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

As soon as the speeches finished, all those at the dinner table in Elda rushed to telephones to call Madrid. Towards one in the morning Negrín spoke to Casado, who confirmed that he had indeed risen in revolt against him. Negrín, fulminating uselessly down the telephone, stripped him of any position. Giner de los Ríos then called Besteiro, and Paulino Gómez and Segundo Blanco also spoke to Casado, but all these calls were nothing more than a dialogue of the deaf. By telephone and teleprinter, ministers tried to get in touch with other military commanders to evaluate the situation, but the replies were not encouraging. General Menéndez even warned that if General Matallana was not allowed to leave Elda he would send troops from Valencia to free him. Matallana left shortly afterwards.

Around four in the morning on 6 March Negrín, who had just been informed of the departure of the fleet from Cartagena, asked Colonel Camacho to send transport aircraft from Los Llanos. He then dictated a teleprinter message to the council in Madrid in which he deplored their action, describing it as ‘impatient’. This implied that he was already considering, or had actually entered into contact with the nationalists. He then asked that ‘any eventual transfer of powers be carried out in a normal and constitutional manner’.²⁷

Meanwhile, the recently appointed military governor of Alicante, the communist Etelvino Vega, had been arrested in the city by Casado’s followers. News of this was brought to Elda by Tagüeña. On hearing what had happened Negrín, who after the departure of the fleet from Cartagena had planned on Alicante as the last redoubt for evacuation, murmured to Álvarez del Vayo in German so that the others would not understand: ‘Ich, auf alle Fälle, werde gehen (I, in any case, am off).’²⁸

Negrín waited until two in the afternoon in case Casado replied to his signal, then gave instructions to his entourage to go to the airfield to await the aircraft from Los Llanos. From there Negrín, Álvarez del Vayo, Giner de los Ríos, Blanco, Paulino Gómez, González Peña, Cordón, Dolores Ibárruri, Rafel Alberti and María Teresa León left Spain on board three Douglas aircraft. During the flight to Toulouse, Negrín decided on a meeting of ministers in Paris for 15 March. It would be the day when the Condor Legion was able to write in its war diary: ‘08.00 First news from home: German troops march into Czechoslovakia.’²⁹

In a hangar at the same airfield the executive committee of the Spanish Communist Party met under the chairmanship of Pedro Checa. Those present included Uribe, Claudín, Líster, Modesto, Tagüen and Togliatti. Líster and Modesto, when asked about the possibilities of overthrowing Besteiro’s and Casado’s council by force, replied that this was out of the question. They then decided that Checa, Claudin and Togliatti would remain in Spain to direct the remains of the Party and prepare for an underground existence in the future.³⁰ The others boarded the last aeroplanes just before troops loyal to Casado occupied Elda and the airfield. The three communist leaders assigned to stay in Spain were arrested, but later in Alicante they were freed and eventually they too escaped from Spain by air.³¹

The National Council of Defence made a series of approaches to arrange peace, or at least to buy time so that republican forces could retreat towards the Mediterranean ports not yet taken by the nationalists. Negrín’s decrees of 3 March were annulled as well as the call-up of the classes of 1915 and 1916. All the promotions were also declared null and void, including that of Casado, with the idea of telling the nationalists that Negrín’s decisions were regarded as illegal.

Colonel Prada was appointed commander of the Army of the Centre and communists, including commanders of its I, II and III Corps, were relieved. Communists were purged from other posts, the Party newspaper, Mundo Obrero, was closed and red stars were removed from uniforms. Communist power in republican Spain was at an end.

The council, now headed by General Miaja, who had reached Madrid on 6 March, proceeded to order the arrests of communist commissars and militants wherever they were found. Mera’s troops carried out the order and went straight to the main communist centres. One commissar, Domingo Girón, managed to escape arrest at the headquarters of the Army of the Centre and warned Colonel Bueno, the commander of II Corps, of what was happening. Bueno it seems was ill, but his chief of staff, Major Guillermo Ascanio, marched on Madrid at the head of a column of troops. Daniel Ortega, another communist commissar, who had escaped the round-up by jumping out of a window, warned Tagüeña, who left Madrid.³²