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Dictator of Spain from 1939 to 1975 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Francisco Franco Bahamonde[f][g] (born Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco Bahamonde; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish military general who led the Nationalist forces in overthrowing the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War and thereafter ruled over Spain from 1939 to 1975 as a dictator, assuming the title Caudillo. This period in Spanish history, from the Nationalist victory to Franco's death, is commonly known as Francoist Spain or as the Francoist dictatorship.
Francisco Franco | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Franco in 1964 | |
| Head of the Spanish State[a] | |
| In office 1 October 1936[b] – 20 November 1975 | |
| Prime Minister |
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| Preceded by | |
| Succeeded by | Juan Carlos I (as King of Spain) |
| Prime Minister of Spain[d] | |
| In office 30 January 1938[b] – 9 June 1973 | |
| Caudillo | Himself |
| Preceded by | |
| Succeeded by | Luis Carrero Blanco |
| National Chief of FET y de las JONS | |
| In office 19 April 1937 – 20 November 1975 | |
| Deputy | Francisco Gómez-Jordana (1938–1939) None (1939–1962) Agustín Muñoz Grandes (1962–1967) Luis Carrero Blanco (1967–1973) |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | Carlos Arias Navarro |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco Bahamonde 4 December 1892 Ferrol, Spain |
| Died | 20 November 1975 (aged 82) Madrid, Spain |
| Resting place |
|
| Political party | FET y de las JONS |
| Spouse | |
| Children | María del Carmen |
| Relatives |
|
| Residence(s) | El Pardo, Madrid |
| Education | Infantry Academy of Toledo |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |
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| Branch/service | Spanish Armed Forces |
| Years of service | 1907–1975 |
| Rank | |
| Commands | All (generalissimo) |
| Battles/wars | |
Born in Ferrol, Galicia, into an upper-class military family, Franco served in the Spanish Army as a cadet in the Toledo Infantry Academy from 1907 to 1910. While serving in Morocco, he rose through the ranks to become a brigadier general in 1926 at age 33. Two years later, Franco became the director of the General Military Academy in Zaragoza. As a conservative and monarchist, Franco regretted the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the Second Republic in 1931, and was devastated by the closing of his academy; nevertheless, he continued his service in the Republican Army.[8] His career was boosted after the right-wing CEDA and PRR won the 1933 election, empowering him to lead the suppression of the 1934 uprising in Asturias. Franco was briefly elevated to Chief of Army Staff before the 1936 election moved the leftist Popular Front into power, relegating him to the Canary Islands.
Initially reluctant, he joined the July 1936 military coup, which, after failing to take Spain, sparked the Spanish Civil War. During the war, he commanded Spain's African colonial army and later, following the deaths of much of the rebel leadership, became his faction's only leader, being appointed generalissimo and head of state in 1936. He consolidated all nationalist parties into the FET y de las JONS (creating a one-party state) and developed a cult of personality around his rule by founding the Movimiento Nacional. Three years later the Nationalists declared victory, which extended Franco's dictatorship over Spain through a period of repression of political opponents. His dictatorship's use of forced labour, concentration camps and executions led to between 30,000 and 50,000 deaths.[15] Combined with wartime killings, this brings the death toll of the White Terror to between 100,000 and 200,000.[17] During World War II, he maintained Spanish neutrality, but supported the Axis—in recompense to Italy and Germany for their support during the Civil War—damaging the country's international reputation in various ways.
During the start of the Cold War, Franco lifted Spain out of its mid-20th century economic depression through technocratic and economically liberal policies, presiding over a period of accelerated growth known as the "Spanish miracle". At the same time, his regime transitioned from a totalitarian state to an authoritarian one with limited pluralism. He became a leader in the anti-communist movement, garnering support from the West, particularly the United States.[18][19] As the dictatorship relaxed its hard-line policies, Luis Carrero Blanco became Franco's éminence grise, whose role expanded after Franco began struggling with Parkinson's disease in the 1960s. In 1973, Franco resigned as prime minister—separated from the office of head of state since 1967—due to his advanced age and illness. Nevertheless, he remained in power as the head of state and as commander-in-chief. Franco died in 1975, aged 82, and was entombed in the Valle de los Caídos. He restored the monarchy in his final years, being succeeded by Juan Carlos, King of Spain, who led the Spanish transition to democracy.
The legacy of Franco in Spanish history remains controversial, as the nature of his dictatorship changed over time. His reign was marked by both brutal repression, with tens of thousands killed, and economic prosperity, which greatly improved the quality of life in Spain. His dictatorial style proved adaptable enough to allow social and economic reform, but still centred on highly centralised government, authoritarianism, nationalism, national Catholicism, anti-freemasonry and anti-communism.
Francisco Franco Bahamonde was born on 4 December 1892 in the Calle Frutos Saavedra in Ferrol, Galicia,[20] into a seafaring family.[21] He was baptised thirteen days later at the military church of San Francisco, with the baptismal name Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo.[20]
After relocating to Galicia, the Franco family was involved in the Spanish Navy, and over the span of two centuries produced naval officers for six uninterrupted generations (including several admirals),[21] down to Franco's father Nicolás Franco Salgado-Araújo (22 November 1855 – 22 February 1942).[22]
His mother, María del Pilar Bahamonde y Pardo de Andrade (15 October 1865 – 28 February 1934), was from an upper-middle-class Roman Catholic family. Her father, Ladislao Bahamonde Ortega, was the commissar of naval equipment at the Port of El Ferrol. Franco's parents married in 1890 in the Church of San Francisco in El Ferrol.[23] The young Franco spent much of his childhood with his two brothers, Nicolás and Ramón, and his two sisters, María del Pilar and María de la Paz. His brother Nicolás was a naval officer and diplomat who married María Isabel Pascual del Pobil.[24] Ramón was an internationally known aviator and a Freemason, originally with leftist political leanings. He was also the second sibling to die, killed in an air accident on a military mission in 1938.[25]
Franco's father was a naval officer who reached the rank of vice admiral (intendente general). When Franco was fourteen, his father moved to Madrid following a reassignment and ultimately abandoned his family, marrying another woman. While Franco did not suffer any great abuse by his father's hand, he would never overcome his antipathy for his father and largely ignored him for the rest of his life. Years after becoming dictator, under the pseudonym Jaime de Andrade, Franco wrote a brief novel called Raza, whose protagonist is believed by Stanley Payne to represent the idealised man Franco wished his father had been. Conversely, Franco strongly identified with his mother (who always wore widow's black once she realised her husband had abandoned her) and learned from her moderation, austerity, self-control, family solidarity and respect for Catholicism, though he would also inherit his father's harshness, coldness and implacability.[26]
Francisco followed his father into the Navy, but as a result of the Spanish–American War the country lost much of its navy as well as most of its colonies. Not needing any more officers, the Naval Academy admitted no new entrants from 1906 to 1913. To his father's chagrin, Francisco decided to try the Spanish Army. In 1907, he entered the Infantry Academy in Toledo. At the age of fourteen, Franco was one of the youngest members of his class, with most boys being between sixteen and eighteen. He was short and was bullied for his small size. His grades were average; though his good memory meant he seldom struggled academically, his small stature was a hindrance in physical tests. He graduated in July 1910 as a second lieutenant, standing 251st out of 312 cadets in his class, though this might have had less to do with his grades than with his small size and young age. Stanley Payne observes that by the time civil war began, Franco had already become a major general and would soon be a generalissimo, while none of his higher-ranking fellow cadets had managed to get beyond the rank of lieutenant-colonel.[27][28] Franco was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant in June 1912 at age 19.[29][30] Two years later, he obtained a commission to Morocco. Spanish efforts to occupy the new African protectorate provoked the Second Melillan campaign in 1909 against native Moroccans, the first of several Riffian rebellions. Their tactics resulted in heavy losses among Spanish military officers, and also provided an opportunity to earn promotion through merit on the battlefield. It was said that officers would receive either la caja o la faja (a coffin or a general's sash). Franco quickly gained a reputation as an effective officer.
In 1913, Franco transferred into the newly formed regulares: Moroccan colonial troops with Spanish officers, who acted as elite shock troops.[31] In 1916, aged 23 with the rank of captain, Franco was shot in the abdomen by guerrilla gunfire during an assault on Moroccan positions at El Biutz, in the hills near Ceuta; this was the only time he was wounded in ten years of fighting.[32] The wound was serious, and he was not expected to live. His recovery was seen by his Moroccan troops as a spiritual event – they believed Franco to be blessed with baraka or protected by God. He was recommended for promotion to major and to receive Spain's highest honour for gallantry, the coveted Cruz Laureada de San Fernando. Both proposals were denied, with the 23-year-old Franco's young age being given as the reason for denial. Franco appealed the decision to the king, who reversed it.[32] Franco also received the Cross of Maria Cristina, First Class.[33]
With that he was promoted to major at the end of February 1917 at age 24. This made him the youngest major in the Spanish army. From 1917 to 1920, he served in Spain. In 1920, Lieutenant Colonel José Millán Astray, a histrionic but charismatic officer, founded the Spanish Foreign Legion, along similar lines as the French Foreign Legion. Franco became the Legion's second-in-command and returned to Africa. In the Rif War, the poorly commanded and overextended Spanish Army was defeated by the Republic of the Rif under the leadership of the Abd el-Krim brothers, who crushed a Spanish offensive on 24 July 1921, at Annual. The Legion and supporting units relieved the Spanish city of Melilla after a three-day forced march led by Franco. In 1923, now a lieutenant colonel, he was made commander of the Legion.
On 22 October 1923, Franco married María del Carmen Polo y Martínez-Valdès (11 June 1900 – 6 February 1988).[34] Following his honeymoon Franco was summoned to Madrid to be presented to King Alfonso XIII.[35] This and other occasions of royal attention would mark him during the Republic as a monarchical officer.
Disappointed with the plans by Spain's Prime Minister, Lieutenant General Miguel Primo de Rivera, for a strategic retreat from the interior to the African coastline, Colonel Franco wrote in the April 1924 issue of Revista de Tropas Coloniales (Colonial Troops Magazine) that he would disobey orders of retreat given by a superior. As a result, Franco had a tense meeting with Primo de Rivera in July.
Lieutenant Colonel Franco visited a fellow africanista, General Gonzalo Queipo de Llano, on 21 September 1924 to propose that Queip de Llano organize a coup d'état against Primo.[36] In the end, Franco complied with General Primo's orders, taking part in the retreat of Spanish soldiers from Xaouen in late 1924, and thus earning a promotion to colonel.[37]
Franco led the first wave of troops ashore at Al Hoceima (Spanish: Alhucemas) in 1925. This landing in the heartland of Abd el-Krim's tribe, combined with the French invasion from the south, spelled the beginning of the end for the short-lived Republic of the Rif. Franco was eventually recognised for his leadership, and he was promoted to brigadier general on 3 February 1926, making him the youngest general in Europe at age 33, according to Payne and Palacios.[38] On 14 September 1926, Franco and Polo had a daughter, María del Carmen. Franco would have a close relationship with his daughter and was a proud parent, though his traditionalist attitudes and increasing responsibilities meant he left much of the child-rearing to his wife.[39] In 1928 Franco was appointed director of the newly created General Military Academy of Zaragoza, a new college for all Spanish army cadets, replacing the former separate institutions for young men seeking to become officers in infantry, cavalry, artillery, and other branches of the army. Franco was removed as Director of the Zaragoza Military Academy in 1931; when the Civil War began, the colonels, majors, and captains of the Spanish Army who had attended the academy when he was its director displayed unconditional loyalty to him as Caudillo.[40]
The municipal elections of 12 April 1931 were largely seen as a plebiscite on the monarchy.[41] The Republican-Socialist alliance failed to win the majority of the municipalities in Spain but had a landslide victory in all the large cities and in almost all the provincial capitals.[42] The monarchists and the army deserted Alfonso XIII and consequently the king decided to leave the country and go into exile, giving way to the Second Spanish Republic. Although Franco believed that the majority of the Spanish people still supported the crown, and although he regretted the end of the monarchy, he did not object, nor did he challenge the legitimacy of the republic.[43] The closing of the academy in June by the provisional War Minister Manuel Azaña however was a major setback for Franco and provoked his first clash with the Spanish Republic. Azaña found Franco's farewell speech to the cadets insulting.[44] In his speech Franco stressed the Republic's need for discipline and respect.[45] Azaña entered an official reprimand into Franco's personnel file and for six months Franco was without a post and under surveillance.[44]
In December 1931, a new reformist, liberal, and democratic constitution was declared. It included strong provisions enforcing a broad secularisation of the Catholic country, which included the abolishing of Catholic schools and charities, which many moderate committed Catholics opposed.[46] At this point, once the constituent assembly had fulfilled its mandate of approving a new constitution, it should have arranged for regular parliamentary elections and adjourned, according to historian Carlton J. H. Hayes. Fearing the increasing popular opposition, the Radical and Socialist majority postponed the regular elections, thereby prolonging their stay in power for two more years. This way the republican government of Manuel Azaña initiated numerous reforms to what in their view would "modernize" the country.[47]
Franco was a subscriber to the journal of Acción Española, a monarchist organisation, and a firm believer in a supposed Jewish-Masonic-Bolshevik conspiracy, or contubernio (conspiracy). The conspiracy suggested that Jews, Freemasons, Communists, and other leftists alike sought the destruction of Christian Europe, with Spain being the principal target.[48]
On 5 February 1932, Franco was given a command in A Coruña. Franco avoided involvement in José Sanjurjo's attempted coup that year, and even wrote a hostile letter to Sanjurjo expressing his anger over the attempt. As a result of Azaña's military reform, in January 1933 Franco was relegated from first to 24th in the list of brigadiers. The same year, on 17 February he was given the military command of the Balearic Islands. The post was above his rank, but Franco was still unhappy that he was stuck in a position he disliked. The prime minister wrote in his diary that it was probably more prudent to have Franco away from Madrid.[49][50]
In 1932, the Jesuits, who were in charge of many schools throughout the country, were banned and had all their property confiscated.[51] The army was further reduced, and landowners were expropriated. Home rule was granted to Catalonia, with a local parliament and a president of its own.[52] In June 1933 Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical Dilectissima Nobis (Our Dearly Beloved), "On Oppression of the Church of Spain", in which he criticised the anti-clericalism of the Republican government.[51]
The elections held in October 1933 resulted in a centre-right majority. The political party with the most votes was the Confederación Español de Derechas Autónomas ("CEDA"), but president Alcalá-Zamora declined to invite the leader of the CEDA, Gil Robles, to form a government.[53] Instead, he invited the Radical Republican Party's Alejandro Lerroux to do so. Despite receiving the most votes, CEDA was denied cabinet positions for nearly a year.[54] After a year of intense pressure, CEDA, the largest party in the congress, was finally successful in forcing the acceptance of three ministries. The entrance of CEDA in the government, despite being normal in a parliamentary democracy, was not well accepted by the left. The Socialists triggered an insurrection that they had been preparing for nine months. The leftist Republican parties did not directly join the insurrection, but their leadership issued statements that they were "breaking all relations" with the Republican government.[55] The Catalan Bloc Obrer i Camperol (BOC) advocated the need to form a broad workers' front and took the lead in forming a new and more encompassing Alianza Obrera, which included the Catalan UGT and the Catalan sector of the PSOE, with the goal of defeating fascism and advancing the socialist revolution. The Alianza Obrera declared a general strike "against fascism" in Catalonia in 1934.[56] A Catalan state was proclaimed by Catalan nationalist leader Lluis Companys, but it lasted just ten hours. Despite an attempt at a general stoppage in Madrid, other strikes did not endure. This left the striking Asturian miners to fight alone.[57]
In several mining towns in Asturias, local unions gathered small arms and were determined to see the strike through. It began on the evening of 4 October, with the miners occupying several towns, attacking and seizing local Civil and Assault Guard barracks.[58] Thirty-four priests, six young seminarists with ages between 18 and 21, and several businessmen and civil guards were summarily executed by the revolutionaries in Mieres and Sama, 58 religious buildings including churches, convents and part of the university at Oviedo were burned and destroyed,[59] and over 100 priests were killed in the diocese.[60] Franco, already General of Division and aide to the war minister, Diego Hidalgo, was put in command of the operations directed to suppress the violent insurgency. Troops of the Spanish Army of Africa carried this out, with General Eduardo López Ochoa as commander in the field. After two weeks of heavy fighting (and a death toll estimated between 1,200 and 2,000), the rebellion was suppressed.
The insurgency in Asturias in October 1934 sparked a new era of violent anti-Christian persecutions with the massacre of 34 priests, initiating the practice of atrocities against the clergy,[61] and sharpened the antagonism between Left and Right. Franco and López Ochoa (who, prior to the campaign in Asturias, had been seen as a left-leaning officer)[62] emerged as officers prepared to use "troops against Spanish civilians as if they were a foreign enemy".[63] Franco described the rebellion to a journalist in Oviedo as, "a frontier war and its fronts are socialism, communism and whatever attacks civilisation to replace it with barbarism." Though the colonial units sent to the north by the government at Franco's recommendation[59] consisted of the Spanish Foreign Legion and the Moroccan Regulares Indigenas,[64] the right-wing press portrayed the Asturian rebels as lackeys of a foreign Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy.[65]
With this rebellion against legitimate established political authority, the socialists also repudiated the representative institutional system as the anarchists had done.[66] The Spanish historian Salvador de Madariaga, an Azaña supporter, and an exiled vocal opponent of Francisco Franco is the author of a sharp critical reflection against the participation of the left in the revolt: "The uprising of 1934 is unforgivable. The argument that Mr Gil Robles tried to destroy the Constitution to establish fascism was, at once, hypocritical and false. With the rebellion of 1934, the Spanish left lost even the shadow of moral authority to condemn the rebellion of 1936."[67]
At the start of the Civil War, López Ochoa was assassinated; his head was severed and paraded around the streets on a pole, with a card reading, 'This is the butcher of Asturias'.[68] Sometime after these events, Franco was briefly commander-in-chief of the Army of Africa (from 15 February onwards), and from 19 May 1935, on, Chief of the General Staff.
At the end of 1935, President Alcalá-Zamora manipulated a petty-corruption issue into a major scandal in parliament, and eliminated Alejandro Lerroux, the head of the Radical Republican Party, from the premiership. Subsequently, Alcalá-Zamora vetoed the logical replacement, a majority centre-right coalition, led by the CEDA, which would reflect the composition of the parliament. He then arbitrarily appointed an interim prime minister and after a short period announced the dissolution of parliament and new elections.[69]
Two wide coalitions formed: the Popular Front on the left, ranging from the Republican Union to the communists, and the Frente Nacional on the right, ranging from the centre radicals to the conservative Carlists. On 16 February 1936 the elections ended in a virtual draw, but in the evening leftist mobs started to interfere in the balloting and in the registration of votes, distorting the results.[70][71] Stanley G. Payne claims that the process was blatant electoral fraud, with widespread violation of the laws and the constitution.[72][73] In line with Payne's point of view, in 2017 two Spanish scholars, Manuel Álvarez Tardío and Roberto Villa García published the result of a major research work in which they concluded that the 1936 elections were rigged,[74][75] a view disputed by Paul Preston,[76] and other scholars such as Iker Itoiz Ciáurriz, who denounces their conclusions as revisionist "classic Francoist anti-republican tropes".[77]
On 19 February, the cabinet presided over by Portela Valladares resigned, with a new cabinet being quickly set up, composed chiefly of members of the Republican Left and the Republican Union and presided over by Manuel Azaña.[78]
José Calvo Sotelo, who made anti-communism the focus of his parliamentary speeches, began spreading violent propaganda—advocating for a military coup d'état, formulating a catastrophist discourse of a dichotomous choice between "communism" or a markedly totalitarian "National" State, and setting the mood of the masses for a military rebellion. The diffusion of the myth about an alleged Communist coup d'état as well a pretended state of "social chaos" became pretexts for a coup. Franco himself along with General Emilio Mola had stirred an anti-Communist campaign in Morocco.[79]
On 23 February, Franco was sent to the Canary Islands to serve as the islands' military commander, an appointment perceived by him as a destierro (banishment).[80] Meanwhile, a conspiracy led by General Mola was taking shape.
Interested in the parliamentary immunity granted by a seat at the Cortes, Franco intended to stand as candidate of the Right Bloc alongside José Antonio Primo de Rivera for the by-election in the province of Cuenca programmed for 3 May 1936, after the results of the February 1936 election were annulled in the constituency. But Primo de Rivera refused to run alongside a military officer (Franco in particular) and Franco himself ultimately desisted on 26 April, one day before the decision of the election authority. By that time, PSOE politician Indalecio Prieto had already deemed Franco as a "possible caudillo for a military uprising".[81]
Disenchantment with Azaña's rule continued to grow and was dramatically voiced by Miguel de Unamuno, a republican and one of Spain's most respected intellectuals, who in June 1936 told a reporter who published his statement in El Adelanto that President Manuel Azaña should "...debiera suicidarse como acto patriótico" ("commit suicide as a patriotic act").[82]
In June 1936, Franco was contacted, and a secret meeting was held within La Esperanza forest on Tenerife to discuss starting a military coup.[83] An obelisk (which has subsequently been removed) commemorating this historic meeting was erected at the site in a clearing at Las Raíces in Tenerife.[84]
Outwardly, Franco maintained an ambiguous attitude until nearly July. On 23 June 1936, he wrote to the head of the government, Casares Quiroga, offering to quell the discontent in the Spanish Republican Army, but received no reply. The other rebels were determined to go ahead con Paquito o sin Paquito (with Paquito or without Paquito; Paquito being a diminutive of Paco, which in turn is short for Francisco), as it was put by José Sanjurjo, the honorary leader of the military uprising. After various postponements, 18 July was fixed as the date of the uprising. The situation reached a point of no return and as presented to Franco by Mola, the coup was unavoidable, and he had to choose a side. He decided to join the rebels and was given the task of commanding the Army of Africa. A privately owned DH 89 De Havilland Dragon Rapide, flown by two British pilots, Cecil Bebb and Hugh Pollard,[85] was chartered in England on 11 July to take Franco to Africa.
The coup underway was precipitated by the assassination of the right-wing opposition leader Calvo Sotelo in retaliation for the murder of assault guard José Castillo, which had been committed by a group headed by a civil guard and composed of