Paul Preston - Franco

After the victory over the Asturian rebels, Lerroux and Gil Robles agonized over the issue of death penalties for the revolutionaries in Asturias and the officers who had defended the short-lived Catalan Republic. The trials which would make most impact on Franco were those involving charges of military rebellion. On 12 October 1934, the officers who had supported the rebellion in Catalonia had been tried and sentenced to death. Sergeant Diego Vázquez, who had deserted to join the strikers in Asturias, was tried and sentenced to death on 3 January 1935. 42 The bulk of the Right howled for vengeance but Alcalá Zamora favoured clemency and Lerroux was inclined to agree. Many on the Right wanted Gil Robles to withdraw CEDA support for the government if the death sentences were not carried out. He refused for fear of Alcalá Zamora giving power to a more liberal cabinet.

Franco, always rigidly in favour of the severest penalties for mutiny and of the strictest application of military justice, believed that Gil Robles was totally mistaken. He told the Italian Chargé d’Affaires , Geisser Celesia, ‘The victory is ours and not to apply exemplary punishments to the rebels, not to castigate energetically those who have encouraged the revolution and have caused so many casualties among the troops, would signify trampling on the just rights of the military class and encourage an early extremist response.’ 43 The fact that pardons were eventually granted would contribute in 1936 to Franco’s decision to take part in the military uprising which opened the Civil War.

In 1934, however, Franco was hostile to any military intervention in politics. His part in suppressing the Asturian insurrection had left him satisfied that a conservative Republic ready to use his services could keep the Left at bay. Not all his comrades-in-arms shared his complacency. Fanjul and Goded were discussing with senior CEDA figures the possibility of a military coup to forestall the commutation of the death sentences. Gil Robles told them through an intermediary that the CEDA would not oppose a coup. It was agreed that they would consult other generals and the commanders of key garrisons to see if it might be possible ‘to put Alcalá Zamora over the frontier’. After checking with Franco and others, they concluded that they did not have the support necessary for a coup. 44

Franco exercised a similarly restraining influence over other would-be rebels. In late October, Jorge Vigón and Colonel Valentín Galarza believed that the moment had come to launch the military rising which they had been preparing since the autumn of 1932. Their plan was for the monarchist aviator, Juan Antonio Ansaldo, to fly to Portugal, pick up Sanjurjo and take him to the outskirts of Oviedo where he would link up with Yagüe. It was assumed that together Sanjurjo and Yagüe would easily persuade the bulk of the Army to join them in rebellion against the Republic. While the conspirators waited in the home of Pedro Saínz Rodríguez for the order to proceed, the journalist Juan Pujol arrived to say that he had spoken with Franco at the Ministry of War and Franco believed that it was not the right moment. 45 Enjoying considerable power and confident of his ability to use it decisively against the Left, he had no reason to want to risk his career in an ill-prepared coup. The fact that other prominent officers now deferred to his views, as they had not in 1932, was a measure of the dramatic increase in prestige bestowed upon him by the events in Asturias.

Although delighted with the repression of the Asturian rising, Gil Robles sought to strengthen his own political position and so he joined Calvo Sotelo in deriding the Radical government for weakness. Diego Hidalgo was one of the sacrificial victims. 46 Accordingly, from 16 November 1934 to 3 April 1935, the Prime Minister, Alejandro Lerroux, himself took over the Ministry of War. He awarded Franco the Gran Cruz de Mérito Militar and kept him in his extraordinary post of ministerial adviser until February 1935. Lerroux had intended to reward Franco by making him High Commissioner in Morocco but was prevented from doing so by the opposition of Alcalá Zamora. 47 Instead, he kept on the existing civilian High Commissioner, the conservative Republican Manuel Rico Avello, and made Franco Commander-in-Chief of the Spanish Armed Forces in Morocco.

Despite any disappointment that he might have felt at not being made High Commissioner, being an Africanista , Franco perceived the post of head of the African Army as a substantial reward for his work in repressing the revolution. As he put it himself, ‘the Moroccan Army constituted the most important military command’. 48 On arrival, he hastened to inform the Entente Internationale contre la Troisième Internationale of his change of address. 49 Although he was to be there barely three months, it was a period which he enjoyed immensely. As Commander-in-Chief, he consolidated his existing influence within the armed forces in Morocco and established new and important contacts which were to facilitate his intervention at the beginning of the Civil War. His relationship with Rico Avello was similar in many respects to that which he had enjoyed with Diego Hidalgo. The High Commissioner, recognizing his own ignorance of Moroccan affairs, relied on Franco for advice of all kinds. Franco also established an excellent working relationship with the Chief of the General Staff of the Spanish forces in Morocco, Colonel Francisco Martín Moreno. This was to be crucial in 1936. 50

On the road to civil war, there could be no going back from the events of October 1934. The Asturian rising had frightened the middle and upper classes. Equally, the vengeful repression urged by the Right and carried out by the Radical-CEDA coalition convinced many on the Left that electoral disunity must never be risked again. The publicity given to Franco’s role in the military repression of the uprising ensured that thereafter he would be regarded as a potential saviour by the Right and as an enemy by the Left. Franco himself was to draw certain conclusions from the Asturian uprising. Convinced by the material received from Geneva that a Communist assault on Spain was being planned, he saw the events of October 1934 in those terms. He was determined that the Left should never be allowed to enjoy power even if won democratically. 51

Nothing was done by successive conservative governments in the fifteen months after October 1934 to eliminate the hatreds aroused by the revolution itself or by its brutal repression. The CEDA claimed that it would remove the need for revolution by a programme of moderate land and tax reforms. Even if this claim was sincere in the mouths of the party’s few convinced social Catholics, the limited reforms proposed were blocked by right-wing intransigence from the majority. Thousands of political prisoners remained in jail; the Catalan autonomy statute was suspended and a vicious smear campaign was waged against Azaña in a vain effort to prove him guilty of preparing the Catalan revolution. Azaña was thereby converted into a symbol for all those who suffered from the repression. 52

The CEDA made a significant advance towards its goal of the legal introduction of an authoritarian corporative state on 6 May 1935 when five Cedistas , including the Jefe himself as Minister of War, entered a new cabinet under Lerroux. Gil Robles appointed known opponents of the regime to high positions – Franco was recalled from Morocco to become Chief of the General Staff; Goded became Inspector General and Director of the Air Force, and Fanjul became Under-Secretary of War. The President, Alcalá Zamora, was hostile to the appointment of Franco, regularly remarking that ‘young generals aspire to be fascist caudillos’. Eventually, threats of resignation from both Lerroux and Gil Robles overcame the President’s opposition. 53 There was a fierce rivalry and mutual dislike between Franco and Goded. Goded had wanted the job of Chief of the General Staff and was heard to comment bitterly that he awaited the failure of Franco. 54