23F
| 23-F | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of an attempted overthrow of the Spanish government | |||||||||
 The Congress of Deputies in Madrid. |
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|
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| Government Insurgents | |||||||||
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King Juan Carlos Prime minister Adolfo Suarez General Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado |
Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero Supported by: Captain General Jaime Milans del Bosch |
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| Political support | |||||||||
| Political leaders held in parliament by insurgents. | Falangist movement | ||||||||
| Military support | |||||||||
| I, VI, and IX Military Regions | 200 Guardia Civil (Madrid) III Military Region (Valencia) |
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| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| None | None | ||||||||
• Tanks are ordered on to the streets of Valencia by the commander of the III military region.
• The hostage takers surrender after an 18-hour stand-off without any casualties and after the king denounces the coup and calls for the rule of law to be upheld.
23-F is the name given to an attempted coup d'état in Spain that began on 23 February 1981 and ended the following day. Its most visible figure, Antonio Tejero, led the failed coup's most notable event: a group of 200 armed officers of the Guardia Civil burst into the Spanish Congress of Deputies during the vote to elect Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo as the country's new Prime Minister. King Juan Carlos I gave a nationally televised address where he denounced the coup, called for the rule of law to be upheld and for the democratically elected government to continue in place. The coup soon collapsed. After holding the Parliament and cabinet hostage for 18 hours the hostage-takers surrendered the next morning without having harmed anyone.
The coup d'état of 1981 was closely linked to the events of the Spanish transition to democracy. Four factors generated permanent tensions that the governing Democratic Center Union (UCD), a coalition of conservative parties, could no longer contain:
The first signs of unease in the army appeared in April 1977. Admiral Pita da Veiga resigned as Navy minister and formed the Superior Council of the Army. This was a result of Da Veiga's disagreement with the legalisation of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) on 9 April 1977, following the by neo-fascists (Spanish: 'ultras'). In November 1978, the Operation Galaxia military putsch was put down. Its leader, Lieutenant-Colonel Antonio Tejero, was sentenced to seven months in prison.
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