Paul Preston - Franco

In the interim, a beleagured state, under attack from part of its Army and unable to trust most of those who declared themselves loyal, with its judiciary and police force at best divided, saw much day-to-day power pass to ad hoc revolutionary bodies. Under such circumstances, the Republican authorities were unable, in the early weeks and months, to prevent extremist elements committing atrocities against rightists in the Republican zone. This gave a retrospective justification for a military rising which had no prior agreed objectives. The fact that it would be the Communists who eventually took the lead in the restoration of order and the crushing of the revolution was simply ignored by officers like Franco who believed that they had risen to defeat the Communist menace. That generalised objective was the nearest that the conspirators had to a political plan. Franco’s own bizarre declaration in the Canary Islands before setting off for Africa ended ‘Fraternity, Liberty and Equality’. Many of the declarations by other officers ended with the cry ‘ ¡Viva la República! ’. At most, they knew that they planned to set up a military dictatorship, in the specific form of a military directory. 19

Equally vague were the military prognostications. There were those, like General Orgaz, who believed that the rising would have achieved its objectives within a matter of hours or at most days. 20 Mola, realizing the crucial importance of Madrid, and anticipating a possible failure in the capital, expected that a dual advance from Navarre and the south would be necessary and therefore require a short civil war lasting two or three weeks. The reverses of the first few days sowed doubts in the minds of the early optimists. Almost alone among the conspirators, Franco, with his obsessions about the importance of the Civil Guard, had taken a more realistic view. Not even he had anticipated a war which would have gone on much beyond mid-September. However, he took the disappointments of the first few days phlegmatically, resourcefully seeking new solutions and insisting to all around him that they must have ‘blind faith’ in victory. There can be little doubt that his ‘blind faith’ was sincere. It reflected both his temperament and his long-held conviction that superior morale won battles, something learned in Africa. From his first days with the Legion, he retained the belief that morale had to be backed up by iron discipline. The categorical optimism of his first radio broadcasts in Tetuán was complemented with dire warnings about what would happen to those who opposed the rebels. On 21 July, he promised that the disorders (‘ hechos vandálicos ’) of the Popular Front would receive ‘exemplary punishment’. On 22 July, he said ‘for those who persist in opposing us or hope to surrender at the last minute, there will be no pardon’. 21

Unaware as yet of the fate of the rising on the mainland, Franco had set up headquarters in the officers of the Spanish High Commission in Tetuán. One of the first issues with which he had to deal provided an opportunity to demonstrate precisely the kind of iron discipline from which he believed the will to win would grow. On arrival at Tetuán, he was informed that his first cousin Major Ricardo de la Puente Bahamonde had been arrested and was about to undergo a summary court martial for having tried to hold the Sania Ramel airport of Tetuán for the Republic and then, when that was no longer possible, disabling the aircraft there. According to Franco’s niece, he and Ricardo de la Puente were more like brothers than cousins. As adults, their ideological differences became acute. Franco had had him removed from his post during the Asturian rising. In one of their many arguments, Franco once exclaimed ‘one day I’m going to have you shot’. De la Puente was now condemned to death and Franco did nothing to save him. Franco believed that a pardon would have been taken as a sign of weakness, something he was not prepared to risk. Rather than have to decide between approving the death sentence or ordering a pardon, he briefly handed over command to Orgaz and left the final decision to him. 22

While Franco consolidated his hold on Morocco, things were not going well for the Nationalists on the other side of the Straits. The losses of Fanjul in Madrid and Goded in Barcelona were substantial blows. 23 Now, as Mola and other successful conspirators awaited Sanjurjo’s arrival from his Portuguese exile to lead a triumphal march on Madrid, at dawn on 21 July, they received more bad news. 24 Sanjurjo had been killed in bizarre circumstances. On 19 July, Mola’s envoy, Juan Antonio Ansaldo, the monarchist air-ace and playboy who had once organized Falangist terror squads, had arrived in Estoril at the summer house where General Sanjurjo was staying. 25 His tiny Puss Moth bi-plane seemed an odd choice for the mission the more so as the far more suitable Dragon Rapide used by Franco had just landed in Lisbon almost certainly with a view to picking up Sanjurjo. The journey could also have been made by road. However, when Ansaldo arrived, he announced dramatically to an enthusiastic group of Sanjurjo’s hangers-on that he was placing himself at the orders of the Spanish Chief of State. Overcome with emotion at this theatrical display of public respect, Sanjurjo agreed to travel with him. 26

To add to the problems posed by the minuscule scale of Ansaldo’s aeroplane, the Portuguese authorities now intervened. Although Sanjurjo was legally in the country as a tourist, the Portuguese government did not want trouble with Madrid. Accordingly, Ansaldo was obliged to clear customs and depart alone from the airport of Santa Cruz. He was then to return towards Estoril and collect Sanjurjo on 20 July at a disused race-track called La Marinha at Boca do Inferno (the mouth of hell) near Cascaes. In addition to his own rather portly self, Sanjurjo had, according to Ansaldo, a large suitcase containing uniforms and medals for his ceremonial entry into Madrid. The wind forced Ansaldo to take off in the direction of some trees. The overweight aircraft had insufficient lift to prevent the propeller clipping the tree tops. It crashed and burst into flames. Sanjurjo died although his pilot survived. 27 Contrary to Ansaldo’s version, it was later claimed in Portugal that the crash was the result of an anarchist bomb. 28

Whatever the cause, the death of Sanjurjo was to have a profound impact on the course of the war and on the career of General Franco. He was the conspirator’s unanimous choice as leader. Now, with Fanjul and Goded eliminated, his death left Mola as the only general to be a future challenger to Franco. Mola’s position as ‘Director’ of the rising was in any case more than matched by Franco’s control of the Moroccan Army which would soon emerge as the cornerstone of Nationalist success. When war broke out, the military forces in the Peninsula, approximately one hundred and thirty thousand men in the Army and thirty-three thousand Civil Guards, were divided almost equally between rebels and loyalists. However, that broad stalemate was dramatically altered by the fact that the entire Army of Africa was with the rebels. Against the battle-hardened colonial Army, the improvised militiamen and raw conscripts, with neither logistical support nor overall commanders, had little chance. 29 Apart from Mola, the only other potential challenger to Franco’s pre-eminence was the Falangist leader, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, but he was in a Republican prison in Alicante.

In these early days of the rising, it is unlikely that even the quietly ambitious Franco would have been thinking of anything but winning the war. The death of Sanjurjo was a harsh demonstration to the conspirators that the alzamiento was far from the instant success for which they had hoped. The collapse of the revolt in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Málaga and Bilbao obliged the insurgents to evolve a plan of attack to conquer the rest of Spain. Since Madrid was seen as the hub of Republican resistance, their strategy was to take the form of drives on the Spanish capital by Mola’s northern Army and Franco’s African forces. The rebels, however, confronted unexpected problems. Mola’s efforts were to be dissipated by the need to send troops to San Sebastián and to Aragón. Moreover, the mixed columns of soldiers, Carlist Requetés and Falangists sent by Mola against Madrid were surprisingly halted at the Somosierra pass in the Sierra to the north and at the Alto del León to the north-west by the improvised workers’ militias from the capital. Threatened from the Republican-held provinces of Santander, Asturias and the Basque Country, the northern Army was also impeded by lack of arms and ammunition.