Paul Preston - Franco

At the meeting held at the Palazzo Venezia on the evening of 14 January 1937, Hitler’s representative was Hermann Göring. * Mussolini was irritated that Italo-German aid, rather than spurring Franco on to greater efforts, merely permitted him to indulge his natural inclination to wear down the Republic by a slow campaign of attrition. Göring agreed that, if Franco had known how to use it properly, the Italo-German material and technical assistance was enough to have permitted him to win already. The Air Minister declared bitterly that the recognition of Franco before the capture of Madrid had been a major error to remedy which it was agreed that he would have to be subjected to ‘energetic pressure’ to accelerate his operations and make full use of the lavish means put at his disposal.

Despite his expressions of solidarity with Mussolini, fear of international complications impelled Göring to say that Germany could not send a division to Spain. This left the immediate task of preventing Franco being defeated to the Duce who was disappointed but not unhappy to be the senior partner in Spain. Declaring that Franco must win, he said that there were no longer any restraints on his actions in Spain. To ensure that Franco adopt a more energetic policy, it was decided to oblige him to accept the joint Italo-German general staff. Mussolini and Göring agreed that to ensure Franco’s victory before, as they wrongly imagined would happen, the British erected an effective blockade to stop foreign intervention, * substantial additional aid would have to be sent to Spain by the end of January. Mussolini suggested telling Franco that thereafter there would be no more help. 79

On the day after the meeting in the Palazzo Venezia, the chiefs of staff of the Italian military ministries met at the Palazzo Chigi with the staff of the Ufficio Spagna and Ciano’s representative Anfuso to discuss the minimum programme of aid to Franco. Partly out of contempt for Franco’s generalship and partly out of a desire to monopolize the anticipated triumph for Fascism, it was agreed that the Italian contingent must be used as an independent force under an Italian general only nominally responsible to Franco’s overall command. Three possibilities were outlined for the decisive action by which Italian forces would win the war for Franco. Mussolini favoured a massive assault from Teruel to Valencia to cut off Catalonia from the rest of Spain. This was to be preceded by the terror bombing of Valencia. However, it was acknowledged that such an operation required the full co-operation of Franco. A second option was a march from Sigüenza to Guadalajara to tighten irrevocably the Nationalist grip on Madrid. The third more limited possibility was the capture of Málaga to provide a seaport nearer to Italy and a launching pad for an attack on Valencia from the south-west. 80

After his failures around Madrid, Franco had little choice but to grit his teeth and acquiesce in the demeaning Italo-German suggestions which were communicated to him by Anfuso on 23 January. The document presented by Anfuso made it clear that international circumstances prevented aid being continued indefinitely. 81 At first, the Generalísimo seemed perplexed. 82 However, on the following day, he gave Anfuso a note expressing his thanks for Italo-German help and a desperate plea for it to continue for at least another three months. 83 The prospect of the British imposing an effective blockade galvanized him into giving serious consideration to the three strategic proposals made by the Italians. In effusively thanking Mussolini for his assistance, Franco told Anfuso that he would now accelerate the end of the war by undertaking a great decisive action. On 26 January, he accepted Roatta’s suggestion that, henceforth, the regular high-level advice of Faupel and Roatta on major strategic issues would be implemented by Franco’s own staff, in which were to be included ten senior German and Italian officers. 84 Mussolini considered that he could send instructions to Franco as to a subordinate. 85

Sensitive to any slur or slight, Franco cannot fail to have resented the clear insinuation of German and Italian disdain for his military prowess. Nevertheless, he showed no sign of it and accepted, along with the imposition of foreign staff officers, Mussolini’s strategic suggestions. According to Kindelán, anxious to play down Franco’s deference to the Duce, the Generalísimo was unsure of the military value of the new arrivals, despite the fact that they were well-equipped by comparison with his own troops and many had had experience in the Abyssinian war. He thus decided to test them in a relatively easy campaign in the south. 86

It is indeed the case that, to offset the failure in Madrid, the Generalísimo had already accepted a proposal from Queipo for a piecemeal advance towards Málaga. A sporadic campaign to mop up the rest of Andalusia, as savage and bloodthirsty as the march on Madrid, had been intensified in mid-December with considerable success. 87 However, after the arrival of Italian troops, the nature of the campaign changed dramatically. Rather than Franco skilfully blooding them in a campaign of his choice, they were engaged in an operation chosen by Mussolini. As the Black Shirts were setting out, Mussolini had reminded Roatta on 18 December 1936 of his own long-held conviction that a major attack should be launched against Málaga. Roatta immediately informed Franco of the Duce’s preference and found him grudgingly amenable ( sufficientemente propenso ) to it. Thereafter, the Duce followed the progress of the attack with an enthusiasm commensurate with it having been his own brainchild. 88

Franco wanted to incorporate the newly arrived Italians into mixed units on the Madrid front but had to acquiesce in Mussolini’s desire to see them operate autonomously in Andalusia. 89 In the light of the thin and scattered defences of Málaga, Roatta wanted a guerra celere (rapid strike) attack by his own motorised columns whereas Franco favoured Queipo’s original proposal for a gradual but thorough conquest of Republican territory. Franco was not much interested in a lightning victory for which Mussolini could take the credit and which might end the war before his leadership was consolidated. On 27 December, Roatta effectively overruled the Generalísimo’s preference for a slow advance backed up by political purges. They reached a compromise in which both types of assault would take place simultaneously. Franco had to bite his tongue when his request for two Italian motorised companies for the Madrid front was rejected by Roatta on the grounds of his own greater needs in preparing the attack on Málaga. On 9 January 1937, an optimistic Roatta and a sceptical Queipo agreed a division of responsibilities which reflected Franco’s concessions. 90 Under the direction of Queipo de Llano who was installed on the battlecruiser Canarias , and of Roatta on land, two columns began to advance in mid-January. By the end of the month after the capture of Alhama on the Málaga-Granada road, they were ready for the final push.

Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, Chief of Staff of the Condor Legion, wrote in his diary on 3 February ‘nothing is known about the Italians, their whereabouts and their intentions. Franco knows nothing either. He really ought to go to Seville to put himself in the picture and hope for a share of the Málaga victory laurels.’ 91 To make good his ignorance and to give the impression of overall control of events, Franco was already travelling from Salamanca to Seville on 3 February, the same day on which, in torrential rain, the Italo-Spanish forces moved on Málaga. The advance took the form of troops distributed in a large concentric circle, the Spanish units moving eastwards from Marbella and the Italian motorized columns racing south west from Alhama without concern for their flanks. 92 The Generalísimo visited the front and on 5 February at Antequera discussed the progress of the campaign with Queipo and Roatta. Convinced that the operation was going to be succesful, he did not wait for the fall of Málaga but returned to Seville on 6 February and to Salamanca on the following day to oversee a new push on the Madrid front. 93