He was born in the royal palace of Madrid on May 17, 1886. As his father King Alfonso XII died that same year, his mother María Cristina de Habsburgo-Lorena was who reigned until he was 16 years old. His mother raised him with a military vocation and therefore manifested a strong inclination towards the military. Under the false system of elections, it was taking turns in government policy, first with the conservatives and then with the liberals. In 1907 and 1912 he eliminated the caciquismo to modernize the political system from the same government, until the murder of Canalejas.
What originated in the bankruptcy of the Restoration system from the great crisis of 1917 where there was a general strike against the regime, a corporate movement in the army and an assembly of parliamentarians that demanded democratizing reforms outside the institutions. established. As a consequence, a strong political and social instability was derived. In addition, Catalan, Basque, and other nationalisms. Regardless of the boom in trade and economic growth after the First World War. The king ended up accepting the military coup of Miguel Primo de Rivera in 1923 as the solution of force adopted in the face of the crisis.
This originated a dictatorship, which was well received at the beginning since it ended the war in Morocco by developing a work of social order and an increase in public works. He tried to restore constitutional order after the failure of Primo de Rivera in 1930, but the parties did not trust the king as he had a strong commitment to the dictatorship, and public opinion decided to vote for the Republicans. In the following elections, King Alfonso XIII decided to leave the country and therefore abandon royal power to avoid a civil war.
Having an excellent friendship with Mussolini, he decided to go into exile in fascist Italy for the next ten years. He had six children with Victoria Eugenia de Battenberg: Alfonso who died in 1938, Jaime who was deaf and renounced the succession, Beatriz, Cristina, Juan who was the successor of the dynastic rights and Gonzalo, who died in 1934. He died on February 28 of 1941 in Rome and his remains returned to Madrid in 1980 to the Pantheon of the Kings of the Monastery of El Escorial. In reality, he was not a king much loved by Spanish subjects.