Paul Preston - Franco

Franco’s English teacher wrote later that ‘the morning after the news of Calvo Sotelo’s murder had reached us, I had found him a changed man, when he came for his lessons. He looked ten years older, and had obviously not slept all night. For the first time, he came near to something like losing his iron self-control and unalterable serenity … It was with visible effort that he attended to his lesson.’ 57 The heady decisiveness with which Franco responded to the news is not incompatible with Dora Lennard’s comment on his sleepless night. * The decision was of sufficient enormity to provoke agonizing doubts, as his precautions for the safety of his wife and daughter demonstrated.

Later, the assassination of Calvo Sotelo was used to obscure the fact that the coup of 17–18 July had been long in the making. It also deprived the conspirators of a powerful and charismatic leader. As a cosmopolitan rightist of wide political experience, Calvo Sotelo would have been the senior civilian after the coup and unlike many of the ciphers that were to be used by Franco. It is difficult not to imagine that he would have imposed his personality on the post-war state. His death, even if no one could have judged it in such terms at the time, removed an important political rival to Franco.

In the short term, Calvo Sotelo’s assassination gave a new urgency to plans for the uprising. The Dragón Rapide had left Bolín in Casablanca and was still en route for the Canary Islands. It arrived at 14.40 on 14 July at the airport of Gando near Las Palmas on the island of Gran Canaria. Hugh Pollard and the two girls took a ferry to Tenerife where he was to make known his arrival by presenting himself at the Clínica Costa with the password ‘ Galicia saluda a Francia ’. Bebb was left with the aircraft on Gran Canaria to await instructions from an unknown emissary who would make himself known with the password ‘Mutt and Jeff’. Meanwhile, at 2 a.m. on the morning of 15 July, the sleek diplomat José Antonio Sangróniz appeared at Pacón’s hotel room in Santa Cruz de Tenerife with news of the latest developments and the date scheduled for the rising. At 7.30 a.m. on the same morning, Pollard went to the clinic where he contacted Doctor Luis Gabarda, a major of the military medical service, who was acting on behalf of Franco. He was told to return to his hotel and await an emissary from Franco with his instructions. 58

Franco had acute immediate problems which took precedence over any long-term ambitions. As military commander of the Canary Islands, his headquarters were in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The Dragon Rapide from Croydon had been instructed to land at the airport of Gando on Gran Canaria in part because it was nearer to mainland Africa, also because it was known that Franco was being watched by the police but, above all, because of the low cloud and thick fog which afflicts Tenerife. In order to travel from Santa Cruz to Gran Canaria, Franco needed the authorization of the Ministry of War. His request for permission to make an inspection tour of Gran Canaria was likely to be turned down, not least because it was barely a fortnight since his last one. The rising was scheduled to start on 18 July, so Franco would have to leave for Morocco on that day at the latest. In the event he did so, yet none of his biographers seem to regard it as odd that the Dragon Rapide should have been directed to Gran Canaria with confidence in Franco’s ability to get there too. That he got there at all was the result of either a remarkable coincidence or foul play.

On the morning of 16 July, Franco failed to appear for his scheduled English lesson. 59 On the same morning, General Amado Balmes, military commander in Gran Canaria, and an excellent marksman, was shot in the stomach while trying out various pistols in a shooting range. Francoist historiography has played down the incident as a tragic, but fortunately timed, accident. Allegedly, a pistol blocked and in trying to free it, holding it against his stomach, it went off. 60 To counter suggestions that Balmes was assassinated, Franco’s official biographers have claimed that Balmes was himself an important figure in the plot. His cousin has portrayed Balmes as an intimate friend of Franco. Balmes was allegedly to organize the coup in Las Palmas and thus had to be replaced by Orgaz who was conveniently exiled there. 61 Strangely, however, Balmes never figured in the subsequent Pantheon of heroes of the ‘Crusade’. Moreover, it is extraordinary that, despite the fact that Madrid did indeed refuse permission for Franco to travel to Gran Canaria to make an inspection, he and his immediate circle never doubted that they would find a way of getting to Las Palmas. Other sources suggest that Balmes was a loyal Republican officer and member of the Unión Militar Republicana Antifascista who had withstood intense pressure to join the rising. 62 If that was true, he had, like many other Republican officers, put his life in mortal danger. It is virtually impossible now to say if his death was accidental, suicide or murder.

What is certain is that he died at the exact moment urgently needed by Franco. The duty of presiding at the funeral gave Franco the perfect excuse to travel to Gran Canaria on the overnight boat. Franco was determined to go without seeking permission for fear that it might be denied. His cousin persuaded him that it would be altogether less suspicious for him to ring the Ministry and inform the under-secretary, General De la Cruz Boullosa. Franco agreed with what turned out to be good advice. The under-secretary expressed surprise that Franco had not been in touch earlier to report on the death of Balmes. He gave the excuse that he had been seeking fuller information on what had happened and was granted permission to preside over the burial. Franco left Tenerife for Las Palmas in the mail-boat Viera y Clavijo shortly after midnight on 16 July. He was accompanied by his wife and daughter, Lieutenant-Colonel Franco Salgado-Araujo, Major Lorenzo Martínez Fuset and an escort consisting of five other officers. They arrived at Las Palmas at 8.30 a.m. on Friday 17 July. Pollard had returned to Las Palmas on the same ferry. Before leaving Tenerife, Franco had collected Sangróniz’s diplomatic passport and gave Colonel González Peral the proclamation of the military rebellion to be used on the following morning. Bebb and Pollard made the final arrangements with General Orgaz. The funeral ceremony for Balmes occupied most of the morning. Franco then took his wife and daughter for a drive around the town. Later, they dined with Pacón and Orgaz. 63

Coordinated risings were planned to take place all over Spain on the following morning. However, indications that the conspirators in Morocco were about to be arrested led to the action being brought forward there to the early evening of 17 July. The garrisons rose in Melilla, Tetuan and Ceuta in Morocco. At 4 a.m. in the morning of 18 July, Franco was woken in his hotel room to be given the news. Colonel Luis Solans, Lieutenant-Colonel Seguí and Colonel Darío Gazapo had seized Melilla ‘in Franco’s name’ and arrested the overall military commander in Morocco, the Republican General Gómez Morato. Yagüe had taken charge in Ceuta and Colonels Eduardo Saénz de Buruaga, Juan Beigbeder and Carlos Asensio Cabanillas had taken Tetuán. Franco was to have reason to be grateful for the role of Beigbeder, an accomplished Arabist, in taking over the Spanish High Commission and subsequently securing Moroccan acquiescence in the rising. 64

On hearing of their successes, Franco set out for military headquarters in Las Palmas accompanied by his cousin and Major Martínez Fuset and sent for Orgaz to join them there. Franco then sent a telegram to the eight divisional headquarters and the other main military centres of the peninsula. The news that Franco and the Army of Africa were on the side of the rebels was meant as a rallying cry to the conspirators in other areas: ‘Glory to the Army of Africa. Spain above all. Receive the enthusiastic greeting of these garrisons which join you and other comrades in the peninsula in these historic moments. Blind faith in our triumph. Long live Spain with honour. General Franco.’ The sending of such a telegram was an unequivocal indication that Franco attributed to himself a central national role in the rising. At 5.00 a.m. on 18 July, he signed a declaration of martial law. It was to be announced in Las Palmas by an infantry company complete with bugles and drums. At about the same time, a desperate telephone call for Franco came from the undersecretary of the Ministry of War in Madrid, General De la Cruz Boullosa. Martínez Fuset answered and claimed that Franco was out inspecting barracks. 65