The Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974: a dictatorship falls in a day

At five minutes to eleven on the night of Wednesday 24 April 1974, the announcer João Paulo Diniz told listeners of the Emissores Associados de Lisboa, a group of Lisbon radio stations, what came next: Paulo de Carvalho singing ‘E Depois do Adeus’ (And After the Goodbye). It was Portugal's entry at that month's Eurovision Song Contest, a sad love song that had finished 14th. In barracks across the country a few officers were listening for it.3 sources3 sources

The song was a signal. It told the units of the Armed Forces Movement, the MFA, a secret network of mostly junior officers, to start getting ready. In a prefabricated hut at the 1st Engineering Regiment in Pontinha, on the northern edge of Lisbon, Major Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho and six other officers had set up the movement's command post. Army signallers had laid a telephone cable to it in secret over the previous two days.3 sources3 sources

The second signal went out at about 12.20am on Rádio Renascença, the Catholic station, during its late programme Limite. In the Associação 25 de Abril's account, a recording of the announcer Leite de Vasconcelos reading the first verse of José Afonso's ‘Grândola, Vila Morena’ was played, and then the song. Vasconcelos had recorded it earlier without knowing why.3 sources3 sources

The presenter on duty, Paulo Coelho, was not in on the plan and nearly spoiled the timing by reading the advertisements early. The censor in the studio seemed to realise only at the end that he had heard something he had not expected. RTP's official history tells it differently, with Vasconcelos himself in the booth.2 sources2 sources

‘Grândola’ meant go. By half past four in the morning the movement held the main radio stations, the television studios, Lisbon airport and the army's headquarters for the Lisbon region. By the evening Marcelo Caetano, the head of the government, had surrendered, and a dictatorship that had lasted since 1926 was over.5 sources5 sources

Portugal had been a dictatorship since a military coup in May 1926. António de Oliveira Salazar built it into the Estado Novo, or New State, with censors who read everything the newspapers printed and a political police, the PIDE, renamed the DGS under Caetano. Caetano had succeeded Salazar as President of the Council, in effect prime minister, in 1968. Admiral Américo Tomás was President of the Republic.5 sources5 sources

The regime was also fighting colonial wars in Africa: in Angola from 1961, then in Guinea and Mozambique. By 1974 the fighting had gone on for thirteen years.2 sources2 sources

The officers' revolt began as a dispute over careers. On 9 September 1973, 136 army officers met secretly at Alcáçovas, near Évora, to protest against a decree that let conscript officers overtake graduates of the Military Academy. Their movement grew quickly, and its aims widened from promotions to the war and then to the regime itself.1 source1 source

On 16 March 1974 a column from Caldas da Rainha set out for Lisbon too early and alone, and turned back. The movement learned from it. Otelo took charge of a detailed operations plan, and the coup was set for the week of 22 to 29 April. On 17 April, at Otelo's house in Oeiras, a cavalry captain from Santarém, Fernando Salgueiro Maia, was given his part.3 sources3 sources

Some units moved after the first song. At the Practical Artillery School in Vendas Novas, by 11pm, officers of the movement had arrested the commander and his deputy and locked up the sergeants who would not join; the conscript corporals and junior sergeants all came over. After ‘Grândola’, the same thing happened in barracks across the country.3 sources3 sources

The objectives had code names borrowed from foreign places. At 3.15am a company from the Serra da Carregueira firing range reported that it held ‘Tóquio’, the state broadcaster Emissora Nacional. At 4.25am Captain Rui Rodrigues of the Mafra infantry school reported that ‘Nova Iorque’, the airport, was under control, and an air force captain, José Costa Martins, closed Portuguese airspace from the control tower.4 sources4 sources

With the airport secure, the command post told Rádio Clube Português to broadcast the movement's first communiqué. Joaquim Furtado, the journalist on duty, offered to read it himself. It asked people to stay calm and doctors to go to the hospitals. The Associação 25 de Abril, the veterans' association, puts the reading at 4.26am; the Museu do Aljube says 4.20am.3 sources3 sources

The regime was slow to understand. The head of the political police, Major Silva Pais, telephoned Caetano at home: “Senhor Presidente, the revolution is in the street!” He urged him to go to the barracks of the GNR, the paramilitary National Republican Guard, in the Largo do Carmo, “where the GNR is solid”. Caetano was there by about six.4 sources4 sources

At the Practical Cavalry School in Santarém the men were woken and formed up on the parade ground. Salgueiro Maia was 29. He had fought in Mozambique from 1967 to 1969 and in Guinea from 1971 to 1973. Accounts of what he told them differ in the detail, but all end the same way.3 sources3 sources

The column left at 3.30am: ten armoured cars, a squadron of about 160 men in twelve lorries, two ambulances and a jeep. In Lisbon it drove past riot police at Campo Grande, who did nothing. At 6am it reached the Terreiro do Paço, the great riverside square where the ministries of the Army and the Navy stood, and ten minutes later Maia radioed that he held the square, the Bank of Portugal and the Marconi company's international communications centre.4 sources4 sources

The regime's answer came from Cavalry Regiment 7, with M47 tanks and Panhard armoured cars. Maia's men were short of ammunition, so he talked. One loyalist commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Ferrand de Almeida, gave himself up beneath the windows of the Army ministry. Near the river, Brigadier Junqueira dos Reis ordered an officer cadet, Sottomayor, to open fire on Maia, who was walking towards the tanks with a white handkerchief. Sottomayor refused, and so did the tank gunners.4 sources4 sources

On the river, the frigate Almirante Gago Coutinho was ordered to fire on the troops in the square. Her commander did not, saying the square was full of people and ferries were close by; the Associação 25 de Abril credits her second-in-command, First Lieutenant Fernando Caldeira dos Santos, with stopping it. One by one the regime's units changed sides or went home.4 sources4 sources

By late morning the command post knew where Caetano was. It ordered the forces in the Terreiro do Paço to split: Maia to the Largo do Carmo to obtain the prime minister's surrender, and Major Jaime Neves to the headquarters of the Legião Portuguesa, the regime's militia, which gave up at about 2pm. At the Rossio an infantry company sent to stop Maia joined him instead.4 sources4 sources

Thousands of people now filled the Baixa. They had been asked to stay at home and came out anyway. They walked with the armoured cars up the steep streets to the Carmo, a small square in the Chiado, where the column arrived at about 12.30. Maia placed his ten armoured cars at the entrances and in front of the barracks gates.4 sources4 sources

The regime tried to surround him in turn, with what was left of Cavalry 7 at the Largo de Camões, GNR troops at the Largo da Misericórdia and riot police in the Largo do Chiado. Then armoured cars of Cavalry Regiment 3 from Estremoz, which had crossed the Tagus bridge at about 1.15pm, arrived to cover Maia's rear. The GNR went back to barracks and Junqueira dos Reis left.3 sources3 sources

Inside the barracks the GNR's chief of staff, Colonel Ângelo Ferrari, played for time on the telephone with Otelo, even denying that Caetano was there. Otelo sent Maia a written message, which a liaison officer, Captain Rosado da Luz, handed to him in person.2 sources2 sources

Maia gave the barracks ten minutes by megaphone (the Museu do Aljube says fifteen). When nothing happened, Lieutenant Santos Silva fired bursts from the machine guns of his armoured car at the top of the façade and the windows burst.3 sources3 sources

Maia had an armoured car brought into firing position and began to count aloud. Before he finished, two civilians were brought to him: Pedro Feytor Pinto, the director of information services, and Nuno Távora, an aide to the secretary of state for information, carrying a written authority from General António de Spínola.1 source1 source

Spínola, who had commanded the armed forces in Guinea, had been sacked as deputy chief of the general staff in March. Earlier that day he had told the government's go-between that he had nothing to do with the movement, but would take power if the government wanted a peaceful way out.3 sources3 sources

Caetano agreed to hand over to him. Maia then went into the barracks and spoke to Caetano alone, and Caetano asked for a general to receive the transfer of power. He did not want, he told Spínola by telephone, to surrender to a captain.3 sources3 sources

Spínola telephoned the command post to ask for a mandate and got it. He reached the Carmo by car in the early evening and disappeared into the cheering crowd. The Museu do Aljube puts his entry into the barracks at 6pm; the Associação 25 de Abril dates the handover to about 6.30. Afterwards Caetano and ministers including Rui Patrício and César Moreira Baptista were driven out in an armoured car called Bula, inching through the crowd, to the command post at Pontinha.6 sources6 sources

Spínola arrived there with the prisoners and greeted the officers: “Gentlemen, I must begin by informing you that I have just taken power at the Carmo barracks. Now let's get to work.” His own followers began giving orders and making appointments at once.1 source1 source

Celeste Caeiro was 40 and worked in a self-service restaurant in the Franjinhas building on the Rua Braamcamp. It was the restaurant's first birthday, and the owner had bought carnations to give the women customers; the men were to get a glass of port. With soldiers in the streets he decided not to open, and told the staff to take the flowers home before they wilted.2 sources2 sources

Celeste took the metro to the Rossio with her bunch of red and white carnations and walked towards the Chiado, where she found the armoured cars. She asked a soldier what was happening. “We're going to the Carmo to arrest Marcelo Caetano,” he said. Then he asked her for a cigarette.1 source1 source

The soldier put it in the barrel of his rifle. She handed out more, others copied the gesture, and carnations appeared in rifle barrels across the Baixa. Celeste gave away half a dozen at most. She never found out who the soldier was. She died in Leiria on 15 November 2024, aged 91.4 sources4 sources

One part of the regime did not give up that day. As the crowds grew, people headed for the headquarters of the DGS, the political police, in the Rua António Maria Cardoso, a few streets from the Carmo. They threw stones at the building, and agents answered with gunfire from the windows and balcony.3 sources3 sources

Four men were killed. Fernando Carvalho Giesteira, 17, was a waiter from Montalegre. José James Harteley Barneto, 38, a clerk from Vendas Novas, had four children. João Guilherme Rego Arruda, 20, from the Azores, was a second-year philosophy student. Fernando Luís Barreiros dos Reis, 23, was a soldier on leave, the only serviceman to die in the revolution.2 sources2 sources

The historian António Araújo dates the fatal shooting to about 8.10pm and the Associação 25 de Abril to about 8.15pm; the Museu do Aljube places it in the late morning. There was more than one burst of fire: Araújo records five people wounded at about 1pm, and Observador counts three shootings in all. The association counts 45 wounded.5 sources5 sources

At 9.25pm António Lage, 32, a DGS orderly with no police duties, was shot dead as he left the building. He had given himself up and was being searched by soldiers when he panicked and ran. Neither Araújo nor Observador says who fired.2 sources2 sources

From Pontinha, Otelo asked Spínola to have the detained interior minister, César Moreira Baptista, telephone the DGS director, Silva Pais, who said he would surrender if the armed forces protected his agents. Marines and the Estremoz cavalry surrounded the building, and on the morning of 26 April Silva Pais handed it over. Told that the portraits of the regime's leaders were still on the wall, he took one down himself.3 sources3 sources

At 1.30am on 26 April Spínola appeared on RTP, flanked by the other members of the new Junta de Salvação Nacional, the National Salvation Junta, and read its proclamation. The junta had chosen him as President of the Republic. The movement's officers had wanted General Francisco da Costa Gomes.5 sources5 sources

The first laws were dated 25 April. Law 1/74 removed the President and the government and dissolved the National Assembly. Decree-laws abolished the DGS, the Legião Portuguesa and the Mocidade Portuguesa youth organisation, dissolved the regime's party, the ANP, and dismissed the governors of Angola and Mozambique.1 source1 source

The MFA's programme had been handed to the newspaper República at 11am on the 25th. That night Spínola and Costa Gomes insisted on changes, and after an argument that lasted until 7am the officers gave way: the explicit recognition of the colonies' right to self-determination and independence came out. It was the first of many clashes between Spínola and the movement.2 sources2 sources

Américo Tomás and Marcelo Caetano were flown to Funchal, in Madeira, on 26 April and held there. Caetano later went into exile in Brazil, where he died in 1980. Mário Soares, the Socialist leader, and Álvaro Cunhal, the Communist leader, were home from exile within the week.4 sources4 sources

What followed was a year and a half of upheaval. Portugal recognised Guinea-Bissau's independence on 10 September 1974, and Angola became independent on 11 November 1975. On 25 April 1975 voters elected a Constituent Assembly, with 91.66 per cent of those registered taking part. The military crisis of 25 November 1975 ended the revolutionary period.4 sources4 sources

25 April is one of Portugal's national public holidays, listed in the Labour Code. The suspension bridge over the Tagus, then called the Ponte Salazar, is now the Ponte 25 de Abril. Workers replaced its iron lettering with the new name for the 5 October commemorations in 1974, according to RTP; the Associação 25 de Abril dates the name to 1979.3 sources3 sources

The places of the day have become monuments. The prefabricated command post at Pontinha has been a National Monument since 2015. The Carmo barracks houses the GNR's museum, which offered free guided tours for the 50th anniversary in April 2024. The four men killed in the Rua António Maria Cardoso have their plaque, and on 25 April 2025 the city unveiled one to Celeste Caeiro where the Rua do Carmo meets the Rossio.4 sources4 sources

Salgueiro Maia died of cancer on 4 April 1992, aged 47. In the Largo do Carmo he is remembered by a stone in the pavement.1 source1 source