Paul Preston - Franco

At about 3.15 a.m. on 17 February, Gil Robles presented himself at the Ministerio de la Gobernación and asked to see Portela. The CEDA leader was outraged to discover that Portela had gone to his rooms at the Hotel Palace. Portela was woken to be told that Gil Robles was waiting to see him. Three quarters of an hour later, the Prime Minister arrived. Gil Robles, claiming to speak in the name of all the forces of the right, told him that the Popular Front successes meant violence and anarchy and asked him to declare martial law. Portela replied that his job had been to preside over the elections and no more. He was, nevertheless, sufficiently convinced by Gil Robles to agree to declare a State of Alert (a stage prior to martial law) and to telephone Alcalá Zamora and ask him to authorize decrees suspending constitutional guarantees and imposing martial law. 79

At the same time, Gil Robles sent his private secretary, the Conde de Peña Castillo, to instruct his one-time aide Major Manuel Carrasco Verde to contact Franco. Carrasco was to inform Franco of what was happening and urge him to add his weight to Gil Robles’ pleas urging Portela not to resign and to bring in the Army. Carrasco woke the Chief of the General Staff at home with the message. Franco leapt to the unjustified conclusion that the election results were the first victory of the Comintern plan to take over Spain. Accordingly, he sent Carrasco to warn Colonel Galarza and instruct him to have key UME officers alerted in provincial garrisons. Franco then telephoned General Pozas, Director-General of the Civil Guard, an old Africanista who was nonetheless loyal to the Republic. He told Pozas that the results meant disorder and revolution. Franco proposed, in terms so guarded as to be almost incomprehensible, that Pozas join in an action to impose order. Pozas dismissed his fears and told him calmly that the crowds in the street were merely ‘the legitimate expression of republican joy’.

Disappointed by Pozas’s cool reception, Franco was driven by further news of crowds in the streets and sightings of clenched fist salutes to put pressure on the Minister of War, General Nicolás Molero. He visited him in his rooms and tried unsuccessfully to get him to seize the initiative and declare martial law. Finally convinced by Franco’s arguments about the Communist danger, Molero agreed to force Portela to call a cabinet meeting to discuss the declaration of martial law. Primed by Franco as to what to say, Molero rang Portela and a cabinet meeting was arranged for later that morning. Franco was convinced that the session was called because of his pressure on Molero although it is likely that a meeting would have been held anyway. 80

Franco decided that it was essential to get Portela to use his authority and order Pozas to use the Civil Guard against the populace. He approached their mutual friend, Natalio Rivas, to see if he could arrange a meeting. By mid-morning, Franco had managed to get an appointment to see Portela, but not until 7 p.m. In the meanwhile, at mid-day, the cabinet met, under the chairmanship of Alcalá Zamora, and declared, as Portela had promised Gil Robles, a State of Alert for eight days. It also approved, and the President signed, a decree of martial law to be kept in reserve and used as and when Portela judged necessary. 81 Franco had gone to his office and been further alarmed by reports of minor incidents of disorder which arrived in the course of the morning. So he sent an emissary to General Pozas, asking him, rather more directly than some hours earlier, to use his men ‘to hold back the forces of the revolution’. Pozas again refused. General Molero was totally ineffective and Franco was virtually running the Ministry. He spoke to Generals Goded and Rodríguez del Barrio to see if the units under their command could be relied upon if necessary. Shortly after the cabinet meeting ended, Franco took it upon himself to try to put into action the blank decree of martial law, which Portela had been granted by the cabinet. Franco had learned of the existence of the decree from Molero who had been at the cabinet meeting. 82

Within minutes of being telephoned by Molero, Franco used the existence of the decree as a threadbare cloak of legality behind which to try to get local commanders to declare martial law. Franco was effectively trying to revert to the role that he had played during the Asturian crisis, assuming the de facto powers of both Minister of War and Minister of the Interior. In fact, the particular circumstances of October 1934 – a workers’ uprising, the formal declaration of martial law and the total confidence placed in him by the then Minister of War, Diego Hidalgo, – did not now exist. The Chief of the General Staff had no business usurping the job of the Head of the Civil Guard. However, Franco followed his instincts and, in response to orders emanating from his office in the Ministry of War, martial law ( estado de guerra ) was actually declared in Zaragoza, Valencia, Oviedo and Alicante. Similar declarations were about to made in Huesca, Córdoba and Granada. 83 Too few local commanders responded, the majority replying that their officers would not support a movement if it had to be against the Civil Guard and the Assault Guards. When local Civil Guard commanders rang Madrid to check if it were true that martial law had been declared, Pozas assured them that it had not. 84 Franco’s initiative came to naught.

So, when Franco finally saw the Prime Minister in the evening, he was careful to play it both ways. In the most courteous terms, Franco told Portela that, in view of the dangers constituted by a possible Popular Front government, he offered him his support and that of the Army if he would stay in power. He made it clear that Portela’s agreement would remove the obstacle to an Army take-over most feared by the officer corps, the opposition of the police and the Civil Guard to military action. ‘The Army does not have the moral unity at this moment to undertake the task of saving Spain. Your intervention is necessary because you have authority over Pozas and can draw on the unlimited resources of the State, with the police at your orders.’ However, Franco spent much of the short interview shoring up his own personal position by trying to convince the Prime Minister that he personally was not involved in any kind of conspiracy. Franco told Portela’s political secretary, his nephew José Martí de Veses, that he was completely indifferent to politics and was concerned only with his military duties. 85

Despite Portela’s outright refusal to take up the offers of support from both Gil Robles and Franco, efforts to organise military intervention continued. The key issue remained the attitude of the Civil Guard. In the evening of 17 February, in an attempt to build on Franco’s efforts earlier in the day, General Goded tried to bring out the troops of the Montaña barracks in Madrid. However, the officers of that and other garrisons refused to rebel without a guarantee that the Civil Guard would not oppose them. It was believed in government circles that Franco was deeply involved in Goded’s initiative. Pozas, backed up by General Miguel Núñez de Prado, head of the police, was convinced that Franco was conspiring. However, they reassured Portela on the 18th with the words ‘the Civil Guard will oppose any coup attempt ( militarada )’, and Pozas surrounded all suspect garrisons with detachments of the Civil Guard. 86 Just before midnight on the 18th, José Calvo Sotelo and the militant Carlist Joaquín Bau went to see Portela in the Hotel Palace and urged him to call on Franco, the officers of the Madrid military garrison and the Civil Guard to impose order. 87 All this activity around Portela and the failure of Goded justified Franco’s instinctive suspicions that the Army was not yet ready for a coup.