Paul Preston - The Last Days of the Spanish Republic

In the wake of the Francoist promises, Casado had lunch in Valencia with Generals Matallana, Miaja and Leopoldo Menéndez (commander of the Army of the Levante). The exact date is not known but it was probably on 2 or 3 February, certainly before Negrín returned from France. Nor is it known if it was before or after Casado’s meeting with Besteiro. In his later account, Casado claimed that he and the three generals had agreed that, in the event of Negrín returning to the central zone, they would create a National Defence Junta (Consejo Nacional de Defensa) to overthrow the Prime Minister. ‘The three generals, without argument, regarded themselves as committed to this course of action, with all its consequences.’ However, Miaja’s secretary, his nephew Lieutenant Fernando Rodríguez Miaja, who was present at the lunch at his uncle’s residence, gives a very different account. The four main protagonists were accompanied by their adjutants and there were twelve people around the table.

What became obvious during the meal was Colonel Casado’s profound discontent with Dr Negrín, against whom he let loose a stream of insults. He ate nothing and drank only milk because the gastric ulcer which exacerbated his evil temper, already bitter and disagreeable by nature, had worsened in recent weeks. Obviously, in front of that audience, even though it was quite small, he did not reveal any intention of organizing a coup against the government … The other guests also expressed their dissatisfaction with the way the war was being run but not in the extremely violent terms used by Casado. 24

In Negrín’s continued absence at the French–Catalan border, Casado was increasingly indiscreet about his determination to bring an end to the war. This was revealed at a meeting held in the afternoon and evening of either 7 or 8 February at Los Llanos in Albacete, the headquarters of the air force in the centre-south zone. The property of the Marqués de Larios, Los Llanos was a country house previously used as a hunting lodge but converted into a hospital for wounded airmen. The estate surrounding the house was used as an aerodrome. 25The proceedings of this gathering can be reconstructed thanks to a memoir by José Manuel Vidal Zapater, at the time a young airman who was charged with taking the minutes. The meeting was convened by Jesús Hernández in his capacity as commissar general of the Group of Armies of the Centre and was an attempt to get the top brass in the central zone to commit to continued resistance. Among the approximately ten senior officers present were Casado, Matallana, Miaja, Colonels Domingo Moriones Larraga and Antonio Escobar Huertas (respectively commanders of the armies of Andalusia and of Extremadura), Colonel Antonio Camacho Benítez, commander of the air force in the centre-south zone, and the commander of the fleet, Admiral Buiza.

With the Army of Catalonia in the process of crossing into France, Hernández was effectively the senior civilian authority in the army (after Negrín as Minister of Defence and Prime Minister). The officers present (mainly career officers whose service pre-dated 1936) intensely resented commissars in general and Hernández in particular. The first item of business was the launch by Hernández of a dramatic manifesto to the nation, calling for last-ditch resistance and the mobilization of the remaining drafts of conscripts. His presentation was repeatedly and rudely interrupted by Casado, whose hostile reaction effectively revealed what he was up to. Rather more politely, the other officers present supported Casado’s remarks about the impossibility of continuing the war. Buiza stressed the precarious situation of the Republican navy and Colonel Camacho spoke in deeply pessimistic terms of the massive superiority of the Francoist air force, with nearly 1,500 aircraft opposed to the Republic’s barely 100 usable machines. The only officer who did not oppose Hernández was Miaja who, after a heavy lunch, gave the impression of being asleep. He woke once, pointing at Vidal Zapater and asking Matallana who he was. When Matallana replied that he was a stenographer, Miaja, being rather deaf, asked again, and Matallana shouted, ‘A stenographer!’ Miaja then returned to his siesta. Vidal Zapater suspected that this was a pantomime on Miaja’s part to save him from having to take sides openly. In contrast, Casado’s recklessness may well have been part of his efforts to secure allies within the high command. 26

That Casado should have proceeded with his anti-Negrín plans after the ratification a few days later, on 9 February, of Franco’s Law of Political Responsibilities was a measure of the vehement anti-communism that he shared with the Caudillo. Retroactive to October 1934 and published on 13 February, the law aimed to ‘punish the guilt of those who contributed by acts or omissions to foment red subversion, to keep it alive for more than two years and thereby undermine the providential and historically inevitable triumph of the National Movement’. The law deemed all Republicans to be guilty of the crime of military rebellion. 27The arrogance and egoism that underlay Casado’s actions persuaded him that the law could not possibly be applied to him. Even before he got the requested letter from Barrón, on 10 February, Colonel Ungría had received a message from one of his agents which read: ‘Casado in agreement with Besteiro, he requests that the lives of decent officers be respected.’ This extremely limited, not to say selfish, request suggests that Casado and his closest collaborators believed that some sort of esprit de corps united professional officers on both sides of the lines and exempted them from Franco’s vengeful plans. It is clear that he was happy to pay for Franco’s mercy in Communist blood. As he later revealed to his contacts in the Fifth Column, Casado’s intention was to escape. At the same time, his rhetoric was about astounding the world with an historic achievement, the bloodless end to the Civil War. Presumably, he could have escaped at any time but to have done so would have covered him in shame, whereas, he believed, his plan would allow him to escape covered in glory.

Whether he realized it or not, Casado was about to sacrifice thousands of civilian lives. Even if Franco’s promises of immunity for professional soldiers were to be believed, his entire conduct of the war, his recent declarations and the publication of the Law of Political Responsibilities should have shown Casado that the surrender that he was contemplating would have bloody consequences for the Republican population. Franco had turned away from several opportunities to end the conflict quickly, preferring instead a slow war of attrition aimed at annihilating the Republic’s mass support. As his declarations to the United Press in early November 1938 had made clear, there would be no amnesty for the Republicans.

Negrín, in contrast, had long since been tortured by a sense of responsibility towards the Republican population. In July 1938, when a senior Republican figure, almost certainly Azaña, suggested that an agreement with the rebels was an inevitable necessity, he responded: ‘Make a pact? And what about the poor soldier of Medellín?’ At the time, Medellín, near Don Benito, was the furthermost point on the Extremadura front and about to fall. Since Franco demanded total surrender, Negrín knew that, at best, a mediated peace might secure the escape of several hundred, maybe some thousands, of political figures but that the army and the great majority of ordinary Republicans would be at the mercy of the Francoists, who would be pitiless. 28Knowing that Franco would not consider an armistice, Negrín refused to contemplate unconditional surrender. On 7 August, he had said to his friend Juan Simeón Vidarte: ‘I will not hand over hundreds of defenceless Spaniards who are fighting heroically for the Republic so that Franco can have the pleasure of shooting them as he has done in his own Galicia, in Andalusia, in the Basque country and all those places where the hoofs of Attila’s horse have left their mark.’ 29