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

Franco heard from Beigbeder that Queipo was openly conspiring to install a military junta. With the garrulous viceroy of Andalucia, he did not have to wait long for Queipo to make a mistake. On 17 July, at the celebrations of the third anniversary of the rising, he presented the cross of San Fernando to the city of Valladolid. This irritated Queipo, since he considered that Seville (personified by himself) had played a far more important role in the rising. Queipo could not desist from making the most disobliging remarks in all directions about ‘Paca, the fat-arsed’. Franco summoned him to Burgos for consultations and at the same time sent General Saliquet to Seville to take command there as soon as Queipo arrived to see his Caudillo. Queipo was promptly sent off on a military mission to Rome. He had lost his power base.²

On 8 August, in a move to consolidate his political position, Franco issued the law of the head of state, which gave him the right to sanction laws or decrees in cases of emergency, without deliberation by the council of ministers. Two days later Franco approved the formation of his second government with another master stroke. He made Colonel Juan Beigbeder minister of foreign affairs; Ramón Serrano Súñer minister of the interior;

General Varela minister of the army; but then, to everyone’s stupefaction, he made General Yagüe minister of air. This dismayed both Yagüe and especially Kindelán, who had commanded the air force throughout the war. Kindelán was sent to the Balearic Isles as military governor, where he would find it difficult to conspire with other monarchists. And Yagu ¨e, given a task which he was unlikely to perform well, would find it difficult to be a credible standard-bearer for the Falangists.³ No doubt Serrano Súñer played a part, for he was still advising his brother-in-law on most appointments and would continue to play the most influential role until 1942.

The generals, after almost three exhausting years under arms and in the field, were now content with a more sedentary role in the political barracks of Franquist Spain. The country, however, was in a terrible state. Its economy was in ruins, with both agrarian and industrial production below the already low levels of 1935. This did not take into account the massive destruction of the country’s infrastructure–railways, roads, bridges, ports, power lines and telephone systems. Some 60 per cent of rolling stock had been lost and 40 per cent of the merchant fleet.

A quarter of a million buildings had been destroyed and a similar number severely damaged.⁴ The new state had almost no foreign exchange and had lost all its gold reserves, so the monetary system was in chaos. There were also the war debts to the nationalists’ allies to be paid off. And the loss of manpower, some 3.5 per cent of the working population, did not take into account the prisoners and the exiles.

One of the regime’s first priorities was to return land to its former owners, not just the farms taken over during the revolution of 1936, but also those affected by the agrarian reforms under the Republic.⁵ Wages were fixed and in the countryside were reduced to half of what they had been under the Republic. They would not again reach the level of 1931 until 1956. The sale of agricultural production was controlled by the state, which fixed prices. This, of course, encouraged the black market to flourish, whatever the punishments threatened under military tribunals. In Madrid, a kilo of flour was selling at 12 pesetas as opposed to the official price of 1.25. Beans, meat, olive oil, all were selling at prices up to more than three times the official level.⁶ The opportunities for corruption escalated rapidly in such conditions. Meanwhile, the lack of tools and the failure to invest in farm machinery meant that agricultural production fell over a number of years, with disastrous results in 1941 and 1945, when many areas were close to famine.

State control of industry was designed to create a form of autarchy, in which priority was given to military needs in case Spain found itself involved in a European war. Owners and managers returned to find themselves in a form of barracks dirigisme. They could control their workforces, since strikes were outlawed, militants purged and working hours extended at fixed salaries; but the factory owners had little say in obtaining raw materials or the sale of their finished product.⁷