Blood of Spain_An Oral History of the Spanish Civil War

by Ronald Fraser

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  Immortal hours of the national epic, of frenetic enthusiasm. Never has Spain throbbed, pulsated like this. The news of Toledo’s conquest was announced over this very microphone: our listeners will have received it as such news must be received : on their knees …

  Julio Gonzalo Soto, broadcast over Radio Castilla (Burgos, 28 September 1936)

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  CAPITALISTS

  The National Movement, salvation of Spain, permits you in these moments to continue enjoying your dividends and rents

  If you hesitate for a moment to lend your moral and material assistance, generously and disinterestedly, not only will you prove yourself unpatriotic, but ungrateful and unworthy of living in the strong Spain which is being re-born …

  Diario de Burgos (21 September 1936)

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  ATTENTION! ATTENTION!

  Tonight, in a memorable broadcast from Radio Castilla you are going to hear the authentic voice of Spain in the plenitude of its power … The voice of the Caudillo, the chief, the guide, the maximum figure of the Spanish state. Spaniards and foreigners, General Franco is going to speak, ¡Viva Franco! ¡Viva Franco! ¡Viva España!

  Broadcast over Radio Castilla (1 October 1936)

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  On 27 September 1936, Toledo was taken by Franco’s forces which had turned from the direct advance on Madrid to relieve the Alcázar, the fortress-like infantry officers’ school, set on a height commanding the city. Under Col. Moscardó, the Alcázar had resisted republican siege for seventy days. The half-shattered fortress had become a Popular Front obsession, and a great deal of time and effort had been invested in attempts to force its surrender while the enemy columns continued to close in. (The Popular Front militia – and later the army – never found it easy to leave an enemy redoubt in their rear.) Despite its diversion, the Army of Africa was now only 70 km from the gates of Madrid.

  Two days later, an event of greater importance occurred: the national defence junta appointed General Franco head of the government of the Spanish state and generalísimo of the armed forces.

  Until that date, insurgent Spain had been ruled by the defence junta which came into being at the outbreak of the war and was composed exclusively of military, under the leadership of the patriarchal-looking General Cabanellas. The junta’s fundamental mission was to coordinate the military effort and to develop a state apparatus, more administrative than political, at first sight.

  —The military had no clear political idea of what to do. They were opposed to public disorder, to the chaos that the revolution under the republic had produced; but nothing more …

  Convinced that something had to be done, Eugenio VEGAS LATAPIE, editor of the monarchist Acción Española, set off to bring the heir to the Spanish throne, don Juan, from France to tour the front. He was certain that the military would expel the prince, which was indeed what happened – before he even reached the front. ‘Mola, an upright man, supporter of law and order but no monarchist, was worried about the repercussions with the Carlists who didn’t accept the Alfonsine dynasty.’ VEGAS LATAPIE was himself nearly expelled from Spain as a result.

  The military might have ‘no clear political ideas’ of what they wanted, but they had clear enough ideas of what they did not want. On 24 September 1936, the defence junta annulled all agrarian reform settlements made after the Popular Front elections and returned the land to its original owners;5 and a day later outlawed all political and trade union activity in the zone under its jurisdiction. ‘The marked national character of the movement, initiated by the army and supported, enthusiastically, by the people, demands the setting aside of party politics, since all Spaniards of goodwill – whatever their particular ideologies – are fervently united behind the army, the effective symbol of national unity,’ stated the preamble to the decree. The repression was not limited to the liquidation of political opponents; it was to reach out to politics itself, even when practised by the military’s supporters.

  Many people in the insurgent zone, including the monarchist VEGAS LATAPIE, were critical of Franco’s diversion to relieve Toledo, arguing that the latter was a ‘sentimental’ objective which would have fallen automatically if the main objective – Madrid – had been taken. The outcome, in this view, was that the republic was allowed to organize its defences; time was given for Soviet aid and the International Brigades to reach Madrid – ‘and the war as a result lasted two and a half years longer’.

  Col. Juan Yagüe, the Foreign Legion commander, had to relinquish command of the column advancing on Madrid shortly before because of illness and was stationed at Franco’s HQ in Cáceres, where not long before VEGAS LATAPIE had protested to Franco about the indiscriminate assassinations in the rearguard. Col. Yagüe later related to the young monarchist how he intervened in the appointment of Franco as supreme commander.

  —One day, Nicolás Franco, the General’s brother, came up to Yagüe and for the first time addressed him by the familiar ‘tu’. ‘Juanito, you’re the only one who can persuade my brother. I’ve just returned from Lisbon and both the German and Italian ambassadors maintain that there must be a single, unified command. The present situation of two commands of the northern and southern armies cannot continue. It’s particularly important for foreign relations, but also for everything else. Everyone thinks that the most suitable person is my brother. But he won’t accept. You are the one who has the most influence with him, who can convince him –’ Yagüe, who was a man of incredible natural power, went over to Franco’s door – there wasn’t much formality at that time – knocked and said: ‘Mi general, may I come in? The ambassadors of Germany and Italy say we require a single command. It is necessary in order to achieve victory. We all think it must be you. If you won’t accept, then we shall have to think of appointing someone else.’ Yagüe then left Franco’s office. A couple of minutes later, Nicolás came out overwhelmed with emotion. He caught hold of Yagüe, embraced, even kissed him. ‘What did you say to him, what did you do? He has accepted –’ ‘I simply told him that if he didn’t accept we would have to appoint someone else.’

  That evening, in celebration of the fall of Toledo, Yagüe made a brief speech after Franco had addressed the crowd from the balcony of his HQ. ‘Today is a great day,’ Yagüe began, ‘but tomorrow will be an even greater day. Tomorrow, or very shortly, we shall have a general who will lead us to victory. And this general is – General Franco … ’

  Two days later, the generals met at an aerodrome outside Salamanca and the appointment went through, though not without resistance. Yagüe (who attended without a vote as he was not a general) pointed out forcefully that his legionaries and Moroccan troops wanted Franco as supreme commander. The military appointment caused less resistance than the political one. There was some confusion in the nationalist zone as to what Franco had been appointed to: ‘Head of State’ (as ABC of Seville named him) or ‘Head of the Government of the Spanish State’, as the Diario de Burgos correctly termed him. These confusions – compounded by the decree which gave him ‘all powers of the new state’ – were soon resolved: his first law, published on the day of his appointment, to establish a new state administration, referred twice to his post as head of state.

  On the night of his formal assumption of power, General Franco made a broadcast setting out the aims of the new state. In social matters, work would be guaranteed and a day-wage assured; but workers would not be allowed to organize on class lines, and any ‘combative activities’ would be punished. Workers had obligations as well as rights; and these obligations were to ‘collaborate in everything that constitutes the normal production of wealth’.

  In religion, the new state, without being confessional, would ‘concord with the Holy Catholic Church’. In agriculture, there would be ‘constant and generous help’ to the peasant to secure his economic independence. The national will would be expressed not by universal suffrage, which had been discredited, but through those
technical organs and corporations which, ‘in an authentic way, represent the ideals and needs of the new Spain … ’

  Of the three generals in the running, now that Sanjurjo was dead, Franco was indubitably the most likely choice. His military prestige combined with an apparent absence of defined political posture gave him an advantage over Generals Mola and Queipo, both of whom had republican leanings.

  —‘Moreover, if we had appointed Mola we would have lost the war,’ General Queipo de Llano told me later, VEGAS LATAPIE recalled. Mola was considered a magnificent administrator but a poor field commander. ‘I couldn’t be appointed because I was discredited; so there was only Franco,’ he added. Queipo was discredited not only because of his past – attempting to overthrow the monarchy one day, the republic the next – but because of his current reputation. Franco won the day …

  The new state administration – the ‘Junta Técnica’ – set up by Franco comprised seven commissions. The generalísimo, who had apparently taken no notice of the impetuous young monarchist when he addressed him on the dual need to stop assassinations, and to ‘clean out’ all revolutionary ideas in the rearguard, appointed him to the new culture and education commission, one of whose major tasks was to purge schoolteachers. The norms were made clear by the commission, which was headed by the monarchist poet José María Pemán: teachers who were ‘professionally and morally irreproachable’, but had sympathized with Basque, Catalan, or Galician nationalist parties without participating in the ‘communist-separatist’ subversion, should be moved to a different region; those who had belonged to, or sympathized with, Popular Front parties or secret societies (essentially, the masons) were to be sacked. Provincial commissions were set up to carry out the purges – a ‘sacred mission’, in the words of a circular.

  —The purges were carried out with considerable severity; we were in the middle of a war. It was one thing that people were shot without rhyme or reason; another that education, which forms the future consciousness of a nation – and control of which is vital – should be purged …

  None the less, many of the accusations made against teachers which fell on VEGAS LATAPIE’s desk were ‘absurd’. One was against a woman teacher who was said to have gone to mass only on Sundays and knelt only on one knee at the moment of the Host’s elevation. ‘Such a ridiculous accusation, of course, wasn’t entertained.’

  An Andalusian schoolmaster, who had been teaching in Burgos, was denounced for not having gone to mass once in the year he was there. He answered the charge by saying that it wasn’t the custom in Andalusia for men to go to church, but had he known that it was the custom in Castile he would, of course, have attended. ‘A witty response. There was such an inflation of religious belief during the war that those who hadn’t believed in one God before now swore that they believed in seven.’

  An Asturian teacher in a Castilian village was denounced for having taught the children a well-known song which begins: ‘Asturias, patria querida, Asturias de mis amores –’ (‘Asturias, beloved homeland, Asturias of my loves’). The accusation said that as there had been a ‘communist revolution’ in Asturias in 1934, she must be a communist to have taught children the song.

  —Incredible stupidities like this came to light. But some weren’t so ridiculous. A requeté university professor came to see me one day. He said that his requeté sergeant – a marvellous fellow who had taken communion by his side that very morning – was accused of a terrible crime. A village schoolmaster under the republic, he had been ordered, as were all state teachers, to remove the crucifix from his classroom, and he had put the cross down the lavatory so that the children had to urinate and defecate over it.

  While many people tried to protect themselves by joining the Falange, there were also some who did the same in the requetés. I appointed a special judge – a professor of medicine – to investigate the case. The evidence was incontrovertible; this ‘requeté’ schoolmaster was thrown out of his job …

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  In Salamanca, the provincial commission’s reports came to the rector of the university, Miguel de Unamuno, aged seventy-two. The reports often included a comment from the parish priest that the schoolmaster in question did not go to mass; considerable numbers of schoolmasters were socialists or left republicans. Unamuno, according to his son, Rafael, often drew a line down the side and wrote at the bottom: ‘Nor do I’. The reports, which went to the civil governor, did little presumably to endear him to the new authorities. But, as he was one of the most prestigious intellectual figures of Spain, there was not much they could do. Moreover, he had welcomed the military uprising and been appointed to Salamanca’s new town council. A republican deputy to the Constituent Cortes of 1931, he had soon become an outspoken critic of much the republic was doing. The first to articulate what was later to become almost a commonplace, he saw the uprising as necessary to save ‘western civilization, the Christian civilization which is threatened’. Remaining a republican, he supported the military because he believed they had risen to defend ‘an honourable republic’. The assassination of the mayor of Salamanca, Dr Casto Prieto,6 a close friend of his; the assassination in Granada of Salvador Vila, professor of Arabic and Hebrew at the university, whose release from prison in Salamanca he had secured; García Lorca’s murder – these killings angered and saddened him. Yet in a foreign newspaper interview he bitterly attacked the Madrid government; in response the latter sacked him from his post as lifelong rector of the university. On hearing the news Felisa UNAMUNO, his daughter, believed it would not be long before the military did the same.

  —My father was enraged about what was going on in this zone; it was not what he had hoped for. He was convinced that the military and their supporters hated most what was best in Spain: Catalonia and the Basque country. ‘Let’s see if they don’t become independent and then we’ll go to Bilbao’ – my father’s birthplace – I said. ‘That wouldn’t be a bad idea,’ he replied …

  It was not long before the fate due to a perpetual critic in a situation where allegiance was demanded began to unfold. Salamanca was now Franco’s headquarters; he had moved into the bishop’s palace opposite the old cathedral almost immediately after his proclamation on 1 October. Eleven days later, the Day of the Race, in commemoration of Columbus’s discovery of America, and the opening of the new academic year were to be celebrated at the university under the presidency of Unamuno, who was to represent Franco. At the last minute, doña Carmen Polo, Franco’s wife, decided to attend also.

  Juan CRESPO, the monarchist student, who had recently returned from the front to join his party’s guard of honour at Franco’s HQ, was on duty that morning; with the rest of the guard, he escorted doña Carmen to the university. When they reached there, he saw that they had arrived late, and room had to be made for the newcomer on the dais on Unamuno’s right. As an admirer of José María Pemán, the civil poet of the nationalist cause, who was going to be one of the speakers, CRESPO remained at the door to listen. Eugenio VEGAS LATAPIE, who had accompanied Pemán, was on the platform. Felisa UNAMUNO was among the spectators in the hall.

  —The first speaker, a professor of history, José María Ramos Loscertales, quoted a seventeenth-century Spanish writer, Gracián, who referred somewhat slightingly to the Basques and Catalans, recalled VEGAS LATAPIE. AS soon as he said this, I saw Unamuno get out an envelope and start scribbling on the back. I wondered what he was doing since he was not due to speak …

  Juan CRESPO: I imagined that he was going to draw something, or make a paper dart with the blue envelope. He was a good drawer. He went on doing something with his pencil, but I turned to listen to the speaker …

  Few, if any, in the audience could know that the blue envelope in Unamuno’s hands had contained a note from the wife of a protestant clergyman in Salamanca, who had been arrested, and whom Unamuno had tried to help. She said her husband, Atilano Coco, was accused of being a mason, which indeed he had become in England some fifteen years before. Unamuno advised he
r to go to see the Catholic bishop, and she had told him that the bishop refused to see her. When he pulled out the envelope, he knew there was virtually no hope of saving her husband.

  Felisa UNAMUNO: When Pemán finished speaking, my father suddenly stood up and said that he must speak, since a Basque – himself – and a Catalan – the Bishop Plá y Deniel – were on the platform. Although it wasn’t part of the programme, his action didn’t surprise me; in fact, it would have surprised me if he hadn’t spoken, since he took every opportunity of doing so; and even more so now, when it was necessary to protest …

  Eugenio VEGAS LATAPIE: One of the speakers, he said, had referred disparagingly to the Basques and the Catalans. This was an outright discourtesy. The civil war was an uncivil war. Many cruel acts were being committed in Spain. It was one thing to conquer, another to convince (‘vencer no es convencer’) …

  Felisa UNAMUNO: ‘There is hatred but no compassion.’ And hatred without compassion could not convince. To conquer was not to convert. Spain and the anti-Spain were as much on one side as on the other. On both it was the women who were providing a lamentable example: going to the front to enjoy the spectacle of death on the one side; on the other, with religious insignia sometimes worn, going to watch public executions.7 There was hatred of intelligence …

  Juan CRESPO: ‘You talk about the Basques and the Catalans,’ he went on in allusion to the remarks about the Spain and anti-Spain, ‘but here you have your bishop who is Catalan to teach you the Christian doctrine which you don’t want to learn, and me, a Basque, who have spent my life teaching you to read and think in the Spanish language which you don’t know … ’