Dámaso Berenguer y Fusté, 1st Count of Xauen (4 August 1873-19 May 1953) was Prime Minister of Spain from 30 January 1930 to 18 February 1931, succeeding Miguel Primo de Rivera and preceding Juan Bautista Aznar-Cabañas. His brief tenure was nicknamed the dictablanda, a pun on the Spanish word for dictatorship (dictadura) meaning "soft dictatorship".
Biography[]
Dámaso Berenguer y Fusté was born in San Juan de los Remedios, Cuba on 4 August 1873, and he joined the Spanish Army in 1889 and served in the Captaincy General of Cuba and Morocco. Berenguer participated in campaigns against the Riffians in 1909, 1911-1912, and 1921, and he was promoted to Brigadier-General in 1916 and Lieutenant-General in 1918. In 1918, Berenguer became Minister of War, and, during the Rif War, he served as High Commissioner of Morocco and was ennobled as the Count of Xauen for his service. After the massacre of 2,000 Spaniards at Monte Arruit, Berenguer expressed his joy in using gas against Riffian rebels. In 1922, Berenguer resigned as High Commissioner after years of pressure. Berenguer supported Miguel Primo de Rivera's dictatorship and was named Prime Minister by King Alfonso XIII of Spain on Primo's resignation in 1930, but his appointment as Prime Minister did little to inspire confidence in the country, and his dictatorship was nicknamed the dictablanda ("soft dictatorship", as opposed to the Spanish word for "dictatorship", dictadura). In August 1930, republican leaders joined with Catalan nationalists and the PSOE to plan a provisional government after the ouster of the monarchy in the Pact of San Sebastian, and military leaders sympathetic to this cause staged a failed uprising in Jaca in December 1930. The King had the uprising's leaders executed, creating martyrs for the republican opposition. In February 1931, the King dismissed the weak Berenguer and replaced him with the Spanish Navy Admiral Juan Bautista Aznar-Cabañas. Berenguer died in Madrid in 1953.