Finally, from 1933, was the crystallization of the fascist alternative inspired by the Italian model in the hands of the Spanish Falange, founded by José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the son of the dictator, who was shot by the Republicans four months after the war started, leaving the movement decapitated at a critical juncture. In tune with its inspiration from Mussolini, the Falangist formula projected a new concept of a totalitarian state, complete with the political militarization of society, a hierarchical citizenship and the doctrine of charismatic leadership based on a civil and secular religion of the sacred and deified fatherland. However, despite its modernity, aestheticism and youthful appeal, Falangism barely competed with other alternatives until the war offered a unique opportunity for its expansion and consolidation as a movement and mass party.56
In any case, aside from the weight and influence of each of these political cultures, the truth is that there had been an intense process of convergence and cooperation between them during the Republican period, particularly after the crisis of October 1934 and the electoral defeat of February 1936. That process was necessitated by the perceived seriousness of the risk faced by the right and the strength of their common enemy: the reality of the reformist liberal democracy and, behind it, the threat of social revolution as its potential and forced outcome. As the fascist leader Onésimo Redondo warned in 1931: ‘Jacobinism is today Bolshevism. Or something that will lead to it.’ The reply from the Alfonsist monarchist ranks, in the words of the journalist Joaquín Arrarás in 1932, left no doubt of the consensus with that judgement and its outcome: ‘Adversity is the link that today gathers, concentrates and tightens the whole family.’ The consequent call for unity was perfectly indicated by another illustrious monarchist of Acción Española, Pedro Sainz Rodríguez, on the eve of the crisis of October 1934, with an indirect appeal to the military role demanded by the situation: ‘The imperative logic of a single command is something that is not discussed, it is a necessity which reality imposes in the tragic moments of the people.’57
Moreover, the relative ease of this convergence was based on the presence of several components shared in varying measures by all those cultures: the assertion of the Catholic tradition of the nation as an inalienable and defining component; the defence of a restored and integral nationalism that admitted no doubts or pacts with the ‘Anti-Spain’; the promotion of an idea of reform of the state that broke radically with liberalism and democracy; the conception of social hierarchical relationships and of militarized discipline that aimed to tackle social divisions and class struggles; and, progressively, the conviction that only organized violence and preferably the force of the military could address social and national dissolution.
Indeed, from the electoral defeat in February 1936, the key role in the backlash against these deadly dangers ceased to be in the hands of the civilian party movements and passed to the control of the Spanish army, in a process of political satellization well understood by all contemporaries and demanded by many political leaders. Calvo Sotelo had already demanded, clearly and precisely, in January 1936 a return to the more traditional military praetorianism:
There are those who will find in these words an indirect invocation for force. Good. Yes, there it is […]. To whom? To the essentials: to the military force at the service of the state. […] Today the army is the foundation of support for the fatherland. It has risen from the role of the enforcer, blind, deaf and dumb, to that of the spinal cord, without which life is not possible. […] When the red hordes of communism advance, there is only one brake: the strength of the state and the transfusion of military virtues – obedience, discipline and hierarchy – to society itself, to make them leave the unhealthy ferments that Marxism has sown. That is why I call upon the army and the patriotism that drives it.58
The same idea was also suggested on the eve of the uprising by both José María Gil-Robles and José Antonio Primo de Rivera, despite their fear of the consequences that this military role might have for their own political plans. José Antonio made his suggestion in his ‘Carta a los Militares de España’ (letter to the military of Spain) sent from prison on 4 May 1936: ‘without your strength, soldiers, it will be titanically difficult to succeed in the fight. […] Spain’s existence depends on you.’ Gil-Robles had warned parliament a fortnight earlier: ‘when the civil war breaks out in Spain, it should be known that the weapons have been loaded by the neglect of a government that has failed to fulfil its duty.’59
The Civil War as the Facilitator of the Francoist Caudillaje
When the uprising began, the whole literary, ideological and doctrinal arsenal of the militaristic and Africanist tradition of the Spanish army was launched. In fact, whatever the sympathy of the rebel military chiefs for one or other of the ‘political cultures’ of the Spanish right (and obviously Catholics and monarchists were to predominate over Carlists and Falangists), all were fully in agreement on the purely military character of the Movement. It is unlikely that anyone contradicted any part of what General Mola declared in this regard and as a warning to the navy in a speech broadcast on 13 September 1936 (just before the Junta de Defensa Nacional decreed ‘an absolute departure from all political partisanship’ and the subordination of all ‘to the army, an effective symbol of national unity’) declared:
I have a blind faith in these brash boys that today demand [a barely veiled reference to partisan, Falangist and Carlist militias]; but let it be understood that in the task of national reconstruction which they are eager to carry out and they will – who doubts it? – in this formidable undertaking we, the military, have to lay its foundations; we have to launch it; it is our right, because that is the nation’s wish, because we have a clear idea of our power and only we can consolidate the union of the people with the army, which has been kept distant until 19 July by the absurd propaganda of stupid intellectualism and suicidal politics.60
It is unnecessary to emphasize that the few challenges to that exclusivity of military power in the insurgent area were quickly nipped in the bud by the military authorities right from the beginning until the very end. It is enough to recall two quick interventions by Franco, already supreme commander of the armies. The first was the expulsion from Spain in December 1936 of the Carlist leader Manuel Fal Conde for his claim that the requeté – Carlist militias – should be made a virtually autonomous arm from the rest of the army. Second was the arrest, trial and condemning to death of Manuel Hedilla (interim successor to José Antonio Primo de Rivera as Falange leader) and other Falangist comrades for their opposition to the forced unification of political parties enacted in April 1937.
In this regard, as shown by recent studies on the coming together of the insurgent war effort (for example, the works of Gabriel Cardona, Jorge Martínez Reverte, Michael Seidman or James Matthews), it is evident that the contribution of volunteer militiamen from the Falange and traditionalist groups (more than from monarchist parties) was very prominent and appreciated by the rebel military commanders: by the end of 1936 there were almost 37,000 Falangist militia, 22,100 Carlist requetés and a little over 6,000 Alfonsists. But it is also clear that these ‘national militias’ (always integrated within military units and under professional control) never became more than 34 per cent of the forces mobilized until the autumn of 1936: around 65,000 men out of a total of 189,000 armed soldiers. Moreover, these volunteer troops, driven by their partisan political and ideological commitment soon ceased to be the principle source of recruitment.61 As well as the militiamen, the rebel army used and perfected traditional compulsory military recruitment channels. The war could not be won with so few volunteers and they had to resort to the forced mobilization of others, young and not so young (between 18 and 45 years) to maintain operations and nurture the war effort. The Nationalist armies would thus mobilize 1.2 million men in 15 drafts up to the beginning of 1939. This successful, huge logistical operation of preparing human and material resources was performed by the military, under their rules and supported
by a well-prepared and established military plan.
As far as the ‘mobilizing myths’ that were used to stimulate the fighting zeal were concerned – without neglecting the Falangist contributions in their robes of modernity and international prestige – the truth is that the fundamental, recurrent and omnipresent motivations put forward by ‘the army of Franco’ were more classical and traditional than anything else. Above all, Spanish, Unitarian, integralist and historical nationalism: ‘Spain, evangelizer of half of the globe; Spain, hammer of heretics, light of Trent, sword of Rome, cradle of San Ignacio’, as praised by Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo and learned by heart by the cadets of the military academies since the end of the nineteenth century. And, at its side, Catholicism that had identified with the idea of the crusade ‘for God and Spain’ which for centuries carried the idea of ‘Spain as a favoured country and destined for the realization of the Kingdom of Christ’. At this point, it seems that the speeches made to mobilize the masses on the insurgent side appealed through inertia and default to the common and substantive heritage in all the Spanish right and in the soul of the two bureaucratic corporations that articulated the making of the new state: ‘the mystic cult of the nation’ of the military who felt the army was ‘the only patriotic institution and possessor of the truth’; and the political theology of National Catholicism of priests with their talk of the providential and purifying crusade.62 At the same time, the Church continued to be the classic integral instrument of ‘morality’ in the ranks of the army through the services of military chaplains responsible for ‘spiritual assistance’. In the recent words of James Matthews:
The alliance between the Church and the military was hatched soon after the uprising and, during most of the Civil War, ‘national’ and ‘Catholic’ were synonymous words. […] The sacred language of the spirit of crusade had the power to make death tolerable, and even positive, in official discourse. The men who fell were martyrs of the cause and therefore ‘incorporated into the iconography of worship’. This can be seen in the slogans painted on the walls of the buildings of Nationalist Spain: ‘Before God there will be no unsung hero’.63
One of the points of convergence for all the political cultures of the Spanish anti-liberal right was the doctrine of the caudillaje as a form of supreme authority, command and government demanded by wartime circumstances, national traditions and international imperatives. At this point, agreement was unanimous and the well-known result was the rise of Franco as a charismatic and providential caudillo for life, with full constituent powers and sovereign and unappealable judgement. For some he was above all the caudillo of the victory for his military triumph, caudillo of the crusade by divine will or caudillo of the national revolution by virtue of his Falangist political leadership. Of course, the Caudillo himself would always maintain his three sources of legitimacy, harmoniously balanced and coordinated, without prejudice to his sovereign, supreme, arbitrary and decision-making authority.64
The rebel military commanders began the process through their own roles in the insurrection and directing war operations, and it was they who, at the end of September 1936, proceeded to elect General Franco as ‘Generalissimo of the armies’ and ‘head of the government of the state’ without consultation or intermediation with anyone, aside from the political preferences expressed by Rome and Berlin – which were much more influential than any other Spanish domestic political opinion.65 The imposition of a ‘single command’ in the person of Franco was in tune with the hierarchical and disciplined vision of military chiefs in a situation of national emergency, in response to the principle of unity of command and an evident sign of ‘Caesarism’ as a result of his successes (‘the Caesars were generals victorious’, read a slogan immediately adopted by the insurgent propaganda).66 The use of the word ‘caudillo’ was equally logical in view of its previous wide circulation to denote a heroic and admirable military chief who assumed all-embracing political powers. In fact, the term allowed for the merger of two powers formally ‘transferred’: the military authority to fight the war (Generalissimo) and the political authority to build the alternative state apparatus (head of state). The definitive consecration of the Caudillo by his comrades in arms was the victory parade held in Madrid on 19 May 1939, when Franco oversaw the parade of over 100,000 soldiers (the triumphant ‘armies of Franco’) and received the highest Spanish military award for his prowess. The decision of ‘the military family’ to honour their senior captain and leader was explained thus in the corresponding decree:
Having won the war definitively, which Anti-Spain unleashed on our fatherland, the entire nation, led by all the Knights of the Grand Cross laureate of San Fernando, gathered together, requested the award of the Grand Cross laureate of San Fernando for the Caudillo, who knew how to win the war with his genius […]. It is not because a general in chief dutifully fulfils the requirements of Article 35 of the regulations of the Order of San Fernando for membership, but in the present case is the great leader who saved his country, restoring independence and order and also undertaking for the whole world the best service that could be provided for peace by defeating Bolshevism in our fatherland to save a seriously threatened civilization.67
For the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the almost immediate conversion of the insurgent war effort into a crusade for the faith of Christ was soon completed with the elevation of Franco to the category of homo missus a Deo, sent by Divine Providence to defend the Church and restore its role in the Spanish nation, in keeping with the tenets of National Catholicism. The cardinal primate and archbishop of Toledo, Isidro Gomá, reported to the Vatican from the beginning that, of the rebel commanders, Franco was the most favourable to the Church (‘The one who has better credentials at this point; that is, Generalissimo Franco, a practising Catholic all his life’). He soon received confirmation of Franco’s goodwill in the form of legal, economic and cultural measures that restored the rights and privileges of Catholicism that had been suppressed by the Republic.68
The transition to ‘caudillo by the grace of God’ was very quick because it connected with the old theological idea of authority as divine investiture and shadowed the formula of Rex per Gratia Dei common in the historical Spanish and Catholic tradition. At the end of the war, the day after the victory parade, the ceremony of Te Deum in thanksgiving for the victory was celebrated in the Church of Santa Bárbara of Madrid, with Franco entering under a canopy and received by the full episcopal hierarchy, only confirming an existing situation now sanctified by the public prayer of the Primate:
God, to whom all are subject, to whom all things serve, make the reign of your good servant Caudillo Francisco Franco times of peace and joy, so that the man whom we put in front of our people under your guidance have days of peace and glory. We ask today, Lord of Lords, to look benignly from the throne of your Majesty to our Caudillo Francisco Franco to whom you granted a people subject to his government and to assist him in all your will.69
For the unified political party, the dominant Falange perfectly agreed with the caudillaje of Franco because of its own hierarchical and charismatic concept of political leadership. In addition, the loss of José Antonio Primo de Rivera and the difficulty of replacing him as head of the old Falange had crucially undermined the party, preventing it from resisting the decision of Franco, decreed on 19 April 1937, to take over its structures, symbols and supporters to merge with other right-wing political groups, thus founding a new unified party that served as the third pillar, along with the army and the Church, of his regime of personal power: the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS.70 As Dionisio Ridruejo, then a young Falangist leader in charge of official propaganda, would recognize, opposition would be suicidal and acceptance was in the interests of both parties because it solved a real problem: ‘a movement without a leader and a leader without a movement’. Accordingly, the conversion of Franco (a military caudillo with religious backing) into the new Falange leader was accepted as the only way to perform the ‘nati
onal-syndicalist revolution’ at a time of war and thanks to a caudillaje grounded in military power with all-encompassing and supreme powers but always advised and counselled by his faithful followers and servants:
The Caudillo is only limited by his own will, but this limitation is the raison d’être of the Movement: the proclaimed dogmas, the chosen minorities and the faith of the people. Thus the Movement – an instrument of the Caudillo (of the state which is invested upon him) popularizes, on one hand, his will and serves, on the other, as a touchstone and voice of advice for the decisions of that very same will that other organs (the army for its power, the bureaucracy for its administration) will implement.71
The convergence of the three institutions on the need for the caudillaje of Franco as a virtual victorious Caesar, providential and sovereign, cemented the consistent cult of charismatic personality that would continue until his death in 1975, although with variations of mode and intensity. Sometimes his status as military caudillo of victory was underlined (during the early stages of war, when the title of Generalissimo was used profusely in propaganda and the regime was to be a new military directorate similar to that of the 1923 regime – mutatis mutandis). At other times, Franco was emphasized as being the Falangist Caudillo of the national revolution (as happened between 1937 and 1942, when the international context tempted the emulation of his Fascist and Nazi backers and the regime presented itself as Spanish totalitarianism). Sometimes his profile as the religious caudillo of the crusade was emphasized (from 1943 until 1959, when his National Catholic legitimacy became the form of introduction before the victorious powers of the world war and during the first postwar era). Finally, at other times, his role as caudillo of Spain and head of state without more contentious adjectives would be stressed (as would occur from 1959, when technocratic efficiency and modernizing successes served to find new respectable civil and ‘functional’ legitimacy in the outside world).
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