The Spanish Civil War Read online

  By that time, there was a Spanish edition. I had never thought that a possibility. Before the book was even out in England I had been visited by two members of the Spanish opposition, Nicolás Sánchez Albornoz, son of the historian Claudio Sánchez Albornoz, and a rebellious former member of the Spanish foreign service, Vicente Girbau, who were helping to found a publishing house in Paris which would concentrate on works condemned by the Franco regime. My book seemed a good one with which to start. I agreed and Ruedo Ibérico (as the publishers became known), driven by an anarchist from Valencia, Pépé Martínez, set to work on a translation.

  I soon had other publishers: for example Robert Laffont in Paris (still my French publisher, I am glad to say), Ullstein in Germany and the powerful Einaudi in Italy. In the end, the book had seventeen foreign publishers, and was printed in every language of the European Union.

  Spanish Civil War historical studies have been transformed since my book was first published in 1961. We have experienced thoughtful lives of General Franco, of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, of Calvo Sotelo, of Dr Juan Negrín, of Indalecio Prieto and of Manuel Azaña, and the complete diaries of the latter have been published. The international side of the Civil War has been amply covered with historically responsible works. The supply of armaments to both sides has been fully explored. The atrocities behind the two lines have been exhaustively investigated, and many figures have been hazarded. Even the role of the Soviet Union has been authoritatively studied and the Church of Rome analysed in depth. The military side of the conflict has of course not been ignored. Such works as Ian Patterson’s Guernica have shown that micro-studies still reveal as much as macro-investigations. But some problems remain. For example, what was the real role of Colonel Martínez Fusset, General Franco’s military adjutant, who turns out to have been an intimate friend early in life of the poet García Lorca?

  In the early 2000s during the government of Señor Zapatero, the Spanish Civil War again became a matter of contemporary politics. The problem was that, whereas in the years immediately after the end of the Civil War in 1939, the victors were able to use memories of the atrocious behaviour of many left-wing parties and militia groups as a warning against allowing any truck with Communism, the Left had never been permitted to have a similar revenge for right-wing and governmental injustices. This was especially scandalous, it seemed, because, in the years 1939–45, with the world war raging in much of Europe, the government of General Franco could act more or less without criticism. The Law of Historical Memory was passed to try to put the consequent grievances to rest.

  Nothing in historical memory is ever obvious, however. Let us recall what happened with the understandable desire of well-wishers to bury honourably the corpse of the poet Federico García Lorca, who was shot in August 1936 by the organized Right in or outside Granada. His place of interment seemed to have been established by such worthy people as Gerald Brenan and Ian Gibson. A campaign for disinterment began which was initially opposed by the surviving members of the poet’s family. Eventually in 2010 the idea was approved and embarked upon. But despite elaborate digging no body was found.

  My solution to the problem of the memory of the Civil War is a simple one. A monument should be erected outside Madrid along the lines of the Holocaust monument in Israel. On this the names of all who died as a direct consquence of the conflict, either in battle or behind the lines, should be inscribed. There would be José Antonio as well as García Lorca, there would be Mola and also Luis Companys. Cornford, of course, and the famous Sevillano bullfighter El Algabeño3 who were killed on opposing sides in the winter battle at Lopera in 1937. One was a falangista, the other an English poet and Communist. Both were heroes within their own worlds, who knew absolutely nothing of each other.

  H. T., 2012

  List of Maps

  1. Regions and provinces of Spain

  2. Spanish Morocco

  3. The revolution in Asturias, 1934

  4. Madrid during the Second Republic

  5. Spanish military arrangements, 1936

  6. Captain Bebb’s flight, July 1936

  7. Barcelona, July 1936

  8. Division of Spain at the end of July 1936

  9. The fighting in the Guadarramas, July-August 1936

  10. The Catalan invasion of Aragon, July-August 1936

  11. The advance of the Army of Africa, August-October 1936

  12. The campaign in Guipúzcoa, August-September 1936

  13. The invasion of Majorca, August 1936

  14. Division of Spain, August 1936

  15. The advance on Madrid, September-November 1936

  16. The battle of Madrid, November 1936

  17. The battles of Boadilla and the Corunna Road, December 1936

  18. The fighting for Malaga, February 1937

  19. The battle of the Jarama, February 1937

  20. The battle of Guadalajara, March 1937

  21. The battles around Madrid, November 1936-March 1937

  22. Division of Spain, March 1937

  23. The campaign in Vizcaya, March-June 1937

  24. Naval Non-Intervention Patrol

  25. The battle of Brunete, July 1937

  26. The Santander campaign, August 1937

  27. The Aragon offensive, August-October 1937

  28. The Asturias campaign, September-October 1937

  29. Division of Spain, October 1937

  30. The battle of Teruel, December 1937-February 1938

  31. The campaigns in Aragon and the Levante, March-July 1938

  32. Division of Spain, July 1938

  33. The battle of the Ebro, July-November 1938

  34. The campaign in Catalonia, December 1938-January 1939

  35. Division of Spain, February 1939

  All maps were drawn from roughs by Douglas London.

  Abbreviations Used in the Notes

  CAB

  British cabinet minutes (unpublished, in the Public Record Office)-with the appropriate reference thereafter

  FD

  French foreign policy documents 2e Série 1936-9 tome III onwards

  FO

  Foreign Office, alluding to unpublished papers in the Public Record Office

  GD

  German foreign policy documents Series D vol. 3 unless otherwise stated

  NIC

  Non-Intervention Committee documents

  NIS

  Non-Intervention Sub-committee documents

  USD

  United States foreign policy volumes 1936-9

  Some Groups and Political Parties

  with their abbreviations and approximate English equivalents

  CEDA

  (Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas)-Catholic Party

  CNT

  (Confederación Nacional de Trabajo)-Anarcho-Syndicalist Trades Union

  FAI

  (Federación Anarquista Ibérica)-Anarchist Doctrinal Vanguard

  FIJL

  (Federación Ibérica de Juventudes Libertarias)-Anarchist Youth

  JAP

  (Juventud de Acción Popular)-Catholic Action Youth Movement

  JCI

  (Juventud Comunista Ibérica)-POUM (see below) Youth

  JONS

  (Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista)-Fascists

  JSU

  (Juventudes Socialistas Unificadas)-United Youth Movement

  POUM

  (Partido Obrere de Unificación Marxista)-Revolutionary (i.e., anti-Stalinist) Communists

  PSUC

  (Partido Socialista Unificado de Cataluña)-United Catalan Socialist Party-a pseudonym for the communists in Catalonia

  UGT

  (Unión General de Trabajadores)-Socialist Trade Union

  UME

  (Unión Militar Espanola)-Right-wing officers’ group

  UMRA

  (Unión Militar Republicana Antifascista)-Republican officers’ group

  Preface to the Revised Edition

  This work was first publishe
d in 1961 and later that year and the next in several languages, including Spanish. The Spanish edition was, however, not published in Madrid because it was banned there by the censors in the Ministry of Information; so it was produced (as its first book, I think) by Ruedo Ibérico, a Spanish émigré publishing house in Paris, and subsequently smuggled into Spain. Revised editions followed in English. The fully revised edition of 1976 was published in English and Spanish. By that time General Franco had died and the new government led by Adolfo Suárez, on the designation of King Juan Carlos, was in process of abolishing the censorship. Thereafter, the book sold in many editions in Spain; there was an illustrated Version sold as a partwork in kiosks at railway stations and street corners.

  I think that the censorship in Spain in the 1960s helped the sales in the 1970s. By the time of Franco’s death, the appetite for all books previously prohibited was voracious, especially when they treated such sensitive questions as the war which had brought Franco to power. However, the success of all these publications-not just mine but that of other historians, Spanish as well as English, French as well as American-played a part in the success also of the transition to demcracy alter Franco. The recovery of knowledge of why the previous demcracy in Spain went wrong in the 1930s was a help in the 1970s. The recollection in tranquillity of just how horrible a failure the civil war had been helped those concerned to make a new Spain to avoid destructive rhetoric. By suggesting that the responsibility for the conflict was not easily decided, and the guilt for the most odious actions widely spread, vengeance was avoided-a fact not wholly to be expected when it is recalled how many people who had played a part in the civil war were still alive. ‘Poetry,’ said Shelley, ‘is capable of saving us.’ Cannot the same claim be made for history?

  Perceptions of the Spanish war differ from one period of ten years to the next. It now appears to have been Spain’s contribution to the continent-wide breakdown which occurred between 1914 and 1945: not a specifically Spanish descent into barbarism and certainly not a characteristic one. In past centuries no one thought that nations engaged in war could survive when they ran out of money The events of 1914 showed that to be false. No one supposed in the last Century that civil wars would go on if the two sides ran out of arms: in Spain it was shown, as many conflicts since then have shown, that other countries can furnish the war material to enable the fighting to go on indefinitely. Many were killed in Spain: but since my first edition questioned, I believe for the first time, in a historical work, the reliability of the estimate of ‘a million dead’, and suggested that 500,000 might be a maximum, the estimates for casualties have dropped and dropped. Now it would be perfectly admissible to argue that Spain lost fewer people dead in acts of violence than any other major European nation in this Century.

  That is an important reflection. Spain, little understood and often privately disliked by patronizing northern peoples (‘an old Spanish custom’ in London means the habit of being paid for work that is not done), is frequently held to be a more violent nation than it is. Isolated by good fortune and by geography from the ‘world’s game’ of great power rivalry since 1815, it has more lessons to offer other peoples than it has to learn: above all, it has grasped more successfully than other nations the art of combining progress with the persistence of tradition. Its recent achievement of delegating authority to autonomous regions is not universally popular in Spain because the central government continues as expensive as before. But I suspect it is the way that all advanced countries should go if they continue to wish half their economy to be managed by the State. These are grand issues: no doubt their chronicling in future works of history will exert an influence in the future if people are to go on living as happily in Europe as, despite everything, most of us are now.

  During the years that I have been interested in the Spanish Civil War, I had interviews with or correspondence with numerous survivors of that time. Those from Spain who assisted me have included:

  Don Víctor Alba; Don Julio Alvarez del Vayo; Don Pablo de Azcárate; Don Cayetano Bolívar; Don Juan de Borbón; Professor Bosch Gimpera; Don Beitrán Domecq; Don Manuel Fal Conde; Don Melchor Ferrer; Don Andrés García Lacalle; Don José García Pradas; Don José María Gil Robles; Don Julián Gorkin; Don Juan Grijalbo; Don Vicente Guarner; Cardinal Angel Herrera; General Emilio Herrera; Don Martín de Irujo; Don José María de Leizaola; Don Salvador de Madariaga; Don Ignacio de Mantecón; Don Adolfo Martin Gamero; General Martínez Campos, Duque de la Torre; Doña Federica Montseny; Dr Juan Negrín Junior; Fr Alberto Onaindía; Prince Alvaro de Orleans-Borbón; Don Luis de Ortúzar; Don Luis Portillo; Don Domingo Qj Don Dioniso Ridruejo; Don Ramón Serrano Súñer; Don Manuel Tagueña; Don José María Tarradellas; and, Don Fernado Valera.

  Others with whom I had conversations or correspondence of value included: George Aitken; Richard Bennett; Johannes Bernhardt; Gerald Brenan; Henery Buckley; Tom Burns; R. A. Butler (Lord Butler); Claud Cockburn; Fred Copeman; Frances Cornford; Thora Craig; Alec Digges; Malcolm Dunbar; Lord Dunrossil; Captain Noël Fitzpatrick; Desmond Flower; Lord Gladwyn; Humphrey Hare; Margot Heinemann; Francis Hemming; Lord Home; Frank Jellinek; Douglas Jerrold; Peter Kemp; Peter Kerrigan; Arthur Koestler; Arthur Krock; Captain Sir Basil Liddell-Hart; Bernard Malley; André Malraux; Herbert Matthews; Jessica Mitford; Nancy Mitford; Philip Noël-Baker; George Palaczi-Horwarth; Don Octavio Paz; Sir Victor Pritchett; Giles Romilly; Esther Salaman; Miles Sherover; Kenneth Sinclair-Loutitt; Sir Stephen Spender; Sir William Strang; Norman Thomas; Miles Tomalin; Philip Toynbee; Lady Vansittart; Sir Fred Warner; and, Rowland Winn (Lord Saint Oswald).

  Among scholars who gave me at one time or another the benefit of their advice, I am grateful to Professor Michael Alpert; Don Angel Bahamonde; Professor Batista i Roca; Sir Raymond Carr; Don Jaime Cervera; Norman Cooper; Sir William Deakin; Professor Jill Edwards; Ronald Fraser; Professor Eric Hobsbawm; Professor James Joll; Admiral Sir Peter Gretton; Ian Macintyre; Professor Paul Preston; Don Ramón Tamames; and, Don Javier Tusell.

  I express my gratitude as ever to Cass Canfield, Jr., and James Macgibbon, who first suggested that I should write this book, and to Cass Canfield and Douglas Jerrold for their support while I was writing it.

  HUGH THOMAS

  London

  1999

  Book One

  THE ORIGINS OF THE WAR

  ‘Every Spaniard’s ideal is to carry a statutory letter with a single provision, brief but imperious: “This Spaniard is entitled to do whatever he feels like doing”.’

  ANGEL GANIVET

  1

  Prologue

  The Cortes, the parliament of Spain, stands halfway up the hill leading from the Prado to the Puerta del Sol.1 Bronze lions cast from guns captured in the Moroccan Wars guard its doors. At the summit of its Corinthian columns, Justice hopefully embraces Labour on a granite pediment. On 16 June 1936 this classical building was the centre of all Spain.

  Over five years had then passed since King Alfonso XIII had abandoned the Spanish throne—to avoid, as he put it (perhaps exaggerating his importance in the minds of his people), the disaster of a civil war. These had been five years of parliamentary activity. Before the King left, there had been eight years, from 1923 till 1931, when, most of the time under the amiable military dictator General Primo de Rivera, the Cortes had been deserted. Now, in June 1936, constitutional life in Spain seemed likely to be destroyed.

  An anxious group of middle-class liberals were gathered on the blue government bench at the front of the semi-circular debating chamber. Honest and intelligent men, they and their followers hated violence. They admired the pleasing, democratic ways of Britain, France and America. In both this hatred and this admiration, they were, however, unusual among Spaniards of their time, isolated even among the four hundred other deputies sitting or standing around and above them, as best they could, in the crowded debating chamber.1 Yet the men of this government had a fanaticism of their own hardly typical of the practical-minded countries which they desired
to reproduce in Spain.

  Observe, for example, the Prime Minister, Santiago Casares Quiroga.2 A rich man from Galicia in the north-west of Spain, he had spent much of his life calling for home rule for his own poor province, although the only advantage the gallegos3 could have gained from this would have been a better rail service. Although Casares seemed to act according to liberal, Wilsonian principles formulated beyond the Pyrenees, no one could have been more Spanish. He was a passionate liberal when the rise of organized labour caused liberalism to seem as anachronistic as feudalism. Yet since there had not been in Spain a successful middle-class revolution on the model of that in France in 1789, one can hardly blame Casares and his friends for their attitude. In the early years of the republic, in 1931 and 1932, the eyes of Casares Quiroga (then minister of the interior) had appeared, to both friends and enemies, to burn in his small head like those of St Just. Now they were marked by a strange, ironic optimism, only explicable as a symptom of the tuberculosis from which he was already suffering.

  The nature of the crisis in Spain was described on 16 June 1936 by Gil Robles, the sleek, fat and almost bald, but still young, leader of the Spanish Catholic party, the CEDA.4 His party was conservative, and Catholic, and it included those who wanted to restore a monarchy, as well as those who desired a christian democratic republic. Some in the CEDA, particularly in the youth movement (JAP),1 were almost fascists; and some admired Dollfuss’s corporate Austria. Gil Robles was eloquent and able, but hesitant and devious. He was as hated by monarchists and fascists as he was by socialists. Yet he had created the first middle-class Spanish mass party. Now he recalled that the government had had, since the elections in February, exceptional powers, including press censorship and the suspension of constitutional guarantees. Nevertheless, during those four months, 160 churches, he said, had been burned to the ground, there had been 269 political murders, and 1,287 assaults of varying seriousness. Sixty-nine political centres had been wrecked, there had been 113 general strikes and 228 partial strikes, while 10 newspaper offices had been sacked. ‘Let us not deceive ourselves!’ concluded Gil Robles. ‘A country can live under a monarchy or a republic, with a parliamentary or a presidential system, under communism or fascism! But it cannot live in anarchy. Now, alas, Spain is in anarchy. And we are today present at the funeral of democracy!’ Angry cries broke out from all over the chamber, some in agreement, some in dissent.2