Пол Престон – Franco (страница 61)
Subsequently the Caudillo claimed that he had requested German and Italian arms not troops.63 However, that became true only much later in 1937 after a massive conscription and recruiting operation. In December 1936, with his armies exhausted and decimated at Madrid, he was desperate for reinforcements.* The Generalísimo was immensely lucky that, within two weeks of the offensive against Madrid breaking down because of his own shortage of reliable troops, the Duce should have decided to send massive aid. On 9 December 1936, Franco received the formal offer of Italian help in the form of officers, NCOs, specialist tank crews, radio operators, artillerymen and engineers, to be incorporated into mixed brigades of Spanish and Italian troops. Rome offered uniforms, armaments and equipment for these brigades and asked Franco how many brigades could be organized. Franco was delighted and arrangements for the creation of two such mixed brigades were made in mid-December. The necessary regular Italian army officers, specialists and ordinary ground troops would begin to arrive in mid-January.64
In the meanwhile, Hitler held a conference in the German Chancellery on 21 December with Göring, von Blomberg, Faupel, Warlimont, Friedrich Hossbach, the Wehrmacht liaison officer to the Führer and Werner von Fritsch, the Commander-in-Chief of the German Army. They discussed further assistance to Franco. Faupel asked for three divisions to be sent to Spain but was vehemently opposed by the others for fear of prematurely risking a general war. The Führer therefore decided not to send large numbers of German troops because his wider diplomatic game would derive more benefit from a prolongation of the Spanish Civil War than from a quick victory for Franco. It had been thought in Berlin since late November that the longer the war went on, the more likely Italy was to be drawn into the German orbit. Nevertheless, it was decided that Germany would send sufficient help in the form of aircraft, arms and equipment to ensure that Franco was not defeated.65 The Generalísimo was thus immensely fortunate to be able to count on support from Hitler and Mussolini which would be greater and more consistent than anything that the Republic could hope for from the Soviet Union.
In addition to the specialist regular troops necessary for the creation of the mixed Spanish-Italian brigades, Mussolini decided ‘in view of the unsatisfactory situation’ to send, two contingents of three thousand Black Shirts each, in self-contained units with their own officers, artillery and transport. On 14 December Roatta’s assistant, Lieutenant-Colonel Emilio Faldella, gave Franco a note to the effect that the Italian government wished the volunteers to be organized in autonomous Italian companies with Italian officers. It was made clear that these contingents would be additional to the proposed mixed brigades.66 Franco wanted troops but not in autonomous units under Italian command. His annoyance was revealed when he asked Faldella ‘Who requested them?’ and snapped ‘When one sends troops to a friendly country, one at least asks permission’.67
It is clear that Franco was glad to have the Black Shirts but had hoped simply to incorporate them into his own units as foreign legionaries. His suspicions of the efficacy of Falangist militias were not replicated with regard to the Italian Fascist volunteers since he had been told that they had been battle-hardened in Abyssinia. He was, of course, deeply irritated by the lack of consideration of his position implicit in the blunt and unexpected terms in which their arrival was announced. The strength of the Italian contingents that arrived in late December and early January was, according to a report by Faupel, based presumably on information from Roatta, ‘determined not by previous agreement with Franco but according to independent Italian estimates’.68 Nevertheless, he hastened to use them as soon as they disembarked and, on 12 January, he would request another nine thousand Black Shirts.69
Such external assistance was necessary to enable Franco to go forward from the deadlock in Madrid. On 28 November, General Saliquet had written to the Generalísimo with a proposal for an encircling operation, against the Madrid-La Coruña road to the north-west and a dual thrust from the south-west of Madrid and from Soria in the north-east towards Alcalá de Henares.70 Franco mused over this proposal for three weeks and it was not until 19 December that he issued orders which would break the stalemate prevailing since he had called off the frontal assault on Madrid at the Leganés meeting on 23 November. They envisaged a refinement of Saliquet’s plan, implementing it closer to Madrid by three thrusts outwards from the exposed wedge which the Nationalists had driven into the capital’s defences.71
In heavy rain and fog, across muddy terrain, costly and sterile battles were fought for villages like Boadilla del Monte which was virtually destroyed. Varela was wounded on Christmas Day and field command was assumed by Orgaz. After crippling losses in the fighting, the attack was briefly called off. Roatta telegrammed the
In the midst of the reverses around Madrid, Franco was relieved to discover that his cultivation of the Church was bearing fruit. On 22 December, Cardinal Gomá returned from Rome where he had been frantically working for Vatican recognition of Franco. The cautious Curia held back but, in order to demonstrate the Church’s sympathy for Franco’s cause, Gomá was appointed the Vatican’s confidential
The clinching of relations with the Vatican was of immense long-term political importance to Franco. In immediate terms, even more welcome was the military help promised by Mussolini. With the attacks around Madrid stalling, Franco had been relieved by the fact that in mid-December, the Duce had begun sending the first of what, by mid-February 1937, would be nearly fifty thousand fascist militiamen and regular troops masquerading as volunteers.76 Whatever gloss Franco would put on it later, the arrival of Italian reinforcements was of crucial importance to his military survival. Inevitably, once the Duce had committed his own prestige to a Nationalist victory in Spain, the stalemate around Madrid quickly intensified his impatience with Franco. At the end of the year, he requested Hitler to send to a meeting in Rome in mid-January someone ‘with full powers’ to discuss Italo-German co-operation to bring about ‘a real decision in Spain’.77 In fact, it was becoming ever more apparent that the Italians were going to be left by Hitler to make the decisive contribution to Franco’s success. Roatta reported to Rome on 12 January that Canaris had told him that Sperrle was pessimistic about both the initial efficacy of the Condor Legion and the state of the Nationalist forces. Sperrle, in turn, told Roatta that the real problem was German fear of provoking a premature war with France.78
At the meeting held at the Palazzo Venezia on the evening of 14 January 1937, Hitler’s representative was Hermann Göring.* Mussolini was irritated that Italo-German aid, rather than spurring Franco on to greater efforts, merely permitted him to indulge his natural inclination to wear down the Republic by a slow campaign of attrition. Göring agreed that, if Franco had known how to use it properly, the Italo-German material and technical assistance was enough to have permitted him to win already. The Air Minister declared bitterly that the recognition of Franco before the capture of Madrid had been a major error to remedy which it was agreed that he would have to be subjected to ‘energetic pressure’ to accelerate his operations and make full use of the lavish means put at his disposal.