The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939

Franco’s main suppliers (unlike those of the Republic) did not press the nationalists to pay in advance, nor did they overcharge. The nationalists did not have anything like enough in hard currency to pay, so Franco effectively mortgaged Spain’s mineral wealth. His most voracious creditors, but also the purveyors of his most effective aid, were the Germans. Hermann Göring, the head of the Nazis’ ‘Four Year Plan’ as well as the Luftwaffe, was the key figure. The origins of the German commercial organization, HISMA/ROWAK, have already been mentioned. It rapidly gained control of a virtual monopoly of Spanish nationalist imports and exports. Yet Göring, preoccupied by the scale of nationalist debt and determined to take control of Spanish mining output on a more permanent basis, created a special affiliate of HISMA, called the Montana Project. Montana would oversee the exploitation and export to Germany of iron, mercury, pyrites, tungsten and antimony from 73 Spanish mines.

On 10 January 1938 von Stohrer, the German ambassador in Salamanca, called a meeting to discuss HISMA/ROWAK’s operations in 1937, which reached a total of 2,584,000 tons sent to Germany.¹⁰ Fifteen days later Count Jordana, the foreign minister, told German representatives that the Montana project could not go ahead because existing (in fact, republican) legislation insisted on a study mine by mine first and could not be applied to 73 of them at once. Also, according to this same law, foreign capital invested in Spanish mines could not exceed 20 per cent. Jordana asked them to be patient until a new law could be passed. But the nationalists also came under heavy pressure from Great Britain which, as the largest importer of iron and pyrites from Spain, wanted to protect its own interests. Before July 1936 five British companies, including the Rio Tinto company, accounted for 65 per cent of British pyrite imports, which were essential for the armaments industry.

Franco’s national pride reacted against the German demands and he asked for an increase in military aid, while playing for time. Eventually, the infuriated Germans threatened to cut off all aid and he had to sign the new mining law in July 1938. The Germans nevertheless immediately reinforced the Condor Legion, which happened to be just in time for the Battle of the Ebro.

Franco had a much easier time with his Italian allies. Mussolini’s megalomania led him into prodigal gestures of munificence, which reduced his minister of finance to despair. He never pressed the nationalists for payment or tried to exploit Spanish mineral wealth. Italian aid to nationalist Spain was disastrous to the economy. The cost of Mussolini’s adventure in Spain rose to 8,500 million lire (the equivalent of three billion euros).

In 1938, as well as devoting his energies to rebuilding the political and economic structure of Spain, Franco had to concentrate on finishing the war. After the devastating advance of the nationalists across Aragón to the sea, his allies expected the fall of Barcelona to follow, yet Franco turned away from this prize. General Vigón and the other nationalist commanders could not understand why the Generalissimo should fail to seize the opportunity when his troops were almost at the gates of the Catalan capital. Nor could his republican opponents. General Rojo himself admitted that Barcelona could have been taken with ‘less force and in less time’ than when it finally took place in January 1939.¹¹

The reason for Franco’s timidity is indeed strange. Since the autumn of 1936 he had been convinced that the French were playing an ambitious game. He thought that French officers were serving secretly with the republican forces and that France planned to annex Catalonia. He had told a German representative in September 1936 that ‘France was the actual ruler of Catalonia’.¹² He continued to believe, quite wrongly, that the French would annex Catalonia ‘to prevent nationalist Spain from being too powerful’, as he stated to Richthofen in November 1937.¹³ It must be said that even the Germans were concerned for a short time in March 1938 that the French were moving troops to the south-west of the country and that the French Mediterranean squadron had ‘received orders to be prepared for action’.¹⁴ But Franco’s fears persisted long after his allies had discounted the threat entirely. As late as 17 January 1939, with nationalist troops advancing on Barcelona, Richthofen again had to reassure Franco that the French would not intervene.¹⁵ All this was despite the fact that Chamberlain had warned France clearly that if the Nazis reacted furiously to a French intervention in Catalonia, Great Britain would not come to her aid. In addition, Franco had heard that the French general staff was opposed to involvement in Spain, partly because few of its members sympathized with the Republic, and because they feared a conflict which could lead to war on two fronts.