1939: Spain

Résumé of Civil War and Last Months.

The early months of 1939 saw the end of a civil war that opened in July 1936, five months after an election had resulted in a sweeping victory for a Popular Front of liberal and radical political groups. The Insurgents were led throughout by General Francisco Franco, who raised the standard of revolt on July 17, 1936, in Morocco. Trained at the military academy at Toledo and later a student of military tactics at Berlin, Dresden and Versailles, General Franco served as Chief of the General Staff of the Republic in 1934, but, falling under suspicion of lukewarmness towards a republican government that had army reform and reduction on its program, had been removed from the capital to honorable banishment as Military Governor of the Canary Islands. From there, with a number of other generals in like circumstances, he planned the movement that he inaugurated in July 1936. From the first he had the backing in the peninsula of the most conservative elements of Spanish society — the landowners, the clergy, practically all the army officers and technicians, most of the rank and file of the regular army, half of the navy and half of the air force, as well as the monarchical Carlists of Aragon and Navarre. From beyond Spanish borders Moroccan troops led by General Yagüe played a prominent part, while from further afield the Insurgent movement derived an extraordinary amount of support from both Italy and Germany. Italy maintained a force of from 50,000 to 70,000 troops in Spain and also aided with a large air force of some 500 planes which, from a base on the island of Majorca, carried out numerous air raids on Loyalist coastal towns and shipping. German aid took the form of technical assistance from a corps of German officers with further assistance in airplanes and munitions.

In a campaign based on early possession of cities in southern Spain General Franco in 1936 drove northward through western Spain keeping close to a friendly Portuguese border, and in the course of the first year and a half's fighting overwhelmed resistance in the Basque provinces and Asturias and then settled down to the harder tasks of reducing Madrid, Catalonia and Valencia to terms. An appreciable step in this direction was taken when in April 1938 a drive eastward down the valley of the Ebro reached the Mediterranean Sea beyond Tortosa, splitting Loyalist Spain in two. In these movements, under General Franco as generalissimo, General Emilio Mola commanded the army of the north, General Queipo de Llano that of the south.

As a larger and larger section of Spain was swept into the Insurgents' net there took shape behind the lines a one-party totalitarian state centered at Burgos and headed by General Franco assisted by the National Council of the Falange Party and a smaller executive council. Meanwhile, in Government Spain, direction of political affairs changed more frequently as the state structure staggered under successive military losses and different parties within the Popular Front won control over policies. Dr. Juan Negrin, a moderate Socialist, taking office in May 1937, was the fourth Prime Minister since the opening of the war. The capital was moved from Madrid to Valencia in November 1936 and to Barcelona in October 1937. Russian assistance in material arrived for the Loyalists at a crucial moment in the first autumn of the war, and international brigades of individual sympathizers who volunteered their services were organized. These latter, which never exceeded 25,000, were disbanded in the autumn of 1938 under the supervision of an international commission appointed by the League of Nations at the request of the Negrin Government. The friendly democracies of France and England, intent on localizing the war, carried through a non-intervention policy and so deprived the Government side of an amount of foreign assistance proportionate to that received by the Insurgents.

As the last month of 1938 opened, General Franco, after two and a half years of war, controlled two-thirds of Spain including the southern, northern and western portions of the country. His northern territory since 1937 included the defeated Basque provinces which at the opening of the war, despite their Catholicism, had thrown in their lot with the Government that had promised them regional autonomy. The Government-controlled lands lay in central and eastern Spain with resistance centering principally in the three cities of Barcelona. Valencia and Madrid. In the spring of 1938 General Franco had succeeded in driving a wedge between the three sections of this territory and so separating Barcelona from Valencia in the south and Madrid in the center. A later Insurgent advance southward along the coast from the lower Ebro toward Sagunto and Valencia had met stiff resistance and had been stayed by a Loyalist counter drive southward across the Ebro in the Gandesa sector. This advance had forced General Franco to abandon the southern coastal movement while he stopped the new advance by a costly effort.

Since that achievement in the middle of November there had been no appreciable change, though Loyalist cities had continued to be bombed by sea and air with a resultant heavy toll of life, and at sea attacks continued on Government shipping and large supplies of grain and munitions were seized by the Insurgents. Some observers believed that the Government had at last found the secret of successful resistance and that their defeat could only be brought about either by starvation through a tightening of the food blockade, which apparently would only be achievable if Franco could secure a recognition of belligerency from France and England, or, by renewal of aerial bombing on as huge a scale as that which had marked the raids of the previous March. That they were mistaken, the defeat and the breaking up of the Government defenses under a renewed general attack was to prove in the course of the next month.

The terms on which the Government would be willing to close the conflict without further fighting had been published for several months. Dr. Negrin, the Prime Minister, had announced in the previous May a program of Thirteen Points which had the approval of all parties and organizations in Loyalist Spain. It called for peace on the basis of (1) the absolute independence and territorial integrity of Spain, (2) the ejection of all foreign elements, (3) a republican government based on the principle of pure democracy, (4) a national plebiscite to determine the legal and social structure of the republic, (5) respect for regional liberties without prejudice to Spanish unity, (6) guarantees of civil and social rights, liberty of conscience and the full exercise of religious belief and practice, (7) the guarantee by the state of property legally acquired 'subject to the supreme interest of the nation,' (8) radical agrarian reform, (9) advanced social legislation, (10) cultural, physical and moral improvement of the nation to be the primary concern of the state, (11) the army to be free from all hegemony, (12) the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy and the continuation of support of the League of Nations, (13) complete amnesty for all Spain. In fundamental disagreement on many points in this program General Franco, on the last item, held that he could not accept the principle of general amnesty because of 'the bitterness engendered by the murder of thousands of Nationalist sympathizers in the early months of the war.' The solution must evidently come via the military route.

It came with dramatic suddenness two days before Christmas, 1938. Since the battle of the Ebro five weeks earlier, there had been quiet on the Catalonian front but on Dec. 23 an intense bombardment of Loyalist positions along the Segre River in western Catalonia opened a new Insurgent offensive and the Christmas season of 1938, like that of 1937, was marked by desperate fighting. Despite the hard winter season and the exhaustion of his troops from the recent Ebro campaign, General Franco was resolved to take advantage of the Government's shortage of munitions, planes and food supplies and regain the initiative which had been lost in the preceding July. On a line west of the Segre River along a battle front of 100 to 125 miles from Tremp in the North (about forty miles south of the French border) to the lower Ebro, the drive pushed towards the two greatest of the Catalonian cities, Tarragona and Barcelona.

Using seven army corps that included Moorish legionaries and four divisions of Italians, together with Aragonese and Navarrese troops, supported by unprecedented numbers of planes, tanks and a great store of artillery, and with heavy reinforcements concentrated behind Lerida and Balaguer, General Franco, after heavy artillery and airplane initial bombardment, advanced toward Tarragona in a series of rapid and irresistible drives. In the course of a fortnight Balaguer, Pons, Artesa de Segre, Doncell, Grandella and Borjas Blancas fell. At the same time a drive southward along the coast towards Sagunto and Valencia was undertaken by a second Insurgent army known as 'the army of the Levant' under the command of General Oswaldo Orgaz in a movement with which a fleet off Tarragona cooperated closely.

In both movements, but especially in the battles along the western Catalonian front, the Insurgents possessed overwhelming material superiority. Experienced observers reported that artillery attacking the front at Balaguer averaged one cannon for every 10 or 11 yards, representing the greatest concentration of artillery since the World War. It was said, that it was not unusual before attacks for 10,000 shells to be fired against Loyalist positions on a narrow sector. In man power the Insurgents used at least 300,000 men, twice as many as in any previous drive. The Loyalists were reported as obviously outnumbered.

The Loyalists tried to create a diversion by a drive in Estremadura aimed at the mines of Penaroya in the neighborhood of Cordova, but though they advanced some 21 miles they did not succeed in outflanking or breaking the Insurgent lines in that sector or causing a halt in the Nationalist drive on the Ebro. By Jan. 15 the Insurgents had swept into Tarragona and had taken it with scarcely a shot fired within the environs of the city itself. Some 70,000 people fled from this city as the church bells of Burgos rang out proclaiming a public holiday in Nationalist Spain in celebration of a great victory. From this point onwards Government forces gave ground rapidly. There was little further formal resistance. General Franco's troops headed by General Yagüe with his Moorish troops, and, supported by Italian troops and tanks, poured into practically undefended Barcelona on Jan. 26. The house to house defense of the Catalonian capital that had been looked for failed to develop. Instead, a defeated, demoralized army of over 200,000 men retreated towards the French frontier while the Loyalist government retired from Barcelona first to Figueras in northern Catalonia and from there to France. The lack of resistance after the capture of Tarragona was ascribed in part to the great disparity in guns and military equipment, partly to the effects of prolonged semi-starvation and partly to the effect of Nationalist propaganda. The retreating army, broken by the hopeless struggle of the preceding 33 days and nights, without munitions or adequate food, was followed to the border by thousands of refugees in one of the greatest mass flights in history.

By Feb. 10 the only considerable centers of resistance left in Loyalist hands were Madrid, Valencia, and Cartagena. Resistance from these centers and ten other provincial capitals seemed hopeless, but a fight to the bitter end, unless General Franco would promise a plebiscite, freedom from foreign control and clemency for Loyalist supporters, was urged by Premier Negrin, who returned by air from France to Madrid. A majority of a Cortes of 62 members held in Figueras supported him in this attitude which, however, was opposed by the judgment of President Azana and a majority of the Cabinet. General Franco refused to consider anything but unconditional surrender and sent armies against Madrid and Valencia.

National Defense Council Set Up in Madrid.

Believing Premier Negrin's policy futile and realizing that large numbers were already deserting to the Nationalist lines, the military leaders of Madrid, headed by General Sigismundo Casado, set up a National Defense Council with the Loyalist generalissimo José Miaja as President and prepared to open negotiations with General Franco. Premier Negrin and his cabinet, in danger of arrest, made a last minute flight to France, while General Miaja issued a broadcast urging surrender. 'There is no longer,' he said, 'any hope of winning the war. Assistance from abroad is also hopeless. Nevertheless we will fight to the last drop of our blood unless we are assured of Spanish independence and the expulsion of the foreigner.' Even this assurance was withheld. General Franco insisted on unconditional surrender and threatened that further resistance would be 'inexorably punished.'

Communist Uprising and Surrender of Madrid.

Meanwhile the assumption of power by the generals produced a series of uprisings by the Communists of Madrid who were determined to resist to the bitter end and threatened to seize power. The movement started on March 8 in the Communist section of the city called Cuarto Camines and for a week civil conflict raged within the city and was not put down until machine guns had been used and 15,000 Communists had been arrested. Madrid finally surrendered on March 28 after the city had withstood siege for nearly 29 months. Meanwhile a mutiny in the Loyalist naval port of Cartagena demanded the surrender of the fleet to General Franco. Finally 11 ships and 3,000 men put to sea and entered the Tunisian port of Bizerta and were interned. The end came on March 28 when Madrid surrendered and was followed in 24 hours by the ten provincial capitals of Valencia, Murcia, Alicante, Cuenca, Almeria, Jaen, Ciudad Real, Guadalajara, Cartagena and Albacete. General Miaja and his suite escaped by plane to Algiers. Only Julian Besteiro remained of the Loyalist ministers to make the official transfer of the city. He was promptly arrested. In the general populace of the surrendered cities famine conditions were everywhere imminent partly because the normal populations of these towns had been swollen to many times their normal size by refugees. As the Insurgent troops moved in, accompanied by welcome soup kitchens and food trucks, many Franco sympathizers dropped their disguise and welcomed the Nationalist troops vociferously. They were soon joined by 18,000 political prisoners freed by the victorious army.

Penalties Imposed upon Loyalists.

With the close of military operations the punishment of those who had opposed General Franco's movement proceeded apace through the operation of a special military tribunal called the Nationalist Tribunal of Political Responsibility and its regional courts. These courts functioned for the trial of persons accused of common law crimes as well as those accused of the political crime of 'putting obstacles in the path of the providential and inevitable triumph of the national government.' Before the war ended General Franco had said, 'We have more than 2,000,000 persons card indexed with proofs of their crimes, names and witnesses. Those who are granted an amnesty are demoralized.' Members of more than 25 organizations were said to be on the condemned list while the secret police claimed that 25,000 Nationalists had been murdered by Loyalists who must now be punished. The most notorious of the trials was that of Julian Besteiro, a socialist leader who had been a professor of philosophy at Madrid University and in 1931 was president of the Cortes. In his case the death penalty was demanded on the ground that he had 'spent his life teaching doctrines that fostered disorder and rebellion among the masses,' but he was given 30 years imprisonment.

In August an incident involving the shooting of two Civil Guards and a daughter of one of them by three men from a concentration camp was followed by the execution before the firing squad of 62 persons as a general warning against plots and conspiracies directed against the new government. 'New Spain,' it was said, 'is not able to permit and will not permit the slightest attempt against the state.'

Despite these outstanding cases the death penalty, according to official records, has only been imposed on slightly over one in 200 of those tried, and only carried out when approved personally by General Franco. In those cases where murder was not involved large numbers were given the opportunity of earning 'redemption through the penalty of labor' — securing release through work on the new reconstruction program. Of 650,000 so employed half were said to be engaged in building roads, bridges and houses, working under military guard and earning four and a half pesetas a day of which two-thirds went to dependents. A July decree stated that all Spaniards between the ages of 18 and 50 must work for the state 15 days each year without pay or give an equivalent sum in wages.

Reconstruction Program.

A large reconstruction program was placed under the direction of Joaquin Benjumea, director of the Bureau of Devastated Areas, who was also made the head of an Institute of Credit. Loans, national and municipal bonds, gifts, fines and confiscations were expected to produce a fund of 10,000,000,000 pesetas for the work of reconstruction. Meanwhile employers were obliged to restore their former jobs to demobilized soldiers of the Nationalist army who were also favored by a decree that required that 80 per cent of all positions open for workers must be reserved for the veterans. The peace time strength of the army was fixed at 300,000, double the number of the days before the war.

Political Reorganization in Spain.

For some months after the surrender of Madrid General Franco's government continued to function from Burgos. It was not until early October that Madrid once more became established as the capital of the nation. Meanwhile in organization and personnel the government continued on a frankly fascist basis. General Franco adopted the title of El Caudillo (The Chief) and the Falange Espanola Tradicionalista remained the only legal political party permitted in the country.

Within this party, conflict between the fascist Falangists and the monarchist Requetes became increasingly bitter as the latter's hopes of a restoration of monarchy faded. While the royal family attended a thanksgiving service in Rome the day after the fall of Barcelona and a decree restored to former Alfonso XIII and his relatives to the fourth degree the private properties that they had owned in Spain before 1931, less and less was heard of the project of bringing back Juan, third son of King Alfonso, the most acceptable of the monarchical candidates, to the land of his fathers as sovereign. Instead, General Franco gave evidence of making all preparations to remain as Spanish Fuehrer in the established fascist model. Finally a decree of Aug. 4 dealing with the form of government made it evident that a decision not to restore the monarchy, at least for the present, had been reached. By the terms of the decree General Franco remained as 'Supreme Chief responsible only before God and history' and will secretly appoint his successor whose name will not be revealed until after the death of the present Caudillo. Though in cases of emergency General Franco retains power to issue decrees, the National Falangist Council of 75 members is recognized as an integral part of the new régime with far-reaching powers over matters of general policy. It is directly responsible to El Caudillo and its Secretary-General is appointed by him. A smaller body, a political Junta of 19 members with a president appointed by General Franco, is also established. Its members are a president, vice-president, secretary, 10 national councillors and one representative each from the foreign department, the department of national education, press and propaganda bureaus, women's section syndicates and the youth organization.

The highest leader of the Falange next to the Caudillo himself had by this time, despite much opposition, come to be Ramón Serrano Suñer, General Franco's brother-in-law, who held office as President and the Council and Minister of Government. Like his distinguished relative, Senor Serrano Suñer is not only an enthusiastic advocate of totalitarianism but in foreign policy believes in cultivating Italian and German connections and is not in favor, as are a number of outstanding military men, of cultivating better relations with England and France economically and politically for the sake of winning greater independence for Spain. Of other Falangist leaders receiving cabinet appointments, the most outstanding were General Augustin Muñoz Grande, who became Secretary General of the Falangist party, and Colonel Juan Beigbeder y Atienza, High Commissioner of Morocco, who was appointed Foreign Minister. Not all members of the government are Falangists and pro-axis sympathizers but the majority fall into these categories.

In these political circumstances indications multiplied during the autumn that disappointed monarchists, despairing republicans and unhappy regionalists were discovering a common bond and were swinging toward the idea of a common anti-Fascist program calling for a constitutional monarchy under Anglo-French guarantees. Persecuted Catalans were said to be entering the ranks of the Requetes and the Requetes were becoming more sympathetic towards the persecuted republicans and regionalists.

That General Franco meant to press forward with his announced policy of stamping out all traces of historical regional autonomy and ambitions and insisting on a highly centralized system was indicated by various reports, seeping through the strict censorship, of repressive measures employed in the Catalonian area for the suppression of Catalan political parties, newspapers, books, cultural institutes, various forms of art and literature, and other regional organizations and interests. That the same policy was being pursued in the Asturian and Navarrese regions was indicated by reports of a series of disturbances in these sections during the summer months. Few details of the uprisings, however, were allowed to reach the outside world. Travel in the interior of Spain continued to be forbidden and military passes remained in general use. (See also FASCISM.)

Religious Questions.

Under the new régime the church is reported to be returning to its pre-republican status, having recovered not only much of the property taken from it under republican domination but also its authoritative position in the field of education. The Jesuit order, the one religious order dissolved under the Republic, and in the vanguard of those supporting the Franco movement, has also received back many of its confiscated properties. On Nov. 15 the practice provided for in the Concordat of 1851, but discontinued under the Republic, of the government making an annual grant of 62,000,000 pesetas for the payment of salaries for the clergy, was resumed. Additional funds were at the same time granted for the restoration and repair of damaged church structures. The Vatican has refused to recognize this action, as putting into operation the old Concordat under the terms of which General Franco would have the right to appoint the bishops and religious disputes would be settled by a Spanish and not a papal tribunal. As General Franco is anxious for the removal of several bishops whom he considers hostile to the Falangist Government the controversy threatens to become a heated one.

With monarchists, regionalists, republicans, many militarists, the Catholic Action party, and some bishops, all in their several degrees dissatisfied, and with economic problems of the first magnitude sprung from the devastation of the civil war, on his hands, General Franco's task within Spanish borders at the close of 1939 appeared a heavy one.

Foreign Relations.

In the field of foreign relations General Franco on the close of the civil war made it clear that although his government had received de jure recognition from Great Britain and France shortly after the fall of Barcelona, in the framing of his future course he meant not to forget the favors that he had received in his progress upward to supreme control. Although he received French and British envoys, he announced on April 7 Spain's adherence to the Anti-Comintern Pact, and in June dispatched Senor Serrano Suñer on a visit to Italy where he entered into negotiations looking towards closer cultural relations with Italy as well as concluding arrangements for the return home of the Italian troops. The triumphant reception of these troops later in the month in both Italy and Germany provided several occasions for official speeches emphasizing the extent of human and material aid they had extended to the Franco cause.

In July came an official visit to Spain from the Italian foreign minister. Landing at Tarragona and accompanied by 8 Italian war ships and some 45 prominent Fascists including naval, air, military, and foreign affairs experts, Count Ciano made a triumphant tour of the peninsula. On his departure Fascist trends were reported to have been strengthened. The decree of August 4 establishing the form of government was greeted with great satisfaction in Italy, where the press declared that 'the régime has all the characteristics of a Fascist party' and remarked 'as is reasonable, it fully utilized the 20 years' experience of Italian Fascism.' Spain's two supreme organisms could be compared, it was pointed out, to the Fascist Grand Council and the National Directorate, while the mass of members parallels the Fascist militia. (See also ITALY.)

Meanwhile Great Britain and France, having pursued their policy of non-intervention to the end in their determination not to allow the Spanish civil war to become a general European conflict, made efforts to establish friendly relations with the de facto Spanish Government. As her first agent France sent to Burgos Léon Bérard, a French Franco Sympathizer, to make provision for the repatriation of the Spanish refugees and to reconstitute Franco-Spanish commerce on a basis as close to the pre-war standard as possible. In return for friendship and a promise from General Franco not to institute wholesale reprisals against the Loyalists, this French agent offered the gold and art treasures that the Loyalist government had sent to the Bank of France for safe keeping. France was in great embarrassment over the Spanish refugee problem. Not only was the financial burden very heavy but her lack of preparedness of effective measures to provide for the thousands of Spaniards fleeing over winter roads before the victorious Franco army had caused great misery among the unfortunate refugees — said to number upwards of 400,000 — and brought severe criticism upon the French Government in the foreign press.

After making provision for the gradual return of the refugees and the turning over of the art treasures, Bérard returned to France and in March was replaced by Marshal Henri Pétain as Franco's first ambassador to the Franco Government. Marshal Pétain's principal task was to secure a satisfactory commercial treaty. France, like Great Britain, wished to buy Spanish iron, mercury, copper, lead and other minerals while Spain was anxious to use these much needed war materials as a lever to help her dispose of her oranges, lemons, olive oil and other agricultural products. Half of her trade in 1938 had been with Germany and as the new war increasingly shut off this outlet agreement with the Allies became urgent. Despite these favorable conditions, however, the year closed without the conclusion of permanent treaties with either England or France. English negotiations were held up because of British insistence that some of the proceeds of Spanish exports should be applied to debts owing to British concerns since before the civil war. French negotiations proceeded favorably for months and seemed on the point of success when on Dec. 20 they were suddenly suspended by the French ambassador, who declared that the Spanish Government seemed unable to understand the extent of the concessions that France had made to reach an agreement and that his government therefore believed it would be better to wait two weeks or so before resuming the conversations. Under the terms of the proposed treaty each nation was to have purchased from the other 600,000,000 francs' worth of goods in the next few months. One half of the French purchases from Spain were to be in the form of 100,000 tons of oranges and the remaining half in metals. Spain's purchases from France were to include 100,000 tons of wheat as half of the total and the remainder was to take the form of various kinds of manufactured goods. The breakdown of negotiations was held to be due to the opposition of a German trade mission to Spain at the head of which was Dr. Helmuth Wohlthat, an economic adviser of Marshal Goering.

Spain Declares for Neutrality.

The news of the signing of the German-Russian pact apparently came with special shock to Spain where the substantial German aid to the Insurgent cause in the civil war had been represented as based on the menace of Russian Communism to the western world. On Sept. 3, General Franco made an appeal by radio for the localization of the Polish-German war. Speaking from his experience he urged that an extension of hostilities from the natural theater of war not only would be a great responsibility but would not benefit the belligerents and would produce 'profound and insurmountable disturbances in the economy of the world, incalculable losses in its wealth and paralysis of its commerce, with grave repercussions in the standards of living of humble people.' A decree of strict neutrality in Spain on Sept. 4 was followed a month later by an appeal for peace. On this occasion General Franco declared that 'the Russian incursion in Europe is a matter of the deepest gravity: nobody can hide that fact. It is necessary to agree quickly on some step to avoid greater damage. The evil must be minimized so that from the East of Europe will not come ever stronger dangers for the spirit of Europe.' To the close of 1939 there was no indication that General Franco, now that he had more or less consolidated his rule, meant either to turn against his erstwhile allies the great mass of Italian and German war materials which remain in Spain, or on the other hand to join Germany in the war against England and France. As the year ended he seemed determined to maintain a neutrality as strict as that of the United States.