Paul Preston - Franco

Specifying press coverage was not just a way of intensifying the pain of the families of the condemned men but also had the wider objective of demoralizing the enemy with evidence of inexorable might and implacable terror. That was one of the lessons of war learnt by Franco in Morocco. At one lunch in the winter of 1936–37, the case of four captured Republican militiawomen was discussed. Johannes Bernhardt who was present was taken aback by the casual way Franco, in the same tone that he would use to discuss the weather, passed judgement, ‘There is nothing else to be done. Shoot them.’ 8 He could be gratuitously vindictive. On one occasion, having discovered that General Miaja’s son had been tried and absolved by a Nationalist tribunal in Seville, Franco intervened personally to have him rearrested and retried in Burgos. There was some doubt as to whether Captain Miaja had voluntarily come over to the Nationalists or been captured. Accordingly, the Burgos court issued a light sentence so Franco had the unfortunate young Miaja tried again in Valladolid. In Valladolid, the military tribunal found him not guilty and set him free. At this point, Franco intervened again and quite arbitrarily had him sent to a concentration camp at Miranda del Ebro where he remained until he was freed in a prisoner exchange for Miguel Primo de Rivera. 9

Throughout 1937 and 1938, his brother-in-law and close political adviser, Ramón Serrano Suñer often tried to persuade him to adopt more juridically sound procedures and Franco consistently refused, saying ‘keep out of this. Soldiers don’t like civilians intervening in affairs connected with the application of their code of justice.’ 10 At one point, Serrano Suñer tried to arrange a reprieve for a Republican army officer. After first telling him that it was none of his business, Franco finally yielded to his brother-in-law’s pressure and undertook to do something. If Franco had wanted to help, he could have done so. As it was, four days later, he told Serrano Suñer that ‘the Army won’t put up with it, because this man was head of Azaña’s guard.’ 11 Serrano Suñer and Dionisio Ridruejo both alleged that the Caudillo arranged for reprieves for death sentences to arrive only after the execution had already been carried out. 12

Like Hitler, Franco had plenty of collaborators willing to undertake the detailed work of repression and, also like the Führer, he was able to distance himself from the process. Nonetheless, since he was the supreme authority within the system of military justice, there is no dispute as to where ultimate responsibility lay. Franco was aware that some of his subordinates enjoyed the bloodthirsty work of the repression. His Director-General of Prisons, Joaquin del Moral, was notorious for the prurient delight he derived from executions. General Cabanellas protested to Franco about the distasteful dawn excursions organized in Burgos by Del Moral in order to enjoy the day’s shootings. Franco did nothing. He was fully conscious of the extent to which the repression not only terrified the enemy but also inextricably tied those involved in its implementation to his own survival. Their complicity ensured that they would cling to him as the only bulwark against the possible revenge of their victims. 13

In early March, to the chagrin of Cantalupo, Mussolini sent Roberto Farinacci, the powerful Fascist boss of Cremona, as his personal envoy to inform Franco of his ‘ideas about the future’ which involved placing a Prince of Savoy on the throne of Spain. That idea was politely but firmly rejected by Franco. However, the Caudillo was more amenable when Farinacci tried to convince him to create a fascist-style ‘Spanish National Party’ in order to control every aspect of political life. Delighted to be discussing ‘his’ future State, and clearly unencumbered by any inhibitions about the provisional nature of his mandate, Franco said that he was not planning to rely on either the Falangist or the Carlists in his post-war reconstruction. In rejecting the idea of an Italian prince, he made it clear that the restoration of the monarchy was anything but an immediate prospect, saying ‘First, I have to create the nation: then we will decide whether it is a good idea to name a king.’ It encapsulated the political philosophy which was to keep him in power until his death in 1975. Farinacci was not impressed with Franco, describing him in a letter to Mussolini as ‘a rather timid man whose face is certainly not that of a condottiere ’. He was overheard by agents of the Spanish secret police declaring that Mussolini would have to take over Spain and appoint him as pro-consul. In particular, he thought, like Himmler later, that the slaughter of prisoners taking place behind the Nationalist lines was politically senseless and he protested in vain to Franco. He also made contact with the Falangist leader Manuel Hedilla as well as with Nicolás Franco in the hope of accelerating the fusion of Falangists and Carlists. 14

The creation of a single party was clearly on Franco’s agenda but he was for the moment totally absorbed by events at the Madrid front. With his forces depleted in the Jarama and in desperate need of a diversion, Franco was anxious for Faldella to implement the proposal made on 13 February for an attack on Guadalajara. Negotiations between the two sides revealed differences over the scope of the enterprise. Roatta and his staff quickly came to suspect that Franco did not want the Italian troops to secure a decisive victory but only to alleviate the pressure on Orgaz’s forces after the bloody stalemate over the Jarama. The Italians regarded the Corpo di Truppe Volontarie as a force of elite shock troops and were determined not to see it worn down in the kind of piecemeal attrition favoured by Franco. 15 Anxious to get the Italians into action, on 1 March, Franco effectively agreed to the Italian plan to close the circle around Madrid, with a joint attack south-west from Sigüenza towards Guadalajara backed up by a north-eastern push by Orgaz towards Alcalá de Henares. He assured Roatta that his forces in the Jarama would operate at the same time as the Italian assault provided that they could be reinforced by one of the newly formed Italo-Spanish mixed brigades. Aware of the weakness of Orgaz’s depleted troops, and fearing that they might not be ready for some days, on 4 March Roatta sent the second mixed brigade to strengthen them. 16

On 5 March, Roatta wrote to Franco, confirming what had been agreed four days earlier and informing him that the Italian forces would start their advance on 8 March. On the same day, Roatta received a reply from Franco couched in guarded and ambiguous terms which revealed a lack of optimism about the Italian hopes of a decisive break-through. Although accepting that Orgaz’s forces would move to link up with the CTV at Pozuelo del Rey to the south-east of Alcalá de Henares, the Generalísimo implied that the extent of their advance would depend entirely on how much resistance they might meet along the way. Since Franco’s letter made no mention of the date of the attack, Roatta took this to signify that he had accepted 8 March. 17 This seemed to be confirmed when, on 6 March, one of Orgaz’s commanders, General Saliquet, ordered an advance in the Jarama towards Pozuelo del Rey for 8 March. On 7 March, the eve of the battle, Roatta telegrammed Rome to say that he was still expecting the supporting action promised by the Spanish forces. 18

Despite different immediate expectations of what would come of the attack, both sides certainly went into the operation talking in similar terms of closing the circle around Madrid. 19 Deceived by the ease of his triumph at Málaga, Roatta was convinced that he could reach Guadalajara before the Republicans could mount any serious counter-attack. Nearly forty-five thousand troops were gathered in three groups for the main attack. 31,218 Italians in three divisions were to be flanked by two smaller Spanish brigades consisting of Legionnaires, Moors and Requetés , jointly under the command of General Moscardó, the hero of the Alcázar. Amply equipped with tanks, pieces of heavy artillery, planes and trucks, it was the most heavily armed motorised force yet to go into action in the war. 20 However, its advantages were diminished by technical deficiencies in the equipment and inadequate preparation of the troops. Mussolini wanted the three Italian divisions to act as a unit because he hoped that they would score up another victory which, like Málaga, would be attributed by the world to Fascism. The mood in the Nationalist headquarters was notably more pessimistic than that of Roatta and his staff. There was considerable resentment among the Nationalist officer corps of sarcastic remarks made by the Italians about why it had taken so long to capture a defenceless city like Madrid. 21