Alfonso de Orleans y Borbón

Alphonse Marie François Antoine Diego d’Orléans, known in Spanish as Alfonso de Orleans y Borbón, was born in Madrid on November 12, 1886, and died in Sanlúcar de Barrameda on August 6, 1975. A member of the House of Orléans and the Spanish royal family, he was first an infante of Spain and later the fifth Duke of Galliera. He became known above all as a senior military officer and one of Spain’s early prominent military pilots. He was the eldest son of Prince Antoine d’Orléans, Duke of Galliera and Infante of Spain, and his first cousin, Princess Eulalia of Bourbon. Through his father, he was descended from the Duke of Montpensier and the French King Louis-Philippe I; through his mother, he was a grandson of Queen Isabella II of Spain and Infante Francis of Assisi. Alphonse spent his childhood between Spain, France, and England. Private tutors provided him with a comprehensive education, and in addition to Spanish he learned to speak English, French, and German fluently. As tensions between his parents increased, he and his younger brother Louis-Ferdinand were sent in 1889 to Beaumont College, a Jesuit institution in England, which Alphonse attended until 1904. He subsequently studied philosophy at the University of Heidelberg. Nevertheless, he chose a military career and entered the Toledo Infantry Academy in 1906. That same year, at the wedding of his cousin, King Alfonso XIII of Spain, to Victoria Eugenia of Battenberg, he met Princess Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The two quickly fell in love. Their marriage was politically and religiously problematic, however, because Beatrice was a Lutheran and did not wish to convert to Catholicism. Alphonse was also a close relative of the king and stood in a favorable position within the Spanish line of succession. He therefore had to leave Spain in order to marry Beatrice. The wedding took place in Coburg on July 15, 1909. As a result of the marriage, Alphonse temporarily lost his status as an infante and was known only as the Prince of Galliera. The couple initially lived between the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and France. In Pau and Le Mans, Alphonse watched the flights of the Wright brothers and other pioneers of aviation. He was so fascinated by the new technology that he decided to become a pilot himself. In 1910, he attended the Voisin brothers’ flying school in Mourmelon, directed by Hubert Latham, and on October 23 of that year obtained his pilot’s license on an Antoinette monoplane. In 1911, the family was allowed to return to Spain, and Alphonse regained his titles and rights at court. He was assigned as an infantry lieutenant to Melilla in Spanish Morocco, but soon turned once again toward aviation. On December 16, 1912, he entered the newly established Military Pilots’ School at Cuatro Vientos. Just one year later, he was teaching there himself for the Spanish Air Force. In October 1913, he was selected for the first Spanish air squadron, which took part in the occupation of the Rif. After several months in North Africa, he was promoted to captain and returned to Spain, where he resumed teaching and developed a particular interest in aerobatic patrols. Alongside his military work, Alphonse undertook representative duties. In 1912, he represented King Alfonso XIII at the funeral of the Japanese Emperor Meiji. In 1914, he traveled to Romania to appoint his nephew, King Carol II, an honorary colonel of the Spanish Army. In Spain, he accompanied the king on official journeys and took part in numerous public ceremonies. After the family’s return to Spain, Beatrice became a close confidante of the king. A rumor consequently arose in Madrid that she was having a relationship with Alfonso XIII. Queen Mother Maria Christina demanded that Beatrice leave Spain. When she refused, the king ordered the family’s second exile in July 1916. Alphonse was assigned to the Spanish legation in Bern and lived in Switzerland for six years. Despite the humiliation, he used this period to continue his aviation training in Switzerland and England. He also studied the organization of the Swiss Army and closely followed developments during the First World War. From 1921 onward, his relations with the Spanish royal family gradually improved. On August 29, 1922, he and his family were permitted to return to Spain. There he resumed his work as a flight instructor and led a fighter-pilot course on Spad aircraft at Los Alcázares. At the same time, he visited foreign air bases and aircraft manufacturers. In 1925, he was given command of a Fokker squadron that took part in the landing at Al Hoceima during the Rif War. He subsequently directed the School of Aerial Shooting and Bombing at Los Alcázares, later headed the Tactical School, and became inspector of the Spanish troops. In 1930, Alphonse took part in a journey by the airship LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin from Seville via Brazil to the United States, meeting President Herbert Hoover in Washington. After his father’s death that same year, he inherited the ducal title of Galliera and became head of the Spanish Orléans family. When the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed on April 14, 1931, he followed King Alfonso XIII into exile in London. During an attempt to return in 1932, he was arrested and deported to Villa Cisneros in the Spanish Sahara. On January 1, 1933, he escaped to Lisbon together with approximately thirty other monarchists. During the Spanish Civil War, his sons joined the Nationalist forces. His son Alphonse died in a plane crash on November 18, 1936. In 1937, General Francisco Franco permitted the duke to return to Spain, presumably through the mediation of Alfredo Kindelán. Alphonse rejoined the army and flew missions during the fighting at Teruel, on the Ebro, and in Catalonia. He was promoted to brigadier general in 1940 and major general in 1943, and on July 7, 1940, was appointed head of Spain’s Second Air Region. On April 5, 1945, he resigned his military posts in support of the Lausanne Manifesto issued by Juan de Bourbon, Count of Barcelona, which called for the restoration of the monarchy. This ended his official military career, but he continued to fly and accumulated more than 6,000 flight hours by the time of his death. In the following decades, he served in Spain as the unofficial representative of the Count of Barcelona, acting as an intermediary between monarchists and the claimant to the throne. Alphonse d’Orléans died of a heart attack in 1975, nine years after his wife and shortly before the accession of his grand cousin, Juan Carlos I. Since 1989, a Spanish foundation dedicated to preserving historic aircraft has borne his name: the Fundación Infante de Orleáns.