1940: Spain

Post - Civil War Conditions.

Spain through 1940, in the second year after the close of the Civil War, presented the appearance of an exhausted country suffering in extreme forms the post-war evils of food scarcity, high prices and widespread apathy, yet ruled by a government determined not only to rebuild quickly but to carry out that reconstruction on Fascist lines. Estimates of a death toll during the war, on the battlefield or before firing squads, of 1,200,000 from a total population of 26,000,000 provided a measuring stick of the nation-wide bitterness and distress. But a New Year's Eve broadcast from El Caudillo gave no hope that amnesty, either for political opponents within the country or political exiles without, formed any part of the government's program. General Franco merely reiterated that his régime was dealing justly with the vanquished and declared that justice required punishment for 'the hundred thousand assassinations committed by the Marxists.' A strict censorship sought to hold from the world any exact knowledge of the extent of the reprisals that thus avowedly constituted a feature of the government's program. That the true picture was a distressing one was clearly evident. Reports reaching the Vatican in January from 'very reliable Spanish sources' placed the number of political prisoners in Spanish jails at 500,000.

Official figures from France of the number of Spanish refugees in that country showed that 180,000 still remained of the 500,000 Spanish Republicans who had fled across the Pyrenees before the advancing Franco forces. Through the early months of the year, widespread agitations in the liberal countries of the world sought to restrain the French government from using official pressure to force the unhappy people back across the Spanish frontier, while havens were sought for them in Spanish America and other democracies. Mexico especially opened her doors and gave to former Spanish Republicans easy access to her citizenship.

Within Spain a small measure of relief for the persecuted vanquished came in the issuance on Jan. 25 of a 'new justice' decree, providing for the establishment in each province of a special Commission for the Examination of Penalties, empowered to propose commutation or reduction of sentences that had been imposed by military tribunals in 150,000 cases. These cases had been heard in regional military courts under the Law of Political Responsibilities of Feb. 13, 1939, in which the categories of guilt were so elastic that any suspect could be tried, and the sentences imposed had been notorious for their ferocity and inequality. One of the best known of the Spanish liberals to suffer execution in this year under sentence from the military tribunals was Luis Companys, former President of the Catalan Republic.

Agricultural Questions.

Charging 'the destruction of the nation's economy by the Marxist government' and declaring that in view of this it 'should surprise nobody that there are shortages of bread or milk, or that transportation of necessaries is slow,' General Franco warned the Spanish people in his New Year's Eve address that they must prepare for greater sacrifices to pay for the war and post-war destruction. His efforts toward this goal took several directions, principally reconstruction projects at home and negotiations for the reopening of commercial relations with France and England. In tackling the age-old problem that rests fundamentally on the scarcity of good farming lands in the peninsula, General Franco was already committed to a program of annulling previous Republican efforts in this direction, notably the Agrarian Law of 1932, and substituting a policy of purchase for one of confiscation. A decree, issued early in March, ordered the return to grandees of lands that had been seized by the Spanish Republicans for distribution among the peasants, with the provision however that the peasant occupants should be allowed to remain until after the harvest. The decree provided that the landowners might decide in each case whether or not collectivist peasant organizations already in existence should continue to work the land at rentals approved by the government. The region most affected was Estremadura, where a considerable number of peasants had taken over large estates. An extensive government program of land reclamation involving large government-sponsored irrigation and drainage projects represented another angle of the attack on the agricultural problem. Private societies were encouraged to sponsor approved projects and were promised government aid in defraying the costs, disposing of agricultural products from such lands, exemption from taxes and other inducements. Owners of the lands, it was provided, might not hold up these projects but were to have compensation at a price to be arranged by two appraisers, one representing the owner and the other the society, and if these were in disagreement the decision of the Minister of Agriculture was to be final. In actual practice many of General Franco's extensive schemes for reconstruction have been localized in application and provincial in scope, with many projects taken up and later dropped.

The poor harvest of 1939, in which the wheat, corn and sugar-beet crops had been only half of normal and all other crops exceptionally small, combined with a depleted livestock supply, had their effect on making the winter of 1939-40 an exceptionally hard one. Despite heavy importations of foodstuffs into a land formerly an exporter of such goods, there was an acute shortage of butter, eggs, meat, oil and wheat, and many important commodities continued to be distributed under rationing cards. Long queues before half-empty foodshops was a prominent feature of the Spanish scene. Food prices to consumers, it was frankly admitted by the Minister of the Interior in a speech in Valencia on April 23, had risen 50 to 200 per cent over the 1936 level.

Industry and Trade.

Industry, on the other hand, showed some signs of recovery, as raw materials became available when the credit structure of the state was strengthened by the successful flotation of internal bonds and the recovery of the gold reserve that had been blocked in France. A credit in the United States obtained in the summer of 1939, under which 250,000 bales of American cotton were secured, enabled the Barcelona mills to resume operations, and a further credit this year has enabled them to continue operations. Minute government regulations at every turn, however, and restriction on imports of raw materials and machinery, in favor of exports devoted to the paying off of German and Italian debts, brought a good deal of grumbling from the business interests. The ideal held up to this group by the government was that of self-sufficiency, even though this goal might take years to materialize. General Franco is said to have plans for producing cotton, cellulose and other products in Spain and to intend to move the heavy industries into the central portion of the peninsula. While some readjustment of wage scales alleviated the condition of labor, high costs more than equalled the wage advances and brought a lowering of the standard of living to all.

Further to relieve the economic strain the Franco government entered, though with obvious reluctance, into trade treaties with France and England. The flourishing trade amounting to a half of Spain's exports and imports that had grown up between Nationalist Spain and Nazi Germany during and immediately following the Civil War had been cut off with the opening of the European war in September 1939, when an Allied blockade practically severed the relations of the two countries and some action had to be taken to make good the deficit. After three months of negotiations a treaty with France was finally signed on Jan. 13, providing for the purchase by each country of 650,000,000 francs worth of goods. This treaty in actual practice functioned poorly. While Franco-Spanish trade had always about balanced, Spain's trade with England in the past had normally resulted in a balance in her favor. The new treaty with England, signed on March 18, 1940, was therefore of greater importance in Spanish eyes than the French agreement. Under its terms Spain would expand her sales of iron ore, pyrites, lead, zinc and fruit in the English markets and obtain in return manufactured goods, coal, and credits in the sterling area for wheat, rice and other much needed products. An important item of the treaty with England provided for a loan of £2,000,000 for reconstruction purposes at 4½ per cent interest repayable in 20 installments over a ten-year period. These French and British treaties were but two in a long series of trade agreements made with foreign countries, among them Portugal, Sweden, Bulgaria, Uruguay, Italy and Japan, but they gave rise to the hope in some quarters that the reestablishment of old relations with England and France might be the beginning of a new orientation of Spanish foreign policy. In the English Parliament, in urging the acceptance of the treaty, Sir Archibald Southby argued 'We may be faced with difficulties in the Mediterranean, and a friendly Spain will be of paramount importance if we should be involved in operations east of Gibraltar.'

Internal Affairs.

There was small indication in Spain that such a swing of public feeling as was wished for in France and England was in progress. The great mass of the Spanish nation was too war-weary, disillusioned and apathetic for adventures of any kind. Too many groups in the country had been disappointed of their fondest hopes. The Monarchists saw no indication that their desire for a king was likely to be satisfied; on the contrary, every month seemed to fasten Fascism more firmly on the country; the militarists, while triumphant, saw much of their prestige usurped by Fascist youth associations; the clergy saw the Church closely controlled by the state in its temporal affairs; labor unions, incorporated in vertical syndicates, were forced to look on helplessly while much unskilled work was performed by hundreds of thousands of political prisoners. Some of the younger elements in the Phalange and some business men were in favor of commercial cooperation with the Allies, but the press and news agencies remained pro-German in sympathy as did most of the government officials. As for General Franco, there was no evidence that he had changed his views on the European situation since his outburst in October 1939, when he had declared that the European war was 'an absurd war,' and appealed to Germany, Britain and France to stop fighting each other and unite in opposing Russia. The Russo-German pact of Aug. 25, 1939, had been a great blow to the pro-German Falangists and continued to be a strong factor making for Spanish neutrality in the European conflict. Moreover, with the English blockade making trade with Germany an impossibility and with Britain's old ally Portugal at hand to provide a territorial base from which British forces could sweep into Spain, a policy of neutrality was obviously the only safe policy through the first six months of 1940. In June with the military collapse of France before the invading German army and the establishment presently of a common frontier between Germany and Spain at the Pyrenees, this situation became fundamentally changed and Spanish policy took on a new importance and a stronger pro-Axis note. The way seemed miraculously opened for the Spanish Caudillo to play a conspicuous role in the new order in Europe, one which all observers during the Civil War had supposed if the Nationalists won out their chief would play as the friend of Hitler and Mussolini. (See also FASCISM.)

Foreign Relations.

The first step in this direction was quickly taken. As the Germans occupied Paris, the Spanish government announced that 'with the object of guaranteeing the neutrality of the international zone and city of Tangier, the Spanish government has decided to take charge provisionally of the surveillance, police and public safety services of the international zone, and that forces of Moroccan troops had entered that morning with this object.' This action made formal on Nov. 4, set aside not only the Algeeiras Treaty of 1911 but the international convention of 1923 providing for the permanent neutral internationalization of the zone which had been drawn up by France, Great Britain and Spain, agreed to by Italy, and extended by protocols in 1925 and 1928. Left the only neutral in charge of the zone, Spain declared that the situation had become impossibly difficult and that she was taking over provisionally complete control, notifying the interested powers. The world however remembered that possession of Tangier had long occupied a place second only to Gibraltar among Spain's territorial ambitions, and noted that the immediate reaction in Spain took the form of a triumphant Phalangist procession during which the English ambassador was regaled with shouts of 'We want Gibraltar.' A few days later government spokesmen and a vociferous controlled press were openly declaring that Spain claimed a right to share in any division of the spoils of war arising from the overthrow of France. Spain's vital interests in the Mediterranean, it was said, required that she should receive control of the African coast, Britain must be made to hand over Gibraltar, the principality of Andorra on the Franco-Spanish frontier should be incorporated, and Spanish cultural aspirations in South America must be pressed. On the occasion of the arrival of German troops to take over control along the Pyrenees, the Spanish commander of the Irun frontier zone gave them a tremendous welcome. In a speech on July 17, General Franco spoke of 'Spain's duty and national mission to control Gibraltar.' Meanwhile trade between Germany and Spain revived, and train-loads of iron ore, lead and wolfram left Spain for Germany while German cellulose and other goods long awaiting shipment on Spanish order, began to arrive in Spain via rail, and commercial relations with France and Britain languished. (See also EUROPEAN WAR.)

Another straw of the summer which showed which way the wind was blowing came on July 16 in the severance by Spain of diplomatic relations with Chile, the one state in South America under a Popular Front government. This action marked the culmination of more than a year of strained relations between the two powers, originating in a dispute that dated back to the close of the Civil War when the Chilean embassy in Madrid had extended protection to a number of Spanish Republicans. The breach remained unhealed until Columbus Day when it was patched up.

With the Vatican the relations of General Franco were something less than friendly. On Nov. 15, 1939, General Franco had resumed annual payment by the state of 62,000,000 pesetas for the provision of incomes for the Spanish clergy as provided for in a Concordat of 1851 which had been in abeyance since 1931. He had expected the full terms of the Concordat to come at once into operation. This would mean that a Spanish tribunal called the Rota and not the Vatican would settle disputes in the Spanish church and that the head of the Spanish state, General Franco himself, would have the right to name the bishops. El Caudillo counted on these aspects of the Concordat to enable him to remove several bishops whom he considered anti-Falangist. To his chagrin, the Vatican took the position that the Concordat could not thus be reinstated. Another propitiatory decree of Jan. 27 restoring the Jesuits to their vast possessions with increased opportunities of influencing education failed to bring the tension with the Holy See to an end. Reluctantly General Franco had to allow negotiations for a new Concordat to be undertaken, and these at the close of the year were proceeding slowly, while seventeen Spanish sees remained vacant.

With England Spain was not ready to break, though suffering severely from the stricter blockade of her coast following upon the establishment of the new common frontier with Germany. Vigorous protests that the British policy of only allowing cargoes destined for Spain to pass the blockade in the amount required in 'the normal year of 1935' worked greater hardship on her, considering her post-war needs of reconstruction, than on any other neutral, and finally brought a British official to Spain to cooperate with Spanish officials and sign a number of special conventions regarding blockade restrictions. Through November and December England continued an appeasement policy in relation to food shipments obviously hoping at least to delay Spain's entrance into active war. These propitiatory moves however did not prevent the British government from presenting at Madrid early in December a formal notification that she was reserving all her rights in the Tangier area.

That Spain was considering the possibility of a more active role in the Fascist set-up had been clear since the middle of September when Ramón Serrano Suñer, General Franco's Minister of the Interior and his brother-in-law, travelled to Berlin and Rome for long conferences with Hitler, von Ribbentrop and other German and Italian representatives. Obviously accepted as a member of the Axis family circle, Spain's role in 'the new Europe' was clearly under discussion. Through the month following these conversations the Spanish leaning towards Germany and Italy was emphasized by Cabinet changes, especially by replacement as Foreign Minister, on Oct. 17, of Colonel Juan Beigbeder y Alienza, reputed to be a friend to Britain, by Ramón Serrano Suñer, a pronounced friend to Germany. When a week later, on Oct. 25, El Caudillo travelled to the Franco-Spanish frontier where he had a long conference with Hitler the British braced themselves for a rush of German troops across Spain to Gibraltar or a passing over of Spanish air and naval bases to the dictator nations. Two months later, however, this had not happened, though Suñer had again visited Berlin. The year closed with General Franco still clinging to non-belligerency, his hand stayed by the considerations that Spanish reconstruction had scarcely begun and that if the struggle were to prove a long one, as seemed likely from the growing collaboration between England and the United States, Spain could ill afford to take part in it. But as military and naval activities spread more and more to the Mediterranean, and the Spanish terrain became increasingly important, pressure from the Axis might well prove overwhelming and the policy of Spanish neutrality be revised. See also EUROPEAN WAR.