Abolition of monarchy
The monarchy of Portugal was also overthrown in 1910 (5 October), two years after the assassination of King Carlos I, ending the reign of Manuel II, who died in exile in England (1932), without issue.
Manuel II of Portugal
Since 1911, the Portuguese monarchists-in-exile concentrated in Galicia, Spain in order to enter Portugal and restore the monarchy but without the tacit approval of the Spanish government. The monarchists were led by the charismatic Henrique Mitchell de Paiva Couceiro, a veteran of the African colonial campaigns. The "Paladin", as the Portuguese newspapers called him, believed that demonstrating a show of force would force the rural people to rise-up and support the restoration. But he was wrong; poorly prepared and badly financed, his forces encountered apathy from the rural population and the incursions ended with retreats into Galicia.
For his part, Manuel supported these incursions the best way he could, but his financial resources were limited. He also faced a group of monarchists who were not clear supporters of his claim to the throne: one attack was made under a blue and white flag, but without the crown, while Paiva Couceiro himself declared at one time that his movement was "neutral" and wanted a plebiscite on the form of the new regime. It was only after he traded correspondence with Couceiro that the King was able to support the Galician monarchists, who had promised to support the 1826 Constitution. The second incursion, in 1912, although better prepared did not succeed because the Spanish government was forced to cede to Republican diplomats the illegality of monarchist encampments in Galicia and disarmed the remaining combatants within its territory. Manuel was never able to restore his kingdom by force and always defended that the monarchists should organize internally in order to reach power legally (by elections). This was not accepted by militant monarchists who, in the following years, continued their badly prepared attempts to restore the monarchy (for example on 20 October 1914), creating anarchy in the streets. His preoccupation worsened at the beginning of the Great War: Manuel was fearful that the United Kingdom would ally with Spain, in light of Portugal's instability, and that Spain would want to annex Portugal, as the price for Spain's entry into the War.