Paul Preston - Franco

* An aide was appointed specifically to to carry it and to guard it against loss or theft. Occasionally, over the years, the nuns wrote to Franco requesting that he return the hand if only for a period of loan of a month, three weeks or a fortnight. Franco, fearful that he would not get it back, never complied, arranging instead for his faithful cousin Pacón to send a charitable donation to pacify them.

ALTHOUGH THINGS were taking a turn for the worse militarily, Franco dismissed out of hand any suggestions of a compromise peace with the Republicans or even with the profoundly Catholic Basques. Proposals to this end made by the Vatican were discussed by the Generalísimo and Cardinal Gomá in mid-February. Although respectful with the Primate, Franco had rejected anything less than outright surrender, refusing to negotiate with, and therefore recognize the authority of, those whom he held responsible for the present situation in the Basque Country. Gomá reported to Rome that Franco saw any mediation as merely putting off the necessary solution of a political and historical problem, by which he meant the eradication of Basque nationalism. Negotiations meant concessions and concessions meant ‘rewarding rebellion’ and would raise the expectations of other regions. 1 Franco’s negative attitude to mediation of any kind reflected his perception of the war as an all-or-nothing, life-or-death struggle which had to end with the total annihilation of the Republic and its supporters.

This was certainly the impression given to the Italians. When Cantalupo’s credentials arrived from Rome, he was received officially on 1 March with a scale of splendour which not only underlined the value that Franco placed on Italian assistance but also reflected his own taste for pomp. Any hopes harboured by his fellow generals that Franco considered his headship of the State to be at all provisional must by now have started to wither. The imposing ostentation and grandeur with which the Caudillo surrounded his public appearances resounded with permanence. Cantalupo was treated to eight military bands. The colourful ranks of Falangist, Carlist and other militias, Spanish, Italian and Moorish troops formed up in a solemn procession through Salamanca’s enormous but elegantly proportioned Plaza Mayor to the Palacio del Ayuntamiento. The Generalísimo arrived in the square escorted by his Moorish Guard, resplendent in their blue cloaks and shining breastplates. It recalled the entry of Alfonso XIII into Melilla in 1927, an occasion on which he was accompanied by Franco, who was increasingly indulging his own taste for royal ceremony. His arrival was greeted with the chant of ‘Franco! Franco! Franco!’. He received Cantalupo in a salon magnificently adorned for the occasion with sixteenth-century Spanish tapestries and seventeenth-century porcelain. During the ceremony, Franco was accompanied by Mola, Kindelán, Cabanellas, Dávila and Queipo de Llano as well as a veritable court of other army officers and functionaries in full dress uniform. Yet, Franco himself did not match the regal show and an unimpressed Cantalupo wrote to Rome ‘He stepped out with me on the balcony that offered an incredible spectacle of the immense square but was incapable of saying anything to the people that applauded and waited to be harangued; he had become cold, glassy and feminine again’. 2

Away from the pomp of Salamanca, Roatta, Faldella and other senior Italian officers were shocked by the relentless repression behind the lines. 3 Cantalupo requested instructions from Rome and on 2 March Ciano told him to inform Franco of the Italian Government’s view that some moderation in the reprisals would be prudent because unrestrained brutality could only increase the duration of the war. When Cantalupo saw Franco on 3 March, the Caudillo was fully prepared for the meeting. Cantalupo appealled to him to slow down the mass executions in Málaga in order to limit the international outcry. Denying all personal responsibility and lamenting the difficulties of controlling the situation at a distance, Franco claimed that the massacres were over ‘except for those carried out by uncontrollable elements’. In fact, the slaughter hardly diminished but its judicial basis was changed. Random killings were now replaced by summary executions under the responsibility of the local military authorities. Franco claimed to have sent instructions for greater clemency to be shown to the rabble ( masse incolte ) and continued severity against ‘leaders and criminals’ as a result of which only one in every five of those tried was now being shot.

Nevertheless, Rome continued to receive horrifying accounts from the Italian Consul in Málaga, Bianchi. * On 7 March, Cantalupo was instructed to go to Málaga but Franco persuaded him that the situation was too dangerous for a visit. Nevertheless, the Generalísimo did undertake to have two military judges removed. 4 Franco’s proclaimed difficulties about curtailing the killings in Málaga contrasted starkly with his response to a complaint by Cardinal Gomá about the shooting of Basque Nationalist priests in late October 1936. Valuing the good opinion of the Church more than that of the Italians, he replied instantaneously: ‘Your Eminence can rest assured that this stops immediately’. Shortly thereafter, Sangróniz confirmed to Gomá that ‘energetic measures had been taken’. 5

At this time, Franco himself was sufficiently concerned by the unfavourable publicity provoked by the blanket repression to give a brilliantly ambiguous interview on the subject to Randolph Churchill. It was clear that in describing his policy as one of ‘humane and equitable clemency’, Franco’s meaning differed considerably from the way in which his words were understood by Churchill and his readers. Franco declared that ‘ringleaders and those guilty of murder’ would receive the death penalty, ‘just retribution’, but claimed mendaciously that all would be given fair trials, with defence counsel and ‘the fullest opportunity to state his case and call witnesses’. He omitted to mention that the defence counsel would be named by the court and would often outdo the prosecutors in demanding fierce sentences. Similarly, when Franco said that ‘when we have won, we shall have to consolidate our victory, pacify the discontented elements and unite the country’, Churchill could have no idea of the scale of the blood that would be shed or of the terror which would be deployed to realize those ends. 6

For most of the Civil War, those Republican prisoners not summarily executed as they were captured or murdered behind the lines by Falangist terror squads were subjected to cursory courts martial. Often large numbers of defendants would be tried together, accused of generalised crimes and given little opportunity to defend themselves. The death sentences passed merely needed the signature ( enterado ) of the general commanding the province. As a result of the Italian protests, from March 1937 death sentences had to be sent to the Generalísimo’s headquarters for confirmation or pardon. The last word on death sentences lay with Franco, not as Head of State, but as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. In this area, his close confidant was Lieutenant-Colonel Lorenzo Martínez Fuset of the military juridical corps, who was auditor del Cuartel General del Generalísimo (legal adviser to headquarters). Franco insisted on seeing the death sentences personally, although he spent little time on reaching a decision. Martínez Fuset would bring folders of death sentences to Franco. Despite the regime myth of a tireless and merciful Caudillo agonizing late into the night over death sentences, the reality was much starker. In fact, in Salamanca or in Burgos, after lunch or over coffee, or even in a car speeding to the battle front, the Caudillo would flick through and then sign sheafs of them, often without reading the details but nonetheless specifying the most savage form of execution, strangulation by garrote. Occasionally, he would make a point of decreeing garrote y prensa (garrote reported in the press). 7