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

Mola had talked of a republican dictatorship which would maintain the separation of Church and state. He had even ordered that the monarchist flag be taken down in Pamplona. The Carlists were so horrified by his attitude that, in the last few days before the rising there had even been doubts whether they would commit their requetés, who were needed to assure the obedience of the regular troops to the nationalist cause. Queipo de Llano’s sudden rise to prominence in the rebellion with his seizure of Seville must have worried them almost as much. He not only finished his radio broadcasts with ‘Viva la República!’ and the liberal anthem, the ‘Himno de Riego’, but, worst of all, he was a Freemason. The idea of fighting under the republican tricolour was anathema to all traditionalists. Only the military plotters had sworn loyalty to it.

The Carlists’ main hope for safeguarding their interests was destroyed on 20 July with General Sanjurjo’s death. Major Ansaldo, the monarchist airman, had arrived in Portugal to fly him to Burgos with the announcement that he was now ‘at the orders of the head of the Spanish state’, which caused very emotional scenes among the general’s entourage. Their light aircraft crashed on take-off and Sanjurjo died in the flames. This accident has been attributed either to sabotage by a Franco supporter or to Sanjurjo’s vanity in taking so many cases of uniforms. The latter explanation seems the more probable, although Ansaldo claims it was sabotage.

During this time of uncertainty over the form of the new state, the Catholic Church provided the nationalist alliance with both a common symbol of tradition and a cause to transcend ideological confusion within their ranks. Its authoritarian, centralist nature and its attitude to property were acceptable to all factions, except the left wing of the Falange. Its hierarchy rallied to the cause of the right and prominent churchmen were seen giving the fascist salute. Cardinal Gomá stated that ‘Jews and Masons poisoned the national soul with absurd doctrines’.³ The most striking piece of ecclesiastical support for the nationalist rising came in the pastoral letter ‘The Two Cities’ published by the Bishop of Salamanca, Pla y Daniel, on 30 September. It denounced the left-wing attacks on the Catholic Church and praised the nationalist movement as ‘the celestial city of the children of God’.⁴ Pla y Daniel also demanded the reversal of all anti-clerical restrictions and reforms implemented under the Republic. He was not to be disappointed.

A few brave priests put their lives at risk by criticizing nationalist atrocities, but the majority of the clergy in nationalist areas revelled in their new-found power and the increased size of their congregations. Anyone who did not attend mass faithfully was likely to be suspected of ‘red’ tendencies. Entrepreneurs made a great deal of money selling religious symbols, which were worn ostentatiously to ward off suspicion rather than evil spirits. It was reminiscent of the way the Inquisition’s persecution of Jews and Moors helped make pork such an important part of the Spanish diet.

The disparate groups that made up the nationalist movement were well aware of the danger in their undertaking, for they controlled less than half of Spanish territory and just under half of the population. It was this uncertainty and the desire for strong leadership which Franco was able to exploit in the following months. He was a great admirer and worthy successor of that most cynical of statesmen, Ferdinand of Aragon, usually cited as the original of Machiavelli’s Prince. During August it became almost certain that Franco was to be the nationalists’ Caudillo, or leader, but nobody really knew what beliefs were hidden behind his bland, complacent expression, nor to what extent he would be able to reconcile the markedly different opinions about the future form of the nationalist state. The Falange was worried that it would be little more than an auxiliary force under army command. The monarchists wanted Alfonso returned. The Carlists wanted a royal Catholic dictatorship with a populist flavour, although they realized that their pretender to the throne, the eighty-year-old Don Alfonso Carlos, would not be accepted by their allies. (In any case, he died in September without heirs as a result of an automobile accident.)

Franco’s constitutional formula for unifying the nationalists was as brilliant in what it included as in what it left unresolved. The basis of his approach was to have a monarchy without a king. Alfonso was not acceptable to the majority of nationalists and he had little popular appeal: yet the arrangement satisfied the traditionalists without provoking the Falange or republicans like Queipo de Llano or Mola. It also avoided the kind of frustration Mussolini felt over King Vittorio Emanuele, which had resulted in serious tensions between royalists and fascists in the Italian armed services.