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

Martínez Barrio met with sixteen deputies of the permanent commission of the Cortes at the Lapérouse restaurant on the Quai des Grands-Augustins. In this haunt of grand men of letters, the republican deputies discussed the rather academic question of presidential elections. There was not a single communist among them. They decided to send a telegram to Negrín, stating that Martínez Barrio was prepared to come to the central zone to carry out the requirements of the constitution and organize the election of a new president of the Republic, but only to ensure the negotiation of a peace accord. Apparently the telegram received no response. Martínez Barrio and others, including General Rojo, then made their final decision not to return.

In the remaining republican zone of Spain, meanwhile, Negrín had summoned military leaders from all services to the aerodrome of Los Llanos outside Albacete. They included Miaja and Matallana, as well as General Menéndez of the Army of Levante, General Escobar of the Army of Estremadura, Colonel Casado and Admiral Buiza, the commander of the republican fleet.¹⁵ Negrín urged them to fight on, assuring them that he was seeking peace. He also made the incredible claim that in a short time the arms blocked in France would arrive and war would break out in Europe. His generals were clearly unconvinced. Matallana warned that their troops were handicapped by the terrible lack of supplies and arms, and Buiza said that without an immediate solution, the fleet would have to abandon Spanish waters, which was what his officers and sailors wanted. Camacho, the air force commander, told him that they had no more than three fighter squadrons and five bomber squadrons in a serviceable state. Only Miaja, irritated that Negrín had not asked him to speak first, said to everyone’s astonishment that he was ready to fight on. This sudden passion of his would not last long.

Over the last few months, Madrid had been increasingly cut off from the decision-making process of the Republic. The parties of the Popular Front had become more and more united in their dislike of Negrín and the communists, and began to seek an independent solution to put an end to the war. An alliance grew up between the socialist professor Julián Besteiro, professional officers, especially in the Army of the Centre, liberal republicans and the anarchists. There were many reasons for their anger. The communists’ conduct of military affairs, however much they claimed to have had the interests of the war at heart, seemed to have had more to do with augmenting their own power. The arrogance of Soviet advisers, the ‘Kléberist’ arrogance of the International Brigades, the Stalinist persecutions through the NKVD and SIM, had all produced a strong reaction. It was also impossible to believe Negrín’s claim that the weapons waiting in France would soon be with them. Negrín must have known that the French government would never let them through, even if he did not yet know that they would be handed over to Franco the moment they recognized his government.

Perhaps one of the deepest suspicions, however, was that while Negrín called for resistance, they found it hard to imagine him and the communist leaders sharing the fate of their followers. Specifically, there were strong fears that the communists might use their military superiority and their control of republican shipping to ensure that their members got away, while those belonging to other parties and organizations would be left to face the nationalist revenge on their own.

The commander of the Army of the Centre, Colonel Segismundo Casado, a professional cavalry officer of peasant birth and austere tastes, had been one of the few career officers to have opposed the communists since the beginning of the war. He got on well with the anarchists and was particularly close to Cipriano Mera, with whom he had shared the tension before the battle of Brihuega.¹⁶

Mera still commanded IV Corps, which held the Guadalajara and Cuenca fronts. The other three corps in the Army of the Centre were all commanded by communists. The liaison committee of the libertarian movement had criticized Mera for adopting an independent political line and taking decisions on his own account. Mera defended himself throwing back at them the CNT’s collaboration with Negrín, who had ignored the anarchists altogether. When Negrín visited the Guadalajara front at the end of February, Mera told him what he thought of a government which told its people to resist when they had no means of doing so, and of ‘those who talk so much of resistance, while they collect valuables and goods to sell abroad and get their own families out of Spain’.¹⁷