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

Franco flew to Casablanca, in French Morocco, where Luis Bolín awaited him, but first he needed to be sure that the Army of Africa was in control. He telephoned officers in Larache who advised him not to land in Tangier. At dawn on 19 July he left for Tetuán, changing into uniform in mid flight. Senior rebel officers were waiting for him at the airport. They included Yagüe, Solans, Seguí, Sáenz de Buruaga and Beigbeder.¹⁸ A conference was held around the aircraft. Franco learned that the rising had not been entirely successful. He decided that Bolín should leave at once with an authorization to ‘purchase aircraft and supplies for the Spanish non-Marxist army’–a somewhat bland description for the forces of what was later to be called La Cruzada.

The second decision which Franco took in Tetuán that day was to order that those loyal to the Republic should be held in a concentration camp near the city and in the castle of El Hecho in Ceuta. After a rapid selection, Falangists came each morning to shoot them in groups.¹⁹

Reinforcements were needed urgently on the mainland and, since the rising in the fleet had failed, aeroplanes were essential to carry the Army of Africa to Spain. On 22 July the German consul in Tetuán passed on to the Wilhelmstrasse a message from Colonel Beigbeder, a former Spanish military attaché in Berlin: ‘General Franco and Lieutenant Colonel Beigbeder send greetings to their friend, the honourable General Kühlental, inform him of the new nationalist Spanish government, and request that he send ten troop-transport planes with maximum seating capacity through private German firms. Transfer by air with German crews to any airfield in Spanish Morocco. The contract will be signed afterwards. Very urgent! On the word of General Franco and Spain.’²⁰

On the northern coast of Spain, the port of Santander was secured for the Republic without bloodshed on the morning of 19 July, when the 23rd Infantry Regiment refused to rise. But in Oviedo the left was too confident after the strength it had demonstrated in the Asturian rebellion of 1934. The local military commander, Colonel Aranda, had managed over the previous months to convince the civil governor and most of the workers’ leaders that he was loyal to the government. Aranda, insisting that he acted on Madrid’s orders, refused to hand over any weapons. The civil governor, reassured by his promises of loyalty, described him to the workers’ leaders as a man of honour. Aranda suggested that he hold Oviedo while the miners form a column to go and help in Madrid. But as soon as they had left, he declared for the rising. The trusting governor was among the first to be executed once Aranda’s troops and civil guards secured the town. After the workers realized that Aranda had tricked them, they surrounded the town and a long and furious siege began.

In Gijón, the rising failed thanks to the decisive action of dockers who confronted the troops under the command of Colonel Pinilla. They withdrew to the Simancas barracks, where they were besieged for over a month until dinamiteros blew up the buildings.

Events were much less dramatic in the Carlist city of Pamplona. On the morning of 19 July General Mola, the ‘Director’, scrupulously followed his own timetable and declared a state of war in Navarre. There was little resistance in this stronghold of traditionalism, often described as the Spanish Vendée. Those in the casas del pueblo who tried to resist perished in a massacre.²¹ All that day a continual stream of Carlist farmers arrived in the main square to volunteer. Wearing their large scarlet berets, they shouted the old battle cry, ‘Viva Cristo Rey!’ A French observer of the scene said that he would not have been surprised to see an auto-da-fé of heretics organized at the same time. A total of 8,000 requetés assembled, singing:

Give me my beret,

Give me my rifle,

I’m going to kill more reds

Than there are flowers in April and May.²²

Navarre had voted to reject the statute of Basque autonomy offered by the Republic, so the Basques were well aware of the threat posed by the Carlists joining the military rebellion. On 19 July the nationalists also captured the city of Vitoria, heart of the southern Basque province of Alava, but in Bilbao the civil governor managed to intercept Mola’s telephone call to the military commander.²³ A council of defence for the province of Vizcaya was set up, the fortress of Basurto was surrounded and the soldiers were disarmed.