by Hugh Thomas
At the end of June, the long expected merger came, between the socialist and communist youth movements, resulting in the JSU (Juventudes Socialistas Unificadas). In this, while the leaders were mostly socialists, such as Santiago Carrillo, the policy was communist. Even among Largo’s entourage, this caused alarm. Araquistain, editor of Largo Caballero’s newspaper, Claridad, burst out (illogically, in view of his ardent pro-communist views until then): ‘We have lost our youth. What will happen to the Spanish socialist party?’1 Prieto could not contain his anger. But Largo Caballero did not seem perturbed. The Madrid socialists were even thinking of a merger of the socialist and communist parties. The socialist youth, like other groups, continued military training, its organizer in this work being an Italian socialist from Turin, Fernando de Rosa, celebrated for his attempt, in Brussels in 1929, on the life of Prince Umberto of Savoy.2
The middle path still had some friends. Miguel Maura, one of the fathers of the republic in 1931, called for ‘a national republican dictatorship’ to save Spain from anarchy: ‘Peaceful citizens’, he wrote in El Sol in late June, ‘now believe the laws are a dead letter.’ Neither Prieto nor Maura were to have the chance of a coalition. Too many rumours abounded. Panic spread because of the repetition of an old tale that a group of nuns had poisoned workers’ children’s chocolates. Murders for political reasons were reported daily. On 2 July, for example, two falangists sitting at a café table in Madrid were killed by shots from a passing motor-car. Later the same day, two men leaving the casa del pueblo in Madrid were killed by a gang of men armed with submachine-guns. Such minor warfare had continued unchecked since the elections of February. On few of these occasions were the killers apprehended. On 8 July, seventy falangists were arrested in Madrid, and several hundred in the provinces, on a charge of sedition. These included Fernández Cuesta, secretary-general of the Falange. (José Antonio claimed that there were 150,000 falangists in June, of whom nearly 15,000 were ex-JAPistas, and 2,000 were in gaol.) In the ministry of war, meanwhile, loyal republican officers observed conferences among those whom they knew to be enemies of the republic. García Escámez, a subtle and charming Andalusian, who had led part of the Legion in Asturias, and was now Mola’s lieutenant at Pamplona, appeared with news and plans.1 In the countryside, more and more land was taken over, landowners left their estates, those who stayed were forced to employ more workers than they needed, cattle were killed, the unions encouraged occupations, and the harvest lay neglected. There was much agitation too on the subject of autonomy: representatives of the Aragonese provinces met at Caspe, the mayor of Burgos proposed a statute for Old Castile, while the municipal government of Huelva proposed that that town should withdraw from Andalusia and join an autonomous Estremadura. Upper and middle class Spaniards, on the other hand, left with their families for holidays on the north coast: to remain in Madrid during the summer had once been a social stigma. In 1936, it seemed a risk.
On 7 July, Mola wrote to Fal Conde (with the other leading Carlists, in St Jean de Luz) promising to settle the question of the flag after the rising and affirming that he had no relations with any political party. ‘You must realize,’ he added, ‘that everything is being paralysed by your attitude. Certain things have so far advanced that it would be impossible now to withdraw. I beg of you for the sake of Spain an urgent reply.’2 On 7 July, the Carlist wrote back demanding guarantees that the future régime would be anti-democratic and insisting that the question of the flag be decided immediately. Lamamié de Clairac, the inveterate enemy of the republic’s agrarian policy, demanded that there should be no collaboration with Mola without a promise that the monarchy would be restored. Mola, beside himself with anger, refused these conditions. ‘The traditionalist movement’, he wrote, ‘is ruining Spain by its intransigence as surely as is the Popular Front.’3 The point was, as Mola wrote to the more amenable Conde de Rodezno (still Carlist leader in Navarre), that since the garrison of Pamplona was composed of men who could not be relied on for a rebellion, being chiefly Asturians, a handful of Carlists were needed to make them soldiers.4 On 9 July, General Sanjurjo from Lisbon wrote a conciliatory letter, suggesting that the Carlists might use the monarchist flag even if Mola used the republican one: Sanjurjo would guarantee a political régime in accordance with Carlist principles. This solved nothing, but it was about then that Franco in Tenerife finally agreed to join the rebellion, receiving command of all the troops in Morocco—that is, of all the most reliable troops in the Spanish army.1 ‘Do you think Franquito will come?’ General Varela asked General Kindelán, a retired air-force officer of distinction. ‘Mola thinks so,’ was the reply.2 It seemed by no means certain. Meanwhile, the streets of Pamplona were prepared for the festival of San Fermín. Now, as in other years, young bulls were let loose in the street on their way to the bull-ring and were raced indiscriminately by the young men, watched by women in carnival dress from balconies. Among the men were many who, within a week, would be enrolled among the Carlist forces. Among the spectators could be seen the bespectacled face of Mola, accompanied by the bearded General Fanjul, the leading plotter in Madrid, and by Colonel León Carrasco, who was to direct the rising of San Sebastián.3
In London, Luis Bolín, correspondent of the monarchist daily paper ABC, had chartered a Dragon Rapide, from the Olley Airways Company of Croydon, to transport Franco from the Canaries to Morocco, where the plan was that he would seize command of the Army of Africa. A foreign aeroplane was chosen because there were no reliable civil aircraft in Spain. Bolín’s instructions from his editor, the Marqués Luca de Tena, a conspirator since 1931, were to go to Las Palmas, but, if no further news reached him by 31 July, he was to return to England.1 On 11 July, the English aeroplane left Croydon, piloted by a Captain Bebb, who had no idea of the nature of the enterprise in which he was engaged.2 Accompanying him were Bolín, a retired major, Hugh Pollard, and two fair-headed young women, one of them Pollard’s daughter, the other a friend. These passengers, likewise in ignorance of the purpose of the journey, had been procured by the Catholic publisher Douglas Jerrold, to give the flight the air of an ordinary, rather than an extraordinary, intrigue.3
That night in Valencia, the radio station was seized by a nervous group of falangists who announced, mysteriously, that ‘the national syndicalist revolution’ would soon break out, and vanished before the police arrived. The same day in Madrid, the Prime Minister had been again warned of what was to occur. ‘So there is to be a rising?’ he inquired with misinterpreted joviality. ‘Very well, I, for my part, shall take a lie-down!’4 A little earlier, he had similarly mocked a report of Carlist activities in Navarre, from Jesús Monzón, communist leader in Pamplona, who came to see him, accompanied by La Pasionaria.5 But the minister of marine, Giral, was more provident: naval manoeuvres were restricted from being held off Morocco or the Canaries; and loyal telegraph operators were posted at the Madrid naval radio headquarters at Ciudad Lineal and on major ships.6
On 12 July, Mola and the Carlists still seemed at odds. But the former managed to secure his ends without surrendering too much by playing, first, on the enthusiasm for a fight among the Carlist youth in Navarre, who seemed increasingly indifferent to the terms of their participation in the rising, and, second, on the flexibility of the Conde de Rodezno, who had always desired collaboration with others on the Spanish Right (the Alfonsine monarchists, above all), who hated Fal Conde, and who now, as leader of the Carlists on the spot in Pamplona, was able to secure from Prince Xavier de Bourbon-Parme in St Jean de Luz an agreement to support the rising, if one should come, before he was able to consult effectively his uncle Alfonso Carlos in Vienna and secure his reply. Mola thus swept, or was swept, into war with the Carlists on his side, with the terms of Carlist participation left vaguer than Fal Conde, Xavier or Alfonso Carlos wanted.1
In Morocco, the manoeuvres of the Foreign Legion and Regulares ended with a parade taken by Generals Romerales and Gómez Morato, respectively commander of the east zone of Morocco
and commander of the Army of Africa. Neither of the two generals, nor the interim high commissioner, Captain Álvarez Buylla, were privy to the plot in which many of the officers at the parade had parts. Gómez Morato was the object of dislike in orthodox military circles, since he had organized the changes in command ordered by Azaña to secure loyal officers in important positions. The night of the parade, these two generals telegraphed to Madrid that all was well with the Army of Africa. But, at the manoeuvres, the conspirators held meetings. At a conference of young officers, Colonel Yagüe, a senior commander in the Foreign Legion, had even used the word ‘crusade’ (afterwards to become conventional usage in nationalist speeches) to describe the movement behind the rising. Yagüe, tough, politically ambitious and frustrated in his career by the republic, was sympathetic to the Falange. The cry of CAFE!—which, to initiates, signified ‘¡Camaradas! ¡Arriba Falange Española!’—was heard at the official banquet at the end of the parade. Álvarez Buylla asked why people were demanding coffee, while the fish was still on the table. He was informed that the cry came from a group of young men, who were, it was to be feared, a little drunk.2 The same day, meanwhile, the Dragon Rapide reached Lisbon, where Luis Bolín conferred with Sanjurjo, who assured him that Franco was ‘the man’ for a successful rising;3 afterwards, the plane left for Casablanca, Cape Yubi, and then, Las Palmas.
That evening at nine o’clock, Lieutenant José Castillo of the assault guards was leaving home, in the Calle Augusto Figueroa, in the centre of Madrid, to begin his duty. Earlier in the year, in April, he had been in command, responsible for quelling the riots at the funeral of Lieutenant de los Reyes of the civil guard who had been shot on the fifth anniversary of the start of the republic. Castillo had afterwards helped to train the socialist militia. From that time, Castillo had been marked out for revenge by the Falange. In June, he had married; and his bride had received an anonymous letter on her wedding-eve demanding why she was marrying one who would so ‘soon be a corpse’. As he left home on 12 July, a hot Sunday of the Madrid summer, Castillo was shot dead by four men with revolvers, who swiftly escaped into the crowded streets.1
This was the second socialist officer who had been murdered in recent months—Captain Carlos Faraudo, an engineer also active in helping to train the socialist militia, had been killed by falangists while walking with his wife in Madrid in May. So the news of the death of Castillo caused fury when it reached the assault guard headquarters at Pontejos barracks, next to the ministry of the interior in the Puerta del Sol. The body was laid in the directorate general of security. The ex-comrades of the dead Lieutenant were incensed at the government which had allowed this to happen; they demanded measures against the Falange. A group went to complain to the elderly minister of the interior, Juan Moles, and asked him for authorization to arrest certain falangists still at large. He agreed, demanding the word of honour of the officers that they would only detain those whose names were on the list, and that they would hand over those whom they did arrest to the appropriate authority. They gave their word. Among these men was a captain of the civil guard, Fernando Condés, an intimate friend of Castillo. Condés was broken by Castillo’s death. He drove out in an official car without any clear idea where he was heading, accompanied by several assault guards in civilian dress. The driver took Condés to an address of one falangist; it appeared false. ‘Let us go to the house of Gil Robles,’ said someone. Condés, still bemused, said nothing. They went to the house of Gil Robles, but he was at Biarritz. Someone then suggested that they should go to the home of Calvo Sotelo.
Calvo Sotelo had some premonitions of his danger. On 11 July, La Pasionaria was alleged to have openly threatened his death.1 One of the two police escorts attached to Calvo Sotelo as a member of the Cortes told Calvo Sotelo’s friend, the deputy Joaquín Bau, that his superior officer had been given orders not to prevent any attack on Calvo Sotelo, and that indeed, if the attempt should occur in the country, he was to aid the murderers. The escort had then been changed for one on whom Calvo Sotelo could rely—though the minister of the interior apparently gave no further attention to the matter. It was, it must be said, difficult to know what to believe that summer.
At all events, at about three o’clock in the morning of Monday, 13 July, the sereno (nightwatchman) outside the building in which Calvo Sotelo lived in the Calle Velázquez, in a fashionable part of Madrid, allowed Condés and some of the assault guards to go upstairs to the apartment of their victim. Calvo Sotelo was roused from his bed and persuaded to accompany the intruders to the police headquarters, though his status as a deputy gave him freedom from arrest. Calvo Sotelo saw to his satisfaction the papers of Captain Condés identifying him as a member of the civil guard. One socialist suggested later that Calvo Sotelo believed that he was being taken not to the director general of security, but to Mola, whose code-name in the conspiracy was ‘the Director’.2 Anyway, Calvo Sotelo promised to telephone soon to his family,—‘unless’, he added, ‘these gentlemen are going to blow out my brains’. The car started off fast, no one speaking. After a quarter of a mile, Luis Cuenca, a young Galician socialist sitting beside the politician, shot him in the back of his neck. Neither Condés nor anyone else had expected this dénouement. Condés thought first of killing himself, since Calvo Sotelo had given himself up to him. Instead, he drove on to the East Cemetery and handed over the body to the attendant without saying whose it was. Cuenca drove to the office of El Socialista and gave Prieto an account of what had happened. The body was identified at noon the next day. Soon afterwards, Cuenca, Condés and others who had been in the car were arrested. They made no attempt to escape. Rumours began; conspiracy was alleged; the name of the Prime Minister was invoked as an accomplice; and accusations have never ceased to multiply.1
The middle class in Spain were aghast at this murder of the leader of the parliamentary opposition by members of the regular police. It was now natural to assume that the government could not control its own agents, even if it wished to do so. Republicans of the Right or centre, such as Lerroux, or Cambó, or even Gil Robles, thought that, henceforth, they could not contemplate loyalty to a state which could not guarantee their lives.2 The president of the Catholic student association, Joaquín Ruiz Jiménez, who had previously upheld the line of non-violence, decided that St Thomas would have accepted a rebellion as just.3 The cabinet, meantime, spent 13 July in continuous session. They ordered the closing of monarchist, Carlist, and anarchist headquarters in Madrid. But the members of the two former organizations and many others were busy calling at Calvo Sotelo’s home to pay tribute to the dead man. At midnight, Prieto (who declared in that day’s issue of El Socialista that war would be preferable to this intolerable series of murders) led a delegation of socialists, communists, and the UGT to demand from Casares Quiroga that he should distribute arms to the workers’ organizations. Casares refused, acidly adding that, if Prieto continued to come to see him so often, he would be governing Spain himself.4 Throughout another hot night, Madrid waited. The militiamen of the left-wing parties—those, that is, upon whom the parties would rely if fighting should come, and who had already been provided with the few arms there were in the arsenals of their organizations—kept watch. Members of right-wing parties wondered who would be the next to hear a fatal knock at the door.
Mola at last gave a firm date for the rising: his telegrams read: ‘On the 15th last, at 4 A.M., Helen gave birth to a beautiful child.’ That meant when interpreted that the rising would begin in Morocco on 18 July at five o’clock in the morning. The garrisons in Spain itself would follow on 19 July. José Antonio had sent a message through his law clerk, Rafael Garcerán, that, if Mola did not act within seventy-two hours, he would himself begin the rebellion with the Falange in Alicante. The plotters accepted that it would be hard to win in Madrid and, they thought, Seville (though not, apparently, Barcelona). In those places, the garrisons, with the Falange and other supporters, were to maintain themselves in their barracks and await relief. M
ola, from the north, Goded, from the north-east, and Franco, from the south, would march on the capital. Sanjurjo would fly from Portugal to take command in Burgos. The old campaigners of the Moroccan Wars, headed by ‘the Lion of the Rif’, would thus be in command of their own country. At the last minute, Goded changed places with General González Carrasco, another but less prominent africanista, to go to Barcelona, on Goded’s insistence, since Barcelona was recognized as being more important.1 Though the conspiracy had been so long discussed, Calvo Sotelo’s death really decided the plotters to go ahead; otherwise, they might not have screwed up their courage to the sticking point. Now if they had not acted, they might have been brushed aside by their followers.
The next day, 14 July, there were two funerals in the East Cemetery in Madrid. First, that of Lieutenant Castillo, whose coffin, draped in the red flag, was saluted, with clenched fists, by a crowd of socialists, communists, and assault guards. Then, a few hours later, Calvo Sotelo’s body, swathed in Capuchin hood and gown, was lowered into another grave, surrounded by vast crowds saluting with arms outstretched in fascist style. On behalf of all present, Goicoechea, Calvo Sotelo’s lieutenant in Renovación Española, took an oath, before God and before Spain, to avenge the murder. The vice-president and permanent secretary of the Cortes who were present were attacked by well-dressed women who shrieked that they wanted nothing to do with parliamentarians. Some shots were fired between falangists and assault guards, and several people were wounded, of whom four died. These two funerals were the last political meetings in Spain before the civil war.1