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

The despatch of the aircraft may have been organized in secret, but nationalist sympathizers in the Spanish embassy informed the press, and perhaps also Count Welczeck, the German ambassador. On 23 July he reported to the Wilhelmstrasse, ‘I have learned in strict confidence that the French government has declared itself prepared to supply the Spanish government with considerable amounts of war matériel during the next few days. Approximately 30 bombers, several thousand bombs, a considerable number of 75mm guns, etc., are involved…Franco’s situation is likely to deteriorate decisively, especially as the result of the supplying of bombers to the government.’⁴ Not only did this pro-nationalist source exaggerate the scale of the intended shipment, in Tetuán, nationalist officers convinced the German consul that they had not been able to delay the rising because ‘Soviet ships had arrived in Spanish harbours with arms and ammunition for an uprising planned by the Communists’.⁵

Blum survived the attacks of right-wing newspapers by restricting the agreement to private sales of unarmed military aircraft, but this meant that the Republic was now being treated on a level similar to the insurgents. To make matters worse, the Spanish ambassador in Paris, Juan Cárdenas, joined the nationalists. Giral’s government called on Fernando de los Ríos, then on holiday in Geneva, to replace him, but time was lost. De los Ríos could not be recognized by the French government straight away, he lacked accessible funds and he had no idea of weaponry. On the night of 24 July he had a meeting with Blum, Pierre Cot, é douard Daladier and Yvon Delbos to examine a clause of the 1935 commercial treaty which allowed Spain to purchase arms up to the value of 20 million francs.⁶

The alternative method of helping the Republic was to prevent foreign support reaching Franco. The British Foreign Office feared that the conflict might escalate and warned the French government that helping the Republic would only encourage Hitler and Mussolini to aid the nationalists. Blum and Daladier, his war minister, were aware that French armaments were inferior to those that Franco could obtain from the dictators. Anthony Eden, the British foreign secretary, agreed with the view of Salvador de Madariaga, the former Spanish representative at the League of Nations, that apart from foreign intervention, the two sides were so evenly balanced that neither could win. This sort of reasoning encouraged the French government to believe that it was better for the Republic if no arms were allowed to reach either zone.

The last hopes of the Spanish republican government that it would not be treated on a par with its enemies disappeared on 25 July. President Albert Lebrun summoned an emergency meeting of the council of ministers to discuss the impact of the right-wing press campaign against aid to the Spanish Republic. Any attempt to sell arms to the Republic was forbidden. The only exception would be the sale of a few unarmed aircraft through private companies or third parties, such as Mexico.⁷

A policy of ‘non-intervention’ was therefore proposed by Blum’s government on 2 August to include the French, British, German and Italian governments, and any others who became involved in the Spanish conflict. There is little doubt that the British government’s attitude was crucial. As Eden said, the French government ‘acted most loyally by us’.⁸ On 3 and 4 August the French foreign ministry sounded out the Germans and Italians on their intentions. They avoided a definite response to gain time while they speeded up their shipments of arms to the nationalists. Meanwhile the British ambassador in Paris put pressure on the French government not to help the Republic.⁹ Blum, afraid of alienating the British, suspended further arms sales as well as civilian aircraft on 8 August. The Spanish frontier was closed to all prohibited commerce.