Пол Престон – Franco (страница 32)

Although delighted with the repression of the Asturian rising, Gil Robles sought to strengthen his own political position and so he joined Calvo Sotelo in deriding the Radical government for weakness. Diego Hidalgo was one of the sacrificial victims.⁴⁶ Accordingly, from 16 November 1934 to 3 April 1935, the Prime Minister, Alejandro Lerroux, himself took over the Ministry of War. He awarded Franco the Gran Cruz de Mérito Militar and kept him in his extraordinary post of ministerial adviser until February 1935. Lerroux had intended to reward Franco by making him High Commissioner in Morocco but was prevented from doing so by the opposition of Alcalá Zamora.⁴⁷ Instead, he kept on the existing civilian High Commissioner, the conservative Republican Manuel Rico Avello, and made Franco Commander-in-Chief of the Spanish Armed Forces in Morocco.

Despite any disappointment that he might have felt at not being made High Commissioner, being an Africanista, Franco perceived the post of head of the African Army as a substantial reward for his work in repressing the revolution. As he put it himself, ‘the Moroccan Army constituted the most important military command’.⁴⁸ On arrival, he hastened to inform the Entente Internationale contre la Troisième Internationale of his change of address.⁴⁹ Although he was to be there barely three months, it was a period which he enjoyed immensely. As Commander-in-Chief, he consolidated his existing influence within the armed forces in Morocco and established new and important contacts which were to facilitate his intervention at the beginning of the Civil War. His relationship with Rico Avello was similar in many respects to that which he had enjoyed with Diego Hidalgo. The High Commissioner, recognizing his own ignorance of Moroccan affairs, relied on Franco for advice of all kinds. Franco also established an excellent working relationship with the Chief of the General Staff of the Spanish forces in Morocco, Colonel Francisco Martín Moreno. This was to be crucial in 1936.⁵⁰

On the road to civil war, there could be no going back from the events of October 1934. The Asturian rising had frightened the middle and upper classes. Equally, the vengeful repression urged by the Right and carried out by the Radical-CEDA coalition convinced many on the Left that electoral disunity must never be risked again. The publicity given to Franco’s role in the military repression of the uprising ensured that thereafter he would be regarded as a potential saviour by the Right and as an enemy by the Left. Franco himself was to draw certain conclusions from the Asturian uprising. Convinced by the material received from Geneva that a Communist assault on Spain was being planned, he saw the events of October 1934 in those terms. He was determined that the Left should never be allowed to enjoy power even if won democratically.⁵¹

Nothing was done by successive conservative governments in the fifteen months after October 1934 to eliminate the hatreds aroused by the revolution itself or by its brutal repression. The CEDA claimed that it would remove the need for revolution by a programme of moderate land and tax reforms. Even if this claim was sincere in the mouths of the party’s few convinced social Catholics, the limited reforms proposed were blocked by right-wing intransigence from the majority. Thousands of political prisoners remained in jail; the Catalan autonomy statute was suspended and a vicious smear campaign was waged against Azaña in a vain effort to prove him guilty of preparing the Catalan revolution. Azaña was thereby converted into a symbol for all those who suffered from the repression.⁵²

The CEDA made a significant advance towards its goal of the legal introduction of an authoritarian corporative state on 6 May 1935 when five Cedistas, including the Jefe himself as Minister of War, entered a new cabinet under Lerroux. Gil Robles appointed known opponents of the regime to high positions – Franco was recalled from Morocco to become Chief of the General Staff; Goded became Inspector General and Director of the Air Force, and Fanjul became Under-Secretary of War. The President, Alcalá Zamora, was hostile to the appointment of Franco, regularly remarking that ‘young generals aspire to be fascist caudillos’. Eventually, threats of resignation from both Lerroux and Gil Robles overcame the President’s opposition.⁵³ There was a fierce rivalry and mutual dislike between Franco and Goded. Goded had wanted the job of Chief of the General Staff and was heard to comment bitterly that he awaited the failure of Franco.⁵⁴

Franco in mid-1935 was still some way from thinking in terms of military intervention against the Republic. Indeed, it would be wrong to assume that he spent much time thinking about overthrowing the Republic. As long as he had a posting which he considered to be appropriate to his merits, he was usually content to get on with his job in a professional manner. He had been extremely happy during his three months in Morocco and, while sad to leave an interesting job, he was thrilled by this even more important posting. In his new post, able to carry on the job which he had done in October, he can have felt little urge or need to rebel at this time. In any case, he remained deeply influenced by the failure of Sanjurjo’s coup of 10 August 1932. Moreover, given the ease of his relationship with Gil Robles, his day-to-day work gave him enormous satisfaction.⁵⁵

As Chief of Staff, Franco worked long hours to fulfil his central task which he saw as being to ‘correct the reforms of Azaña and return to the components of the armed forces the internal satisfaction which had been lost with the coming of the Republic’. He neglected his family, obsessively working until late at night, at weekends and on holidays.⁵⁶ Azaña’s revisions of promotions by merit were set aside. Many loyal Republican officers were purged and removed from their posts, because of their ‘undesirable ideology’. Others, of known hostility to the Republic, were reinstated and promoted. Emilio Mola was made General in command of Melilla and shortly afterwards head of military forces in Morocco. José Enrique Varela was promoted to general. Medals and promotions were distributed to those who had excelled in the repression of the October uprising.⁵⁷ Gil Robles and Franco had secretly brought Mola to Madrid to prepare detailed plans for the use of the colonial Army in mainland Spain in the event of further left-wing unrest.⁵⁸

Alcalá Zamora remained deeply suspicious of Gil Robles’ political motives in fostering the careers of anti-Republican officers and in trying to transfer control of the Civil Guard and the police from the Ministry of the Interior to the Ministry of War. In some ways – regimental reorganization, motorization, equipment procurement – Gil Robles continued the reforms of Azaña.⁵⁹ The CEDA-Radical government was anxious for the Army to re-equip to ensure its efficacy in the event of having to face another left-wing rising. As Chief of Staff, Franco was involved in establishing contacts with arms manufacturers in Germany as part of the projected rearmament.⁶⁰ There can be little doubt that he enjoyed his new job as much as he had liked being Director of the Military Academy in Zaragoza. Despite the later deterioration of their relationship after 1936, he and Gil Robles worked well together in a spirit of co-operation and mutual admiration. Like Diego Hidalgo and Manuel Rico Avello, Gil Robles recognized his own ignorance in military affairs and was happy to leave Franco to get on with things. Franco looked back on his period as Chief of the General Staff with great satisfaction because his achievements facilitated the later Nationalist war effort.⁶¹

After earlier doubts, in the late summer of 1935, Franco made contact, through Colonel Valentín Galarza, with the Unión Militar Española, the extreme rightist conspiratorial organization run by his one-time subordinate Captain Bartolomé Barba Hernández. Galarza, who organized UME liaison between the various garrisons across the country, kept Franco informed about the morale and readiness of the organization’s members. In retrospect, Franco saw his approach to the UME as being to prevent it ‘organizing a premature coup along the lines of a nineteenth century pronunciamiento’.⁶² It is entirely in character that he would want any military action in which he might be involved to be fully prepared.

On 12 October 1935, Don Juan de Borbón, the son of Alfonso XIII, married in Rome. It was to be an excuse for monarchists, among them the plotters of Acción Española, such as José Calvo Sotelo, Jorge Vigón, Eugenio Vegas Latapie, Juan Antonio Ansaldo, to travel en masse to Italy. Franco was not among their number. Nevertheless, he did contribute to the wedding present given by the officers who had once been gentilhombres of Alfonso XIII.⁶³

Franco’s readiness to make contact with the UME reflected his concern at the fact that, despite the strength of the repression, the organized Left was growing in strength, unity and belligerence. The economic misery of large numbers of peasants and workers, the savage persecution of the October rebels and the attacks on Manuel Azaña combined to produce an atmosphere of solidarity among all sections of the Left. A series of gigantic mass meetings were addressed by Azaña in the second half of 1935 and the enthusiasm for unity shown by the hundreds of thousands who attended them helped clinch mass enthusiasm for what became the Popular Front.