Paul Preston - Franco

Franco in mid-1935 was still some way from thinking in terms of military intervention against the Republic. Indeed, it would be wrong to assume that he spent much time thinking about overthrowing the Republic. As long as he had a posting which he considered to be appropriate to his merits, he was usually content to get on with his job in a professional manner. He had been extremely happy during his three months in Morocco and, while sad to leave an interesting job, he was thrilled by this even more important posting. In his new post, able to carry on the job which he had done in October, he can have felt little urge or need to rebel at this time. In any case, he remained deeply influenced by the failure of Sanjurjo’s coup of 10 August 1932. Moreover, given the ease of his relationship with Gil Robles, his day-to-day work gave him enormous satisfaction. 55

As Chief of Staff, Franco worked long hours to fulfil his central task which he saw as being to ‘correct the reforms of Azaña and return to the components of the armed forces the internal satisfaction which had been lost with the coming of the Republic’. He neglected his family, obsessively working until late at night, at weekends and on holidays. 56 Azaña’s revisions of promotions by merit were set aside. Many loyal Republican officers were purged and removed from their posts, because of their ‘undesirable ideology’. Others, of known hostility to the Republic, were reinstated and promoted. Emilio Mola was made General in command of Melilla and shortly afterwards head of military forces in Morocco. José Enrique Varela was promoted to general. Medals and promotions were distributed to those who had excelled in the repression of the October uprising. 57 Gil Robles and Franco had secretly brought Mola to Madrid to prepare detailed plans for the use of the colonial Army in mainland Spain in the event of further left-wing unrest. 58

Alcalá Zamora remained deeply suspicious of Gil Robles’ political motives in fostering the careers of anti-Republican officers and in trying to transfer control of the Civil Guard and the police from the Ministry of the Interior to the Ministry of War. In some ways – regimental reorganization, motorization, equipment procurement – Gil Robles continued the reforms of Azaña. 59 The CEDA-Radical government was anxious for the Army to re-equip to ensure its efficacy in the event of having to face another left-wing rising. As Chief of Staff, Franco was involved in establishing contacts with arms manufacturers in Germany as part of the projected rearmament. 60 There can be little doubt that he enjoyed his new job as much as he had liked being Director of the Military Academy in Zaragoza. Despite the later deterioration of their relationship after 1936, he and Gil Robles worked well together in a spirit of co-operation and mutual admiration. Like Diego Hidalgo and Manuel Rico Avello, Gil Robles recognized his own ignorance in military affairs and was happy to leave Franco to get on with things. Franco looked back on his period as Chief of the General Staff with great satisfaction because his achievements facilitated the later Nationalist war effort. 61

After earlier doubts, in the late summer of 1935, Franco made contact, through Colonel Valentín Galarza, with the Unión Militar Española , the extreme rightist conspiratorial organization run by his one-time subordinate Captain Bartolomé Barba Hernández. Galarza, who organized UME liaison between the various garrisons across the country, kept Franco informed about the morale and readiness of the organization’s members. In retrospect, Franco saw his approach to the UME as being to prevent it ‘organizing a premature coup along the lines of a nineteenth century pronunciamiento ’. 62 It is entirely in character that he would want any military action in which he might be involved to be fully prepared.

On 12 October 1935, Don Juan de Borbón, the son of Alfonso XIII, married in Rome. It was to be an excuse for monarchists, among them the plotters of Acción Española, such as José Calvo Sotelo, Jorge Vigón, Eugenio Vegas Latapie, Juan Antonio Ansaldo, to travel en masse to Italy. Franco was not among their number. Nevertheless, he did contribute to the wedding present given by the officers who had once been gentilhombres of Alfonso XIII. 63

Franco’s readiness to make contact with the UME reflected his concern at the fact that, despite the strength of the repression, the organized Left was growing in strength, unity and belligerence. The economic misery of large numbers of peasants and workers, the savage persecution of the October rebels and the attacks on Manuel Azaña combined to produce an atmosphere of solidarity among all sections of the Left. A series of gigantic mass meetings were addressed by Azaña in the second half of 1935 and the enthusiasm for unity shown by the hundreds of thousands who attended them helped clinch mass enthusiasm for what became the Popular Front.

The tiny Spanish Communist Party joined the Popular Front, an electoral coalition which, contrary to rightist propaganda and the material sent to Franco by the Entente contre la Troisième Internationale of Geneva, was not a Comintern creation but the revival of the 1931 Republican-Socialist coalition. The Left and centre Left joined together on the basis of a programme of amnesty for prisoners, of basic social and educational reform and trade union freedom. However, Comintern approval of the Popular Front strategy, ratified at its VII Congress on 2 August 1935, was used by the Entente to convince its subscribers, including Franco, that Moscow planned a revolution in Spain. 64

Gil Robles’ tactic of gradually breaking up successive Radical cabinets was overtaken in the autumn by the revelation of two massive financial scandals involving followers of Lerroux. In mid-September, Alcalá Zamora invited the dour conservative Republican, Joaquin Chapaprieta, to form a government. With the Radical Party on the verge of disintegration, Gil Robles provoked the resignation of Chapaprieta on 9 December in the belief that he would be asked to form a government. Alcalá Zamora, however, had no faith in Gil Robles’s commitment to the Republic. Instead, when he spoke with the President on 11 December, Gil Robles learned with rage that he was not being asked to be prime minister. Alcalá Zamora pointed out that the degree of government instability demonstrated the need for new elections. Gil Robles could hardly argue that it would now stop since he had provoked that instability in order to pave the way to firm government by himself. He had overplayed his hand. The President was so suspicious of Gil Robles that, throughout the subsequent political crisis, he had the Ministry of War surrounded by Civil Guards and the principal garrisons and airports placed under special vigilance. 65

The only choice now open to Gil Robles was to patch together some compromise which would enable the CEDA to avoid elections and thus carry on in the government or else arrange a coup d’état. He tried both options simultaneously. On the same evening a messenger was sent to Cambó, head of the Catalan Lliga, to ask him to join the CEDA and the Radicals in a coalition government. Cambó refused. Meanwhile, in the Ministry of War, Gil Robles was discussing the situation with Fanjul. Fanjul claimed enthusiastically that he and General Varela were prepared to bring the troops of the Madrid garrison onto the streets that very night to prevent the President from going through with his plans to dissolve the Cortes. There were plenty of officers only too willing to join them, especially if a coup had the blessing of the Minister of War and could therefore be seen as an order. However, Gil Robles was worried that such an action might fail, since it would certainly face the resistance of the Socialist and anarchist masses. Nevertheless, he told Fanjul that, if the Army felt that its duty lay in a coup, he would not stand in its way and, indeed, would do all that he could to maintain the continuity of government while it took place. Only practical doubts held him back and so he suggested that Fanjul check the opinion of Franco and other generals before making a definite decision. He then passed a sleepless night while Fanjul, Varela, Goded and Franco weighed up the chances of success. All were aware of the problem presented by the fact that there was every likelihood that the Civil Guard and the police would oppose a coup. 66