Pre-1914 Portugal was a troubled country emerging just from a revolution: The partition of the former Portuguese colonial empire in Africa being shared between England and Germany since the Berlin Treaty in 1878, and the alliance with England reactivated with the treaty of Windsor in 1899. The discredited monarchy ended in 1908 with the assassination of Don Carlos I, followed by a violent revolution which led in 1910 to the accession to the throne of the house of Braganza, and Manuel II, with the promise of a parliamentary monarchy. But the new monarchy was soon corrupt and unpopular. The clashes were violent between Socialist Republicans and Royalists, and the Navy played its role in particular during the bombing of Lisbon. The crews were overwhelmingly in favor of the republic. The latter was proclaimed on October 5, 1910.
