The Iberian Peninsula and the First World War: Between neutrality and non-belligerency (1914–1916)

This article seeks to analyse the political and diplomatic effects of the outbreak of the First World War on the Iberian Peninsula, considering the relationship between Portugal and Spain in the context of the (dis)equilibria of power caused by the Sarajevo assassination in the summer of 1914, and the debates between neutrality and belligerency that occurred in both countries. Neutral and non-belligerent societies had to legitimate themselves within total war; they had also to reflect on the role played by their respective nations and build an Iberian narrative to sustain it. In this matter, Spanish neutrality and Portuguese non-belligerency, until 1916, should always be analysed as specific foreign policies and within the framework of the public debate ‘decadence vs regeneration’, present in both countries since the last decade of the nineteenth century.