 Franco decided to name a monarch to succeed his regency but the simmering tensions between the Carlists and the Alfonsoists continued.In a bid to avoid a repeat of the Carlist Wars, he offered the throne to the Habsburg Archduke Otto von Habsburg; by doing so he believed that he could eliminate the question of a Bourbon succession entirely since the Habsburg family which had ruled the Habsburg Spain during its golden age had an alternate claim to the Spanish throne before the War of the Spanish Succession.Archduke Otto declined, stating that he would be seen as a German ruling Spain and could never forget his Austrian identity.