SPAIN: El Caudillo

(See front cover)

As predicted, when Generalissimo Franco’s German-planned counterattack on Madrid failed month ago (TIME, Aug. 16), Italian staff officers were given their innings, permitted an attempt to re-establish Italian military prestige with a mass attack on the onetime summer resort of Santander. key point of the shrunken and crumbling Basque front. As predicted, the Rightist columns found ineffective resistance among the 25,000 Basques and Asturian miners defending Santander and last week Santander fell. As predicted, Italy threw aside the last vestige of neutrality in the Spanish Civil War. The three Italian divisions—Black Arrow, Black Flame, 20th of March — which had helped reduce the city, marched in triumphantly and, in good Roman fashion, paraded a column of hairy Basque prisoners. Back home, the controlled Italian press acclaimed the surrender of Santander as “typically and essentially an Italian victory,” fit reprisal for the embarrassing Italian rout of Guadalajara (TIME, March 22 et seq.).

In point of fact, the Italians, although the most numerous of Franco’s foreign allies, formed only one of the three columns that closed in on starving Santander. The other two columns consisted of Navarre royalists. Moors and regular cavalry, all under command of Spanish General Jose Fidel Davila. successor on the Basque front to the ablest of all Rightist commanders, the late General Emilio Mola.

To whomever belonged the glory of the victory, it was a pretty complete one. The Basque militiamen and the Asturian miners, those Iberian Celts who have been fighting each other or someone else since the first Century A. D., were digging in for a last siege in the mountains near Gijón. Gijón, a little cod-fishing port became the capital of what was left of the Leftist side of the Basque Republic—a narrow strip running 125 miles along the Bay of Biscay. In this strip there was no food, no trade. Jose Antonio de Aguirre, the fiery little Basque President who had retreated with his government from Bilbao to Santander, gave up the struggle as a bad job and boarded a boat for Bayonne, France.

The final collapse of the Basque defense liberated some 50,000 Rightist troops for use on other fronts—and none too soon, for the Leftists immediately loosed a savage but apparently unsuccessful drive on Saragossa, the Rightist advance base on the Aragon front. 200 miles to the southeast. The Basque collapse also all but completely nipped off that little Leftist island on the north coast which has so long blemished the otherwise total dominance of the northern and western half of Spain by the Rightist forces. This territory last week was populated by 14,000,000 of Spain’s 25,000,000 people in 35 of her 50 provinces. To the governments of Germany, Italy. Switzerland, Albania, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala it has been for almost a year an autonomous state. Significantly, the Vatican, too—which, whatever else may be said, works as hard over its diplomacy as any first class power—chose the day after Santander’s fall to extend de facto recognition. Having cooled his heels in Rome for three months. Pablo de Churruca, Marques de Aycimena, accredited Chargé d’Affaires to the Lateran Palace from General Franco’s Government, was summoned by the Papal Secretary of State, Eugenic Cardinal Pacelli, who graciously, if belatedly, accepted his credentials.

The State which seven others and the Vatican (de facto) recognize as the newest of the Earth’s States is, on the whole, naturally wealthier than the State it must conquer to survive. Leftist Spain has the mercury mines of Almaden. But these are more than matched by Rightist Spain’s coal, iron, copper. The country’s olive orchards, cork forests, vineyards are about evenly split between the two warring groups. The Leftists control the orange groves in the eastern province of Valencia, and thus the principal Spanish export in normal times. But the Rightists own Spain’s bread basket, the great granary of the northwest, leaving to Valencia the problem of feeding 40% of Spain’s population from her less agricultural provinces.

Rightist Spain is the territory governed from Salamanca, is, due to the inevitable inability of dictatorships to popularize themselves outside their boundaries, less known than any other equally important government in the world. Now in the 14th month of its history, it is running fairly smoothly as a totalitarian state. The leader of all totalitarian states must have a potent sounding title. Hitler’s is the Führer. Mussolini’s is II Duce. Franco’s is El Caudillo (the chief). He is not only chief of the army, but chief of all Rightist Spain’s political, social and economic activities. Like Germany and Italy (and Russia) in fact, in theory, Rightist Spain is a one-party country. The party is called the Spanish Phalanx of Traditionalists and Offensive National Syndicalist Juntas. Actually, Rightist Spain is no more dominated by one party than Leftist Spain. The little villagers of the northwest are ablaze with the slogan: ONE COUNTRY, ONE ARMY, ONE CAUDILLO. But no such unity prevails among the wildly assorted groups which are loosely allied in support of the Spanish Fascist State:

1) The regular army which would prefer a straight military dictatorship, if possible no restoration of the monarchy.

2) The requetes of Navarre and Old Castile, reactionary monarchists, who fight in red boinas (berets) and would like to bring back to Spain the little known Prince Xavier of Bourbon-Parma, a onetime Belgian artillery captain whose sister is ex-Empress Zita of Austria.

3) The Falange Española, whose members wear blue shirts embroidered with a design of five red arrows. They are outright Fascists and want no king at all.

4) The Renovation Española, a small and rather discouraged group of royalists who want the return of Alfonso XIII or at least Prince Juan, healthiest of his children.

All these parties and factions are supposed to be represented in Caudillo Franco’s 20-man Junta, loosely modeled on the Italian Fascist Grand Council and decreed last April. But the Junta has never sat. The group which actually runs the highly simplified government of Rightist Spain is no larger than the very elementary requirements of a military dictatorship. Francisco Franco, one of the few Spaniards on the peninsula who does not take two hours off for lunch, does most of his own work. He has no formal cabinet, but is helped by a handful of more or less obscure administrators.

One very important department of the Franco government, the treasury, is still quartered in Burgos. At the start of hostilities the Rightists simply surcharged the Republican currency. In April these bills were withdrawn from circulation, however, and new bills bearing the imprimatur of BANCA ESPANA rolled from the presses at Burgos and have been kept at a fictitious value of about 10¢ a peseta inside Spain.*This was the job of Salvador Amado, Delegate of State for the Treasury, who has imposed a strict embargo on exporting the money across the border. The $700,000,000 Spanish gold reserve fell into the hands of Valencia, so Senor Amado has had to hump himself to keep the Rightist treasury in funds. This he has done by means of “voluntary” contributions from the rich, by forced conversions of foreign securities into Burgos bonds and by credits ($180,000,000 last January and probably much more today) from Italy and Germany. Also in Burgos, the Delegate of State for Industry & Commerce, Senor Joaquin Bau, is busy encouraging the exportation of wine, oil, cork, minerals (which can be procured in almost pre-Revolutionary quantities) to acquire foreign exchange.

In Salamanca the general reply to any and all inquiries about the State’s affairs is that the Generalissimo will have to be consulted. However, El Caudillo has given a career diplomat, Miguel A. Muguiro, the title of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Brother Nicolas Franco, who is nominally General Secretary of the Nationalist Government but actually Right Spain’s Premier, is apparently the only man in the Government who could be considered as an administrative assistant to the dictator. His duties are vague but his prestige is considerable.

Rightist Spain’s 35 Provinces and their capital cities are governed by “Civil Governors,” who are actually military governors appointed by General Franco. Minor local officials, if they are not known Reds, generally keep their jobs in captured territory if they behave themselves. As in Leftist Spain, Rightist Spain’s law is martial. On both sides firing squads still produce many casualties. On both sides, too, almost sure death awaits anyone unlucky enough to witness an execution, even by accident.

Softspoken, studious Francisco Franco Bahamonde is no university man. He was born in Galicia 45 years ago, son of the commandant of the Ferrol naval base. In the tradition of a thoroughly militaristic family, elder Brother Nicolas went into the navy, second son Francisco went into the Infantry Academy at Toledo’s Alcazar at the age of 14. In due time youngest brother Ramon Franco went into the aviation service. Shockheaded, wild-eyed Brother Ramon Franco was the first member of the family to make world headlines. In 1926, widely hailed as the “Spanish Lindbergh,” he flew non-stop from Cadiz to Buenos Aires, later became air attache to the Spanish embassy at Washington. When the revolution broke last year, hot-headed Brother Ramon made no secret of his Leftist sentiments. Somewhere in Rightist Spain today, Brother Ramon is sitting in jail.

Brother Francisco had been under fire in Morocco at the age of 17, helped General Milan Astray form the Spanish Foreign Legion, and got his first working knowledge of fascism when he was picked by Dictator Primo de Rivera to act as liaison officer with the French in the Riff campaign of 1925. He won his brigadiership and the distinction of being the youngest general in Spain at the age of 34. When a military academy was established at Saragossa young Francisco Franco became its first director.

Francisco Franco was neither one of the original conspirators in the civil war, nor the first choice of its instigators as its military leader. In 1936, as soon as the Madrid Government announced that national elections had returned a thumping Leftist majority, plans for the rebellion were laid. Guiding spirit was the devious Catholic politician Jose Maria Gil Robles, now Rightist representative to Portugal. Leader of the rebellion was to be General Jose Sanjurjo. Francisco Franco, whom the republican Government had rusticated on the Canary Islands, was expected to play a part, but a minor one. On the word of the cocksure conspirators that the whole rebellion would be over in two weeks—make it a month and be sure— most of the financial backing came from the “Richest Man in Spain,” Monarchist Count of Romanones and racketeer-tycoon Juan March, the uneducated, onetime tobacco smuggler. Date of the uprising was set for July 25, 1936, the feast of Santiago (St. James). The murder of Fascist Deputy Jose Calvo Sotelo on July 12 pulled the trigger prematurely.

Following orders from the conspirators, Francisco Franco flew from the Canaries to Morocco, where he arrested and promptly shot Leftist sympathizers, and assumed the title of High Commissioner. Three days after the rebellion started its official leader, General Sanjurjo, was killed in an airplane accident over Lisbon. In the emergency, Francisco Franco, who had kept the revolution alive after its first setback by pouring in Moors and munitions from across the Straits of Gibraltar, became generalissimo in name as well as fact.

Salamanca. The Franco dictatorship was proclaimed at the Gothic walled city of Burgos on July 23, 1936. Since then the Caudillo has moved his headquarters and the military and diplomatic bureaus of his government about 180 miles southwest to golden Salamanca. Salamanca is only 100 miles from Madrid with excellent highway communications to Avila, advance base for the Madrid front, and has direct rail connections with Portugal, a useful back door for German advisers who wish to avoid passing through France. Into this city whose normal population is less than 25,000, over 50,000 people have been crowded. In its one modern hostelry, the flag bedecked Grand Hotel,* none but German and Italian staff officers and the most potent politicos may dream of finding a room. Humble war correspondents and civilians with urgent business at headquarters are lucky to find a cot in a shoe-store.

El Caudillo himself is comfortably established in the Bishop of Salamanca’s palace opposite the west front of the Cathedral. Here he lives with his handsome wife Carmen, whom he married eleven years ago while on duty in Oviedo, and his daughter Carmencita, who is two years younger than Britain’s Princess Elizabeth. Nine months ago the Bureau for Press & Propaganda issued an appeal signed by Dona Carmencita to all other nine-year-olds to pray for peace and papa’s victory. Beyond that she has avoided the limelight. Dona Carmen Polo de Franco is patron of the Rightist Red Cross, frequently officiates at charity bullfights.

Also in the Bishop’s palace are the offices of the general staff. Few headquarters were ever more carefully guarded. Before it every morning is held a ceremonial guard mount. In turn, companies of Regulars, Moors, Carlists, Falangists. Revisionists take this guard, placing sentries at every corner of the building. No matter who has the office guard there are always on outside duty, in addition: two city police, with rifles; two tricorne-hatted civil guards, with rifles; two white robed Moors, with rifles; assorted plainclothesmen, with revolvers. Vigilance does not stop there. Inside the building, in the large bare room that was once the Bishop’s and is now the Caudillo’s anteroom there hangs an arresting poster: Silence, enemy ears are listening!

The Novelti. On the arcaded Plaza Mayor in the centre of the city there is no silence, but plenty of listeners. Here are four large sidewalk cafes with back-room restaurants, all equally greasy and flyspecked. Fashion has chosen just one, the Cafe Novelti, to be the official saloon of Rightist Spain. Here daily gather whatever foreign correspondents are in town, staff officers, German and Italian aviators (always at separate tables), secret agents and such wounded soldiers as are in funds (see p. 21). Probably no one spot in all Rightist Spain contains as much actual news and incredible gossip as the terrace tables and back dining room of the Novelti.

Shelled was Salamanca, but that was in 1812, by Wellington. Today most obvious local indications that a war is going on are the signs above bombproof Reiugios on many street corners, and the fact that all street lights are extinguished at 12. Since not even a war can break the Spanish habit of dining at 10:30 p.m., the old-time profession of linkboys has been revived by newsboys with flashlights who light the Novelti’s patrons home.

The Future. For a year all Europe has been handling the Spanish crisis with hand-to-mouth diplomacy. The issue is plain enough: Does Italy (and Germany) fear a collectivist state on the Mediterranean more than France (and Russia) fear a fascist state on her southern border? Britain, which always is fertile of ideas about governing other countries, has batted out a number of notions on the Spanish problem. The latest school of thought is that the best possible solution is partition, the historical model presumably being Panama, which revolted (with U. S. help) and split off from Colombia.

The Left is training militia as fast as it can, hopes to have 1,000,000fresh men in the field next spring. The Right, however, has had the advantage since Bilbao fell in June. Its chief source of manpower must, in future, be Italy. This is not entirely a blessing. There are already 60,000 Italians fighting in Spain and thoughtful Rightists agree that it will never do for II Duce. who told some of them they were going to Italian East Africa, to bring them home. Settled in Spain, even half the Italian expeditionary force would create a grave agronomic problem. But whether that problem would ever arise: whether the Right will, as its spokesmen declare, achieve the fall of Madrid and a military victory by the end of 1937: whether that would really end the fighting—nobody last week had a crystal ball clear enough to tell.

*Rightist Spain’s stamps, which are simply labeled CORREOS (MAIL), some of which bear the portrait of Queen Isabella, were declared invalid by little Costa Rica this week, but are accepted in the rest of the postal union. *Besides the standard, pre-Revolution red-barred yellow flag of Spain and the flags of sympathetic Germany, Italy and Portugal, hotel? and public squares in Rightist Spain punctiliously display, to the astonishment of most patrons, the blue and white banner with the parrotlike bird of Guatemala.