First Portuguese Republic


Portuguese Republic

República Portuguesa
of Portuguese Republic
Coat of arms
Motto: "Order and Work"
Anthem: A Portuguesa  (Portuguese)
The Portuguese
The Portuguese Republic on the eve of World War I
The Portuguese Republic on the eve of World War I
Common languagesPortuguese (in Continental Portugal, Madeira and Azores, official in the Portuguese Empire)
GovernmentDominant-party[citation needed] parliamentary republic
• 1911–1915 (first)
Manuel de Arriaga
• 1925–1926 (last)
Bernardino Machado
Prime Minister 
• 1911 (first)
João Pinheiro Chagas
• 1925–1926 (last)
António Maria da Silva
LegislatureCongress of the Republic
• Upper house
• Lower house
Chamber of Deputies
5 October 1910
21 August 1911
29 May 1926
191192,391 km2 (35,672 sq mi)
192092,391 km2 (35,672 sq mi)
• 1911
• 1920
CurrencyPortuguese real (1910–1911)
Portuguese escudo (1911–1926)
Preceded by
Succeeded by
Kingdom of Portugal
Ditadura Nacional

The sixteen years of the First Republic saw nine presidents and 44 ministries, and were altogether more of a transition between the Kingdom of Portugal and the Estado Novo than they were a coherent period of governance.




The Republic repelled a royalist attack on Chaves in 1912.

Heads of state and governmentEdit


Evaluation of the republican experiment and legacyEdit


The current Portuguese flag dates back to the First Republic.


Sardica, however, also points up the lasting effects of the republican experiment:



  1. ^ Payne, A history of Spain and Portugal (1973) 2: 559
  2. ^ Maier, Hans (2004). Totalitarianism and Political Religions. trans. Jodi Bruhn. Routledge. p. 106. ISBN 0-7146-8529-1.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  4. ^ E-Journal of Portuguese History. (2011). 9 (1): pp. 1–27.
  5. ^ José Miguel Sardica. The Memory of the Portuguese First Republic throughout the Twentieth Century. (2011).

Further readingEdit

  • Leal, Ernesto Castro. "Parties and political identity: the construction of the party system of the Portuguese Republic (1910–1926)." E-journal of Portuguese History 7#1 (2009): 37–44. Online[permanent dead link]
  • Sardica, José Miguel. "The Memory of the Portuguese First Republic throughout the Twentieth Century," E-Journal of Portuguese History (Summer 2011) 9#1: 1–27. online
  • Wheeler, Douglas L. "The Portuguese revolution of 1910." Journal of Modern History (1972): 172–194. in JSTOR
  • Wheeler, Douglas L. Republican Portugal: a political history, 1910–1926 (U of Wisconsin Press, 1999)
