Пол Престон – Franco (страница 12)
Berenguer had been replaced by General Ricardo Burguete, under whom Franco had served in Oviedo in 1917. Burguete as High Commissioner followed government orders to attempt to pacify the rebels by bribery rather than by military action. On 22 September 1922, he made a deal with the now obese and burnt-out El Raisuni whereby, in return for controlling the Jibala on behalf of Spain, he was given a free hand and a large sum of money. Since he was already under siege in his headquarters at Tazarut in the Jibala, El Raisuni’s power might have been squashed definitively had the Spaniards had the imagination and daring to occupy the centre of the Jibala. The policy of accommodation was a major error. Spanish troops were withdrawn from the territory of a man on the verge of defeat. He was enriched and his reputation and power inflated.
Burguete’s aim was to pacify the tribes in the west in order to have more freedom in his efforts to crush the altogether more dangerous Abd-el-Krim in the east. After first pursuing negotiations with him for the ransom of Spanish prisoners of war, Burguete passed to the offensive in the autumn. Burguete intended to use, as his forward base, the hill-top fortified position of Tizi Azza, to the south of Annual. However, before his attack could get under way, the Rif tribes struck at the beginning of November 1922. Safely ensconced in the slopes above the town, they fired down on the garrison causing two thousand casualties and obliging the Spaniards to dig in for the winter.5
The worsening situation in Morocco and the compromises pursued by Burguete may have convinced Franco that he was right to have left the Legion, whatever his reasons might have been. He was showered with honours as he passed through Madrid en route to Asturias. The King bestowed on him the Military Medal on 12 January 1923 and the honour of being named
He was also the subject of an immensely flattering and revealing profile written by the Catalan novelist and journalist Juan Ferragut. It constitutes a portrait of Franco at the point when, with marriage around the corner, heroism was giving way to a more calculated ambition.* In Ferragut’s profile, there can still be heard the tone of the eager man of action which would soon disappear from Franco’s repertoire. Nevertheless, the clichéd patriotism and romanticised heroism of many of his remarks suggest that the persona of the intrepid desert hero was not entirely natural and spontaneous. When asked why he had left Morocco, Franco replied ‘because we aren’t doing anything there anymore. There’s no shooting. The war has become a job like any other, except that it’s more exhausting. Now all we do is vegetate.’ There was a contrived element about Franco’s answers which suggested an intense consciousness of his public image. When Ferragut asked him if he liked action, the thirty year-old Major replied ‘yes … at least up to now. I believe that a soldier has two periods, one of war and one of study. I’ve done the first and now I want to study. War used to be more simple; all you needed was heart. But today it is more complicated; it is, perhaps, the most difficult science of them all’. Ferragut described him as boyish: ‘his sunburnt face, his black, brilliant eyes, his curly hair, a certain timidity in his speech and gestures and his quick and open smile make him seem like a child. When he is praised, Franco blushes like a girl who has been flattered.’ He brushes aside the praise, as befits a hero, ‘but I’ve done nothing really! The dangers are less than people think. It’s all a question of endurance’.
Asked about his most emotional memory of the war, he replied ‘I remember the day at Casabona, perhaps the hardest day of the war. That day we saw what the Legion was made of. The Moors were pressing strongly and we were fighting at twenty paces. We had a company and a half and we suffered one hundred casualties. Handfuls of men were falling, almost all wounded in the head or the stomach, yet our strength never wavered for a second. Even the wounded, dragging themselves along covered in blood, cried ‘
On 21 March 1923, Franco arrived in Oviedo where his exploits ensured that he would be feted. At the beginning of June, local society turned out in force for a banquet at which he was presented with a gold key, the symbol of his recently acquired status as
An emergency cabinet meeting three days later, on 8 June 1923, decided that the most suitable replacement for Valenzuela was Franco. The Minister of War, General Aizpuru, telegrammed to inform him that he had been promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel with retrospective effect from 31 January 1922 and that the King had bestowed command of the Legion upon him. His marriage would have to be postponed again. The ambitious Carmen may have found consolation for the loss of her bridegroom in his promotion, the signs of royal patronage and the enormous local prestige that he thereby enjoyed, although, interviewed in 1928, she talked of her anxieties while he was away and of his principal defect being his love for Africa.9
Prior to leaving Spain, Franco was the guest of honour at banquets in both the Automobile Club in Oviedo and at the Hotel Palace in Madrid. One of the principal Asturian newspapers dedicated an entire front page to his promotion and his prowess, complete with extravagant tributes from General Antonio Losada, the military governor of Oviedo, from the Marqués de la Vega de Anzó and other local dignitaries.10 Interviewed on arrival at the Automobile Club banquet on the evening of Saturday 9 June, Franco showed himself to be the public’s ideal young hero, dashing, gallant and, above all, modest. He dismissed talk of special bravery and showed himself perplexed by all the fuss that was being made. Clearly conscious of the dash he was cutting, he interrupted the journalist’s attempted eulogy by saying ‘I just did what all the Legionaires did, we fought with a desire to win and we did win’. A discreet reminder of what he was leaving behind brought a delicate glimpse of emotion which Franco quickly put behind him. The journalist remarked sycophantically ‘how the brave Legionaires will rejoice at your appointment!’. Franco replied ‘Rejoice? Why? I’m an officer just like …’, only to be interrupted by a passing ex-Legionaire who said ‘say yes, that they will all rejoice, of course they will rejoice’. Like a hero of romantic fiction, Franco replied with a modest laugh, saying ‘Don’t go overboard. Yes, you’re right, the lads care for me a lot.’
The interview ended with Franco being asked about his plans, at which he gave another hint of the sacrifice he was having to make. He replied with a curious mixture of virile enthusiasm and self-regarding pomposity: ‘Plans? What happens will decide that. I repeat that I am a simple soldier who obeys orders. I will go to Morocco. I will see how things are. We will work hard and as soon as I can get some leave I will come back to Oviedo to … to do what I thought was virtually done, which for the moment duty prevents, taking precedence over any feelings, even those with roots deep in the soul. When the