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

Against this background, Negrín made a speech to the League of Nations on 21 September to announce the unconditional withdrawal of the International Brigades. His surprise gesture had little of the dramatic effect upon which he had counted to focus sympathy for the Republic. Concern over the Czechoslovakian crisis, then reaching a climax, had turned Spain into a sideshow which diplomats in Geneva preferred to forget, since it was an embarrassing reminder of the worst aspects of international relations. Ciano was perplexed by Negrín’s move. ‘Why are they doing this?’ he asked in his diary. ‘Do they feel themselves so strong? Or is it merely a demonstration of a platonic nature? So far as we are concerned, I think this robs our partial evacuation of some of its flavour. But it has the advantage that the initiative is not made to appear ours–this would certainly have lent itself to disagreeable comments about Italian weariness, betrayal of Franco, etc.’⁷

Mussolini, on the other hand, although infuriated at times by Franco’s ‘serene optimism’ and his ‘flabby conduct of the war’, offered fresh divisions. At that stage there were about 40,000 Italian troops in Spain. Eventually it was agreed that the best of them should stay and be concentrated in one over-strength division, while the remainder would be repatriated. In order to make up for this withdrawal, Mussolini promised additional aircraft and artillery, which were what Franco had really wanted in the first place. The Italian government was then able to point to its infantry withdrawals and insist on the implementation of the Anglo-Italian pact. Chamberlain asked for a brief delay, so that it would not look to the House of Commons, in Ciano’s words, ‘as if Mussolini has fixed the date’. This was necessary as Italian attacks on ships flying the British flag had continued sporadically. The first Italian troops disembarked in Naples to an orchestrated welcome on 20 October. Lord Perth asked permission for his military attaché to witness the event, which prompted Ciano to note, ‘No objection in principle on our part–so long as the thing is useful to Chamberlain for the parliamentary debates.’⁸

Ciano had every reason to feel that he could afford to be patronizing in the wake of Munich. The prospect of a European war (which had frightened both Mussolini and Ciano, despite all their bombastic statements) had receded. Mussolini claimed that ‘with the conquest of Prague, we had already practically captured Barcelona’. This remark underlines the way that Britain had sacrificed the Spanish Republic in its misguided desperation to avoid war, just as it went on to sacrifice the Czechs. Soviet policy towards the Republic changed from cautious support to active disengagement. The betrayal of Czechoslovakia finally convinced Stalin that he could not count on Great Britain and France as allies against Hitler and so must cover his vulnerability by an alliance with Germany. But it would be misleading to link the fate of the Republic entirely with that of Czechoslovakia. The final destruction of the Republic’s hope of survival had begun with the fighting across the Ebro, at least a month before the Munich agreement.

Chamberlain, however, was convinced that the Munich agreement had been a diplomatic triumph. He was so pleased with his efforts that, just before Mussolini and Ciano left Munich, he suggested ‘the possibility of a Conference of Four to solve the Spanish problem’.⁹ Evidently he felt that the Spanish republicans could be made to see reason like the Czechs and be persuaded to sacrifice themselves in the cause of what he thought was European stability. The late 1930s were years in which statesmen were particularly tempted to cultivate inflated ideas of their diplomatic abilities. A diplomatic coup in times of tension offers the dazzling prospect of political stardom. As Anthony Eden commented about Chamberlain, ‘This is a form of adulation to which Prime Ministers must expect to be subject: it is gratifying to indulge, and hard to resist.’ This observation was also true of Negrín who, perhaps because of his undeniable talents in many fields, gravely overestimated what could be achieved by personal reputation and the power of persuasion. It is difficult otherwise to understand how he could have taken such an unjustified gamble as the Ebro offensive to serve as the backing for his diplomatic ventures.