1942: Spain

Economic Aspects.

Caught between a German army on the northern frontier and an Anglo-American blockade of the seas, Spain was able through 1942 to make only very slow progress out of the morass of political dissensions and economic troubles in which she has been floundering since the close of the civil war in 1939. Through the blockade, by careful diplomatic maneuvering, she was able to secure from the United States, Latin America and England barely enough food supplies to supplement domestic production and ward off actual starvation, though reportedly four-fifths of her population remained unable to secure sufficient food to satisfy hunger. Bread and potatoes were especially scarce. Despite heavy fines and severe penalties, unscrupulous speculators maintained one of the most notorious black markets in Europe, and on its activities the government blamed much of the widespread distress. Neutral observers, however, believe that present scarcity also has its roots in conditions produced by the civil war. Cattle killed in great numbers at that time have not been replaced, tillable fields are still unusable because of danger from exploding bombs and hand-grenades, and seed supplies have been insufficient.

For lack of proper tools, railways which were widely damaged in the war period could not be repaired or refurnished with rolling stock. Transportation, therefore, was largely dependent on trucks, and these in turn could not move without gasoline, of which only a small quantity trickled through a blockade maintained by Powers that were themselves short of this commodity and moreover were disposed to be extremely cautious lest any of the precious article should pass through Spain to their enemies. Uneven distribution of the available small supplies of the necessities of life added to Spain's miseries.

Work on reconstruction projects, especially for irrigation purposes, went slowly forward through the year with the continued use of battalions of forced labor. Four hundred thousand persons were estimated to be employed in this fashion, and over the heads of 40,000 of these death sentences were suspended. The sullen anger and the intense resentment of relatives and sympathizers of these prisoners produced from time to time outbursts of violence against government officials that filled the country with an atmosphere of unrest.

The social effects of these conditions were considered by visiting foreigners to be extremely bad. The American physician, Dr. Alexis Carrel, after an extensive survey, stated that one entire generation of Spaniards must be considered as ruined by malnutrition, pellagra and like diseases. To cope with these conditions the government made an effort to centralize social work and provide adequate maternity centers and child clinics. Meanwhile, extraordinary government appropriations to provide funds for enlarged armaments, including a building program of new ships, and the support of a considerable army felt to be necessary in the face of a warring world and a resentful home population, loaded the country with further debt and delayed the return to normal conditions. Back debts added their quota as Spanish treasury bonds continued to be transferred to Rome to pay for war materials furnished by Italy during the civil war.

Political Affairs.

In the political sphere control remained in the hands of General Franco and the National Council. Announcement was made, however, on July 18, of the purpose to create a cortes constructed on the basis of corporative representation. This totalitarian-type parliament was to be without party lines and was to include all members of the directing body of the Falange state party, mayors of provincial capitals, captains-general of the army, presidents of academies, and chiefs of other state organizations. All the activities of this body were to be subject to veto by El Caudillo.

The chief feature of political life, however, was the increasing tension between the army and the Falange, with General Franco barely managing to keep a balance between the two. The army, growing increasingly pro-Ally in feeling, deeply resented the strongly pro-Axis policy of the Falange and its leader Serrano Suñer. Feeling between the two groups reached such heights in May and June that frequent street fighting took place. Associated with this rivalry was an insistent discussion, mounting especially from July onwards, on the restoration of the monarchy. This movement aimed at placing on the throne Don Juan, the late King Alfonso's third son, now 28 years of age and living with his Italian wife, Maria Mercedes, and their four children, in Switzerland. Carlists and Alfonsists were both behind this movement which also had the backing of the Church and many of the aristocracy and of the bourgeoisie, and was reported to be especially strong in the northern provinces.

In August political dissensions were responsible for a bomb outrage in Bilbao, where an explosion occurred as a congregation was emerging from the Basilica, killing and injuring upwards of 200 persons. The immediate object appeared to be the discouragement of a monarchist plot. Disputes between the army and the party over the handling of this affair helped precipitate the most dramatic political event of the year. This came in the form of a sweeping cabinet shake-up on Sept. 3. Suddenly on this day General Franco dismissed a number of the most prominent members of his cabinet, including his brother-in-law, Serrano Suñer, who had held the two posts of Minister of Foreign Affairs and President of the Falange, and was generally regarded as the leader of the pro-Axis forces in Spain. General Varela, a strong representative of army views, was ousted along with Suñer. Franco himself assumed the office of President of the Falange, while Gen. Francisco Gomez de Jordana, a staunch supporter of El Caudillo, became Foreign Minister. At the same time Manuel Mora Figueroa became Secretary of the Falange, ousting a prominent Suñer sympathizer, while a pro-Ally sympathizer, Brig. Gen. Carlos Asensio Cabanilles, became Minister of War. The whole maneuver was generally regarded as one which shifted the balance in the cabinet from the Falange to the army and strengthened General Franco's personal power. He and the army were both generally believed to be opposed to intervention in the war on any terms, and the successful dismissal of Hitler's top man, Suñer, was commonly felt to have strengthened Spain's policy of neutrality. General Franco was supported in this crisis by the Church, which for some time had been growing steadily more outspoken in its opposition to Nazi penetration. Suñer had recently tried to persuade the Vatican to muzzle the Spanish bishops and thereby had increased their opposition.

The first important pronouncement by the new cabinet was to the effect that the government would punish 'inexorably' any violence against the state within Spain, reaffirmed the policy of anti-Communism and declared for close friendship with Portugal and for 'historic solidarity' with Latin America.

The policy of anti-Communism had been a strong note in Spanish foreign policy throughout the year. In April Suñer had boasted that El Caudillo had promised in a speech to his followers in Seville that if the German bulwark could not alone withstand the tremendous peril of Russia, Spain would aid not only with 15,000 troops then fighting on the Russian front, but with 1,000,000 men. In July, General Franco had declared that the only great problem facing Europe was Communism.

By September, though still fearful of the Russian menace and warmly wooed by Germany with the promise of being made a strong empire well integrated with 'the New Order' in the future, General Franco had apparently come to have a lively realization of the precarious position in which Spain stood. In the European world she was only one of five weak neutral nations, while the control of the seas, and consequently of much of her food supplies, rested in the hands of the Allied Powers who obviously enjoyed the sympathy of the majority of the people of Spain. Though professing no sympathy for the democracies, General Franco became more cautious of offending England and the United States. After the arrival in June of Carleton Hayes as new United States Minister the relations of Spain and the United States had tended to improve. Ways had been found to ship out an increasing amount of Spanish goods needed by American war industries, such as cork, tungsten, zinc, pyrites, wolfram, and mercury, in return for greater amounts of gasoline, fertilizer and other American goods needed in Spain. Sir Samuel Hoare, as British Ambassador, meanwhile bent his diplomatic talents also towards keeping Spain neutral and in this program Britain came into the Spanish market for iron ore and other minerals in exchange for British coal.

Questions of Neutrality.

Late in August President Roosevelt in a press conference announced that the United States, with the cooperation of the Latin American countries, had devised a plan for rehabilitating Spanish cultural life and assisting her economically by improving the railway system and bettering tourist accommodations in anticipation of postwar needs. He had thought of the scheme, he said, when despatching Hayes as minister, and had instructed him to investigate Spanish cultural assets. The Minister had presently reported that only a small amount of damage had been done to Spanish artistic and literary treasures, but that they required rehabilitation. This and other measures could be financed, Mr. Roosevelt remarked, by contributions from individuals, groups and foundations, under the sponsorship of individual governments, without Federal appropriation. Pressed on the point, the American president admitted that the plan was predicated on Spain's remaining neutral. This American announcement was followed within a week by the cabinet shake-up that materially reduced Axis strength in Spain and had the effect of a major diplomatic move.

Another consideration moving General Franco to reduce German influence in the peninsula was a reluctance to isolate Spain from the Latin world in the Americas. This seemed a likelihood as the swing away from the Axis in the Spanish-American world became more pronounced. Within a week of the dismissal of Suñer, Spain and Argentina signed a cultural agreement providing for interchange of teachers, lecturers, artists, students, books and magazines.

On Nov. 8, two months after the cabinet crisis, United States troops landed in North Africa, and on the same day letters of reassurance from President Roosevelt were placed in the hands of the leaders of both the Spanish and Portuguese governments. To General Franco, President Roosevelt wrote: 'I hope that you will accept my full assurance that these moves ... are in no shape, manner or form directed against the government or people of Spain or Spanish territory, metropolitan or overseas ... I believe that the Spanish government and Spanish people wish to maintain neutrality and to remain outside the war. Spain has nothing to fear from the United States.' Expressing appreciation of the message, General Franco replied that his policy was one of neutrality. A more formal reply, given on Nov. 13, reiterated that 'Spain knows the value of peace and sincerely desires peace for itself and for all other people.' Both Spain and Portugal as the result of this correspondence assumed new definite positions of strict neutrality.

It was ostensibly to protect this status, in the face of the more complete occupation of France by German troops, of rumored Italian interest in air bases in the Balearic Islands, and of the extension of growing Allied conquest in North Africa, that Spain began on Nov. 18 a partial mobilization in all three armed services, in preparation for any emergency that might arise. Some observers felt that this Spanish mobilization of a million men might give Germany an excuse to march her army into that country and so secure a route of attack on her enemies in the Mediterranean. Up to the end of the year this had not happened. Meanwhile the policy of neutrality on the part of both Spain and Portugal was strengthened when, on Dec. 20, the creation of an Iberian bloc 'strong enough to maintain peace and influence international politics' was announced by Gen. Count Francisco Gomez de Jordana at a luncheon given at Cintra in Portugal by Dr. Salazar, the Portuguese Prime Minister.

1941: Spain

Economic Distress.

Throughout 1941 all phases of Spanish life tended to center around the all important subject of food. By the beginning of the year serious undernourishment which had been prevalent in certain areas since the close of the Civil War, had become general, and failed to improve as the months wore on. The provinces were worse off than the capital and most miserable of all were the regions of Barcelona and Andalusia where starvation and unemployment reached alarming proportions. Not only was bread adulterated until it became almost uneatable and rationed, when obtainable at all, to a loaf of three ounces daily per person, but other staples such as olive oil, sugar, butter, lard, potatoes, rice, meat, milk, eggs, and tobacco threatened to vanish from the market or commanded such prices as put them out of the reach of any but the well-to-do. The general scarcity was aggravated by unevenness of distribution of such supplies as the peninsula possessed. The breakdown of communications, due to the lack of gasoline, coal and rolling stock and the deterioration of the roads, aided in producing a situation where one region might have an over-supply of certain articles while others were in great need of them.

Government decrees covering every phase of production, transportation and sale of food stuffs and basic commodities, the extensive use of ration cards, the fixing of prices and the imposition of heavy fines on hoarders and bootleggers, all attempted to ameliorate the difficulties but met with little success. Unemployment spread, the number of beggars in the streets increased enormously, prices rose and general misery engulfed the nation. Among the most notable of the measures designed to cope with the situation were two that were taken late in January 1941, when the principal railroads were placed under government ownership and operation and a decree attempted to place responsibility for feeding workers on the shoulders of such key industries as mining, steel manufacturing and textile works by ordering them to maintain stores where their employees could obtain primary necessities.

The populace, generally, found the situation difficult to understand. Spain in the old days, while not a land of abundance, had always produced enough to feed itself. Even during the Civil War Nationalist Spain had had plenty to eat. In explanation the government emphasized the fact that during the war period much of the agricultural land had been allowed to lie fallow, much of the live stock had been killed off, and badly-needed fertilizers could not be imported because of the strictness of the British blockade. The exhaustion of surplus stocks in the shops, unusually bad storms and insect plagues were also pointed to as factors in the situation. Critics of the government, however, laid stress on the continued export of food and basic raw materials to Germany in payment for the help given to the Franco cause during the war. They also blamed the smaller acreage under cultivation and the reduced crops, estimated at one half of the normal, on the continued detention in the jails, concentration camps and labor gangs of numerous agricultural laborers who had been Republican sympathizers.

The long-continued undernourishment, wide spread unhappiness, poverty and misery had the natural effect of rendering the population unable to cope with the huge task of rebuilding the areas that the Civil War had left desolate. Although a rebuilding program had been elaborated in a law of March 1939, and placed under a special Credit Institute for National Reconstruction, through which loans could be obtained on easy terms, and compulsion had been placed on all males between the ages of 18 and 65 to contribute annually fifteen days labor, or its equivalent, to the national task, all neutral observers throughout 1941 agreed that the ruined cities remained in much the same state as the civil struggle had left them. Rehabilitation must evidently wait on a full bread basket. Success in economic reconstruction was also hampered by inadequate funds due to the smaller output of industrial establishments which were suffering from the absence in exile of thousands of skilled artisans as well as the reduced energies of the workers. Returns in taxes were low and more than half the budget continued to be allotted to the armed forces.

Educational and Religious Matters.

Progress in extending educational facilities and providing for adequate social security would also, it was evident, be delayed until the return of economic prosperity. Religious instruction in the schools, however, has been restored as in the days prior to the establishment of the Republic. It is under the direction of the Roman Catholic Church which in this as in many other fields has been reinstated by the Nationalist government in its former privileged position. Recognized once again as the established church with the salary of its clergy a charge on state revenues, its favorite policies are again the order of the day; cemeteries are again under church supervision; divorce is prohibited; civil marriage restricted, and the religious orders, including the wealthy Jesuits, have been restored to their legal status and properties. A long controversy with the Vatican over the question of the appointment of the higher ecclesiastics reached a decision in June. A concordat was finally signed in which the Pope agreed to recognize the possession by the present Spanish government of the right, formerly enjoyed by the King, to appoint the Spanish bishops, subject to papal confirmation. As some seventy Spanish sees, including that of Toledo, had fallen vacant this agreement was of considerable immediate importance. The Franco government took the position that it wished to insure that the church in Spain should be a truly national Spanish church.

Political Situation.

Politically, Spain continued organized in 1941 as under the decrees of August and December, 1939. These provided for a Caudillo in whose hands rest the supreme military and civil authority of the state. His decrees are law. He is assisted by a ministry and is advised by an appointed national council of 100 delegates. Behind the government, and almost indistinguishable from it, is the single, all-powerful political party of the Falange Espanola whose executive body, or junta, is headed by Serrano Suñer, General Franco's brother-in-law. Since last autumn Serrano Suñer has held the two important posts of Minister of Government (of the interior) and Minister of Foreign Affairs, and is said to be higher in favor in Berlin than General Franco himself. With the government and the Falangist party the army is closely integrated, though it leans closer to General Franco than to Serrano Suñer. Under this central set-up each province is provided with a council as are also all city and rural districts. Nationalist Spain of today is thus highly centralized and prides itself on being well on the way to the elimination of the traditional regionalism that has for centuries been an outstanding feature of Spanish life. All manifestations looking toward local autonomy are now heavily frowned upon. The dominant Falangist party aims to control every aspect of the state through its power in the various national services. Anyone wanting employment, for example, must be known favorably at party headquarters.

Abdication and Death of Alfonso.

This political set-up was not appreciably affected by the death, in Rome on Feb. 28, of former King Alfonso, and the events that preceded and followed it. About a month previous to his death Alfonso had abdicated in favor of his son, Don Juan. In an address 'for the last time to all Spaniards' dated Jan. 15, 1941, the former King declared that he was convinced that 'the magnificent epic of the liberation of Spain ... opens the way to the solidarity of all the people for their unity, liberty and greatness'; that as 'by the inexorable law of circumstances perhaps my person would be an obstacle' he had decided to 'disappear for the good of Spain and offer my fatherland the renunciation of my rights' and 'designate Prince Don Juan, who will be tomorrow, when Spain judges it to be opportune, the King of all the Spaniards.'

This step appears to have been taken without encouragement from either General Franco or the Spanish Falangists. The latter are opposed to the return of any monarch. If General Franco himself at times thinks that a restoration of the monarchy might be a means of allaying the bitter internal dissensions, he is restrained, not only by the Falangists but by the disapproval of his former ally, Adolf Hitler, who does not look favourably on a proposal to place on the throne of Spain a man whose education was that of an English naval officer. King Alfonso in his abdication document had appealed directly to the Spanish people. But neither this appeal, nor an address made on March 7 by Don Juan (who uses the title, Count of Barcelona), to 200 Spanish monarchists promising that when the day comes, 'as it will come soon,' he will be ready to return to Spain, had any noticeable effect on the political situation in Spain. The monarchists, once a powerful factor in the Franco movement, are now weak and divided. The country under General Franco had, it would seem, definitely taken the Fascist road of dictatorship.

At the time of the king's death the royal family was in possession of all its former private holdings in Spain, as these, estimated at $8,500,000, had been restored by General Franco shortly after the cessation of hostilities.

Temporary burial of King Alfonso's body was made in the Spanish church of Montserrat in Rome to await the time when it might be deemed politically wise to have it removed to the royal sarcophagus in the Escorial, the traditional burial place for Spanish kings. The Franco government decreed national mourning. In one church of every Spanish diocese a memorial service was held for the former king; that in Madrid was attended by General Franco and members of the Cabinet.

That the real political issue in Spain was not the choice between a Fascist régime and a restoration of monarchy, but between General Franco's brand of Fascism and Serrano Suñer's more pro-Axis Fascism, was made clear early in May when there occurred a series of political shake-ups affecting the Spanish army and police. These had the effect of strengthening the existing régime as they placed army men, favorable to General Franco, in key positions. The changes did not, however, imply any liberalizing of the government.

Relations With Axis Powers.

Nationalist Spain's relations with the Axis powers, always sympathetic, became more cordial and whole-hearted with the outbreak of war between Germany and Russia. Indeed Spain's sympathy with the Nazi cause and her consequent policy amounting, as one observer remarked, to 'pro-Axis non-belligerency,' became as outspoken as the necessities of her food situation, the relief of which depended on Great Britain and the United States, permitted.

The most dramatic item of the year in the relations between Spain and Italy was a meeting held in February between General Franco and Mussolini. This was the first occasion on which these two dictators had personally met. To the accompaniment of widespread preventive arrests, General Franco, with his Minister of Foreign Affairs, travelled through unoccupied France to a meeting, on Feb. 12, with Il Duce at Bordighera in northern Italy. The meeting was hedged about with extraordinary censorial obstacles and its exact significance could only be guessed at. According to the official report the conversations resulted in 'a complete identity of views concerning all the problems of European character interesting these two countries in the present historic moment,' and the outside world was left to speculate whether the two Fascist leaders had met merely to demonstrate their cordial relations or to discuss the possibility of Spain's immediate entrance into the war and plan its details. On their return journey through France from Italy the two Spaniards were met by Marshal Pétain and Admiral Darlan at Montpellier where further conferences were held.

Perhaps it is to be noted that the meeting at Bordighera preceded by a day the announcement of King Alfonso's abdication which had been executed three weeks earlier, while two weeks after the interview, on Feb. 27, Italy presented her bill for aiding the Insurgents in the Spanish Civil War. This immense bill, for armaments which the Italian leader long denied to the world at large that he was sending at all, amounted to 5,500,000,000 lire and was to be paid in twenty-four annual installments. The items in this account disclose that Italy had sent to Spain 763 planes, 1,414 motors, 1,672 tons of bombs, 9,250,000 rounds of ammunition, 1,930 cannon, 10,135 automatic guns, 240,747 small arms, 7,514,537 rounds of artillery ammunition, 324,900,000 rounds of small arms ammunition, and 7,668 motor vehicles. The statement further set forth that 91 Italian warships had been engaged in Spanish war actions, 92 other ships had ferried materials, and Italian submarines had accounted for 72,800 tons of hostile shipping. Commenting on this bill a former foreign minister of Republican Spain pointed out that it corroborated the Republican claim that the Spanish Civil War had not been won by General Franco but by his Axis partners, and he reminded the world that the Italian figures were triple those that Premier Negrin had deemed necessary to win the last decisive battle of Catalonia and had vainly asked France to supply.

In Spain's relations with Germany the principal items in the year's record were: the sending of a steady stream of food stuffs and raw materials, especially minerals, from Spain to Germany despite the starving conditions in the peninsula; the presence in Spain of large numbers of German 'tourists,' declared by many to number between 80,000 and 100,000 men; and the persistent rumor that German troops might at any moment, judged proper by Hitler, march through Spain to attack Gibraltar. Preparations seemingly directed towards an attack on the famous fortress were reported as going steadily forward under the direction of numerous German technicians. The goal apparently was to encircle the Rock by modern batteries of long range guns located on Spanish soil to the north and west of the fortress and at Ceuta in Africa. These, combined with fire from mobile batteries, aerial attacks from new aeroplane bases in southern Spain and from hydroplane bases located north of Cartagena, and backed by naval support based on the Spanish naval port of Ferrol, were expected to bring about the capture of the fortress. The repair of military roads leading to Gibraltar and Morocco was also reported as being given special attention as a preliminary step to a large-scale Nazi military movement southward. However, Hitler's fear of becoming responsible for the feeding of a starving population of 20,000,000 Spaniards, and the danger to German troops from wide-spread typhus, were thought by observers to be strong considerations that might well deter him.

Relations with England and the United States.

The relations of Spain with England and the United States in 1941 were marked by periodic outbursts of press and government attacks against these nations as responsible for the food situation in Spain. England, as the sovereign of Gibraltar and the power lying across the path of Spanish ambitions in Africa, was especially unpopular despite her persistent policy of appeasement. As the year opened angry recriminations were being hurled at England as responsible for the withdrawal of a purported American loan to Spain of $100,000,000. It was widely rumored that the British ambassador, Sir Samuel Hoare, had become convinced that Spain's conduct in dissolving the international administration at Tangiers and incorporating the territory with Spanish Morocco, as well as her harsh treatment of British nationals and suspicious war preparations in the peninsula, indicated that the Spanish government would enter the war on the Axis side, and had caused him to press for an adverse American decision in regard to the loan. Repeatedly, in the following months, the Spaniards accused the British of granting navicerts for the passage through the blockade of foodstuffs, from the United States and Argentina, only in return for promises from Spain that she would not take action detrimental to British interests. Both Serrano Suñer and General Franco made strong public protests against British and American policy of thus using Spain's food difficulties to further their political purposes. On Jan. 11 Serrano Suñer, speaking in Barcelona, expressed his government's determination to get food from abroad without hampering conditions. In July General Franco openly denounced the United States for refusing to aid Spain in her hour of need, declaring 'behind the generous appearance was always the attempt to interfere with our policy, which was incompatible with our sovereignty and dignity.' He strongly warned the United States to keep out of European affairs. A few weeks after this outburst, Arriba, Serrano Suñer's propaganda organ, launched another attack on America, accusing it of plotting to muster a Spanish Republican army under the leadership of General Miaja, in exile in Mexico, for the purpose of capturing the Canary Islands. This charge was promptly denied in Washington and Mexico. In September reports were rife that the fortifications of these strategic islands were being strengthened.

Spain and the Vichy Government.

Spain's relations with Vichy France through 1941 continued to bear chiefly on the subject of the Spanish republican refugees still living north of the Pyrenees. Approximately 150,000 Spaniards continued to prefer the miseries of exile, even in French shelter centers, concentration camps and on public works in French North Africa, to a return to Spain where the government still refused to consider amnesty a practical policy to apply to its erstwhile opponents. Instead Franco continued to keep many thousands in concentration camps and prisons. Throughout the year trials of notable republican leaders, the majority of whom were already in exile, went on before the Tribunals of Political Responsibilities. Such legal measures condemned Largo Cabellero, Diego Martínez Barrio, Alcala Zamora, Miguel Azaña, Julio Alvarez del Vayo and a number of others to pay fines amounting in many cases to their entire fortunes, and imposed sentences of exile of 15 years or more with loss of citizenship. Such sentences naturally did not encourage the return to Spain of republicans of lesser note. Demands from Spain for extradition from France were usually heard before the French Accusations Court at Aix and were generally turned down. However, Spain's influence at Vichy was sufficient, together with that of Germany, to prevent the departure of many refugees from France to asylums in Latin America where it was though their influence would be detrimental to the interests of the Fascist Powers.

Position at Close of 1941.

Spain at the close of the year 1941 presented the appearance of a land suffering from famine and police persecution, with its one political party strongly pro-Axis and conscious that a Fascist régime in Spain would probably not long survive a victory of the Democracies over Germany and Italy. Its leaders, however, continued to cling to a precarious neutrality.

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.

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.

1938: Spain, Civil War In

Military Campaigns.

The year 1938 opened with terrific fighting in progress between Government and Insurgent forces in Aragon, around the town of Teruel lying some 130 miles directly east of Madrid. Having brought the Insurgent campaign in northwestern Spain, against the Basques and the Asturians, to a successful conclusion with the capture of Gijon on Oct. 21 (1937), General Franco was in process of transferring his troops in somewhat leisurely fashion, in the midst of bitter winter conditions, to Aragon. On Dec. 15, the two months' lull in the fighting had been suddenly and unexpectedly broken and the initiative seized by his enemies. In a rush from two sides at Teruel, a strategic salient at the southern end of the Insurgents' line, from which they enjoyed great freedom of movement and could threaten Madrid's communications with Barcelona and Valencia, the Government forces had succeeded, after a week of intense fighting, in entering the town itself on Dec. 21. The Insurgent garrison held out until January 14, but by this time towns and villages for miles about Teruel were in Government hands.

Into the great counter offensive which General Franco at once launched the Insurgent Generalissimo flung reserves to the number of 150,000 men and strongly supported them by airplanes and a great superiority in artillery. For six weeks, through January and into February, in the midst of snow and ice in the high valleys around Teruel, the struggle continued, until, on Feb. 22, in a third major offensive, the wrecked town was recaptured by the Insurgents. The casualties in this costliest and most ghastly battle of the war were estimated at 40,000. While the final recapture of Teruel did much to restore General Franco's prestige at home and abroad, the Loyalist Government professed itself well satisfied with having compelled him to measure forces in a place not of his own choosing and to have forced him, despite his final success at Teruel and his great superiority in material resources, to abandon his earlier plan of an offensive against Madrid from the northeast through Guadalajara. The battle of Teruel, they held, had saved Madrid, at least, for a time.

Soon after the reoccupation of Teruel by the Insurgents, the long-heralded Insurgent offensive in Aragon, by which it was planned to cut off industrial Catalonia from the rest of Loyalist Spain and bring the war speedily to a close, opened and developed with bewildering rapidity into a general movement that eventually involved the whole front from the French border to Teruel. It began on March 9 from Saragossa, the Insurgents' headquarters, in a drive down the Ebro valley eastward towards the sea. Advancing quickly eastward on both sides of the Ebro River, Insurgent forces that were more completely mechanized than at any time in the war won success after success, overwhelming all resistance and at times cutting off whole divisions of the enemy and producing a near rout. Carefully coordinated airplane bombing and artillery barrages with frequent tank attacks and a strafing of the retreating soldiers by hundreds of planes were features of the drive, as was likewise an accompanying campaign of bombing of Barcelona and other coastal cities designed to break down civil morale. Between March 5 and March 18, there were eighteen air raids on Barcelona resulting in a thousand persons killed and many more injured.

To the south of the Ebro the right wing of General Franco's army succeeded in capturing a number of important centers lying at some distance from the river; Belchite, Hijar, Montalban with its Utrillas coal mines, and Alcaniz, fell one after another, while on the river itself Quinto and Caspé, at the two principal crossings of the Ebro between Saragossa and the sea, came into the possession of the Insurgents. The loss of Caspé on March 17 was especially serious as it had been the headquarters of the Loyalist army in lower Aragon. The principal objective in this region south of the Ebro was Tortosa, fifty miles from Caspé, of military importance because through it runs the Barcelona-Valencia highway. When progress towards this city from the west was slowed up, after the capture of Gandesa on April 2 by General Valino, because of the more difficult terrain of the coastal Sierras and stout Loyalist resistant at Certa, the Insurgents successfully executed a turning movement to the south and captured the seaport of Vinaroz on April 15 and from that base succeeded in taking Tortosa from the south. Its fall signified the cutting in two of Loyalist Spain.

North of the Ebro three drives eastward into Catalonia developed. The two more southern of these, under Generals Yague and Berron, eventually effected a junction and advanced together on Lerida, a city of 22,000, the principal rail and road junction of Catalonia and considered to be the military gateway to Barcelona. From Lerida, on April 3, the Loyalists were driven headlong, and shortly afterwards the city of Balaguer, lying directly to the north, surrendered also. The third and more northern drive by the Insurgents moved eastward from Jaca along the foothills of the Pyrenees, captured in its course nine of the ten passes through the Pyrenees, and, on April 7, took possession of the hydro-electric station at Tremp which supplied sixty per cent of the electricity for Catalonia, and joined forces with the two Insurgent armies from the south. Meanwhile, at the southern end of the long line, a new drive from Teruel to the sea at Sagunto developed and threatened to cut off Madrid from its source of supply through Valencia.

At this point, heavy spring rains and a stiffening of Loyalist resistance in the face of the extremity of the danger now threatening its cause saved the Government the final catastrophe of the loss of Barcelona and slowed up the Insurgent drive. From April 20 until the middle of June, the military situation remained largely in stalemate. The Government used this breathing space to reorganize its defenses. In order to bring greater unity into the army command, General José Miaja, the veteran defender of Madrid, was placed at the head of the Loyalist forces in the whole Madrid-Valencia area. General Sebastian Pozas who had directed the defenses of Catalonia was removed from command. In political circles, the Communists gained greater influence through the pressing need of their organizing ability, and at once used their power to insist on reviving the system of army commissaries over which they placed a Communist, Jesus Hernandez, as director of the system. In a new and stronger cabinet, Alvarez Del Vayo replaced Indalecio Prieto as foreign minister. The prime minister, Dr. Negrin, though failing in a direct appeal to France for war supplies, managed to secure elsewhere its needed new equipment.

In the middle of June, the Insurgent offensive reopened, this time in a drive southward in the Levante region, with the capture of Sagunto and Valencia as the principal objectives since their occupation would involve the isolation of Madrid as well as the acquisition of a rich orange-growing region. On June 13, after a series of minor successes, General Aranda achieved the capture of Castellon de la Plana, a city with a large Carlist population, an important port for commerce with Italy and the military key to Valencia. Passing on southward, General Aranda finally crossed the Mijares River and occupied Villareal. Here began a battle in which 200,000 men were engaged. In the course of it, on July 5, General Aranda's army of Galicians broke through General Miaja's defenses at Burriana and pushed south to within ten miles of Sagunto. While these events were happening on the seacoast, the Insurgent right wing and center under General Varela were operating in the interior and succeeded in surrounding Barracos and approaching Viver and Segorbe. In this June offensive, active fighting was also revived in the Cordoba region where the Insurgent General Llano wiped out a Government sector that had long menaced the iron and coal mines at Penarroya. Turning northward to gain control of the rich mercury mines at Almaden he succeeded on July 24 in capturing Castuera, a mining town rich in iron and lead, but failed to reach the Almaden mines which continued in possession of the Government.

On July 25, just as General Franco's main battle line was about to move forward in a final drive against Sagunto and Valencia, the Loyalists saved the situation by a swift and well-organized counter offensive across the lower Ebro in the neighborhood of Gandesa, and drove a salient some fourteen miles in depth into Insurgent territory on the south side of the river. While General Franco's line was not broken, nor Gandesa recaptured, this Loyalist assault on the Ebro effectively held up General Franco's drive to the south against Valencia. Through four months of furious fighting the issue on this Catalan front swayed to and fro in severe, though generally indecisive, small-scale engagements. The Insurgents in this region were led in person by General Franco, and were reported to number 100,000 men of whom 80,000 were said to be Italians. Terrific bombing of Loyalist communications marked this phase of the struggle in which it was estimated that a daily average of 10,000 bombs fell on Government lines. Both sides lost heavily, casualties amounted, it was reported, to 40,000 for each army. Not until the 16th of November were the Loyalist forces wholly out of the salient that they had captured on July 25, and the Ebro established once again as the boundary between the two armies. Overwhelming superiority in mechanized equipment, in artillery, tanks and planes finally proved the decisive factor. So well provided was General Franco with planes that at times two hundred Rebel bombers were operating at once over a small area. With his counter offensive in the Ebro sector won, General Franco, as the year approached its close, had before him the choice of a push into Catalonia aimed at Barcelona or the resumption of his drive against Valencia. Both of these fronts had been greatly strengthened during the period of the Ebro battle.

Equipment.

Through 1938, as in earlier years, the Insurgents continued to enjoy a vast preponderance in material resources. The shortening of General Franco's lines through the elimination in 1937 of the Asturian and Basque resistance gave the Insurgent leader greater offensive power and a more overwhelming advantage in war materials. By the beginning of the year, he already controlled practically all of the mineral resources of Spain with the exception of the mercury mines at Almadén and the coal mines at Utrillas. The latter fell into his hands along with sixty per cent of the power centers during the Ebro drive. The mines not only served to keep his munitions factories supplied but exports and rents from them provided him with credit abroad for the purpose of other war needs. General Franco's weaknesses in 1938 were in man power, not in material equipment. Both sides continued to receive assistance from abroad, especially in airplanes, pilots, and technicians. Both sides grew more adept in weaving the various branches of mechanized warfare together. General Franco's genius in doing so in the Aragon offensive proved him a field commander in modern warfare of the first rank. But in unity and excellence of leadership, the Government army began to give evidence of catching up with its enemies. In skill and initiative in executing surprise tactics it won wide admiration, as did its courage and morale in the face of the Insurgent Ebro offensive.

Air Raids.

In the air, General Franco continued to enjoy numerical superiority throughout the year, though this was not so marked as in 1937. Both sides bombed civilian centers, though in doing so they maintained that their purpose was always to reach military objectives only. The Insurgents employed this weapon more consistently than the Loyalists. Their anti-aircraft weapons were reported to be more effective than those used by the Government. The effect of air bombardment on morale was considered by foreign observers to be surprisingly small.

Partly because of the emphasis on air warfare and partly because of the absence of heavy artillery on both sides, towns as centers of resistance continued to play an important part; prolonged struggles for the possession of towns and villages taking place again and again. Foreign military observers emphasized the increasing power of defense as a striking feature of the struggle. In open infantry fighting, the use of the tank and a new anti-tank gun were conspicuous features. It was estimated that the Government had received about 200 tanks from Russia and the Insurgents 400 or 500 from Italy and Germany.

Political Situation.

Nationalists.

The political situation behind the Franco lines continued through 1938 to remain in much the same state as the developments of 1937 had left it. The Nationalist (Insurgent) Government functioned from the city of Burgos, which in 1937 replaced the earlier center of Salamanca as the capital of the civil government. General Franco continued as Chief of the State, Head of the Government, Generalissimo of the Forces by Land and Sea, and the National Leader of the Falange. On Oct. 1, the second anniversary of his accession to power, he was again proclaimed to these offices in a colorful ceremony at Burgos, in the presence of the representatives of twenty-three nations.

The forced union of all political groups into one national party called Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las J. O. N. S. (Juventud Offensiva Nacional-Sindicalista), which was brought about by the decrees of April 19, 1937, continued to be the official political organization of Nationalist Spain. The diverse elements in this organization remained almost, if not quite, as separate in appearance, program, and political outlook as in the days when they functioned as separate parties, each with its own militia, uniforms, banners, and loyalties.

The most picturesque as well as the most compact group continued to be the Requetes, with their red caps and khaki shirts, representing in the military sphere the Carlists or Traditionalists. This party is said to number around one million, with its century-old center in Navarre and its main strength in the Basque provinces, the mountainous districts in Catalonia and in scattered groups of adherents in Valencia. The reappearance of the Carlists was one of the surprises of the Spanish civil war. Carlism was supposed to have been fairly well stamped out of existence at the time of the Bourbon restoration in 1876 and yet in 1936 it sprang at once upon the scene as though by magic, and showed itself ready to place in the field thousands of well-trained militia organized in tercios under army officers. The Requetes were soon the storm troops of the Nationalist army. Politically the Carlists are, as always, an absolutist monarchical group, though at the moment they have no specific candidate for the throne. Since the death in Vienna of the aged last Carlist legitimate pretender, the succession to the Spanish throne has been regarded by the Traditionalists as open. They are said to regard the reaccession of Alphonso XIII as both undesirable and politically impossible but to look with favor on the candidacy of Alphonso's younger son, Don Juan. Promised by General Franco that, when the proper time comes, the question of monarchy will be taken up, they eventually agreed to enter the National Party in company with the Falangists whose political program they dislike.

A smaller monarchist group is the Renovacion España which supports the candidacy of Alphonso XIII. Its members are too small to allow it to exercise much influence.

The largest and most important of the several political parties fighting for the Nationalist cause and now included within the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las J. O. N. S. is the Falange. The Falangists were politically organized in 1932 by Antonio Primo de Rivera, the son of the former dictator, with a program of a modified Fascism for Spain that included the deification of the state, national socialism, and a dictator advised in technical matters by workers' syndicates and a chamber of corporations. The majority of the party are said to be absolutely opposed to the restoration of the monarchy and to desire dictatorship pure and simple. They are advanced Socialists and demand 'a genuine Spanish revolution with just conditions for the workers and the middle class.' In the military arena, the Falangists are distinguished by their blue shirts and forage caps and are organized in units that carry the names of sixteenth century Spanish military formations.

The political organization of Nationalist Spain is thus one in which deep cleavages exist. General Franco as a Fascist ruler differs from the German and Italian Fascist models in that he has never been the leader of a great popular movement and has no united totalitarian party to back him. Neither Falangists or Requetes represent a true Franco party and one of them is not a Fascist group at all. The personnel of his council are as contradictory in their political outlook as the elements that constitute his Nationalist party. Furthermore, the movement of Spanish Fascism which Franco leads differs from foreign models in not being anti-Christian but, on the contrary, definitely pro-Catholic. Neither church nor army has as yet been subdued to the state as a pure Fascist movement would require. His program of government as announced at the end of January, 1938, while along Fascist lines, was designed to appeal to a wide variety of interests. It provided for (1) a labor charter with provisions for separate unions of workers, technicians, and employees, (2) agrarian reform to include 'a judicious distribution of the land,' (3) revision of the legislation of the constitutional Cortes, (4) reconstruction of devastated areas, (5) a large degree of local government, (6) a modern system of taxation, (7) freedom of the press, (8) a foreign policy based on peace 'compatible with dignity.' How far his program and performance have won for him the loyalty of the general populace in the region under his command, now comprising thirty-five of the forty-five provinces of Spain, remains uncertain. Beyond gratitude for law and order there would appear to be much indifference. His strength and reliance continue to be in his army made up of the several elements of (1) the bulk of the regular army that declared for nationalism, (2) the foreign legion, (3) the militia, (4) the Moors, and (5) the Italians and Germans, who total, it is said, some 80,000. Assisted by an able general staff and in command of great resourses, Franco's reputation as a field commander advanced as the year progressed.

In a statement to the press in April, General Franco defended his revolt and regime as a necessary act of patriotism to save Spain from anarchy and Communism into which the government of the Popular Front was plunging it in the summer of 1936. He declared that for the assistance given by Italy, Germany, and Portugal 'not one inch of Spanish land has been given or promised.' Foreigners commented, however, that he must be excluding mining and trading concessions granted for the cost of armaments that were enabling him to largely motorize his entire army and that played such a conspicuous part in the Aragonese and Catalonia campaigns. His further statement that 'not one foreigner has joined the Nationalist armies except . . . in the ranks of the Spanish Foreign Legion' ran counter to the boasting of the Italian Fascist press concerning the victory won in Spain through the assistance of the Black Arrow, the Blue Arrow, the Littorio, and the 23rd March Italian divisions in the Insurgent army.

In the political sphere the outside world remained uncertain whether the leader of the Insurgents should properly be regarded merely as one more reactionary Spanish military dictator or as the chief of a new Spanish form of a Fascist state.

Loyalists.

Behind the Loyalist lines, the central government in 1938 continued under the leadership of Premier Negrin, a moderate Socialist who took office in May, 1937, at the head of a Government of Republicans, Socialists, and Communists. The most out-standing member of the Government for many months was Indalecio Prieto, who became minister of war. A Centrist Socialist, Prieto strongly believes in the union of working-class parties of the Left and bourgeois Republicans and thinks that the emphasis of government in Spain should be on economic reform, and that violent revolutionary tactics can only result in anarchy. He is, however, a non-Marxian, and in April, 1938, was replaced by Alvarez del Vayo, a warm admirer of Russia.

A predominant force behind Premier Negrin's régime from the start has been the Communists. Their increasing influence and prestige in governing councils and their apparent transformation from a revolutionary group into the mainstay of the antirevolutionary forces and the chief anti-Franco power in Spain has been the most striking political development since the outbreak of the civil war. Their opportunity came in November 1936, when Russian help alone saved Madrid from falling into the hands of the Insurgents and placed at the disposal of the Communists precious war stores such as no other party commanded. For some months, they continued to cooperate with Largo Caballero's Left Socialist-Anarchist government, avoiding overt expression of dissatisfaction with its inefficiency, arrogance, and poor organizational features, but in May, 1937, they took advantage of an Anarchist uprising in Barcelona to bring about Caballero's downfall. From that time forward, their policy was one of unification with the moderate Socialists and close collaboration with Right and Left wing Republicans whose program was publicly declared to be the defense of parliamentary democracy within the framework of the existing social system.

Other Loyalist governing agencies such as the Junta de Defensa in Madrid as well as the Generalitat of Catalonia have come under predominant Communist influence. On the outbreak of the war, the Esquerra, the traditional party of Catalan nationalism, constituted the government of Catalonia. It soon found itself helpless before an Anarchist organization called the Central Militia Committee, which practically constituted a second government in that state and carried it further toward social revolution than any other part of Spain. With the influx of Russian help in November, 1936, a Stalinist Communist party called the P. S. U. C. (Unified Socialist Communist Party) rapidly gained strength and weakened the grasp of the Anarchists and also of the P. O. U. M., the party of the Trotskyists. Here as elsewhere, the organizing ability and military resources of the Communists and their knowledge of the art of propaganda made them the dominating political factor. Many of their new members have come from military, police and administrative circles, as well as from the intelligentsia, the petty bourgeoisie and the well-to-do peasants. The percentage of workers among the Communists is said not to be large.

The policy of the Communists has been to strengthen order by deprecating the useless risings and frequent strikes that were characteristic of the Anarchists, to champion the rich peasants against the trade unions by opposing the nationalization of peasant lands, to please this same class by opposing any further anti-religious movement and to weaken the Anarchists by setting their face against collectivization. In the military sphere they have stood for compulsory military service, unity of command and the reestablishment of the commissaries with the military units.

As the Communists have increased in power, the Anarchists and the P. O. U. M. have tended to decline and many of their members to shift their alliance to the growing party. Largo Caballero remained General Secretary of the U. G. T., the Socialist Trade Union, until January 5, 1938, when, in the interest of general harmony, he withdrew and was succeeded by José Rodriquez Vega who was committed to a policy of collaboration with the Government. In April, when the Insurgents were breaking through Loyalists' lines everywhere, the U. G. T. and the C. N. T. (respectively the Socialist and Anarcho-Syndicalist trade unions) arrived at a peace pact and thereafter worked fairly well together.

As the Negrin Cabinet gave evidence of ability and courage in reestablishing order, building an efficient national army, organizing war industries under government control, and winning the goodwill of foreign governments, the swing away from extreme Leftist politics became more pronounced and the determination more evident to create a national union for the winning of the war on a moderate basis.

The most serious problem before the Government, as 1938 drew to a close, was the shortage of food made acute by the presence of something like three and one half million starving refugees who had crowded into Government territory as the Insurgent forces pushed eastward. Premier Negrin pleaded at Geneva for the official assistance of the League in the removal of restrictions on the importation of food, disinfectants and medicines, but this was not forthcoming, and the Insurgent blockade of Government harbors by sea and air continued.

International Relations.

Foreign Aid.

In the sphere of international affairs the Spanish civil war in 1938 was frequently overshadowed by the recurring crises in central European affairs. The absorption of Austria into the German Reich came in the very month of Franco's drive down the Ebro, while the seizure of Czechoslovakia drove the news of the later counter offensives from the front pages of the newspapers. Foreign intervention continued an outstanding feature of the Spanish civil war, but in this year, to a greater extent than had been previously the case, the Spanish policies of the five foreign nations most closely concerned came to be more and more closely linked up with their policies elsewhere. The thin veil of neutrality thrown by the Non-Intervention Committee over the activities of these foreign states in the affairs of the peninsula became extremely tenuous and frequently was openly discarded all together. The main line of the policies, however, remained much as in previous years. Germany and Italy continued to send expensive assistance, especially technical aid and airplanes, to General Franco. The Russians dispatched similar vital aid to the Loyalists, while England and France endeavored to inject sufficient reality into the doctrine of non-intervention, at least to limit the activities of the dictator nations there and to delay a Franco victory to a point where peace by negotiation could be effected.

Germany.

The motive of Germany's intervention was explained by Hitler in a speech before the Reichstag on Feb. 20, 1938, in which he said that he would look upon the introduction of Bolshevism into Spain as not only an element of unrest in Europe but also as upsetting to the European balance of power. On another occasion, he also admitted the economic motive in the words: 'Germany needs to import ore. That is why we want a Nationalist Government in Spain so that we may be able to buy Spanish ore.' Another pressing consideration generally attributed to him by foreign observers has been the desire to place a Fascist nation on the southern borders of France in order to surround that nation with unfriendly neighbors who will keep her occupied as the Drang nach Osten proceeds.

Italy.

Mussolini's commitments to the Insurgent cause are even heavier than Germany's. Italian aid has not been confined, as Germany's has largely, to materials of war and technical assistance. Italian Black Shirts taking part in the Ebro drive were said in late May to number 30,000 and to be strongly supported by many scores of Italian planes piloted by Italian airmen. The Italian Fascist leader laid aside all pretense of neutrality as he publicly boasted of Italian military successes and openly corresponded with the Insurgent leaders. In a congratulatory telegram to General Franco on July 18, at the opening of what the Insurgent leader termed his 'third triumphal year' Mussolini declared that 'Fascist Italy is proud to have contributed blood and equipment to the victor.' His interest in the outcome of the struggle, which observers thought increased as the progress of German Nazism contracted the likelihood of the expansion of Italian Fascism in central Europe, was based on strategic considerations of the future when the Spanish Government would be in a position to threaten British and French imperial communications and Spain would occupy a strategic position in the rivalry of the Powers for control of the Mediterranean.

Russia.

Russia's contribution to the struggle continued to be more quietly, though not less effectually given, than German and Italian aid to the Insurgents. Russian planes, pilots, and munitions steadily found their way throughout the year across the Pyrenees to uphold the hands of the hard-pressed Barcelona Government. Russian organizing ability and experience in propaganda also helped from within, through the Communist organizations that were strengthened and guided into more practical and moderate paths than had been pursued by earlier Spanish Marxists. Russian aid was predicated upon the undesirability of having another member added to the Fascist group of states.

Great Britain.

British policy through 1938 rested on a wide variety of considerations, growing out of her far-flung imperial interests. Her course seemed more incalculable and therefore more the object of the hopes and fears of the rival contestants than the policy of other foreign nations whose interests were more obvious. As an imperial power holding Gibraltar and vitally concerned to keep open communications with India, Egypt, and Palestine, it was obvious that England could not be unconcerned in the fate of a nation in such a strategic position as Spain to affect the balance of power in the Mediterranean world. The English Government had also to bear in mind the protection due to an extensive Anglo-Spanish commerce, which is several centuries old. British investments in the peninsula total close to thirty million pounds, with most of them, by the beginning of 1938, located in Insurgent territory. As early as November 1937 English commercial agents were functioning in Nationalist territory. Furthermore, as the strongest of the democracies of northern Europe, England could not look on unconcerned at the extension of the Fascist system. The resignation in February of the British foreign minister, Anthony Eden, the advocate of sterner methods with dictators, indicated the general direction in which British policy in Spain and elsewhere would move. The prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, had become convinced that vital British interests were threatened at too many points around the world to be safe and was determined to relieve the situation by agreements with the Fascist dictators of Germany and Italy, at the same time preventing, if possible, the consolidation of the Rome-Berlin Axis. This view of his main problem necessarily conditioned his policy in Spain and made it unlikely that he would approve the official opening of the French frontier in behalf of the Loyalists who, through their prime minister, passionately pleaded for such action in a special trip to Paris made for that purpose at the time of the Ebro drive.

The Spanish political situation seemed to indicate to the English that whichever side won the final results would probably be a dictatorship imposed either from the Left or from the Right, with only the hope remaining that in the long run the Spaniards, being the strong individualists they are, would come to pursue a strictly Spanish policy. The history of foreign intervention in Spain gave little encouragement, the English ministers thought, to the belief that anything but a neutral policy in Spanish civil wars paid satisfactory dividends. (See also GREAT BRITAIN: Foreign Policy.)

Anglo-Italian Agreement.

British efforts to arrive at an understanding with Italy finally took form in the Anglo-Italian agreement signed on April 16, in which England showed herself prepared to pay a heavy price for peace. The agreement undertook to settle all outstanding disputes between the two states in the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle East, and Spain. In relation to Spain, Italy pledged herself to accept the British plan which had been approved by the Non-Intervention Committee, providing for a proportional evacuation of foreign troops from Spain, and promised that after the civil war was over she would not leave any troops in the peninsula or entertain any plans of changes in Spanish territory either in the peninsula itself, the Balearic Islands, or Spanish Morocco. The whole agreement, which provides among other things for the recognition by Great Britain of the Italian conquest of Ethiopia, was only to come into effect after a settlement of the Spanish question. In other words, the latter was to be a prerequisite of the recognition of Italy's conquest of Ethiopia. Defending the agreement before the House of Commons on May 2, 1938, Chamberlain said: 'I do not think that we could feel that we were taking steps towards general appeasement unless at the same time we could see that a Spanish settlement was in reach. That is the reason why we have made this Spanish settlement a prerequisite of the entry into force of this instrument and a prerequisite, therefore, of the recognition of the Italian conquest.' The Anglo-Italian treaty was followed by Franco-Italian negotiations along similar lines and by preliminary steps taken at the meeting of the Council of the League in May for the recognition of Italy's East African conquests.

From this determined policy of non-intervention in Spain, Chamberlain did not allow himself to be driven, despite a new outbreak of 'piracy' in the Mediterranean and the bombing of many British ships in Spanish harbors. British ship owners who were making fortunes in Spanish war zones must, the Prime Minister said, take their own risks. By the end of June, there had been fifty-nine attacks on British ships and thirty-six British seamen had been killed. Thereafter, however, as a result of stronger diplomatic representations, the attack on British vessels died down somewhat until a recrudescence of the attacks occurred in the weeks immediately following the Munich agreement. Meanwhile, the British Government continued to play its long game of waiting and hoping (while arming at top speed) for some circumstance to weaken the alliance, so dangerous to English peace, of Germany, Italy, and Japan. 'If in the process of keeping the English nation at peace, China, Ethiopia, Austria and Spain must be thrown to the wolves, Chamberlain,' his critics said, 'would regret it but not hesitate.'

Withdrawals of Foreign Volunteers.

In July, the British plan for the withdrawal of foreign volunteers as approved by the Non-Intervention Committee was accepted by both Governments in Spain 'in principle,' and British hopes for the moment ran high that this constant threat of a European conflagration 'could be at least limited,' but their hopes were dashed when, on Aug. 21, General Franco, despite his early favorable reply, rejected the whole scheme. He demanded, instead of a proportional withdrawal of troops from both sides, the dispatch of an equal number from each army and asked, in return, for the concession of belligerent rights at once instead of after the withdrawal of 'a substantial number.' The reluctance of the non-Fascist nations to grant belligerent rights to General Franco until his military strength had been cut down by a proportional withdrawal of foreign infantry, was based on their realization of the seriousness of this step for Loyalist Spain. With belligerency rights granted, General Franco would at once, it was evident, attempt to establish a wholly effective blockade of the whole coast of Loyalist Spain, from Almeria to the French border. With his superior naval and air strength, concentrated in the Mediterranean after the close of the Basque campaign, and in possession of an air base at Majorca, it was feared that he might be able to put the Government's munitions factories out of commission by depriving them of raw materials from overseas, and so produce actual starvation and epidemic conditions by holding up all supply ships. With belligerency rights withheld, the Insurgents' blockade could, within the limits of international law, be ignored and individual shippers could take their own risks in a traffic of arms and food to Loyalist Spain.

General Franco's rejection of the carefully devised plan of the Non-Intervention Committee wrecked its program, brought its activities to an end for the time being, and was a heavy blow to the British Government's Spanish plans. One month after General Franco's rejection of the Non-Intervention Committee's proposals, Prime Minister Negrin, on Sept. 2, electrified the League of Nations, which two days earlier had listened to a bitter arraignment of the policy of 'realism' in European politics in relation to the Spanish civil war from Alvarez del Vayo, by announcing that the Spanish Government 'has just decided on immediate and complete withdrawal of all non-Spanish combatants taking part in the struggle on the Government side' without reference to similar action by the Insurgents. Negrin invited the League to appoint an international commission to arrange the necessary details and supervise the withdrawal of the troops. He explained that his Government took the step 'to remove every pretext for calling in question the national character of the Republican cause.' His action was variously interpreted. Some people believed that it merely indicated the Government's realization of the close interplay of European policies and its fear of a quick Fascist settlement for Spain in the pattern of that later devised at Munich for Czechoslovakia, and the consequent desire to take its case to the League of Nations while there was yet time. Others thought that it was a gesture in the direction of opening a door to mediation. This latter impression was strengthened when, on October 2, in a speech before the Cortes, Premier Negrin stated that a purely Spanish settlement on the basis of mediation between Spaniards without foreign interference would be welcomed by the Government. The Insurgent press, however, reiterated its determination never to accept mediation or a compromise agreement.

The Commission appointed by the League of Nations arrived in Spain in the middle of October and by Nov. 12, the first contingents of the Internationals, the foreign volunteers fighting on the Government side, were on their way to France. It was estimated that the total withdrawal, including foreign medical units, would require approximately three months. The numbers would not, it was said, exceed 10,000 persons. Government spokesmen pointed out that these foreign volunteers had served the purpose of shock troops while Spaniards had been undergoing necessary training, but were now no longer required as the building of an efficient, all-Spanish fighting machine was practically completed.

Meanwhile, following closely upon Premier Negrin's League announcement, though said to be quite independent of it, Mussolini ordered home from Spain 10,000 Italian troops. While this number represented but a fraction of Italian forces in Spain, it being estimated that there still remained not fewer than 75,000 infantry besides many hundreds of airplanes, this gesture by the Italian Fascist leader had important international consequences. Chamberlain seized the opportunity to put into operation the Anglo-Italian pact of the preceding April. The British Prime Minister declared that, by withdrawing 10,000 troops from Spain, Mussolini had fulfilled a promise he had made at Munich, which Great Britain had indicated that she would accept as the 'settlement' necessary for bringing the pact into force. At Munich, Chamberlain said that Hitler and Mussolini had assured him 'most definitely that they had no territorial ambitions whatsoever in Spain' and that he was 'convinced the Spanish question is no longer a menace to the peace of the world, and there is no valid reason why we should not now take the step which would obviously contribute to general appeasement.' The British Parliament approved the pact by a majority of 345 to 138 and, on its signature in Rome on Nov. 16, it went into force, presumably settling the outstanding problems between Italy and Great Britain, and reducing the Spanish war, so far as the relations of the two Powers were concerned, to a purely domestic Spanish issue. See also COMMUNISM; LEAGUE OF NATIONS.