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

In Spain, the pace of political violence and strikes increased with the onset of summer. On 1 June the UGT and CNT called all building workers, mechanics and lift operators out on strike. During the demonstration of 70,000 workers which followed, the stewards were attacked by armed Falangists, the strikers sacked food shops and the security forces had to be called in. At the beginning of July the UGT accepted arbitration but the CNT fought on. Members of the CNT responded to the Falangist attacks in kind and killed three of José Antonio’s bodyguards in a café. The government closed CNT centres in Madrid and arrested the strike leaders, David Antona and Cipriano Mera. Mera later became the most effective anarchist commander in the civil war.

In the middle of June in Málaga, anarchists and socialists became involved in battles condemned by the leaders of both CNT and UGT, while out in the countryside 100,000 CNT labourers declared themselves to be on strike. On 16 June Gil Robles stated in the Cortes that since 16 February 170 churches had been burned, 269 murders had been committed and 1,287 people injured. Altogether 133 general strikes and 216 local strikes had been called. His statistics, it must be pointed out, came from the less than impartial source of El Debate, but that did nothing to contradict the general impression that Spain was becoming ungovernable.⁹

Calvo Sotelo backed him up with a list of accusations against the government and warned that patriotic soldiers would save Spain from anarchy. When he personalized his insults, the president of the Cortes forced him to withdraw his words. There can be no doubt that his intention was to increase the sensation of complete disorder. The crescendo of insults and accusations from both sides tended to confirm that parliamentary government had broken down irretrievably.

Black propaganda was being used in a confusing profusion and at times it is hard to know what to believe. For example, the right claimed that the left was spreading rumours that nuns were handing out poisoned sweets to children, while the left claimed that the right itself spread these rumours to provoke anti-clerical outrages. Time and again, the right wing press compared Azaña to Kerensky and José Antonio reminded the Spanish army of the fate of Tsarist officers.¹⁰

In 1936 the Spanish army consisted of some 100,000 men. Nearly 40,000 of them were the tough and efficient troops based in Morocco, but the rest in the metropolitan army were of little use. ‘In Spain’, as one historian pointed out, ‘there was not enough ammunition for a single day of warfare, military production was in chaos, and there were hardly any armoured vehicles, anti-tank weapons or anti-aircraft guns.’¹¹ Several thousand soldiers never received uniforms and many more never received any weapon training. Conscripts were often used as free domestic labour by officers.

The low military efficiency of the army had not stopped pronunciamientos in the past and, despite the fighting in Asturias, the officers plotting a rebellion did not appear to have been overly concerned by the opposition that they might face.¹² Azaña’s government, while aware of a possible threat, did not deal with it effectively. Immediately after the elections, they took the unfortunate precaution of sending the most suspect generals to appointments far from the capital, such as General Franco to the Canary Islands and General Goded to the Balearics. In an age of aviation it was hardly a true island exile. In addition, Las Palmas was close to Morocco and Mallorca to Barcelona. General Emilio Mola, the main organizer of the conspiracy, who would take the codename the ‘Director’, was sent as military governor to Pamplona, the fief of the Carlists and their 8,000 requetés who were ready to march.¹³

Mola, who had been in Morocco, preparing the garrison there for rebellion, returned to the Peninsula and stopped in Madrid on his way to Pamplona. Between 5 and 12 March he had meetings with other key conspirators: Orgaz, Goded, Ponte, Kindelán, Saliquet, Franco, Varela, Galarza, Fanjul and Rodríguez del Barrio. Mola told Goded that he was drafting ‘instructions and directives to set the conspiracy in motion first and then for a possible rising’.¹⁴ The initial plan involving Varela and Orgaz collapsed because José Díaz, the secretary-general of the Spanish Communist Party, read out in open session a confidential document from the plotters and forced the government to take action.