Paul Preston - The Last Days of the Spanish Republic

It is certainly the case that the defeat of the Spanish Republic was already in sight. What remained possible, however, was to ensure that the war ended in such a way as to secure the evacuation of the most at-risk politicians and soldiers and guarantees for the civilian population to be left behind. As Negrín had commented to Juan-Simeón Vidarte of the executive committee of the Spanish Socialist Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español, or PSOE): ‘A negotiated peace, always; unconditional surrender to let them shoot half a million Spaniards, never.’ 5Ernest Hemingway summed up Negrín’s position as follows: ‘In a war you can never admit, even to yourself, that it is lost. Because when you will admit it is lost you are beaten. The one who being beaten refuses to admit and fights on the longest wins in all finish fights; unless of course he is killed, starved out, deprived of weapons or betrayed. All of these things happened to the Spanish people. They were killed in vast numbers, starved out, deprived of weapons and betrayed.’ 6With the Spanish Republic exhausted and internationally isolated, Casado’s fateful initiative merely precipitated its defeat in the worst imaginable conditions. His revolt against the Republican government sparked off a mini-civil war in Madrid, ensuring the deaths of 2,000 people, mainly Communists, and undermined the evacuation plans for hundreds of thousands of other Republicans. 7

It has been suggested that what happened was the consequence of the ‘fact’ that Casado was a British agent. It is unlikely that he was an ‘agent’ or even in receipt of payment, but he was certainly in touch with British representatives – the Chargé d’Affaires Ralph Skrine Stevenson and Howard Denys Russell Cowan of the Chetwode Commission, which was trying to arrange prisoner exchanges. Given that the British government had long assumed that the Republic would be defeated, and wished to be free of what was seen as an unnecessary problem, there can be little doubt that Stevenson and Cowan at the very least encouraged Casado in his efforts to end the war. The ex-Communist Francisco-Félix Montiel claimed that ‘London was behind Casado.’ 8At the end of February 1939, Casado met some Communist officers at his headquarters on the eastern outskirts of Madrid, given the military codename ‘Posición Jaca’. Completely out of context, he assured them that ‘the rumours that he was an agent of British intelligence were not true and it was not at his initiative that members of the British Embassy visited him and showered him with attention’. 9Within Negrín’s entourage there was a belief in British involvement in the coup. In 1962, the American journalist Jay Allen wrote to another newspaperman Louis Fischer, both friends of Negrín, ‘Who, besides Rafael Méndez, whose address I don’t have, could fill me in on the role of the British Intelligence agent who helped pull off the Casado coup?’ 10

Casado was born on 10 October 1893 in Nava de la Asunción in the province of Segovia. He was brought up under the strict discipline imposed by his father, an infantry captain, and became an officer cadet himself at the age of fifteen. He graduated as a first lieutenant in 1920 and made his career as a desk officer, albeit a very competent one. Apart from a brief and relatively tranquil eight-month period in Morocco, he had no battlefield experience. He had no political links, although in January 1935 he was appointed head of the presidential escort of Niceto Alcalá Zamora, whom he admired. After Alcalá had been replaced by Manuel Azaña in May 1936, Casado, who had reached the rank of major, found the post much less agreeable. In August 1936, he resigned from the presidential guard on the grounds that working with Azaña was ‘a horrible torture’. Promoted to lieutenant colonel, he then became chief of operations of the general staff when Francisco Largo Caballero became Prime Minister and Minister of Defence. When Vicente Rojo was made chief of staff, a promotion that Casado never forgave since he aspired to the post himself, he became inspector general of the cavalry but deeply resented Rojo and the Communists. His battlefield experiences at Brunete in July and Zaragoza in October 1937 were not crowned with success. Nevertheless, in 1938, by now promoted to full colonel, he was given two important posts, as head of the Army of Andalusia and shortly afterwards as head of the Army of the Centre. 11He seems to have held an extremely cordial meeting with the PCE top brass in Madrid on 25 July 1938. One of the topics discussed was how, in the event of Republican defeat, a staged evacuation might be mounted. Francisco-Félix Montiel claimed later that the purpose of this meeting was for the PCE to ensure that an incompetent traitor was in place to bring the war to an end in such a way as to absolve the party of responsibility. In fact, it is much more likely that the purpose of the meeting was to ensure the loyalty of Casado and the Army of the Centre just as the Republican army was crossing the Ebro, in the last great push for victory. If the Communists doubted Casado’s loyalty, Rojo doubted his competence. 12

Casado was an irascible officer noted for his rectitude and austerity. In fact, his evil temper and his ascetic way of life were to some extent explained by the painful stomach ulcers from which he suffered. When the vice-president of the Socialist General Union of Workers (Unión General de Trabajadores, or UGT), Edmundo Domínguez Aragonés, was appointed commissar inspector of the Army of the Centre at the end of December 1938, he went to introduce himself to Casado. He found him prostrate on his bed. Casado’s unprovoked and gratuitous assertions of loyalty rang alarm bells: ‘I am a soldier whose only duty is to respect and obey the Government. You can see just how committed I am to this duty because anyone else in my situation, with an ulcer tearing through his guts, would have ample excuse to abandon it all and look after his health. Not me. Madrid has been entrusted to me and I will defend it or die trying. If I left, they would say that I am a coward.’ Domínguez was struck by the way in which, ‘emanating self-satisfaction’, Casado vehemently asserted that his principal concern was to alleviate the suffering of the women and children of the capital. Far from being convinced, Domínguez’s suspicions were aroused that Casado was insincere and trying to hide something. 13

Fernando Rodríguez Miaja, the nephew and private secretary of General José Miaja, the erstwhile hero of the defence of Madrid, had similar doubts about Casado: ‘Intelligent and a technically a good soldier, Casado was ambitious, self-obsessed and histrionic with a bitter and unpleasant character … He had an uncontrollable desire to be always pre-eminent, in the limelight and centre-stage. He lived and behaved only in the first person singular. These characteristics of his personality had a great bearing on the way the Spanish war ended.’ 14

It is certainly the case that his behaviour during the last months of the Spanish Civil War suggest a self-serving arrogance which fed the ambition to go down in history as the man who ended the war. This was brazenly revealed in the dedication (to M.O.) of the memoir written shortly after his arrival in London in 1939. He wrote sarcastically: ‘I left my country because I committed the grave fault of ending a fratricidal struggle, sparing my people much sterile bloodshed.’ He went on to comment on the historical transcendence of his actions. 15While still in Spain he had told Dr Diego Medina Garijo, his personal physician and a member of the Francoist Fifth Column, that it was his intention to astound the world. 16This rather sustains the judgement of Vicente Rojo that Casado was a vacuous and sinister megalomaniac: ‘Casado is all talk. Casado does not serve the people and he never has. He is the most political and most crooked and fainthearted of the career officers in the Republican ranks.’ 17Even more caustic was the opinion of Dolores Ibárruri, the Communist orator famed as ‘Pasionaria’: ‘It is difficult to conceive of more slippery and cowardly vermin than Colonel Segismundo Casado.’ 18