The battle for Spain: the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 (66 page)

The communists may not have controlled all the posts in the armed forces, but they certainly held the key administrative ones, to say nothing of the main field commands, with Juan Modesto, Enrique Líster, Valentín González, Etelvino Vega, Manuel Tagüeña, General Walter and so on.

The air force and tank corps were also completely under Soviet control, so every military operation required communist approval. Palmiro Togliatti, in a report back to the Comintern, argued that the Spanish Communist Party should ‘take over the whole apparatus of the ministry of defence and the whole of the army’. In the meantime the republican formations, which had been pushed back into Catalonia during the Aragón campaign, needed time to regroup and rearm, before they could hope to be effective in any way. The Aragón débâcle, following swiftly behind the enormous cost of Teruel, had virtually incapacitated the People’s Army, as Prieto had warned. Little could be done to delay the advance of the Navarrese and Moroccan Corps across northern Aragón, and the loss of the hydroelectric plants in the Pyrenees to the west of the River Segre brought Catalonian industry to a standstill.

In the early part of 1938 the government of Neville Chamberlain (who had succeeded Baldwin in May 1937) took the policy of appeasement to such a point that Anthony Eden resigned as foreign minister on 20 February. This event confirmed the dictators in their belief that they had nothing to fear from Great Britain. Chamberlain’s insistence on an Anglo-Italian treaty, in the hope of drawing her away from the influence of Germany, demonstrated convincingly that Axis intervention in Spain would not be challenged, whatever Negrín’s government might propose at the League of Nations.

As soon as Lord Halifax succeeded Eden as foreign secretary the arrangements for the treaty went ahead, even though more British shipping had been sunk by Italian submarines at the beginning of the month. (Eden had ordered the anti-submarine patrols to be recommenced, noting that ‘the Admiralty feared that this would impair the relations which they had established with General Franco’s Admiral Moreno’.)
³⁰
On 16 April Ciano recorded that ‘at 6.30 p.m. the Pact with England was signed. Lord Perth was moved. He said to me: “You know how much I have wanted this moment to come.” It is true–Perth has been a friend. Witness dozens of his reports which are in our hands.’
³¹
The date of the signing had been chosen to ‘please Halifax as it is his birthday. All very romantic…’ the young fascist foreign minister added sarcastically.
³²
The part of the treaty which affected Spain most directly was the provision that Italy should be allowed to keep its troops there until the end of the war. This agreement was not referred to the signatories of the non-intervention pact, although it was deemed to be still in force. It is not surprising that even Churchill, who had supported non-intervention strongly, later described it as ‘an elaborate system of official humbug’ which had ‘been laboriously maintained’.

The Spanish republican government was horrified by the treaty. Two weeks after it was signed, Negrín launched a vain diplomatic offensive. He issued his ‘Thirteen Points’ plan for establishing what amounted to a caretaker government with free elections to follow.
³³
It was intended as a formula for peace negotiations. According to Stepánov, they had been dictated to him by the central committee of the Spanish Communist Party. They consisted of the following:

1. Assure the absolute independence and integrity of Spain.
   
2. Liberation of Spanish territory from foreign forces.
   
3. The defence of the people’s Republic and of a state based on democratic principles.
   
4. The calling of a plebiscite as soon as the war had ended.
   
5. Without undermining the unity of Spain, the protection and encouragement of the cultures of its various peoples.
   
6. Respect for citizens’ rights: liberty of conscience and religious practice.
   
7. Respect for legal property and foreign capital.
   
8. A profound agrarian reform and democracy in the countryside.
   
9. Advanced social legislation to guarantee the rights of workers.
   
10. The improvement of the physical and moral culture of the nation.
    
11. An army independent of political parties and to be the instrument of the people.
    
12. The renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy.
    
13. A broad amnesty for all Spaniards.
    

Needless to say, there was not a single point which Franco would be prepared to consider. Time and again he had insisted that no peace deal was possible. Faupel had reported to Berlin in May 1937: ‘Franco rejected any idea of a compromise as completely impossible, stating that the war would under all circumstances be fought to a final decision.’
³⁴
Serrano Súñer said a few days later, ‘Sooner or later there would have to be elections. Since red propaganda in Spain, however, is at present undoubtedly far more clever and effective than that of the whites and since, moreover, red propaganda would have the support of the Marxists, Jews and Freemasons of the entire world, these elections would necessarily lead to the formation of a government, the political composition of which would be decidedly leftist, openly anti-German, and anti-national socialist…We cannot therefore have the slightest interest in a compromise solution in Spain.’
³⁵
Once again Franco told Faupel that ‘he and all Spanish nationalists would rather die than place the fate of Spain once again in the hands of a red or democratic government’.
³⁶
Even the philo-communist Álvarez del Vayo told a French reporter that ‘after so much blood had been shed he considered impossible any mediation between the two parties, as suggested by Mr Churchill’.
³⁷

So it is difficult to know what Negrín hoped to achieve in the way of a settlement. Was this just an appeal to the democracies to change their position, or a deliberate provocation of the nationalists, who were bound to reject every single one of his points? And yet Negrín, despite his overt rejection of the realism of Azaña and Prieto, was carrying out a number of secret overtures aimed at a peace settlement. It is impossible to tell, but one thing is certain. Negrín had great confidence in his diplomatic talents. He felt that all he needed was a single military victory to force the enemy to the negotiating table. This was to lead to the final, self-inflicted disaster of the Spanish Republic.

Arriba España!

N
othing deflected General Franco from his ultimate goal in the war: the total destruction of his enemies and the transformation of Spain. His collaborators in this grand project from the start had been his brother Nicolás, Generals Kindelán, Orgaz and Millán Astray, and then, from February 1937, his ambitious brother-in-law Ramón Serrano Súñer.

Faced with the simplicity of Franco’s ideas, as well as those of the other generals, Serrano Súñer saw the possibilities for his own advancement in the hierarchy of the state. Their simple military government was effective enough to win the war (he called it the ‘army camp state’), but it would hardly appear very convincing to the civilized world after the fighting was over.
¹

Once Franco had achieved absolute command of all the armed forces and had made himself the supreme leader of the National Movement, ‘responsible only to God and to History’, the time had come to replace the Junta Técnica of the early days with a formal government. On 30 January 1938, Franco constituted his first cabinet of ministers and established the Law for the Central Administration of the State. ‘The presidency [of the council of ministers] remains tied to the chief of state. The ministers will constitute the government of the nation. The ministers will swear an oath of loyalty to the chief of state and to the nationalist regime.’ And the chief of state assumed in addition ‘the supreme power to dictate juridical norms of a general character’. This in effect meant that the nationalist head of state personally enjoyed total power, executive, legislative and judicial.

In the creation of the three key ministries, defence, public order and foreign affairs, all controlled by generals, the army camp was still clearly at work.
²
These senior officers and their departments were simply extensions of the Generalissimo’s headquarters. The three ministries controlled by Falangists were linked to the ministry of the interior and the controlling influence of Serrano Súñer, who ran his domain with an iron hand. He achieved supremacy over the civil governors and moved two of his own supporters, José Antonio Giménez Arnau and Dionisio Ridruejo, to take over the direction of press and propaganda. Serrano ˜er even had a say in the appointment of his fellow ministers, suggesting most of the names himself. He somehow persuaded Franco to appoint Amado, a former colleague of Calvo Sotelo, as minister of finance, despite Franco’s dislike of him for having been very critical of his brother Nicolás. He also managed to get the Caudillo to appoint the monarchist Sáinz Rodríguez, whom Franco suspected of being a Freemason.

The day after forming his new government in Burgos, Franco received members of the diplomatic corps, among whom was Robert Hodgson, then the British agent accredited to the nationalist government. Hodgson appears to have been charmed by the Caudillo.
³
On 12 February, in the Monastery de las Huelgas, the ministers swore their loyalty to Franco with the following declaration: ‘I swear in the name of God and his holy evangelists to accomplish my duty as minister of Spain with the strictest loyalty to the head of state, the Generalissimo of our glorious forces, and to the constitutional principles of the national regime to serve the destiny of the Fatherland.’ There was no mention either of a republic or of a monarchy, only of the Generalissimo himself, who would define the national regime as he saw fit.

During March, General Franco approved all the decrees which Serrano Súñer passed him to sign, including those abolishing the liberty of meeting or of association. The ministries of justice and education went to work reversing all republican legislation to do with the Church or teaching. Schools were handed over to the ecclesiastical authorities to control. Crucifixes would hang in every classroom. The most important decree was the Fuero del Trabajo, or Right of Work, which was a combination of the Church’s social doctrine, as expressed in the encyclical
Rerum Novarum
, the 26 points of the Falange and some elements of the Italian fascist
Carta del Lavoro
. Above all, it decreed the disappearance of class struggle in Spain, which would be replaced by a vertical association of bosses and workers. It also emphasized the desire of the regime to exercise a completely dirigiste control of the economy.

Over the following months the legislative machinery did not halt. Decrees were issued covering every aspect of life, from abolishing republican public holidays and choosing new ones, the design of the currency and postage stamps (usually the effigies of El Cid or the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, or the symbols of the new state). The Statute of Catalonia was abolished on 5 April and on 22 April the Law of the Press was introduced, placing all publications at the service of Franco. The purpose was to punish ‘any piece of writing which, directly or indirectly, tended to diminish the prestige of the nation, or of the regime, undermine the work of government in the new state or sow pernicious ideas among those of feeble intellect’. The Law of the Press, ˜er, remained in force until 1966. On 21 May Castilian was pronounced the only official language. Basque or Catalan could no longer be spoken in public. On 7 July the sentence of death was rather belatedly made official again. Meanwhile, Pedro Sáinz Rodríguez began to overhaul primary education, with classes of religious and patriotic education. All foreign influences were rooted out, even in sport. Only recognizably Spanish sports, such as the game of
pelota
, were to be allowed.

In May the Portuguese government formally recognized Franco’s government and the Vatican appointed Cardinal Cicognani as papal nuncio. Franco also annulled all republican decrees expelling the Jesuits. He returned their properties and privileges. The head of the order, Vladimir Ledochovsky, thanked the Caudillo, declaring that ‘at the moment of his death, the 30,000 Jesuits in the world would give three masses for the soul of the Generalissimo’,
⁴
an exchange very much to the advantage of the Company of Jesus. Franco, however, intended to make sure that the Church in Spain was no more than another lobby, along with the Carlists, the Falangists and his own generals.
⁵
He insisted that he should have the right to confirm or reject the appointment of bishops, the old prerogative of the monarchy.

Another question which preoccupied Franco during the spring of 1938 was the treatment of prisoners of war. Following the collapse of the republican northern front and the offensive in Aragón, there were another 72,000 of them, bringing the total captured to more than 160,000, according to the head of the Inspección de Campos de Concentración de Prisioneros, which came directly under Franco’s headquarters.
⁶
By the end of the war the figure reached 367,000. Prisoners were held in ordinary jails, camps, castles, convents, monasteries, cinemas and prison ships. The problem was how to identify the ‘
irrecuperables
’, who were usually executed, and those who had been led astray and could be reeducated back to the nationalist cause.

Since the
coup d’état
in 1936 had been successful in the main regions of agricultural production, nationalist Spain, unlike the republican zone, never suffered from food shortages, even in 1938 when the economy declined. Industrial production also increased and not just because of the conquest of the north.
⁷
This was because factory owners and managers had not fled. A similar process took place in the conquered territories. In addition, the nationalists carried out a very effective commercial and economic policy, such as Queipo de Llano’s development of Andalucian trade. The nationalist authorities maintained an iron grip and centralized control over agricultural and industrial production, and of inter-although introduced as a wartime provision, according to Serrano Su ´n national trade. Monetary policy was also tightly controlled. By the end of the war, the nationalist peseta had lost only 27.7 per cent of its value.
⁸