The Spanish general Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja (1870-1930) ruled Spain as a dictator from 1923 to 1930.

Miguel Primo de Rivera was born in Cadiz on Jan. 8, 1870, of a middle-class family that later became landowners in the Andalusian town of Jerez. He entered the General Military Academy in Toledo in 1884 and first saw service in Africa in 1893, where he won the Cross of San Fernando. Two years later he went to Cuba as an aide to Gen. Martinez de Campos. When his uncle, Gen. Fernando Primo de Rivera, was named captain general of the Philippines in 1897, Miguel went to Manila as an aide. A major in 1898, he was prevented by the collapse of Spanish military power from becoming a lieutenant general until 1919, the interim being filled with campaigns in Morocco, a stormy military governorship of Cadiz (1915), and service as an observer at the western front during World War...