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

The nationalists also needed a formalized state structure to impress foreign governments, but there was no pretence of democracy. The authoritarian values of all its component groups–army, Falange, Carlists and monarchists–demanded a single leader. Franco, who had established his headquarters at Cáceres on 26 August, refrained from any overt manoeuvring until the relief of the Alcázar became certain in late September. As with his military strategy, he did not make any political move until everything possible was in his favour.

His command of the most professional force, the Army of Africa, had made him a contender for the leadership from the start. Then the German proviso of giving military aid only to his forces greatly strengthened his claim. But Franco knew that if his long-term ambitions were to be satisfied, he needed to gain a complete moral, as well as military, ascendancy over his rivals. That he achieved with the relief of Toledo. To challenge the ‘Saviour of the Alcázar’ for the leadership of the nationalist movement would have required rash courage.

The first major step to resolve the leadership issue came when Franco requested a meeting of the Junta de Defensa Nacional at the military aerodrome outside Salamanca on 21 September. General Kindelán, the air force commander, had prepared the ground, assisted in the background by the rest of Franco’s camarilla, including his brother Nicolás Franco, Orgaz, Millán Astray, Luis Bolín and the diplomat José Antonio Sangróniz. They had worked painstakingly to place their chief in the most advantageous position. Colonel Walter Warlimont, Hitler’s envoy, had also applied discreet pressure on the question of military assistance.

All the possible candidates for the leadership were present at Salamanca airfield that day: Franco, Mola, Queipo de Llano and Cabanellas, the nominal president of the junta, who chaired the meeting.¹ The military were to take a decision on behalf of right-wing Spain. With the CEDA leader, Gil Robles, in self-imposed exile in Portugal (many nationalists blamed the civil war on his lack of nerve), José Antonio in Alicante prison, where he was to be executed, and Calvo Sotelo dead since just before the rising, only the wishes of the monarchists and the Carlists had to be considered. Mola, Queipo and Cabanellas were all tainted with republicanism or Freemasonry in varying degrees, so Franco benefited greatly from a lack of obvious defects and his political inscrutability.

In a charade which was accepted with varying degrees of enthusiasm, the the monarchist General Kindelán proposed at the end of the meeting that Franco should be appointed supreme commander of all land, sea and air forces, with the title of Generalissimo. Mola, conscious that his reputation had suffered because his plan for the rising had not succeeded, gave in almost sycophantically. ‘He is younger than me,’ he acknowledged, ‘and of higher professional standing. He is extremely popular and is well-known abroad.’² Queipo, with his habitual lack of tact, ran through the possibilities later. ‘So who were we going to nominate? Cabanellas could not take it on. He was a convinced republican and everyone knew that he was a Freemason. We couldn’t possibly nominate Mola either, because we would lose the war…And my reputation was badly damaged.’³ Only Cabanellas dissented. He demanded a military directory and it cost him dear. Six days later Toledo fell. Kindelán, believing that Franco would restore Alfonso to his throne, helped with the preparations for 28 September, when the ‘Saviour of the Alcázar’ was to return to Salamanca to be accepted as supreme commander by the other generals.

The most active supporter of Franco behind the scenes was his brother Nicolás. He arranged for a mixed guard of Falangists and Carlists to hail his brother as chief when all the generals came together in Salamanca. Then, by omitting or changing key words in the text of the decree, he made Franco ‘Head of the Spanish State’, as opposed to ‘head of the government of the Spanish State’ for ‘the duration of the war’.⁴ This trick did not endear Franco to his colleagues, who found themselves presented with a fait accompli, one might almost say a coup d’état within the coup. Even Mola was deeply irritated that Franco had taken over supreme political power as well as military. It is said that Queipo called Franco a ‘son of a whore’, or according to other sources a ‘swine’. But Kindelán and Dávila somehow persuaded the other generals that Franco had simply been proclaimed head of government for the duration, as the original decree had stated. But there was in any case little that either Mola or Queipo could do once the event had been reported in the newspapers. To protest now could be represented as disloyalty to the nationalist cause.