino Machado appointed Cabeçadas head of government, minister of the navy and acting holder of every other ministry. In the Palácio de Belém, the presidential palace, the President's private secretary, Bourbon e Meneses, watched the coup arrive. He later wrote that Machado, at 75, slept a quarter of an hour by the clock on the night of 30 to 31 May. He also recorded what one of the Lisbon junta, Lieutenant Vilhena, said with a smile on leaving the President's office.3 sources3 sources

On 31 May the two chambers of Congress met for the last time. Only 37 deputies and 24 senators came, too few for a quorum. At a quarter past four a squadron of Republican Guard cavalry arrived and shut the doors of the parliament building. The same day the President wrote to Cabeçadas and went home to Cruz Quebrada, outside Lisbon.2 sources2 sources

Under the 1911 constitution, when the presidency fell vacant the ministry as a whole held the full executive power until Congress elected a new president. The ministry, at that moment, was Cabeçadas alone. For 17 days a naval captain was head of state and head of government at once.2 sources2 sources

Gomes da Costa did not accept a government he had not chosen. From Porto he declared that Cabeçadas's ministry did not have the army's confidence and ordered his troops to march on Lisbon. Most of the country's military divisions were behind him; Cabeçadas had the Lisbon garrison.2 sources2 sources

A meeting at Coimbra on 1 June produced a triumvirate of Cabeçadas, Gomes da Costa and Gama Ochoa. Pressed by Sinel de Cordes's group, Gomes da Costa rejected it within a day. At Sacavém, on the edge of Lisbon, before dawn on 3 June, a new junta was agreed: Cabeçadas, Gomes da Costa and Carmona, who had joined the movement only on 30 May, when Sinel de Cordes's group gave the signal.3 sources3 sources

The new cabinet included three Coimbra professors. One, the economist António de Oliveira Salazar, was named finance minister. He came to Lisbon on 4 June, met Gomes da Costa at Amadora and went home the next day, citing his health. He returned to take the oath on 12 June and was out of office within the week.1 source1 source

On 6 June, according to the Presidency Museum, Gomes da Costa entered Lisbon on horseback, sword raised, at the head of 15,000 men drawn from units across the country. José Adelino Maltez's chronology puts the victory parade on the Avenida da República, watched by foreign diplomats, on 7 June. On 9 June a decree signed by Cabeçadas, Gomes da Costa, Carmona and four other ministers dissolved the Congress of the Republic and abolished every right of its members.3 sources3 sources

On 14 June Gomes da Costa put a programme to the cabinet: stronger powers for the President, decentralisation, an economy organised by corporations of employers and workers, protection against foreign competition and a revision of the laws on the family and the Church. He wanted a new constitution with no individual voting and no parties.2 sources2 sources

Cabeçadas refused. On 17 June Gomes da Costa sent him an ultimatum; isolated, and avoiding a fight to the last, Cabeçadas signed his own dismissal and Gomes da Costa's appointment. The general's cabinet took office on 19 June. On 22 June the government imposed prior censorship on the press. A decree dated 19 June and published on 29 June gave the head of government the powers and privileges of head of state until a president was elected.4 sources4 sources

His turn lasted 22 days. At a stormy cabinet meeting on 6 July he dismissed Carmona, Gama Ochoa and the interior minister António Claro, who had protested when he forced a change to a decree on religious matters. Most of the other ministers walked out with them. On the night of 8 July Sinel de Cordes and Raul Esteves came to Belém with the commanders of the Lisbon garrison and the Republican Guard and told him to give up the government, though he could stay on as head of state.3 sources3 sources

He refused and toured the barracks looking for support. None came. Early on 9 July a decree dismissed him and he was arrested, held at Caxias and Cascais, and on 11 July shipped to Angra do Heroísmo in the Azores. Carmona became head of government and minister of war on 9 July and took on the functions of head of state. The museum's biography of Gomes da Costa dates Carmona's swearing-in to 11 July.3 sources3 sources

Carmona was a cavalry officer who had long presented himself as standing above politics, which eased his dealings with the rival factions. He kept the dictatorship together. A decree of 26 November 1926 made his powers as head of state official, and on 29 November he took office as interim President in the old parliament building at São Bento.1 source1 source

The regime he led was a military dictatorship that ruled by decree. Republicans who had welcomed a short clean-up soon found themselves its enemies. In February 1927 soldiers and civilians rose against it in Porto and Lisbon and were crushed. Machado, who had advised the plotters, was expelled from Portugal that month.3 sources3 sources

Money was the regime's weakest point. Sinel de Cordes, finance minister from July 1926, sought a large foreign loan through the League of Nations. The League's conditions were seen in Lisbon as humiliating, the exiled republicans campaigned against it, and in March 1928 Sinel de Cordes left office.1 source1 source

On 25 March 1928 Carmona was elected President by direct vote of men over 21. He was the only candidate. The new head of government, General Vicente de Freitas, proposed Salazar for finance, and this time the professor named his price: every ministry would live within a total budget set by the finance ministry, and the finance minister could veto any increase in spending.4 sources4 sources

Carmona protected him from attacks from within the military dictatorship. In 1930 the regime created the União Nacional (National Union), a single party built from above out of the conservative elites of the parties that backed the dictatorship. On 5 July 1932 Salazar became head of government, and in 1933 a constitution drafted under him founded the Estado Novo (New State).4 sources4 sources

Gomes da Costa was made a marshal by decree on 30 September 1926 while still in exile in the Azores. He came back to Lisbon in November 1927, kept plotting, was sent to Rome for a month in 1928 and lived for a while in Nice. He returned to Portugal for good in May 1928 and died in Lisbon on 17 December 1929.1 source1 source

Cabeçadas went back to the navy and supervised the building of the Alfeite naval yard. After the Second World War he became a familiar name in the opposition to Salazar, took part in failed plots in 1946 and 1947, and was forced to retire. He backed Humberto Delgado's presidential campaign in 1958. When he died in 1965, inspectors of the political police listed the cars in his funeral procession.1 source1 source

Carmona was re-elected in 1935, 1942 and 1949 and died in office on 18 April 1951, after almost 25 years as head of state. Bernardino Machado spent 13 years in exile, much of it in France, working with Afonso Costa to unite the opposition.2 sources2 sources

The coup of 28 May opened 48 years of dictatorship, which ended with the revolution of 25 April 1974. Parliament did not sit again until the Estado Novo's National Assembly met in 1935. Portugal's own Parliament describes the years 1926 to 1935 as a time when the 1911 constitution applied only in theory, amended by one government decree after another.3 sources3 sources

The Estado Novo called the coup the Revolução Nacional, the National Revolution, and made it the regime's founding date. Salazar marked its anniversaries with speeches to the army. The Museu da Presidência da República, which opened an exhibition for the centenary in 2026, argues that this adoption still makes the coup hard to understand: the date is identified at once with the Estado Novo, although the three men who ran Portugal in its first weeks wanted different things.4 sources4 sources

The arguments go on in stone. Braga has had a statue of Gomes da Costa since 1966. On 25 April 2018, the anniversary of the 1974 revolution, Left Bloc activists covered it, calling it a symbol of the start of the dictatorship, and the party said it would ask the municipal assembly to debate whether such monuments should stay.1 source1 source